Love's Golden Spell

by William Maltese

  She steered the Land Rover around bushes and trees, expecting horror beyond each turn. She feared what she might find, but Christopher’s life might depend on her reaching him in time. She became more and more frantic but strove to stay calm and cool. She was no good to anyone if she didn’t keep her wits about her.

  She almost didn’t hear it. It wasn’t loud like the gunshots. It was a muted thumping, a sound like a muffled dissonant pounding on a tom-tom. She tested the air like an animal sensing prey without seeing it. The sound was very near. It stopped and began again. She made a quick turn to avoid an impenetrable stretch of thorn bushes and low-growing scrub. She almost hit Christopher’s parked Land Rover. She braked, and her engine stalled.

  More low thumping. She unfastened her seatbelt and got out. Her subconscious was putting meaning to the sounds, even though she had never heard them before. She shuddered, fighting off the awareness of what they could be.

  The ground dipped into a depression. She walked toward the edge. The heat of the sun burned the back of her neck. She was perspiring. Her heart was racing. Her lips and throat were dry.

  There would have been nothing worse than seeing her lover dead, but what she did see came in a close second. He was very much alive, stripped to the waist and bent over. His back muscles rippled beneath the African sun, turning glossy with the sweat of his exertion. His shirt was wrapped around the large stone he was using to knock the second of two large horns from the dead rhinoceros. The first horn was lying in the dust beside Melissa’s deformed snout. More pathetic than the ongoing mutilation was the sight of Suzy dead within a few feet of her mother. All hope that these two animals had represented for the survival of their species had been erased by two bullets from a rifle. Christopher’s rifle lay on the ground within easy reach.

  Janet watched, and a blow of the stone loosened the second horn. The three-foot projection tilted precariously without coming loose. Another blow knocked it off.

  The full impact of what she was seeing, and what it did to their relationship, dropped on her like a ton of bricks. “Oh, Christopher!” she groaned.

  He heard her and looked up the incline to where she stood. “Janet?” he said in surprise. He believed she was back at camp. He knew Craig was miles away with a patrol. Had Craig been sent out on a wild-goose chase while Christopher moved in for the real prize?

  She turned and ran, but the picture of Christopher’s half-naked body laboring over Melissa’s horn, Suzy’s lifeless carcass close by, was forever branded on her memory. It was the perverted mingling of the man’s living beauty with the ugliness of the dead animals that she found so abhorrent and obscene.

  Christopher’s brutality and wanton slaughter spoiled everything for her. There was no forgiving him. He knew what those rhinos symbolized, but he had snuffed it all out with two bullets, snuffing his and Janet’s love out in the process.

  If only it were that simple! It wasn’t, though. Because she still loved him. Not even this act erased sixteen years of caring and dreaming. But it did make her determined to fight those feelings. Whether she loved him or not, she couldn’t find happiness with a man who killed helpless animals for profit. No matter how much gold those horns brought on the black markets of the Orient, it was a drop in the bucket compared to what the Van Hoon empire poured into Christopher’s pockets every minute of every day. Why had he done it? For a few bucks he had put a species one step closer to extinction. Once a species was gone, there was no resurrecting it. Millions of years of evolution were lost forever with the death of the last rhinoceros, or elephant, or zebra, or wildebeest. Had Christopher thought of that?

  She was in the Land Rover, driving. She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t care. She wanted to be as far away from Christopher as possible. She couldn’t face him after what she’d seen.

  She had thought he was in danger, but he was alive and well. She resented the way she’d been drawn toward his naked torso even as that horn came loose. She resented loving Christopher too much to put him in jail where he belonged. She resented his becoming more important than her ideals. Considering that she had come to Africa for sweet vengeance, she was missing the perfect opportunity to keep the promise she had made to her dead father, which showed that her values had become doubly warped—not only for harboring a deep resentment all these years but for nurturing an unnatural love for Christopher Van Hoon in the present.

  She gave the Land Rover more gas, speeding over rugged terrain meant to be taken at lower speeds. Her spine was jarred repeatedly as she bumped along. Her teeth chattered. Her hands, wet with sweat, kept slipping off the wheel. She welcomed the discomfort. It kept her mind off crushed dreams of love and happy endings.

  Suddenly the land disappeared in front of her. The Land Rover tilted precariously forward. Braking didn’t help. The wheels locked in soil that was already collapsing beneath the weight of the vehicle. The Land Rover slid to a jarring stop amid a spray of water. Janet’s knuckles were white, her fingers frantically clutching the wheel. She was lucky she wasn’t hurt. In her hurry to escape Christopher, she hadn’t bothered to fasten her seatbelt.

  She had driven over a steep embankment and into a small stream. From the size of the splash, she thought she’d landed in a river at the very least. The Land Rover had stalled on impact, but it started promptly when she tried it. The far bank of the stream was at water level, and the Land Rover left the water with little trouble.

  She parked beneath a graceful fever tree; an acacia that got its name from its association with areas free from fever. Its bark was yellow. Christopher’s tanned skin, bright eyes and hair were yellow gold. “Oh, Christopher!” she said, her words a lament. So many wonderful things that might have been were now shattered beyond repair.

  Where did she go from here? She was disoriented, and not just geographically. She couldn’t put Christopher out of her life after accepting him so totally—not without causing herself considerable emotional pain. Nevertheless, there could never be anything between them after what had happened.

  The bubbling of stream water over loose stones suddenly sounded inviting, considering her hot and flustered condition. She opened the door and got out. It was pleasant beneath the shading branches, the greenness of the leaves offsetting the tawny sameness of plant life beyond the reach of the water. A ray of sunlight ignited the beauty of her ring. Offended by the gaudy display, she tugged the ring off her finger and put it in her pocket, where it couldn’t trigger thoughts of the man who had given it to her.

  Kneeling beside the water, she dropped her cupped hands into the coolness. She splashed her face, drawing wet fingertips down to her cleavage.

  She caught a somehow familiar glitter in the water-covered gravel recently disturbed by the Land Rover. For a horror-struck moment, she thought the engagement ring had dropped from her pocket. She reached for the glitter, but the water distorted her aim, and she came up with a plain brown stone. The sparkle disappeared in the swirl of disturbance made by her hand.

  Frantic, she got to her feet, automatically searching her pockets. Christopher would never forgive her for losing the ring. She would never forgive herself. She had every intention of giving it back to him, for it was something whose value and beauty could give a lot of joy to many people. For her, it would always bring back too many painful memories.

  Surprisingly, the ring was in her pocket where she’d put it. She could have sworn she’d seen it sparkling in the water. Wrapping it in her handkerchief, she tucked it securely away, then squatted by the stream and methodically scanned the gravel. Sunlight reflected on the surface of the water, and she blamed it for the illusion—until she saw the unmistakable glitter again. She reached for it, more careful this time. She sank her fingers slowly into the loose gravel and pulled out a stone almost buried beneath some smaller ones.

  She brought it to the light. She had seen it before. Donald Geiger had tumbled it out on the black velvet at Lionspride. But that was impossible! That uncut stone was
now the cut diamond in her pocket. Here, then, was an octahedron similar to that original rough stone, as yellow in color but actually bigger. But no amateur stooped by a stream and nonchalantly came up with a diamond—not since the twenty-one-point-seventy-five-carat Eureka, the diamond that had started it all in South Africa, had been picked up from the banks of the Orange River by Erasmus Jacobs, fifteen year old son of a poor laborer, and taken home as a plaything. Not since a local native had retrieved a similar bauble from the Vaal River and traded it for a pittance to crafty Petre Van Hoon, who used the handsome profits from the sale to spearhead the present Van Hoon fortune.

  Christopher would know if the stone was worth pennies or a fortune, but she wasn’t talking to him. She didn’t ever want to see him again.

  If by some wild stretch of the imagination it was a diamond, she would have in her hands the one sure bomb to sink all hopes for the survival of the Great Zimbabwe Reserve. There would be no end to the hordes of get-rich-quickers who would come with visions of diamonds growing on each and every tree. Under those circumstances, any ecological balance wouldn’t have the chance of a snowball in hell. No; it wasn’t a diamond, but a pretty stone, a memento to take home, since she wasn’t keeping the engagement ring. Every time she felt sorry for herself in the days to come, she would look at this keepsake, remembering the day Christopher’s golden body had labored to knock the horns off a dead rhinoceros.

  She took the rock to the Land Rover and put it in the glove compartment. Such wild fantasies—thinking it was a diamond!

  She noted the position of the sun and got a rough idea of which direction would take her back to the hotel. If she was lucky, she would make it back soon. If she was lucky, she would be out of Great Zimbabwe tomorrow and out of Africa as fast as her legs could carry her.

  She heard him before she saw him. His foot dislodged a stone on the top of the embankment and caused a small slide. He was standing there, his shirt still off. He was an Adonis bathed in sunlight. He was evil in the guise of ethereal perfection.

  She fled to her Land Rover, hurrying to turn the key in the ignition and put the car in gear. He came down the embankment after her, running and leaping like a young lion intent on downing his fleeing prey. The Land Rover moved forward. Christopher’s running feet splashed through the water of the stream. Escape would have been easy had there been a straightaway through the trees, but there wasn’t one. She steered with difficulty around obstacles that Christopher’s athletic body took with far greater speed and dexterity.

  Desperate, she tried for an opening in the bush. It was too small. A sapling bent at the collision, the splintering wood sounding almost like a gunshot. The Land Rover came to a grating stop.

  She opened the door and stumbled out. He was panting loudly as he narrowed the distance between them.

  She ran from him, and he grabbed her from behind. When they fell, he twisted them so he hit the ground first and she came down on top of him. He had intended to cushion her fall, but his muscular body was as hard as well-packed rock.

  “Let me go!” she screamed, fighting him and his power to excite her. She refused to surrender. She refused to forgive. She had sacrificed too many ideals to love this money-hungry animal. He was worse than an animal. He didn’t kill for food but for profit. He kept killing, although he had more money than he could spend in ten lifetimes.

  He held her while she struggled, letting her expend her energy while he got his breath back. It was a foregone conclusion that he would win, because he was stronger. He was a brute!

  He rolled her onto her back, pinning her arms above her head. The weight of his body kept her under control. She wiggled fiercely, hoping to get free. “Keep struggling,” he said. “It feels sexy.” This made her so furious that she almost mustered the strength she needed to dislodge him. “Now what in the hell is this all about?” he asked when he again had her under control. What unmitigated gall! Was she blind? Was she stupid? There was no talking himself out of this one. She turned her head and shut her eyes. She wasn’t seduced by his good looks, either. Not this time. The man was rotten to the core! “Why don’t I tell you, then?” he suggested. “You heard two shots. You arrived to find me knocking the horns off Melissa. You jumped to your usual biased conclusions.”

  “My usual what?” she asked, her eyes popping open and locking with his. “My usual biased conclusions?” she echoed. “There isn’t anyone alive who wouldn’t have come to the very same conclusions!” she insisted. She put her hands against the hardness of his chest and pushed. He wouldn’t budge.

  “What are you afraid of, Janet?” he asked. “What’s this hang-up you have that makes you look in every corner for some rationalization to dump me?” She heard what he said, but she wasn’t taking it in. “You and I have a good thing here,” he said. “If anyone blows it, it’s going to be you. I’ve tried my damnedest, but one of these days I’m going to expect you to listen to my side of a story without my having to run you to ground to tell it.”

  “You haven’t the time or the imagination to come up with a good enough story to get you out of this one,” she said sarcastically. If only he could!

  “The truth always works,” he said. “I see no reason why this time should be an exception.”

  “And you’ll let me up whether I swallow your hogwash or not?” she asked. What was he planning to do with her? He wouldn’t believe she wasn’t going to tell Craig what she had seen.

  “The rhinos were poisoned,” he said, bringing her back from her frantic imaginings. “I found them dead. I also found the two men who were there to collect the horns. They spotted me, and those two shots were their little gifts to me in parting.”

  “Poisoned?” Janet asked weakly.

  “I couldn’t leave the horns,” Christopher explained. “The poachers would come back for them.”

  “Poisoned,” Janet repeated. It was an explanation that cleared him. It was an explanation she had doubted could be found.

  “Poisoned grass to be specific,” Christopher said. “There’s enough of the stuff scattered around that area to kill a hundred rhinos. We can pick up samples on the way back for a lab test, if you like.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” she said. He wasn’t guilty, and she was a fool! “I believe you, but can you forgive me?”

  “Forgive you for what?” he asked, flashing a wide smile. “Anybody alive would have jumped to the same conclusion.”

  “But I, of all people, shouldn’t have,” Janet conceded. “I should have known there was an explanation, shouldn’t I?”

  “Just because two people love one another doesn’t mean they know each other inside and out,” Christopher said. “It doesn’t mean they should stop questioning each other, either. Humans are complex animals. They’re not read like a book. Their relationships are complex, too, built and strengthened by trial and error. There’s no perfect man, no perfect woman, no perfect love, no perfect marriage. That’s what makes a relationship exciting. What makes a relationship work is knowing the truth when you hear it.”

  “I love you,” she said. “Do you know that’s the truth when you hear it?”

  “Sure do,” he said, kissing her forehead. “You don’t think I’d go through all of this bother for a woman who didn’t love me, do you?”

  “Maybe you get excited by the idea of making up after a fight?” she suggested. She wiggled beneath him, but she had no desire to get free now. “I know I do.”

  “That was quite a fight, wasn’t it?” he said, his dimples sinking deeper.

  She wound her arms around his back and pulled him closer. She kissed the tanned skin of his powerful shoulder. Her desire blossomed like a flower opening its silky petals to the caress of the sun. “Let me love you, Christopher,” she begged, luxuriating in their reprieve, enjoying one more moment before some other obstacle arose to challenge their happiness.

  “Yes,” he said, as eager as she was.

  A blaring sound interrupted them. It was the horn of C
hristopher’s Land Rover parked up the distant embankment. “Christopher? Janet? Where are you?” It was Lieutenant Walkford.

  “Damn!” Christopher said. “Damn!”

  “Don’t worry, darling,” Janet murmured. “There’s always later.…”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JANET WAS AWAKE most of the night, anticipating the phone call. Christopher slept calmly beside her, content that whatever the news, they would work things out. Janet wasn’t so sure. This was too much a replay of what had happened sixteen years before. Oh, she saw the dissimilarities. There was nothing clandestine about V.H.A.M.’s looking for gold around Great Zimbabwe. There was no fake attempt to carve an animal preserve out of new territory. The Great Zimbabwe Reserve, or what was left of it after land reform, was already there—which made the threat against it an even sadder state of affairs. A major gold discovery meant that animals supposedly protected would suffer, no thought given to them in the mad rush to fill corporate and government pocketbooks. There was no Jack Kelley to die a second time when betrayed by a man who had hired him as an unwitting cover for gold prospecting. But his daughter was alive to witness another victory of greed over wildlife preservation. Janet respected those things that her father had stood for, and she stood for those very same things. A duplicate victory here by Van Hoon Afrikaner Minerals might yet taint her relationship with the head of that company.

  The phone rang promptly at five o’clock, as it did every morning.

  Janet shook Christopher awake. He groaned and let the phone ring three more times before he reached for it. He listened to the caller as he always listened. “You’re sure about that?” he said, which he didn’t always say. He hung up the phone and scooted down in the bed, pulling the covers over his head.