Sable refused to feel guilty or to allow his searching look to place her on the defensive.
“I was in perfectly good hands. Kash is one of the finest safari guides and hunters in East Africa.” Then she added, thinking it a rare opportunity to begin to prepare the soil of his mind, “We could use a guide like him and his uncle to bring us to Samburu. Did you find anyone in Nairobi?”
“No,” came his toneless voice. “I’d almost think a vendetta was out against my hiring anyone.”
Sable masked her expression, remembering what Kash had said. She turned to Kate, explaining the thrilling news about receiving permission to show the JESUS film at the manyatta. “But I had a reaction to some ant bites, and Kash decided I should come back.”
“He was right,” said Kate. “That can be serious. I’ll need to get you to the medical tent and find out what happened. By the way, Mckib stopped by. He had the film equipment and was on his way back out to the manyatta. Too bad you couldn’t stay there and be a part of it, Sable, but you’ll have more opportunities in the NFD.”
“It’s disappointing,” admitted Sable, “but Kash and Mckib will see it through, and Dean is returning to help now.” Sable turned and introduced him to her sister. “Dean’s an MAF pilot and a good friend of Kash. Dean, this is Kate Dunsmoor, my brilliant and dedicated sister, a nurse with the family-owned mission begun by our mother.”
Sable noticed that both Dean and Kate appeared a little shy as they exchanged pleasantries and decided it was a good sign.
“You’re working out of Nairobi?” asked Kate.
“I’m flying in and out all the time. It’s funny I haven’t met you before. I come by here at least once a month. I’m flying in supplies for the relief workers on Tanzania’s border with Rwanda.”
As Dean and Kate continued their conversation, Vince appeared impatient with the entire situation and took Sable’s arm. “Can you walk? We’d better get you into the Lab.” He always called the medical tent the “Lab,” and Sable walked with him across the field, settling her hat to keep the sun’s hot rays from her face.
She had expected Vince to make more of her trip with Kash to the Maasai manyatta, but he was silent as they waited for Kate to come and prepare an injection.
“You’ll feel better tomorrow,” he assured her. “We’ll talk then.”
Later, when she went to Kate’s tent to bathe and tumble into bed, she wondered about Vince. If she had thought Kash could be unknowable, she was learning that Dr. Adler could be a stranger. And to think she had come to Kenya to seriously consider becoming his fiancee. What had ever possessed her? But it was only being fair to herself to also say that in Nairobi and Toronto, when she was under the duress of her mother’s prolonged suffering, he had portrayed himself a much different man during that time.
Still, I didn’t see him under enough different circumstances to really learn what he can be like when displeased by my actions, she told herself. For one, Kash had not been present to throw confusion into their relationship. Nor had she done anything to disappoint or try him. But things were different now. She was acting independently of Vince, and he didn’t like it. And he certainly disapproved of Kash Hallet.
As Sable fell asleep she prayed, thanking the Lord for her difficulties. Her recent trials and troubles and her encounters with Kash had shed new light on Dr. Vince Adler. Had those trials not come she might have learned too late.
Thank you for your faithfulness to me, Father. I’ve so much to learn about waiting on you.
****
The next morning, expecting a difficult time with Vince, Sable was surprised when Kate came to the tent bringing coffee and telling her that he’d driven back to the lodge without her. “I’d say he’s rather displeased with you,” said Kate, handing her the cup.
Sable sighed. “Did he say why he went back to the lodge?”
“The wildlife conference starts on Monday, and he needs to work on his speech. He’s taking Dad’s place. The conservationists are already arriving.”
“Then I’ve got to get back to the lodge, too. Are you attending? It will do you good to get away from here awhile.”
“Yes, and so are Dean and Kash. They’re due in this afternoon. I can’t wait to hear how the film showing went.”
Sable watched her over her cup. “What do you think of the MAF pilot?”
“Oh, I thought he was very amiable.”
“Amiable! Is that all you can say about Dean?”
Kate laughed. “You don’t expect me to say I’m already falling for him?”
Sable was grave. “After my mistake in nearly becoming engaged to Vince? No! I’m glad the thunder and lightning haven’t hit you so quickly. I’ve known Vince for over two years, and I’m just seeing him as he really is for the first time.”
“I’m not so sure. If you want my opinion, I always thought he was brittle, the kind that feels so intensely about things that he’ll go off the deep end if they don’t work out or if something ruins his sand castle.”
Sable remembered what Kash said about Vince’s commitment to the work at Lake Rudolf.
“You never told me you thought that way.”
“I couldn’t. You wouldn’t have accepted it, but I told the Lord plenty of times and have been praying for you ever since you and Kash broke up.”
Sable looked at her and smiled wearily, thinking how blessed she was to have a sister like Kate. “Thanks.”
“It may be you’re just now able to see with clearer vision,” said Kate. “I don’t want to sound odd or anything, like a know-it-all, but it seemed you were in a state of denial about Kash and how you still felt about him. It took coming home again and running into him like this to light the candle.”
****
It was afternoon when Dean flew the Cessna into the camp. Kash and Mckibber had left the manyatta earlier that morning and would soon be arriving by Land Rover and small truck, bringing the film equipment back with them. Dean had flown past them on the way in.
The news of the film showings was more exciting than even Sable had hoped and prayed for. There had been several showings of the film, and afterward a number of Maasai warriors had indicated decisions to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior. A Maasai evangelist friend of Dean’s would do the follow-up work of teaching. Dean was already enthusiastically developing plans with him to show the film at other Maasai encampments in northern Tanzania. Learning that Sable had also brought Bibles in Swahili and bicycles for the native missionary evangelists to get around in their work, Dean was anxious to return with her and Kate to the lodge, where Mckibber said these particular supplies had all arrived by truck from Mombasa. The rest of the supplies for Samburu would be arriving the next day.
As Sable thought about her private Christian work in Amboseli Reserve and Kate’s short-term medical work here coming to an end, she rejoiced in knowing that the film, the Bibles, and the bicycles would remain, and that the work would be carried on by Dean’s evangelist friend and the other native missionary evangelists from the church in Nairobi.
“It’s on to Samburu,” said Kate, smiling thoughtfully. “Did you tell Vince who our guide will be?”
“Not yet. From the mood he was in, he won’t be pleased.”
“If he wants to get to the NFD he’ll soon change his mind and be thankful Kash is willing to risk it.” She walked to the tent entrance and looked about outside. “I’d feel happier about leaving if there was someone to take our place. Folding the tents and slipping away to new horizons doesn’t solve the Maasai’s problems. They desperately need a permanent medical clinic—and water wells. So many basic health problems could be solved if they had a good water supply.”
Sable’s mood was sobered by reality. The victories she rejoiced in were worthy of celebration, but they only scratched the surface of spiritual and material needs.
“We are transients sowing seeds of grace,” she said, “but the needs are permanent. May the Lord of the harvest bless a hundredfold what was s
own.”
****
Kash and Mckibber didn’t arrive that afternoon as expected. Dean had already left for his flight back to Nairobi, and evening shadows had fallen. Sable, curious and beginning to worry, had already loaded the vehicle to drive back with Kate to the lodge tomorrow. Then she heard the welcome sound of the Land Rover and a truck approaching the camp…. No, several trucks, she thought. Had Vince arranged for the supply trucks to wait here until they were ready to leave for Samburu?
She heard the sound of Kash’s boot steps approaching, and drawing back the insect netting, she stepped out into the twilight.
“Where have you been? I was beginning to worry.”
“Nairobi.”
He’d gone to check on where the twenty thousand went, she thought uneasily, wanting to know the truth, yet concerned that Kash might use the incident in a personal cause for revenge against Dr. Adler. “I wish you hadn’t.”
He glanced at her casually as he beat the dust out of his hat. “I’ve brought you an early Christmas present.”
Confused, she looked at him. Christmas present?
He gestured, and Sable looked past his rugged form to where construction trucks from Nairobi were parked nearby, loaded with equipment and men.
“I didn’t have the heart to leave you disappointed over the wells. They’ll be drilled after all. I thought it would make things easier for you, since you’ll need to trust me explicitly for the next several weeks.”
Stunned, she caught her breath.
“Oh, Kash…what can I say?”
“You don’t need to say anything.”
“But…how can I thank you? You don’t understand what this means to me—and Kate….”
“I do. That’s why I did it now. But there is something you can do.”
Sable’s eyes swerved from the Nairobi trucks to meet his gaze. He smiled. “Mckib and I are starving. We haven’t eaten since last night. Have you learned how to cook?”
She laughed, tears coming to her eyes, and reached to throw her arms around him tightly. “Come on, I’ll empty the kitchen for you!”
As they walked toward the tent where the lanterns glowed and the smell of food and coffee drifted out, Kate was laughing with Mckibber in front of the trucks, talking to the drilling team.
Kash has a tender heart for the Maasai, thought Sable, warmly pleased. She looked at him and smiled, and as she did, her steps slowed until they paused outside the kitchen tent. Her smile faded into a look of longing as his eyes held hers and his hand took warm possession of her arm.
Mckibber’s voice rang out, interrupting the moment: “Say now! Can’t two hard-working men have a tin of good Kenya coffee?”
Twelve
Sable drove her grandmother’s Land Rover from the relief camp in a brighter mood of heart than she’d known for a long time. Kash’s unexpected action of returning Patches, followed by the effort he’d made to show the film at the Maasai manyatta and arranging for the wells to be built, had thawed her heart and stirred an abandoned love song.
“Yet, I must be careful,” she told herself. “I’m getting emotionally involved.”
Kenyatta Lodge came into view with its two giant acacia trees on either side of the driveway, and Sable turned into the yard with Kate following in her jeep piled high with personal boxes and trunks that would next accompany the two sisters north to their father’s Samburu-Isiolo camp.
At the sound of the vehicles, Grandmother Zenobia came out the screen door and stood on the wide porch in her bright and loose-fitting red dungarees, her silver-gray hair braided and pinned on top of her head. Her three golden retrievers had come bounding across the yard from behind the lodge, barking their greeting to Sable and Kate, their whiplike tails beating their excitement.
“Down!” cried Sable, laughing as Ginger stood up with both paws gently resting on her arm and breathing hotly in her face. The other two circled and whined about her safari boots, excitedly sniffing the smells of “an adventure” that still clung to her slacks, before moving off with a rush to greet Kate.
“Dr. Adler is here,” Zenobia told Sable as she came up the steps.
Sable caught the subdued concern in her grandmother’s voice and made a quick search of her unsmiling face, but her clear brown eyes revealed little else.
Was Vince still upset over the excursion she’d made with Kash to the manyatta to show the JESUS film? Or was there something else? “Where is he?”
“He’s taken to the Treehouse to work on his speech. Why don’t you go speak with him? I’ll send Jomo over with something cool to drink—unless you’d prefer tea or coffee?”
Sable thought of a confrontation with Vince and hesitated, wondering why her grandmother appeared anxious to have her see him now. Sable turned to look off in the direction of the mini “lodge” built in the giant acacia tree as Kate came up and planted a kiss on Zenobia’s cheek.
“If Vince is working on his speech, then the conservationists must be arriving soon,” said Kate. “Any word yet from Dad?”
Zenobia sighed and shook her head. “No message, and I don’t expect one, even though the conference begins tomorrow morning.”
“Dad is bound to wonder whether Sable arrived and if we can get the supplies into Samburu, so it seems he would be contacting us.”
Zenobia frowned. “You know Skyler. He’s all taken up with the elephants right now. The last Vince heard, your father was off in the wilderness tracking them and doing research—oh! Did you ask Kash about the letter, Sable?”
“Yes, he gave it to me.”
Kate turned, surprised. “A letter from Dad? Where is it? What did he say?”
“It’s inside my handbag—here,” she said, handing over her bag to Kate. “He said Kash would bring us to Samburu, is all.” She looked at her grandmother. “Where did the Mombasa trucks leave the supplies?” she asked, concerned for their proper care in the interval. She also wondered where Kash expected to get trucks to haul the goods into the NFD.
“They’re out back in storage. Don’t worry, dear. I saw to it the truckers were careful when they unloaded the boxes and crates.”
Once again Sable was alerted to the note of restrained concern in her grandmother’s voice when she stated, “I believe Vince has some news on the trucks and crew bringing the goods north.”
Has Kash already been in contact with Vince about the safari? wondered Sable. Something was wrong, but what? She had best go speak to Vince now.
“Count me out,” groaned Kate. “The first thing I’m headed for is a long, cool soak in the tub! I’m going to splurge, Sable. Where’s your fancy bubble bath?”
Sable smiled. “Look on my dresser…I brought you a whole box of luxuries from Revlon. Too bad Dean isn’t coming to dinner tonight….”
Kate’s eyes flickered. “He was interesting, wasn’t he? Who’d ever think I’d meet someone like that out here, committed to showing the film? I thought all the best men were already nabbed.”
Sable laughed at her exaggerated interest, and Zenobia pricked up her ears. “What’s this? A man? A single man?”
“Yes,” said Sable in a conspiratorial whisper, “and not only a man but a Christian man. Ah! That makes all the difference in East Africa!”
Zenobia widened her eyes and pursed her lips, looking at Kate. “Then I do believe in miracles after all.”
Kate, appearing to grow suddenly shy, gestured to Sable. “But it was Kash who arranged the film showing.”
“Yes,” said Sable rather dreamily. “He did…he and Dean are good friends,” she explained to the interested Zenobia. “Dean is working with MAF, helping Christian nationals in Nairobi.”
“My, but things are getting interesting,” said Zenobia. “I must invite this Dean what’s-his-name to dinner, along with Kash, of course.” She leaned toward Sable, lowering her voice. “But don’t tell Dr. Adler it was my idea. I’m already having enough trouble with him over the Mombasa shipping. Run along, Kate, go soak. And you go see Vince
,” she urged Sable. “I’ll tell Jomo to send over some refreshments.” She turned and hurried into the house, muttering to herself, “Goodness, but today has been busy! I haven’t had time to go visit the orphans since the conferees arrived yesterday. By the way, dear,” she called to Sable over her shoulder as she disappeared toward the kitchen, “Baby Patches is doing wonderfully on his BIG bottle!”
****
The Treehouse was perhaps a quarter mile from the main Kenyatta Lodge—visible from Sable’s bedroom window—and she took the Land Rover instead of walking since the main track skirted the lake and there were several black rhinos, along with huge crocodiles, on the bank.
She drove slowly to keep the dust down. From this main track there were numerous side tracks leading off and down to the shore, where pink flamingos gathered. There was a small observation post mounted high in one of the trees from which visitors could scan the lake with field glasses and use their cameras. The lake attracted hundreds of birds of various types, many of which Sable could identify. She recognized large white spoonbills with their long black bills shaped like spoons, smaller black-and-white wadey birds with their long and delicately upturned beaks, and of course the graceful pink-and-white flamingos that always attracted the tourists’ cameras.
There were game here, too, close to the lake. Waterbucks, bushbuck, and impala were seen feeding on the yellow grassland in the park, and Sable’s favorite: the reddish brown Bohor reedbuck, an antelope about thirty inches tall at the shoulder that galloped in a rocking-horse motion she found colorful and enjoyable.
Perhaps the most interesting sight for the tourists around the small lake was the colony of hippos that congregated in the spring-fed pools at the northeastern corner. The huge but lovable monsters would lie with their cavernous mouths draped open while little birds picked their teeth clean of vermin. The amusing sight always brought a laugh from the tourists and a clicking of cameras.
Sable parked the Land Rover in the speckled shade and climbed the wooden steps to the Treehouse.
The Treehouse, a large wooden structure situated in a giant acacia tree, had been built by her grandfather before Sable was born and was modeled after the famous Treetops in the Aberdare Game Reserve. Although smaller than the original, the Kenyatta Treehouse was a comfortable game-viewing hotel with several small sleeping chambers and a communal sitting and dining room. The evening meal was usually a rather elegant affair served by Kikuyu and Bantu waiters who held service jobs at the lodge. When growing up, Sable had heard the story from Kash of how one of the Bantu waiters carrying a dinner tray of roast duck had walked the track along the lake and met up with a hungry leopard. Needless to say, the man dropped the duck in exchange for his safe return to the lodge. After that, Zenobia had bought several vans and hired drivers to ferry the waiters and trays back and forth from the kitchen to the Treehouse.
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