White Bone (18 page)

W
hat’s he like, this Benson?” Knox asked.

The safari truck moved along a rutted dirt track that ran through the green of thick foliage and the gray of fallen trees. Gangs of baboons scattered like startled grackles. Knox had the sense of being watched, of animals lurking. Olé’s initial silence, his constantly moving head and searching eyes contributed to Knox’s unease. A blast of sunlight gave way to open, dry-grass fields reminding him of northern California. More dead trees lay splayed across the land like skeletons.

Olé drove. Charcoal stood in the back of the truck as scout.

“You will like Benson. The head ranger before him was believed to have cooperated with poachers. The temptations are very great. But I believe Benson to be an honest man. His job, my job—we all rely upon the game in this reserve. It is shortsighted to think otherwise. And he is Kikuyu. His people migrated south and settled around Mount Kenya five hundred years ago. He has this place in
his blood. Many times, Benson has expressed to me his dedication to this place and to the preservation of all who live here. I have no reason to doubt that.”

“That’s quite an endorsement,” Knox said.

“I am Maasai. He is Kikuyu. The Maasai warred with the Kikuyu after the British arrived. My ancestors won this war, but eventually lost control of the government. Since this time, the tribes respect one another. We are brothers, Benson and I. We depend upon each other. Without the animals, we have no tourists. Without the tourists, we cannot pay to protect the animals. We are like the ants on the flowers, the vultures on the carcasses. We all rely upon the other.”

The truck climbed out of a muddy river bottom marked by a meandering stream and stamped by thousands of animal tracks. The road opened up to bright, searing light and a series of hills.

It was nearing sunset. As they reached the top of the highest hill, Knox saw two army-green SUVs. Range Rovers or Land Cruisers.

“I will just take a moment.” Olé parked and left the truck to speak through the passenger window of the lead vehicle. Behind the glass Knox saw a wide, exceptionally round head, a tree-trunk neck and shoulders too wide for the seat to contain them. Olé waved Knox out of the vehicle. The head ranger met him halfway, reminding Knox of some kind of prisoner exchange. Together, the three men stood in the red powder of the dirt track.

Following some formalities and small talk, Benson addressed Knox with a keen intensity.

“So, John, how may I help?”

“Grace was interested in the killings on Mount Kenya. The execution-style murders. Did she ask you about those?”

“She did. I will tell you what I told her: it is all rumor. The only man I would trust to be impartial in such matters is a ranger called
Koigi. If anyone knows, it is this man. He has no allegiances, no alliances.”

“She asked if you could arrange a meeting for her.”

“She did.”

“And did you?”

“I may have. I am not a tourist guide, John. Do not ask me to do the same for you.”

Knox had been about to ask for exactly that. He lacked Grace’s charm, her ability to slowly bring you around to her way of thinking. He pushed himself to think like her, act like her. “Can I ask your opinion of the killings?”

Olé shuffled his sandals in the dirt, head down.

“Let me say,” said Benson, “that this man, Faaruq, the first man found, was known to Koigi.”

Knox unfolded the printer photo. Benson told him to put it away.

“She showed me this photograph as well. I will not comment on this.” Benson looked away from the photo and out into the landscape. Knox gazed out along with him.

“What do you think?” Benson asked.

“Beautiful.”

“Too common a word,” Benson said.

“Endless. Timeless.”

“Better. Yes.”

“Untouched.”

“Exactly! The same now as then. We Africans take great pride in being the origin of man. Our landscapes, our wild animals.”

“We have views like this in America, but there is always evidence of man—a plowed field, a power line, a road, a fence. It’s the absence that gives it substance.”

“You see? It turns us all into poets.” Benson smiled. Not to Knox, but to the reserve and the distant majesty of Mount Kenya that raided a sky of pink-tinted cumulus clouds.

“You get paid to oversee all this,” Knox said. “I envy you such a job.”

“I am a lucky man.” Benson’s widely spaced eyes were hidden behind a pair of aviator sunglasses, but the skin at the corners compressed as he squinted.

“She is important to me,” Knox said abruptly. “She’s gone missing, Benson.” It sounded odd to hear the words coming out of his mouth. He rarely took measure of Grace’s importance in his life; he wasn’t given to sentimentality, his emotions long since burned and buried by Iraqi IEDs and the nearly 24/7 care of his younger brother. Now his simple statement provoked a stream of thought that might have occupied hours, but flashed by in fractions of seconds.

Benson appraised Knox thoughtfully. After a moment, he asked Olé to return to the truck, which the guide did. Considering his words carefully, Benson said, “What I tell you now is in the strictest confidence.”

He smiled, showing off uneven teeth. Knox’s chest pounded at the thought of what Grace might be going through. Terror. Abuse. Starvation. Torture. He fought the chemical reaction, knowing firsthand the poison of pent-up adrenaline.

The ranger continued facing the landscape. “There is a Somali called Guuleed who organizes poaching raids here in Kenya. It is believed to profit the terrorists—no proof—but must involve the Chinese as well. He is my sworn enemy. And Koigi’s as well. Koigi believes Faaruq, this dead man with the tattoo, was one of Guuleed’s most effective enforcers. An expert in torture of all kinds. His
execution had to be at Guuleed’s hand. It was meant as a warning to others.”

Alkinyi had told him the same thing, nearly verbatim. “Torture gone bad?”

“It would not be the first time. Guuleed’s men are cruel. They often go too far. This other man killed with the reporter, he too showed signs of having been beaten badly about the face. I have no way to know if this is the truth. I would say Guuleed’s men beat this man. A common laborer from Nairobi. Why?” Benson shook his head.

Knox felt the meeting drawing to a close, the brief moment of revelation slipping away with the sunlight. He decided to hazard a guess. “Grace asked you about a break-in here, a theft on the cattle side of the ranch.”

Benson remained remarkably unreadable, though he sneaked an admonishing look in Olé’s direction. He retained the sunglasses despite the sun setting.

“He said nothing,” Knox said. “I haven’t mentioned it to Olé. Grace asked you about a large quantity of vaccine. I’m guessing you wouldn’t acknowledge it, much less discuss it.”

Benson stood so still Knox wasn’t sure he’d heard him.

“I ask you to reconsider. Her disappearance has to do with that theft, as well as this photograph. It has to do with Faaruq and a corrupt minister in Nairobi.”

“All ministers are corrupt.”

“The thieves got away with the vaccine,” Knox pressed. “If you intercepted them, and I’m assuming you did, you thought they were after the cattle. You didn’t notice the missing vaccine, not for a while. By then you worried about the reputation of the reserve. You realized how little good it would do anybody to report it.”

Benson’s eyebrows arched above the sunglasses. “Like you, the woman was a storyteller.”

Olé’s radio clicked, nearly simultaneously with Benson’s. Running toward them, Olé called out. “We must go now, John. The rangers come!”

“KGA have entered the reserve, in pursuit of an American wanted for the killing of a policeman.” Benson addressed Olé. “A wanted man. Are you mad? Why was I not told?”

“I’ve killed no one,” Knox said, stepping in front of the man. “I give you my word on that.”

Benson spoke softly. “Never ask the right questions of the wrong people.”

“Are you going to help me, or turn me in?”

“My friend here,” Benson said, gesturing to Olé, “knows this property well. Better than even the KGA. It will take at least fifteen minutes for them to reach us here. If they think to block the east gate, and they may, then your situation is not good. My men and I could conceal you in our vehicles, but that might require lying to the rangers, and that is not my way. I need them more than I need you, Mr. Knox.”

“The lookouts—” Olé proposed.

“Will eventually be searched,” Benson said. “Hiding in one of them would merely delay the inevitable.” Knox appreciated the calm of the two men. “My advice is this.” Benson spoke to only Olé, his voice low, authoritative. “Those kids and their damn sheep.”

“Ah! Of course!” Olé sounded impressed. He turned to face Knox. “There are shepherd boys always here on the west border. Our friend Benson is very smart. You will please get in the truck, John. I will be right along.”

Olé and the ranger spoke as Knox looked on from the open-air
vehicle. It was a relaxed and easy conversation between friends. At last the men shook hands, displaying no urgency whatsoever, and Benson strode slowly to his waiting rangers.

“The KGA is ten minutes out,” Olé said, climbing back behind the wheel. “You like Benson?”

He sounded as if he was still in guide mode.

Off-road, at the bottom of the next swale, Olé shut off the vehicle, called out up the hill and waved to a small figure. The bone-thin man waved back, and Knox jumped out.

Ahead was a twelve-foot-high electric fence, built with wires wide apart and meant to contain rhinoceros, Cape buffalo, impala and giraffe. Knox heeded Olé’s warning of the high-voltage wires, took his time, slipping very carefully through the eighteen-inch gaps between the wires. The air was gray with insects.

Safely on the other side, Knox quickly hiked up a barren hillside toward a band of ragged sheep and their three herdsmen—all young children. The man Knox had seen was about thirteen and clearly the one in charge. An emaciated sheepdog, down on its belly, its front legs extended in prayer, back haunches ready to spring, kept an alert eye on Knox.

“English?” asked the leader.

Knox nodded, stealing a glance at his watch. He expected the KGA to pass by at any minute. Olé’s plan remained unknown to him. If anything, he felt set up yet again: high on a hill, his six-foot-three frame towering over these children—he could be easily spotted.

“Here, please,” said the boy kindly, leading Knox into the midst of the flock. The sheep parted begrudgingly, bleating and jumping, more than a few of them kicking out their hind legs. “Sit.”

“Here?”

“You will sit, please,” said the boy.

Through a combination of light breeze and the noise of the animals came the distinctive groan of approaching vehicles. Knox dropped to the ground. He was told to bend forward, to hold that position and not move. Without any more explanation, the boy moved away and emitted a series of ear-piercing whistles. The dog yipped.

Bent forward over his crossed legs, Knox heard the call of high voices and the constant yapping of the dog. In no more than a few seconds, the flock compressed around Knox. Where there had been space between the animals, there was now none. In considering a close-up look at the animals of Africa, Knox had not bargained for sheep. With him in the mix, the animals became agitated. Several walked over him or landed on him as they startled.

Through the groaning of the animals and the tamping of their hooves, Knox heard at least one—possibly two—vehicles draw close to the fence. The engines died. Voices called out loudly. The oldest of the children shouted back. The conversation sounded amiable enough. It went on for perhaps thirty seconds before the engines started again, and the sound of them slowly faded.

Minutes passed before the flock began to thin and a pair of dirty feet in tire sandals appeared in Knox’s field of view.

“It is okay now, sir. These rangers are gone. It is best, I think, if you stay as you are in this place. The KGA rangers are devils. I will watch the hills for them. Just in case.”

Knox sat up to relieve his back, keeping his head at the height of the sheep for good measure. He also kept watch into the reserve for the wink of binoculars or movement of any kind. With no trees nearby, or terrain to hide in, he had little choice but to stay among the flock.

He crawled several yards on hands and knees, moving along with the animals, avoiding the oval stains from their urine. The fresh
pellets he could not dodge. The sun was hot, the sky clear. The smell, overpowering. Thirty minutes bled into forty-five.

“You will keep moving, please!” The lead boy’s voice was distant. “Not far now.”

Knox felt as if he’d gone a hundred yards on hands and knees. A pair of thin legs appeared. “The rangers return now. We must hurry.” Knox hastened with the boy to a copse of trees ahead, where a rusted bicycle lay on the ground.

“Down this path to the main road. You will turn to the left. Our village is then two kilometers. You will leave my bicycle behind the store with the red wall. It is the only one. Wait there for the Maasai. Ride fast. You must watch for the KGA trucks. They are green like the British army.”