The Crocodile's Last Embrace (10 page)

So what’s wrong with me?
The problem lay in her mind, in seeing crawling letters, shifting walls, and creeping blood.
And David.

She knew what Beverly would say, that she should see Dr. Burkitt or talk to the French priests at the Ngong mission. But Jade dreaded doctors and she’d avoided the holy fathers, attending the Catholic church in town instead. The last time she’d been to the mission, they’d invited her to bring Sam to visit.
And Sam’s not here.

Her jaw clenched with a twinge of anger.
He ought to be here, blast it!

Jade got to her feet and stroked Biscuit’s back, building up her resolve to inspect the darkroom. After a few moments’ hesitation, she took a step towards the structure. “Let’s go, Biscuit. If I don’t face this now, I never will.”

There was little to see. Jade squatted and pawed at some damp straw. It felt warm to the touch. Underneath it were a few blackened patches. She picked up a handful and sniffed. Definitely burned. Nearby were a spent match and a cigarette butt.

“It looks as if the cook or one of the kitchen help decided to have an evening smoke, Biscuit.” She held up the remnants of the hand-rolled butt. Biscuit sneezed and took a step back. “It’s a good thing some of this straw was still damp or we might have had a serious problem.”

And the vision?
Jade put it down to a lack of sleep.

She stood, wondering if she should leave a note for Bev and Avery to find when they came home, then decided against waking the rest of the household. “I’ll be back in a day or two anyway.”

In the end, Jade returned to her bungalow, and the next morning, after early Mass at St. Joseph’s, loaded up Avery’s truck with her gear and Biscuit and drove towards Ol Donyo Sabuk. Immediately after Thika, she left the main road and cut southeast on a smaller road towards the mountain. Recently, a bridge spanning the Athi had been built, making the trip to Ol Donyo Sabuk easier. Jade wasn’t surprised. Sir William Northrup McMillan’s farm, Juja, sat near and, in part, on it. Game was good and many people, including President Roosevelt, had hunted there. A bridge was inevitable. But as far as she knew, McMillan himself, in all his seven-foot glory, was abroad now, his health failing.

The first time Jade had made this trip she’d been on horseback, on her way to Jelani’s village to hunt a man-eating hyena. She’d forded the river below the falls, watching for crocodiles. Everything she’d seen had inspired awe, from the lone antelope bounding away to the sight of Mount Kenya looming in the distance. Mount Kenya’s imposing grandeur still moved her and she wondered why she’d never yet made a trip to it. Perhaps she could go there. It was one place that held no memories shared with Sam.

Two kudu, startled by the truck, darted out of the thicket where they had been browsing. Jade admired their gracefully spiraled horns and their beautiful tawny coats. The thin white stripes that ran down their sides from their spines reminded her of icing drizzled on a cake. Biscuit wriggled in the seat beside Jade, his head hanging out the open window.

“They’re too big for you, boy.”

The kudu stopped several hundred feet away and looked over their shoulders at the truck with an air that said, “You cannot catch us.” Farther on, a family of baboons watched them, the nearby thorn tree promising them a safe haven should they need it. One juvenile hid behind his mother, peering over her back as Jade drove by.

Jade slowed to take the bridge, amazed at the volume of water that still gushed underneath, remnants of the longer rainy season. Not far downstream, the flow met with large blocks of blackened igneous rock that divided the water and sent it cascading in an arc of waterfalls, enough to earn the area its name of Fourteen Falls.

A mile downstream on the south side of the river sat Jelani’s village, but Jade skirted the mountain towards Harry Hascombe’s old cattle ranch at the southern end. Jade had stayed there in a guest hut after killing that hyena. A hankering to see both Harry’s ranch and that of his deceased neighbor, Roger Forster, seized Jade. She couldn’t have explained why the sudden need except that both men had been involved in that first search for David Worthy’s missing half brother. With David haunting her waking hours, it was reason enough. The detour might supply her with some answers.

Biscuit chirped once, his eyes intently searching the landscape.

“You recognize your old home, boy? You know Harry doesn’t live there anymore.”

She found the ranch, or rather, what was left of it. Harry’s house still stood, but the outbuildings had long been stripped of every usable scrap of wood or galvanized tin by neighboring tribes. Most of the mud and thatch guest huts had crumbled and collapsed. Jade found the one she’d slept in once. It still stood, but the door was gone and the thatch roof had decayed and fallen into the interior. A mouse scurried off as she kicked at the pile.

“There’s not much left, is there, Biscuit? All the old animal pens are gone.”

Biscuit padded softly around the grounds, pausing to inspect some rubble.

“Come on, boy. I don’t know what I hoped to see here, but we’re wasting our time.” She led the cat back to the truck and drove away, steering the truck towards Roger Forster’s farm, which adjoined to the east. Again, she had no real reason to go there, just a feeling that she needed to see it. Forster’s farm had been sold to a woman after his death, but when a fire destroyed the house, no one had ever taken up residence. Like Harry’s land, it had reverted to wilderness as the forested slopes of Ol Donyo Sabuk, the mountain of the buffalo, crept down to reclaim their rightful realm.

Jade had never seen Forster’s farm. If she had expected old ostrich pens and a great blackened char where the house had stood, she was bound to be disappointed. Grasses and a few seedlings sprang from one spot, where the house had probably stood, but the fire ash had long since been absorbed by the ground and seedlings starved for nutrients. Orange, bronze, black, and white swallowtails flitted and supped at invisible flowers tucked into the dense forest. The thick green hardwoods were broken only by black-and-white-banded boulders like petrified zebra.

She had no idea how many outbuildings Forster had possessed, but like those on Harry’s farm, most had collapsed or stood as hollow shells without roofs. Only one remained intact, a small shed or kitchen made of masonry. A thorn tree that grew directly in front of the door explained why no one had managed to scavenge that wood.

She heard a soft noise as dried leaves rustled and a twig cracked. Biscuit heard it, too, which gave Jade a feeling of relief. The way her mind had been working lately, she didn’t know if she could trust her senses. Wary of the buffalo that roamed this region, she slipped her rifle from her shoulder. A vervet monkey, her black face prominent above her white chest, had left her treetop to scavenge for food on the ground. She’d found what looked like a creamy white tuber and was turning it over in her hands. Then she spied Biscuit and screamed. Biscuit gave chase, but the little monkey was quicker. She leaped onto the stone building, dropping her prize. Jade picked it up and was surprised to see it was a candle stub. She dropped it onto the ground.

“Leave her alone, Biscuit. It’s time to leave and go see Jelani.”

At the sound of the youth’s name, Biscuit trotted back to the truck and jumped inside. Next to Jade, the cheetah loved Jelani best, and Biscuit never missed an opportunity to visit the young Kikuyu healer. Jade took the drive slowly, maneuvering Avery’s Dodge truck around the rocks, wallows, and occasional termite mound. Her route would have taken her closer to the river not far below the falls, but she saw another truck parked beside it. Assuming that someone was fishing and wouldn’t appreciate the noise, she veered away from the Athi until she neared Jelani’s village.

She parked the truck at the base of the short hill and walked the narrow, winding path to the huts. On the way she passed several
shambas
, the gardens being hoed by women with sticks. A few had babies strapped to their hips, snuggled in cloth. Most of the women were without children. Jade recalled Jelani’s concern that fewer babies were being born, with so many of the men forced to work farther afield in order to pay their hut taxes.

Biscuit padded in front of Jade, the path being too narrow to admit them side by side. The twists and turns gave the Kikuyu a defensive position. It also muffled the village noise, but as they neared the entrance, Jade heard the clamor of angry voices. She nudged Biscuit to hurry.

They entered the compound through a narrow arch in the wooden palisade, low enough that she had to duck her head. She pushed her way past the clusters of women and saw two Kikuyu men engaged in a heated argument. They both wore only castoff khaki shorts, but one man had a necklace of sorts made of a strip of leather threaded through an empty shell casing. A broad scar stretched across his chest from some old wound. A Kikuyu woman wrapped in a dingy ocher cloth wailed behind the other man. The remaining villagers, mostly old men, stood in a crescent around the combatants, clearly enjoying the spectacle.

Jade recognized the two older men seated on logs in the shadows. A plump man swaddled in a new, striped blanket was an elder who served as the village chief as prescribed by the British officials. A thin sort of turban sat perched on his head, and large brass rings dangled from his ears. He held a stout staff the height of a cane.

The other man was the old
mondo-mogo
, the village seer and healer. He appeared to be more shadow and bones than anything substantial, a manifestation of the spirit world that he guarded. Unlike the chief, he wore no adornments beyond a leather pouch around his neck and his threadbare blanket. Behind him stood Jelani, his apprentice. Like his mentor, he also wore a rawhide medicine sack that was draped onto his bare chest. As the two arguing men became locked in a shoving match, the chief raised his voice and called a halt to the squabble. He prodded the pair with his staff, and they separated.

The chief began a lengthy monologue in Kikuyu. Jade caught one word, “police,” because it was spoken in English. Immediately, the two combatants turned and pleaded their cases to the chief. To Jade, it appeared that the chief had recommended turning the matter over to the Nairobi justice system, and the two men didn’t like that idea at all. Neither, Jade noted, did Jelani. He bent over and whispered in the
mondo-mogo
’s ear. The grizzled old man nodded once and held out his arms to the sides. Jelani placed his own hands under his teacher’s upper arms and hoisted him to his feet.

The effect was electric. If the chief represented the British influence in the village, the
mondo-mogo
was the true power. Even the few children fell silent, expressions of awe, expectation, and fear on their waiting faces. He spoke and his voice, cracked with age, carried across the palisade to Jade.

His pronouncement was brief. Jade caught the word for “test” or “ordeal” as well as a dismissal. When he finished, he motioned for Jelani to help him to his hut. The other villagers hurried back to their garden plots or other chores, their children scurrying after them until only the combatants, the wailing woman, the chief, Jade, and Biscuit remained.

Jelani stepped back out of the
mondo-mogo
’s hut and approached the chief, speaking as one equal to another. Each time she saw Jelani, Jade was impressed by how much he’d grown inwardly as well as in stature from the boy she’d befriended nearly two years ago. The chief pushed the two squabblers into the hut. When the woman would have followed, he ordered her with a sharp word to wait outside. But he beckoned Jade to come inside with them. Jelani nodded and fell in beside her, one hand resting on Biscuit’s head. The cheetah’s throat erupted in a loud and raspy purr.

Entering the hut released a flood of memories in Jade, from her naming ceremony to this past September when the old shaman had warned her of death watching for her on Mount Kilimanjaro. Now it seemed that she was to play the role of witness or perhaps of arbitrator. She didn’t relish either prospect any more than she enjoyed sitting in the dark, smoky hut. The scents of dried mud, thatch, and herbs clashed with those of unwashed bodies and the smoldering remains of a fire. Jelani motioned for her to be seated, but the two men were ordered to stand. Biscuit took his place beside Jade, sitting upright with his front paws neatly together, his head level with hers.

Jelani spoke first, in Swahili so that Jade could understand. “This man, Irungu,” he said, pointing to the one who had the wailing woman, “has accused this man, Mutahi, of witching him.” His finger now pointed to the man who wore the necklace. “This is a serious charge, but it is one for us to decide here and not for the British to decide.”

Since no one had been killed, Jade agreed but she said nothing. When her opinion was wanted, she’d be asked for it.

“Why should we not send them to the British?” asked the chief. “We pay hut tax for their protection. They decide what is the law now.”

Jade watched Jelani’s face. She knew he opposed paying the hut taxes, so she was certain that his opposition here stemmed primarily from accepting those British services. To do so would only enhance the colonial belief that more taxes were owed.

“Some things they do not have laws for,” said Jelani. “They do not understand witchery. They will give us mockery. Would you have that? Would you have them shame you?”

He had struck a nerve there, and the chief shook his head vehemently.

Jelani nodded. “I will retell the story now so that all may know what this
shauri
is about. Irungu’s wife accepted a gift from Mutahi, a gift of herbs for cooking and drinking. She gave these to her husband, who became so ill that his soul left his body and wandered with the goats. My master made him well again so that he did not die. Now Irungu accuses Mutahi of giving him poison so that he might steal his hut, goats, and wife.”