I check my watch. It’s been nineteen hours. An hour or so ago, the sun rose in my eyes. I was never so glad to be blinded by the sun. I spot a few ships below, so I’m hopeful that I’m on course.
There! I glimpse something through the wisps of fog. There it is again: the cliffs of Newfoundland. I’m exhausted and frozen, but I feel a triumph that I haven’t felt since my first lion hunt.
They said it couldn’t be done. J. C. thought I was going to my death. Even my dear Tom wasn’t sure I could succeed. Sitting in my cabin, I revel in the sun-light. I can see land. I’m following the wind and by my calculations, my last tank is three-quarters full.
The cliffs come closer and I’m busy calculating the distance to New York, a smile plastered across my face. I begin to sing a Nandi marching song, my voice cracking after the long solitary journey. I’ve made it.
When I was a child, the only stories my father told me were from mythology. I should have remembered that only the gods have the right to be confident.
The engine begins to spit and cough.
Phut, phut.
There’s no more fuel. And I’m only human, like poor reckless Icarus.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE FROSTY MIST ROSE SLOWLY OFF THE GROUND AND FLOATED around them, seeking the sun. It would burn off soon enough, but for now, Beryl and her father were trapped in a fog where the only sound was the clopping of their horses’ hooves. Beryl felt the pressure shift in the air and spotted a stork with its enormous wingspan gliding above her head. Its flight was soundless. She remembered another ride she had once taken with her father.
“If we keep up this pace, we’ll be at the Elkingtons’ for lunch.” Her father’s voice broke the silence like an egg cracking.
“It’s a good thing that Emma and Little A decided not to come. They’d need the wagon, and it would take twice as long,” Beryl added, watching her father’s profile. Was it true that Emma wasn’t welcome?
Staring straight ahead into the gloom, her father said, “Emma preferred to stay home and get some housecleaning done.”
“How much more cleaning can she do?” Beryl asked.
“Never mind. Let’s just ride.”
Her father had returned from his trip with the settlers a week earlier, but he had still not said a word about the incident with Mehru. Waiting for him to bring up the subject, Beryl felt as though her saddle was made of tacks.
To distract herself, she stole sidelong glances to see how the Captain sat on the Baron. Beryl deliberately lengthened her reins like his, resettled herself in the saddle several times to imitate him, and practically sprained her ankles trying to keep her heels pointed down as his were. Luckily, Wee McGregor was tolerant of all her wiggling.
“Beryl, stop fidgeting. You’ll drive that pony to distraction,” her father snapped.
“Sorry, Daddy.” But Beryl couldn’t help smiling; it was such a relief to have him scold her as he usually did.
As the sun rose in the sky, Green Hills Farm was lost behind them in the summer haze, but there were still hours of riding before they would arrive at the Elkington farm. Her father reined in his gelding to ride close to her. He sighed. “You look like a wrinkled sack. Would it have been so difficult to dress up today?”
“What else should I wear? It’s a long ride.” Beryl’s khaki trousers and white linen shirt were identical to her father’s, except his had creases in all the right places. He had never abandoned the discipline he learned in the army. She tried to smooth out the wrinkles, but soon gave up.
The tranquil landscape was suddenly shaken by a lion’s roar. The deep sound was several miles off, but the horses skittered nervously. Wee McGregor grabbed the bit between his teeth and tried to bolt, but Beryl was prepared for his tricks.
“That’s Paddy,” she said cheerfully, holding tight to the reins and pulling Wee McGregor around in a circle to keep him from running off.
“Jim Elkington is a fool,” said the Captain, smacking the top of the Baron’s head with a crop to bring him under control. “Whoever heard of naming a lion?”
“Paddy is Margaret’s pet,” Beryl said. “He’s perfectly tame; it’s not as though he’s a wild lion.”
Margaret was Jim Elkington’s daughter. When Paddy’s mother had been shot, Margaret had saved the cub by hand-feeding it from a bottle with milk and eggs. The lion had reached full growth by eating meat that Elkington’s workers caught for him.
Beryl was fascinated by Paddy. She had often watched the lion wandering Mr. Jim’s farm like an emperor surveying his domain. He always walked alone. He had never seen the inside of a cage, but he reeked of humans and he would never be accepted by wild lions.
Her father snorted. “A tame lion is an unnatural lion—and untrustworthy. Beryl, don’t you ever forget that.”
“I’m not afraid,” she assured him.
The Captain pulled his horse in front of Beryl’s and grabbed Wee McGregor’s bridle. “Young lady, I know you’re brave enough. Going on that fool lion hunt proved that. But even warriors show some caution. Watch yourself around that lion.”
She nodded without saying anything. He stared at her with his stern gray eyes, unsatisfied with what he saw. “Beryl Clutterbuck, I’m not certain the Le May woman was totally at fault. I think you asked for the trouble she gave you.”
“But Daddy! She was awful!”
“And ugly to boot. But don’t tell Emma I said so.” They grinned at each other. “And I know you were just defending yourself from that boy, what was his name?”
“Mehru.”
“But you seem to find danger wherever you go. Today, let’s not go looking for it, all right?”
Beryl bobbed her head more enthusiastically this time. The Captain kicked his horse into a canter. The sun beating down on their backs, they galloped toward the roaring of the tame lion.
They arrived at the farm in the middle of the afternoon. The Captain’s new Indian servant, Bishon Singh, had arrived the night before and was waiting for them. He held their bridles as they dismounted. Mr. Jim came down from the house to greet them. He was a bald man and very round—but his roundness was muscle, not fat. His belt was a strip of rhino leather he had cured himself. His kiboko, cut from the same rhino hide, was coiled and hung on a loop at his hip. Mr. Jim was no gentleman farmer, ordering the natives to do the dangerous work—he did it himself.
His daughter, Margaret, trailed behind her bulky father, almost hopping with excitement at seeing Beryl. She waited for the adults to walk away and then rushed up to Beryl, who was sitting on the edge of a trough pulling off her sweaty riding boots, followed by her dirty socks.
“Hello, Beryl.” Margaret looked down at Beryl’s bare feet with a frown crinkling her pale forehead.
“Margaret,” Beryl replied.
“I thought you’d never get here,” she said. “You haven’t been here in almost a year.”
Beryl said indifferently, “You could always visit us.”
Margaret shook her head, “Oh, no. My mother would never permit it.”
“Why not?” Beryl asked.
“She says your household is irregular.” Margaret sounded puzzled, as though she were parroting an adult conversation she hadn’t understood.
“What does that mean?” Beryl asked warily.
“I don’t know.” Margaret twirled around, making her skirt flare. “Do you like my new dress?” She wore a frilly white tea dress and a straw hat with another white ribbon around the crown, carefully protecting her skin from the sun.
Mrs. Elkington often said that Margaret and Beryl could be twins, since they were both tall with long blond hair. But Beryl’s hair was a wild mess, while Margaret’s was neatly plaited with white ribbons.
“It’s only last year’s fashion,” Margaret said proudly.
“It’s very nice,” Beryl lied.
“I wish we could get the latest styles more quickly—it takes forever!”
“Why do you care about what’s fashionable tw
o continents away?”
“You don’t know anything, Beryl.”
“I know that fashion is stupid.” Beryl started toward the house.
“Didn’t you bring shoes?” Margaret asked.
“Why?” Beryl asked. She looked down at her stained and callused feet. “I always walk barefoot. You couldn’t stalk a warthog with your squeaky boots.”
“Why would I…Never mind, Beryl. I don’t know why I bothered. Come have tea; I baked shortbread and gingersnaps.”
After the long ride, the thought of cakes and biscuits set Beryl’s mouth to watering, so she willingly followed Margaret behind their house. Beryl always laughed when she saw their garden. Mrs. Elkington had tried to create an English garden with white-painted lawn furniture and a bone china tea set. The illusion worked, until you looked beyond the patch of cultivated grass that needed hand watering from the well twice a day in the dry season. Africa didn’t go away just because you pretended it wasn’t there.
The men gathered in a circle around her father. The Captain chuckled at one of Mr. Jim’s jokes. Next to Mr. Jim’s cannonball shape, the Captain looked like a white Nandi warrior, straight as a spear. Beryl sidled over to listen. They were talking solemnly of politics in faraway England, the price of grain, and the prospects for the Nairobi St. Leger horse race. The few women present were fussing about a table covered in blindingly white linen. Beryl examined the treats they were arranging on platters, pretending not to notice how the adult women were looking her over and exchanging knowing glances.
Margaret began pouring tea from a silver pot and offering one lump or two of sugar to the guests. Beryl hovered, waiting for her sweets so she could escape. Even though the party was outside, she found it hard to breathe. The conversation, the manners, even the bone china seemed to suck away her air. She practically grabbed a plate out of Margaret’s hands and backed quickly away, mumbling her thanks. Reaching the veranda, she edged around the corner. Out of sight of the others, she shoved the pastries in her mouth. Licking her lips, she took a good look around.
The Elkington farm was at the edge of the Kikuyu Reserve. The country looked different here. There was no forest, just plains. Beryl began to explore, her body carving its way through the hazy air like the sharp edge of her knife. As she ran through a stand of trees, her feet crunched the dead cicadas on the ground. What she found on the other side stopped her in her tracks.
Paddy the lion was sprawled there without a care in the world.
As lions go, he was quite small. But the last time she had faced a lion, Arap Maina and Tepli had been there. And they had nearly died. Paddy was only a few yards away; nothing compared to the distance he could leap if he chose. She stared at his black mane and his rusty red fur. She remembered stroking that fur when he was a cub.
“Remember me, Paddy?” she whispered. “We used to be friends.”
He lifted his large head and stared at Beryl through his heavy-lidded yellow eyes. The only sound she heard was the thumping of his tail on the dry ground. Beryl fought to control the panic welling up in her stomach.
Very casually, almost as if she were scratching an itch, she reached down to her calf and pulled her knife out of its sheath. Her father’s description of a tame lion, “untrustworthy,” hung in the haze. Paddy shimmered in the waves of heat. She took careful, measured steps and started to walk past him.
To show Paddy that she was not afraid, she began to sing a marching song that Arap Maina had taught her. She sang in Swahili, so Paddy would be sure to understand.
Kali coma simba sisi
A sikari yoti ni udari!
Fierce like the lion are we,
Warriors, all are brave.
Perhaps she imagined it, but the tuft at the end of Paddy’s weighty tail seemed to beat time with her song. Her voice cracking with the strain of sounding braver than she felt, she went past him, up the hill, out of his line of sight.
Once on the other side of the hill, she bent over, breathing deeply to settle her stomach. She had been lucky, she thought, as she replaced her knife in its sheath. Looking out over the hot and dry horizon, she noticed that there was no wind to stir the grass. For all its teeming life, Africa was often silent, as it was that day.
Beryl began to practice running on the balls of her feet, quietly, as Tepli had taught her. Suddenly, she heard a low growl behind her. She whirled around. Paddy raced up the hill toward her, making hardly any noise. He gathered his haunches and leapt. Beryl went down under his massive paws as easily as if she were a gazelle. His large fangs sank into the flesh of her right leg.
Paddy lifted his head and slammed Beryl onto the earth. Beryl opened her mouth to scream, but her cry was ground into the dirt. Paddy’s musky smell blocked everything else. His weight settled on her back; she could feel the claws of his hind paws behind her neck. An immense roar became her whole world.
From very far away, she could hear the voices of men. Bishon Singh was shrieking for help. Mr. Jim’s shouts were punctuated with the whistling crack of his kiboko.
Paddy’s teeth slipped out of Beryl’s calf as he turned his heavy head to look at the intruder. The pain in her leg stabbed like a knife. Her body shook with the rumbling of his angry growl. Suddenly, his claws were pushing off Beryl’s body as he abandoned his prey and faced the new enemy.
Beryl dared to open her eyes in time to see Mr. Jim rush headlong at Paddy. But Paddy didn’t back down. Beryl struggled to stand on her throbbing leg. Her head swam. Suddenly Bishon Singh’s hands were on her, scooping her off the ground. He threw her over his shoulder and started running.
As she bounced, she could see Mr. Jim and Paddy circling each other like duelists. Paddy roared his terrible roar. To Beryl’s surprise, Mr. Jim lost his nerve. He dropped the whip and clambered up the nearest tree.
Then Bishon Singh carried her away and all was nothingness.
“So what happened next?” Beryl asked Bishon Singh. She lay in a soft bed in a room with white organza curtains. Her wounds were bandaged, and her head was befuddled with liberal doses of whiskey administered to numb the pain.
Bishon Singh dipped his head so low that Beryl feared his massive turban might tumble off. “Miss Beryl, I was happy with the duty of advising your father that you had been moderately eaten by the large lion. Your father returned very fast. But the large lion has not returned at all.”
The next day, Margaret came in to change Beryl’s bandages.
“Hello, Margaret,” Beryl said cheerfully. “How’s Paddy?”
“They didn’t find him until yesterday,” she said. “But only after he killed a cow, a horse, and a bullock.”
Beryl burst out laughing. “I’ve always thought that meat you hunted yourself tasted better.”
“You don’t understand, Beryl.” Margaret looked up from Beryl’s leg, where she was unwinding the bandages. Her eyes were red from weeping. “Papa says he has to stay in a cage now. Forever!”
Beryl was silent, remembering how she felt when Miss Le May locked her in her hut.
Margaret went on, “And it’s all your fault!”
“My fault?” Beryl asked, suddenly angry. “I was mauled!”
“You know better than to tempt Paddy like that—running past him like a rabbit in those bare feet. He was a good lion until you came.”
Beryl started to protest, but stopped. If she hadn’t been so reckless, would Paddy have attacked?
Margaret finished unwrapping Beryl’s leg. She looked down at the assortment of punctures. “It’s only a scratch,” she sniffed. “It’s not like you won’t be able to walk.”
Beryl sat up and looked down at the ugly red wounds. “Are you insane? Paddy tried to eat me!”
“And thanks to you, he’ll die in a cage!” And to Beryl’s surprise, Margaret burst into tears and ran howling out of the room.
A few days later, Beryl was well enough to ride home. She followed Paddy’s plaintive roar to find the noble beast imprisoned in a too-small cage behind the st
ables. When Paddy saw Beryl, he stopped roaring and stared at her with dulled eyes.
Beryl’s own eyes filled with tears as she saw that he no longer looked at her as prey. “I’m sorry, Paddy,” she whispered. “I know you were just taking your chance to be a wild lion.”
“His only chance, as it turns out.” The Captain came up behind her. “Jim Elkington promises to keep him locked up for good.”
Beryl felt a pang in her chest. “Oh, Daddy, he couldn’t help attacking me—it’s in his nature.”
“Just as it is in yours to risk your neck. Well, no more. I’m clipping your wings.”
Promise the Night Page 15