He looked at her, the warm blue of his eyes deepening. “Yes, I know He can. But our circumstances are still affected by decisions made in the past by others.”
“And so you’re angry with my grandfather.”
Sable could have pressed the point that God was in control and that we could trust in His good plans for us when we did not understand, but she feared she might come on too strongly. They had already tangled on that point before they’d broken up years earlier.
“I’ve thought,” he said, watching her, “that matters between us would have turned out better if I hadn’t been the son of an uneducated short-term overseer working on Kenyatta for your father.”
She pulled off her sunglasses and turned in the hot leather seat to confront him, her voice shaking with emotion. “I never once mentioned what I wanted you to be or expected of you.”
“You didn’t need to spell it out. It was plain whenever we were alone.”
“You’re wrong, Kash, about me, and what I expected of you. I never wanted more than what you dreamed about—managing the land, the wildlife. If I wanted more it was your commitment to me, to the Lord, to Kenyatta. It was you who refused, who walked away from everything.”
“Not everything.”
The old pain came back, gnawing at her. “If you’re as wrong about Vince as you are about me and what I expected of you—”
“Let’s not discuss him now, shall we? You asked about the shipping, whether I was angry or not. If my resentment would serve any worthy purpose, I could be angry with the entire lot of you, but there’s only one man responsible—your grandfather. And even he had conscience enough in the end to see that the truth of what he’d done was made known, including a confession in his legal papers.”
“You insist you’re not bitter, but you are. Look at you—you’re a walking storm, just ready to break.”
“You mistake frustration for bitterness. When I think of how it could have been growing up on Kenyatta and what it was actually like, I don’t want to think about it for long.”
“Was it so bad? You worked for my father. Was he a tyrant? He thought well of you and Seth. You were the sons he never had and always wanted.”
“You don’t understand. I wanted you when we were young, but I had nothing! I had no self-esteem to claim you.”
Sable gave a giddy laugh that bordered on tears. “That’s laughable.”
“Don’t laugh,” Kash gritted, reaching for her arm.
“I’d never do that—but you?—no self-esteem? It’s absurd. Kash Hallet! Fatally good-looking, capable, strong, talented—why every girl in church wanted you. And you say you didn’t have anything to offer.”
All I ever wanted was you, she wanted to say, but how could she say it now when everything came too late?
“If I’d known Dunsmoor shipping was built on Hallet money, it would have made all the difference where you were concerned.”
“Well, it’s all yours now,” she said quietly. “The entire business in Mombasa, if you want it. You can overwrite the name DUNSMOOR with the bold black letters of HALLET!”
“So Zenobia explained that I want to buy you out?”
“She told me.”
He watched her. “Are you interested?”
“No,” she admitted dully. “I’m not.”
“I won’t be partners with Vince.”
“You’re not.”
“You mean, not yet.”
“Please leave him out of this.”
“How can I?”
She drew in a breath. “You make things very difficult for me.”
“I’m sorry, that’s not my intention. So you’re not willing to sell out to me?”
“Not exactly…but I am willing to sell you some shares I own. Gran says you have money now from your business in South Africa.”
“Maybe. How much do you want?”
She glanced at him from under her hat. “Twenty thousand dollars.”
He scanned her thoughtfully. “Why? Do you need a new Paris hat?”
She smiled ruefully. “I want to pay for those two wells before we leave for Samburu. Mckibber could bring me into Nairobi before the wildlife conference to talk with a construction company to have the wells built.”
He was thoughtful. “Why not ask Vince to return the original twenty grand?”
“You’re so sure he’s guilty.”
“Yes.”
“Are you willing to buy some shares or not?”
“Depends. I already told Zenobia I wanted to buy you out completely—unless you wake up in the morning a wiser young woman than when you arrived. Like I said, I’ve no intention of becoming a shipping partner with Vince.”
“Buying out the Dunsmoors will bring you personal satisfaction, is that it?”
He drew his hand back and leaned against the door, watching her moodily. “Not when it means taking it from the one Dunsmoor I care about.”
“You’re impossible, Kash. When I wanted you to say that, you refused and went away. Now when I’m older and expected to marry Vince you—”
“I never walked away from you. I made that much clear on the road. I wrote you in Toronto. Had you answered, had you made the slightest overture that you wanted to give us another chance, I’d have come.”
“I told you, I never received a letter. As far as I know, you never wrote it.”
“Except I’ve told you twice I did, and that Vince found the letter and destroyed it.”
Sable looked at him, but his gaze was as mysterious as ever. “I don’t understand you,” she whispered. “And I once thought I knew you so well, but in reality I didn’t know you at all. You had emotional hurts I didn’t see and probably wouldn’t have understood if you’d explained them to me. Maybe all I was capable of seeing was my own needs, and that they weren’t being met. I wanted you to—” She stopped and looked away.
“Love you?” he asked softly. “I did. But at the same time, I couldn’t handle how I felt. I thought you rejected the core of what and who I was. I knew I couldn’t meet your expectations.”
Rejected him? She stared at him, her sense straining against what she believed to be absurd. How could he suggest it?
“You wanted to make me into a Vince Adler,” Kash went on.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, positively!”
He leaned toward her. “Then answer me—when you left for Toronto with your mother and Vince, what did you insist I do?”
She masked a wince and shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
“Shall I refresh your memory?”
“No.”
“I will anyway. We discussed getting married, remember?”
Of course she remembered. She ran her restless fingers through her hair.
“If you meant it, I said, we’ll get married now in Nairobi. Seth, Mckib, and I were going to start our own safari business, remember? Shall I tell you what you said?”
“Stop it. I don’t want to go on like this.”
“You told me it wouldn’t do.”
“I never said that, never.”
“In so many words you did. By insisting we wait until your family made all the plans. I would live at the lodge in Kenyatta, my job would be with your father, even the ring would be supplied, since I couldn’t afford anything appropriate for the grand wedding.”
Sable closed her eyes, trying to shut out all of her foolish mistakes. “You misunderstood me. I only wanted to help you, to help both of us.”
“I wanted you, Sable, but not your family running our life, or our marriage, providing you the things I couldn’t afford. There would be no house except the one I provided, no promotion with the Kenyan government unless I earned it. If Nairobi wasn’t good enough, and a safari business with Seth and Mckib—then your love wasn’t love at all.”
She blinked back the tears so he wouldn’t see them. “That’s not how I felt, but I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t understand. Why go on like this? I’ve change
d—we both have. The past is over. We’d both be wiser if we’d let our yesterdays remain buried.”
He was silent. The wind stirred the serengeti grass. Somewhere a lion roared.
“Is that the way you want it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Her gaze came reluctantly to his, but she didn’t find agreement in his eyes to let things lie buried as she suggested.
“Some of it perhaps, but not all. I told you this morning I was going to learn the truth about Adler and his work. And if you insist on standing with him to protect him, you’ll end up getting hurt again.”
“And all this is on your terms, of course,” she rushed.
“Where Adler is concerned, yes. The game will be played my way.”
“What ‘game’?” Sable challenged, frustrated. “What do you expect to prove? That he actually killed Seth? You don’t think that. You couldn’t!”
“Not quite as dramatically as you suggest. He was involved in his death, perhaps unwittingly, but partially responsible just the same.”
“Then you still insist he’s selling ivory and horns and skins on the black market.”
“Yes. I told you, to a Far Eastern cartel working out of Indonesia and Taiwan. Seth found out about it by accident while working for a new hunting organization in Tanga. He called me at Nairobi and told me what he’d stumbled upon. Smith and Browning was a cover for a bunch of poachers.”
“But you work for them now, like Seth did.”
“They don’t know who I am. Actually, I’m working for the Kenyan government, but that’s between me and you. Even Mckib doesn’t know. When Seth called me, he was working with them in Namanga. He told me he was going to stop a kill. I asked him to wait until I could get help out to him, but by the time I arrived with a few rangers, they’d already pulled out. We tracked them into the Lake Manyara region. But they must have found out something because they arranged his death with a rhino. They moved in—and left him to face the charge alone.”
Sable was trembling. “It’s horrible. What if they know Seth made that call to you?”
“They don’t. And they’re not very smart, just good shots,” Kash said with restrained disgust. “And sometimes they’re not even that.”
She remembered how Moffet had suffered. “But even if all this is true, what part could Vince have played? He’s not a hunter. I’ve seen him—he can’t even handle a rifle well.”
“He doesn’t need to; he can hire poachers. And you’re forgetting what I already told you about his cause at Lake Rudolf. He needs money to help Dr. Willard.”
She stared at him, her heart beating uneasily as she thought of the twenty thousand dollars that were missing. Every part of her rebelled against the idea.
As though understanding her struggle, he said, “Seth’s death wasn’t planned by Adler. Seth simply got in the way of the program. But that doesn’t change the fact.”
The intense conviction in his gaze, restrained yet passionate, convinced her that there was more to his allegations than dislike or jealousy.
“I wish I knew more about this work at Lake Rudolf,” she said.
“It’s the main reason I’m going to Samburu.” He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “You can help me, Sable, if you’d stop believing in Dr. Adler.”
She lowered her head, toying uneasily with the field glasses in her lap. “Is that why you’ve changed your mind about bringing me there?”
He slowly drew his hand away and leaned back, playing with the steering wheel. “Yes.”
She tried not to think that she was disappointed. She had wanted him to believe in her work, to believe in her. But wasn’t that what he was also asking? That she believe in him and what he was trying to accomplish?
“I…I don’t know if I can turn against Vince. But what is it you want me to do?”
“Simply going to Samburu is enough. Adler wants you to go as well. I told you yesterday that he expects your father to make contact with you if you come. That’s what Vince wants. To locate your father.”
“Why? He mentioned the need last night after you brought Patches.”
“For the very reason you just mentioned—elephants.”
Sable shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“You will if I’m right. I can explain more after I hear his lecture at the wildlife conference. In the meantime, if you won’t believe everything I say, at least be careful about what you tell Vince.”
“But he already knows you think he’s to blame about Seth. And if he learns you’re the guide to bring us to Samburu…?”
“It’s a chance he must take. There’s not a man in Nairobi who would risk the job for the kind of money the organization can pay. Even if there were, I’ve made certain no one will respond; so has Mckib. He’s friendly with the safari businesses. He worked with most of their fathers.”
“If you need me to bring my father out of the wilderness—and Vince does, too—why did you try so hard at first to keep me from going?”
Kash’s eyes narrowed under his dark lashes. “Don’t you know by now?” He reached a hand behind her neck and gently eased her face toward his. “I’m protective about what matters to me. I didn’t want to place you at risk or see you emotionally hurt.”
Sable almost allowed herself to sink into the warm smothering tide drawing her, but she turned her head and leaned away. She wouldn’t look at him, and the question he’d asked was charged with explosives. She didn’t want Kash to know that she’d already delayed the engagement, and she wasn’t ready to answer him yet.
Without a word of argument he flicked the keys in the ignition, and the Land Rover pulled away from the freckled shade and across a long stretch of open country sparsely populated with candelabrum trees, thornbushes, and thickets of wild olive.
“Isn’t there any road?” she asked.
He smiled, amused. “Even if there were, you wouldn’t notice much difference from the open plain.”
****
The herds had quieted down after the lion hunt and were again grazing in a line stretching across the path of the Land Rover. Driving no more than three miles an hour and stopping when the animals began to show alarm, Kash drove near the water hole.
Clumps of acacia and ziziphus trees looked like small round islands in the river of dried grasses. Farther away, giraffes browsed on the leaves of taller trees. Sable knew that the large concentration of herd animals meant that predators were in the area: leopards, lions, and spotted hyenas.
Sable laughed at a giraffe that did the splits to drink from the water hole, but for the giraffe it was a grave matter. In such a position they were vulnerable to predators, but none were nearby.
They drove inland from the water hole, and after another five or six rugged miles of bouncing in the seat, she saw that they were nearing the Maasai manyatta.
“Dean’s here,” he said.
Sable followed his gaze and saw the dusty airplane parked in the flat grass savanna.
Kash drove near the encampment but, out of respect, parked well outside the grounds of the manyatta near the plane.
“You never explained what he’s doing,” she said.
“He’s engaged in some evangelism of his own,” he said casually, cutting the motor, “but without progress. There’s one Maasai evangelist who’s teamed up with him to reach the different manyattas. That film of yours just might hold the answer.”
She swallowed the amazement she felt over hearing Kash speaking so casually and knowledgeably about evangelizing the Maasai.
He smiled and stepped out. “I’ll do what I can to get permission for the film.”
She started to get out, but he stopped her. “Better wait until I see Dean. We’ll need to speak with the warrior chief first.”
As she watched him enter the circle of low huts, she found herself reliving an experience she’d had at age fourteen, when she and her mother, Kate, Kash, and Seth had driven to the border of Tanzania to visit another Maasai encampment, with
Mckibber driving the vehicle. She wondered if Kash remembered. On that trip Julia had taught them about the tribe before they arrived, although Kash’s knowledge had probably been equal with her mother’s, since he and Seth were friendly with a group of young warriors in training at the manyatta.
Sable had been surprised to learn that the basic diet of the Maasai consisted of milk. Kash had added a detail her mother did not:
“They also drink blood in times of drought and food shortage. They draw it directly from the cattle and mix it with the milk. The cattle are rarely killed except on important ceremonial occasions. And sometimes groups of warriors called ‘moran’ are allowed to drive a fat cow from their father’s herd off into the bush to a temporary shelter. Here the cow is killed, and the moran gorge themselves with meat, probably thinking it will make their bodies strong.”
While Kash and Seth had brought their uncle Mckibber to visit the warriors, Sable and Kate had stayed with their mother to watch the Maasai woman milk the cows directly into gourds.
“Look,” Sable had whispered to Kate, “she’s putting smoldering sticks into the gourds.”
“They’re wild olive branches,” explained Julia. “It gives the milk a flavor all its own.”
As their mother looked on, Sable and Kate cautiously tasted the Maasai milk.
“It has a smoky olive flavor,” said Sable, refusing to wince, although it was strong tasting and upsetting to stomachs not used to the flavor. Julia had assured them that to the Maasai palate it was a delight.
Now as Sable thought of Kash gaining permission from the Maasai warrior chief to show the film, she tried to quiet her beating heart in more ways than one. She prayed that it would be granted and that the rebuilding of her relationship with Kash would not come shattering apart in a disappointing emotional letdown. It was difficult to leave her heart’s desires to the Lord, for they wanted to insist on their own way.
Please, Father God, bless this opportunity at the manyatta with the Maasai….
But the request seemed to lodge like a lump in her heart, pounding with concerns and needs of her own. She couldn’t stop her mind from honing in on her own desires and needs, like bumblebees landing on bright yellow flowers thick with pollen—
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