by Nell Brien
She had thought the second day of driving would be easier. She was wrong. The sun shone brightly, but the drying surface of the land was deceptive, firm only until the weight of the Land Rovers broke through into sludge-filled holes. Olentwalla, driving the second Land Rover, couldn’t keep up the pace Tom set. They lost sight of him four times before noon. Not one of the three Maasai was a good driver, and Thomas was no better.
Once they were in Nairobi, Cat thought wearily, she would make sure they were well rewarded for the extra effort. If cash was an insult—which she doubted, Tom was riding his own pony with that one—then an apology before she got on the plane home would take care of it. Or they could refuse to take the money, it was all the same to her. She was too dispirited to care. Tom was driving the men hard, and she was the goad behind him. She could live with that, and so could they.
But she missed the old camaraderie, and that amazed her. For all she knew, these men could kill her without missing a beat. For all she knew, that’s exactly what had happened to Joel.
Tom stopped on the bank of a fast-running stream and climbed out to wait for the men.
“Can you see them?” Cat asked.
“No. We’ll wait for them on the other side.”
Cat nodded. They were the first words he had spoken to her all day.
They inched into the stream, ground across, then parked in the shade of a thorn tree. Cat closed her eyes, slid down in her seat, allowing relief from the pounding engine to wash over her.
The second Land Rover roared into earshot. Without slackening speed, it hurtled down the bank, water surging around it. The engine died, then growled like a tormented beast as Olentwalla repeatedly turned the key and pressed on the gas.
On the bank, Tom yelled in a mixture of languages, English, Swahili, Maa. Moses thrust his head out of the passenger window, started to reply. Tom shouted an order. Moses stopped in midsentence, took a moment to stare haughtily at Tom, then withdrew his head. The engine caught. They jolted forward. Tom had the men change places, put Thomas at the wheel. Silently he slid back into his own Land Rover and turned on the engine.
“We’re all tired, Tom,” Cat said.
“They are not tired. They are Maasai, and they are too arrogant for their own good. Every Maasai I’ve ever known thinks he knows best about everything.”
Cat wondered if he included himself in that assessment—he was Maasai on his father’s side.
Tom wrenched the wheel, swerving around the half-eaten carcass of a giraffe, scattering a group of jackals. As the jackals ran, vultures hopped forward awkwardly, wings outstretched, crops bulging obscenely. Cat looked away.
Two more streams were navigated successfully. Thomas had taken the wheel and, hard-faced, Tom got out to watch him cross each stream before driving on. Gullies, marked on the map across Cat’s knees as dry, were now filled with dirty foaming water. The sun had disappeared. Clouds hung just above their heads. Visibility dropped.
At midafternoon, they turned onto a game trail, running with water but well-defined, and followed it for several miles. Now that they were no longer lurching from tussock to tussock, traveling was easier. They picked up speed through thickets of thorn and brush, then stopped at what was marked on the map as a stream. Only now it was a storm-tossed river laden with debris. The men were nowhere in sight.
“We can’t cross here,” Tom said. “We’ll wait for the men and try to ford—”
The scream of a protesting engine cut through his words. The second Land Rover tore past them through the screen of rain, hurtling toward the river at full speed.
Tom threw himself out of the vehicle, raced down the bank after it, waving his arms and shouting furiously. The vehicle hit the river. Water broke over the hood. Too late, Thomas slammed on the brake. The Land Rover slid sideways, rocked drunkenly and took the full force of water running like a bore through flood-deepened banks. A door burst open. Olentwalla, in the passenger’s seat, struggled to close it, his body half out of the vehicle, buffeted mercilessly by its wild swinging. He clung to the door as Thomas brought the Land Rover around, still miraculously upright. Then the engine died. Slowly the vehicle moved backward, pushed by the force of the racing water.
“We’ll have to get a rope to them,” Tom shouted to Cat over the noise of rushing water. “Take the wheel.”
He mimed his intention to the men. They waved and nodded. Tom attached a rope to the rear bumper, then signaled to Cat. She slammed the engine into reverse, slowly backed down the slope, feeling the wheels being grabbed by the soft mud. Tom tossed the end of the rope to the men in midstream. Thomas leaned out to catch it and missed. Tom pulled the rope back, rewound it, threw again. The rope grazed Thomas’s outstretched fingers, then fell uselessly into the water. Thomas climbed through the window onto the hood, then slid into the water. The running force of the torrent pinned his back awkwardly against the bumper. Once more Tom threw the rope. Thomas reached for it. Suddenly he was shoulder deep, struggling to keep his footing. Olentwalla insinuated his body out of the window across the hood, reached a long arm toward him. Thomas grabbed for it. He slipped, floundered briefly, then disappeared beneath the surface of the racing stream.
“Tom,” Cat screamed. “Crocodiles! Are there crocodiles?”
“No!” Tom was already sprinting back toward the Land Rover. “No! Not here!”
He reached behind her seat, brought out a panga in a worn leather sheath and withdrew the blade. He waved at the watching men, then pointed it downstream. Thin shouts of response rose above the sound of the roaring water. Cat grabbed her slicker, jumped out into the rain.
Tom chopped at the heavy brush lining the river, working his way downstream, his progress maddeningly slow. Behind him, feverish with anxiety, Cat pushed through the branches, trying to keep them from whipping back at her face, her eyes searching the river, praying for the sight of a head.
“There he is!” Tom shouted, pointing with the panga.
A khaki-clad body was caught against the trunk of a tree brought down in the storm. Precarious roots still held. Thomas, entangled in the drowning branches, swung up and down, disappearing beneath the water with each downward swing as the current tore at the remaining shreds of earth-bound roots.
“Is he alive?” Cat shouted.
“I don’t know.”
If he was, it wouldn’t be for long. No one could take that punishment. At each downward pull, the roots gave a little more, and the weight of his body kept him below the surface for seconds longer. Thomas was drowning, inches at a time. Cat stumbled against Tom’s back as he slashed at the brush with wide heavy swings of the panga, clearing a path to the edge of the roaring water.
“I can get at him from here,” he shouted.
Tom shoved the panga into Cat’s hand. Keeping one arm over the fallen trunk, he edged into the river, cautiously placing each hand, fighting not to be swept away by red-tinged water being hurled like pale foaming blood at the tree. A branch moved as Tom grabbed for it, then slithered into the water. Cat choked back a scream as the undulating body of the snake brushed against Thomas, hesitated. Then, triangular head held high, it writhed across Thomas’s back, melding with the brown and green of the foundering tree.
Tearing through the entwining branches, Tom stretched to grab the back of Thomas’s tunic. The tree began its downward swing, the inexorable movement pulling Thomas from his grasp. Tom lurched forward, thrust a shoulder beneath the trunk, reached for Thomas’s hair, only just managing to keep his head above the surface. Then the weight of the tree bore them both down.
Cat threw down the panga, tore off her slicker and waded into the water. The stream wrenched at her thighs, then her waist. She threw an arm over the trunk of the tree as Tom had, inched her way toward them. The streambed moved treacherously under her feet, reluctantly releasing her at each step. It seemed to take forever to reach the struggling men, freed now for the upward swing. A portion of the bank gave way, the tree sagged deeper into the rive
r.
“I can hold it,” Tom yelled. “Get the vines off him.”
Cat tore at the thick fibrous ropes snaking around Thomas’s body, fastening him to the drowning tree. She thought of going back for the panga—she couldn’t tell vine from snake—but knew there was no time. The bank was collapsing, and with every downward swing, Tom, with Thomas and the weight of the tree on his back, was sinking deeper.
The tree began to vibrate even more heavily in the racing water. It was going down. She pushed a shoulder under Thomas’s body. The trunk submerged, and her knees bent under the pressure as she braced herself against it, feeling the strain across her back, in her belly and legs. She couldn’t hold. She was going down with it. Her face was submerging in the silt-laden water.
Then the tree hesitated, the pressure eased, and the tree started its upward swing. She tore at the vines and the last of them parted. Tom lifted Thomas’s body free. Cat pressed her back against the trunk, grabbed at Thomas’s legs. With the unconscious man suspended between them, their backs scraping the trunk, they forced through branches she feared would become live as she touched them. Then the water was shallower, and they were on the bank. Unable to lift her head, Cat dropped to her knees in the mud. Tom lowered Thomas beside her. For a long moment, she couldn’t move. Then she put out a hand to touch Thomas’s face. He felt dead.
“We’ve got to get him warm—”
“Turn his head.”
Tom placed the heels of his hands on Thomas’s chest and pushed. Cat watched his face for signs of life. Water trickled from his mouth and nose. Tom pushed again. Nothing. Then the eyelids fluttered. Tom increased his effort. River water gushed from Thomas’s mouth. He retched, his groans mingling with the sound of vomiting. Cat put her hands on each side of his head, steadying him, thinking it was the most wonderful sound she had heard. Gradually the flow of water ceased, and Tom propped Thomas against his chest, murmuring in Swahili. Thomas answered weakly.
“He thinks his leg is broken,” Tom said.
“He’s going to go into shock unless we get him warm. Can you carry him?”
Tom nodded, then thrust a shoulder under Thomas’s body and stood, Thomas draped across his back. Cat threw her slicker over them both. Tom’s shirt was torn, exposing the decorated amulet pouch plastered against his chest. Water dripped from his eyebrows, ran down his face. His clothes squelched at every step. Her own were as bad.
She grabbed the panga, held it in both hands to slash at the brush in their path. Slowly they worked their way back to the Land Rover.
Tom lowered Thomas into the passenger seat. Cat found a blanket in the back and wrapped it around him.
“Okay, Thomas?”
“Okay, Miss Cat.”
He smiled, and his gray metal dental work had never looked so beautiful. It seemed she hadn’t seen him smile in days. She pressed his hand. Already it felt warmer.
“You’ll feel better as soon as we get you under cover and a fire going.”
“We have to get that Land Rover free before we light a fire. They’ve got the tents and blankets,” Tom said.
He signaled to the men in the middle of the stream. Moses crawled through the window of the Land Rover and carefully moved around to the front. Tom wound the rope and threw it. Moses grabbed and missed. Tom dragged the rope back, rewound it, threw again. Moses caught it. Within minutes, he had it attached to the tie bar. Tom got into his own Land Rover, turned on the engine, pressed gently on the accelerator. Slowly, the rope tightened and the stranded vehicle jerked, then started to roll forward.
Two men were injured. Thomas and Olentwalla, whose ribs were probably broken. Both radios had again been soaked, and one Land Rover was out of commission entirely. Tom and Moses straightened Thomas’s leg and bound it with splints Tom slashed from a tree. Throughout, Thomas was impassive while Cat held his hand and flinched for him. She prevailed upon Olentwalla to remove his shirt and let her look at his ribs. The flesh on the right side of his chest was puffy, his breath was shallow, and sweat beaded his face. Cat found a wide crepe bandage in the first-aid box and wound it around him, more to show her concern for him than any good it would do. He, too, needed more care than they could give him.
By five the fire was alight and tents were in place. With everything soaked from river water, an uncomfortable night was ahead of them, and Cat felt like cheering when Tom unearthed the brandy. She made tea, added plenty of sugar and generous amounts of brandy and handed mugs out to the men. She put her head inside the tent where Thomas slept. He was breathing heavily, his mouth open. He looked unconscious rather than asleep. Pain had etched the lines on his face even deeper, and his black skin had an unhealthy grayish tinge.
Cat took a mug to Tom, where he was working on one of the soaked radios by the light of a lantern. “We’ve got to get Thomas to a hospital. I think you should plan on taking him and Olentwalla back to Nairobi in the Land Rover that’s working. I’ll stay here with Moses and Sambeke.”
“That’s out of the question. Tomorrow, I’ll take you on to Nairobi, and come back for the men.”
Tom’s face was a blur. She looked around. The darkness was relieved by the light from one lantern and the fire being fed, one soaked twig at a time, by Moses. The sound of rushing water filled the muddy clearing. Trees dripped. The smell of rotting vegetation underlay the acrid tang of wet, burning wood.
“Thomas doesn’t look good, Tom. God knows what bugs he swallowed.” She refused to think of the gallons of filthy river water she had taken in. When Tom didn’t answer, she said, “Well, we’ll see what he’s like in the morning and talk about it then.” She hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry about what I said to you in Maasai Springs, about…I don’t know what came over me.”
Tom looked into his mug, then up at her. “You are a brave woman. Many men would be unwilling to do what you did. Share a tree with a mamba.”
“Well, I was too worried about bugs to even think about snakes,” she lied, glad to see Tom shake his head. And smile.
Later, she lay fully clothed and sleepless, shrouded in the limp white cocoon of the mosquito net Sambeke had insisted on hanging. She listened to the night, the murmur of voices as the men changed the watch, missed the sound of Olentwalla’s drum. These men were poachers, she thought, implicated in some way in Joel’s death. They were not friends or comrades. How could she allow herself to feel affection for them?
Twenty-Nine
When she awoke at four, she couldn’t remember closing her eyes.
The rain had stopped. Only a fitful pattering from the dripping trees remained. That and the sweet, musical song of hoopoes and nightjars, the first birdsong she had heard since the night she had spent with Campbell.
A dawn like those in the early days of the safari broke at last. Gold-edged clouds billowed in a pale blue-washed sky, and the rising sun blushed the grasslands with pink. Tom had made coffee, and Cat picked up a tray, took it to Thomas’s tent, knocked on the canvas door before putting her head inside.
Thomas was muttering in his sleep, his eyes half-open, a rim of white showing above his lower eyelids. Cat put a hand on his forehead. He was burning. She left the coffee tray by his side and made her way to where Tom was working on the engine of the Land Rover.
“Thomas is in a bad way,” she told him.
“Yes, I know.” He stared at the small pile of engine parts on the hood of the crippled Land Rover. “If Dan were here, he’d have this done in no time. His fingers have a knowledge of engines in them.”
“How’s the radio?”
Tom shook his head.
“Well, we’ve got to get Thomas to a hospital,” Cat said. “Why don’t I take the Land Rover that’s still working. I’ll drive and Moses can watch for trouble.” During the night she had considered all angles of being alone among these men. Finally, she had pushed everything aside. If they were going to harm her they’d have done it already. Life was chancy anywhere. In Los Angeles these days, sometimes it seemed just leavi
ng the house in the morning was dicing with death. “We’ll take Olentwalla as well, his ribs need attention. You stay with Sambeke and we’ll send help as soon as we can. How would that be?”
“Impossible.”
Exasperated, she said, “Tom, for God’s sake—”
“There is no point in arguing. Anyway, I think I can get this engine working in a few hours.”
“We can’t wait too long. Thomas is in bad shape,” she repeated.
“He’s tougher than you think.”
Cat looked at her watch. “It’s eight now. If we leave by noon, we can still get some miles behind us before dark. That’s it, Tom. By noon, one of us has to be driving out of here.” She spoke with more confidence than she felt, with no idea how she was going to enforce her wishes. Certainly not by threatening five armed men with the gun she’d hidden.
She retrieved her portfolio and tried to work. Every thirty minutes or so she checked on Thomas. The hours crawled by. At eleven she went to her tent and started to throw a few things into a small bag. The Land Rover would be crowded. Thomas’s leg would somehow have to be kept immobile.
“Miss Cat,” Moses called softly from outside. “Boss here.”
She did not answer.
“Miss Cat,” he repeated.
“Yes, I hear you.”
She went outside. The runoff had fallen dramatically in the night, and over the gurgle of the stream she could hear only hornbills, tapping like small drums played in syncopated rhythm, and the tiny shrieks of hyrax, the little rock rabbits that Tom said were the closest relative of the elephant. No Land Rover engine.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I hear it.”
Cat shaded her eyes and looked across the empty distance. A light breeze rippled through grass that seemed to have sprung up overnight. She could see nothing but grazing animals and the bones of slain elephants. Then a faint drone reached her. A speck in the sky grew larger, becoming a small plane swinging in a circle, preparing to land.
Tom ran toward it.
“Good thing we waited,” he yelled over his shoulder.