by Nell Brien
“Colonel, this is against my advice—”
Reitholder allowed the smile to leave his face. “Then I think you should reconsider your advice.” He laid his arm across Francis’s shoulder, forced him to pace along the edge of the plateau, away from the stink of the drying racks. “A word from me to Johannesburg and your funds dry up. Who will finance your People’s Party for the Liberation of Kenya then? Provide the arms and training for your men? The Russians are finished, ja? The Cubans don’t have a pot to piss in. Maybe a few crumpled marks from the Red Brigade? The Shining Path? But you’re a long way from Peru.” He laughed. “No, you need us. We have the same goals.”
For twenty years, Marxist and Afrikaner had found themselves fishing in the same troubled waters, destabilizing the same shaky governments. Mozambique, Angola, the frontline states. Now the traitorous government of South Africa was selling out to world fucking pressure and the kaffirs were going to run the country—into the ground like they had everywhere else in Africa. Only the Broederhood was stronger than ever, men flooding to the banner, ready to do whatever they had to, use whoever they needed, to restore the homeland when the call came.
“Well, Colonel, you know your business as I know mine,” Francis said. “Be sure you leave no trace. I’ll do what I can in Nairobi.”
Reitholder had squeezed the shoulder under his hand. “I knew you’d see it my way, General,” he said.
Thirteen
Campbell filled Tom in quickly, running through what N’toya had just told him. He did not mention the bribed askari—Tom would get that point without him having to drive it home. Besides which, Campbell did not want to add to Tom’s anguish over what had happened to his brother. It was bad enough that Cat Stanton’s presence kept the whole episode raw.
“I told him we’ll take Ahmed down ourselves. The old devil deserves better than Reitholder’s butchery. We’ll put his ivory with the rest.”
“We’ll never be able to disguise fourteen-foot tusks,” Tom said. “If we’re found with them—”
“We won’t be.”
“What about—?” Tom nodded toward Cat sitting in a canvas camp chair in the shade of a thorn tree.
“N’toya’s sending a plane.” Head back and eyes closed, she looked young and strangely tender, bare throat vulnerable. Campbell looked away. “Tell her to get her gear together.”
Tom blew the air from his cheeks. “And while I’m doing that, n’duga, what will you be doing?”
“I’m going to have to go to the engang,” Campbell said. The Maasai village was close by but they had intended to avoid it—with Reitholder in the area, a visit from them could put the people there at risk. But N’toya’s news had changed all that. “They’ll know exactly where Ahmed is. And they’ll be able to save us some time tracking Reitholder. He’s moving fast.”
“You tell her to get her gear together. I’ll go to the engang.”
“Tom, just tell her.”
“What? What shall I tell her?”
Campbell climbed behind the wheel of his Land Rover. “I don’t know. Tell her something that will shut her up.” He grinned. “Tell her we’re tired of all this civilized pussyfooting and we’re going hunting.” He wheeled the Land Rover and roared toward the distant hills.
For the last few minutes, Cat had been watching them through half-closed eyes, wondering about the glances in her direction, the sudden air of purpose, the very apparent lifting of their spirits. As the breeze changed direction, it brought her snatches of their conversation, nothing that made sense, but Campbell’s last comments were clear.
They were going hunting. Her heart jumped against her rib cage. Hunting had been banned in Kenya since l977.
A flutter of panic stirred in her belly. That’s how the Campbells had recouped their fortune, she thought. That’s why Campbell and Tom had been so tense when she’d mentioned Father Gaston’s comments. They were poachers.
She felt rigid, too frightened to open her eyes in case they realized she had overheard what they’d said. Was this what happened to Joel? Had he been killed trying to prevent it? He wouldn’t have hesitated to use a weapon against them.
Campbell’s Land Rover was a rapidly receding speck on the grassland. Without thinking, Cat ran to Tom’s vehicle. The keys were in the ignition, as she knew they would be. She climbed into the driver’s seat, turned the key. The big engine came to life, she slammed into first, gunned the engine. She leaned on the horn, the alien shriek spooking zebra and antelope into a mad gallop.
Campbell’s vehicle stopped, the dust around it slowly started to settle. Cat pushed her foot down, the wind bucketing noisily against the Land Rover.
Campbell wheeled, raced back to meet her. He drew alongside. “What’s up?” he shouted.
“You are not going to do this.” She yelled the first thing that came into her mind. “Not on time bought and paid for by my clients.”
He started to slow and Cat took her foot off the accelerator. The Land Rovers stopped and he leaned from his window. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about hunting on my time.”
“For God’s sake! Hunting’s illegal in Kenya—”
“I know that. Too bad no one seemed to have told them—” She pointed to the great arching skeletal ribs of dead elephants littering the grassland around them. “And them and them.”
Campbell climbed out of his Land Rover, came around to lean against her door, blocking out the sun. “And you think you’re going to stop it and protect the rest?”
“No, I don’t think that. I know all this is beyond my control.” She kept her voice even, quelling the need to yell, to shriek at him about the blood he spilled so casually. “I just want to finish my work and get out of here. If you want to go hunting, do it on your own time. Not time bought and paid for—”
He cut her off. “Jesus, you really are like your brother. Your safari is over. A plane is being sent for you—”
She stared at him. Fingers of terror touched her spine. Faced with this, Joel would never have backed down. He’d have died first. She found her voice, forced herself to speak. “You’ve been paid to get me a hotel site—”
“I’ve shown you enough. Make a choice.”
“Nothing’s suitable.”
He slapped the top of the Land Rover and turned back to his own vehicle. “Get your gear together. A plane will be here before sundown.”
She climbed out, put one hand on the top weapon in the gun rack. “I’m not going anywhere—”
“And I’m not bloody arguing with you. You’re going back to Nairobi.”
Around them, the endless grassland was peaceful in the sun. But nothing was what it seemed. Joel had said that. The savannah was a place of slaughter, hunter and prey.
“Oh, Christ,” Campbell said. He turned back to her. “I don’t have time for this.” He put a hand on her arm, started to move her back into the Land Rover.
Cat wrenched the top rifle from the rack.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “A lot of people know where I am. Father Gaston, Brian Ward—”
He looked at her. “What do you think I’m going to do to you?”
“Nothing.” She held the weapon across her chest, hating the feel of it against her, knowing she could never use it. “But if I’m forced to go back to Nairobi before I find a site, I will raise such a stink—”
“That’s certainly got me quivering in my boots—”
She raised her voice over his. “Then try this. The minute I’m forced back to Nairobi against my will, I’ll make a telephone call to a friend. He’s a combat reporter for World. You’ve heard of World? This is right up his alley. He’ll be here on the next plane. Whatever it is you’re doing will be plastered all over the international press. And he knows I’m here—”
He held up a hand to stop the flow of words. “What is it you want?”
“What you agreed to. I want to follow the exact route my brother followed. I want a hotel site I
can use. And then I’ll leave. What you do is your business, as much as I hate it.”
He turned without speaking, staring toward the grove of trees that sheltered the camp. Tom was a small figure, barely discernible.
“People do know where I am and who I’m with,” she said.
He pulled open the passenger door of her Land Rover. “Get in.”
“I’ll follow you.” With the gun, she motioned him toward his own vehicle.
He shook his head in disbelief, then got behind the wheel, turned on the engine.
Cat waited until he started to move before she racked the rifle, slipped into her seat. She placed both hands on the wheel, rested her head on them, trying to control the shaking as the adrenaline drained from her body. Then she followed him back to camp.
Fourteen
Campbell and Tom exchanged a few sentences in Swahili, then Campbell took off again across the grassland. Tom motioned Cat to his Land Rover, and she got into her usual place.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a Maasai village close by. We’re going to talk to them.”
“What’s this about?” She was careful not to accuse, not to sound threatening. Even to her, her voice sounded strained.
“An old elephant named Ahmed.”
“You give elephants names?”
“Only this one.”
“And you are going to shoot him, an elephant who has a name?” she asked.
“I hope not,” Tom said.
“Then what’s going on?”
“Well, we hope to find out at the engang.”
This was going nowhere, she thought. She tried another tack. “Why do you do this, Tom? Hunting.”
“Hunting’s illegal, you know that.”
“Yes, I do. Do you?”
He didn’t answer, and Cat glanced at the gun rack behind his seat. She could not push harder. Tom was charming and cultivated, but for all she knew, charm or not, if she got in their way, he—or Campbell—would shoot her without hesitation.
A thornbrush stockade gradually took shape through the wavering heat, and a few minutes later Cat could see the Maasai village, fifteen or twenty round huts built against the encircling brush. To the west, jackals ran back and forth along the edge of the herd of migrating wildebeest, waiting for an easy kill.
Campbell’s Land Rover was parked outside.
Tom threaded carefully through tall, rust-colored spires of anthills, hardened and complex, like castles in a fairy story, and stopped beside Campbell’s vehicle.
Cat could hear the sound of voices and the excited laughter of children from inside the stockade. She stood in the door of the Land Rover, hanging on to the top so that she could see better, amazed at what she saw.
Campbell was surrounded by children, and behind them, their bare-breasted mothers, wrapped in sarong-like red skirts, their necks and arms decorated with ornate beadwork, were laughing and touching him in greeting. Cat watched as the women hushed their children and made a path to allow an old man, red cloak fastened on one shoulder, tall spear in hand, to walk slowly toward Campbell. An air of ceremony surrounded him. A retinue of elders, almost as tall and clothed as he was, followed him.
The old man, taller than Campbell by at least six inches, greeted him, resting both hands on Campbell’s bent head. Then he gripped Campbell’s shoulders and held him away, inspecting him, nodding and speaking vehemently. Campbell listened respectfully without answering.
“He’s giving Campbell a tongue-lashing,” Cat said to Tom. “What’s he saying?”
“The short version is that he is the son of the old man’s heart, so why has he allowed so long to pass between visits?”
The old man was looking at Tom now, beckoning, the women waving at him to come inside the stockade.
“They look as if they’re glad to see you.”
Tom was grinning. “We lived here once.”
“Here?” The huts looked as if they were built of a mixture of dried mud and cow dung and straw. “What were you doing here?”
She didn’t really expect him to say they were hunting, but his answer surprised her.
“We were searching for someone who was lost.” His smile had disappeared.
Before she could respond—who? when?—he excused himself, striding away to join Campbell. He bent his head to the old man’s touch, received his own rebuke until the cackle of an ancient voice rose above sudden shouts of laughter. The crowd parted to allow an old woman to greet the two men. Campbell picked her up, swung her around in his arms, laughing while she beat on his shoulders and yelled at him.
As he set her down, Campbell caught Cat’s eye over the top of the old woman’s head. In spite of herself, Cat felt the hard knot of fear and suspicion soften in the seduction of the moment—the laughter of children, the women arguing with him in loud teasing voices. Thornbrush barricades and round huts thatched with grass, black against a crimson-streaked sky. In the smoke from cooking fires mixed with the pungency of cattle and the smell of the grassland.
The women waved to Cat in the Land Rover, stepping up their clamor, beckoning to her. The old woman slapped Campbell, and raising both hands in surrender, he came through the brushwood gate.
“They don’t see strangers here much,” he said. “They’d like to see your hair.”
“My hair?”
Campbell spread his hands and shrugged—who can understand the minds of women? apparent in every motion. Cat waved at the women, pulled the ends of the green scarf tying her hair back and shook her head to allow her hair to spring free.
“It looks good, what you do to it,” Campbell said. “Tribe up in the Sudan does something similar, but yours smells better. They rub fat into theirs to make it stand out like that, and it gets a bit ripe after a time.”
In spite of herself, Cat had to laugh. He took her hand and drew her forward, into the village and the crowd of women.
They were narrow-boned, and Cat was surprised to see that in spite of the great height of the men, the women were no taller than she was. Their eyes were almond-shaped, and the lobes of their ears had been pierced and plugs inserted, stretching the lobes until they hung almost to the shoulder. No one seemed as shy as she felt. They laughed a lot, showing widely spaced, irregular white teeth.
Cat smiled while they fingered her hair and commented to each other. The old woman gazed with yellow-tinged dark eyes into hers, placed a hand on Cat’s stomach, touched her hipbones, then spoke long and fervently to Campbell. The women looked at him sidelong and shrieked with laughter at his protests.
“What are they saying?”
“Not much. Just chat—”
“They think I’m a skinny American, don’t they? Is that what they’re saying?”
“No. Not exactly. They say you will be the mother of young bulls. That you will give me fine sons.” He grinned, held her eyes.
Cat felt her heart lurch, and she grappled with her reaction. He was dangerous—a killer—and in this moment, suddenly, unexpectedly appealing. She tried to think of something to say. Nothing came. Then the old woman touched Cat’s face with a callused hand, and glad of the touch, Cat covered the bony hand with her own, trying to hide her confusion by laughing and looking into the old face.
“Dan!” Tom called from where he stood among the elders. The urgency in his voice stilled the laughter. Tom pointed through the gate to a distant speck. Slowly it emerged into a human figure, a young man loping at a steady pace across the yellow grassland, a spear balanced easily in one hand. As he came closer, he shook the weapon toward the north.
A buzz of excitement ran through the women. Campbell, his face hard, threaded his way toward the old men. Cat pushed to Tom’s side.
“What’s happening?”
“He’s found Ahmed in the hills.”
“Tom, you can’t do this. Please. Campbell has agreed you’re going to go on with my work.”
“When this is over. You insisted on being here, Cat. You should have left
when you had the chance. Excuse me.”
He went to join the men, and she hurried after him, hovering outside the circle. The elders hunkered down, their long skinny legs folding easily, bony knees pointed to the sky, heavily callused bare feet covered in dust, the skin pale and cracked where it touched the ground. She studied the wrinkled faces, the folded angular forms, the colors of the earth and sky and surrounding grassland, and wished she had a sketchbook.
Flanked by Tom and the chief, Campbell sat on his heels and drew lines in the dust with a stick. Each line was discussed by the group before the chief nodded approval. Then the old men were smiling huge gap-toothed smiles and Campbell was laughing.
Tom stood up, joined Cat and grinned at her. “They rarely get a chance like this anymore. They can hardly wait. Life’s too civilized for them now.”
“What are you going to do?”
Tom held up one hand. The old men creaked to their feet, and the chief was speaking to Campbell at length.
“Ah,” Tom said. “An invitation to dinner.”
Cat shot a look at the round huts made of cow dung. “I can’t drink blood from the veins of cattle.” She couldn’t even imagine how it was done. Through a straw? Or was it caught in some kind of calabash? Her stomach churned.
“No, no, you won’t be expected to do that,” Tom said. “Women don’t drink blood, or milk, or eat anything from the cattle. That’s kept strictly for the men.”
Cat looked around for an escape.
“You’ll get goat.” Tom pointed to an old nanny goat on the end of a woven grass rope, udders slack, teats dragging in the dust, shambling along behind the child leading her. “That old girl looks past her prime. She’s probably on her way to the cookpot.”
“Oh my God!”
“You’ll enjoy her, cooked over an open fire. Smoky. Very delicious.” Tom’s black eyes were wide, innocent. Behind him, Campbell and the old man were still talking.