by Nell Brien
They skirted the farm buildings. A number of men squatted on their heels in the shade of a structure standing away from the rest in the center of a large cleared area.
Cat tipped her hat away from her eyes. “There’s Moses. And Sambeke!” She stood in the stirrups and waved. “They were with us on safari.”
Jock made a show of looking, shading his eyes with his hand. “I don’t think so. Dan’s people are not here. They’re all on leave before the next safari client arrives. Dutch film company doing a documentary on what’s left of the rhinos. Let’s get out of this sun.” He pressed a heel against his mare’s flank, and she broke into a slow canter.
Her own mare picked up pace. Cat reined her in. “But I’m sure that’s Moses. He’s a lot heavier than most Maasai.” Cat narrowed her eyes against the sun, squinting at the row of men.
Moses and Sambeke had disappeared. But it was clear the rest of the men were armed. She couldn’t be mistaken about that.
She gave the mare her head, catching up with Jock ahead of her. “What is that building?”
“A quarantine barn,” Jock said. “I don’t take any chances now. When I get new breeding stock, they’re quarantined. Any suspect animal is shot and the carcass burned.”
They had entered the trees and the barns were behind them. Like his son, Jock Campbell was fast on his feet, Cat thought. But the sun had been blinding. Maybe she had been wrong about Moses and Sambeke.
She found herself saying that a lot, lately. She could have been wrong about this. About that. Compromises. Silences. Nothing was as it seemed. Or was it? She no longer knew. She did know those men were armed. Lately, she had become more familiar with assault weapons than she had thought possible.
Underfoot the path was rocky. The only sound now was the ring of iron-shod feet striking stone, the snorting breath of the horses as they climbed, the call of birds. Barns and paddocks and cultivated farmland fell behind them as they moved into an open forest of mixed trees, broadleaf and cedar.
Jock certainly wasn’t intending to show her farming methods up here. He had something in mind, though. She had the feeling Jock Campbell never did anything without purpose.
At the edge of an escarpment, he stopped. “We’ll let them breathe a minute.” He leaned forward to run his hand over the mare’s damp neck. “Look down there. That’s the Boran cattle of the Maasai. They’re rather like the Brahmas you used to breed in the American South.” He pointed out the humped-back cattle mingling with grazing zebra and gazelle on the plain below.
Cat nodded, but at this distance one large animal looked very much like another.
“Dan spent the better part of a year living with the Maasai, did he tell you that?” Jock asked.
“When he and Tom were searching for Fiona’s body. Yes, he told me, but I didn’t realize it was for that long.”
Jock grunted. He swung out of the saddle, threw the reins over his arm. Cat dismounted, and they turned to walk slowly along the edge of the escarpment.
“Did he tell you about Fiona’s death?”
“Yes. It was tragic.”
“He was pretty torn up. The Maasai were good with him. And I knew Tom M’Bala would stick like glue. They’ve been inseparable since boyhood.” He stopped to check a girth. “What do you think of my granddaughter?”
The question surprised her. Morag had been missing at lunch. Mary had taken a tray to the girl’s room. The scene in the infirmary had been mentioned only briefly.
“She’s a lovely girl, young and feeling her way,” Cat said. “I also think she’s spoiled and confused.”
“Mmm. Possibly. Dan’s too hard on her and I indulge her. Is that what you mean?”
“Something like that.”
“How much do you know about her mother?”
“Not much. Young. Spirited. In love with your son. I saw her portrait in Nairobi. She was very beautiful.”
“Yes. I still miss her. The light went out for a long time after she died. For all of us. Morag’s very much like her in a lot of ways.”
“So she says.”
“Dan is not Morag’s father, you know.”
Cat stopped walking. The mare reached for a choice clump of grass, nudging her with a heavy shoulder, and Cat swayed. Her body felt like rubber. Did he lie about everything? Why? Why? Why? The word reverberated.
“Then how can you be her grandfather?” Her confusion was complete.
“Strictly speaking, I’m her granduncle. I worry about that child,” Jock said. “I worry she’s going to turn out like her mother.”
Cat caught hold of herself. “I thought you adored her mother.”
“I did. That doesn’t mean Fiona was perfect. My God. Far from it.”
“Jock, as I understand it, two kids had an affair when they were too young. No big deal. Even eighteen years ago, an affair between two youngsters couldn’t have been that scandalous. Especially what I’ve read about Kenya.”
“No, of course not. If that’s all there was, an isolated affair with Dan, no, far from it. I didn’t realize what was happening myself until it was too late. Then what could I have done? Brought him home? No. I had some ridiculous idea of sparing him. He was just turned nineteen, for God’s sake.”
“Sparing him from what?”
“I thought from a life of misery. But he’s never forgiven himself, anyway. Nor me, I think, sometimes.”
“Fiona sounds like a kid who needed a strong hand and didn’t get it—”
“Fiona was not an innocent child.”
“Jock, what was she, fifteen, sixteen? She was a kid—”
“After he left for Edinburgh—” Jock’s voice caught and he cleared his throat “—she became different from the sweet creature I knew. She had every man within fifty miles mad for her. And I mean mad for her. I think it amused her to keep them stirred up. She was one of those women.” He glanced at her. “Oh, yes. I know what you think, but she was a woman, the sort of woman men kill for. Not an exaggeration. Women like that are a blessing and a curse. I was afraid Dan would end up killing someone if they spent a life together.”
He started walking and Cat kept up, side by side now as the track broadened.
“After she died it was mere luck he didn’t kill the man who took her on that damn safari. God knows, he tried to. Guido Cavellini. Not that I blame Dan. I wanted to kill the bastard myself.” Jock looked out over the plain below, but gave the impression of a man staring into the past, not liking what he saw. “I didn’t bring him home when she got pregnant. I didn’t want him to know until we sorted out what we were going to do. In any case, I thought she ought to have time to settle down. For the situation to cool off. But she didn’t settle down. A lot of men walked very carefully around Dan when he did get home. He claimed Morag as his, and no one dare even look as if they doubted his word. He took his fists or that whip to any man who even mentioned Fiona’s name.”
“What happened to Cavellini?”
“He left the country. He was distraught over Fiona’s death, I’ll give him that. Morag is probably his child. The only thing I’m sure of is that Dan is not her father. He’d been gone too long when Fiona got pregnant.” He sighed. “Anyway, Cavellini was married, had a couple of kids—young Teddy was about four then. As soon as he got out of hospital, he took his family off to Italy. They stayed away several years.”
“This boy Teddy Cavellini is Morag’s half brother?”
“Very likely.”
“She has to be told. The way he’s going, Dan’s going to drive Morag right into his bed.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Why are you telling me all this, Jock?”
“I thought it would be better coming from me instead of you hearing the old gossip.”
“I’m leaving in a couple of days. Not much time to hear gossip.”
“But you’ll be back?”
“Only if I’m commissioned to do the hotel. And that’s looking doubtful. These things often don’t go ahead.”
<
br /> “My son loves you. You must know that.”
Cat didn’t answer.
“Apart from the boyhood passion for Fiona, he’s never cared for anyone. Never brought a woman to Erukenya. I was rather hoping…I think you would be good for him, Cat.”
“I’ve got a life of my own going on in Los Angeles, Jock. A career that means as much to me as your son’s career does to him.” Whatever that might be, she thought silently. “Los Angeles is a long way away. I don’t think there’s much future for us.”
They paced without speaking, then Jock said, “This farm means everything to me. This farm and Morag. And my son. If anything happens to him, it’ll be the end of Erukenya. Morag will be about her own life. The farm will go to strangers.”
“Why should anything happen to him? Conducting film companies around, putting radio collars on animals. What’s so dangerous about that? Or does he do something else I don’t know about?”
“No, of course not. You’re right.” Jock looked at the sun. “Well, we’d better start back if we want any tea.”
Cat remounted, watched him climb into the saddle with the agility of a man twenty years younger. “Jock, wait a minute.”
He looked at her.
“I do love him,” she said. “What is he involved in?”
Jock stared at her without expression. Then he wrenched the mare’s head around, put his heel to its flank.
Cat stared after him. Jock Campbell was really afraid.
Thirty-Six
“We thought you two were going to miss tea,” Morag called. “We’re on our second cup.” Smiling, pretty in a sundress that made her gray eyes look blue and showing no trace of the earlier storm, she raised a teapot.
They were sitting at a white wicker table set under a tree in an expanse of green lawn, laden with silverware, tiny sandwiches, scones and a Victoria sponge cake oozing raspberry jam and cream, dusted with powdered sugar that made Cat think of her goddaughter, Rosie—the cake was her favorite, reserved for special tea on Sunday. Maribou storks and peacocks hovered around the table like a family of dogs waiting for scraps.
“And Dan’s on his third scone. You’d better grab one before he scoffs the lot.”
Campbell put the last of his buttered scone in his mouth and stood to pull out a chair.
“Good ride?”
“Lovely. Learned a lot.”
“All you never wanted to know about rinderpest, I bet.”
Cat laughed. “And more.”
“Indian or China, Cat?” Morag asked.
“China,” Cat said, unaware of the difference.
“Grandpa? Indian or China?”
“Morag, I’ve had two cups of Indian tea every afternoon at this time for the past forty years. I think I’m going to continue the habit.”
“Just thought I’d ask. Maybe you’d changed your mind and decided on something adventurous, like China.” She offered him a plate of small sandwiches. “You’re getting set in your ways, Jock. You worry me.”
“Well, that’s a switch.”
Behind the house lay Mount Kenya, teased the eye with glints of snow that disappeared behind drifting mist as if in a mirage. Red and yellow canna lilies and beds of roses bordered the tree-dotted lawn, and under the scent of the roses was the green smell of newly cut grass and the dry dustiness that came up from the plains. A white peacock fanned his great tail feathers, shimmering the pale chocolate-colored eyes as he turned slowly in a circle. Morag threw a morsel of bread to him, laughing as a drab little peahen bullied him aside to snatch at it.
Cat sipped tea, only half listening to the exchange. Campbell was silent, staring out over the lawn. “Cat,” she fantasized him saying, “there are some things about my life I want you to know.” And, “I love you, we’ll meet halfway in London every couple of months. We can make it work.” But of course they couldn’t.
N’kosi walked from the house.
“Memsahib. A telephone call for you from Los Angeles.”
Cat put down her cup and murmured her excuses, trailing her fingers across Campbell’s back, secretly, out of sight of the others as she passed him to follow N’kosi into the house.
Campbell turned to watch her cross the lawn.
“Lovely young woman,” Jock said.
“Mmm.” Campbell glanced at Morag, busily feeding the peacock and his mate, laughing at their eagerness.
“It’s time to let the past go, Dan,” Jock said softly.
“And the present?” Campbell asked. “Can I embroil her in all this?”
“You can get out of it—”
“No. I can’t. It’s the life I’ve chosen, Jock. A woman can’t share it. And, anyway, she’s got a career in America. She’d never give that up.”
“Maybe she’d surprise you.”
“I like her a lot.” Morag looked over at them. “I’d like to be an architect, you know.”
“Good idea. Maybe you could start by doing better at your math.” Grinning, Campbell checked his watch and rose to his feet. “I’m going down to the compound. Tell Cat, will you, Mogs? See you at dinner.”
In the office, Cat picked up the phone.
“Cat, honey, sorry to drag you back to business,” John Rifken’s voice said.
“You’re up early, John.” In Los Angeles, it was before 6:00 a.m. She wondered if there was a touch of asperity in John’s comment—he was used to seeing her in a rush of perpetual motion, nothing but business, and here she was having a vacation. “What’s up?”
A legal-size yellow pad was by the phone. She walked around the desk, sat down and reached for a pen.
“A board meeting’s been called. If you want this job, I think you’d better be there.”
“When?”
“They want it in four days, but I’m going to stall until you get here. That bastard Guitterrez is going behind my back on this one, and I don’t like it.” The heavy Texas humor was gone from his voice. “He wants this job, and he’s lining up support to get it. Looks like he’s done some research—he’s suggesting we bypass East Africa altogether. If we do go for another location, you’d be out.”
“You mean build elsewhere?”
“Yeah. Political situation all over Africa is a bitch, no one can disagree with that. But the little son of a bitch is politicking behind my back and I don’t like that. He’s going to have to find out who, exactly, he’s taking on.”
“John, I’m going to need time to prepare a professional presentation to the board—”
“You get home right away, you’ll have time for a preliminary report. That’s good enough. If this Maasai Springs deal looks promising, I’ll get you the time you need for professional presentations. Just get your ass home. Now, okay, kid? Don’t linger.”
“All right.”
“Good. See you in a couple of days, then. Have a good flight.”
Cat put the phone down. It was over, she thought. Time had run out. Finish.
She sat back in the chair, breathing deeply. If her idyll was over, so was her search for the truth about Joel’s death. And what had she learned? Not much. All she had was a new set of questions. If she wanted answers, she had to have them now. Not in Nairobi. She couldn’t wait for Father Gaston, or N’toya, or anyone else.
Her eyes dropped to the drawer in which she had discovered Joel’s photographs. On impulse, she tugged at the knob. The drawer was locked.
Cat reached across the desk for the paper knife, pushed the tip into the space between the drawer and the desk, sliding it along to tap against the lock. Nothing. Quickly, she straightened a paper clip, inserted the wire into the lock. One eye on the door, she jiggled the paper clip—this worked on her desk at home. But not here.
Frustrated, she picked up the paper knife again, slid it harder against the lock. Nothing happened. She knelt in front of the drawer, concentrating. The wood creaked ominously under the knife, and she stopped before it splintered, considering for a moment what it was she was doing. She was jimmying open a pr
ivate desk! A desk in her lover’s home.
The hell with it. Where were the rest of Joel’s photographs?
She ran her hand under the desk, feeling for a taped key.
And found it.
Heart pounding, she went to the door, cracked it. The house was quiet. Everyone was still outside having tea. Quickly, she returned to the desk, inserted the key. The drawer slid open. She reached into the deep space, sorting through the folders, lifting the thickest onto the floor, crouching beside it. The file was bulky with photographs.
A record of slaughter, mostly elephants, great hacking wounds where tusks had once been. But they were Joel’s work, she was sure of it. Sickened, she started to shuffle them back into the file. Then suddenly, she was staring at a snapshot of five men, grim-faced, armed, unposed. But Joel had not taken this. He was in the foreground, half turned to the camera. The others were Campbell, Tom M’Bala, another man she didn’t recognize but who looked enough like Tom M’Bala to be his brother. And Stephen N’toya.
Stephen N’toya, the man Campbell had repeatedly denied he knew. Stunned, she sat back on her heels, oblivious to her surroundings.
Voices in the hall grabbed her attention. Morag’s high laughter, Jock’s lower tone. Hands shaking, Cat folded the picture, shoved it inside her pants, flat against her belly. She closed the file, pushed it back into the drawer, eased the drawer closed. Then she got up and sat in the chair.
Not a moment too soon. After a tap at the door, Morag opened it, poked her head into the room.
“Dan said to tell you he’ll be back in a couple of hours. Gone off to do some farm thing or other.” She started to withdraw her head, then changed her mind. She came into the room. “Did you have bad news, Cat? You look all white and shaky.”
“A bit tired, I guess. It was a long ride, I haven’t been on a horse for a while.”
“Old Jock can really wear you down, can’t he? All that about cattle with runny sores and the squits. Ugh! You better take a rest before dinner. Unless you fancy a nice quiet game of Scrabble?” She sounded doubtful, a dutiful hostess doing her best.