The Clouds Beneath the Sun (33 page)

Still the wildebeest stampeded in the threshing water, still the squeals and whinnies bounced off the steep walls of the riverbank, still the stench of dung and blood polluted the air.

The heels of her boots were in the water.

The hands of whoever had come for her tightened over her breasts.

“Okay! I’ve got her. Pull!” shouted a voice, Jack’s. “Quick,
pull
!”

Off to Natalie’s left, animals were still blundering into the river, still sending showers of muddy water over everything.

There was the sound of a gunshot.

“One less to worry about,” murmured Jack. Then he shouted again, “Pull!”

Suddenly, she felt her body jerk upwards. The flesh on her back where her shirt had been pulled free of her trousers scraped against the thorns of the bush she had lain in and she could feel that yet more blood had been drawn. She tried not to call out, but failed. Sweat and tears mingled in her eyes, her nose was running—but her boots were no longer in the river.

“Again!” shouted Jack. “Pull!”

Another jerk, another rise of a couple of feet.

The smell of Jack was hardly better than her own. He’d been straining all night, in the mud, wrestling with one newborn wildebeest after another. He was covered in as much dung as she was.

Another jerk, another thorn bush, then a sharp rock, hard and jagged, which scraped against her already-raw shoulder. She cried out again.

Her hair was plastered to her face, it was in her mouth, mud had slipped down inside her trousers where her shirt had been pulled free.

The glare of the game light was very bright now. She could hear other voices.

“Careful!” “Hold that rope!” “
Watch it doesn’t slip!
”

She could see the scratches and lines of blood on the backs of Jack’s hands that were held over her breasts in the tightest of squeezes. She could now make out the blood and mud and dung on her own trousers and boots.

She felt a hand grab the collar of her shirt. Other fingers were inside her belt and, suddenly, with a heave, she was lifted through the air and then soft grass was under her. Jack was next to her, his arms still wrapped tightly about her.

They both lay there for a moment, exhausted, breathing heavily. In the weird contrasts of the Land Rovers’ headlights, she was aware of shapes standing over her.

“Are you all right?”

“Any bones broken?”

“You were lucky you hit that dead animal. We had to shoot that croc. He was taking an interest in you.”

She was too winded to offer any reply. Tears and sweat mingled in her eyes.

Jack too was breathing heavily but he loosened his grip and propped himself up on one elbow. He noticed the blood on her wrist and leaned over, pulling a short branch of thorn from where it was lodged between her shirt sleeve and the flesh of her arm.

“Nearly lost you there,” he said softly.

“That would have solved a lot of problems, eh?” she managed to say.

He gave a hard laugh. “It would have suited my mother—I suppose, you’re right.” He wiped the blood from her hand with a handkerchief. “But it wouldn’t have suited me.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Oh no.”

He gently turned her head towards him with his hand.

“That button on your shirt, the one you didn’t do up on the flight back from Nairobi,” he said, kissing her cheek a second time. “It’s come undone again.”

7
THREATS

N
atalie crouched over a patch of soil-sand, feeling the high sun on her back. Her eyes were aching, her spine complaining, her knees sore. Sweat coursed down her face, seemingly intent on searching out her eyes and stinging them. For the moment, paleontology had lost its allure.

For about a week now, Daniel and she had been searching the wall of the gorge for any more remains of the skull she had spotted. Experience told Eleanor that such fragments could be no more than the size of a fingernail, and that the only way to distinguish them from the surrounding rock was by small gradations in color and texture. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack that was on fire. And nothing more had been found.

Natalie decided to take a break and straightened up. Her spine complained again. There was no breeze today, it was airless in the gorge, and as always the faint smell of herbivore dung tweaked at her nostrils.

She stretched. She could feel the damp patch of her shirt down her spine. She rubbed the muscles in the back of her neck. The base of her hairline was damp too. How many more days like this? she wondered. They were getting further and further away from where the skull remains had been unearthed. But then the skull and knee joint had been found some yards apart.

She felt in her pocket for her bottle of water. Then she remembered she had left it in the shade of a tree, hoping it might keep cooler there than if she had left it in her pocket. She turned and made for where she had hidden the bottle.

She had gone barely ten yards when she heard a voice.

“Miss Natalie, stop!”

Despite her repeated requests, Daniel still referred to her as if she were the daughter of a plantation owner in the American Deep South and he was a slave.

She stopped, turned, and said, “What is it, Daniel? And please call me Natalie.”

He smiled and nodded. “Don’t go near that tree, Miss Natalie.”

“But I left my water there. What—?”

“Drink my water.” He stepped forward and he took a bottle from his pocket. “But don’t go near that tree—it’s what we call a sausage tree and there’s a leopard sleeping in the branches. Leopards like sausage trees.”

Natalie turned to look again at the tree, only more closely. She was already walking back to where Daniel stood.

Reaching him, she took the bottle and drank lustily, all the while searching for the leopard in the tree. Finally, she found it, spread out in the angle of a branch about twelve feet off the ground.

“Leopards don’t normally attack humans, do they?” she said, wiping her mouth.

“It’s rare, but it happens sometimes.” Daniel took off his hat and wiped his forehead. “If they have young nearby, they are much more dangerous—and look.” He pointed to the left of the leopard.

With difficulty, Natalie could make out two smaller animals, not cubs exactly but not fully grown leopards either.

“They were born this spring,” Daniel said. “They’ve learned to climb but not yet to kill.”

They stood for a while, just looking at the animals. It seemed a very peaceful scene.

Then Natalie whispered, “Daniel, did you just save my life?”

He smiled. “You are a good scientist, Miss Natalie. You have excavator’s eyes. You have beautiful eyes. But you need to learn to read the bush, you need to look more into the distance, understand how predators behave, how they camouflage themselves, how they hide, to understand where danger gathers. Aldwai might not always be there to protect you and it is not good to have to kill animals because we humans are careless.” He smiled. “Don’t go near sausage trees without first looking for leopards.”

Natalie looked towards the tree where she’d left her water bottle. Now that she knew it harbored a leopard, she could see the creature quite clearly. But she hadn’t spotted it before.

Daniel was right. She hadn’t developed that side of her senses at all, and she must try harder. Her life might depend on it.

She handed him back his water bottle. “Don’t say any more. You
did
just save my life. How can I repay you?”

He smiled, shook his head, then grew serious. “The trial is not good. Not good for Ndekei, or his family, or for Dr. Deacon. Or for you.”

Natalie felt a weight suddenly descend back on her shoulders. “Oh, Daniel, not you too! Didn’t you have a Christian upbringing? Don’t you think murder is wrong? If life isn’t valuable, what is—and why did you do what you just did?”

“Law is about justice and order, Miss Natalie. Whether it is tribal law or Western law. In this case justice has been done, already, and there is no threat to order.” He replaced the water bottle in his pocket.

“Justice? How can you say that?” She didn’t want this argument, with Daniel, in the full heat of the day, in the airless gorge. But she couldn’t let it go. “I accept that what Richard and Russell did was wrong—very wrong. You know I feel that. It was
terrible
. But can it be just, can it be right, that one of them had to be killed because of it? I asked you—are you not a Christian?”

Daniel was hot too. A fresh broad band of sweat beads stood out across his forehead. “I went to a missionary school, yes.” He shook his head. “I never believed those stories. What would people in Palestine know about life here? How could they tell us how to live with leopards? Or tell us which plants in the forest are dangerous and which are medicines? How can they teach us to understand the rains? Such gods are useless. Gods must help you in your suffering, help you live a better life and give you hope for tomorrow.”

He took a pair of spectacles from his pocket. “I like to read. The missionary schools were good for that, and for learning arithmetic. But that a man died, and came back to life after three days … I do not believe that. I do not think anyone believes that, though they pretend to … because belief keeps away fear.”

Natalie went to say something but he pressed on. “White people think their religion is more sophisticated, more advanced—better—than African ideas.” He shook his head. “No. Why does the same God have to work for everyone? Why can’t African gods work in Africa, European gods in Europe—?”

“Christianity works all over the world, Daniel.”

“But not for you. I’ve heard you say so.”

She nodded. It was true.

“Why do Christian laws work for you, then? People have different laws all over the world, in all the countries that call themselves Christian.”

“Yes, but murder is a crime everywhere.”

Daniel turned, keeping a wary eye on the leopard. Then he turned back. “To be a murderer you have to have the motive. If you kill in self-defense, even in Europe, even in Cambridge, it is not murder. That’s what Ndekei’s actions were—a form of self-defense. Self-defense for the tribe.”

“But …” Natalie faltered. She had been planning to say that no such concept—of self-defense for the tribe—existed in European law, but she could see the rest of the argument, how agreement between herself and Daniel was impossible. And she was getting hotter and hotter, upsetting herself.

She shook her head, inspected her watch, and then looked at the sun, now nearly overhead. “Oh, Daniel,” she breathed, laying her hand on his arm. “You saved my life and all I do is argue. I’m sorry. Let’s go back for lunch.”

•   •   •

The minute they arrived back in camp, Natalie could see that Eleanor had company. She was sitting outside her tent with a tall, gray-haired man wearing horn-rimmed spectacles. Natalie didn’t interrupt them but made straight for her own tent, where Mgina soon brought her the buckets of hot water she could shower with.

As Natalie soaped her hands, and ran the warm water over her neck—which was comfortingly cooling as it evaporated—she reflected that nothing more had been said about Jack’s idea for a press conference to publicize their findings and to force the authorities to confront the dilemma being faced in the gorge. Since the conversation outside his tent before the wildebeest stampede, Natalie had asked Jack twice if there had been any developments. He had replied that his mother was still making up her mind and that it would be unwise to press her. Natalie could believe that but it didn’t help her own predicament, her own peace of mind, and time was passing.

On the night when he’d first told Natalie about his idea for a press conference, when he had kissed her hands, Jack had said he would be back and he had been as good as his word. He didn’t visit her every night, but every three or four nights, nights when they finished dinner early, when the conversation didn’t linger, and for one reason or another no music was played. And he stayed for one cigarette only. That allowed her her privacy and at the same time they learned more about each other, his early life in the gorge, her time at Cambridge, his siblings, her father, Jock Deacon’s showmanship, her Ph.D., his Ph.D. Each night as he left, he kissed her hand. But nothing more; he didn’t crowd her.

Christopher had stopped coming and had stopped asking her on game drives. She was friendly whenever they sat together at table, or dug near each other in the gorge, but he was more reserved now than he had been earlier on. There were moments of unease but, overall, Natalie was happy enough.

She cleaned her teeth and brushed her hair. Their discoveries in the gorge, and Jack’s attentions, meant that she was thinking about her father less, and Dominic too. There were always the nights to get through, of course, but, somehow, she managed that.

She walked over to the refectory tent. The others were all there, including the tall stranger, who sat on Eleanor’s right. A place had been left for her on his right.

He stood up as she entered the tent.

“Natalie,” said Eleanor, “Natalie Nelson, this is Henry Radcliffe.”

They shook hands and sat down.

Deep runnels ran down the flesh on his face. The stubble on his chin was prominent, and the Adam’s apple at his throat. His hands were large. He wore a check shirt and corduroy trousers, which must have been very hot. He reminded Natalie of her father.

“Henry,” said Eleanor, “is African field officer for the Bell-Ryder Foundation, the foundation that supports this dig.”

Natalie put on her best smile. “Have you come to see how your money is being spent, Mr. Radcliffe? Or to be updated on the discoveries? It has been an exciting season.”

Naiva came in with the lunch—stuffed vegetables.

Natalie helped Radcliffe to water, then filled her own glass.

“I am interested in your results, of course,” he said, reaching for his glass. “But that’s not the main reason I’m here. I’m here because of this.”

He reached down beside him and took a folded newspaper from where it was wedged between his thigh and the edge of the chair. He placed it on the table in front of Natalie.

All eyes were on her. Eleanor, Jack, Kees, Christopher, Arnold Pryce, Jonas Jefferson, and Daniel all leaned forward.

The newspaper, she could see, was the
Los Angeles Times
. It was dated only a few days before—someone must have sent it to Africa in a great hurry. It was open to the op-ed page, where she could see that the main article was headed:
MY STOLEN DISCOVERY
, and underneath it said, “California Scholar Reveals How a Feud in Africa Forced Him to Abandon the Find of a Lifetime.”

Natalie could feel all eyes on her, but she forced herself to read Russell’s article at a pace that was comfortable for her, so she could take everything in, while lunch was served around her and people began eating.

Russell had certainly gone to town, that much was clear. The
Times
had given him most of a page, and he had not spared any of the grisly detail. In fairness, he hadn’t spared himself either, blaming himself and Richard Sutton for a silly and tasteless “prank,” as he put it, in raiding a “local burial ground.” But the blame he attached to himself was as nothing to the blame he attached to Eleanor for expelling him from the dig. He described the finding of the knee joint in full glory, then spent several paragraphs expatiating on what he thought was the significance of the find, and then set out what else he could have expected to unearth, had he been allowed to stay. And, as Natalie could see all too clearly, in this regard Russell had been uncannily prescient. He hadn’t foreseen the finding of a primitive shelter but he had anticipated the discovery of a skull and jawbones, with teeth—and he would be receiving Natalie’s letter any day now, if he hadn’t already done so. He ended by saying that the Deacons had had things their own way for too long. He repeated his mantra that there was no room for a “royal family” in archaeology, that they were putting the interests of the dig before the interests of justice, that more light needed to be let into the “closed world of African paleontology,” as he put it, and that, as an associate professor at a distinguished university, he would be approaching the Bell-Ryder Foundation to request that they review their procedures in future.

Natalie finished the article and, without raising her eyes, folded the paper and pushed it to one side. She pulled her lunch toward her.

“What do you think?” said Christopher. He was sitting next to his mother, directly across from Radcliffe.

“He’s delivered what he promised,” said Natalie, chewing, still not looking up. “No more, no less.”

“He’s accused me of unprofessional conduct, of damaging his career, of being an authoritarian. Highly damaging—I could sue.”

Now Natalie did look up, to see Eleanor staring at her grimly.

“You won’t though, Mother, will you?” said Jack. “That’s just what Russell would want—a real scrap in court, in front of the press. He couldn’t lose.”

Eleanor ignored him. She picked at her food without any real enthusiasm. Addressing no one in particular, she said, “Does anyone think I should reply? Or would that be prolonging the fight?”

Radcliffe put down his knife and fork with a clatter and all eyes turned to him. “I think yet another article would be a mistake, Eleanor, though of course you must make up your own mind.” He drank some water. “But I’m bound to say that I didn’t just come here for science-based reasons.”