“It is not so bad for you if you cheer up, missie,” said the friendly voice beside her. “Keep up your heart.”
“The only thing that would lift my heart is to find my friends,” she replied.
The man was older, with hair that was peppered with gray. He wore black slacks, a white cotton shirt, and leather sandals. “Are you looking for the men who came yesterday?” he asked helpfully.
“Why…” Meg felt a prickly sensation run through her. “Yes, I am. Do you know where they are?”
“Ask Eddie Campbell. He would know.”
“The pilot? Where could I find him?”
“You should know, missie!” He laughed.
“I don’t understand.”
“Edabe Fada. You came with him.” He leaned toward her, slapped his knee, and laughed uproariously. “He knows everything that happens around here, Eddie Campbell. His ancestors tell him everything.”
“But he told me he was Miriam’s husband, the son of a warrior king!”
“One and the same. He is all those things.”
“Well, my goodness, does he have a different name for each one?”
“The people from our village who go to foreign university often choose other names while they are there. Sometimes they bring them home, again. Edabe Fada chose Campbell for his foreign name. Would you like to know how he thought of it? American tinned soup!”
“I guess that explains it,” said Meg. But inwardly she was calculating that Sol Horn and the Abdu Sadir might be equally interchangeable. It would certainly explain some things.
“American tinned soup!” He laughed, again, and withdrew a pipe from his shirt pocket that looked like the same one the professor had on the plane.
“Good heavens, where did you get that!” Meg demanded.
“From a monkey thief,” he replied. Then he leaned so close to her that the strong smell of beer on his breath almost made her push him away. Courtesy or no courtesy, she decided she had endured quite enough of this wild party. Except at that very moment, a gold chain fell forward from the open neck of his shirt, with a dangling red-eyed crocodile in the center.
“I suppose you wouldn’t know where the goldmine is.” She could at least give it a try (who knew how long Eddie Campbell would spend being polite?) “The one they took those people to, last night.”
“Do I know? Everyone here knows. We all have to work there when the Abdu Sadir has need of us. It is our…”
Suddenly, there was an earsplitting shriek a few feet away, and Meg looked up in time to see the crowd gathering around a fallen Eddie Campbell. Meg jumped to her feet out of sheer reflex, and,at that very moment, the man she had been talking with grabbed her hand from behind and began to pull her towards the nearest mud and plaster building. Meg tried to resist, but a veritable panic ensued and someone else caught her other hand. She couldn’t help but be hustled inside. What was happening?
An oil lamp burned on a shelf in the wall, and she realized the room was a small living area within the larger structure, rather like an apartment, or row house. There was a table and chairs, and a door that led off to other rooms that were probably sleeping areas. The walls were covered almost entirely with colorful cloth hangings, but the thing that caught Meg’s eye immediately was a picture of the Virgin Mary hanging on the wall. It might have been comforting if it hadn’t had an oversized glowing red heart exposed within her robes.
She had only the briefest glimpse of all these things before feeling a rope slipped over her wrists and pulled tight. “Lord, help me!” The phrase that sprang from her lips was more reflex than prayer, for at that point she was quite beyond thinking. “What are you doing? Let go of me, this instant, or I’ll have you both arrested for…”
“Shhh, shhh! It is the best we can do, missie!” The gentleman held his hand out to a young woman beside them, who quickly handed him another piece of rope. It was the same smiling face that had first offered Meg something to eat. “The Abdu Sadir has come! If he looks at you, it will be a bad thing, but don’t worry. My daughter and I will help you. We know machinery.”
“What kind of machinery? Is there a car or a boat to help us get away from here?”
“No, mission people. We are Christians, and we will help you.”
“Oh, you mean missionary!”
“Yes, yes. But you must behave as if you have fainted. Too much beer, you know? Then we can get you away safe before he sees you.”
Meg didn’t have much choice at the moment, but to trust them. “What about Eddie? Will you help him, too?”
“Do not worry for him. He is the nephew of the Abdu Sadir. The son of Aram Fada. If anything happens to him? Big trouble for all of us. Shhh, be quiet now, so we can get you away.”
The rest of their communications were all physical. Once her feet and hands were secured, they pushed her toward the floor, then put a hand over her eyes indicating that she should close them. Meg lay back and tried to go limp all over, but it was difficult considering she was practically frozen with fear. Oh, why hadn’t she listened to Tom?
In a moment she felt herself being lifted between the two of them, taken out the doorway, and then, to her horror, they simply handed her off into the frenzied crowd where she was passed along over the top from one person to another. It occurred to her then, that if she really was being secreted away in all the confusion, there were certainly a lot of people in on the secret.
Had she been tricked? The sound of a running engine told her the place she was set down was in the back of a van. Then a heavy press of weight shoved in beside her made her realize Eddie Campbell was being put in there, too. Since he was the one who cautioned her about only taking small sips of the beer, she could only assume it must have been drugged.
Not having actually swallowed any of that strong mysterious brew was the only thing that had saved her from being in the same condition. Meg opened her eyes after an outside door slammed near their feet and tried to look around as the van lurched off into the darkness. Were they being saved? Or were they being taken to the mine to be disposed of like the others?
There were three men crowded into the front seat. She knew because every so often, the thick forest parted to let moonlight flood in through the front windshield to reveal their silhouettes. But they must have assumed the poisonous concoction had done its work. They chatted away quite freely, making no efforts to conceal their intentions by talking in that strange native language she had been hearing since she came here. It occurred to Meg then, that they may not all be from the same town. Africa had hundreds of different languages all pressed together in small places, and English or French seemed to be the common link when necessary.
“But we have done so much work! Last week alone, the taking in was better than…”
“It doesn’t matter. The Abdu Sadir said we are found out and must cover our tracks.”
“How long until the law comes?”
“They are here, already! How they got here so fast no one knows. Someone must have told them something in Yeji. But do not worry. They are running through all the mines like ostriches!” The van shifted down into a lower gear and began to climb a steep hill. “We are to fire the explosives to destroy the work sites, and then” —the voice broke out into laughter at the sheer genius of the plan— “Then we will help them look!”
Gold Trap
22
Left to Die
“What little time you have over, you will employ in wondering why you came to West Africa…”
Mary Kingsley
Halfway up a steep, rocky incline, well hidden within a thick circle of trees, a large flat area had been leveled to load railway cars. On it was a length of track that ran for several hundred feet and then dropped off abruptly into the river. Meg saw all this through the front windshield in the bright moonlight after the dark of the forest. But she hurriedly sank down flat, again, when the engine stopped.
She felt it was the better part of wisdom to pretend to be in the same st
ate as Eddie Campbell than try to oppose three men who could each outmatch her in size and strength. In a few moments, the back doors opened with a rusty screech, but instead of being hauled out like so many sacks of grain, a quarrel ensued.
“You are the one to carry him,” said a voice. “He is not your headman.”
“I will not bring his angry ghost into my house. Carry him, yourselves!”
“As long as we do not spill his blood,” a third voice reasoned. “He will die by and by and be angry at no one but himself. It is the only way.”
“I tell you he will know it was us! We cannot touch him,” the first voice said.
“Why don’t we let him fall into one of the railcars?” replied the voice of reason. “And then push it into the loading shack. The lady with him.”
“I say, we better throw him into the eastern shaft with the others,” complained the outsider. “We are running out of time!”
“No – no! If he hits his head on a rock, then we will have spilt his blood! He will come after all of us!”
“Back the van up to the railcar, then. But hurry, or there will be no time to get far enough away after the explosions.”
Meg felt one wave of panic after another at each suggestion, but a great calm enveloped her, and she had the most comforting assurance that everything would be all right. Whether this meant that she would soon be seeing either Tom, or the Lord, Himself, she didn’t know. The miracle was that she was suddenly no longer afraid, and her mind became perfectly clear.
The engine roared to life again, and if the distance had been any more than twenty yards, they would have flown out on impact when the back of the van plowed into the nearest railcar.
“Stop! Stop, you devil!” The passenger door was flung open, and the voice of reason raised an octave higher as he jumped out. “You are an ostrich and an orphan child in one!” He came around to the back and hollered over the top of the two silent forms toward the driver in the front seat. “This van belong to my mother-in-law! She will have my head in a pot if it gets bust!”
“Tell me where to back…”
“You are backed, you monkey-beard!”
“Stop shouting and move them!” It was the outsider’s voice. “Before you raise every ghost in these holes! I am going to set the explosions.”
Meg suddenly felt herself lifted and fairly tossed into the bottom of the little steel car. It was everything she could do to keep from yelping when her shoulder came down hard on an unyielding bottom, and then again, when the entire weight of Eddie Campbell landed on top of her, having been shoved out the back by means of some object, rather than lifted. After that, it took both men to push the car along the rusty track and then veer off on the short spur that led to the shack. There was a pause while the corrugated doors were flung open, and then they proceeded a few more feet into the dark of a building that smelled deserted, damp, and rotten.
The doors quickly slammed shut, again. Meg heard another car being pushed up against them from the other side, and then footsteps hurrying away. She could hardly breathe, and her left ribs felt about to cave in where the two cameras in her string bag were wedged under her side.
“Sorry, mama.” Eddie Campbell carefully raised himself off of her. “But if I had said one word to those fools, they would have run off before we knew where the professor was.”
“I thought you were drugged!” Meg felt herself quickly lifted out of the car and saw the flash of a sharp knife before he began to cut the rope from her wrists and ankles.
“It was the only way to get here so quick with so little time. As soon as they leave, we will find the eastern shaft.”
“But how will we get out of here, when…”
A loud thunderous explosion rumbled under their feet and fairly made her ears ring. Before it even died away there was another one.
“Come!” Eddie pulled her toward the back of the building where there was a regular-sized door that opened onto the loading area. It was locked, but only from the inside, and in a moment, they were standing in bright moonlight, again.
“What if they see us?” Meg worried. She didn’t think one man with a knife could hold out against three, no matter how afraid of him they were.
“They are all cowards. You see? The van is leaving, already.”
“Oh, I pray we’re not too late!”
“The professor is a tough old man. It would take more than a week to starve him. Gilbert Minelli? I might leave in for another week. He is a worse fool than the rest of them.” He started toward the hillside with Meg following close behind. “Unless they are dead already from the explosions.”
Meg stopped in her tracks. “Oh, dear Lord!” There was a great billow of dust pouring out of the nearby entrance.
“Don’t worry, that is not the eastern shaft. Because of cave-ins, there are always other tunnels to get in and out of the mines. We only have to find the right one.”
The van was gone. But instead of silence, she suddenly became aware of the veritable racket of night birds and insect noises. Even more so than she had heard during the day. Meg smacked at a biting mosquito against her neck and then another. She was about to pull the netting down from the inside brim of her hat when she suddenly realized her hat was gone. And so were her glasses. Lost in the tumult between the town and the van somewhere. She heard a slithering sound in the underbrush they were tramping through, and breathed a silent prayer of thanks that she had not taken off her high leather boots when she wanted to.
Ten minutes later, they came to a small entrance, no larger than three feet square, which was slanted into the hillside.
“Here is an opening,” said Eddie, “and we are east.” He knelt down and stuck his head inside. “Professor!” he shouted, but even his strong voice seemed to disappear into the blackness. “You killed? Where are you man? Hey, hey, this is Eddie!”
“Pretty…much…” Came a very faint, but familiar reply that made Meg’s heart leap (he was alive!). “Tied tight down here…part of the roof…it’s caving in!”
“I’ll come get you.”
“Careful, big drop off, now, from the explosions. At least fifteen feet. You’ll need a…a rope, or something.”
Meg fished around in her bag and came up with a small flashlight. She handed it to Eddie, and he peered into the dark cavern.
“More like twenty-five,” he muttered.
“Maybe we could put the ends of the ropes we were tied with together,” Meg suggested. “Then you could lower me down, and…”
“Lower you down, what are you thinking? I can’t drop you into that black place!”
“It’s the logical thing.” She reasoned. “You’re the only one strong enough to haul us all up, again.”
“You are a bossy mama! Now, let me think.”
“Meanwhile you’re wasting time. Suppose the whole place caves in down there?”
“I will get a bush rope.” He handed her flashlight back and started off, only to turn abruptly around again, and point at her. “You stay there. Do nothing until I get back.”
“What on earth could I possibly…”
“Do nothing.”
When he disappeared, Meg sat down on a large rock close to the entrance and put her flashlight away. She thought of yelling some encouraging words down to the professor, but considering that he probably believed she had been involved in all this from the beginning, she decided to wait until they were face to face to explain things.
Then she thought how she was quite alone in a bit of West African forest where not a soul in the world, other than Eddie Campbell, knew where she was or how to find her. But the professor was alive! And there had been no plane crash. Tom wouldn’t appreciate her coming all this way without him, but she felt sure he would understand after he got over it. With nearly twenty goldmines in the vicinity, and the roof caving in, his father could have been dead before help finally arrived.
The very thought of the professor trapped in such a place and Tom thinking he was safe and
waiting for him somewhere else! What if she hadn’t run into Vidalia? What if she hadn’t come here at all? Who knew how long it would take Tom to find out and get help from somewhere? Then a comforting thought occurred to her. It was a Scripture she had read from one of her favorite Psalms that said, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.”
Which suddenly took on a whole new meaning even though she had seen it countless times. It also meant that no matter how lost or tangled up a person became, the Lord was quite capable of bringing order to their chaos. Even when they were outnumbered. And even here on the Dark Continent, where evil seemed to be a way of life for so many. Meg couldn’t imagine people “collecting foolish tourists” by way of a business. Collecting them for what? And how did they get away with it?
Maybe they were holding people for ransom. Those two boys had been overly eager for her to write down the names of her family members, but it seemed to her that such a scheme couldn’t go on long without someone official coming to investigate. Of course, if it always turned out as if the “foolish tourists had killed themselves” through some unfortunate accident or other…
All at once, everything grew deathly silent.
Which seemed odd since only moments before there had been so much animal racket going on. Then, Meg felt the ground quiver like jelly beneath her.
“What on earth?” She scarcely had time to mutter, before the rock she was sitting on gave a violent jolt and began to plummet on a long sliding decline into the eastern shaft.
Like a wave frozen in mid-advance, the rock and debris beneath her that she had ridden down came to an abrupt halt somewhere in the dark interior of the shaft. What had happened? Was it a cave-in? She got gingerly to her feet, heard the edge of her skirt tear loose from two rocks it was caught between, and felt a warm trickle coming from one knee. Of all things! But nothing was broken. She groped for the flashlight in her bag, again, and clicked it on. The better part of the ceiling was still intact, but she was now at the bottom of the entrance instead of the top. Not twenty-five feet down anymore, but still too far to climb out.
Gold Trap Page 19
