A Touch of Betrayal (11 page)

“I don’t care if you could pay me ten thousand dollars— or ten dollars. My friend Kakombe is bringing his father over from the
kraal
to meet me this afternoon. He’s a respected elder. If he gives his permission, I’ll be issued a formal invitation to an
Eunoto
—an elder-initiation ceremony. To me, that opportunity is worth more than any amount of money you could offer.”

“I see.”

“Now if you wouldn’t mind getting back into the Land Rover, I’ll drive you the rest of the way to Oloitokitok so you can call this broker who’s so important to you. I don’t want to miss my afternoon meeting.”

Without answering, she climbed in and shut the door behind her. Grant walked behind the vehicle, wondering if he had somehow put his foot in his mouth again. Probably. He’d never been known for finesse. Well, if she was mad, she’d get over it. In a day or two he’d pack her off to Nairobi, and Alexandra Prescott would never cross his mind again.

All the same, her silence made him feel increasingly uncomfortable as the Land Rover climbed the mountain. “Are you okay?” he asked finally.

“Yes,” she said.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Those seven socks you own.”

He glanced over to find a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I think a vervet monkey stole number eight off the clothesline,” he said. “That’s what I get for washing them.”

Her laughter filled the Land Rover with a warm, joyful sound that danced into his chest. It twined with his powerful need to protect and formed a slender vine that began to curl around the edges of his heart. And suddenly he wasn’t so sure about anything.

Alexandra stood inside a cement-block office in the little town of Oloitokitok and listened to the overseas telephone operator tell her—repeatedly—that all international circuits were busy at this time. Across the room, Grant was speaking to an African man about the pipeline that carried water from the snows of Kilimanjaro down to the main highway and the town of Emali. From there, it was piped to Nairobi—melted snow that was a primary source of drinking water for an equatorial city.

The whole experience of Africa seemed unreal to Alexandra. Things had come at her so unexpectedly that she felt off-balance. She was supposed to be on a planned tour. Hotels. Meals. Guides. Everything had been scheduled and organized to maximize her exposure to the Dark Continent.

Exposure to the Dark Continent? What a joke! She had gotten to know the real Africa by walking alone through the brush in the middle of the night, being attacked by wild dogs, drinking milk and blood from a dried gourd, and traveling on a cowhide stretcher carried by a band of native warriors. Oddest of all was how natural this world seemed to the American man who had become her guide and helper.

As she stood listening to the operator try to place her call, Alexandra studied Grant Thornton from a distance. He stood chatting with the official, his hands illustrating the point he made with his words. How badly she had misjudged him that evening at the airport. Grant wasn’t a derelict. He fit perfectly into this life. He blended.

If she looked at him from that perspective, Alexandra realized, Grant was a very attractive man. Tall and broad shouldered, he had the build of an athlete. He was clearly accustomed to walking long distances, and he knew how to survive in the most rugged environments. He willingly ate whatever was on hand, whether it was a handful of candy bars or a hearty African stew. Comfortable with himself, he wore clothing that fit his lifestyle.

She recalled the tailored, starched, and pressed businessmen she passed on the streets of New York. The choking neckties. The women with their moussed and sprayed hairdos. The tight skirts. The uncomfortable shoes. Odd that such apparel had once seemed so right, so perfect, in her mind. Now it seemed almost silly.

She glanced at the tire sandals strapped to her feet, and a bubble of giddiness rose up inside her. What on earth would her associates think if they could see Alexandra Prescott now? She wiggled her toes. No polish. She hadn’t had a dusting of powder on her face for days, and her skin was still a bright pink. What must Grant think of her? She glanced at him again, and at his acknowledging tip of the head, something warm curled around the pit of her stomach. Startled at her own response, she turned away, her hand damp on the receiver.

“Hello,” a voice said on the other end of the line. “James Cooper and Company. May I help you?”

The real world slammed back into place. “Yes, I need to speak with James Cooper’s secretary, please,” Alexandra said. “I’m calling long distance.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Mr. Cooper’s secretary is on vacation this week. May I take a message, or would you prefer to speak to Mr. Cooper’s voice mail?”

“This is Alexandra Prescott. Did he leave any messages for me?”

“One moment, please.” An infuriating silence passed before the receptionist returned to the phone. When she did, her voice was clearly flustered. “Uh, Miss Prescott . . . Mr. Cooper did leave you a message a few days ago. Would you like for me to read it?”

“Of course.”

“It says: ‘Alexandra, please don’t worry about anything. I’m taking care of things on this end. Relax, and have fun.’”

“That’s it? He didn’t say anything about my account?”

“No, ma’am . . . but yesterday he called in and left word with us that he had heard you were missing . . . missing in Africa.”

“I had a problem, and I left my hotel without telling anyone. I know the authorities must be looking for me.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Alexandra said. “Listen, tell James I want to talk to him. Tell him . . . tell him I’ll try to call him in two days. Nine o’clock in the morning New York time. I need to talk to him. This is urgent. I need money. I need airline tickets. I need him to use his contacts to call off any search for me here in Kenya. He’s got to help me get out of this country. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, ma’am. Yes, of course,” she said. “I’ve written down everything. Where are you calling from? I mean, in case you don’t call him, maybe he could call you.”

“I’m in a little town in southern Kenya.” Alexandra spelled the name from the sign on the store across the street. “O-l-oi-t-o-k-i-t-o-k. But there’s no way he can reach me here. I’ll call him in a couple of days—either from here or Nairobi.”

“Yes, Miss Prescott. Uh, ma’am . . . are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’ll be all right when I can get back to New York.” She wound the cord around her finger, reluctant to let go of the sound of normalcy. “It’s hard to get through on these international phone lines. You make sure James is waiting for my call, okay?”

“He’s staying at a ranch in Arizona. I can’t give you the number, but he checks in every day. I can try to patch you together.”

“Tell him I need to know about my account. Specifics.”

“All right, Miss Prescott. Is there anything else?”

Alexandra searched her mind. Anything else? A thousand questions raced through her thoughts. Is it snowing there? How’s the food at that little bistro down the street? Are the trains running on time? What’s the best play on Broadway these days? Could you send out for some Chinese?

“That’s all,” she said softly. And her heart whispered,
Don’t forget about me.

“I’ll convey your message, Miss Prescott.”

“Good-bye then.” Alexandra pressed down the plunger and heard the line go dead.

“
Memsahib
Prescott?” The African official touched her on the arm.

“What?” Her heart hammering, she searched the room. “Where’s Grant?”

“He has gone to the petrol station,” the man told her. He gave her a friendly smile that revealed his two missing lower incisors. His shoulder-length earlobes dangled as he handed her a bottle of warm Coca-Cola. “You wish to drink, madam? Very good. Just like America!”

S
IX

Late that afternoon Grant sat outside his tent with five elders from the nearby
kraal
. Kakombe, who had remained at the
kraal
with his fellow warriors in preparation for the
Eunoto
, had also joined the meeting. The discussion of whether to allow Grant to attend the ceremony had gone on for hours, in traditional Maasai fashion. Each elder wanted to have his say before a consensus was reached. They had permitted Grant to sit in on the meeting. He was allowed to speak on his own behalf and explain why he wanted to go to the initiation rite and what he planned to do with the information he obtained.

Eventually, his backside numb and his legs cramped from sitting on the low wooden stool, Grant found his attention wandering toward the spreading acacia tree under which Mama Hannah and Alexandra Prescott were seated. The older woman had her little Bible in hand. She looked up from her reading, and the two women appeared to discuss something for a few minutes, nodding their heads and chuckling over some bit of humor they had shared. Then Alexandra began to sing. Soon Mama Hannah joined her. The lilting sound drifted over to the Maasai elders, who stopped their discussion to listen.

“What do they sing?” Kakombe’s father, Sentero, asked Grant in the Maasai language.

Grant absorbed the song for a moment. “It’s called ‘Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man.’ It’s a children’s song about God.”

The men grunted in understanding. In the
kraals
, their women often sang about God. “But who is this Zacchaeus?” Sentero asked. “Was he an elder? Did God, the powerful knowing one, speak to him?”

“Jesus Christ spoke to him.”

The men conferred for a moment. “Yes, Jesus Christ is the Son of God,” Sentero announced. “Jesus Christ is the one who offered the great sacrifice. Instead of slaughtering a bullock or a goat, he permitted himself to be sacrificed for the sin of the people.”

“Who told you the story of the sacrifice?” Grant asked.

“We heard the news from the great missionary Cummins,” Sentero said. “He was the man who first brought the message of Jesus Christ to the Maasai of Kaputei and Ngong-Magadi.”

Grant nodded. Though he’d never met Harold Cummins, he knew the fellow had been teaching and starting churches in Maasailand since the mid-1970s. The tribespeople revered the man.

“Sambeke Ole Kereya and I were among the first to step into the water for baptism,” Sentero went on. “By the time Cummins left us to live the years of his elderhood in America, thirty churches were meeting under the acacia trees or in small buildings. More than one thousand Maasai came to believe the words Cummins spoke. Oh yes, we know all about the Son of God.”

“And you believe this?”

“Certainly,” Sentero said. “We Maasai have always known about God, the splendor of the morning. We did not know his Son. Now many of us do.”

Grant felt inwardly numb as he turned toward the women singing under the tree. These Maasai elders believed in Jesus Christ? The same Jesus Christ whom Mama Hannah worshiped? And Alexandra Prescott had obviously bought into the story, too.

“There is some confusion among us on this matter,” another elder acknowledged. “We do understand about the great sacrifice. But Cummins and some of the others who believe in the Son of the Creator have told us that no man may marry more than one wife. How can this be so? A man must marry as many wives as he can afford, so that his children can care for his cattle.”

“You are asking the wrong man this riddle,” Sentero said. “This friend of ours does not have even
one
wife!”