John Winslow had not dressed for dinner. He still wore the same faded khakis he had had on when he first arrived. He sat beside Annie, across the table from Jeanine, and had said very little during the meal. Annie learned from Barney and Andrew that he had not been in Africa long but had quickly become known as one of the best white hunters in the area. Barney had said, “He threw himself into it and picked up enough experience in a couple of years to put him on a par with most men who have been out here for ten. He really went native. Just lived off the country until he had covered it all.”
Now as Annie avoided looking at him whenever possible, she was aware that Jeanine was watching her with an impish light in her eyes. She expected her to say something that would embarrass her, and surely enough she did.
“Annie’s told us how you rescued her when she came to visit you, John. She made you out to be quite a knight in shining armor.”
John’s eyes flickered toward Jeanine, and he seemed to see something in her. He smiled and turned his head toward Annie. “She always made more out of that than it really was.”
“What happened?” Ruth asked. “Tell us about it.”
“Oh, when Annie and Jeb got off the train, I wasn’t there to meet them as I should have been. One of the local fellows who went around trying to make himself look tough bothered them a little bit. I came along and discouraged him.”
“It was more than that,” Annie replied, her cheeks slightly flushed. “I think he would have become unbearable if you hadn’t gotten there.”
“Oh, he wasn’t mean. He just smelled bad,” John grinned. “I wasn’t really a knight in shining armor. Just a dusty cowboy.” He turned to Annie then, saying, “We had good times, didn’t we, Annie? Long rides. I still remember them.”
“So do I.”
The conversation turned to something else, but just the comment from John that he still remembered their rides brought a warm glow of pleasure to Annie.
After the meal was over, Dorothy and Katie took the children and began the endless battle to get them ready for bed. David and Ruth left for their nearby home to put their little one to bed also. The others adjourned to the long room that served as a study for Andrew. It was lined with books, and a huge teak desk dominated the room. Everything is neat and in order, which is like Andrew, Annie thought. She took a chair over to the side of the room and determined to say nothing. She deliberately did not look at John Winslow but kept her eyes fixed on the others.
John had said practically nothing at supper, but as soon as they were alone, he walked over to the window, looked out for a moment, then turned and faced Jeanine. “Miss Quintana,” he said. “I think you’re making a serious mistake going off into the outland in such a hurry.”
As always, whenever Jeanine Quintana was crossed, a rebelliousness stirred in her. She had not yet learned that this was part of her old life. To her it was simply the way she had always behaved, and now she acted exactly as Annie knew she would.
“Well, you can tell me your reasons for that, John.”
“I expect you’ve heard them all.” John shrugged, and reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a pipe. As he spoke, he filled it with tobacco from a worn, brown pouch, then struck a match on his thumbnail and lit it up. The blue fumes of smoke rose, and he spoke quietly but kept his eyes fixed on Jeanine as if he knew there would be trouble. In essence he repeated what Barney and Andrew had already said. He ended by commenting, “The Serengeti Plains isn’t Central Park, Jeanine. There’s not a policeman just down the street you can summon by a scream. It’s a dangerous place. Death is lurking everywhere. It’s part of that world.”
“If I were afraid of a lion or any other beast, I wouldn’t have come to Africa!” Jeanine snapped. “I’m sorry you should think we’re just two helpless females and need a man along to take care of us, but I can’t accept your judgment.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
John Winslow’s quiet words seemed to stir Jeanine’s anger. She thought he was handsome enough, but she saw in him a rock-hard resolve and knew that the two of them would never get along—for she had exactly the same streak running through her. “You may be a great white hunter, John Winslow, but I want to tell you something. You don’t know everything there is to know. Why, you’re not even a Christian, are you?” she spoke sharply and her face grew flush.
The stark form of the question made Annie flinch, and both Barney and Andrew glanced at each other uncomfortably. Only John himself was not stung by the harshness of the question.
“No, I’m not,” he said without amplification.
“Well, if you were, you’d understand such things as this. God has told us to go and preach to the Masai and we’re going. That’s all there is to it.”
“You have no idea what you’re getting into,” John spoke back adamantly, trying to lay out the difficulties of such a mission from a purely physical standpoint. The atmosphere became quite chilly.
Jeanine was obviously determined to go, and Annie gave a pleading look to John and said, “I know you feel this is wrong and foolish and even dangerous, but I wish you would go with us. I’d feel much better if you would.”
John looked at Annie and found himself admiring her gentleness, which was such a contrast to Jeanine’s aggressive and even arrogant behavior. He had made up his mind not to go, for he had told Barney, “I wouldn’t put up with that Jeanine Quintana for a wilderness of monkeys.” Now, however, Annie’s face filled with concern caused him to change his mind. “Oh, I’ll go,” he said, “but under protest.”
This should have been the end of it, but Jeanine’s ire was up, and even after the meeting was over, she turned to Annie and said petulantly, “We’ll get another guide. I don’t think I can put up with John Winslow.”
Alarmed, Annie said quickly, “Oh, we can’t do that! It’s taken a week for him to get here.” She knew Jeanine very well and played upon the urgency. “If we’re going to go, we’ll have to take him with us. And after all, both Andrew and Barney say he knows the country and the natives better than anybody else.”
Jeanine argued but finally allowed herself to be persuaded. “All right,” she said grudgingly. “But it’s his job to get us there safely and that’s all. It’s quite obvious he doesn’t understand the things of the Spirit.”
A sharp reply almost escaped Annie’s lips. She came within an inch of saying, “And you don’t understand the things of the Spirit either, Jeanine Quintana!” However, she had been long schooled in how to deal with Jeanine and merely said, “I’m sure it will be fine. You’re anxious to go, and this is the quickest way to get there.”
****
“Why, you can’t take all this gear!” John Winslow stood aghast at the sight of the storage room packed full of supplies of all sorts. He looked around with amazement and said, “You don’t really think you can haul all this over land, do you?”
“We’ll get trucks,” Jeanine said. “I want it all to go.” She saw this as the first skirmish in the war that she anticipated with John Winslow and was determined to win it. “If we need another truck, we’ll get one.”
“You don’t know the Serengeti, Jeanine. You can put signs up that say there’re roads leaving Mombasa, but they mean nothing. It starts out boldly enough, but after a few miles it dwindles into nothing but a trail running through a sea of red mud or black cotton soil. On a map it may look easy, but the trucks can only go so far. I think,” he said with a smile, “whoever put up those signs outside of Mombasa pointing to different cities were incurable optimists.”
“But surely we can make it through,” Annie said.
“I don’t think so, not all the way in a truck. We’ll go as far as we can, probably halfway, then we’ll have to hire bearers. So there’s no point in hauling three truckloads of stuff. It would take fifty bearers to carry all these supplies, and it’s going to be hard enough to get ten.”
The argument lasted for nearly an hour, and finally John said shortly, “You can tak
e ten trucks if you want to, lady, but I’m telling you that they will never get to where you’re headed!”
He walked off, leaving Jeanine sputtering with anger. It was up to Annie again to calm her down. “Look, Jeanine. We’ll go as far as we can with what we can carry this time. Then later on another truck can come with more. We may have to make several trips to get all this equipment there.” She wanted to add that she had told Jeanine that carrying such an enormous amount of equipment was not wise, but she refrained from doing so.
Two hours later John Winslow came by and looked over the equipment Jeanine had put out. He made no comment on most of it, but he stopped dead still and pointed at an object. “What is that?” he demanded.
“My bathtub!”
John Winslow laughed out loud. “I don’t think the Masai will know what it is. They’ll probably think it’s an idol that you worship. Anyway, you can’t take it.”
“I certainly am going to take it! I’m not going to be uncivilized and do without a bath just because I’m in Africa.”
“Most of the people you’ll preach to will never have had a bath except a ceremonial one,” John observed. “Or when they fell in the river. But that thing is too heavy for bearers, unless you want to leave something behind—like Bibles, perhaps.”
Jeanine flushed with anger, for she knew that the jibe revealed John Winslow’s true feelings about their mission. “You can make fun of Bibles if you want to, but I’m taking the bathtub if I have to carry it myself!”
“That’s fine,” John said amiably. “It’ll probably take two men to pick it up and put it on your shoulders, but that’ll be an interesting sight. We’ll get a picture of it. We can send it back home to your missionary board. ‘Missionary carries bathtub to convert the Masai to bathing.’ ”
“You shut your mouth, John Winslow!” Jeanine cried out. Her eyes flashed and she stepped closer, as if she intended to slap him in the face. “Don’t you make fun of our mission! It’s for God.”
“I’m not making fun of God or your mission. I’m making fun of you,” John said. “It’s stupid and ignorant and vain to carry that thing out there. But carry it on your back if you want to, Jeanine. That’s the only way it’ll get there.”
Jeanine was furious, and it took Annie, Ruth, Katie, and Dorothy to calm her down. Finally, however, the truck was ready, and the three of them piled into the front seat. Jeanine wanted to drive and John merely grinned.
“All right. Don’t ask me directions. I only drive. I don’t give directions.”
“You’re trying to humiliate me in every way you can, aren’t you?”
John shrugged and said, “I can’t point out every chuckhole and quicksand pit between here and the village. If you’re going to drive, you go ahead, but you’d better let me do it.”
It was three in the afternoon and they could not get far before dark. “I think we might as well wait until morning,” John said.
This was all Jeanine needed to insist on going now. “No! We’re leaving right now. We’ll go as fast as we can. I don’t want to waste a minute.”
Annie went by to embrace each of the women, Dorothy and Katie, and then shook hands with Barney and Andrew. She felt a momentary bit of sadness when she hugged her aunt Ruth and uncle David. She would especially miss her little niece, whom she had grown quite close to. They all wished her well, and Barney had them all stand in a circle and say a prayer. John Winslow did not join the circle but sat behind the wheel of the truck drumming on the steering wheel with his fingers. Finally the two women got in, and as they left the compound, Barney said thoughtfully, “Well, there they go. The Masai are in for some real surprises.”
****
As the truck rattled and shook and crashed into teeth-jarring holes, John gave Annie, who sat in the middle, a brief lecture on the country they were passing through. “There are really two distinct groups of people that speak Maa,” he said. “The Masai proper and the Samburu. The Samburu are mostly farmers. The Masai don’t approve of agricultural tribes. They say they don’t follow the traditional Masai way.”
“I can’t get the geography in my mind,” Annie said. “I’ve looked at a map, but I can’t make much of it.”
“Well, up to the north there is Kenya. Straight ahead is Mount Kilimanjaro. The Masai call it Oldoinyo le Engai.”
“What does that mean?” Annie inquired.
“The mountain of God. They see it as a gift from God, and the Masai worship in its shadow and pray for cattle and children. All this,” he said, waving his free hand, “is a part of the Great Rift Valley. So over that way to the north is Kenya. Out to the south is Tanzania. The Tanzanian Masai have had less contact with the west, and that’s where we’re going. We’ll circle around Kilimanjaro and stay in the area where the more traditional Masai live.”
“Do you know many of them?” Annie asked.
“I lived with them for six months. They’re a fine people. Very handsome and tremendously courageous.” He shook his head ruefully. “If a Masai warrior was ever afraid of anything, nobody ever found out about it.”
“What kind of religion do they practice?” Jeanine leaned forward to stare at John, and even as she asked the question, she could not help but admire the bronze planes of his face. Strength was in every line, and there was a steadiness that she admired in any person, man or woman.
“You’ll have to ask them about that. They do a lot of worshiping, but I don’t know what.”
“Not the Christian God.”
“I don’t believe you’ll think so. They live, of course, in harmony with nature, and this is very closely entwined with their reverence of God. As I understand it, they believe in one god called Engai. He dwells on earth and in heaven. He’s the supreme god, and no one else can be called by that name.”
“Why, that’s what Paul found in Athens when he saw a statue to the unknown god. He said, ‘Him whom you ignorantly worship I declare unto you.’ ”
“We’ll have to get that nonsense out of their heads. I suppose they worship idols, too,” Jeanine said.
John shook his head. “You’ll have to find out for yourself, Jeanine. I do know this. There are two aspects of their gods. One is called Engai narok, the god who is black, and that’s the good and benevolent god. The other is called Engai na-nyokie. He’s the red or the avenging god, the god of anger.”
“Do they have services of any kind?”
“Well, they pray as a community during the major ceremonies. Also you’ll find out that they use many phrases that show they’re aware of God’s presence.”
“Oh, I know!” Annie said. “They say Engai tajapaki too-inaipuko mono.”
“Say, that’s very good! Your accent isn’t bad.”
“What does it mean?” Jeanine demanded.
“It means, ‘God shield me with your wings,’ ” John said. “You know any more, Annie?”
“Yes. Engai ake naiyiolo.”
John laughed and leaned his shoulder against Annie. “I like that one! That may be my motto for life.”
Again Jeanine was irritated. She had not spent any time studying the Masai language, and it aggravated her that she had to ask.
“It means, ‘only God knows.’ ”
“Do you know this one, Annie? Papala amoo etii ake Engai.”
“No. I’ve never heard it.”
“It means, ‘never mind because God is still present.’ I use that one a lot myself when I get in a tight spot.”
“You shouldn’t be praying to some heathen idol!” Jeanine said.
John shrugged and said, “You might like this one, Jeanine. Some Masai prayers refer to God as male, but others as female. One song praises Naamoni aiyai. It means, ‘The she to whom I pray.’ Well, that’s the extent of my Masai theology.” He glanced at the sky, “It’s getting dark. We’re going to have to stop and make camp.”
By the time they stopped close to a grove of oddly shaped trees called baobab and John had set up the tent for the women, darkness had fa
llen.
“Who’s the cook?” John said.
“I’ll do it,” Annie said. “But there’s not much cooking. We brought a ham and some fresh bread and vegetables. Aunt Ruth put them up for us.”
John built a fire, and soon the three were sitting around it on blankets eating heartily.
Annie remembered her adventure in the market. “A vendor in the market tried to sell me a monkey,” she said. “He said it was delicious.”
“Oh, sure. Natives will eat anything. I guess that might be a problem,” John said.
“Why is that?” Jeanine asked.
“Because if they offer you something and you don’t eat it, it might insult them. Something to think about.”
Annie laughed suddenly. “You know what I did? My teacher back in England told me that. So I brought a whole carton of hot sauce. I can put it on whatever I eat and kill the taste. I just won’t ask.”
“Not a bad idea,” John smiled.
The three sat around the campfire, and soon John said, “You two had better get some sleep. It’s going to be a long trip just to get as far as the truck will take us.”
He was right about that, for it took two days to get as far as they could. By then the road had become impassable. They had passed through two villages, but nothing like a town, and all of the food Ruth Burns had packed they had consumed. They arrived at a small village on Thursday afternoon, and John said, “May take a while to hire porters.”
“Why should that be?” Jeanine demanded.
“Well, it’s a small village and there aren’t many men available. I may have to scour the countryside to find some more.”
“Pay them whatever they ask,” Jeanine said waspishly. The truck ride had been hard on her. She was used to comfort, and the boiling sun and the dust that caked on her face and gritted on her lips had not put her in a good mood. “Money’s no object,” she said.
The White Hunter Page 24