The Greystoke Legacy (10 page)

“What are you doing?” she screamed. “Let me dow—”

The word was sucked from her lips as Tarzan vaulted up, using one hand to pull them to the next branch, muscular legs carrying them higher. Tarzan moved without thought, using one tree branch to bounce to another in rapid succession. It reminded Jane of the acrobatic parkour free runners who used to attend her school, back when she had a life.

Within seconds they had reached the top of the tree and Tarzan dropped her lightly onto a branch.

Jane was fuming. “Are you crazy?” She had vague recollections of moving rapidly through the treetops when Tarzan had first saved her, but had put that down to a hallucination. “Take me back down!”

She made the mistake of looking down as she said it. They must have been forty feet off the ground and the tree leaned out over the plateau offering a head-spinning drop of another 130 feet. Jane was usually good with heights, but standing on the narrow limb made her legs buckle. Tarzan caught her before she could fall.

“I don't want to be up here! You said we're going to D'Arnot.”

Tarzan's grip was like iron. He didn't waver in the slightest. His piercing eyes sparkled mischievously.

“D'Arnot, this way.” He pointed across the jungle.

Jane didn't follow his finger in case it triggered another bout of vertigo. “That's great. How are we going to get there?”

Tarzan effortlessly pulled Jane's arms around his neck and firmly linked them.

“Hold. Tight.”

A sense of foreboding overwhelmed Jane as she began to suspect Tarzan really was the maniac she had initially assumed. He straightened up—a simple act that swept Jane off her feet. She dangled behind him, not daring to let go.

“Are you crazy?” she yelled as Tarzan sprinted to the edge of the branch—and jumped.

R
obbie strained to hear the river—that at least would give him a direction to walk in. The blind sprint from the rampaging hippopotamus had confounded his sense of direction. After cautiously retracing his steps he failed to locate the river, which meant he wasn't retracing his steps at all. Clark had drummed into him the importance of leaving a trail to follow back and now Robbie understood just how vital that was.

The jungle floor had been gently climbing for the last couple of hours as he followed the animal trails that provided the path of least resistance. Now the trails had become steeper. A clearing in the jungle offered a tantalizing view—he was walking up the flanks of a ponderous mountain, the top of which was smothered in cloud.

“You've got to be kidding me,” he said to the jungle at large.

He couldn't recall seeing mountains from the camp, and reason dictated that the river would be at the foot of the mountain so he made the decision to turn around and walk back. The very notion filled him with despair, not for his own safety, but for how he had let Jane down.

Before he started retracing his steps he found a boulder to sit on and pulled out his trail mix, the only thing he had eaten all day. His mind drifted to his first days in Africa. What had he expected to find? A new life certainly, but
this
? He shook his head sadly. Running away had been an impulsive act, just like searching for Jane. But he was impetuous, that's why he'd left New York far behind. His mother's drinking problem had blinded her to the actions of their abusive stepfather. And Sophie . . . a chill ran through him when he thought of his sister.

The snap of branches brought him back to the present; something was approaching. He ducked behind the boulder. Whatever it was, it was big and it was advancing from the other side of the clearing.

Bushes swayed as more branches cracked—and the largest man Robbie had ever seen stepped out of the undergrowth, a curved kukri in one hand and an automatic rifle in the other. Five more men followed him into the clearing, all wearing sweat-stained khaki shirts and caps and equally well armed. They spoke fragments of French and Kikongo, which Robbie had heard in the villages, but English was the common tongue amongst them.

Robbie assumed they were rangers and, while relieved, wondered what excuse he could give for being lost in the jungle without betraying his friends.

The men looked around the glade and started arguing, buying Robbie more time to think of an excuse as he eavesdropped. But he soon realized that these men weren't rangers, they were rebels.

“Next man to complain gets a bullet to the head!” snarled the lead brute.

“Come on, Bapoto, you know this is a waste of time,” muttered a scrawny man who sported burn marks on his neck.

Bapoto hefted the point of his kukri close to the man's chest.

“Shut your face, Oudry, or I'll finish the job the fire started!” he snarled.

“Easy!” said Oudry fearfully, his hands raised to placate Bapoto. “I meant they're just a bunch of loggers.”

Robbie pressed himself to the ground as low as he could. The boulder and tall grass was the only cover he had; the distance to the dense jungle was too far for him to reach without being spotted. He cursed the bad luck that had led them to cross paths in the sprawling wilderness. He shouldn't have used the animal trails—they were the pathways used by both predators and prey and that was asking for trouble. And now he'd found it.

Bapoto sheathed his kukri and slung his rifle over a broad shoulder before taking a long swig from his water bottle. He poured a little over his forehead before he spoke again.

“Tafari wants a message delivered, and that's what we do.”

Robbie's pulse quickened. So, they'd attacked the camp and kidnapped Jane just to send a message? He fought the compulsion to attack the men right now—he wouldn't stand a chance against them. He controlled his anger—maybe if he followed them he would be led to Jane.

Bapoto spat on the ground. “If they're dumb enough to try an' sabotage our jeeps, then we put them outta business,
comprenez
?”

Robbie was suddenly confused—
their
jeeps? They were having problems with a saboteur too?

“Might not have been them, Bapoto,” cautioned another man. “You know that.”

“
Negoogunogumbar
,” muttered a fourth man.

“Don't mention that name out here,” warned Bapoto. He looked around the trees with genuine fear. “It ain't no spirit.”

“You sure of that?” asked Oudry, glad to see the lieutenant was frightened of something. “'Cause we're about to go to war over it.”

“Not war,” growled Bapoto. “Just a warnin'.”

“Could have delivered a warning by driving there,” mumbled Oudry.

“We want to take 'em by surprise! They'd see us coming on the main track, so we take the long path and we don't whine about it!”

Robbie gasped. They were heading toward Karibu Mji for an attack. He mentally put the pieces together. The rebels had been attacked and thought it was the loggers . . . which meant there was a third party involved. It also meant the rebels hadn't kidnapped Jane . . .

Bapoto had stopped talking and was looking around the clearing as if he'd heard Robbie. Robbie ducked and prayed he hadn't been spotted. No sound came from the men and he could only imagine they were all peering in his direction.

Grass rustled. Somebody was approaching. He could hear the soft squelch of heavy boots on the damp ground. Then they stopped—and Robbie realized he was holding his breath.

“Get movin'!” growled Bapoto. “Want to reach 'em before dawn tomorrow!”

Robbie peeked over the rock. Bapoto had walked half the distance toward him, but was now turned to face his men. With a collective groan the rebels continued across the glade at an angle to Robbie. He kept himself low, ducking again at the last moment when Bapoto turned and scanned the clearing before disappearing into the trees.

So the rebels hadn't kidnapped Jane; that much was clear. So was she lost? Had she already arrived back at the camp? Or was a mysterious third party responsible for abducting her, the same saboteurs who had attacked Karibu Mji and Tafari's camp? Robbie shook his head. The rebels and the loggers shared the same problem but neither realized it.

With a heavy heart he knew it was time to abandon his search for Jane. He had to follow the guerrillas back to Karibu Mji and warn his friends before violence broke out.

•••

Their speed was incalculable. Jane tried to close her eyes to blot out the death-defying leaps, but couldn't. Colorful birds shot out of their path as Tarzan rushed through their domain and the occasional bright green or red feather would catch in Jane's hair.

Tarzan landed in the treetops that clung to the side of the slope twenty feet below them. There was no jarring impact, instead the branches bent under the weight and cushioned their fall. Before they had even stopped, Tarzan was already running along the boughs, his balance perfect even with Jane wrapped around his shoulders.

He vaulted into another tree further down the incline, occasionally using his arms to swing them across a gap or to ascend higher.

Utilizing this combination of running, leaping, and swinging he used the trees as stepping-stones until they reached the lofts of mighty trees lining the bank of the fast-flowing river that poured from the caldera lake. On these thick branches Tarzan easily hopped from one tree to another, sometimes descending into the heart of the trees—forcing Jane to duck as branches whipped her cheek and ear. Several times they crossed the river, keeping high and safe in the trees.

Tarzan continued for half an hour without slowing his pace. Jane might well have been as light as cotton, as he never had to stop to reposition her. This allowed Jane time to appreciate her position, when she wasn't ducking from whipping branches. The ground sped by at an alarming rate, and she could only marvel how much distance they had covered. She suspected Tarzan could cover a day's jungle trek in mere hours through the canopy.

Tarzan jumped again—and Jane's stomach dropped as they plummeted toward the earth. This time it looked as though Tarzan had misjudged his position within the trees. They were freefalling straight toward a smaller treetop—

Leaves cracked past them as the canopy took the brunt of the fall. Jane had a fleeting glimpse of a troop of red colobus monkeys shrieking as they dropped through. Tarzan's steely grip snagged a vine to arrest their fall, and they were suddenly swinging horizontally. The abrupt change of direction almost made Jane let go. They swung in a wide arc before Tarzan released the vine and gently dropped into a glade of stunning yellow flowers. Jane slid from his back, feeling a little dizzy, and watched hundreds of brightly colored butterflies take to the air all around them. It was a wondrous sight.

She looked at Tarzan in confusion. “Are we resting here?” He wasn't out of breath and wore a stoic expression despite the beauty around them. “I thought we were going to D'Arnot?”

“D'Arnot.” He gestured across the glade.

“This place?” Jane sagged in disappointment that she wasn't being returned to her father. She sat down on a mound of dirt and clutched her head. “I don't feel too good. I thought D'Arnot was a town.”

Tarzan frowned and pointed to the dirt she was sitting on. “D'Arnot.”

Jane was ready to vent her frustration at the imbecile. She no longer cared how strong he was . . . then she noticed bony fingers poking from the dirt beneath her.

She sprang off the mound; her sharp movements displaced more earth and revealed a fragment of a human skull beneath.

It was D'Arnot.

•••

“He came this way,” said Mister David. He was hunched on the ground examining the remains of a campfire.

“You're certain it was him?” asked Archie.

Mister David gestured to the fire, the discarded energy-bar wrapper and the roughly hacked bushes around them. “An elephant would leave less mess.”

“Anybody with him?”

Mister David shook his head. “Robbie followed the river, probably thinking Jane was taken that way. Or swept away.”

Archie had been watching the river but didn't recognize a single turn or kink as they followed it. “And do you think she could have been swept away?” Archie tried to keep the tension from his voice; it was something that had been festering at the back of his mind since they had discovered no evidence of kidnappers.

Mister David considered this. “Yes. Nowhere for her to go ashore, so Robbie followed the river. I would do the same.”

Clark stood on the banks of the river, studying the current. “Then we can make more time on the water. Get the raft out.”

The raft would only take seven, so four of his men would have to return to Karibu Mji as they had to leave room if they found Robbie and Jane. Archie asked for two volunteers to continue searching. Anil, the logger from India, readily agreed; he had always enjoyed Robbie's company and was concerned. The other volunteer was Serge, a close friend of Mister David who shared his taste for adventure.

It took forty minutes to clear a path to the river and set the raft up on the shore. Provisions were refreshed from the four returning loggers, who stayed until the five men were pushed out on the raft.

The strong current gripped the light inflatable and the two oarsmen—Clark near the front and Serge at the back—struggled with the telescopic paddles to keep the boat straight. With the exception of Clark, no man was particularly adept at handling the craft, so they collided with several half-submerged logs—one of which Serge hit with his paddle in the mistaken belief it was a crocodile.

Their pace increased. With only the sound of splashing oars and the monkeys and birds around them, it would have been a pleasant excursion if not for the urgency that propelled them from one meandering bend to the next.

Mister David crouched at the prow, his keen eyes scanning the water and riverbank for and any signs of Robbie or Jane.