Mark of the Lion (36 page)

A HALF DOZEN WAKAMBA MEN TOTED VARIOUS parcels to the cars the next morning, and Jade found Harry supervising. She handed him a mug of steaming coffee and a slab of grilled meat rolled in stone-baked flat bread and bit into her own portable breakfast.

“I presume we’re taking the cars today?” she said between mouthfuls.

Harry gulped some coffee and nodded. “The cars were Roger’s idea. I wasn’t too sure about them myself, but I’m beginning to appreciate them. Tsavo’s a hell of a place to walk in.”

“Assuming they don’t run dry.”

“Assuming. But we’re close to the headwaters of the river.” He nodded in the general direction of Mount Kilimanjaro. “Between snowmelt, runoff, and springs, most of the headwaters flow year-round. Should see some good game there. Elephants. Interesting scenery, too.”

“The Chyulu Hills?”

Harry nodded. “You’ll get a good view from Poacher’s Lookout.” He turned abruptly to one of the porters. “Not the Ford, the other one. Careful with those petrol cans.”

“I should leave you to your work,” she offered and turned to go.

Harry dropped his tin coffee mug and grabbed her arm. “Don’t go.”

Jade pretended not to understand. “I shouldn’t go to Poacher’s Lookout?”

Harry frowned and pulled her closer. “You know damn good and well what I meant, Jade. You’re too clever, and I’m being too obvious to let you misunderstand.” He sniffed at her loose black hair. “Ah, for once you aren’t wearing that awful hat.”

“Yes, I know. Beverly insists it smells like something rude.”

Harry laughed a deep bass rumble. “I just bet she does. Dunbury’s a lucky man. I should be so lucky.” His voice sounded seductively husky.

“Harry,” Jade began. He shushed her with a scarred finger to her lips.

“I know all the objections already. I’m forty-two years old, and you’re still in love with a dead man. Probably more in love with him because he’s dead.” He held her to him and bent down to her face. “But I promise you I can help you get over him if you let me.”

Jade put her own hand over his mouth before he could kiss her. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find you very attractive, Harry, but I need time.
Lots
of time.” She felt his sigh shudder from his chest and down his arms like the early rumbling warnings of a volcano.

“You’ll think about it then?”

“I have been already,” she replied.

He kissed the fingers that rested on his chin. “Guess I can’t ask for more than that.”

He released her, and Jade walked back to the tents, conscious of his gaze on her the entire way. Madeline and Beverly met her by the
boma
gate and pretended to only then discover her.

“Oh, there you are,” exclaimed Beverly. “We were looking for you.”

“Liar,” said Jade. “I’m sure you knew the cook gave me Harry’s breakfast to take to him. How long have you been spying on me?”

“Spying?” protested Madeline. “It’s too dark yet to be spying.” She didn’t continue after Jade glared at her.

“Oh, give it up, Madeline dear,” said Beverly. “Our Jade knows us too well.” She fixed her own soft blue eyes on Jade and smiled an enigmatic Mona Lisa smirk. “In answer to your question, long enough. Do we congratulate him? He’s a lucky man, or at least a very brave one.” Bev ducked, and Jade’s empty coffee mug flew harmlessly overhead and clattered on the ground.

“There’s nothing to congratulate him about,” Jade said through gritted teeth. “Unless you count my turning him down as grounds for congratulations.”

Madeline pouted, and Beverly scowled. “He’s worth a fling at least,” offered Beverly.

“I don’t fling.”

Beverly glanced back at the coffee cup on the ground. “I don’t know about that.”

Jade casually picked up the dirty coffee cup and walked to her tent. “Better pack it up,” she called over her shoulder. “We’re heading out soon.”

Jade rode next to Roger in the Dodge with Pili, Ruta, and Memba Sasa. The route was too bumpy to allow much conversation. Once she tried to discern his future plans, but Roger said little and only smiled when Leticia’s name came up. “You could rebuild your ranch,” Jade suggested, “and stop running safaris.” A particularly nasty bump that Roger could have avoided put an end to all conversation.

Harry and Roger stopped the cars near an ancient baobab tree next to the northernmost tributary of the Tsavo. Long shadows sprawled westward, fleeing the rising sun.

“We’ll head on later to the Shaitani lava flow, but for now, I want to take you to the top of Poacher’s Lookout,” said Harry. “You’ll get a grand view of the Chyulu Hills from there.” He pointed across the tributary to a tall mound. “No sense chancing the cars across the riverbed. We’ll walk.”

“Is it safe to cross on foot?” asked Avery.

“Up here it is. Crocs don’t seem to like the shallow, fastmoving water. But anytime you have to cross water, you cross as a large body, not as individual tidbits.”

“Lovely,” exclaimed Beverly. “I don’t fancy becoming an hors d’oeuvre to a handbag.”

“I assure you,” said Harry, “the view will be
well
worth the hike.”

They crossed the tributary and trudged up the rocky slope of Poacher’s Lookout. Black basaltic boulders, nearly bare of lichens, stuck out at sharp angles and provided steps to the top. Jade reached the summit first, climbing from rock to rock like an agile mountain goat. Pili followed at a slightly slower rate, trailed by the Dunburys and Madeline. Harry and Roger along with Ruta brought up the rear for protection. Memba Sasa stayed at the cars, aloof as usual.

Jade’s eyes had no room for anything besides the magnificent, snowcapped volcanic mountain of Kilimanjaro to the southwest. “My stars,” she exclaimed. “And I thought the Rocky Mountains were beautiful.”

She took one exposure and cursed herself for not bringing twice as much film. Now that half her task was over and the rest waiting until she returned, Jade again felt she could take a moment and enjoy the view. She drank in the mountain’s softly rounded shape, the low white skirting clouds, and the hazy landscape in the crystalline-clear blue morning sky. Miles of open land and ages of time stood between her and the mountain. It was unapproachable.

She had felt this way when she first saw the Grand Canyon. The other side seemed so remote, so aloof, and no matter how far down she went, the rims and walls kept their distance. They surrounded her yet would always evade her. Kilima Njaro, the Shining Mountain, had that same cool pride mingled with its condescension to humans. Mortals might look at it when it allowed, but they must respect its superiority. As if in response to her rude stare, the mountain raised its cloudy veil higher.
Very well. I’ll look the other way.

The view to the north was less soul-stirring but still intriguing. Harry was right. She could spot the game from up here. Clusters of black-and-white zebras mingled with a variety of antelope and long-legged storks at the edge of a springfed watering hole. Farther away at the foot of some hills, a mass of large gray shapes paraded.

“Who has a pair of field glasses?” Jade asked. Roger pulled a pair from a pack and handed them over.

“What do you see, Jade?” asked Madeline.

Jade focused the lenses, and the gray blurs formed into a majestic matriarch and her cohort. A baby ambled among the elder’s legs and explored the possibility of being fed by its mother. “Elephants,” she answered without withdrawing the glasses.

Harry produced another pair of glasses and handed them to Madeline. “I used to come up here with Gil when he first arrived. I hadn’t been long in the country myself, and looking for ivory seemed like a fast way to get rich.”

“Was it?” asked Beverly.

“Do I look rich?” he answered. “Elephants are smart and dangerous. Even the Tsavo lions leave them alone.”

“What are those beautiful little blue mountains over there?” Jade pointed north-northeast.

“Those, Jade, are your Chyulu Hills. Volcanic. Everything around here is volcanic.” Harry pointed to the spread of black, tarry terrain at the edge of the hills. “That’s the Shaitani lava flow, about as barren a place as you’d ever care to wander in. No water there.”

So this is one of the places Gil came to,
she thought. “There’s water someplace,” Jade said. She nodded back at the elephants.

“The Chyulu rock is porous. Water runs into the craters and comes out as springs. Lots of cavernous holes in the hills.”

“Just think, Roger. Your father hunted here. Isn’t that exciting?” asked Madeline.

Roger stared silently at the gently rounded, blue-green hills, which contrasted sharply with the black lava fields and rocks. “Yes, very,” he answered after a moment.

Jade followed his line of sight across the river and saw a smaller black outcrop just under a softly folded ridge. She raised the binoculars for a closer look. Perhaps, she thought, he saw an animal in the rocks. For a moment, she didn’t see anything but blackness in the grassy mound, a cave maybe. Before she could explore the area more, Beverly interrupted her.

“Now what are you looking at?” she asked. “You are being a terrible bore keeping those field glasses to yourself, you know.”

Jade handed the glasses to Beverly. “There’s something across the way; a cave, I think.”

“Where?” asked Beverly as she tried to find it.

“You’re looking too far to the right. There.” She put her arm in front of Bev’s face and pointed straight out from her nose. “See where the river bends sharply? Now look across it at the dark spot. It’s peeking over the grassy hill just like a little—” She gasped.

“Like a little what?” Bev asked.

“Ghost,” said Jade in a hushed voice. She pulled the ring from inside her shirt and studied the etching. “Mr. Forster, you recognized it, too, didn’t you? The ring etchings are a map.” She felt a surge of excitement course through her. Perhaps she could learn something else about Gil there that would help her understand why he was killed.

She held out the ring and pointed to one side. “Look!” she commanded. “This crossed line here represents the railroad and its terminus.” Sharp intakes of breath punctuated her words as her excitement grew. “Remember, the line wasn’t finished then. This trough is the Tsavo River.”

She turned the ring over. “This side holds a more close-up view. That bigger mound is Kilimanjaro. This smaller one is Poacher’s Lookout. We look across the river to the hills and see the little cave peering over the other side.” She looked at Beverly. “Remember? You said it looked like a little ghost peeking over a hill.”

“Yes, I do remember. This is marvelous! Mr. Forster, don’t you agree?”

Jade looked at Roger to gauge his response. He kept his excitement highly controlled, but a sudden tightening of his lips and a slight flare of his nostrils flashed across his face. His eyes held more fire than she’d seen before, too. What surprised her more was Harry’s
lack
of reaction. His face didn’t register any change, almost as if he had expected this discovery. Then she remembered. He had seen the ring before. She glared at him as if to convey the fact that she had found him out.

“It was fortunate you insisted we come up here, Harry,” she said. He smiled and touched his hat brim.

“Where’s the tear in the ghost’s eye?” asked Beverly as she peered through the glasses.

“What do you mean?” demanded Roger with renewed interest.

“I mean the etchings show a tear trickling down from the little ghost figure, that is, from the cave symbol. Where is it?”

Roger examined his ring more carefully. “I don’t understand what you mean.” He glared at Jade. “What does she mean?” he demanded.

Beverly took his hand and turned it so she could see the etchings. “There,” she began and stopped. “Oh, it’s not on this one.”

“The rings are different?” Roger’s anger intensified. “You said they were the same.”

Jade’s ring dangled from its cord around her neck. Roger grabbed for it, and Jade stepped back out of reach. The rashness of the move made her wary, and Harry’s apparent knowledge made her suspicious. “I said they were a set. I must not have noticed that the tear, as Beverly calls it, was absent from yours.” It was a lie, but she felt no need to explain herself.

Roger stepped back and took a deep breath. When he regained his self-control he spoke. “I apologize, Miss del Cameron, for being so rude just now. You must understand my excitement.
Please,
may I see the ring?” He held out his palm expectantly.

Jade reluctantly slipped the cord from her neck and handed it to him. “There
is
another line on this one,” he said after comparing both rings. “Perhaps it’s a path, a trail.”

Jade held out her hand and waited for Roger to hand back her own ring. “I suggest we go across and find out, Mr. Forster.” She slid the cord back over her head on her way down the hill.

The short distance to the Chyulu Hills was deceptive, especially when the cars needed to wend around ravines and lumber over the bumpy, dried wallows. Jade felt a rising tension in her gut and tried to amuse herself with the gambols of frightened ostrich that raced beside them or the sudden run of a startled warthog, but her thoughts kept returning to David. She longed to take his hand again and tell him she was still on the quest. She and his brother were about to discover his father’s secret legacy.