The Greystoke Legacy (3 page)

Robbie knew this line of questioning would just land him in trouble with Jane.

“She was . . . y'know, same as usual,” he replied diplomatically.

Archie's face creased with concern, and Robbie felt a pang of jealousy—
it must be nice to have somebody worry about you. A father who cares for you and would never hurt you
. The kind of family he'd never had . . .

The buzz of Clark's chainsaw shattered the tranquility as he climbed onto the fallen tree and trimmed away the branches. Only one man was helping him, the other was staring up in the trees surrounding the clearing. Not wanting to pursue their conversation any further, Archie and Robbie followed the man's gaze but could see nothing of interest in the thick canopy around them. They slowly approached the man, who went by the name of Mister David. He was a local who Archie trusted enough to be the foreman. His focus on the canopy was intense, suspicious. Archie knew enough to trust local knowledge. Eastern Congo was a dangerous place to be. Drawing level with Mister David, Archie still could see nothing.

“What is it?” he whispered. “Another leopard?”

A leopard had hounded the loggers a few weeks ago. One of the workers had even been attacked so badly he'd lost an arm. Despite Archie's pleas not to kill the creature, he still remembered the day it had been carried into the camp with a bullet hole in the head. He also recalled the horrified expression on his daughter's face. She hadn't spoken to him for a week after that.

“No leopard,” whispered Mister David. No other explanation was forthcoming, but the apprehensive look on his face worried Archie.

“What is it then?” asked Robbie as he joined them.

“Not sure. Feels like . . . like we're being watched.”

The moment he said the words, Robbie felt his hackles rise. He couldn't see movement, but the sudden fear of being watched . . . of being stalked . . . overcame him.

There was something . . . or
somebody
there. Archie felt it too. A primal instinct warned of nearby danger.

Seconds passed; perhaps even a minute. Then a terrified wail echoed through the clearing. It took a second for Robbie to realize it was coming from behind. He whirled around to see Clark throw his chainsaw aside and leap off the tree. The other man was lying on the ground; even from this distance, Robbie could see he was covered in blood.

“Help me!” roared Clark.

Robbie sprinted over the uneven ground then suddenly halted at the grisly sight. The worker's shirt was ripped in a diagonal slash from left shoulder to his stomach and blood pumped from the wound. Clark's hands were already slick as he tried to apply pressure to keep the wound together. The man shook violently, shrieking with agony, and Robbie felt his stomach churn.

Archie and Mister David ran past him.

“How . . . ?” spluttered Archie as he knelt down.

“The chain snapped an' walloped him.”

Robbie shuddered—
that could have been me!

“Keep the pressure on; keep that wound closed. It's not deep. I don't think any arteries are severed.” Archie barked at Mister David: “Get me rope and leaves. The biggest leaves you can find.”

Archie moved fast. It had been a while since he'd practiced any of his medical skills. That had been another life; but the knowledge flooded back nevertheless.

So busy were the men saving a life, they didn't notice the subtle movement in the canopy high above. Robbie caught it though, just on the edge of his peripheral vision. It was too fleeting for him to believe it was anything more than his imagination.

He was wrong. They had been watched from the moment they had left Karibu Mji.

They had been watched . . . and they had been judged.

“A
lmost a day drivin' through that?” Clark growled, stabbing a finger toward the dirt trail that was rapidly disappearing into darkness as the sun set behind brooding charcoal clouds. “He'll be dead from fever before we hit the town!”

Archie and Clark had been locked in a fierce argument since they arrived back at Karibu Mji with the injured man. Archie had done all he could to dress the wound with a few vines and leaves, and a little more with the camp's medical kit, but it was far from enough. Robbie tried to force water between the man's lips and mumbled assurances to distract him from the argument. It reminded him too much of the violent arguments back home. Arguments that had led to bloodshed.

“It's worth the chance,” snapped Archie. “We're talking about a man's life!”

“Then what, eh? Another day with some charity doc before an air ambulance reaches him. Then we're talking about answerin' some tricky questions, aren't we, mate?”

Archie glowered as he watched Mister David tend to their patient, who had now passed out through blood loss. The silence only lasted a minute before Archie and Clark started again. Robbie knew that if their logging operation was discovered it would land them all a life sentence in some squalid, cramped Third-World cell. That's if they were lucky. He had heard reports of overzealous government teams who had shot first and asked questions later in a bid to stem illegal activities. And if they did manage to avoid the authorities they would still have to avoid the wrath of the guerrillas lurking in the jungle. The rebel soldiers of the FDLR were located close by and seldom hesitated in taking hostages or killing foreigners. One night, while tipsy, Clark had confided in Robbie that he and Archie had made a pact with the rebel leader, Tafari, offering kickbacks that allowed them to pillage the jungle while the rebels didn't interfere and kept any competition away. Robbie was in no doubt that the FDLR would come down on them hard if they did anything to threaten the guerrillas' security.

Mister David interrupted their bickering with a blunt message: The worker had died.

Nobody spoke. Robbie couldn't think of anything to say. He noticed Archie refused to meet Clark's eyes, and occupied himself by organizing a team of men to dig a grave away from Karibu Mji. Robbie had volunteered, but Clark had firmly told him to stand aside. Robbie was thankful; he had no real desire to perform the unpleasant task.

Archie said a few words as the man was lowered into the dirt. He didn't know much about the deceased; he even had to ask around for his name. The pseudonym “Frank” was offered by the closest person the dead man had to a friend. Most of the workers kept away as they thought attending funerals was a bad omen, so Archie filled in the grave alone. He stabbed the shovel repeatedly into the mound of earth with such fury that blisters formed on his hands as if the pain was his penance for not doing more to help the man.

By the time he'd finished the heavens had opened, turning the ground into mud and overflowing the camp's rudimentary drainage system. Water flowed between the huts, washing away any junk that wasn't tied down.

Archie walked to the bar to find Jane standing outside, soaking wet despite sheltering under the porch.

“What're you doing out in this?” he asked.

“I saw what you did, Archie,” was Jane's simple answer. She always called him Archie when she was annoyed, which was often.

Archie slicked back his wet hair and smiled at his daughter, a smile that didn't reach his eyes. “I did what I had to.”

“Really? If you hadn't started logging and dragged us all to the middle of this dump, he wouldn't have died!”

The comment stung Archie, and he had no easy reply.

“Why don't we go home, Dad?” It was almost a plea.

“Sweetheart, we've been through this . . .”

“No. You've been through this in your own head. You never listen to me! What if I got ill out here? Would you just let me die too?”

The sly blow hurt Archie, but he tried to hide it.

Jane was still fuming. “I hate it out here. I want to go back to the States! Don't you see how crazy this all is?”

“Go back to what?”

“We could find Mom,” Jane said in a hoarse whisper.

Archie watched the rain. There had been many iterations of this conversation. Sometimes shouting, sometimes whispered, none of them pleasant.

“She doesn't want to be found.”

“Maybe—”

“She left us
both
, Jane. All she left behind was pain and debt. You have no idea what I went through when we lost everything. Everything I had built for us. All gone because of her selfishness.”

“She left
you
!” spat Jane, tears in her eyes. “And then you forced me to leave everything! My friends, my life, for what? This?”

“
Us
. She left us. And ‘this' was an opportunity we needed. A last chance to leave our problems behind and create a new nest egg. To start all over.”

“By breaking the law?”

“Better I do it here than at home,” Archie replied quietly. It wasn't much of an argument, but it was the only one he had. “We desperately need the cash. You know that. Back home, I can't be a doctor again and I couldn't make a quarter of what I get here unless I started knocking over banks or dealing drugs—but I've got some morals, believe it or not. And I've got a duty to look after you.”

He saw Jane's fists bunch as she fought her emotions. Archie had always considered himself a good father, but that was before he was expected to raise a teenage daughter with a will stronger than his own. He was out of his depth. In the past he would have hugged her, but these days that usually triggered a tantrum. Instead he just stood and waited for Jane to respond.

She bit her lip and shivered. Her face was pale, her eyes luminous with tears she couldn't shed.

“You must be cold. Let's go inside,” she said quietly.

Archie hid his surprise. For once she was being reasonable. He hoped it was a sign of things to come.

The bar was swelteringly warm and unusually quiet, save for the continuous drumroll of rain on the iron roof. The entire workforce was here, staring thoughtfully into their beers. Robbie played pool with an Indian logger, Anil. The table was so old that patches of felt had torn away leaving black tarry streaks. Mister David sat solemnly in the corner with Serge, a logger who had joined the operation at the same time as him. Clark sat at the bar, already on his third beer. Jane sat next to him, her father on the other side.

“A beer for me and something for Jane,” said Archie. Esmée served behind the bar when she wasn't teaching and Jane judiciously avoided her gaze. Esmée popped the cap off a Tusker beer for Archie and gave Jane a bottle of cola, slamming it a little harder than usual on the bar.

Nobody said a word. Deaths in the jungle were frighteningly regular, and every couple of months somebody new would turn up as a replacement, lured by the cash the wood brought in.

Jane caught Robbie glancing over with the look of concern he wore every time she argued with Archie. He smiled, although the death had clearly shaken him. Jane smiled back and felt the sudden need to talk to a friend. A loud belch from Clark interrupted her reverie.

“Why do you do this?” Jane suddenly asked him.

Clark finished the dregs of his beer before answering. “Why do I drink or why am I out here rather than with a family back home?”

“Both.”

“Because the beer costs less.”

“That's lame.”

Clark had been a friend of her father's for many years. He was always traveling and, when Jane was younger, she used to enjoy his visits and stories of far-flung places. He had been responsible for suggesting he and Archie start logging in Africa to make their fortunes.

“Jane . . .” said Archie. He knew what she intended.

“It's OK,” said Clark, taking another beer that had been automatically replaced by Esmée. “I'm here because I plan to retire early. Go back to South Africa, buy a ranch . . . meet the right
bokkie
and have a dozen
pikkies
. Your problem, kiddo, is you think you're gonna be out here for ever, right?” Jane shrugged. Clark was the only person alive who could get away with calling her “kiddo.” “You're not lookin' at the bigger picture.”

“No, I'm looking at a blank canvas.”

Clark snorted with laughter, beer tickling the back of his nose. “Jeez, Arch, you really have a sharp one 'ere! Sarcastic wit and sharp tongue—that comes from your mother.” Jane was bemused by the remark, but Clark pushed on. “You'll be back home soon enough, the difference being, you'll go back rich because of your dad.” Clark extended his bottle and clinked Archie's beer, a simple act that immediately absolved their earlier argument.

“That doesn't matter . . .” began Jane.

“Don't it? Listen, Jane, when you get back home you'll have everythin' you ever wanted: your own apartment, new car—a sporty car. Clothes . . . anythin'—all because you and your dad made a bit of a sacrifice now. Trust me, you'll look back on this experience and laugh. And then you'll laugh at all your mates who are strugglin' to make ends meet 'cause they stayed home and didn't chase fortune and glory.”

“Fortune and glory?”

“Mother Nature's given all this bounty for us to use. So why not use it, eh?”

Jane didn't answer Clark and Archie began talking about the numbers of logs they needed to shift and the problems floating the logs down the tributaries feeding the mighty Congo River. Logs got snagged, jamming the flow; some even drifted down uncharted branching rivers and were lost. Men had been crushed and drowned between floating logs, and animal attacks were not unknown against the shepherding loggers. Depending on the current, it was a process that could take weeks before the timber reached the waiting lumber boats prior to being shipped off to China, which was their biggest client. Jane blocked the conversation, and began to nod off in her seat.

“You OK?”

Jane's eyes flicked open. It took her a moment to realize Robbie had just spoken to her.