The Greystoke Legacy (8 page)

She finished the mushroom and a second plantain under Tarzan's watchful gaze. He never attempted to speak or interrupt her. When she finished, she was full but still far from relaxed. Tarzan didn't seem in a rush to start a conversation so Jane tried.

“Thanks for the food.”

Tarzan seemed to be staring through her and it took a moment for Jane to realize he was looking at her hair. Maybe he hadn't seen blonde hair before. She self-consciously wrapped it into a ponytail.

“I should be going back. My dad must be going crazy.” Tarzan made no indication he understood. “You know? Back to my camp? Where I live?” Nothing seemed to register. “I need to go
home
.”

“Home!” Tarzan barked the word and nodded. “Home.”

Jane felt a flush of relief and nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, home. You can show me the way home.”

Tarzan sprang to his feet and walked to the edge of the cliff, gesturing to Jane to follow. She reluctantly joined him, trying to ignore the sheer drop below. Karnath trotted over to Tarzan and leapt into his arms. He held him with one hand and pointed across the vista.

“Home.”

There was nothing but trees reaching all the way to the horizon. The apes below were either eating or playfully chasing one another. There were no signs of civilization.

“
Mangani
are family,” said Tarzan pointing to the apes. Karnath jumped from his hands and clung to Jane's leg. She tried not to yelp as she wrestled the irrational fear that the gorilla was about to bite her. Instead it just looked at her with big brown eyes and bared its teeth in a rictus of a smile.

“Home,” repeated Tarzan. Jane took a deep breath to subdue her frustration. This would be more difficult than she'd anticipated.

•••

“Dammit!” yelled Robbie as the machete twisted from his hand and dropped to the ground—narrowly missing his foot. His arm ached from sweeping the blade through the dense foliage as he dutifully followed the overflowing brook for a mile or so before it joined a river. He'd studied how Mister David hacked through thick vegetation and had used the machete himself on many occasions to trim the logs they had hewn down. But alone it was tough going. Several times Robbie had had to stop himself from wildly swinging the blade with his free hand outstretched, which felt a more natural motion. He'd heard many stories over campfires of people who had inadvertently slashed their own hand off.

Robbie sat on some rocks that sloped into the river. He was unsure if this was the same tributary they floated the logs down, as it looked unfamiliar and there were several nearby. After traveling for two hours he was already exhausted, so took a long gulp of water from his canteen to quench his thirst. In his rush to get away he had only packed one water canteen and he was beginning to realize that was a mistake.

He'd made the pretense of helping Esmée load the kitchen supplies into a crate, just in case they had to suddenly dismantle the camp, while secretly stealing provisions for his rescue attempt. Archie and Clark had gathered the loggers and were talking through their plan, but all Robbie could see was their total lack of action. He'd taken a heavy waterproof flashlight, a canvas sheet, firelighters, and a machete from a set of open supply crates. As an afterthought he stole a pistol from Clark's cabin. He'd fired a rifle before, taking part in impromptu shooting ranges the workers would sometimes set up to relieve the boredom. He thought a handgun wouldn't be much different and felt safer with it.

The first half of the trek had been easy and had already taken him farther than Mister David's initial circle of the area. All he had to do was follow the flow downstream and look for any likely places Jane could have washed ashore, or been forced ashore by her kidnappers. Robbie was quickly coming to the conclusion that Tafari's rebels had nothing to do with Jane's disappearance. For one, he was heading in the opposite direction from the rebels' camp. Perhaps Jane had just got lost on her own? But in that case who had attacked the camp?

That meant she was out here, all alone.

“Alone,” he mumbled. The word stuck in his throat.
Sophie had been alone when . . .

He shunned the bad memories and desperately tried to think of a happy time with his sister. He recalled a perfect memory—ice-skating in Central Park one Christmas.

Festive decorations strung between trees; the open-air rink was filled with people enjoying themselves. Sophie teaching him how to skate and giggling every time he fell over. Her laughter was so infectious that he couldn't help laughing too . . .

That was the last time he'd heard her laugh. He pushed the memory aside. The rocks he sat on were the first place he'd come across where Jane could have washed ashore, but there was no trace she had done so. A fragment of doubt began to gnaw at Robbie. Maybe Clark was right, maybe blindly searching for Jane was a stupid idea.

“Pull yourself together,” he muttered. The word
maybe
often led to in­action and procrastination. It was what had led him to endure misery in New York. If he had acted sooner, maybe things would have been very different.

A branch cracked.

The crack was one of the most chilling sounds to hear while sitting alone in one of the most remote places on earth. Robbie realized he was completely exposed to whatever was approaching.

His hand slowly went to the pistol poking from his pocket. He twisted his neck a fraction as foliage gently rustled.

Then something stepped out just behind him. It was a small deer standing one-and-a-half feet tall with brown-gray fur and short horns—a cute-looking Peters's duiker. Robbie had seen them brought back to Karibu Mji for food. The timid animal sniffed the air and stared at Robbie. Robbie hadn't moved for some time, so the duiker didn't see him as a threat. It approached the water's edge and began to drink, keeping one cautious eye on Robbie as it did so.

Robbie didn't want to scare the little guy. He was glad of the company and the reassurance that not everything in the jungle was out to kill him.

The water suddenly erupted as something darted for the duiker. In the white froth, Robbie could only see a massive pair of crocodile jaws clamp down on the deer before it could react. The reptile vanished with its prize as quickly as it had appeared. Robbie didn't stay to watch—he was sprinting through the undergrowth as fast as possible.

•••

Despite her protests, Tarzan led Jane down the steep trail to the lake. She found it difficult, pain shooting down her leg from the wound, but Tarzan made no effort to assist her. They passed several gorillas who watched them with interest but didn't react to the stranger in their midst. Tarzan would greet each new gorilla with a throaty grumble, which they replied to. Jane realized it meant “everything is OK,” but she still kept close to Tarzan, not wishing to be left alone with the brutes.

“You have to understand, I need to get to
my
home!” She had been complaining the entire way to the lake, but Tarzan had ignored her. They reached the lakeshore at the base of the waterfall and Tarzan gestured across the water.

“Very nice,” said Jane without looking. “I know you can understand a little of what I say . . .”

Tarzan gently gripped her chin, forcing her to look across the lake. He was too strong for her to resist. She was about to continue speaking when she saw it.

The sun was dipping below the caldera edge, sending golden rays across the lake, and silhouetting the gorillas drinking from the bank. Across the lake, in the last vestiges of the setting sun, a dozen odd-looking deer swam in the water—water chevrotain, she recalled from the pictures Esmée had shown her—their mouse-like heads ducking to eat submerged weeds. From the plateau the view had taken her breath away, but down here it was even more stunning.

She took a step forward, her hand brushing tall curling orchids; their sweet smell overwhelmed her senses. The bank was covered with vibrant flora, clinging to every available surface.

“It's . . . it's beautiful,” she finally admitted. It had certainly made her forget the pain in her leg.

She looked at Tarzan and saw he was frowning and staring at her intently. Jane felt as if he was trying to tell her something but lacked the vocabulary.

They sat on the edge of the lake watching the sun slowly sink behind the mountains. Chirping filled the air as familiar crimson-rumped waxbills darted to snatch flies and colorful butterflies made their last rounds on the flowers.

As the shadows reached them, Tarzan finally spoke.

“Dark soon,” said Tarzan. “Dangerous for Jane.”

Jane had come to the same conclusion so had decided not to pursue the matter of getting home. She followed him and the straggling gorillas back up the track to the aircraft. Some of the females and younger gorillas sat in the trees, bending branches into mattresses in the safety of the boughs. Larger silverbacks and blackbacks contented themselves with making their nests on the ground.

Watching the animals bed down, Jane was surprised to feel safe.

Then the image of Tarzan, his hands and mouth smeared in blood as he ate raw flesh came back to her and she shivered at the thought of spending the night so close to a killer.

A
billion insects chirped through the darkness and every single one of them was out to get Robbie. Or at least that's what he thought as he huddled in the limb of a crabwood tree. He had tried sleeping on the ground, next to the small fire he had lit with deadwood, but the sounds of creeping bugs drove him to the tree where he thought he'd be safe from predators.

He'd eaten an energy bar and a handful of trail mix, determined to be sensible with his rations, but he was still hungry. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the individual sounds around him. The rhythmic chirps of frogs, the high-pitched sawing of crickets, an occasional deep grunt in the canopy from a monkey, the flap of leathery bat wings as a colony of them hunted across the jungle and the incessant whine of mosquitoes as they nibbled his neck and ears. Archie had provided malaria tablets to his team, knowing it was the main disease likely to kill them out here. Robbie couldn't remember the last time he'd taken them. Not that that would keep away the tsetse flies that carried the deadly African sleeping sickness. In his rush to find Jane, he'd forgotten to bring a bug spray or mosquito net.

He sat miserably in the tree, not daring to move in case he fell out. His left leg was already numb as he curled up as tightly as possible and blanked out the din around him. He just hoped there were no snakes. In this dense jungle he wouldn't know about it until it was too late.

Then, as if to further his misery, the heavens opened up with a raging torrent. Thunder reverberated across the valley, and Robbie began to doubt the wisdom of sheltering in a tree during a thunderstorm; he thought he would be a magnet for lightning.

He shivered, wrapping his arms around his numb legs. He was sure he could hear the gentle hiss of a snake.

•••

Archie watched the jagged lightning fork across the horizon, but the storm was still far off. Fear of another kidnapping gripped the camp when it was discovered that Robbie Canler was missing too. Clark and Mister David had searched the area in the fading light and had found Robbie's footprints heading into the jungle.

Archie had felt a twinge of guilt that Robbie had blundered off to look for his daughter while he had done nothing.

“You'll call me a hypocrite since I made Robbie keep studyin',” said Clark, drinking a whisky-laced coffee in front of the fire, “but the lad's not as savvy as he thinks he is.”

“And you think Jane is?”

“If Jane's been taken by Tafari, that's one thing. If Robbie goes in guns blazin' then he'll get them both killed.”

Archie nodded grimly. Another flash of lightning ripped through the sky. The rain increased in ferocity; fat drops clattered off the corrugated-­iron roof sounding more like hailstones.

“As soon as the storm passes, we leave,” said Archie without looking at Clark for confirmation.

“And the camp?” Clark asked as innocently as he could, indicating the camp around them. Everything both men had was tied up with the business.

“To hell with the camp,” hissed Archie. “We find them, then we worry about all this!” Clark nodded in understanding. “Esmée is making packs and Mister David is organizing the men. We'll leave some here on guard.”

“And how much will that cost?” Clark knew the men would only risk life and limb in a search party if they were being paid handsomely. The dangers of the jungle were great.

Archie laughed cheerlessly. “More than we've got right now.”

The storm raged and the two men didn't say another word as they waited for the chance to begin the search.

•••

Nervous grunts came from the trees as the thunder ferociously boomed through the mountains. It woke Jane from the deepest sleep she could remember. Tarzan had brought her some fresh branches and laid them on the floor of the fuselage as a mattress, which was surprisingly comfortable. Then he had left as night encroached. The grunts from the band outside felt reassuring, and the rain battering her shelter was soothing.

Now that she was feeling safe, she allowed her mind to wander. Her first thought was of how she would get back to camp. That would be something she would try to communicate to Tarzan in the morning. Thinking about her strange savior, she reflected on who he was and how he came to be living with wild apes. She desperately wanted to search the aircraft for clues to Tarzan's identity, but the darkness within was absolute. She tried to stand, but felt a wave of dizziness that forced her to lie back down. She clutched her head wound. Tarzan had done his best to tend it, but she was certain he was no medic, although he had done an excellent job with her leg. She wondered what the tiny beads were that held the wound together. She'd never seen stitching like it, and she'd seen a lot when her father had been a doctor. Where had Tarzan learned that skill?