A Spear of Summer Grass

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “Nothing I can’t handle. Did you get your bag?”

  He flashed me a brilliant smile. “And a tip big enough to buy another duka.”

  “Good for you.”

  But in spite of his successful trip, I detected an edginess to him. He seemed watchful, and occasionally, I noticed his eyes flicker quickly to Helen and around the table again, as if waiting for something. The atmosphere was heightened somehow with Rex gone, and I did not put it down entirely to Helen’s odd mood. The men drank heavily, particularly Kit, who seemed determined to drink himself into a stupor before the cheese course. Gervase began to recite some of his gloomy poetry, this one about a man in love with the corpse of a girl he once knew, and Bunny kept kissing Helen’s arms as she tried to eat.

  Across the table from me, Bianca’s pupils were huge in the candlelight, and I thought of the Renaissance beauties who dilated their eyes with belladonna to make themselves more alluring. It didn’t really do Bianca any favours. She was talking more than usual, her colour high and her voice sharp. She caught me looking at her and peered across the table.

  “What’s that you’re wearing? Is that native jewellery?” She rose up out of her chair and leaned across the table, putting one knee into her plate as she tried for a closer look. I held up my wrist and she shrieked a little. “How primitive! Do you mean to start a new fashion?”

  I shrugged as Gervase put an arm around her waist and coaxed her back into her seat. “Maybe. I liked the line of green beads in it with my dress, and I thought it made for an unusual touch.”

  “Very becoming,” Helen said. I was about to explain that the beads were unique to the Masai in Gideon’s village, but before I could open my mouth, Bianca had started throwing bits of her bread roll at Lawrence Halliwell.

  I rolled my eyes at Ryder. “Food fights?”

  He continued to eat calmly as a chop bone whizzed past his ear. “I would have thought that was right up your alley.”

  I gave him a cool glance. “Not really. I prefer more grown-up kicks.”

  He didn’t reply, and the food fight fizzled to a stop just as soon as it started. Bianca’s shrieking laughter turned maudlin, and by the time dessert was served, she had reached for her needle again, this time injecting herself openly at the dinner table. Helen remonstrated with her.

  “Bianca, really! Don’t indulge too much. The numbers are uneven as it is. We shall want every woman at her best.” Bianca was either not in the mood to play Helen’s games or she was too far gone to pay attention. She rose from the table and began to dance one of her flamenco measures, clicking her fingers instead of castanets and flapping her shawl around like a great clumsy bird.

  Helen shot me a conspiratorial wink, and before I could work out what she meant, the servants cleared the table and left the long expanse of polished wood bare. Helen rose and plucked five feathers from her sleeve. “There are five gentlemen and three ladies, so I’m afraid we shall have to be a trifle creative.”

  She placed a feather in front of each man. “Each man will blow his feather across the table into the lap of the woman of his choice. She must go with the man whose feather first lands in her lap,” she instructed. “The guest rooms have all been made ready for you, and if you feel like inviting one of the remaining two gentlemen to watch or join in, feel free. Round two will begin with a sheet game in two hours!” she finished gaily.

  She rang a little crystal bell and the men began to blow. Bunny was puffing his cheeks so hard I was surprised he didn’t have an apoplexy right there. He was blowing his feather towards Helen, and she was smiling benignly at him. Kit blew once on his and collapsed in a fit of giggling, far too drunk to finish. To my horror, I saw Gervase and the reverend engaged in a pitched battle aimed in the same direction—mine.

  Just as Gervase’s feather hovered on the edge of the table, Ryder rose and dropped his feather in my lap. “She’s mine,” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me from my chair.

  “That’s cheating,” Gervase protested, but we were already out of the dining room and heading for the front door. He threw me into his truck and gunned the engine.

  We drove for a few minutes before I turned to look at him. The moonlight rested on his features, but even that silvery light couldn’t soften them. He was angry.

  “Why do I have the feeling that you’d rather have your hands around my throat than that steering wheel?”

  He slammed on the brakes, sending up a shower of dirt and pebbles in our wake. He cut the engine, and the only sounds were the ticking of the hot metal and the soft cricket song.

  “Do you want me to take you back?”

  “Of course not. In fact, I quite appreciate the rescue. It was not at all the sort of evening I was expecting.”

  “What did you think would happen?”

  I weighed my options then chose the truth. “I thought she was going to tear into me because of Rex. She might resent our friendship.”

  Ryder’s eyes were inky black in the fitful light. “Helen’s too subtle for that. Her best revenge would be to get you to one of her little parties and then tell Rex all about it. You were a fool to go.”

  “How was I supposed to know?” I demanded. “And if you were so concerned about it, you could have warned me when you first arrived instead of waiting until things got going to mount your white horse and carry me off.”

  “I had to know.”

  “Know what?”

  “If you wanted to be there. You didn’t seem uncomfortable. For all I knew, you were fully aware of what was about to happen and were more than happy to participate.”

  “With Gervase Pemberton?”

  “Don’t sound so scornful. It’s possible.”

  “It is not possible. As difficult as it might be for you to believe, I do have standards. And Gervase definitely does not meet them. Neither does going off with random men. I prefer to get my kicks with people of my own choosing, thanks very much.”

  “You can understand my confusion,” he returned nastily. “You’re sleeping with Kit. That doesn’t say much for your standards.”

  “Oh, you are a fine one to preach to me. From what I hear, you’ve taken a turn on every ride in the colony. Clearly you knew what to expect tonight,” I finished triumphantly.

  “Yes, I’ve been there before,” he admitted, and whether he meant to one of the parties or inside Helen, I wasn’t sure, and I definitely didn’t want to know.

  “Sauce for the goose,” I reminded him. “And furthermore, you don’t have a claim on me, remember? I can go where I like, when I like, and I don’t see what business it is of yours.”

  “Fine,” he ground out, his jaws clamped tight. “I’ll take you back there.”

  He reached for the gearshift, but I had had enough. “Oh, for God’s sake,” I muttered. I swung myself onto his lap, straddling him. I pulled his jacket down and off his arms and yanked off his bow tie. I opened his shirt and shoved it down to his wrists and left it there, binding him just enough to make him feel it. He opened his mouth, but before he even said a word, I had his trousers unbuttoned and my hand inside.

  It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t gentle and anybody who watched would have thought we were trying to kill each other. Maybe we were. I pushed and rocked and clawed at him, frustrated as I had never been that there was bone and sinew and muscle between us, and he answered right back, bruise for bruise and scratch for scratch. Bodies suddenly seemed like too much trouble when all I wanted was to consume him—or let him consume me, I didn’t much care which. I wanted to be burned up until there was nothing left but a small pile of grinning, ashy bones. I wanted to take him apart with my bare hands until I got right down to the core of him, something perfect and whole that I could carry away in my pocket and never turn loose of.

  I lit a cigarette as we drove back to Fairlight. He kept one arm
tightly around me, so I put the cigarette to his lips while he took a deep drag. I smoked the rest of it, and when we arrived at Fairlight, I took the last puff.

  “Delilah—”

  “You’re not stupid enough to think we have to talk about this, are you?”

  “No. I know nothing’s changed. You are who you are. And that wasn’t about me, not really. You were scratching an itch and I was weak enough to let you.”

  The words were bitter, but his tone was smooth. My hand shook a little as I ground out the cigarette on the sole of my shoe.

  He went on. “I’m leaving again in a few days to take a trip up to Lake Macheo for some shooting and fishing. I won’t be back for a week.”

  As I got out of the truck my heel crunched down on something. The little Masai bracelet Moses had given me. It had gotten torn off, although which one of us had done it, I couldn’t say. I picked it up and slammed the door, leaning in the open window. The inside of the truck smelled like burned tobacco and my perfume and the salty, sweaty smell of us together. Handfuls of beads from my dress shimmered on the seat and floorboard like glittering confetti.

  “Safe travels,” I said lightly.

  He stared at me for a long minute then shook his head. “It can’t happen again, Delilah. It won’t.”

  “For such a big man, you seem awfully afraid.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Why? Why do I scare you so much?”

  He put one fingertip to my heart. “Is this where you notch the marks? One scar for each of us until there’s nothing left to feel with? You’ve put walls a mile high and a mile thick and nothing is going to batter them down.”

  “You’re a fine one to talk about walls.”

  “Mine have cracks, princess. And that’s the trouble. If I let you, you’ll bring the whole goddamn thing down around my ears.”

  “And you can’t have that?”

  “No,” he said flatly. “I can’t. There are some women and some places that get under your skin, through the blood and right down into the bone itself. And they never leave. Africa has already done that for me. I don’t need you there too.”

  “How poetic.” My voice was low and smiling, but I felt chilled. He was thinking in the same metaphors that I did. And a man who spoke the same language was a dangerous man. “Maybe that’s our problem, Ryder. We’re just too damned much alike.”

  He didn’t say anything, and I realised there was no point.

  I gave him my most dazzling smile. “Try not to think about me when you’re gone. Distractions can be deadly out in the bush.”

  He lunged toward the door and I danced backward, fleeing into the house. It was too late for anyone to have waited up, so I got myself ready for bed. I didn’t bathe. I stripped off my ruined dress and kicked it into the corner. The bracelet went into the jewel box on my writing table—next to the cold cream I didn’t bother with. I crawled straight into bed, far too wakeful for sleep. I felt like I had gripped an electric wire and couldn’t let go. I lay awake for hours, watching the shifting shadows through the mosquito netting. I must have slept at some point. It was full daylight when I woke, and when I did, my skin still smelled like Ryder.

  18

  The next morning Gideon appeared. Again Ryder had left him behind to watch over me, and again I was glad of it. I shouldn’t have been. I should have been outraged that he thought so little of my ability to take care of myself. But Gideon was the nearest thing Ryder had to a best friend; being with him meant being with Ryder, in a way. And if I stopped to think about how badly I wanted that, I would have scared the hell out of myself, so I didn’t. I didn’t think about the feel of him, on me and in me, and I didn’t think about what that night might mean. I packed that thought as far away as I could, folding it into a trunk in the back of my mind and slamming the lid shut. There were plenty of other thoughts to keep that one company.

  “Habari zu asabuhi, Bibi,” Gideon said.

  “Good morning to you, too.”

  “I have come to ask a favour.”

  I stared at him. Gideon never asked me for anything. I raised a brow.

  “My babu wishes to see you. Will you come to the village with me?”

  “Of course. We’ll take Moses so he can see your babu as well.”

  I told Dora we were leaving and she ignored me. She had pointedly left the wreck of my dress bundled into the corner of my room, but my shredded stockings had been carefully washed and hung up in my bathroom. It was her way of expressing her disapproval—without words, but not at all silent. That gesture spoke volumes about her disdain. She didn’t ask who I had been with, and I didn’t volunteer. As near as I could tell she was still speaking to me as little as possible, and I slammed the door again on my way out just to get some noise in the house.

  “Memsa Dora is unhappy,” Gideon observed as we started towards the pasture.

  “Not exactly. You see, Memsa Dora doesn’t approve of me, and that actually makes her quite happy indeed. She likes to be better than me at something.”

  “I do not understand, Bibi.”

  I blew out a sigh and breathed in the cool purple air of the morning. “Memsa Dora has always hated me a little. We were children together. Our fathers were cousins. When I went to my babu’s house in England, Dora was always there. But as we grew older our situations changed. My family had money and Dora’s did not. She resented me for it.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No. My life has been a difficult one, but it has been exciting, Gideon. I have loved men and they have loved me back. I am written about in newspapers and I have travelled the world. Dora’s life in comparison is very small. She has spent most of her time in a tiny village in England while I gallivanted around.”

  “Gallivanted?” His brow furrowed. Across the pasture Moses stood, singing softly to the cattle as they grazed peacefully around him.

  “It means I travelled a lot. I had fun. I’ve lived.”

  He smiled. “Your life is like mine, then. I have seen much of the world around my village and I have had fun. I, too, have lived.”

  He was serious. He had probably been no farther than a hundred miles from the village where he’d been born and he’d walked every step of it, but he considered himself a well-travelled soul.

  “I have seen many things and I have had great friendships,” he went on. “But Moses has not. He has stayed in our village, and his life, like Memsa Dora’s, has been very small.”

  “Then you understand what I mean.”

  He shook his head, his beads clacking gently. The sound reminded me of my grandmother’s rosary. She told it twice a day, every day, praying on her knees in the rose-scented smoke of the incense she burned in her bedroom. The servants even whispered that when they washed her pillowcases there was always a faint halo scorched into the linen.

  “I do not understand at all, Bibi. Moses and I are very different, but we are brothers. And I would never be angry with him for something that he has, nor would he be angry with me. He sits in my heart, and I sit in his.”

  I swallowed hard. “That’s as it should be, Gideon.”

  “Then perhaps you will try to make up whatever quarrel it is that you have with Memsa Dora,” he advised quietly. “It is not good to carry anger inside you. It makes for a heavy journey.”

  He turned and raised his arm. Moses raised his in return, a broad smile crossing his face.

  “I’ll try, Gideon,” I promised.

  The walk to the village was easy in the cool morning air, and when we arrived, their babu was sitting outside to receive us. Gideon and Moses went through the usual ceremonies, and I waited my turn before bowing my head. “Shikamoo, Mzee.”

  “Marahaba.”

  “Asante,” I replied. And that was the end of our Swahili. The babu said somethin
g to one of the women loitering about and she went into the hut, appearing a moment later with the usual calabashes of milky, smoky tea. I smiled my thanks and sipped.

  The babu turned to Gideon and began to talk rapidly in Maa and I waited for the translation. The babu was folded in his long brown-grey fur cloak. I had asked the last time and Gideon explained it was a hyrax cloak, the pelt taken from a quizzical-looking little rodent with round ears. They were rather sweet but with vicious, unforgiving teeth. Tusker told me she’d kept one as a pet until it had taken a nip at her ear and pierced it for her.

  After a long exchange, the babu sat back and waited for Gideon to translate. He fanned himself gently with a fly whisk fashioned from a zebra tail, scattering the insects that had gathered. His little round eyes peered out from behind his thick spectacles. He watched me closely as Gideon spoke, as if to make sure every last word was passed along.

  “Babu says that he has heard of the brave manner in which you dealt with Bwana Gates.”

  “How did he hear that?”

  Gideon grinned. “I told him. He says that Bwana Gates is an evil man, and such evil leaves a mark behind it. The mark of his evil still lingers here.”

  The sun was high overhead, shedding long golden shafts of light. Perspiration from the walk beaded my temples, but I shivered. Granny Miette and Teenie and Angele had known evil and had worked to cast it out when it crept near. They always said that some evil can never be thwarted, no matter how hard you try or how far you run. It will find you if it wants to.

  But I couldn’t imagine Gates was as evil as the babu believed or that he would do me any serious harm. He was a bully, and I had bullied him back.

  “Please thank your babu for his concern, and tell him I will be careful.”

  He repeated my words to the old man, but as soon as they were spoken, the babu shook his head firmly. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a small leather bag. It was sewn with a complicated pattern of beads on copper wire, and it smelled of smoke and earth, of cooled sweat and aging flesh, like the old man himself.