The clerk eyed their guard. “A great misfortune indeed. But you will enjoy the hotel. We have satellite cable television, a Malaysian restaurant, a grill room, a café overlooking the Nile, a shopping arcade, and three swimming pools. One is exclusively for women!”
“Shokran,” Jill said. “We thank you for your kindness.”
“Minfadlak, please, follow the bellman. He will take you to your rooms.”
As Cole moved painfully across the lobby to the elevators, a veil of unreality descended over him. In the midst of such grinding poverty sat a hotel with satellite TV and three swimming pools. And in the midst of utter hopelessness, God had prompted Jill Pruitt to pray for help.
Stepping into the elevator, Cole swallowed down the lump that had wedged in his throat. He would have faith. Against every reality determined to hurl him into an abyss of despair, he would trust in the presence of God.
“Madame Loiseau, Moses is untying the rope.” Billy leaned against the rusty railing of the old steam-driven boat. “You better get off now.”
Matt nodded, feeling as if the minute the Frenchwoman stepped off, he would lose his last anchor to reality. The Nile was flowing fast, and he knew it wouldn’t be but a minute before they were caught in its current. He swallowed down the wad of emotion in his throat. “Thanks again, Madame Loiseau.”
“You’ve been a big help,” Billy added. “You saved our lives. Those guys—”
“Enough!” She held up her hand. “I do not say goodbye. These words I cannot speak.”
Taking Matt’s shoulders, she squeezed them tightly. “You and William must make me a promise, oui? Promise me that you will live. No matter how difficult it may be to stay alive, do not die.”
Matt studied the woman who stood before them looking so out of place in her pointy-toe high heels and tight black skirt. “We’ll try, Madame Loiseau.”
“You make a promise?”
“Oui,” he said.
As tears filled her eyes, she smiled. “You are good boys. One day we meet again. I take you to my chateau in Provence. I feed you good food and you swim in my pool. This will make great happiness for you. Oh, William, come to me!”
Billy winced as she wrapped him in her arms and kissed both his cheeks. When it was Matt’s turn, he hugged her tightly.
“Thanks a lot,” he murmured. “Thanks for all you did.”
“Voilà!” As if helping two strange teenagers get to Africa was no big deal, she stepped onto the dock and pushed her cloud of brown hair off her neck. As the boat pulled away, she took out a cigarette. “Il fait chaud! I am hot—and close your mouth, Matthew, or you will swallow a fly.”
Billy waved. “Goodbye, Mrs. Loiseau!”
“Madame!”
Laughing over getting her goat one last time, he nudged Matt. “She’s cool. Weird, though.”
“I hope we do see her again.” As the boat began its journey up the Nile, Matt turned away, unwilling to watch the woman fade into nothingness. He laid his hand on the USB key and said a prayer for her safety—and his own. Gazing across to the far bank, he noted a dozen or more crocodiles sunning themselves.
Billy squinted in the sunlight. “I hope we don’t fall into the river,” he said. “We’d be dead meat, man. Gobbled down like a couple of corn dogs.”
“Actually, crocodiles don’t eat their prey right away,” Matt said. He had read a bunch of books about African wildlife in elementary school. “What they do is drag their victim out into the water and drown it. You don’t die from the bite, but from drowning. Then the crocodile hides its prey under a log or a rock in the water until it gets so rotten and decomposed that—”
Noticing the look on Billy’s face, he paused. For the first time since they left Amarillo except for when he was airsick Billy looked like he was losing control. He drank down a deep breath of air.
“Matt,” he said, “I’m thinking this is, like, really weird. I mean, I’m pretty good at handling most things. And I’ve helped you through a lot of stuff.”
“Yeah, you have.”
“But this is definitely not Artesia High School.”
“We can do it.” Matt said the words with a lot more confidence than he felt. “We’ll be fine.”
“We’re in Africa, dude!”
“Don’t wig out on me, Billy.”
“We’re on this little steamboat on the Nile with hippos and crocodiles all around. And hostile natives!”
“Yeah, so?”
“We need to, like, plan how we’re gonna keep from getting kidnapped or murdered. Or eaten by something. We don’t even have a gun or anything.”
“Cool it, Billy. Just relax, okay?” Matt glanced at the front of the boat.
Moses, the tall Ugandan who would take them to the Sudanese border, noted the boys’ expressions and left his place at the bow. “How do you find your journey?” he asked as he approached them. When the man smiled, Matt noted a big gap among the white teeth in his lower jaw.
“We’re fine,” he returned.
Eyeing his gawking passenger, Moses laughed, a deep chuckle that rolled up from the bottom of his chest. “American boys!”
“Yeah, uh…” Matt glanced at Billy, but that gave him no reassurance at all. “So we’re going to Sudan, right?”
“Sudan, yes!” Moses laughed again, as he shook his head. “You will die there.”
Matt sucked down a breath. “Why do you say that?”
“No food. No Land Rover. Not even water.”
“Madame Loiseau said you were going to give us food and water.”
“Yes, but you cannot carry enough for a long journey.”
“Maybe you should come with us. You could help us.”
The African lowered his head and chuckled. “You do not have enough American dollars to pay me for that!”
Matt looked at Billy again. He felt like telling Moses to turn the boat around and take them straight back to Madame Loiseau. They could get on the little airplane and be back in the States in a couple of days.
Billy’s eyes held nothing but fear. Fear like Matt had never seen in them.
“You wanna go back?” Matt whispered to his friend.
Billy chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “I wish we could.”
“We could.”
“But then you wouldn’t give the key to that guy.”
“I know…but…” Matt wavered, uncertainty rising like tentacles through his chest, wrapping around his throat. “Billy, I’m freaking.”
“Me, too.”
“What should we do?”
“You decide.”
Matt tried to think about starving children and the Bible and Christ’s command to feed the hungry. He looked across the river at the crocodiles. He looked at Moses, who was still laughing at the dumb American boys who were going to die. Then he looked at Billy again.
“Will you, like, hate me if we get killed or something?” he asked.
Billy shrugged. “No.”
“Well…I think we came this far…so…”
“Okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not really.”
“Me, either.”
They stared at each other.
Moses straightened. “You want to go back to the camp?”
Matt shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Keep going. We have to make it to Sudan.”
Moses regarded him in silence for a moment. “You wait here.” He strolled across the deck, reached into a recess near the prow, and withdrew a two-foot-long stick. When he returned to Matt, he held it out. “Take this, American boy. This is a weapon of the Maasai people. A tourist left it here on the boat, and it should be given to you. It is called a rungu.”
Matt took the stick, which had a large knob on one end. “Thank you.”
Without answering, Moses turned and walked back to the bow, where the steamboat’s pilot had been watching the exchange.
Billy leaned across and examined the gift. “It’s a stick,” he said.
&
nbsp; “He said it was a weapon,” Matt whispered.
“It’s a stick.”
“Well, it’s better than nothing.”
Billy rubbed the back of his neck. “Man, I think I’m gonna croak.”
At the bow, Moses and the pilot watched the two boys and laughed behind their hands. Matt leaned against the railing, cradled the rungu, and wished he weren’t here. He thought about his dad and Miss Pruitt, and he hoped they had decided to stay in New Mexico to wait for him. The truth was, Matt missed the ranch—his room and computer, Josefina, good food, clean clothes, his big bed. He even missed his dad. Though Matt resented his father’s constant need to work the farm, Cole had always been around.
If his son really needed him—for any serious reason—Cole would leave his work for an hour or two. He would be there. They didn’t talk much, and they had little in common. But Matt realized it was good to know where your dad was. It was comforting.
All in all, he had a pretty okay father, especially compared to some kids, like Billy. And right now, Matt really wished he could just look out across the fields and see his dad’s truck driving along one of the dirt roads on their farm. That would be nice.
Billy slapped a mosquito on his arm. “I hope it wasn’t carrying malaria. Or worse.”
“Next time you see one on you, tell me, and I’ll mash it with the rungu,” Matt said.
“You wish.” Billy’s mouth curved into a grin. “Touch me with that dumb stick, and I’ll break it over your head.”
“Hey, watch what you say about my weapon of mass destruction.”
Billy laughed. “Dude, you’re bizarre.”
Jill stood on her balcony overlooking the Nile. Everything had come apart—and it was her fault. She never should have given away the passports. Cole was right, of course. The minibus driver had taken them and sold them on the black market. Who could blame him? His job as an airport guard would provide little money for food and housing, and he had lost his whole family. Like every other person in Sudan, he was desperate. Though he professed Christianity, he was human, and Jill had placed too great a temptation before him.
Why had she been so stupid? Why had she trusted the man? People couldn’t be trusted—not fully. God was the only one in whom she should put her faith. She knew that, but she hadn’t obeyed, and now she, Cole and Matt would suffer the consequences.
Her hair still damp, Jill used her pick to sort out the curls after her morning shower. Cole, whose room was next door, had spent the previous afternoon sleeping. She had napped, too. But she also had made phone calls to the U.S. embassy and I-FEED headquarters in Khartoum, and to the feeding station in Rumbek. All of them dead ends.
The embassy liaison said he would call later with information as to what they should do—but he hadn’t. No one answered the phone in the I-FEED office. And the phone lines to Rumbek were out of service.
She did have one bit of good news. In an e-mail, Marianne had assured Jill that the principal had no problem with her absence. He was more concerned that the school had failed to properly protect Matt.
Unable to face Cole, she had ordered room service that evening and had gone to bed early. Now it was Friday, and on Monday morning she and Cole would be deported. Passports or not.
And where was Matt?
Jill had been crying off and on all morning. While praying, showering, eating breakfast, the unexpected tears just came. It was Matt. He would die. There could be no other outcome in a country like this. If Agrimax didn’t get to him first, the Sudanese or guerrilla armies would. Or hunger. Or a parasite. Or a wild animal. The possibilities of death were endless, and the hope of life so very tiny.
And her tears came, also, Jill had to admit, when her thoughts turned to Cole. It wasn’t just the passports or Matt that hurt every time the man crossed her mind. It was Cole himself. Somehow he had stepped inside her and broken down the “happy single woman” life she had so carefully constructed for herself. She wasn’t happy anymore—not the way she had been. A restlessness curled through her, making her want things she had thought didn’t matter. Passion. Love. Companionship. A shared life with a man.
She wanted to be soft. She wanted to rely on the strength of another human being. She wanted to be protected and cradled and loved the way a man could love. And the worst of it was—she was soft already, with little to hold her up. She was melting, crumbling, aching inside.
As she watched the boats ply the Nile, Jill gripped the balcony railing and fought the anguish that welled through her. She didn’t want just any man. She wanted Cole. His strength and determination and intelligence matched her own. His vitality moved her. Though he kept his emotions under control, with Jill he had been willing to show vulnerability. She had seen his fear and his doubt, and the shared pain had somehow wedded their souls. She felt knitted to him and so utterly comfortable in his presence. How could she bear to return to her old stalwart single life? She couldn’t. She couldn’t stand the thought of it.
But Cole had promised to marry another woman. He had made a commitment. He loved this Penny Ames enough to want to make her his wife and Matt’s stepmother. No matter what Cole said about how the wreck in Juarez had changed him, the fact of his engagement remained.
Though her own feelings for Cole were potent and true, Jill feared his attraction to her couldn’t be valid. Every tender word, every gentle touch, even the forbidden kiss that had passed between them was cloaked in the overwhelming blanket of this terrible misadventure. From the moment Jill had met Cole, their interaction had been colored by the search for Matt. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, they were stretched thin. These days together had been intense, but not real. The way Cole felt about Jill was the kind of bonding that happened between shipwreck survivors or between prisoners and their guards. And it wouldn’t hold up. Not in the harsh light of normal life.
“Hey, there.” The voice startled Jill from her preoccupation with her misery. Cole stood on his own balcony next to hers. “How’ve you been?”
“Pretty good,” she said. “No. Bad.”
“Me, too.”
Pinning her with those bright blue eyes, he searched her face. She saw that he had shaved, showered and combed his hair. He wore a white T-shirt, jeans, boots. And he looked handsome. Heartbreakingly handsome.
“I called the embassy just now,” he told her. “They said you’d phoned. They can’t get to our case before Monday. But that’s the least of our worries. Clotilde Loiseau’s sister sent a message through the embassy. Clotilde flew with Matt and Billy to Uganda with plans for them to take a boat to the Sudan border—and then walk inland to find Josiah Karume. Alone. And Agrimax people are on their way to Khartoum.”
“Oh, no.” Jill’s lower lip trembled, and she struggled not to cry. “Cole, I’m so sorry I gave away our passports.”
He gazed at her, his eyes tender. “You did what you thought was right.”
“It was a huge mistake.”
“We’ll get back to the States without our documents, I guess.” He gripped the railing. “The question is—will we have Matt and Billy with us? Or will Agrimax find them first?”
“I’ve been praying for the boys.”
“Me, too.”
“Cole, I never intended to cause you any trouble. You have so much pain…” She couldn’t finish.
“I don’t blame you for anything.”
“You did once.”
“That was years ago, wasn’t it?” He reached across the narrow space between the two balconies. “Hey…you don’t think I still hold you responsible for what Matt did, do you?”
“I am responsible—at least in part.”
“You know what you’re responsible for? Changing me. Helping me become a better man.”
She took his hand. “You changed me, too, Cole. I hardly know who I am anymore.”
“I know you. I feel like I’ve known you forever.”
“It’s strange, isn’t it? In some ways, this time has been so unrea
l. And yet because of it, I feel like I’ve gotten to know the real you.”
“The condensed version. All of me—shaken, pressed down and running over.”
“Isn’t that what the Bible says about blessings?” She paused. “Cole, I know I’ve been reluctant to talk about us…about the things that have happened between us…but I want you to know that you have been a blessing to me. The best thing…the best person that I’ve ever…”
He squeezed her hand. “Are you crying?”
“Not on purpose.”
Laughing, he lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. “Just when I think I really do know everything about Miss Jill Pruitt, I discover yet another side of you.”
“This isn’t me. It wasn’t. But now…now I’m so confused about myself.”
“I’m not. I know exactly who I am and what I want.”
She focused on him, forcing back the tears. “Cole, how are we going to get to Matt?”
“I’ve been scoping out the hotel, checking for a way to slip out. The guard followed me everywhere.”
She searched for some hope. “Maybe I could lead him off somewhere, and you could sneak away.”
“Nah, they’ve got armed men posted around this hotel as if it were a fortress. I suppose it’s to keep thieves out of the tourists’ pockets, but it’s going to keep us penned in. I thought about climbing down the balcony, but three or four Uzi-toting guys stand watch down there on the street all the time.”
“Maybe tonight, we could—” A rap on her door drew Jill’s attention. “Cole, someone’s knocking.”
“Be careful. I’ll be right here.”
She stepped back into the air-conditioned room. “Yes? Who is it?”
The hotel guard, Ahmed, opened her door. Two Sudanese women garbed in white robes stood beside him in the hallway. Heads covered and eyes averted, each carried a large basket filled with towels, bottles of oil, and brushes.
“You requested a massage in your room,” Ahmed said.
Jill shook her head. “No, I—”
“The request for a massage was called to the concierge,” Ahmed said. He looked down at a slip of paper in his hand. “I have the chit here.”
Fatal Harvest Page 26
