by Karen Rispin
"He is not my—"
The car swung hard to the left, and Sandy's head whacked me in the mouth. I could hear the wheels spinning as we skidded toward the ditch. The car stopped.
Rrrrrrrr! Rrrrrrrr! The car swayed as Daddy gunned the engine rhythmically a couple of times. We didn't budge. He put it in reverse, and we moved.
"Duck your heads, kids. I've got to see to back up," he said over his shoulder.
We bumped back downhill a ways, then he took another run at the muddy spot. Fishtailing and jerking, we made it through. A few seconds later we were stuck again. This time going backwards didn't help.
"We're hoofing it from here," Uncle Joey said. "This is it. Move it, kids."
We unloaded all the packs and stacked them on the side of the road, out of the mud. Then we had to push the car. Uncle Joey got right behind one of the back wheels to push. The wheel kicked up a huge glob of mud that hit his face. His eyes looked like white buttons on a brown shirt.
For a second we just stared. Then Sandy giggled, and we all laughed, even Uncle Joey.
When we quit laughing, he raised his arms in a big shrug and said, "Who wants to be clean when we're roughing it?" He got down to push again. A few seconds later the car was out and turned around.
Daddy couldn't stop without getting stuck again. He waved out the window and yelled, "God go with you!" Then he was gone.
It was suddenly quiet. There was no wind. I could hear water dripping off the tall bamboo along the road. I looked at the gray-green woods and smiled. This was it. We were actually climbing Mount Kenya.
"Make sure your rain gear is on top," Mom said as she picked up her pack.
I shoved my hand down the side of my pack, feeling for the slick rubber of the poncho. I was jerking it out when I looked up at Lisa. She'd already put her pack on her shoulders.
"Don't you have rain gear?" I asked.
She shrugged and looked worried. "Dad said it isn't going to rain."
"You hope," I said. I got my pack on awkwardly, and Lisa and I started up the road.
We walked ahead of the others. The road was slick, and I was glad for mud boots. Lisa's shoes were already soaked and muddy. There were huge cedar trees by the road with long trailers of gray-green moss dangling from their trunks and branches. Some of their trunks looked like something had twisted them round and round.
"Uncle Paul, how come the trees are like that?" I heard Sandy ask.
I couldn't hear his quiet answer—they were too far behind us—but I heard Traci's, "Daaad, there's no such thing as mountain giants who twist trees."
Uncle Joey's laugh echoed off the far side of the ravine we were following. "Good one, Paul! Mountain giants!"
He was interrupted by loud crashing in the bamboo off to the right of the road. Sandy screamed. I froze and Lisa grabbed me hard, hurting my arm.
The crashing moved away from us. Lisa dragged me back to the others.
"No giants, huh?" Uncle Paul said, grinning in his beard.
"It wasn't!" Traci insisted, still shaking. "It was elephants or buffalo or something, and they don't twist trees!"
Everybody laughed, and we kept on walking. Lisa wouldn't walk very far in front now.
We didn't talk much. Walking up the steep, slippery road took all our breath. Our feet made soft sucking sounds in the mud. We came around a corner and saw what looked like a painted picture. Three bushbuck stood frozen in a tiny meadow by the road. Lisa and I held still without breathing. There were two does, red against the green grass, and a larger, darker buck. Their heads were turned towards us with big ears like satellite dishes listening.
Uncle Paul came up behind us and stood still too. Then Uncle Joey came around the corner.
"Hey, kids!" he bellowed back at Traci and Sandy. "Look at this."
The bushbuck were gone in a flash.
"Oops, sorry. Heh heh!" he said. We just looked at each other.
Later Uncle Paul spotted some buffalo. Dark patches of hide showed through breaks in the bush across the ravine. We stopped to rest and watch them. When we held still, we could hear them moving through the bush.
"Look!" Traci said. She wasn't looking at the buffalo. She was looking back down the road. The guy who'd been staring at us at the lodge was hiking towards us. I ducked my head while he passed.
"Did you see how he stared at your mom?" Lisa asked me softly.
I shook my head. Who was he, anyway?
Later we passed a bridge with a sign that said, "Elephants have the right of way." That reminded Mom of a true story about a woman who'd been climbing. The woman wanted to go back and didn't want to make her friends stop, so she started walking back down to the car alone. She came around a corner, and a whole herd of big black cape buffalo were on the road. Without thinking, she dove over the edge of the steep bank into the top of a tree. All the buffalo did was run away. She had to wait in the tree until somebody came to help get her out.
We all laughed, but I wondered if I wouldn't have done the same thing.
At the end of the road we came up out of the trees into a misty grassland. In the grass, the path split and became twenty paths braided together around hairy humps of grass. Alongside were twisted bushes twice as tall as people. Gray wisps of cloud were blowing by.
Sandy and Traci were going slower and slower. Mom stayed with them. Uncle Paul called a halt to wait for them. I flopped down on the grass tufts and sighed. I was tired and my left heel was starting to hurt.
"What are these tree things?" Uncle Joey demanded, pointing at the weird bushes. He looked indignant, like he thought such things shouldn't exist.
"Giant heather," Uncle Paul answered.
"What!" Uncle Joey said. "Giant heather?"
Uncle Paul smiled in his beard and said, "God put things here you won't find anywhere else on earth."
Listening to Uncle Paul made me feel good. I looked at the odd giant heather plants, and it seemed like God had made them just to have fun.
"Gnome plants! We'll see gnome plants," I said suddenly, remembering a picture book of Kenya's mountains that I'd seen at school. "They look just like hairy people."
Both men stared at me. I ducked my head, thinking, The book did say that!
By the time Mom and the other kids caught up, I was ready to go. It made me impatient to have to wait while they rested.
An hour later we hit the vertical bog. It wasn't exactly vertical, but it was more than steep enough for me. Between tough, wiry clumps of grass were deep patches of mud. The ground was full of springs. There was a fine mist falling that made everything soaking wet. Shining drops of water lined every blade of grass, making the whole world look silver.
It looked pretty, but it didn't feel pretty. No matter how carefully I tried to keep my balance, I kept falling. I'd step over a high clump of grass onto what looked like firm ground only to go into knee-deep, cold, black mud. Other times my foot would hit one of the big gray lumps of rock, making my teeth snap together from the jar it gave me.
It seemed to go on forever. I got wetter and wetter. Each time I had to struggle out of a mudhole it was harder. My soaked pants were cold and heavy, and my hands felt stiff and swollen from being wet and cold.
Whack. My pack thudded into my back as my foot hit another unexpected rock. I shoved my pack back into place and grimly stepped over the next clump of grass. Nothing fit into my head now but the need to keep going. I wasn't paying attention to where Lisa was, or Mom or anybody.
"Never!" I muttered to myself, catching my balance at the edge of another mudhole. "I won't quit!" I scrambled and slid over another huge clump of wiry, slippery grass. "The bog can't last forever!" I whispered, picking myself up again.
It seemed like it did. My mind was totally numb. I ended up muttering, "Never… forever… never… forever… ," as I struggled.
Each time I slipped, the pack thudded into my back or jerked me sideways. The straps bit into my shoulders and hurt. I shrugged and tried to shift them, but they al
ways came back to the same sore spot.
I stepped over a huge hummock of grass, missed my footing in the mud, and barely kept myself from falling again. I gritted my teeth and kept going. "Never… forever… never… forever…"
My left heel ached where the rubber boot rubbed it. I fell again, splashing myself with icy water from a puddle. I grabbed the tough grass and hauled myself up.
"Anika! Aniiiikaa!" Somebody was calling my name. "Anika! Stop!"
I swung around and looked back. Everybody was in a group at least a hundred yards behind me. I hadn't realized that I'd gotten in front. Well, I wasn't going back only to have to climb up again. That was for sure. I'd just wait here.
I sat down with a plop and leaned my pack against one of the big gray boulders that stuck up out of the rough grass like teeth. It felt unbelievably wonderful to hold still. I lay there like I was dead, looking up at the misty sky. Mom called again, but I didn't move.
After a bit I sat up and looked at the others. They were passing around a canteen and something to eat. Suddenly my stomach felt hollow and I noticed how thirsty I was. But I still wasn't going to go down.
I looked around. Blowing wisps of cloud cut off the view. Every now and then there'd be a ragged rip in the clouds. Through a rip in the cloud I saw land, far down away from us, looking milky brown and patchy. I turned to look the other way to see if I could see the peaks.
I saw him! It was the same guy. He was sitting against a gray boulder staring at me. The others couldn't see him because of the rock. Suddenly I was mad. Why couldn't he leave us alone? I dumped my pack, got up, and marched towards him, stumbling over the slippery grass.
He watched me coming without moving.
I stopped about five feet from him, jammed my hands on my hips, and demanded, "Who do you think you are, anyway? Why don't you leave me alone!"
He frowned and shook his head. Finally he asked, "Your name is Anika Scott, right?"
I nodded without thinking. Then shock went through me like cold water down the neck. How did he know my name? I clenched my teeth and said, "So?"
"Tell your mom for me that Rick wants to talk to her," he said. Without waiting for an answer he picked up his pack and walked off.
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Chapter Five
I stared after him with my mouth open. He strode up the slope without stopping. Rick? Wasn't that the name Mom had said in the night? Did this guy who kept staring at us have something to do with the letter?
I shook myself and started to walk back to the path, not really paying attention to where I was going. My foot slipped on a tuft of grass, and I sat down hard. I got up still thinking about what the guy had said and stumbled on.
Should I tell Mom what he said? Was he the same Rick? If he was, and if what I'd thought about was right, then he'd be my—
"No!" I yelled right out loud. "No! No! That's stupid! It's not true!"
I missed my footing and sat down hard again. The guy had said Rick wanted to talk to Mom. Did he mean himself? That was stupid. How could the same Rick be here? Even if he did exist, which he didn't, he'd be in the States.
I shook my head to clear it and looked around. A wave of fear made my stomach get tight. I couldn't see the path, or my pack, or Mom and the others. I looked back. My stomach hurt worse. I couldn't tell which jagged, gray-black boulder was the one I'd just come from.
I swallowed hard and spun in a circle looking. I could hear my heart beat in my ears. I was lost! I could die! I chose a direction and started to walk. Nothing changed but the shapes of the boulders—no path, no people. I started to run and fell over one of the hard, slippery clumps of grass.
It wasn't any use. Tears stung my eyes. I couldn't hold them back. After a long time I couldn't cry any more. My mouth tasted like old metal, and my eyes ached. After a bit I sat up. My shirt was cold and wet from the clump of grass I'd been sprawled over.
I hugged myself to get warm, and whispered, "Please help me from your strength, God. I'm scared."
I shivered and hugged my knees tighter. I was in the bottom of a slanted dip in the land. Maybe if I go to the top and climb up one of those boulders I could see something, I thought, and shivered harder. Anything was better than just sitting.
I frowned and tried to think clearly. I didn't even know which way I'd been going when I fell. Tears stung my eyes again, but I blinked them back furiously.
Please let me choose the right way to go, I prayed. In Jesus' name, amen.
I picked a tall boulder that looked like I could climb it and started to hike toward it. It was farther than I thought, but the ground was dryer. At least I was out of the bog. I kept on going. When I finally got there and touched its rough, cold, wet side, I was too tired to climb. My foot was hurting badly where the boot rubbed my heel. I leaned my head against the cold rock.
Suddenly I held my breath. Was that voices? I listened hard. Yes, it was—people talking far off. Maybe Mom and everybody, or just other people on the path.
I got a good grip on a knob with my hand and frantically started to climb. It was steep and slippery. I banged my knee hard partway up and almost fell. After that I was more careful. On top, I balanced myself and stood up.
All around me was a wide sweep of lumpy, misty grassland. The boulders stood like ancient Druid stones, and mist blew by. I could see no people, hear no voices. I sank back down onto the rock and hid my face. The wind cut through my wet clothes, making my teeth chatter.
I picked up my head and looked around again. A grayish brown thing lying in a hollow in the grass a ways off caught my eye. I stared at it blankly at first. Gradually I started wondering what it was. Finally I stood up to see better.
It looked like canvas. A backpack? I stared harder, shut my eyes, and opened them again to see better. It was the same color as my pack—my pack! My pack where I'd left it by the trail!
I turned and slithered off that rock, hit a bump, and fell the last seven feet with a thud. I jumped back out of the mud and stared. I couldn't see the pack anymore. I ran two steps then stopped and thought. The pack was in a hollow. I could go right by it without seeing it. Besides, I wasn't absolutely sure that I was going exactly the right direction.
I sighed and went back to the rock. The climb to the top seemed harder this time. At first I couldn't see the pack, then there it was. Carefully I looked at the spot where it was, memorized the shape of the clumps of grass. Then I made a line in my head from the pack to my rock and picked things along the way.
"OK," I muttered to myself as I climbed down. "First I'll go to the rock shaped like a big suitcase, then the soggy little pond. After that is the rock that's split in the middle, and if I stand on that I should be able to see the pack."
The first part was easy. I got to the rock shaped like a suitcase, but I couldn't see the pond—not even when I climbed on top of the rock. I was going to start walking in what I hoped was the right direction when I stopped again. Maybe I could see the split rock. I stopped and looked and looked, and there it was. It didn't look the same exactly, but when I looked close I recognized the way it had an especially big clump of grass at one end.
I set off at a run, stumbling, slipping, and falling. Frantically I scrambled up the rock, jamming my feet into the crack to get a grip. I couldn't see anything that looked like a pack. Taking a deep breath, I turned slowly around, looking. Nothing. My body went limp, and I sat down with a thump.
"Please, God, help me find it," I whispered. I swallowed hard and thought. OK, what direction was it from the split rock? Sort of that way. I pointed carefully and stood up to look again. There was something—a little tag of something sticking up.
I slid down off the rock and ran. After about twenty steps I skidded to a stop and stared at the ground. The path up the mountain was a bunch of beaten-down tracks all winding through the grass clumps. You couldn't see them unless you were standing right on them, and I was!
"Thank you, God!" I yelled at the top of my voice.
I couldn't see the pack at all now, but I kept going. I tripped and slid face-first into a hollow. There was my pack right beside me. I hugged it and lay there panting.
I climbed out to look back at where I'd left Mom and everybody. They weren't there!
Numb with fear and cold, I stood still. How could the others have left me?
"God, you got me back to the path like I asked, but it's no good. There's nobody here." My throat got tight, and I swallowed hard. A gust of wind cut through my clothes. With a noise like ripping cloth, rain swept across the grass. Ice-cold drops stung my cheeks.
I knelt by my pack and fumbled it open with thick, cold fingers. I pulled the heavy rubbery-smelling poncho over my head. The noise of the rain spattering on the rubber sounded incredibly loud as I struggled to get the poncho straight. Cold rubber on a wet shirt didn't make me warm. I dug for my jacket, trying to keep the pack under my poncho, and struggled into it. That was better. I crouched down beside the pack and used one flap of the poncho to cover it from the rain.
Hunched there under the poncho I tried to think. Where had the others gone, up the mountain or down? My eyebrows knotted with concentration. Maybe they went down because of the rain. Lisa didn't have a raincoat. They wouldn't just leave me, would they? Maybe they were going up and thought I'd gone on ahead.
I swallowed hard and hung my head. Rain dripped off the hood of my poncho, making a screen between me and the silver-gray grass. It was no use moving.
I chewed my knuckle, worrying. The taste of the water on my cold, wet hand reminded me of how thirsty I was. I bunched my poncho together so that the rain ran into a dip and tried to drink that. Most of it spilled down my neck.
I froze to listen. There were voices! The poncho sprayed water in all directions as I jumped wildly to my feet. Two men! There were two men coming down the path about a hundred yards ahead of me.
"Hey!" I yelled, waving wildly, and I ran towards them, stumbling because my legs were so cold.
As I ran to meet them I could see they were Japanese or Chinese or something. People come from all over to climb Mount Kenya.
