A Kiss of Adventure (8 page)

“Crocodiles? I thought you were kidding about that earlier.”

“No joke.” He set down the fish. “We’re just now coming into croc country. You’ll probably see some tomorrow.”

Her focus darted to the shoulder-high reeds, and he knew she was imagining jaws ready to clamp. Edging through the grass toward Graeme, she sat down quickly.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. They really only like to eat one thing.” He paused. “Blondes in skirts,” he said and gave her calf a squeeze.

She nearly jumped out of her skin. “Graeme! Don’t do that!”

He couldn’t hold back a laugh.

“It’s not funny.” As though the reality of their situation finally caved in on her, Tillie dropped her head to stare at her tattered skirt. “I’m burned to a crisp, my skin is on fire from these stupid mosquito bites, I’m starving and thirsty, and I wish you would just stop irritating me.”

Graeme studied the top of her head . . . her wavy hair stuck with leaves and grass seeds, the once-neat part down the center now helter-skelter, her thick braid a frayed rope. He’d asked a lot of her. After all, she was a scientist, a gardener, a lady in a skirt and sandals—not a wanderer like him on a quest for hidden treasure. He sighed. It had been such a long time since he had shared even part of his life with another human being. He’d almost forgotten what it meant to look out for anyone but himself.

What he ought to do was leave her in Segou tomorrow and finish his work alone. It would be best that way. Unfortunately, he had begun to enjoy her company a little. More than a little. She had spunk. She had chosen to take on the challenge of the trip when it would have been easier to wither in defeat. He liked that. But then, she’d made it clear that what he liked didn’t matter a whole lot.

He reached into the basket beside him and pulled out two fish. Tillie Thornton would be out of the picture soon. Her boyfriend would come along and send the government after the
amenoukal
. The authorities would whisk her to safety. Without the tree-planting woman, the Tuareg would be forced to abandon their search. Then what would become of the amulet?

Graeme knew he had better plan what he’d do if someone went off with the scrap of Mungo Park’s journal. He knew the basics now, but he wanted to examine the wording more closely. Something in those strange, rambling sentences had captured the imagination of the blue-veiled nomads.

Well, until he had a chance to examine the paper more closely, Tillie was just going to have to put up with sticking with him. Gutting and scaling the fish, he turned his attention to the job at hand, all the while telling himself that he wanted Tillie with him because of the journal, not because he might miss her.

Before long, Graeme had built a small fire and spitted the filets on two green sticks. A savory aroma filled the night air, and Tillie’s stomach turned over in hunger. When the fish were done, he handed her a stick.

“Better than bananas,” he said. “Eat up.”

She took a bite and savored the mouthful. Nothing had ever tasted so good.

“Hannah never cooked fish for us,” she commented. “I guess it’s the Kikuyu in her. She’s into beans and corn. Maybe a little goat meat.”

“Hannah?”

“The woman who took care of my brother and sisters and me after our mother died. She’s been living with me in Bamako.”

“She’ll be worried about you.”

“Not Hannah. Prays too hard to worry.” A smile crossed her face as she thought of the old woman’s stiff curved fingers tracing over the crinkly pages of the little Kikuyu Bible she’d been given as a child. “‘Do not seek what you shall eat, and what you shall drink, and do not keep worrying.’” The simple repetition of the Scripture Hannah had quoted so often comforted Tillie. “‘Your Father knows that you need these things.’”

“Your father?”

She nodded. “God the Father. It’s a verse out of Luke. Hannah filled our heads with Scripture for so many years that none of us can go half an hour without remembering some little scrap of a verse that fits whatever situation we’re in. It’s probably Hannah’s greatest gift to us. I doubt a real mother could have done better.”

“God the father and Hannah the mother,” Graeme said, his voice tight. “Not a bad family tree.”

Tillie glanced over at him. As she took another bite of fish, she wondered again at his strangeness. He was so withdrawn about himself. All she knew was that he had no mother. What had happened to her? And what had been his relationship with his father?

Her own father had been emotionally distant after his wife’s death. A lost man. Until Hannah had explained God’s loving role as parent to her, Tillie had felt empty and alone. Then “God the Father” and “Hannah the mother” had been enough. More than enough.

Studying Graeme, she thought of Arthur. Arthur had no bitter edge. No buried anger. He had not been driven to hardness the way Graeme had. On the other hand, Arthur had never allowed Tillie close enough to see into his heart. He kept her distant—not out of pain as Graeme tried to do, but out of propriety. In Arthur’s world, it wasn’t mannerly to share deep feelings, to scream in anger, to rail at the world, to cry or laugh or shout.

With Graeme, emotion seemed torn out of him in brusque, bitter tones that sliced and hurt. Or deep belly laughs. Or the slamming of a Land Rover hood. His way was unsettling—difficult maybe—but it was real. And honest.

“What was your father like?” Tillie asked.

He looked up in surprise. “My father?”

“You haven’t told me much about yourself. I thought you might tell me about your father.”

Graeme scowled. “He’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t waste your tears.”

Tillie shrank from the venom in his voice. “You’re not sorry?”

“He’s dead. That’s all there is to it. What good would it do to be sorry?”

She stared at him. Clearly, he wanted no part of this conversation. But tomorrow they’d reach Segou, and he’d be gone. Not two days ago she couldn’t wait to be away from him; now she found she wasn’t ready for their separation.

She lifted her chin. “So, how did your father die?”

“What is this—twenty questions?”

“Just one.”

He hurled his stick into the air as far as he could. “Killed. Somebody killed him. No great loss.”

“You hate him.”

He hooked his elbows over his knees and looked up at the black sky. “Hate a dead man? Not much point in that.”

“Hannah says hate and love are two rivers that rise from the same spring. She would say you hate your father so deeply because you wanted to love him deeply.”

“Maybe Hannah doesn’t know as much as you think.”

“Maybe Hannah knows more than you’re willing to admit.” Tillie set aside the stick and rummaged in the knapsack until she found the comb. She unbraided her hair and began tugging the comb through the tangles. She had started to rebraid when his warm hand covered hers.

“Look at me, Tillie,” Graeme said. “See this nose? He broke it twice. Drunk, of course, but I never thought that was much of an excuse for rearranging your own kid’s face.”

She could feel his hand tremble as it tightened on hers. He moved her fingers from her braid to the bridge of his nose and traced their tips over the lump that marred its perfect line.

“This mouth.” He trailed her hand over his lips. “Busted. I was twenty-three before I saved enough money to get my teeth fixed. Jaw’s still out of whack, but I’m used to it.”

“Oh, Graeme.” She thought of the way he gritted his teeth, working his jaw as though pain and anger were knotted inside it.

“I’m not telling you this to get sympathy. You said I hate him, and I’m showing you why.” He unbuttoned the first two buttons on his shirt and drew her hand to his chest. Beneath the crisp hair, she could feel a long ridge of flesh, a curved snake reminding him of the pain and evil with which he had lived.

“Knife,” he explained. “My father’s weapon of choice.” Her eyes met his as she struggled against a wave of grief. “Graeme, I’m sorry.”

“Look, I’m not the only kid in the world who ever had a mean dad.”

“But a knife? A knife goes beyond mean. It’s wicked. How could a father use a knife on his own son?”

“That night . . .” His voice grew husky as he spoke. “That night, he’d been drinking as usual. He was beating on my mom, also as usual, and I stepped in. That was not usual. I’d never been big enough to stand up to him. But that night he was . . . his eyes . . . I’ll never forget his eyes. Red rage. But desperation, too. And agony . . . some kind of agony. He turned on me and took out the knife. My mom screamed at him, but he never heard her. That’s when he . . . when . . .”

He stopped speaking and bent over his knee. His cocked arm covered his face. Tillie laid her hand on his shoulder. What did she know about horrors like these? Drunkenness, beatings, knives. Dear God! How could any child survive such brutality?

Her eyes rested on Graeme. It was as though he were a child again, caught in the pain of remembrance, his walls down and his pain open for her to see. What could she say? How could she help?

God, can anything heal scars like these?

She touched his hair, ran her fingers through the ends of it as she imagined his mother might have done. At her touch, he looked up briefly, his face stony, then turned his eyes toward the moon. The muscle in his jaw jumped, and she reached out to stroke it, wanting to erase the clenching, wanting to comfort. But he pulled away and stood up.

“We’d better get to the boat. We need some sleep, and I don’t want to sack out here with the hippos.”

“Graeme, I—”

“Forget it, okay?”

Hurt washed over her at his curt dismissal. Standing stiffly, Tillie picked up the knapsack as Graeme stamped out the ashes of the fire. Taking the bag from her, he strode off toward the boat. She worked on her braid as she followed, trying to will her mind away from his words, from his emotion-choked voice. She couldn’t let his pain draw her sympathies too far. She couldn’t save him. Couldn’t fix him. Couldn’t risk that close a tie with this man.

Tomorrow, Graeme McLeod would be out of her life. She would go on with her own plans.
God’s
plans. She forced her thoughts to the present . . . to tramping through the brush and finding the boat and getting some rest.

They climbed into the bobbing dugout. Tillie sighed at the cramped space. She was getting used to sleeping with no room to spare. On the damp floor, she pressed herself against the boat’s hard wooden side. Graeme wedged his large frame into the tiny space at her feet.

“Are you going to sleep like that? Sitting up?”

He lifted his head. “There’s not much room.”

“Here, we’ll sit side by side. I’ll sleep with my head on your shoulder. Arthur will just have to understand.”

“Arthur won’t understand, but I’m not going to worry about that if you don’t.”

When he settled beside her, she tucked her head into the curve of his neck, and he slipped his arm around her shoulders. His cheek drifted onto her forehead. Closing her eyes, Tillie tried to sleep, but thoughts of the man beside her flowed into her mind . . . the way his hair blew back from his face, his arms bunched with muscle as he steered the boat. . . .

Squeezing her eyes tightly, she fought the desire that welled through her, a sudden urge to turn in the boat, to feel his arms caress her and let his lips find hers again.

The midnight air was filled with cries and shrieks and the quick whirring of insect wings as they flitted overhead. But all Tillie could hear was the sound of her heart thudding against the side of Graeme’s chest.

And then he moved, tightened his arm around her, turned her into him. She lifted her focus to his eyes.

“Something you said earlier,” she whispered. “It’s not true. You’re not just a basic kind of guy with no range of emotion. I don’t think you truly believe we live and then we die and that’s it. I think that’s all a mask you wear. Under it, there’s another man.” She watched shadows form and vanish in his eyes. “I’m glad God saw fit to put my safety into the hands of the man behind that mask.”

He was silent a moment, as if absorbing her words. “Good night, Tillie-girl,” he murmured at last, his gaze on her lips.

She shivered.

FIVE

“Tillie! Tillie!” An urgent voice.

“What . . . what is it?” She opened her eyes, her chest heaving with the struggle to take in air. “Where is . . . ? Don’t let them . . .” Wincing against the unseen, she peered up into the shadowed face of the man bending over her.

“It’s okay, Tillie.” Graeme’s words soothed her. “You’re here in the boat. You’re safe.”

“I saw the sword . . . the broadsword. Blood. Blood dripping . . .”

“It was a dream. The Tuareg aren’t going to get you. Look.”

She followed the line of his pointing finger across the river. On the opposite shore, pinpricks of light gleamed like the eyes of tiny devils. The caravan camp.

“Let’s get out of here, Graeme,” she whispered.

“You all right?”

“I’ll be better when we can’t see them anymore.”

He nodded and looked up at the moon. “Okay. We’ll give it a shot.”

He untied the boat, handed Tillie the oar, and poled out into the channel. The current caught the dugout, and it glided along, erasing the sight of Tuareg fires. After they rounded a bend, Tillie permitted herself to relax. She looked at Graeme as he steered, his concentration on the task. Their conversation of the evening slipped into her mind, and she studied his broken face.

How long had it been since his father had done that to him? How long since his father had died? And his mother? When had she died? What had Graeme done before she met him? For that matter, what did he really do now?

She thought about how right it felt to be with him, to trust him. When the Tuareg had been so close, she’d leaned on his strength and trusted him to keep her safe. When the
amenoukal
had raised his sword, the drive to protect Graeme had been immediate, instinctive.

Warning flags flew.
You can’t save him from his past, Tillie. And you can’t change his rejection of God. Don’t confuse missionary zeal with affection.
She had seen too many friends— good Christian women—marry men they thought they could save or heal or fix. They ended up with marriages filled with pain and confusion. Every action has a reaction. This truth was borne out in her friends’ lives as most of them ended up going to church without husbands, raising children with uncertain loyalties, and turning to friends for the spiritual communion they should have shared with their spouses.

God was there with them, but he did not prevent their poor decisions—decisions that went directly against his guidelines in Scripture—from affecting their lives.

Tillie had no desire to fall into that trap. She would put her emotions aside and remember the truth about Graeme. The only truth that really mattered: he did not share her belief in Christ. Nothing more.

Please, God, nothing more.

They floated for what seemed like hours before the sun finally showed its pale yellow head. Small villages came and went, children wading in the shallows, women fetching water, men mending nets.

Tillie dreaded spending another day under the burning rays, fighting the insects and hugging her groaning stomach. Graeme looked better than she felt. His shaggy hair blew softly back from his face, softening the hard lines of his chin and the slope of his nose. Even when relaxed, his arms and legs maintained their powerful coils, giving him physical reserves Tillie knew she lacked.

“Are you sure we’ll make it to that town today?”

“Segou?” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “If we keep up this pace and don’t have any more run-ins, we might get there tonight.”

“What then? I mean, even after I go to the police, the Tuareg will still be hunting me. I don’t know where their treasure is.”

“The
amenoukal
thinks you do. You’re the tree-planting woman. You’re the only one who can get at the treasure.”

She knotted her fingers. “But it’s ridiculous. Mungo Park didn’t know anything about me. The Tuareg must realize that.”

“There’s something about you that mesmerizes them.” He laid the paddle beside him and let the current take the boat. “Still have that document?”

Tillie pulled the silver amulet from inside her blouse and took out the folded paper. Opening it across her knees, she reread the message. “‘Twenty-five December, 1806.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

“The last time Mungo Park was heard from was in November of 1805. So if the document is really a piece of his journal, it means he lived many months longer. It means he could not have been killed at Bussa like everyone thought.”

“Bussa? Where’s that? Tell me everything you know.”

Graeme leaned back in the boat. “Mungo was an adventurer. He was born in Scotland, the son of a farmer. There were thirteen children in the family. His father wanted him to become a Presbyterian minister.”

Graeme spoke as if he had known Mungo Park personally— as if he were a beloved friend. Tillie felt drawn in, as she did when Hannah spun the old Kikuyu tales her father had told his children around the village fire. “Did your father tell you about Mungo Park?” she asked.

“My mother was the storyteller.” He fell silent for a moment, lost in the past. When he spoke again, his voice was harder, free of emotion, as though he had wrapped up his memories and stashed them far away. “Park wanted to be a doctor, not a minister. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, and then he worked as an apprentice for a Doctor Thomas Anderson. Anderson had a beautiful daughter, Ailie.”

Tillie glanced at the paper on her lap.
“Ailie when I get back will you let me rest? Will you keep the Moors away? . . . Ailie we will buy that house on Chester Street.”
She lifted her head. “Did Mungo marry Ailie?”

“Not at first. The African Association, based in London, asked him to go to Africa to gather information on the rise, the course, and the termination of the Niger River. This river—” he glanced at the water—“was a great mystery to the English, but they knew they wanted in on the gold and other treasures that had been rumored for centuries. In 1795, Park left England on the brig
Endeavour.
His first journey into Africa was a nightmare. As he traveled overland toward the Niger, he had to pay a tribute to every king along the way. Moors captured him and held him captive for more than two months. They threatened and tortured him. Finally, in July 1796, he made it to Segou.”

“Segou? Where we’re going!”

“That’s the place.”

Tillie studied the brown river with greater interest. Mungo Park could well have traveled this very spot. “What happened in Segou?”

“Mansong, the king of Segou, gave him a bag of five thousand cowrie shells. They’re little rounded seashells— worth nothing now but used as currency back then. The king basically paid Park to get rid of him. Park left Segou, but nine days later he was so sick and hungry he was forced to turn back. When he got to Bamako, he was robbed again. In December 1797, he finally made it back to England.”

“I’ll bet he was ready to hang it up.”

“Wrong. He had fulfilled only part of the African Association’s request. He had determined that the Niger flowed south to north. Every previous report had insisted it flowed the other way. No one could believe it. A river that flowed away from the ocean and into a desert? Park insisted he was right. More important to him, he had not found the mouth of the river, and he was really bothered by that.”

Tillie fingered the fragile document. “What about Ailie?”

“After he wrote a book,
Travels in the Interior of Africa
, he moved back to Scotland and fell in love with Ailie. They married in 1799. He set up practice as a country doctor.”

“So that was it?”

“Africa called him back. He had recurring nightmares about it. He had to return. So in 1805 he took off again, leaving Ailie and their three children. This time he had a military escort. Again he had problems. His troops were undisciplined. They battled dysentery, bees, kidnapping, tornadoes, rain, vomiting, and fever. When he reached the Niger, three-fourths of his men had died and all his pack animals were either dead or stolen.”

Tillie searched the paper for clues as Graeme spoke. “Did he know any of the rulers in the area? Couldn’t any of them have helped him?”

“Park finally arrived at Segou again and sold the rest of his goods. But he made the mistake of telling the king, his pal Mansong, his plans for the coming of white traders and the end of Moorish domination.”

“Why was that a mistake?”

“Most sources believe word of that conversation got to the Moors, who controlled trade on the Niger. Anyway, Mansong gave Park two half-rotten canoes, again eager to get rid of him. On November 16, 1805, Park wrote the last entry in his journal and sent it to England. That was the last anyone heard from him.”

The sun was high in the sky now, and Tillie wiped at the perspiration on her brow. After folding the paper carefully, she slipped it back into the amulet.

When she looked up, Graeme had fastened his gaze on her. “Keep the amulet safe, Tillie. It may protect you if the
amenoukal
gets his hands on you. They’re superstitious people, and they think it’s charmed.”

She swallowed. “I figured you would want it. It’s the clue to the treasure.”

“Is that what you think? That I’m after the treasure?”

“I don’t know what you’re after. The treasure or the story you’re writing . . . or the journal itself. It would be valuable, wouldn’t it?”

“The journal would be valuable to me for my book. Research.” He picked up the oar and examined it. “So what are you after, Tillie? A lifetime of planting neem trees in the desert? A cushy job as a professor somewhere? Or a businessman husband, a couple of kids, and a town house in Soho?”

“Did you say ‘neem trees’?” She couldn’t hide her surprise. “How did you know I’ve been working with
Azadirachta indica
? Even Arthur doesn’t know which species I’ve been working with.”

“Arthur should pay closer attention to the woman he thinks he’s going to marry. I learned that the Tuareg were on your tail, so I spent a few days finding out about the mysterious tree-planting woman. You’ve been in Mali almost a year. You live in a tiny three-room house with an African woman.” He paused. “That would be Hannah?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Your house has no air conditioner and only one fan. You work for PAAC, which has given you a little office and a compound that you’ve planted with neem saplings. You’ve been experimenting with species from Mexico and China. Your staff has planted sorghum and corn seedlings around the trees. Why is that, by the way?”

“Protection from the desert wind. It works very well.”

“Good. You’ve tested the use of the neem tree for fire-wood and fence poles. You’ve been experimenting with the leaves and seeds. For?”

“They contain a natural pesticide. Farmers can extract it and use it against yellow-fever mosquitoes, cockroaches, beetles, worms, and other pests. It even cures stomachache.”

“You’ve sent letters to PAAC requesting transfer into the Sahel, but they won’t let you go north yet. You’ve also written the Malian government for donations of land in the Sahel.” He lifted his dark brows. “Have I missed anything?”

Tillie turned away and looked out at the river. She loved the little compound, loved the two acres that were hers to manage. She loved the saplings, the struggling corn plants, the smell of moist, rich earth.

“You’ve missed a lot,” she said. “I want to plant 250 miles of windbreaks across the Sahel. I want to try growing a species of leguminous tree that’s been planted successfully in East Africa to help stabilize atmospheric nitrogen in the soil. I want to try using leaves and branches from my trees as fertilizer. I want to work with Malian women, educating them, and . . . and there’s a lot more. A lot.” She shrugged at her own grandiosity. “I have big dreams.”

“And Arthur? I guess you know your sort-of fiancé’s being transferred to London.”

Incredulous, she stared at him. “You checked out Arthur, too?”

“I’m thorough.”

Irritation swept over her. “It’s really not your business, Graeme. Our future plans are between Arthur and me.” But for all her protestations, she couldn’t help reflecting on the truth in what Graeme said about a man paying attention to his fiancée. Arthur didn’t even know the species of her trees. He’d never asked. He had been inside her compound only twice, and then it was for a quick look-see before heading off to a meeting.

What was even more important, though, was that Arthur had never asked about her dreams. He had no clue they didn’t have anything to do with a flat in London or a television or life in upper-crust British society.

Sighing, Tillie gazed across at the bank. The river was deep here and more than two miles wide, so they kept the dugout no more than fifty yards from the bank. Its edges were lined with reeds, and—she caught her breath. Crocodiles. A dozen gray crocodiles were sunning themselves on the bank.

“What’s wrong?” Graeme lifted his head.

She pointed.

“I figured we were about here.” His voice was even. “They should thin out farther down. We’ll be out of the worst of them by dark.”

Along with the crocodiles, the hippo numbers had increased. It was a fertile area of the river. Dense green forest choked the west bank. The east side had been cleared for the road, which provided the crocodiles with a perfect basking place for their cold blood. Tall reeds rose from sandy peninsulas that hosted lines of white herons and sandpipers. The ever-present kingfishers swooped and plummeted into the river.