“Well you see Ms. Wagner, as improbable as this may sound, I believe I knew your father! I dealt with him on several big deals in the late ‘60s.”
“My God, you’re kidding! That is incredible!” Anne exclaimed. “How terribly unlikely is that?”
“I’ll say. You know, he used to mention his daughter, but I don’t remember him telling me your name. He was a widower, too, as I recall.”
“Yes, my mother died when I was seven.”
“Cancer,” Henry added.
“Yes… incredible,” she whispered with a more solemn tone.
They sat and looked at one another in astonishment as they considered the bizarre truth that had just been revealed. Jenny brought a small pot of tea, a cup and saucer, and a menu for Anne while the pair just stared at one another in amazement. It was a strange and enchanting moment, and neither of them said a word until she had walked away.
“So, your dad is deceased?” Henry finally asked.
“Yes, he was killed nine years ago in an automobile accident in Germany.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in twenty years, but I knew him to be a good and generous man. A real man of integrity and honesty, too.”
“Thank you for that, Mr. Engel, that is very kind of you to say,” Anne responded as she poured herself a cup of tea. Henry could tell that she was affected by the memory of the loss of her parents. It had been unexpectedly thrust onto her, and he moved to diffuse her discomfort.
“Not at all, it’s true. You know, I get it. I lost both of my parents by the time I was seven. My mother died trying to give birth to my sister, and my father was killed in an explosion at the factory where he worked. No matter how old you are, no matter how old you get, it never goes away, does it?”
“Never,” she agreed, realizing Henry’s losses in many ways matched and even exceeded her own.
“It looks like we have a lot more in common than I ever expected,” Henry said as he lifted his cup to his lips.
“It does indeed,” Anne confirmed as she gazed back at him.
With the revelation that they were connected via Anne’s father, all attention swiftly turned to common ground they both could relate to. For the next hour and a half, as they ate breakfast, they shared stories from their past. They spoke of Lawrence Wagner and also of themes and events that only two souls who had endured the tragedy and achieved the success that they had could understand. They were both survivors and winners in the truest sense, and it created a chemistry between them that was both unique and palpable.
“You know, we never did get around to the subject I originally wanted to meet with you about,” Anne declared as they exited the diner.
“I guess we didn’t, did we?” Henry acknowledged while stopping beside her. His tone didn’t reveal that he had previously decided against sharing his experiences from Africa with the author. That point seemed moot now that they had just conversed nonstop about themselves for the better part of the morning. However, he still had reservations about telling her intimate details of his life for the sole purpose that they would appear later in one of her novels.
“I’d really like to continue this at some point, if you’re game. I’ve loved chatting with you so much, and I do truly want to hear your thoughts on that safari.”
“What are you doing right now?” Henry asked abruptly.
Looking around before answering, Anne was puzzled but played along.
“Standing in a parking lot, I suppose?” she replied with a raised eyebrow.
Henry chuckled. “No, I don’t mean literally at this moment, Ms. Author, I mean today, this afternoon, right now. How would you like the nickel tour of Lewis?”
“Would I!” she exclaimed, now understanding his meaning. “Where do I sign up?”
Henry motioned toward his SUV and began to walk away from her toward it.
“Jump in with me and I’ll show you,” he called back over his shoulder.
“Great! You’re sure it’s no trouble? I was planning to knock around on my own, but it would be grand to have an expert guide.”
Henry never looked back. Anne wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so she quickly caught up with him, and they proceeded to his vehicle. Ever the gentleman, he first unlocked the passenger’s side front door and removed his briefcase from the front seat before showing her inside. Once her door was secured, he rounded the back of the truck and opened the rear driver’s side door where he deposited his briefcase on the seat before entering the front himself.
Anne was giddy with the prospects of being able to explore Lewis with a savvy and knowledgeable host at the ready to give her the inside scoop on everything. She was especially thrilled that it was Henry who was going to show her around. Breakfast had flown by, and safari story or not, she was not eager to part company with him.
Henry eased the Explorer from its parking space and then slid it out onto Hughes Avenue as he began to explain the town’s history to Anne. She absorbed every morsel of information he wished to dole out with great enthusiasm and asked questions at every opportunity. She was genuinely interested in Lewis and Henry liked that. He was proud of his home, and it was fun to see it through the eyes of someone new, especially someone as sophisticated and well-traveled as Anne.
Their tour of Lewis was leisurely and comprehensive. Henry had nothing of particular urgency to attend to for the rest of the day, so he made sure he showed her every corner of the quaint Midwest hamlet that he called home. For Anne’s part, her purpose was to get to know Henry and to perhaps decompress a bit from the rigors of city life. Therefore, she was relaxed and enjoying every bit of their sightseeing excursion.
“What’s that place there?” Anne asked, pointing out her window to the right of the vehicle. She was referring to a moderately sized two-story home with a “For Sale” sign in the front yard. Though it looked as if it had seen better days, it had the charm and style that often goes along with a vintage structure built a century earlier.
“That’s the old Stewart place,” Henry answered as he steered to a stop along the curb of State Street to allow her a better look. “Molly finally wore herself out. She was born in that house and lived there until just a few months ago. She had just turned 103 this past spring. Quite a lady. Used to teach at the grade school here in town.”
“Fantastic! And you say she lived there her whole life?”
“Yes, ma’am. She never married. Her folks passed, and she kept the place. Was still living on her own right up to the last,” Henry stated with a bit of tenderness that Anne picked up on.
“You knew her well?” she asked.
“She was my 7th and 8th-grade teacher,” he explained with a smile. “I looked in on her from time to time. She was something special.”
Anne gazed at the home and imagined the stories that it could tell. Stories of change and progress in the small community. Stories of hardship and the dedication of a teacher and her solitary life.
“Oh, how I do love places with character,” she thought aloud. “I’ve been all over the world, lived in a lot of cities, but it’s the character of a place that always gets to me.”
Henry pondered her words. He had similarly gone out into the world and seen and done many things but returned to Lewis in 1974 and stayed for the same reason. It was yet another trait they shared. He pulled the vehicle away from the curb and proceeded forward down the street.
“So, you want to hear about Africa?” he reminded her.
“Oh yes, very much so!” Anne confirmed excitedly. She was enjoying their time together so much that she had forgotten why she was there in the first place.
“All right, I’ll tell you.” Henry’s reservations about sharing his personal story had disintegrated as he became more and more comfortable with Anne and discovered that in many ways she was his mirror image.
“It was back in ‘67. I wasn’t much older than you are now. I had devoted myself to work and was doing extremely well.
A couple of guys I did a lot of business with had been talking up a safari for at least a year and one day over lunch it came up again. We were sitting around and Harry, one of the fellows, says ‘Say, Henry, why don’t you come along?’ I had always been an outdoorsman. I grew up on my uncle’s farm, and I liked being outside. We hunted and fished and all that sort of thing, so it sounded pretty good to me. Besides, I hadn’t taken any time off for nearly fourteen years, so I agreed to go. A couple weeks later, we’re on a business trip and sitting around plotting out the details at a private club in Paris, and one of Harry’s pals happened to be in there. Harry tried to get him in on the trip too, but he said he couldn’t go. He had recently lost his wife and couldn’t leave his daughter behind. I was awfully impressed by that. It showed real character and devotion to his family. That was the day I met your father.”
“Daddy? That’s incredible! 1967, yes, we were in Paris then. So that’s how you met,” she declared while nodding her head in amazement.
“How about that? Like I said earlier, I did some serious business with your dad. It made us both a lot of money. I knew from day one I could trust him.” He continued driving, now heading on a course taking them back to The Eager Beaver. “Thought you might like to know that,” he added with a slight grin. “Anyhow, we spent a week in Natal, and it was hotter than Hades. Just miserable. I was a farm kid, so I kinda rolled with it, but it was damned hot even for me. Harry and Ted just suffered and complained the whole time.” He laughed recalling the misery of his two companions who were not accustomed to the outdoors or difficult living conditions. “Because of the extreme heat, game was scarcer than usual. We had only bagged a couple smaller animals and our time was almost up. As you already know, we had Jombo and Timbo these two locals who were twin brothers to guide us. We paid them well, and they were apologizing like crazy that we weren’t having more luck getting something significant to bring home. Guess they were afraid we’d want our money back. So to make up for it, they kept telling us all week that we were going home with a lion. I really liked those two. Timbo kept getting the hiccups all week, and we were having a helluva good time teasing him about it. He was a joker and real outgoing. Liked American bubble gum. Harry had some, and you’d have thought Timbo had won the lottery.” Henry laughed as he turned into the parking lot and brought his vehicle to a stop a few spaces down from Anne’s jeep. She was so engrossed in Henry’s telling of the story that she didn’t realize that they had returned to the diner.
“I didn’t meet him,” Anne interrupted. “I wasn’t aware Jombo had a brother.”
“Yeah, like I said, a twin. It was hard to tell them apart at first glance, but their personalities were polar opposites. Timbo talked nonstop and loved to laugh and joke. Jombo was quiet and serious. Not unpleasant, just all business. I liked him too. So, we’re getting down to the wire and around dinner we hatched a bet for fun that the guy who gets the lion is owed $500 by each of the others. Not exactly a fortune but not pennies back then either. I suggested that we split up to give us all a better chance to find a lion. I worked it that Jombo and I would head out the next morning one way, and those three would go the other. The truth was, I cared less about getting a lion and more about getting some peace.” Henry chuckled. “I was getting pretty fed up with Harry and Ted’s bitching about the bugs and the heat and Timbo’s yapping all the time was starting to wear me a little thin. Didn’t hurt that I figured Jombo was the smarter brother either.”
Anne smiled and giggled at Henry’s cleverness as she imagined the scene.
“Early the next morning, Jombo and I set out. He had barely spoken all week, and he doesn’t say a word until we get out of earshot of the others. Then out of nowhere he says, ‘Gawd I missed dee quiet!!’” Henry imitated Jombo’s voice for the quote, and she burst into laughter at his joke. After Anne had regained her composure, he continued.
“Within an hour he’s picked up the trail of a pride of lions heading to the east. He tells me that he figures they usually eat at night or in the early morning so by now they are feeling ‘fat and lazy’.” Again, he used Jombo’s voice for effect. “He figures they will look for a good shady place to sleep it off out on the savanna. That would give us a chance to close the distance with them and bring them into rifle range for a shot. The next couple of hours we tromped along in silence through the dusty tall grasses and open spaces. Him out front, me behind. Not a word was spoken until, sure enough, early afternoon, he motions for me stop. Way out in the distance is this lone scraggly looking tree standing all by itself in an ocean of pale sun-bleached grass. I can’t see anything, but he tells me there are lions sleeping beneath it. He says he doesn’t like the setup. Too much open ground between us. He felt it was too chancy and too dangerous and that we should head over to a waterhole that was nearby and wait for them there.”
Anne’s mind had fully drifted away to the steamy African grasslands, and her curiosity was fully suspended as she didn’t ask any questions but rather just enjoyed the adventure.
“When we got to the waterhole it was perfect. Jombo sure earned his keep on that one. There was a pair of rock formations on one end that were maybe ten to twelve feet high, and they overlooked all of the approaches. We climbed one of them and set up camp on top. It was a great place to shoot from and honestly it felt a bit safer up there too. The only real drawback was that as hot as it was on the ground, it was a damned oven amongst those boulders. No cover or shade at all, and all of that rock was just about too hot to touch. Anyway, we sat there for a long time and waited. Several hours later we had seen all sorts of exotic animals come in for a drink—zebras, impalas, even some elephants, but no lions. I enjoyed the show; it was like watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom in person. Spectacular stuff to be that close to them out in the wild.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Anne breathlessly.
“I was really starting to wilt. I was about as hot and uncomfortable as I think I’ve ever been. But I was amazed at Jombo. He looked fairly comfortable and unfazed. I was just about to call it off and get out of there when he signaled with his hand for me to look off in the distance. I looked where he’d directed, and there was a pride of lions approaching, still about 50 yards away from us. After that, I don’t remember the heat being an issue. I could see three females flanked by a pair of cubs. Off to their left, I saw him. He was huge! A truly majestic beast. I grabbed my rifle and got into a prone position. He was the perfect combination of power and beauty. His light golden mane was enormous, and his shoulders rippled with muscles. My God he was magnificent! Just flawless, you know? Like something from a movie, but he was right in front of me and coming toward my position. I could have shot right then, but my hands were shaking with excitement, and I decided to wait until he got to the edge of the waterhole, which was only about 20 yards from our perch. I was thinking about how envious Harry and Ted were gonna be and how much I was going to enjoy collecting their money. I guess I was caught up in the moment watching him because I remember Jombo gave me a poke and a look that told me it was time to shoot. I took a deep breath to calm myself and then drew a bead on him. He was right at the water’s edge and was gently lapping when I prepared to pull the trigger. Right then, he looked up. I swear to you he looked directly at me the same as you are.”
Anne’s eyes widened as she waited to hear what may come next. She didn’t speak a word but just listened with eager anticipation.
“He knew I was there. It felt like he looked into my soul and asked me what I wanted to do next. All I could think of were the words your dad had said to me at the club that day I met him. He said, ‘What sport can there be in killing beauty?’ As soon as I remembered that, I was done.”
“Oh my God!” Anne exclaimed as chills ran down the back of her neck and shoulders.
“Yeah, what are the odds of that, huh?” he asked, now fully comprehending the bizarre turn of events that now placed Anne alongside him.
“I can’t believe it… what did the lion do?�
�� She was on the edge of her seat.
“He looked at me for a minute and then went back to drinking. I lowered my rifle and just stared at him. I think Jombo thought I had lost it in the heat, but he never said a word to me about it. I didn’t really understand what it was to end or give life until that moment. Eventually, the others got their fill and one by one they started to walk off. He was the last. As he left, about ten yards out, he stopped and looked back right at me again. I’ve always kind of thought that was meaningful. It felt like he was saying, You let me live, and now I will do the same for you. I’ll never know of course. Nevertheless, he headed off, and we never saw him again.”
“Wow! That is quite the story, Mr. Engel, even better than I imagined it might be,” she declared.
“How about you call me Henry?”
Anne’s face beamed. “All right, I’d love that. Thank you, Henry.”
Chapter 5
The Inner Circle
As Henry drove home to Oak Forest that afternoon, his mind was occupied with thoughts of the unexpected events of the past twenty-four hours. Just one day earlier, he had never even heard of Anne Francis Wagner. Now, much to his surprise, he found that he slightly regretted that he didn’t know when he might see or speak to her again. They had parted company with an exchange of telephone numbers and a promise to keep in touch but nothing concrete as to when, if ever, that might be.
He pulled into the driveway and stopped the vehicle to retrieve the day’s delivery from the mailbox before heading up to the house. He loved his life at the estate, but it suddenly seemed to be less of an oasis than it had been for him in the past. More and more he found himself dissatisfied with his solitary life. However, upon entering the side door of the house, he was immediately greeted by a friendly face that changed his focus.
“Hi there babe, whatcha been up to?” he asked as he bent down to pick up Joe while juggling the mail. She purred and pressed lovingly against his chest as he snuggled her. “Aww, I missed you too, sweetheart,” he said while massaging her ears as they entered the kitchen. The light on the answering machine was blinking in the distance, and it immediately caught his eye.
Celebrations With Jake and Joe Page 5
