“What were you looking for?” he asked again, this time his voice as blunt as his unsmiling face.
“Kash is waiting for me by now. Suppose you ask him? He won’t like it if he finds out you’re holding me here against my wishes. I could scream.”
His eyes hardened. He opened the door and stepped aside, and Sable didn’t wait. She rushed past, but he reached out and latched hold of her, swinging her around to face him, holding her tightly against him.
“Just one kiss, angel face—for breaking in here.”
Sable pushed against him, turning her face away. He took hold of her hair, pulling her head back with a jerk that brought her face up toward his.
His breath smelled and she cried out, frightened now as his grip tightened.
“If I were you I’d turn her loose,” said Kash.
Browning’s hands dropped, and Sable stumbled back, landing against the closet.
Browning held up both palms toward him as Kash stepped inside the trailer. “Take it easy, man. Stay cool. It was just a little joke is all—I know she belongs to you—” He gasped and doubled, eyes widening, as Kash struck a quick, savage jab into his belly.
Sable’s hands flew to her face. She turned her head away, hearing the sickening sounds. The trailer rocked, boxes crashed to the floor, and some cups and plates fell from the small table as grunts and groans filled her ears, ending with a thud and crash when Browning’s heavy body landed into the fallen boxes.
Sable didn’t move. After a precarious moment of silence she ventured a brief glance, grimacing as she did. One look at Browning and she jerked her head away.
Kash was searching the trailer, tossing aside the cushions on the bunk. Below the springs was a camera. He grabbed it, latching hold of her arm, and steered her out the door and down the step into the hot, dark night.
They hurried toward the Land Rover parked on the other side of the grounds near the river, and Sable had to run to keep up with his stride.
“I’m sorry—” she began, then in a small voice, “Are you hurt?”
“Scratched knuckles is all. He’ll be out of commission for a day. That will give us time.”
Time for what? she wondered.
“I’ve been intending to search his trailer. All I needed was an excuse, but you shouldn’t have gone there. Never tempt a swine like Browning; he’ll always take the bait.”
“I went for the camera, but he came back,” she said meekly.
They’d reached the passenger side of the Land Rover, and she turned to look at him. In the moonlight she could see his frown, even as his eyes softened. “You were brave, but unwise.”
Under his gaze she hastened to change the subject. “Is it Seth’s camera?”
“Yes, his initials are on the case.”
“Aren’t you going to open it to see if the film is there?”
“In a minute.”
Sable looked from the camera to Kash.
He hesitated, as if wrestling with his emotions. “The last time I raised the issue of kissing you, it was totally at my initiative…. I think it wise to wait for your cooperation. How long are you going to keep me waiting?”
She swallowed, dragging her eyes from his, and reached behind her for the handle on the car door.
“Speaking of temptation…don’t you think we’d better get out of here?”
He studied her for a moment in the moonlight, and she saw the corner of his mouth turn. Without a word he leaned over and opened the door. “We’re going to Lake Rudolf.”
“Lake Rudolf!”
“Vince claimed he wanted you to see the work. So do I, but for a different reason. Dean’s waiting with the plane. Let’s go.”
“And leave Kate?” she cried.
“She’ll be safe enough. Mckib will explain, and my men are still here mixed in with Browning’s hunters. They have their orders and know what to do. And I’ve sent Mateo ahead to tell Skyler when we’ll arrive. After Rudolf, we’ll join him. He’s not at the Samburu camp, but north, at Marsabit.”
There was a small airstrip some six miles from the lodge, and Dean was waiting with the plane when they arrived.
“I thought you were bringing Kate, too,” came the half-disappointed voice.
“She’s keeping Vince busy, but don’t worry. You can see her at the camp in a few days. Let’s go and get this over with. We haven’t much time, since Skyler will be waiting for us at Marsabit. He’s got the elephant herd under close supervision. I just hope the rest of our men can get through by way of Somalia.”
Sable wondered, but Kash was in no mood to explain more now. “First, we meet Dr. Willard.”
The night was clear, and the velvety sky was bright with stars and planets. Once seated in the plane, Sable buckled her seat belt as Kash closed the small door. Soon Dean had the motor running, and after his careful routine checks and some radio announcing, they took off.
Sable tried to see over the nose as they gained speed down the center of the small runway. She felt exhilarated as the Cessna left the earth and climbed. She peered down through the window and watched the winking lights of Samburu Lodge growing smaller, like earthbound stars.
****
After seeing practically nothing below the plane for over two hours, the lights from Lake Rudolf’s lodges were a welcome sight as Dean lost altitude and searched for his visual checkpoints. He located the small airstrip, circled, then entered the landing pattern. “I had a friend lose a plane here,” he said above the engine noise. “During the day the winds in this area can be deadly. They can roar through a campsite and toss everything sky-high like a bunch of matchsticks.”
Soon they landed on the small airstrip in calm air. A few minutes later Kash stepped to the ground and helped Sable out while Dean went to tie down the plane.
“Is this East Rudolf National Park?” asked Sable, confused by the terrain.
“This is the Loyengalani airstrip,” said Dean, “on the east end of the park. You’ve got to be someone important to the paleontologists before they let you use their airstrip. Strangers are discouraged from visiting their base camp.”
“You see,” said Kash, “we’re not paleontologists, just mere mortals. Anyway, Dr. Willard’s camp is not with the others. It’s about a one-and-a-half-hour hike from here.”
Sable was surprised. Somehow she’d expected Dr. Willard to be part of the East Rudolf paleontologists.
“It’s after midnight. We’re going to need some rest. We brought sleeping bags. We’ll take out the rear seat back, and you’ll be able to lie down. Dean and I will camp out under the plane until dawn.”
Even though the fuselage was small and her legs were in the baggage compartment, Sable felt at peace as the sleeping bag began to warm up. She felt the plane gently rock with the mild night breezes. It had been a long day. She spoke to her heavenly Father and thanked Him for protecting her from many dangers…. Today it was Browning…and last night the lion. Now she wasn’t sure which was worse. She remembered Psalm 46:1: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble….”
****
The morning sun was rising on the reddish gold eastern horizon. She walked between the two men on the three-mile hike to Willard’s base camp. The wind was starting up. In just a few hours it would be blisteringly hot and dry as the sun reached its zenith.
Lake Rudolf, called the Jade Sea because of its greenish blue color, covered some thirty-five hundred square miles and was surrounded by a frightening purple lava desert that was once even larger and connected to the Nile. It was a rich archaeological area where various expeditions claimed momentous discoveries of early man.
The Turkana tribe occupied the western shore, and like the Maasai, they were seldom influenced by the outside world. Sable looked upon the warriors wearing elaborate hairstyles and ivory or wood lip plugs. They carried small wooden stools and were experts with their circular wrist knives.
“We estimate around twenty-two thousand crocodiles live in the la
ke,” Kash told her, “but poachers leave them alone. Their buttonlike skin growths make poor ladies’ handbags.”
Sable noticed zebras here, too, and giraffes.
“For years,” said Kash, “a large expedition of anthropologists and African assistants have used Koobi for their base, surveying and digging in a nine-hundred-square-mile fossil-rich area.”
Sable knew about National Museum Administrator Richard Leakey, son of the late Louis Leakey and co-leader of the expedition. In the early seventies he had announced finding and reconstructing the “oldest complete skull of early man.” Known as “1470 Man,” the fossil was claimed by evolutionists to be from 2.6 to 2.8 million years old. The skull and complete femur were considered to be important for several reasons: the fossils were among some ninety specimens found at Rudolf. “The skull is claimed to have a cranial capacity of more than eight hundred cubic centimeters,” said Kash.
“What’s the significance of that?” asked Sable as they walked along together with Dean in the lead.
“For years evolutionists thought that Australopithecus with a cranial capacity of only five hundred cubic centimeters was an ancestor of modern man. The problem they have now is that this fossil is considered by them to be more than a million years older, yet it looks very much like modern man, and the complete femur, or thigh bone, indicates that he walked upright, the same as you and I. They are now calling him ‘East Rudolf Man.’ Richard Leakey now believes that Australopithecus was not an ancestor of modern man at all, and that presently held evolutionary theories and nomenclature of early man will have to be revised.”
“I could have told him that,” said Sable airily. “All he has to do is read Genesis chapter two to find how God created mankind.”
Kash laughed. “Yes, I think you could have, and you would have provided an explanation that harmonizes very well with the fossil record.”
“I didn’t know you knew so much about the subject,” she said, curious and pleased to discover something new about Kash.
“During the long period while I was working on the weaver bird project I started asking ‘too many’ questions and started examining the library of the scientist who hired me. I began to notice that no matter what species I read about in his evolutionary texts, the same patterns began to consistently appear. Statements like, ‘When we study the earliest fossil evidence for this species we find that it already has millions of years of evolutionary development behind it.’ I’m no professional, but I’ve been able to read between the lines. What the statement is really saying is, the oldest fossils that have been found for this species are quite typical, and since the fossil record provides no evidence for its evolutionary development, it is therefore assumed. It is still very true, as it was in Darwin’s day, that the first appearance in the fossil record of all major classes of organisms are very characteristic of their class. One book on the subject, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, written by Dr. Michael Denton—who is not a creationist—states that one of the most striking characteristics of the fossil record that is widely recognized by many leading paleontologists today is the ‘virtual complete absence of intermediate and ancestral forms.’”
“Well, if that’s true, why don’t more anthropologists reject evolution completely?”
“Their problem is, there are few alternatives once they have disallowed the correct solution to the issue. Without permitting the possibility of the reality of an awesome Creator, they have backed themselves into a corner.” He looked down at her. “Does Vince know that Dr. Willard has given up on evolution?”
Her surprise showed. “He’s never mentioned it. But I don’t understand. If Dr. Willard isn’t an evolutionist, why have you warned me against the work that he and Vince are doing?”
“You’ll see for yourself when we talk with him.”
Sable scanned him, her heart warming. How could she ever have thought Kash to be spiritually lacking? Why had she allowed Vince to deceive her about his interest in the Christian faith?
It must have been nearing noon when Sable looked ahead and saw a camp. They approached a cluster of bomas and what appeared to her to be a large building under construction by African workers and a few European overseers.
“Take a good look,” Kash told her, gesturing to the domed building. “That’s the choice investment that Vince borrowed your twenty thousand dollars to have built.” His cobalt eyes glinted maliciously when she frowned. “I see you’re not easily impressed. Perhaps meeting Dr. Willard will change your mind.”
She looked at him uneasily. “Can you prove it? That he used the money for this building?”
“Would I have brought you all the way here if I couldn’t? It’s a research house, a meditation house, and VIP lounge all in one. It’s here that Willard, Vince, Dr. Katherine Walsh, and a few other geniuses will gather.”
“A ‘meditation house’?” she asked, a little confused. “What are they meditating about?”
“About the ‘ultimate truth.’ The new open door to what man is and can become…his destiny, his beginning—or should I say, his end? Their eventual conclusions will amaze the common man, who will look into the mirror and claim with confidence, ‘I am God!’”
She resisted his half-smile. “Vince would never—I mean, he’s not a fool.”
“No, and neither is Dr. Willard, nor millions of others who believe the same thing. They’re grossly intelligent, yet fools in God’s sight. ‘The fool has said in his heart there is no God.’ When one rejects the Light, what else is there but the spiraling stairway down into spiritual darkness that leads to mental madness? ‘Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,’ says Romans. What else can you call a human being who can go down to Lake Rudolf, stand there, look up in the starry universe, and cry, ‘I am God!’?”
Sable shuddered as the hot wind tossed her hair, causing it to glimmer like honey. Her eyes searched his, and she knew he was telling her the truth of what he’d learned about Dr. Willard’s organization.
“What does it all have to do with Vince, about poaching ivory?”
“Money. I told you that before. Let Dr. Willard explain about Brother Vince. Come, he’s seen us.”
As they approached the camp, a man came out of one of the bomas and stood waiting for them. Sable assumed the silver-haired man in his late fifties was Dr. Willard. He was a handsome man who could pass for any important head of a big corporation. His hair had grown long, however, and dusted his bare shoulders, and he was as brown as a baked coconut. He wore khaki shorts and boots and seemed packed with energy. His face, as he greeted them, was creased by the sun, and his eyes wore a hard, bright gleam, like clear granite.
“We don’t have many visitors, so naturally we’re excited to have you,” he said, shaking hands with Kash and Dean and smiling at Sable. “Your father is a brilliant man, Miss Dunsmoor. And so is Vince. He tells me you’ll be married next year. Let me congratulate you.”
Kash gave her a side glance.
“You know my father, Dr. Willard?”
“He’s visited us on several occasions with Katherine. Katherine was working with him at the elephant camp in Samburu until recently. She’s joined us here now full time, thanks to Vince. She’s my niece,” he laughed. “He didn’t need to do much hard sell. She was an A student and earned her doctorate a year ahead of schedule.”
He gestured to the domed structure. “This is our new building. Vince has contact with a group of entrepreneurs in Toronto who are enthusiastic about our work here. They’ve honored us with a permanent building. It should be completed early next year.”
Then Vince hasn’t told him the money came from me and Kate.
“Looks as though Dr. Adler wholeheartedly supports your cause,” said Kash.
“A brilliant fellow. Without his financial support we couldn’t continue. Like the rest of our group, Vince believes our future discoveries will make all past evolutionary hypotheses pale into insignificance.”
Sable remembered back to her
conversation with Vince at the Treehouse. Hadn’t he said something about a great future discovery?
“And just what is your work?” she asked quietly.
“Anthropology, but in a new light. It used to be a search for fossils. At least, that’s what we gave our lives to for many years. Recently, we’ve taken a new and distinct approach to discovering the origins of life.”
“Amazing,” said Kash. “I suppose Dr. Adler was difficult to convince? I thought he, like yourself, was a hardened naturalistic evolutionist.”
“Conviction did not come easily. Like me, he became disillusioned with evolution as we know it.”
Disillusioned with evolution? Sable glanced at Kash.
“Come inside,” said Dr. Willard pleasantly. “We’ll have refreshments and talk if you like. Banyu!” he called to a worker. “Bring something for our guests!”
Seated in the boma and served tea and fruit, Sable was silent as Dr. Willard and Kash carried on their discourse and Kash pretended innocent curiosity.
“So you no longer believe in evolution?” asked Kash.
“I believed in evolution religiously for most of my life. I believe what Darwin said, that ‘if evolution is true, the best evidence for it should be in the fossil record.’ I studied and categorized the fossil record for years with my colleagues. Until just recently I was diligently attempting to make an evolutionary tree of life. In high school I noticed that the various species in the evolutionary tree were connected with question marks, and I made it my goal to remove just one or two of the question marks! But the more I studied, the more I found that evolutionists were just speculating. Many hypothetical reconstructions are beginning to look more like fantasies than serious conjectures. For example, the only reason an evolutionist says that birds evolved from reptiles is that he can’t find anything better than a reptile to use as an ancestor. Birds lay eggs, and reptiles lay eggs, and so this is used as an evidence of common origin. But if this were so, there should be millions of years in which reptile scales were randomly evolving into all sorts of things, one of which was a feather.”
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