The next morning, my excitement about Chiddy’s return eclipsed all thoughts of Zola and Skinner. I couldn’t wait to hear every detail of Chiddy’s trip. Had the furniture arrived in good condition? Did the suites look beautiful in the tents? Was Jackson Quinn pleased?
Uncle Stash tried to present a calm front, but I knew he shared my anticipation. On that day, he would receive the biggest check he had ever seen, the final payment from Jackson Quinn. I suspected he hoped for a new order too, for furniture to complete Motembo’s dining area or lounge. In light of the day’s quivery expectations, he did not ask me to work on anything important. “Experiment a little, Bonesy. Build whatever you like.”
While he paged through a catalog of power tools, I searched piles of scrap lumber for inspiration. Several decent cuts of knot-free plywood suggested a long box or two. I struck upon the idea of building tool caddies for Donovan and Drew. The twins’ interest in carpentry recalled my own enthusiasm at their age. Whether the fascination would develop into a lasting pursuit remained an open question. But I liked encouraging the boys, and of course, there was the added benefit of pleasing their sister.
The power of interesting work to challenge and absorb gripped me again that day. A tool caddy is an uncomplicated project: three long boards, two peaked end panels, and a dowel handle to secure inside bores at the ends. But cutting, routing, joining, and sanding something even so simple requires precision and care. I lost all sense of time. Hours passed. Stash left the shop and returned. I had just applied a final coat of tung oil to the finished pieces when the voice chimed through my concentration: “Helloooooooo, Bonesy.”
With an almost magisterial sense of timing, Chiddy filled the doorway.
In my excitement, I came close to upending the can of oil. “Hi, Chiddy.” I made myself seal the can and properly stow the brush before turning to him. “Welcome back.”
He held a manila envelope against his chest and wore a slightly lower-wattage grin than usual. I wondered if the long drive had tired him. Or was he feeling the aftereffects of too much Amarula?
“Hello, Mr. Stash,” he said, dipping his head toward my uncle.
“Greetings. Have a seat,” Stash said, pushing a stool across the floor.
“How was your trip?” I asked.
“Quite eventful.” He sank down with a sigh. “The rains washed away the track in many places. Very difficult driving for a big, big truck.” He shook his head as if remembering a mournful occasion. “Too much mud. Very good for getting stuck.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” I said, recalling his words to me. “Did you deliver the furniture?”
“Oh yes. The furniture is at Motembo.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Come on, Chiddy. Does Jackson Quinn like it?”
He produced a sad expression that looked feigned but nonetheless gave me a moment of anguish. “When Jackson saw the bedroom suites”—he paused for maximum effect—“he was silent for many minutes. He touched the finishes, opened and closed the drawers, sat in the chairs. Then he wanted to see the furniture arranged in the six tents, so I and some others moved it all in.”
“And then?”
“He walked from tent to tent—this took some time because the guest quarters are quite generously spaced—and inspected each one.”
Behind me, Stash exhaled audibly.
“What did he say then, Chiddy?”
“I will repeat exactly what he said.” Again he paused for maximum effect. “Effing brilliant.”
Stash looked uncertain and then broke into a smile. “Effing brilliant? That’s effing great, isn’t it Bonesy? Don’t repeat that.”
I grinned. “Brilliant is good enough for me.”
“But there is a small problem.” Chiddy’s face turned grave. “Jackson says the job is not complete. The beds and their net frames are still in pieces. He wants one of you to go there and assemble them.”
“One of us?” Stash looked at me and then back at Chiddy. “But we wrote down the directions. Assembling the beds isn’t difficult.”
“Not difficult, no. Yet Jackson insists. He said he ordered beds, not rails and headboards.” Chiddy reached into the manila envelope and withdrew a check. “Here is half the balance he owes you. He will pay the rest when the beds are complete.”
Stash examined the check, considering. Then he looked at me. “Would you like to go?”
“Me?” I said stupidly.
“Who else? I’ll stay here and run the shop.”
My heart was doing flips. “Yes. I’d like to go.”
Chiddy handed me a sheaf of papers. “While you’re there, Jackson wants you to build a bar.”
11
DUE TO THE WASHOUTS CHIDDY had encountered on his recent trip to Motembo, he plotted a different itinerary for me. “This new way is too rugged for my big, big truck,” he said, waving a hand over the map he had drawn. “But for you, in your excellent van, it will be a scenic journey.”
His sketch of the route was so crude it could have decorated the wall of a cave. Actual roads, rendered in thick black strokes, formed less than a quarter of the trip. The rest of the way followed a dotted line between landmarks he had drawn with imaginative flourishes that he explained in detail.
“This is the oxbow where you will see a large pod of hippos,” he said, pointing at a series of squiggles meant to represent ears poking out of water. “Follow the ridge south past the marula grove to a large rain tree growing on an island in the middle of the river.”
I squinted at the umbrella he had sketched atop a column in the center of a circle. I moved my lips: rain tree, island.
“Here you turn east and continue to three large, flat-topped boulders.” He looked at me. “Three Flat Rocks is home to a pride of lions. Do not exit your vehicle in this place.” To emphasize the point, he picked up a pencil and drew a large paw with long black claws.
From there, the dotted line I was supposed to follow led past a pair of pointy termite mounds, a dense thornberry thicket (curly scribble), and a colossal baobab tree “visible for miles.” Beyond the baobab was a kilometer or so of chalky hardpan—“flats, hills, and a few tilting dune slopes you must drive around.” These led to a manmade track cut into thick mopane woodland.
“This track leads through the woods and over a plank bridge to Motembo,” Chiddy said, sounding triumphant, as though talking me through the route was as good as getting me there. “You will not, not miss it.”
Instead of a map, I would have preferred Chiddy himself along on the ride with me. He knew the terrain and would have been a good travel companion. But his one-man delivery operation could not shut down for the several days it would take to drive to Motembo, assemble the beds, build the bar, and return. So I assured him and Stash that I could make the trip by myself. I hoped this was true. The thrill of an expedition to an actual safari camp canceled any misgivings I might have felt about crossing wild, vaguely charted territory in a questionable vehicle, alone.
During the days it took to prepare for the trip, I felt too dazed with excitement to show a flicker of worry. I studied the sketch of the bar Jackson Quinn had in mind for Motembo and did my best to anticipate the tools, hardware, lumber, and finishing materials I would need to build it. Most of the required wood was already on hand there, according to notes from Mr. Quinn—boards from a giant mahogany tree that had fallen over near camp.
In addition to carpentry supplies, I packed a duffel bag with extra clothes and made room in the back of the van for a bedroll, a basket of food from Aunt Letty, two canteens and a jug of water, extra gasoline, and my shotgun. Chiddy gave me lessons in jacking up the vehicle to clear obstacles along the way or to change a punctured tire. We tested the winch. “For getting out of mud, Bonesy. Please avoid mud if you can.” At the last minute, I unzipped the duffel and added the journal Mr. Kitwick
had given me. I hadn’t yet touched a pen to its creamy pages, but I suspected my life might be taking a noteworthy turn.
Now, just three days after Chiddy’s return, I found myself gripping the wheel of Stash’s van, swaying and bouncing in my seat on the pitted road to Motembo. I had been driving only a couple of hours when I glanced for the hundredth time at the map on the seat beside me. A long, dark slash indicated actual pavement for the next several kilometers. “Straight, straight as the nose on your face,” Chiddy had said.
I passed thinning garlands of shacks on either side of the road. An agitated dog ran out and nipped at my tires. The mongrel’s barks were almost inaudible over the thrum of the engine and the rattle of the van’s desiccated rubber seals. When the intervals between homesteads grew wider, the dog gave up and slunk away. The traffic—mostly bicycles, carts, and an occasional goat or chicken—lightened and then disappeared. In time, the empty road made a line across the plain true as a runway, as far as I could see. I relaxed a little, sat back, and let my thoughts drift to Mima.
My excitement about the trip had sparked something in her too. When I told her where I was going, her face lit with enthusiasm. “A safari camp! How wonderful!” She told me her mother and father had gone on safari for their honeymoon. Her favorite photo of them was taken in the pink glow of an African sunset, with giraffes silhouetted in the background. At bedtime, her brothers still liked to hear the story of the Cape buffalo that had appeared out of nowhere and charged. “Our parents escaped by climbing onto the roof of their truck. The buffalo hung around for hours, snorting and pawing the dirt.”
I pictured Mrs. Swale, unperturbed, enjoying the view.
“My father said that from then on, he always made sure the champagne bottle stayed within reach of the roof.”
She told me this one evening as we lounged on the silky new carpet that decorated the home and garden section at the back of the store. We had turned off all but one light near the front door. Even though we were alone, we talked in whispers that seemed to fit the dim shadows. Our faces were inches apart.
She touched a finger to my lips. “While you’re gone, may I take the twins to visit your uncle in the shop? They’re inseparable from their new tool caddies.”
“Of course. Stash would like that.”
I inhaled her familiar scent, something sweet mingled with the damp perfume of our overheated bodies. Our carnal explorations still followed a cautious, near-silent ritual, step by step, to a stopping point determined by her rapidly evolving sexual policy. On this night, as we talked and kissed and touched, I felt the familiar wallop of my slamming heart. My long-suffering loins sent out the usual memos. I was nearing the moment when I would have to release her hot body, get up, and leave. But instead of drawing away, she pulled me closer. “Don’t go, Bonesy. Stay.”
I drew back. Now? The moment I had longed for, dreamed about, and imagined on a daily basis caught me by surprise. She was breathing audibly, tilting her hips into mine, lifting my shirt.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded, solemn, panting softly. I touched my forehead to hers, steadying myself, giving us both another minute. Soon we were fumbling with buttons and cloth. She shimmied out of her dress. I slipped off my shirt and pants. Her skin was luminous in the gauzy light, the arcs and slopes and dark, secret narrows so lovely I had to catch my breath. I braced myself above her and felt our heat cook the humid air between us. She was holding my arms in matching grips, tight enough to staunch blood.
“You are beautiful, Mima Swale,” I murmured close to her ear.
Now I blinked and downshifted to climb a rise in the road, grinning into thin air. My eyes followed a bateleur eagle kiting overhead, but I didn’t really see it. I was remembering the next night, the last before I left, when Mima and I made love again. Afterward, we had talked about our future together with the certitude of matched souls. My future seemed impossible without her. I couldn’t imagine it, and I didn’t want to. I had never awoken to a day more radiant with promise than this day, today, when Motembo waited for me at one end of my journey while Mima Swale waited for me at the other.
* * *
The paved road soon dwindled to gravel and then became a dusty track, as Chiddy had said it would. I left my wandering thoughts and steered the van onto rough, pitted turf. The vehicle pitched and rocked so violently that I worried the aging metal might shake apart. The going was very slow. I made frequent stops to clear tinder-dry grass caught in the undercarriage and top off the coolant in the van’s steaming radiator. The sun produced a dazzle on the hood. Funnels of dust rose in the hot air, twirling across the plain and through the open windows. Sweat streaked down my cheeks. I had hung a canteen around my neck for easy access to water. Chiddy had warned about mud, and in the dry heat of that searing afternoon, I almost longed to find some.
Even as I sweated and clutched the wheel with white-knuckled intensity, my spirits soared with the joy of being outdoors, a dot on the vast open plain. As much as I liked my work in Stash’s shop, I was hungry for the wilderness I had explored since my earliest memories. Chiddy’s route was taking me through a vast wildlife reserve nearly untouched by human activity. I spied a pair of giraffes browsing in the distance. They reminded me of Mima’s parents and the photo she loved. A small herd of zebras grazed near the giraffes, taking advantage of the taller animals’ superior sight lines. When a giraffe bolted from danger, the zebras knew to run away too—and in what direction.
I stood in the shade of a winterthorn tree and ate a sandwich in the company of a hornbill that cocked its head right and left, watching me. The bird had followed the van for hours, feasting on insects spun up in the dust behind the tires. Across the plain, a copse of torchwoods swayed and shook. I heard the crack of a breaking branch and knew an elephant was snacking on the tree’s oily fruit. It occurred to me that Marks could be in the vicinity too, working to protect that very elephant and all of its pachyderm relatives.
Color was draining from the sky when I parked for the night next to a gully with a trickle of water running through it. I used a stick to fish grass and seeds from the van’s smoking exhaust pipe and checked under the chassis one more time. The ticks and pings of cooling metal gradually gave way to the evening sounds of the bush—the bark of a baboon, the churring of a scops owl, a nightjar’s haunting five-note call.
Within minutes, darkness fell, and the temperature dropped to a dense chill. I pulled on a jacket and unrolled my bedding in the back of the van. The flip of the switch from day to night sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with the cold. Africa’s sharp-eyed nocturnal hunters—lions, leopards, jackals, hyenas, and countless smaller predators—would soon rise from their heat-induced slumber, peckish, stomachs growling, and begin looking for fresh meat. I had never spent a night alone in the bush.
I closed the doors and windows and crawled under my blanket. The hour was early for bed, but I hoped to rise before dawn and make a good start. I was lying with my head near the rear doors, facing forward, positioned to see through portions of the windows. The night sky glittered with stars. I watched a comet streak across the darkness. I wished Mima could see it too. Then I thought about my destination and felt a little fluttery, too excited to sleep. If all went well, the next day I would arrive at Motembo. Mo-tem-bo. The very name struck a deep, thrilling chord.
My wakefulness didn’t last long. When I awoke in the middle of the night, druggy with slumber, I almost rolled over and let myself succumb again. But something I couldn’t name made me sit up and look outside.
The stars had disappeared. Through the windows the sky had turned a dark, impenetrable black. I scrambled to my knees and peered at … what? A chill shivered through me. I crawled forward and leaned over the seat backs for a better look. I didn’t feel afraid, exactly. But my heart was beating fast.
Something shifted to admit thin moonshine. The light fell on a gleaming a
rc of tusk. Mountainous shapes moved against a starry background that had been there all along. Elephants stood in front, in back, and on both sides of the van. I was surrounded.
Compared to the behemoths outside, the van was a puny thing. A few stomps of elephantine feet could flatten it—and me. To my great relief, I did not sense agitation in the animals or even the slightest unease among those gathered almost within reach. Their ears were gently flapping, and their trunks were relaxed. I moved slowly, not wanting to cause alarm, as I reached forward and cranked the window a fraction. The gurgly, sloshy sounds of elephant digestion wafted in along with the rich, woody scent of fresh elephant dung.
As my vision adjusted to the shifting scene, I made out individual animals, their mighty trunks and great columns of legs. I had never been so close to elephants, certainly not in the center of a herd. With awe, I watched the movements of their bodies, sensed their familial bonds, listened to their rumbling language and the grinding of molars as big as babies’ heads. Most amazing was the near silence of the elephants’ giant, delicate footsteps, quieter than the footfall of men.
Then, with a start, I found myself gazing into the liquid eyes of a calf that seemed to be looking back at me. Its face was window-high, hairy, wrinkled, adorable, even in the dim light. As I stared at the wizened little features, the calf swung its barely manageable trunk up in the air and heaved it forward. The mitten-like tip landed hard on the glass, inches from my nose.
I gasped, both charmed and terrified. Nose-to-nose with a wild elephant was a singular and risky position, especially when the elephant was a calf. What if the mother sensed fright in her offspring? She could decide to obliterate the offending party and do so with dispatch. I tried not to move, not to even blink. The calf wrangled its loopy trunk into the stratosphere again and smacked a spot higher on the pane. I guessed it was sniffing out the opening at the top, aiming for a good whiff of me.
The Story of Bones Page 12