Today's Embrace (49 page)

Evy, feeling as though she were in a daze, nodded her understanding and gathered her things slowly. Peter walked swiftly to Arcilla and took her by the arms.

“My dear, I need to be gone for a few days—”

“Peter,” she wailed.

“Now, now, it's not what you think,” he hastened. “I'm going to try to overtake Julien's column and find Rogan and Captain Retford. When I do, we'll return and join you at Dr. Jakob's. I want you to take Charles and go with Evy.”

Evy looked up. She studied Peter's face, and her heart thudded.
He's worried. More worried than I've ever seen him
.

“All right, darling,” Arcilla said. “But maybe we should come with you?”

“No,” he said quickly. “I'll need to ride fast and alone. And the area I pass through has a bit of trouble right now. You're safer with Dr. Jakob.”

“Trouble?” Evy asked from across the room.

Peter looked at her, and she read his effort to conceal his concern. “A few impis have found some of their ritual warrior garb. They've put it on.”

“But I thought all that was burned in the fires after the war.”

“So we all thought,” he said shortly. “Evidently, a few war costumes escaped us.”

What else had escaped Harry Whipple? She wanted to ask but thought it wiser not to.

“Can't you send a wire to Fort Victoria or one of the other townships?” she asked.

Peter hesitated before replying, and Evy realized there was more that he was not telling them. “Something seems to have brought down the telegraph poles again. Undoubtedly some hungry wildlife causing us a bit of a scramble. I'll ride. It won't take me long.”

“Oh, Peter—” Arcilla threw her arms around him. He held her tightly.

The moment was too deep and profound to be a normal good-bye, and Evy became very frightened.
Peter doesn't know whether he'll make it or not
. Evy's hand went to her mouth, and she turned away. Her eyes shut, and her prayer came urgently.

“Darling Arcilla, I'm sorry I brought you here … I should never have risked you, the baby—”

“Peter! I'm afraid! Come back to me. You've got to come back—”

Evy placed her hands over her ears and closed her eyes and prayed:
Dear Father God, help us. I beseech You for Your mercy and grace. Forgive us our sins through Christ … forgive me, forgive our selfishness, our greed, our lack of wisdom, our wars, our foolishness …

The Southern Cross glittered in the night sky above the mission station.

Evy awoke feeling more sick than she'd ever felt in her life. She couldn't control her shivering, yet she felt that she was inside an oven slowly baking. Her teeth chattered, and her head ached so dreadfully that when she opened her eyes and tried to focus, all she could see was the bungalow spinning. Her bedclothes were wet. Pain in her womb made her double over. She bit her lip to keep from yelling out.

Rogan, Rogan—where are you my love? I need you and you're not here—

“Lord! Help me!” she choked.

Then, “Arcilla …”

Arcilla groaned and came reluctantly awake, then raised herself to an elbow. She peered at Evy, and her eyes widened.

“Dear God in heaven.”

“Arcilla—h-help—don't feel well—baby h-hurts, too—something's wrong.”

Arcilla threw the cover aside and sprang from the bed she was sharing with Evy. Her fingers trembled as she struck a match and lit the lantern. She brought it close to Evy and looked at her, touched her burning, flushed skin, then she gasped and stepped back, her hand forming a fist. She pressed the whitened knuckles to her teeth. Blood … blood … on the bed, on Evy, and Evy was convulsing with pain and beginning to vomit …

Arcilla fled from the bungalow barefoot. She ran as fast as she could, stepping on stones, insects, and wet, soggy things as she ran to Dr. Jakob's bungalow. She hammered on the door with both fists until her hands stung.

“Jakob! Hurry! Evy's losing the baby—”

A light flickered, and the door flew open. He looked at her with white disheveled hair. “What did you say?”

Arcilla repeated the words and stood shaking.

“Quickly, go for Mrs. Croft. I'll be right there.”

Arcilla found Mrs. Croft grabbing her robe and slipping on her big leather shoes. “Evy? Losing the baby?” she cried, horrified.

Arcilla collapsed into her arms and sobbed. “She's got malaria—that's why—she'll die—”

Mrs. Croft shook her. “Snap out of it, Arcilla. Now is the time for our wits and our prayers! Run, go get me Alice. Dr. Jakob will need us all.”

Mrs. Croft flew out the bungalow door, and Arcilla, feeling numb, found her way through the hot, dark night to Alice's bungalow. She staggered up the stoep to the door. Before she did, she looked up at the late night sky at the gleaming Southern Cross and agonized over the prayer that was lodged within her heart.

Jesus, I'm a stranger to You, but I don't want to be a stranger any longer. Lord I need You. We all need You so very much. And, Jesus, if You don't help us, then I don't know what any of us are going to do!

She brushed the tears from her face and lifted her hand to knock on the door. “Alice! Wake up, Alice!”

Parnell screeched with fear, and jumping up out of the swaying golden-brown grasses, he took off running. Bullets flew around him, splattering rocky soil.

Rogan gritted his teeth, lifted his Winchester, and fired several rounds along the ridge where the first shots had come from, distracting those firing while Parnell escaped.

“Lion!” Derwent shouted from some distance to Rogan's right.

Rogan saw what must have spooked Parnell. A flash of gold fur sped across the far slope of open ground. Rogan swung his rifle up and fired. Another wail came from Parnell. Rogan was up and bounding in his direction, weaving, crouching behind bushes, and darting again as bullets whizzed from behind him on the ridge of the Acropolis. Derwent, too, was running, ducking, running again, coming up from behind.

Once within the thorn trees and scrub bushes, they maneuvered their way on the slope toward some acacia trees.

“Where's Mr. Parnell?” Derwent shouted, breathless from running, and as though in reply, there answered a zing from Parnell's rifle ahead of them in the veld to their right. Rogan ran toward the sound.

“Can you see him?” Rogan called to Derwent.

The bush was a little thicker ahead of them, and the thorn branches whipped at their legs as they passed. Another shot cracked the air, and
immediately afterward came the majestic yet bone-chilling roar of a lion. Parnell's shouts of fear drifted to them.

“Aye, he's in bad trouble! Lord have mercy!” Derwent cried as they burst out of the scrub.

Before them lay the veld, with waving, open, yellowed grasses beneath flat-topped acacia trees that dotted the crest of a ridge. Parnell, a hundred meters ahead, appeared to be running for the kopje crest. Rogan could no longer see the lion. But as Parnell came to the ridge, he seemed to simply vanish before their eyes.

“Oh no!” Rogan cried.

A slight vapor of dust remained, followed by Parnell's rifle and hat tumbling down the mound.

Rogan ran ahead and began climbing to the point on the ridge where Parnell had disappeared. He reached the top, out of breath, and looked about him. Derwent clambered up beside him, trying to catch his breath.

“Where is he, Mr. Rogan?”

Rogan stood on the edge of a gully, gazing down into the brush. The silence was more shattering than the commotion that had preceded it. His heart thudded.
Please, God, not Parnell—

“Parnell!” Rogan shouted down.

There was no answer, no sign of his brother.

Derwent had snatched Parnell's rifle and hat as he'd climbed to the top of the kopje, and he stood now, morosely holding them, looking at them, then down to the copse.

“Parnell's not ready yet, Father … Don't take him yet—”

“Parnell, can you hear me?” Rogan shouted again more desperately. He was just ready to tell Derwent to go for the Basuto, because he was going down, somehow, when his brother's voice sounded, weak and shaking.

“Here, Rogan. I'm down here. I'm all right, I think, no broken bones—Where's that dashed lion? I swear he was chasing
me!
He had it in for me.”

“Come out from under the brush,” Rogan shouted in relieved frustration.
“If that lion had been after you, you'd be dinner by now. This is no time to play hide-and-seek!”

The gully into which Parnell had fallen looked to be six meters deep in places but little more than three meters wide. Brush grew in a tangle of thick creeper so that the trench was barely noticeable. In spite of his dangerous fall, Parnell had escaped broken bones. He had some gashes and bruises, but after lowering a rope that Rogan carried, they hauled him up to safety.

Parnell now sat resting on a rock drinking from his canteen.

“That ruddy lion came out of nowhere,” he said with a groan. “Biggest beast I ever laid eyes on. This must be pride territory.”

“Never mind the lion,” Rogan was saying. “Who was trying to kill us with those rifle shots?”

“I caught a glimpse of two men,” Derwent said. “One sure reminded me of your Boer cousin, that Heyden van Buren.”

Heyden
. Rogan's temperature climbed. Not only had he murdered his favorite uncle and injured his beloved, but now he was trying to kill again! “He must have seen us at Jakob van Buren's mission. I had an uneasy feeling Heyden might be in the shadows keeping watch on all of us, including Julien.” He wondered if Julien knew.

“If anyone wants that Black Diamond as much as Julien does, it's Heyden,” Rogan continued.

“He's no relation of mine,” Parnell growled toward Derwent. “He used to pawn himself off as a cousin when he'd show up as bold as day at Rookswood. Remember that, Rogan? And all the time the Boer was no kin at all.”