Today's Embrace (53 page)

Darinda hung back, for her courage had melted. The smell was nauseating. She held a water-soaked cloth to her nose and mouth and glanced at her grandfather, but he seemed too excited to notice anything. Harry Whipple looked pale and frightened and gripped his rifle.

Darinda looked ahead but saw nothing in the darkness until Julien had the men light the oil lamps they'd brought for just this purpose.

When Lobengula drank poison and died, his slaves laid the body out and walled up the entrance of the cave. It had since been opened. By whom, Darinda did not know. Nor did she care now. If only she had listened to Ryan and left Bulawayo weeks ago, taking Arcilla and the baby with her. Were they all dead? She swallowed, her throat dry, her heart beating fast.

The dim yellow lights from the small lamps flared, illuminating the tomb.

Jendaya pointed inside again. “The king is dead. Only one true King rose from the dead after they laid him in a tomb. Jesus.”

“Keep quiet!” Julien told her. “Move out of the way.”

He pushed past her, and Harry and the others followed him inside. Darinda hung back, although she could see.

The corpse was laid out with all manner of objects deemed important for a proper burial of a Ndebele king. Rats and other bugs ran from the light. She saw his earthly possessions all around him: a stool, a head pillow carved out of what looked to be ivory. The sleeping mat might have been fur, like his kaross. There were beer pots and meat bowls, guns, and his huge war shield—he had been a big man. Leaning against the cave wall were a battle-ax and the feared stabbing spear, the assegai. This one looked silver. There were small pots of clay, and Harry Whipple accidentally kicked one over in his clumsy fashion. Out spilled white diamonds that mingled with rotting flesh.

“A man takes nothing with him when he dies,” Jendaya warned. She stood, looking unafraid of them, her arms folded like a queen. “White man, black man, it matters not. All die, all turn to corruption, all have no hope without the Great Savior Jesus.”

They were not even listening. Julien was laughing. It was a harsh, almost hysterical sound that turned Darinda's heart sad and cold. Harry Whipple was down on all fours scooping diamonds toward him. He scooped them up in his palms and tried to dump them inside his pockets. His shirt pockets swelled in front.

The other three men were sorting hastily through diamonds and objects. One had the fur kaross over his shoulder, his face damp with sweat. Another had the assegai, running his fingers over the jewels that were encrusted along its shaft.

Darinda turned away.
Air—I must have fresh air
—She started back through the narrow passage toward the opening, wanting to gag.

Jendaya was right behind her. “Hurry,” she whispered. “Hurry.”

They ran together out through the cave into the hot sunshine. The glare was so bright that at first Darinda did not see
them
.

Jendaya spoke first, and from somewhere ahead a male voice spoke Sindebele.

Darinda backed up against a boulder. There, coming up the steep path, were a dozen elite fighting impis led by a tall induna of regal bearing. He wore a kilt and cloak of tanned leather, Zulu feathers, war rattles, and regimentals of fur and plumes of marabou stork upon his head.

Her heart trembled like a reed in the wind. She had no strength to even reach for her gun. It would have done her no good.

Jendaya stepped between her and Dumaka, her younger brother. She spoke in low words, some of which Darinda could understand.

“Mission station? Good Jakob? The little girl of Katie?”

Dumaka snarled his words, his eyes angry and fierce as he pointed to the burial cave.

Jendaya made a hopeless gesture.

Dumaka turned and faced his warriors. He beckoned sharply for them to follow.

Darinda cringed as they neared her, but they trotted by on bare feet, looking neither right nor left. When the last had entered the cave, Jendaya grabbed her arm and they ran. Darinda stumbled down the steep path.

Inside the burial cave Julien was holding the Black Diamond on his sweating, dirty palm. He saw not what the others were doing, for he did not care. He had his treasure, which he had been seeking all these years. Heyden van Buren had wanted it too. Heyden, who had also wanted the incriminating letter sent from Capetown …

As Julien stared at the large diamond, his mind stepped back to
when he'd come secretly along the path from Government House to the bungalows, coming the back way so as to avoid meeting Arcilla and Darinda on the front trail.

Julien came to keep his secret meeting with Heyden van Buren. Heyden, the wretched Boer who had threatened him, who had been a curse for years.
Heyden
, who knew too many of Julien's secrets: about the Black Diamond, about where he'd first gotten it, about Carl and the mine explosion. Too many secrets that could incriminate Julien.

Heyden had appeared from the dappled shadows of the trees. He'd just left Anthony, he'd said, and now possessed the incriminating letter from Capetown. “Ha ha! The big diamond magnate will go to prison. You'll hobnob with petty thieves.”

Heyden had walked right up to him
laughing
. Nobody dared laugh at Sir Julien Bley. So Julien drew his .38 and squeezed the trigger. The bullet went straight through Heyden's heart. It was well enough. Heyden was a murderer anyway.

Julien stooped and searched for the letter, but it wasn't on him! Had he lied?

Anthony appeared. He came running toward him. Shocked, dismayed, he'd looked from Heyden to Julien. “You killed him!”

Julien panicked. He grabbed him, appealed to him, begged for the Capetown letter. Anthony was his adopted son. Had he not given him everything? Anthony was indebted to him. “Give me the letter from Trotter!”

But Anthony shook him away in disgust. “You've stepped over the line this time, Julien. I can't hide murder or condone what you've done.”

“Heyden tried to kill me.”

“He has no weapon on him.”

Anthony was walking away …

Julien took a few steps after him, pleading. Anthony kept walking away … He dared not use his gun again. He'd already made one mistake in firing it. Someone might hear.

A huge hunk of wood lay on the ground just off the path. He stooped and picked it up quietly, then hurried up behind Anthony and—

Julien searched Anthony for the letter. What had he done with it? He must have brought it to his bungalow. He had to find it; he would need to search his things.

But what to do with his body? With Heyden's?

Everything was crumbling beneath him. Someone would be coming soon; someone would have heard that shot.

That was when Detlev appeared.

“Get rid of them, Detlev. If you do, I can make you rich. Wouldn't you and Marjit like to be rich? I can give you anything you want, Detlev,
anything!
I am a very wealthy man. You know how
rich
I am. You can have anything you want, go anywhere you want, even return to Holland a rich and powerful man.”

Detlev licked his lips. He'd shifted from one booted foot to the other. “I'll do it.”

“Make it appear the impis killed Anthony Brewster.”

“I know their customs, Sir Julien.”

So Detlev, self-serving man that he was, had taken care of the body of Heyden and kept his mouth shut. Then Detlev had dragged Anthony to the wait-a-bit tree.

But … Rogan. Rogan was always trouble. Julien had seen through him. Rogan had been suspicious about Anthony. So what to do? Julien had made plans. Henry's gold—yes, he would give it all to Rogan along with the Zimbabwe thunderbird. Yes, that was it—make friends with Rogan.

Afterward, he would lure Rogan to the Matopos, pretending he needed him as a bodyguard. Once the Black Diamond was his again, he would bribe Harry Whipple to arrange an accident for Rogan on the way back to Bulawayo. A fall down the rocks, perhaps.

Captain Retford. Julien's remembrance was still racing through his
mind, and he wiped the sweat from his face. Another dangerous man to have snooping around. Better not take chances. Harry could arrange something for both men on the Matopos.

Until then, Rogan must be led to think Heyden was alive and trying to kill him. That would keep him from concentrating too much on Anthony. What to do—

Detlev
. He would have Detlev follow Rogan to the Zimbabwe Ruins and fire his rifle. Detlev even looked like Heyden.

Yes, he thought then and now, everything was going to work out after all.

Inside the cave where Lobengula's body was laid, Julien gripped the Black Diamond. His, again, at last. He smiled.

Suddenly a throaty gasp of terror came from Harry Whipple. A rifle shot exploded, and some pieces of gritty dirt fell on top of Julien's head. More rifle shots. Then—

Julien turned and looked up toward the cave mouth.

“Dumaka—” Julien's voice cracked.

“You are cursed.”

The spellcaster! “You! My office—the hakata bones—”

Dumaka raised a fist. “Jee!” came the deep, drawn-out war chant of the fighting impis.

“Bayete!” The impis shouted the royal salute from behind him toward their dead king.

Julien caught a last horrifying glimpse of the shiny assegai blades pummeling down upon him—

Dumaka drew a rasping breath. He wrenched the diamond from the white chief's bloody hand and wiped it clean on a piece of the dead man's soaked shirt.
Dog
.

A few minutes later, the impis threw the dead bodies of the invaders into a ravine and shut the royal cave with heavy boulders.

The sun was moving across the brittle sky above Matabeleland, heading toward the eastern mountains. Dumaka and his impis trotted silently along the twisting path up to the cave of the Umlimo.

She appeared with a talisman hanging around her throat between her naked breasts. Dumaka and the impis groveled and laid the Black Diamond at her feet. Her eyes rolled back into her skull. Saliva drooled from her mouth.

“Victory will come,” came the high-pitched, rasping voice, a voice not hers. “The white chief and his dogs will fail. Kill them. All must die. The land must be purged. The oracle has spoken.”

Down the crooked, serpentine path, Dumaka and his loyal warriors trotted, hearts beating with warlike ecstasy. Down the ascent of the great rocky hill of the sacred Matopos they went toward Bulawayo.