Treasure of the Golden Cheetah (10 page)

She saw Prentiss McAvy following Harry as he directed his camp. She assumed he was trying to get his role down as the fictional safari leader. The other men milled around more or less aimlessly, laughing and joking. The bulky Mr. Murdock had found a deck of cards and some chips and was playing poker with Talmadge and Wells. They invited Jade to join them.

“Later,” she said. “When I’m sure there won’t be another catastrophe calling me away.”

Wells’ gaze kept shifting from the game to follow Bebe as she wandered about the grounds, examining the clematis vines and the small patches of purple African violets.

“You in or out, Hank?” asked Talmadge, calling his attention back to the game.

“Out, I think,” replied Wells, folding his cards.

Most noticeable to Jade was that none of the women gravitated to one another. Like Bebe, both of the others strolled the grounds, sometimes conversing with one of the men, sometimes looking at the scenery. They managed to veer away from one another before their paths intersected. Once, Cynthia’s attention was drawn to an iridescent flash of wings as a bronze sunbird flew by. When she turned, she nearly collided with Bebe. Both women forced strained smiles before they continued on their separate ways.

They have to work together, but they don’t have to socialize
. Jade could almost feel the icy chill roll off them. Pearl, on the other hand, tended to follow the director or Harry. She struck Jade as a woman who collected men as a hobby. At least she and Cynthia didn’t shy away from everything that fluttered or skittered, the way Bebe seemed to.

Where’s Lwiza?
Not seeing her outside, Jade closed her notebook and went in to find her. She felt sorry for the woman. The hired men had one another to talk to, but Lwiza was essentially alone. Jade wondered if she might enjoy going into Moshi sometime to visit with the Swahili women there. They might not be from Zanzibar, but surely they still would have something in common, if only their language.

Jade found Lwiza in Cynthia’s room, laying sheets on the cot. She rapped on the doorframe to announce herself and called
“Hodi?”
the Swahili equivalent of “May I come in?” or “Am I welcome?”

Lwiza looked up from her work and nodded. She continued smoothing the sheets, then turned to open a trunk. She moved gracefully with an easy but erect carriage.

Jade wondered if Cynthia had told her to unpack her things. She knew that Lwiza spoke English, but Jade decided to continue in Swahili to make Lwiza feel less alien among them.

Jade asked her how she was. “
Hujambo
, Lwiza?”

Lwiza straightened and met Jade’s friendly smile with a serious look. “I would speak English,” she said. “You want something?”

“No,” Jade replied. “Only to see if you were all right. I’m supposed to look after
all
the women, not just the Americans. You are far from home. I thought you might enjoy going back to Moshi with me in a few days for more supplies. You could speak with the Swahili women.”

Lwiza frowned and her shoulders twitched in what looked like a tightly controlled shudder. “Why? They are not as me.”

“No,” replied Jade. “I know they were born here in Tanganyika and not on Zanzibar. But I thought—”

Lwiza’s delicate lips curved a fraction at the ends. “Thank you,
bibi
. I see you have a kind heart. But I have no desire to speak with those women.”

She returned to placing a silken robe on the bed, and Jade had the distinct impression that she’d just been dismissed. “You must tell me, Lwiza, if there is anything you need.”

“Yes,
bibi
. Now I must see to Missy Malta’s room and Missy Zagar’s tent.”

Jade left her and, after giving the other rooms a cursory check, went to see how Jelani was faring. She found him assisting the cook at the back of the house. Biscuit lolled nearby and occasionally received tidbits of meat tossed to him from the stew pot.
So much for the hunting lesson.

Muturi announced that the food was ready, and Harry ordered everyone in line. “There are wooden benches nailed to the floor in the dining room, and Nakuru has set up some camp tables. All very dignified, I assure you.”

Jade remembered his penchant for using sturdy tin cups and battered enamel plates rather than the fragile china preferred by many customers.
Very dignified, indeed.
No one seemed to mind, however. The food was excellent and plentiful, including custard pie for dessert. At Jade’s insistence, Lwiza joined them at the table. Jelani refused the invitation and ate with the cook, Nakuru, and the six Nyamwezi men retained to help with the work.

“I intend to start filming by nine tomorrow, so everyone should get to sleep,” said Julian. No one protested the order. Bebe announced that she wished to bathe in the morning and ordered hot water to be ready for her at seven. After much jockeying for a turn at the privy before it became too dark to see without a lantern, everyone retired to their tent or room. Jade noted that no one had opted to share a tent with anyone else, so the grounds resembled an army encampment.

Her own tent had been set up on the western edge of the others, closer to the house. Harry’s was on the eastern side so that none of the safari members were far from someone in charge. As she untied the flap strings and went inside, Biscuit joined her and claimed the spot directly under her cot. Jade slipped off her boots and removed her belt, but true to her habit on safari, she slept fully dressed, her knife and rifle close at hand.

The night passed uneventfully, troubled only by Jade’s dream in which she kept trying to find Sam, only to watch him disappear every time she spied him. She woke at dawn, shook out her boots, and put them on. The cook was already up and had a chicken ready for Biscuit. The big cat took it, feathers and all, and retired to a private spot under an overgrown mango tree to eat. Jade rapped on Pearl’s tent pole, then stepped inside the house and called at each woman’s door to wake up. Next she went back out to consult with Harry about the day’s orders.

Twenty minutes later they heard a woman’s piercing scream coming from the bath tent.

CHAPTER 6

—The Traveler

JADE RAN TOWARDS THE TENT WITH HARRY HOT ON HER HEELS. He’d paused only long enough to snatch up his rifle. Jade had already pulled her knife and gripped it in her right hand. Bebe stood just outside the bath tent, wrapped in a knee-length cotton flannel robe. Her face had paled to an ashen white.

“What happened?” Jade asked.

“It’s inside. Next to the tub.” The actress whimpered. She rubbed the outside of her eye before brushing her finger across her nose. “A horrid black snake!”

Harry ordered her and everyone else but Jade back. Jade adjusted her grip on the knife, ready to throw it and impale the snake before it had a chance to strike. Mambas, for one, were notoriously fast and equally irritable. Harry held his rifle at the ready. He nodded to Jade to slowly pull back the tent flap.

Jade caught herself holding her breath and released it slowly. From farther behind her, she heard Bebe’s stifled gasps and sobs. Jade moved the flap just enough for both her and Harry to see the thick-bodied black shape on the floor, tucked in the tub’s protective shadow. It didn’t move. Dead? Something about the eyes was all wrong. Harry saw it too. He lowered his rifle, and both of them moved forward, nearly colliding in the entryway.

“Be careful!” screamed Bebe.

Jade ignored the warning and picked up the black woolen sock, stuffed and painted to resemble a snake. She held it up for everyone to see. “It’s fake!”

Harry muttered several ripe curses. Bebe closed her eyes and swayed. Once again, Wells hastened to her, but not before Harry caught her up with one arm. “It’s all right, Bebe,” he murmured. “You’re safe.”

Jade studied the reaction of the rest of the gathering group to gain a clue as to the practical joker’s identity. She saw a mixture of relief and disappointment.

“Ah, nuts!” said Talmadge. “I wanted to see a real snake.”

“But did you see how dramatic that was?” said Julian. “I want to use that in the picture. Not with that stocking puppet, mind you. Too fake-looking.” He rubbed his chin as he thought. “Hascombe!” he shouted. “You could shoot a real snake somewhere. We could use the body.”

Harry helped Bebe regain her feet before answering. “If you think I’m going to hunt up a live snake, you’re out of your mind, Mr. Julian. I’ll shoot one if it slithers into my camp or bars my path, but otherwise, I suggest you make a more believable fake.”

“But how?”

Jade tossed the stocking snake to the director. “Mold one out of clay and bake it,” she suggested. “That’s what the women potters in Morocco do.”

“You’re joking, right?” said Julian. “I’m supposed to set up a pottery kiln out here?”

Jade shrugged. “Dig a pit, layer dry brush and wood over the clay, light it. Cover the coals with dirt to hold in the heat. Or just let it sun-dry. Maybe someone in Moshi could make one for you. But Harry’s right. We’re not hunting a real snake.”

She slipped her knife back in her boot sheath and walked off, signifying the end of the discussion. As she neared Bebe, the woman grabbed her sleeve. “Miss del Cameron. Have you any idea who pulled this terrible joke?”

Jade shook her head. “None at all. I looked at everyone’s faces, but no one revealed anything.” Although, she thought, both Budendorfer and Brown looked more amused than annoyed. She remembered the former’s ruined pair of socks. “No harm done, Miss Malta. You should take your bath before the water chills.”

“I don’t think I can ever feel safe bathing here again,” she exclaimed. “You will stand guard, won’t you? Please? I’d ask Harry, but I’m sure he has more important jobs to do.”

Jade sighed, resigning herself to being a nanny for these women.
As long as she doesn’t expect me to patrol outside her room at night.
“I’ll wait near the tent if it makes you feel more comfortable, ma’am.” She found a camp stool and took a seat a few feet away from a front corner tent peg. Harry strode over a few minutes later.

“On the job, I see,” he said. Then he lowered his voice. “Better you than me. Now you know why I wanted you hired on. I learned my lesson on Marsabit. Women on a safari can be more work than men. Not,” he hastened to add, “that
you
were any trouble in Tsavo.”

“Neither was Beverly or Madeline,” Jade added, defending her friends lest they be lumped into Harry’s category of troublesome women.

“You’re right on the mark there, Jade,” he said, still speaking very softly so the actress couldn’t overhear him. “But you’re all a different breed of woman than these pampered dolls. You’re a
real
woman, the way they were meant to be.”

Jade didn’t care for the turn this conversation was taking. She remembered when Sam found her photograph tucked in one of Harry’s books. “Harry, I don’t think you—”

“Let me finish. I know we’ve had our differences, and maybe we didn’t get off on the right foot back then.”

“As I recall, you were drunk and rode your horse into the Norfolk Hotel lobby to shoot it up when we first met. Then you took over my safari and tried to pawn off that bastard—”

“But I’m a
different
man now, and I want you to see that. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Featherstone is a . . . decent sort of bloke, in his own way. But even I can see that he’s pressing you. Otherwise your good-byes would have been more, shall we say, congenial?” His voice took on a hypnotically soothing pitch. “
I’m
not that way. I know now that it’s the wrong way to treat a woman like you.”

He paused and rubbed his chin stubble. “So I just wanted to put you at ease, Jade. I hired you because you’re good at the job. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have feelings for you, but you needn’t worry about my chasing you around the camp making declarations. You know my mind. If you should ever change yours, you know where to find me.”

With that he turned and walked off, leaving Jade feeling slightly stunned. She’d been waiting for advances from Harry and was prepared to deal with them either verbally or physically. She hadn’t expected him to behave like a gentleman.
Sam would have a thought or two on that score.

Bebe came out of the tent, wrapped in her robe, a towel draped over one arm. “I am finished, Miss del Cameron. Thank you so much. You may do whatever it is you need to do with my bath.”

Jade stretched out her long legs and crossed them at the ankles. “You misunderstand my role, Miss Malta. Mr. Hascombe hired me to make certain that your needs are looked to and that none of you are smuggling guns or hiding explosives in your lip rouge. If I need to kill a snake, I can do that, too, but I’m not your maid. I will tell one of the hired men that you’re finished.”