Stalking Ivory

by Suzanne Arruda

  Jade stretched out her right arm, palm facing her, with the bottom of her pinkie finger resting just on the western horizon. Using her left hand, she positioned two more fingers on top of her right palm until she had filled the gap between the horizon and the sun’s bottom. “Six fingers at about fifteen minutes a finger,” she calculated. “I estimate we have no more than an hour and a half of daylight left. Probably less once we hit the heavy cover again. We’d better head for the tree blind while we have light.” And, she thought as she rubbed her tired calf muscles, while I still have some energy left in my legs.

  They had started back up to the original trail when they surprised one of the poachers inspecting the snare.

  CHAPTER 11

  There are some dangerous specimens of wildlife to watch out for and the leopard ranks as one of them, especially if it feels cornered. But you should always remember that the most deadly animals of all are the ones you didn’t see: the ones stalking you.

  —The Traveler

  “STOP!” She punctuated her order with the metallic clacking of the Winchester’s lever action. This man might or might not understand English, but Jade knew that anyone would recognize the sound of an order being barked and a weapon to back it up.

  The man rose slowly from his stoop, like a cobra lifting its head in preparation to strike, and faced them, his rifle hanging loosely in his right hand, muzzle down. He glanced first at Chiumbo, who held the panga, then turned his eyes to Jade. She could read his assessment of the danger in his slowly spreading grin. Clearly he didn’t think either of them a match for him.

  The poacher wore a torn, cast-off military jacket, unbuttoned over equally worn shorts. Leather sandals clad his feet. His chest lay bare, but a nearly full cartridge belt girded his stomach. She knew that he’d try to distract her with a gesture, a smile, something to catch her off guard so he could shoot. For that reason, Jade kept her eyes on the hand holding the rifle while she watched the rest of the man with more peripheral vision. He raised his arms slowly, stretching them out as if in greeting, and spoke to her in halting English.

  “Greetings, and blessings, lady.” He took two steps towards her. Jade shouldered her rifle and aimed down the barrel. From the side she saw Chiumbo step forward, tensed to spring.

  “Stay where you are. Drop your rifle,” she commanded.

  The man’s grin widened, but he kept his weapon. “It is no loaded, lady. See? I show you.”

  He raised the barrel and pivoted it towards Chiumbo’s chest. The action looked almost casual, finger lightly resting beside the trigger, left hand empty. But Jade knew enough men who could shoot from the hip, and at this range, a shot anywhere in the upper body would prove fatal to Chiumbo.

  She fired.

  In the instant that Jade’s shot blasted the rifle from the Abyssinian’s hand, Chiumbo leaped forward and grabbed the poacher’s left arm. He twisted it behind the man’s back as he held his panga to the poacher’s throat. The man shrieked in pain, blood dripping from his right hand where Jade had shot him.

  “I told you to drop your weapon.” She stooped and picked up the rifle, a Mauser just like the ones they’d seen at the cache, and snapped it open. It was most definitely loaded. “You lied to me.”

  “It is not good to lie to Simba Jike,” hissed Chiumbo in the man’s ear. The poacher wriggled, but Chiumbo took a tighter grip and held the wickedly sharp knife closer to the man’s throat. A tiny thread of blood dribbled down his neck. “Shall I kill him?”

  “No, Chiumbo.” She lowered her rifle. “I think this man might make a fine hostage.” She picked up the Abyssinian’s rifle, set it against a tree, and shouldered her own. Then she retrieved the rope they’d used to make the false snare.

  “We’ll tie his hands behind him and take him back with us. The command at Isiolo will have questions for him.”

  The captured man’s black eyes widened at Jade’s suggestion as though Chiumbo’s threat to execute him was more desirable than to be taken prisoner. The Abyssinian began to protest vehemently as Chiumbo grabbed his bloody right hand and twisted it around to join the left.

  “Let me go. Keep the rifle. I can give you gold. White women like gold. Do not take me prisoner. He will kill me like he did the soldier. My death on your hands, lady,” he babbled before adding in a louder voice, “I will not talk!”

  “Oh, be quiet,” snarled Jade. She lashed his wrists together as she would two sticks, then frapped the line to tighten the bindings before knotting the ends.

  “Let me go and you will be rich.” The man raised his voice and shouted, “I will not talk! I will not talk!” He turned back to Jade and hissed, “Do not look to Isiolo to protect you.”

  Jade shoved her handkerchief into the man’s mouth to shut him up. “I told you to be quiet,” she said. “Now get moving.” She held the end of the rope in her left hand and gave the prisoner a slight shove to start him walking. He managed one step before a bullet plowed through his skull.

  Jade had heard a sharp clap when the rifle bullet struck. Attuned to gunfire during the war, Jade reacted instinctively. Time seemed to slow, and a split second later, she heard the distant crack of a rifle reach her ears. Her mind automatically began to work the math, estimating time lapse between the bullet’s sonic clap and the rifle’s report, as her body dropped to safety on the ground and rolled off of the trail and into the trees.

  Three hundred yards.

  She saw the captured man halt in midstep, eyes wide in surprise. He stood on one leg for just a moment before he tumbled onto his face, blood pouring from one side of his head.

  “Chiumbo!” she heard herself shout, but her headman had paused only long enough to see that Jade was unhurt before ducking into cover himself. In a moment, he was beside her. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He nodded. “We cannot stay here, Simba Jike,” he whispered. “The hunter will kill us next. He will not miss again.”

  “I’m not sure he did miss,” Jade whispered back. From her ground-level hiding place she could clearly see the dead poacher’s head. The entry wound made a clean, neat hole directly into the brain, a precision shot. The exit wound was small as well, indicating that the bullet used had a full metal jacket, rather than a soft lead nose. Military issue? No, this person hadn’t missed.

  She began to understand why the poacher had shouted his last statement. He wasn’t trying to tell her that his capture would be useless; he wanted to convince his executioner. Someone lying in wait who didn’t want him to talk to the authorities. But talk about what? Their hideout location? The guns? Maybe what they planned to do with those guns? What was so critical that it merited the man’s death? And what was all that blather about white women loving gold?

  Jade touched Chiumbo’s arm lightly, and they slid backward, deeper into the brush, keeping an ear tuned all the while for the sound of someone stalking them. After another ten minutes of silence, she decided it was safe enough to risk moving again and slowly rose into a crouch. In this position they alternated padding through the forest and pausing to check for pursuit. Neither spoke again until they had covered most of the distance to the tree blind. Only later did she remember the captured Mauser she’d left standing against a tree.

  As night fell, the forest around them came alive with the noise of animals feeding, calling, and fleeing. Jade heard something large stumble off to her left, perhaps a buffalo startled from its nap. As long as it went in the other direction.

  “It’s too dark to continue on to camp, Chiumbo, too risky.”

  “You stay in the tree house, Simba Jike,” suggested Chiumbo. “I will go ahead to get help from Bwana Dunbury.”

  Jade shook her head. “No. That’s even riskier. We planned to stay in the blind overnight to begin with, so no one is expecting us back at camp. Getting back tonight will only panic everyone, and Lady Dunbury doesn’t need to be panicked.”

  Chiumbo eyed her thoughtfully, pursing his lips. “The new bwana, the stone feather man, he w
ill not be happy, I think, when he hears about this.”

  Jade sniffed and adjusted both her Winchester and the bow. “What he thinks is not important. Come on. I’m famished and exhausted.”

  Chiumbo smiled, but said nothing in reply. Jade pulled out her flashlight and panned it across the area to get her bearings. A pair of eyes reflected back at her from the brush, but they were too small and low to the ground to belong to a serious predator. A rhino snorted somewhere to the left and the eyes disappeared into the brush, followed by the bristling rattle of quills. Porcupine.

  “This way,” she said. They found the elephant trail to the blind and hurried the last mile there. Jade felt her legs become gelatinous from stress and overexertion, but her knee didn’t ache. As long as it didn’t hurt, she felt secure. Danger might lurk all around them, but none was imminent.

  They reached the large red stinkwood tree that held the upraised blind, and Jade tugged on a creeper vine. It fell in her hands and brought down a makeshift rope ladder constructed of a series of figure eight knots. Chiumbo insisted on going up first to make certain everything was safe before Jade followed. Once up on the planks, they pulled the rope ladder up after them and collapsed, too exhausted to move.

  She might have lain there for good, but a few minutes of the pack, bow, and rifle biting into her back roused her enough to sit up and unburden herself. She also relocated the leather pouch from her trouser pocket to her pack. She drained her canteen as Chiumbo did the same to his; then they attacked their stock of dried fruit and jerky. If the meal didn’t excite the palate, it at least quieted their hunger.

  “We should take turns on watch,” Jade said. “I’ll go first. I doubt I could sleep right now anyway.”

  Chiumbo made himself comfortable against the trunk, gripped his panga, folded his arms across his chest, and closed his eyes. In a matter of moments Jade heard his slow, steady breathing. She cradled her Winchester and took comfort in its presence. It might have been night, but the forest was alive with a cacophony of sounds. She heard either a rhino or a buffalo snort, a leopard cough, and various night birds hoot and scream. Once she even distinguished the deep huffing call of a male lion announcing his presence several miles away.

  Over all these noises lay the incessant sounds of elephants feeding through the night. The groans of the trees resembled everything from a wounded animal’s cry to the creaking of old floorboards. Sharp, cracking reports snapped from all around and reverberated in the cool night air. Once again Jade reminded herself that it wasn’t what she heard that she needed to fear. It was what she didn’t hear.

  The half-moon rose several hours later above the forest canopy and spilled its iridescent glow over the leaves. Some of it found breaks in the foliage and lit patches of the forest floor below. The dust and litter of the elephant trail glowed in a cool green light as though illuminated from within rather than from above. Some sort of luminescence, Jade thought. She vaguely recalled seeing something like that at night on an ocean voyage. A passenger, a scientist by profession, had told her it had something to do with microscopic organisms and chemical reactions. Most curious.

  Jade studied the cool, patchy glow and, in an attempt to keep herself awake, recollected various lores and myths concerning fairy lights. No wonder people came up with such tales. There was certainly something mesmerizing and hypnotic about the soft greenish white glow to stir the imagination.

  Something moved just at the edge of Jade’s peripheral vision. A shadow? A shape? She shifted position and tried for a better view. Nothing. Then she saw it again, briefly, a suggestion of a human form standing like a sentinel at the base of the tree, weaving slightly from side to side.

  Chiumbo touched her shoulder, and Jade jerked around, startled. The headman smiled and pointed to her, then put his hand aside his cheek, indicating that it was her turn to sleep. Jade nodded, but stole one more look at the tree’s base. The vision was gone.

  She set her rifle beside her and nestled into the crook of a tree limb. Exhaustion draped over her like a blanket, and she fought one last time for the clarity of mind to think. All reason told her she was wrong, but she could have sworn she’d seen old Boguli standing guard below them.

  CHAPTER 12

  Several African peoples make use of the precious water available from springs at the base of the mountain, including the nomadic Boran and Rendille tribes, who bring their camels and livestock through the deserts. There are even a series of permanent wells in the vicinity and the joyfulness with which the people haul up the water has resulted in the name “singing wells.”

  —The Traveler

  “THEN CHIUMBO AND I came back to camp at first light,” Jade finished her terse narrative, and studied her companions’ reactions. Beverly sat with pursed lips and stared above Jade into the trees. Avery, next to his wife, examined his hands. Jelani lounged against Biscuit and seemed not to have even paid attention. Sam tipped his chair back onto two legs and watched Jade with the same studious expression that she gave to the others. She ignored him. It was Bev’s silence that worried her. Beverly was not one to hold her feelings in reserve. Avery spoke first.

  “You didn’t see who fired that shot?”

  Jade shook her head. “If he had a telescopic sight, he didn’t have to be close.”

  “But he might have been shooting at you,” Avery added.

  Again, Jade shook her head. “The poacher stepped forward and the bullet cut right through his head. Chiumbo was a few yards ahead of him, and I was two steps behind. Hard to imagine someone being that bad of a shot yet managing a clean kill like that.”

  Avery looked first at Sam, who shrugged, then at Beverly, who continued to stare above Jade’s head. He tried a different line of questioning. “This old Boguli fellow, might he be one of the local Rendille or Boran natives?”

  “He didn’t dress like them.”

  “He could have been a Merille from Lake Rudolf,” suggested Avery.

  Jade rested her forearms on her legs and leaned forward. “Now, why would a Merille native help me? From what I understand, old Emperor Menelik used to supply them with arms. They ought to be on the side of the Abyssinians, not on mine.”

  “Maybe with Menelik dead, they are vying for power amongst themselves,” said Avery. “This old man, he could be backing someone else. Didn’t Smythe tell us that the local warlords change power after an emperor dies?”

  Sam dropped the front half of his chair down and spoke up. “But Menelik’s been dead since 1913. Right now his daughter Empress Zawditu rules, with her cousin Ras Tafari Makonnen named as regent. They ran out Emperor Lij Yasu in 1916 for his Muslim tendencies. In other words, the new regime is set in place, at least since 1917. There shouldn’t still be all this jockeying for power in the outer regions.”

  “Maybe the outer regions don’t get news quickly,” Avery said. “Or maybe they were that last emperor Yasu’s main backers. That would explain why they’re slow to come around to the new empress and her cousin.”

  Sam shrugged. “What language did this Boguli speak?”

  Jade sat up as though suddenly jolted. “You know, I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?” said Sam and Avery in unison. They looked at each other, eyes wide, mouths agape.

  “I think you left quite a bit out of your little story,” snapped Beverly. The sharp edge to her voice startled Jade. Beverly usually reacted with a joke, sarcastic or otherwise.

  “I told you everything that happened.”

  “Like hell you did!” Beverly stuck out her chin and glared at Jade. “You don’t remember what language this mysterious man spoke?” She scoffed in disbelief. “And you left out why you set off on such a fool escapade to begin with.” She held up Jade’s original note and read it. “‘I am going with Chiumbo to take night shots.’” Beverly wadded up the paper and flung it aside. “Night shots? You lied to me! This is not some Girl Guides’ adventure, Jade.”

  For once Jade flinched under Beverly’s
glaring eyes. “I’m sorry, Bev. I didn’t mean to upset you. I know this isn’t a game. Blaney Percival made it quite clear that these poachers mean business.”

  “But,” retorted Beverly, “he didn’t ask you to stop them single-handedly. Why,” she continued before Jade could interject, “do you always think that you’ve been commissioned to go charging off to save the day yourself?”

  “I don’t always go—” began Jade. She retreated farther back in her seat.

  “Yes, you do!” cut in Beverly. “At Compiègne, in Tsavo, and now here.” Tears formed in her eyes, turning the normally soft blue orbs into a living replica of the Mediterranean Sea. “We do worry about you, in case you didn’t notice.”

  Jade put her head down, partly for feelings of guilt and partly out of embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Bev. I didn’t realize you were so worried.”

  “Stupid Gypsy,” Bev muttered as she hunkered over and hugged herself. “You should know we love you and care about you. No wonder your mother sent you away. She probably couldn’t stand worrying about you chasing mountain cats and desperadoes anymore.”

  Jade saw her chance to stop this interrogation and simultaneously lighten her friend’s mood, which, she presumed, was mostly the result of newly blossoming motherhood. “But that’s not why my mother sent me to London, Bev. I started to tell you this before. It was all the fault of that lovesick bull elk. You see, after the elk kicked in the fence and the pony escaped, we sent the dog to herd it back, but Scout—that’s the dog—he found the neighbor’s Newfoundland instead. She was in heat and—”

  “Perhaps this is not the best time, Jade,” advised Avery as he noted his wife’s increasingly dark expression.

  Jade didn’t pay him any heed. “But we took the puppy, and named it Kaloff—”

  “Is that Russian?” asked Sam.

  “No, it’s a joke. You know, as in Kaloff the dog?”

  Sam laughed. “Oh! Call off the dog. Very good.”