The Leopard's Prey (29 page)

“Yes.”

Tajewo shook his head, his forelock jiggling. “You are like the elephant. He does not tire of carrying his tusks. But you must be careful, Simba Jike. This man, he might kill you. It is not possible to dodge the spear before it has been thrown.”

“No, but maybe I can stop him from throwing it.”

After I check on Sam.
She wondered how he’d fared after she left. Had the fever recurred? It frightened her to realize just how much she counted on Sam being a part of her life and how empty it would seem without him. And it wasn’t only the malaria that endangered him. Someone had fouled the engine, attempting to severely injure or kill him. Why?
I need to get back and warn him before anyone finds out Sam wasn’t in that plane and tries again.
She felt the urgency squeeze her heart, making it race.

Sweet Millard Fillmore. You’re in love! And you just had to put a rip in his plane.

A herd of zebra raced off in the distance, startled by a noise. Jade held up her hand to signal a stop and listened. In the cool morning air, the sound of a puttering motor carried from the east. Perhaps it was her wishing it, but she thought she detected a puff of dust where a vehicle churned up the dry soil.

“Maybe it is Bwana Mti Mguu,” said Tajewo, “come to find his ar-plane. Will he beat you for hurting it?”

Jade turned her head to look at him and detected a wry smile on his face, as though he wondered if she would fight back. After all, she had a reputation now. “No. He is a good man. He does not beat women and children. And his airplane is not hurt badly. There is only a cut in its skin. We will sew a new piece of skin over the cut.”
And clean out the engine and the fuel lines.

“Come,” she said, and pointed to the distant vehicle. They broke into a long, loping stride, eating up the ground over the grasslands. She hoped it was just someone out to see the lake and not the saboteur looking to find a smashed plane and equally broken pilot. Then she brightened with the thought that Sam might have sent a search party out to find her.

After a minute, the driver must have spotted them since the truck turned to meet them and sped up. Tajewo stopped a few feet away, his hand resting on his spear. Jade recognized the driver as Alwyn Chalmers.

“Mr. Chalmers, I’m glad to see you.”

“Miss del Cameron,” he said in his reedy voice, “it would be an understatement to say that I’m surprised to see you alone out here. And on foot, to boot.”

“Then you weren’t searching for me? I just assumed …”

Mr. Chalmers coughed into his fist. “I
was
searching, in point of fact. For my polo pony. Still missing, you know.”

“Yes. Sorry. I haven’t seen him. So you aren’t going back to Nairobi then?” She let the disappointment show in her voice. The thought of walking on to Naivasha and waiting for a train south suddenly seemed too tiring and too time-consuming. She needed to see Sam again, alive and well.

“Oh. Right. Of course. Wouldn’t think of stranding you.” He reached over and opened the passenger door to his left. “Climb aboard.”

“Just a moment, please, if you don’t mind. I wish to thank my friend for his protection.” Jade turned back to Tajewo and held out her hand. The Maasai warrior transferred his spear to his shield hand and clasped her hand in his. “Thank you, Tajewo, brother of Ruta. Thank the other warriors for me, too.”

“We will guard the ar-plane, Simba Jike, until you or Bwana Mti Mguu come for it. And we will take care of the
toto
for you.”

“I promise we will come for them soon. Until then, goodbye, and may Engai watch over you and give you many cattle and children.”

“Goodbye, Simba Jike. Good hunting. May Engai shield you with his wings.”

With that last wish, Tajewo again gripped his spear in his right hand, turned, and loped off, his thigh bell jingling in clear metallic notes. Jade watched him run, his long shadow the advance guard. When he and his shadow blended into one, she turned back to Mr. Chalmers and climbed into the front seat. As soon as she settled herself, exhaustion took over. But as much as she wanted to drift off to sleep, she couldn’t let down her guard. Not yet.

My knee doesn’t hurt. That’s something in Chalmers’ favor.
But Jade never really knew how much stock to place in her war-wounded knee. Its tendency to ache just before a rainstorm or when someone was trying to kill her never really sat well with her, no matter what the old Berber woman had said about walking with death.
Besides, it didn’t hurt before I took off. Shouldn’t it have given me some advance warning then?

She pondered that idea for a moment, feeling the warming air breeze past her as the truck jolted and bounced eastward to Naivasha. She already knew the answer. No one knew she’d be in the plane. They’d expected Sam. She sat up straighter and forced herself to stay awake.

“How did you manage to strand yourself out in this area, Miss del Cameron?”

“Engine malfunction,” she said without explaining that the engine belonged to an airplane.

“Oh. I say, that’s too bad. Where did you break down?”

Jade jerked her thumb over her shoulder to the west. “Near Hell’s Gate.”

Chalmers turned to look at her. “That’s a far distance, miss. You’re lucky that Maasai was friendly.” He studied the faint track in front of him, squinting into the sun. “Must have been
your
tire tracks I was following then.” He sounded disappointed.

Jade didn’t contradict him and let him assume she’d been in an automobile. “Sorry, Mr. Chalmers. You were probably hoping you were on the path of someone who might have seen your pony, I suppose.”

“Hmm, yes. Indeed.” He squinted some more and dodged a wallow. “Say, you didn’t happen to notice any signs of habitation out that way, did you? I understand more people are moving into the lake area.”

“They must be closer to the lake, then,” said Jade.

“Yes, of course. Sensible thought, I guess. I suppose you would rather I took you back into Nairobi or should I leave you at Naivasha?”

Jade heard the hope in his voice when he said Naivasha. Clearly, he didn’t want to go all the way into Nairobi and preferred to resume his search, but she suspected it wasn’t the pony that he was looking for. He was too far from his farm to expect to find it out here. If she was going to keep Mrs. Stokes’ secret, Jade needed to draw him farther away.

“I do need to get back to Nairobi,” Jade said. “My friends will be very worried about me.”

“Very well.” Instead of circling the lake and heading north up its eastern side to reach the town of Naivasha, Chalmers kept the truck nosed due east, intending to intersect the road south to Nairobi.

Jade decided to gauge his impression of Sam, hoping that an off-the-cuff question would catch him off guard. “I believe you’ve met one of my friends, Sam Featherstone. What do you think of him?”

Chalmers didn’t so much as blink. “I can’t say as I thought anything of him.” He shrugged. “I suppose he’s your young man?”

“We’re good friends,” Jade said. “But
you
never married, Mr. Chalmers?”

“No.” Chalmers kept his eyes on the path ahead and found a spot where the Uganda rails lay low to the ground. Jade held on to the door and the seat as the truck rocked and jolted over the tracks. After the silence ran on for a minute longer, he added, “There were not always as many women here in the colony as there are now.”

And,
thought Jade,
there was probably always someone more handsome to attract them.
A pity, really. His gaunt, pinched face could have belonged to Abe Lincoln’s homely brother, but it had character. Besides, he seemed to be a stable man, quiet and hardworking. That should have gone far with a woman out here.

“Pity about Mr. Stokes, isn’t it?” she asked. “Wonder what happened to his wife. What was her name? Anna?”

“Alice,” he said, reciting it as one might a prayer.

“That’s right, Alice. Where could she have gone? Did you know her?” Jade thought about the photo on his table, the only clean object in a filthy house.

“I knew her.” The words were whispered, a treasured memory slipping away. He didn’t add anything else.

They hit the Limuru Road and turned south to Nairobi. The road’s pounded murram soil was rutted in spots from the last rains, and the truck springs worn to nothing. Between her fatigue and the jolting, Jade decided further conversation was not only useless but also painful. Her head ached. She settled for watching the surrounding land for any sign of wildlife. With the exception of one warthog off to the side, she didn’t see any. No wonder newcomers could claim that they’d never seen a lion or a rhino. As they neared the Limuru bridge with its warped boards, Chalmers asked her where he should leave her.

Good question. The logical place would have been Neville and Maddy’s farm, since she’d taken off from there. She knew Maddy would be frantic by now. But Jade’s concern for Sam’s well-being overrode all else. Every moment that he was unaware of the attempt on his life was a continued risk. She had to warn him first and see for herself that he was all right. Then she could ease her friends’ anxieties.

“The European hospital,” she said.

Chalmers gave her an openmouthed stare. “Are you hurt?”

“Nothing serious,” she said and smiled to give some appearance of truth. “Merely precautionary.” If he had tried to kill Sam, she didn’t want him to know where he was.

Her chosen destination seemed to make Chalmers nervous, and once he’d crossed the rickety Limuru bridge, he sped up and raced down the road. He nearly collided with a rickshaw taxi where the road intersected with Sclater’s Road and Forest Road.

“Slow down, please, Mr. Chalmers. I’m okay. I’d like to stay that way. You’ll get a fine.”

The thought of riling a constable went far toward tempering Chalmer’s driving. He turned onto Government Road at a more reasonable speed. Then, just as he veered right toward the hill, Jade saw something that made her heart skip a beat.
Sam!

“Stop!” she shouted.

Chalmers hit the brake fast enough to throw them forward. “Did I hit someone?”

“No. Sorry, Mr. Chalmers. It’s just that I saw my friends in front of the Norfolk. They will be looking for me, so I’d better go to them first.”

He pulled to the edge of the road, and Jade jumped out. “Thank you so much, Mr. Chalmers. You’ve been a godsend. I don’t have any money with me at present, but I promise I’ll repay you for your gasoline.”

“Think nothing of it, Miss del Cameron. I wouldn’t dream of taking advantage of a lady in distress that way. Er, are you quite certain you’re all right? I can take you to the hospital.”

“I’m fine. Just fatigued, that’s all.” She smiled and held out her hand. When he took it, she shook his and thanked him again, using a blessing she’d learned from the Berbers. “God reward you according to your merits, Mr. Chalmers.” It was a handy blessing, especially for someone you didn’t know well and might just as well curse if you did.

She raced across the broad street, dodging the few rickshaws that were about that early in the morning. Luckily, most people of Nairobi didn’t rouse themselves until nine a.m. at least, and it was barely past that now.

Sam, Avery, and Neville caught sight of her running toward them and shouted to her. Broad grins spread across their faces, and Avery tossed his hat into the air with a whoop. Behind them, she spotted Mr. Harding. Was he part of a search party in the formation? Harding’s expression wasn’t as exuberant, but showed that he was either happy to see her alive or happy not to have to mount a search. She didn’t care. Her attention was fixed on Sam. His angular face, pale from his illness, showed a palpable relief.

Sam stepped forward, his arms open and extended, ready to receive her. She ran into them, nearly bowling him over. Their words tumbled out, flowing together like water joining at a confluence of streams.

“It’s so good to see you, Sam.”

“Thank heavens, you’re all right!”

“You’re out of the hospital! I was so worried.”

“Are you hurt?”

“You should still be resting.”

“You don’t look bruised,” he said, studying her face.

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier that you felt sick?”

“What were you thinking, going up alone like that?” He held her at arm’s length.

“You told me to. You begged me.”

“I was delirious!”

“How the hell was I supposed to know you didn’t mean it?”

“A dim-witted child could have told that.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m neither a dimwit nor a child, Sam Featherstone.” She poked him on the chest and broke free. “And if you hadn’t been sulking around like a pouty child, you might have shared some of those symptoms beforehand.”

“Sulking? Pouty?” He threw up his arms before wagging his finger at her. “That really fries my fritters! I’m not the one deceiving people.”

“Deceiving!” Jade’s fist clenched and she gritted her teeth. “You’d better have a good explanation there, pal, or … Just when did I deceive you?”

“When you went off to catch that first leopard. You never said you were the bait. You made it sound like just another easy capture.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, buster! I didn’t know I needed to get your permission. And you could’ve let me know where you were going at the dance instead of leaving me waiting for you.”

“I got arrested!” His voice rose in volume.

“I’m sorry, but
I
didn’t arrest you, so don’t take it out on me.”

“And you don’t need to take it out on my poor plane. You broke my plane!”

“I didn’t break the plane. It’s just a rip on the wing fabric.”

“What’d you do? Try to land on a rhino?”

“Ooooh! You big lummox. For your information, the engine cut out, and I had to land.”

“You didn’t drain the water beforehand? How many pre-flights do you need to know you
always
drain the water out of the gas?”

“And do you usually peer down into the tank to see if anyone’s planted a wad of dirt and grass, too? ’Cause I missed that one.”

Sam’s jaw dropped and he stared at her angry face for a few seconds. “Someone sabotaged my Jenny?”