The box held twelve cartons of Temik, the concentrated form of aldicarb known as “Two-Step.” It was enough poison to kill all the elephants from here to forever. I sat back on my heels. Swale’s sells Two-Step? I hadn’t noticed the pesticide in the store, but I had never actually looked for it. I supposed rat poison belonged in a shop that sold home and garden supplies. Even so, I shuddered to think of the potential for slaughter so tidily packaged and ready for display on shelves I had built myself. Temik, in the wrong hands …
My mind was racing when Mima walked toward me wearing a broad smile. She must have seen the look on my face because her lips flattened into a line. “What’s the matter?”
“I didn’t know you sell Temik.” My voice came out sharpish.
“Well, of course. Without poison, rats would overrun the village.” She sounded practical, matter-of-fact. She looked relieved that this was all that was bothering me.
“Was Temik on the shelves before the break-in?”
The question seemed to startle her. “We stocked extra for the new section. So yes, I suppose it was. Why?”
“I didn’t see cartons like this in the debris on the floor, or on the sale table afterward. But I bet you had to reorder right away, didn’t you? After we cleaned up?”
“Mother does the ordering.” Her words trailed out slowly. She let her eyes rest on the open box. “I can check our records.”
My thoughts rushed forward like bats from a cave. I didn’t spare her the onslaught. “Poachers kill elephants with Temik. They’ve wiped out entire breeding herds not far from here. The killers massacre in silence, mutilate beyond description, and take ivory worth fortunes.” I stopped for a breath and lowered my voice. “Do you think people like that bother with shopping? Do they walk into Swale’s and stand in line to pay for their poison?”
Her mouth hung open. The questions didn’t require an answer. We both stared at the open box sitting between us. She took a step back, as though the cartons inside might explode.
I ran a hand through my hair. “I think whoever broke in here came to steal Temik. The mess was meant to look like random vandalism or the work of a wild animal.”
She regarded me with narrowed eyes. “What about the baboon tracks?” Her voice came out thin and reedy.
“Temik kills more than elephants.”
“You mean …?”
“The footprints were from a baboon. But I’m guessing a baboon didn’t put them there.”
18
MARKS WAS NOT IN THE tavern, but I found Baba talking across the bar to Captain Biggie. A tankard of beer sat between them. I hoped the beer was my father’s first. When he saw me, he looked clear-eyed and rock-solid, so I settled on the stool next to him. Captain Biggie put a Coke in front of me and moved away.
“What brings you here?” Baba pushed the beer to the far side of the bar.
“The break-in at Swale’s. It wasn’t baboons. I think the person who did it was a poacher, or someone helping poachers. He stole the entire inventory of Temik.”
“And then wrecked the store to cover up what he took.” His tone was flat. He looked away. This hadn’t come as a surprise.
“You knew?” I felt the blood drain from my head.
He threw a glance toward the rear of the tavern. “Let’s go to a table.”
Without a word I got up and followed, roiling with disbelief, outrage, and questions. You knew a thief—a poacher—and not a baboon wrecked Swale’s? I wanted to ask. And you kept this to yourself?
Baba settled in a dim corner facing the front, training a stare on everyone who came and went. I took the chair opposite. I wanted him to look me straight in the eye.
“You leave tomorrow,” he began, stating the obvious. “Before you go, there are a few things you should know.”
I was ready to pop. “Like what? That you can’t trust me and I can’t trust you? That I’ll be the last to know everything that matters? What about Mima and Mrs. Swale? Don’t they count either?”
He exhaled audibly. “For one thing, Zola is engaged to be married.”
The needle of shock I felt almost prevented me from speaking. I sucked in a breath. “Engaged? To Skinner?” I spit out the name. For a terrible moment I believed my father had kept the theft of Temik a secret to protect Zola’s boyfriend.
“No. To Marks.”
“What?”
“She’s marrying Marks.”
The dumbstruck look on my face must have told him that an immediate response would not be forthcoming.
“I introduced them several years ago. Zola was unhappy then, not ready to love anyone—or to be loved, for that matter. Marks was smitten right away, of course. And he was very patient.” The hint of a smile played on his face. “They met only occasionally at first and always out of the public eye. Zola was adamant about avoiding the kids who had taunted her. Remember how she kept to herself after Mama died? She wasn’t even sure she wanted a suitor.”
I blinked. I knew she had been happy to leave school. It embarrassed me to realize I had never noticed her isolation—that she had shied away from everyone.
“Marks was clearly in love with her. Steadfast. Little by little, she came around. She gained the confidence to be vulnerable, Marks said. They became almost inseparable. Anyone could see they were meant for each other.”
Inseparable? Meant for each other? I put those interesting assertions aside. I had never seen my big sister and Marks within ten meters of each other.
While Baba waited, letting the news take hold, I worked up enough spit to loosen my tongue. “But Zola and Skinner …”
He studied his hands splayed on the table. “For many months we’ve suspected Skinner of aiding ivory poachers. We believe he delivers supplies to poachers’ boats on the river. He might also inform the network when Marks is in town and therefore not out patrolling. We think Skinner stole the Temik from Swale’s and returned the next day to cover up or at least legitimatize his footprints. He must have laid the baboon track with a severed foot.”
I flashed on the revolting image of Skinner dismembering a baboon and pocketing a foot—the exact, disgusting scenario I had suspected myself.
“Lately he’s been seen talking on a radio as far away as a two-day drive.”
A two-day drive? That put him within reach of Motembo, my territory, where I hoped to be rid of him once and for all. A deep stab of resentment knifed through me. Would Skinner ever stop interfering?
We fell silent as Captain Biggie approached our table with the drinks we had left on the bar. “I thought you might want these,” the tavern owner said, setting down Baba’s beer and my Coke. We said thanks but didn’t encourage conversation. With a nod and a smile the Captain turned and left.
Baba glanced behind me. “Even with range and a radio, Skinner is a very small fish.” He lowered his voice to a barely audible murmur. “Zola engineered their relationship to help Marks. She’s trying to find out more about the poaching rings Marks wants to stop—who the bigger players are and where to locate them.”
The revelations were detonating in my brain like a string of fireworks. I fell back as if blasted into my chair. “Marks is okay if she and Skinner …” I couldn’t finish, but he understood my meaning.
“Zola, it turns out, could have a fine career in espionage. She has managed to create a honey trap while keeping the honey at arm’s length, so to speak. Skinner apparently finds the chase intoxicating—so much so, he’s fallen for her. Professed undying love, I understand. For now, at least, he accepts her limits.”
If either of us felt awkward discussing Zola’s sex life, we didn’t show it. I was not surprised to learn that my beautiful, intelligent sister had claimed the love of two men. And now my near-idol, Marks, was going to be my brother-in-law. As the truth of that sank in, I felt an overwhelming sense of good fortune and gratitude. All traces of my p
revious disappointment in Zola vanished. I admired her more than I could say. But I was afraid for her too.
“She’s risking a lot,” I said. “You know that.”
He nodded.
“Has Skinner told her anything useful?”
“He’s taken her to the river a few times, to the place where we think he meets the boats. We don’t have the manpower to watch around the clock. We need him to tell her in advance when the boats are coming. Marks plans to follow the deliveries upstream. He believes the supply line will lead us closer to the command center of the poaching operation, the ones in charge.”
“Roop and I saw Zola and Skinner there, at the river. After they left, a mokoro with two men in it came by. The men stared at Roop and me, then kept going.”
“When was that?”
“One afternoon before I went to Motembo.”
Baba picked up the tankard of beer and set it down again without drinking. “She thinks she can learn more before Skinner insists on taking their ‘romance’ to the next level.”
I shuddered, making room in my head for “the next level.” “Insist” was a mild word for what Skinner could do when he wanted something.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t tell you sooner.” Baba ran his fingers through his hair, the way I often did. I noticed more gray than I had seen before. “That’s not exactly true. Your disgust at Zola’s attachment to Skinner was one of the best covers she had. You couldn’t hide it from him, and we didn’t want you to.”
“By being furious, I helped protect her.” I couldn’t avoid a small, complicit smile that must have told my father I forgave everything. Nothing could please me more than a covert operation against Skinner, especially when I was part of the deception. “I’ll stay furious as long as it takes. What more can I do?”
“Keep all of this to yourself, obviously. Go to Motembo tomorrow and become the best guide you can be.”
“But I’m worried about Zola. Skinner is—”
“I know,” he cut in. “I worry too. But this is her choice, her way to find meaning and support her man. Marks is looking out for her. There’s no one better.”
* * *
Mima and I spent the last evening before my departure at Swale’s. After closing, Mrs. Swale wished me well, kissing me on both cheeks. I noticed unusual pallor in her skin and dark circles under her eyes, evidence of the strain she must have felt putting things right after the break-in. She seemed happy enough about my new career and prospects. Like Mima, though, she displayed a guarded optimism about the rest of it—about Mima eventually joining me in the safari business.
On that score, I was trying not to lose patience with both of them. They acted as though Mima and Mima alone could help in the store. Hire someone new, for cripes’ sake! Yet in view of my own misgivings about leaving Uncle Stash’s workshop, I knew I would be wrong to underestimate the familial tug. I felt the chances were good that in Mima’s absence, Donovan or Drew or both would step up to help—maybe divide their time between the workshop and the store. Although they were still very young, the boys had already demonstrated excellent work habits and an eagerness to learn. Even better, they were Swales.
After Mrs. Swale bid me goodbye and left for the day, Mima set out a picnic on the new carpet in the rear of the store. Candles on saucers cast a soft light over sliced chicken, potato salad, and a crusty loaf. She opened a bottle of shandy and poured the fizzy drink into two jam jars. “To our future.” She tapped her glass against mine. “Wherever it takes us.”
We talked about everything and nothing, feeling the weight of the long separation ahead. She said she hoped the rangers would catch the poachers who had stolen the Temik. I said I was sure they would. Skinner’s name never came up. Keeping the revelations about Zola, Marks, and Skinner from her felt disloyal and wrong. But although I wanted to tell her everything, I felt equally powerful ties to the others who relied on me to remain silent. I said nothing.
After we cleared away the food, we held each other in the flickering light. Our farewell embrace became a tender, unhurried savoring of touch and taste. Each new intimacy, slow and deliberate, ignited sensations we wanted to prolong. While the candle guttered and died, our lovemaking gathered heat and intensity. I felt her currents matching my own, as if our bodies had been wired with common circuitry that sparked and flared and flamed out in sync. Thick-tongued from an urgent round of kissing, we murmured our love and our hopes for a shared life. In the small hours of the morning, we spooned together and fell asleep. She was still sleeping at dawn when I got up and quietly left the store.
I had expected an emotional farewell with Mima. I hadn’t predicted the turbulence I would feel later that morning when I said goodbye to Zola. The more I thought about my sister’s liaison with Skinner, the more precarious her situation seemed. She was walking a very thin line between autonomy and submission—a line Skinner would do his best to drag her across. I didn’t trust him one bit, of course. I didn’t trust that he really loved her or even knew what love was. Most of all, I worried about how he would react when he found out the truth.
Zola and I sat alone at the kitchen table. Hannie had thrown her arms around me in a farewell embrace before running off to school. Baba had gone out on an unknown errand, promising to return before I left. Teaspoon would arrive to pick me up within the hour. My packed duffel sat by the door.
“Your necklace is working too well,” I said, tweaking the collar of crimson lucky bean seeds that circled Zola’s neck. “Too much luck in love can be hazardous to your health.” At close range I was struck anew by her beauty—her fine skin, her thick lashes, the elegance of her cheekbones. For a time, her supposed liaison with Skinner had, in my eyes, eclipsed her striking looks. She had, I believed, become so reckless and reprehensible, such a bloody traitor, that all I could see in her was my own disappointment.
Now her lovely eyes danced with pleasure at my renewed affection. “Sometimes I am afraid,” she admitted. “But the hazards are worth it when you’re saving elephants—an entire beloved species. Marks must have taught you that.”
I nodded and shrugged, agreeing yet reluctant to include my sister in the ranks of humans endangered by murderous wildlife poachers.
She took a breath that powered her next confession. “Actually, deceiving you about Skinner has been the most difficult part.”
“Harder than acting like his girlfriend? Come on.”
“He’s just a guy trying to feel important. His life hasn’t been that easy.”
“Don’t ever make excuses for Skinner.” Irritation hardened my words. “He’s a dangerous, reckless, violent person. You must be very careful.”
She touched my cheek. “I am careful. This has gone on for some time, you know. I’m almost alarmed by how smoothly I fool him.”
“He wants to believe you.” I hesitated, not wishing to stoke her fears yet worried she hadn’t thought things through. I took a breath. “How is it going to end?”
She answered so readily that I knew she had considered the finale carefully. “Romances die all the time. When I’ve learned all I can from him, I’ll drift away—lose interest, break it off. Then I’ll wait a decent interval before turning up with Marks.”
You really think Skinner will fall for that? Her confidence struck me as naive and dangerous. I was about to say so when I looked up to see my father stepping through the door and, behind him, Marks. The two looked pleased with themselves, like boys who’d pulled a fast one.
“Marks wanted to say goodbye.” My father’s gaze turned to Zola. “I supposed he could see you too, while he’s here.”
My hero, mentor, and future brother-in-law headed straight for me. I sprang up and reached out to shake his hand or wrist or whatever, but he wrapped me in a hearty hug instead. “Greetings, my man.”
My man. I felt a rush of feeling that swept aside my misgivings about Zola’s breakup wi
th Skinner, at least for the moment. The words pushed out fast. “You’re marrying Zola!” As if he didn’t already know. “I’m so relieved.”
“That makes two of us—four, actually.” His glance flitted to Baba and my sister. “We couldn’t let you leave without full disclosure, for many reasons, including the fact that Zola hated deceiving you.” He was looking at her now, the angular planes of his face softened with affection.
She went to him and touched her lips to his cheek. She looked radiant, happier than I had ever seen her. Meant for each other, Baba had said. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured this out for myself.
“I feel like an idiot. My own sister. How did you—how do you—keep everyone from seeing you together?”
They shared a quick, intimate laugh before Zola answered. “Aunt Letty and Uncle Stash have been very welcoming. I go in their front door. Marks comes in through the shop. We’ve gained kilos from Letty’s cooking.”
I shook my head as I swallowed another not entirely unpleasant dose of chagrin. Of course, Letty and Stash would help Zola, just as they had helped me for so many years. More subterfuge right under my nose. “I never saw you in the shop.”
“That’s because I only went when you weren’t around. You would have figured out in a minute that I wasn’t looking for a new dining table.”
“I have a long-wave radio like the one Marks uses,” Zola explained. “When he’s within range, I can call him with information I get from Skinner. We use it to plan our dates too.”
A small smile played on Marks’s face. “I was in the workshop on the morning of your school exam—the day Skinner walked in and took the money from the cash box. I had left the door open for Zola.”
“You were there? When I barfed?”
“I hid myself in the back, but yes. I could see and hear everything. When Skinner took it broadside and dropped the cash, I almost laughed out loud. I was sorry you were sick, though,” he quickly added.
The Story of Bones Page 20