Mark of the Lion

by Suzanne Arruda

  “The feathers are badly beaten up in the wind,” explained Madeline. “Certainly not practical for a driving hat.”

  “Rog is a resilient sort of chap, though,” stated Neville. “Born in Africa. Doing more safari work nowadays, I believe. And he has a few cattle.”

  His Lordship snorted again, and from behind him, Bakari gave an answering snort from his stall. “Fool’s gotten himself badly into debt. Overborrowed. Always scampering about, too. He needs to stay put and make that cattle ranch work, not go running off to Mombasa at every whim.” Colridge waved a walking stick in the air to emphasize his point. “Then there’s malaria. Mosquito netting, quinine, good air,” rumbled Lord Colridge. “Poor planning again.”

  Jade knew that Gil Worthy left Africa the first time sick with malaria and once again tried to direct the topic to him. “Your Lordship,” she began, “did you know—” She got no farther. A native runner raced towards them, panting from exertion.

  “Bwana Pua Nywele,” the man said, addressing Lord Colridge rapidly in Swahili, and Jade struggled to catch some of the conversation. She did manage to make out the words toto or child, and fisi or hyena. She also thought she heard the word laibon. She wondered if this man spoke of the same laibon that Jelani had mentioned yesterday. She looked to Madeline and Neville for help, but they were too intent on the story to observe her quizzical expression. Finally, Colridge held up his hand for the native to stop and briefly answered him. The man seemed satisfied and ran back in the direction from which he’d come.

  “What happened?” asked Jade. “Is there trouble?”

  “Bloody damned nuisance,” exclaimed Colridge. “Oh, not you, Miss del Cameron. This business. Yes, seems a hyena has killed an elder’s son, a small boy. The creatures have been a regular pestilence recently.”

  “What was that bit about the witch?” asked Neville before Jade had a chance to ask.

  “Superstitious bunk,” said Colridge. “Can’t have a normal hyena attack. Must involve witches somehow.”

  “But why would a hyena attack a village? Aren’t they primarily scavengers?” asked Jade.

  “That’s not entirely true,” replied Neville. “Most any predator will take ready meat if it’s there for them. Lions, too. It is true the hyenas do a nasty bit of undertaking for us, though.”

  “It’s the Kikuyu’s fault,” exclaimed Colridge. “They don’t bury their dead.”

  “Well, sir, in defense of the Kikuyu, it wouldn’t make much difference if they did,” said Neville. “Unless they bury someone very deeply, as we do, the hyena will dig it up. And we’ve certainly done our own bit to feed the brutes around Nairobi.”

  “How is that?” asked Jade.

  “The slaughterhouse did a brisk business feeding the troops during the Great War,” explained Neville, “and simply discarded the refuse of the cattle outside the town. Then there were all those influenza victims, including thousands of natives, all of which fed a growing population of hyenas. The troops and influenza are gone now, and the hyenas were left starving. I’ve seen them chewing on cooking pots.”

  “Quite right, Thompson. Quite right,” agreed Colridge. “Dreadful situation. We’ve created a pestilence. That’s why I’ll go shoot this hyena for the Kikuyu. But we must convince them that there is no witchcraft involved.”

  “I still don’t understand about the witch though,” said Jade. Madeline looked equally perplexed, so Lord Colridge obliged them with the barest of explanations.

  “Some of the natives believe that a witch controls the hyena or some other creature for revenge killings. Still others believe the animal is the witch’s shadow soul roaming abroad. If he’s very strong, he can change himself into a hyena or other night creature. Either way, they’re afraid to kill the animal themselves for fear of angering the witch further.”

  “Like the man-eating lions at Tsavo,” added Madeline. “I remember reading that a pair of lions attacked the railroad crews during the construction of the Tsavo bridge. All the natives thought they were spirits until the engineer, Colonel Patterson, killed them.”

  “Yes,” agreed Colridge. “Said they were ghosts of chieftains or some such nonsense.”

  “Where is this hyena problem, Lord Colridge?” asked Neville.

  “Near the southeastern edge of my land. Got so bad the natives left for a while.” The older man sized Neville up. “Care to join me, Thompson? I’ll have Pili organize the tents and equipment. We’ll leave from here tomorrow at dawn.”

  “I’d be honored, sir,” replied Neville. He looked like a little boy being asked to accompany his father on a first hunting trip.

  “I’d like to see this myself,” said Jade. “Be a good addition to the story I’m working on.”

  Miles Colridge sputtered several times. Snippets of sentences such as “no place,” “young woman,” and “frightening,” found their way out from under his bristly white mustache, and Jade waited patiently before she replied.

  “You forget, sir, I was raised out west. I’m accustomed to hunting.”

  “We’re not going after rabbits, Miss del Cameron,” he exclaimed with a snort.

  “When I was sixteen, a mountain lion took some of our stock. We lost several lambs.”

  “And I suppose your father took you along on the hunt, did he?”

  Jade looked directly at the aristocrat until he felt the weight of those emerald eyes boring into him. She kept the tone of her voice very factual, careful to omit any trace of bragging. “No, sir. My father was gone at the time. I took out that cat myself.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “Many Nairobi residents hire the neighboring Kikuyu on their farms or in their establishments. But every Kikuyu lad works with a thought of the day when he will be a man and own his own shamba, or garden, and his own herd of goats.”

  —The Traveler

  THEY CAME BACK. THE FOOLS CAME back to their old village and brought their stinking beasts with them. Did they think he would not know? That he would not smell their stench? True, they kept their goat herds away from his cattle and his streams, but it was only a matter of time before they would be back like an infestation of ants.

  He was too busy himself to bother with them; his teacher too proud to attend to them. “They are bugs,” his mentor said. “Why should I risk myself for bugs?” So he picked one of his own beasts, a young male hyena, to remind these fools that he would not tolerate them. He took a stone knife and shaved his mark into its fur. Then he chose a bone bead, carved from a human finger, and tied it into the animal’s short neck ruff. The bone would guide the killer to its chosen prey.

  He turned the animal, and squatting in front of it, stared into its face. They locked eyes for several minutes as the man murmured and chanted before it. At first, the beast shifted and tried to scratch his neck. Its hind foot paused halfway there and hung in the air. Then it slowly dropped back down as the animal tensed and stood catatonic. The man’s will passed from gaze to gaze and into the animal’s brain. The beast quivered and whimpered. Then, with one rapid movement, the man stood and released the animal. The hyena trotted away towards the village, and the man knew his messenger would not return hungry.

  Jade’s stomach rumbled as she squatted on Colridge’s veranda. An answering rumble rolled from deep in the house’s interior as the brusque voice of Lord Miles Colridge issued orders. Jade held her suede wide-brimmed hat in her hands and fiddled with the frayed brim. Just enough moonlight shone in the yard to see without tripping, but very little penetrated under the veranda’s roof. Neville’s and Madeline’s forms next to her were barely discernible in the dark.

  “That Kikuyu man,” Jade began in a hushed voice. “He addressed our host as Bwana Pua Nywele, didn’t he? What does that mean?”

  Madeline snickered, and Neville answered in a whisper. “That is the Kikuyu’s name for him. It literally translates as Nose Hair in Swahili. His mustache is rather famous.”

  “Does everyone out here get a name?”

 
“Most generally, yes,” Madeline said. “At least the men do.”

  “What is yours, Neville?” Jade asked. “If I may inquire.”

  Madeline answered before Neville had a chance. “He is called Bwana Mbuni. Mbuni means ostrich. You have to picture the setting. We’d just arrived in Nairobi and had never seen our land before. The oxcart ride was hot and dusty, but Neville found an ostrich plume along the track and stuck it in his hat like a musketeer. When we finally arrived at our land, he leaped off the cart, whipped off his hat, and made a rather dashing bow to me. Trying to act the part of a courtier,” she added with a giggle. “Naturally, I was very impressed. Of course, some of the locals saw him and the name stuck.”

  Jade smiled. “I can think of several worse scenarios in which to be caught and named,” she said. She wondered if Gil Worthy had managed to acquire a name in his four years here.

  Her hand went to the small lump under her shirt where David’s ring hung from a leather cord. She had donned it early that morning in her hotel room along with her corps trousers, boots, and a new bush shirt purchased in town. The ring became a tangible reminder of what her mind still struggled to accept: the proof that David once existed and the hard, cold actuality of his death. Now, as she sat in the dark quiet of the African night and waited for dawn, both the war and David seemed unreal. Someone once told her that denial was an initial reaction after a loss. She couldn’t deny the ring around her neck or the second ring securely stored in one of her bags.

  Lord Colridge’s voice boomed again from within. “Perhaps we should lend a hand?” suggested Madeline.

  “Absolutely not!” exclaimed Neville. “Lord Colridge expressly ordered us to wait here.” His finger jabbed at the veranda steps. Neville got up and paced back and forth several steps before he leaned against the railing, arms folded across his chest. “The last thing we want to do is antagonize him. His favor in the colony could be very helpful to us. He knows people, Madeline. Important people.” He sliced the air for emphasis. “People who might pay more for coffee, or loan us money in a bad year.”

  “You’re right, of course, Neville,” replied Madeline. “Only I do feel like so much excess baggage waiting to be loaded up.” She sighed. “I do wish he would have at least let us bring our own horses.”

  Jade thought of young Jelani at the Norfolk. The boy hadn’t been the least bit happy about being told to stay behind. She wondered if it was his village that was being harassed. Perhaps he knew the child who had been killed.

  “I suspect Lord Colridge has horses in excess,” Jade mused aloud. “Possibly a matter of pride to be able to outfit us all.” She caressed the walnut stock of her Winchester.

  A great deal of noise from the stables interrupted their conversation, and Pili approached leading two chestnut-colored mares saddled for riding. “Horses for the memsahibs,” he said softly as though not to disturb the sun during its rest. A boy walked beside him carrying a lantern. In its glow, they glimpsed two sturdy, dependable animals bred for strength and hardiness from northern Abyssinian stock.

  “Mount up!” bellowed Lord Colridge. He led his own mount, a white Abyssinian stallion. Behind him walked another lad leading a third mare, black with a left white stocking. “There’s your horse, Thompson. Step lively. Dawn’s breaking. Time to move out.” As if it waited for his direct order, the sun pierced the dark gray horizon. Light spilled across the ground as though thrown from a bucket and bathed the landscape in golden rays.

  “When Lord Colridge commands, everything obeys,” whispered Jade behind her hand to Madeline. She slid her Winchester into a saddle holster and her camera and film sheets into the saddlebags. Six native Africans came around the side of the house carrying large bundles on their heads. Colridge barked a few curt orders, and the men departed in a brisk trot.

  “They’ll head towards the village and set up a camp for us,” Colridge explained. “Only a morning’s walk for them. We’ll take a more roundabout way. I want to show you my land.”

  Pili reappeared with a small basket containing four cloth bags, and Jade detected the spicy scent of cinnamon. Her stomach growled again in response to the fragrant aroma.

  “Almost forgot breakfast,” groused Colridge. “Scones, if I’m not mistaken. Take a bag then. No time to dawdle with fancies.” He took a sack for himself and issued a few orders to Pili concerning the horses. Pili inclined his head slightly and disappeared into the house.

  “He’s not coming with us?” asked Jade as she mounted her horse.

  “Whatever for?” answered Colridge in genuine surprise at the idea.

  “I suppose I thought he was your manservant and perhaps acted as your gun bearer or oversaw the camp.” Jade found the silent young man interesting and had hoped to talk with him.

  Lord Colridge made a deprecating noise, and his white mustache fluttered in the outburst. “Pish tosh!” he exclaimed. “For a safari, yes. But for this little excursion?” He snorted. “Should take care of this business tonight and be home tomorrow early.” He urged his horse forward and ended the discussion.

  Neville fell in immediately beside Lord Colridge, and Madeline aligned herself with Jade. For some time, they rode past the fields and native workers and munched on the delicious scones while Colridge pointed out various features of his farm. Later, after leaving the cultivated areas behind, Jade dropped back a few more paces from the men. She wanted to ask Colridge about Gil Worthy, but Neville monopolized the conversation with questions. Madeline fell back with her.

  “Is this what you expected?” asked Madeline.

  Jade looked at Madeline and arched one brow in confusion. “I’m not sure what you mean. The expedition?”

  Madeline made a quarter sweep of the landscape with her right hand. “This,” she said. “Nairobi, the protectorate, Africa. Is it what you expected?”

  Jade rode along silently and breathed in the clean, heady scent of wild grasses and the horse under her. Her perceptive eyes drank in the expansive horizon as they left the farm’s buildings and fields behind them. The Athi Plains spread out in the distant foreground as a sea of tall brown grass punctuated by an occasional umbrella-shaped acacia tree. Dark spots shifted position, and Jade knew they would eventually resolve themselves into entire herds of wildebeest, zebra, or perhaps giraffe. To her left, the shadowy summit of Mount Kenya loomed blue-gray like a colossal whale breaching the sea of blue around it, the ever present clouds like foaming waves. Like the sea, Africa and the sky continued to roll and swell on beyond her vision. Perhaps if she listened carefully, she would hear the earth’s heartbeat, which she knew would match her own.

  She nodded. “Yes. I expected grandeur and beauty, and there’s certainly an abundance of both.”

  “I’m coming to love it, too,” admitted Madeline. “It took some getting used to, though.”

  Jade nodded and waited for more of Madeline’s story.

  “I grew up very close to London. There were always carriages on the roads going to and from the towns. If you traveled longer than a day, you ran out of country and fell into another village. Here, you never run out of country, and there aren’t all that many roads, much less towns.” She sighed. “It’s a lonely place.”

  “The Easterners back in the States have that same problem when they travel west of the Mississippi,” said Jade. “The land just keeps unrolling itself, and the sky goes with it. You aim for a mountain range”—she nodded her head towards Mount Kenya—“and it never gets any closer no matter how long you ride. One day, you actually reach the mountain and stand on its summit, thinking you finally made it to the end. Then you look down on the other side, and the land’s still rolling on.” She smiled at Madeline. “What you have to understand is that we outlanders feel boxed in if we aren’t surrounded by land and sky. This doesn’t feel any different from home.”

  Madeline nodded. “Neville sent me home for nearly three years towards the middle of the war. I stayed in London with my sister. Do you know, I actually missed this o
penness then? All my neighbors seemed too close. Have you any idea what I missed the most?”

  Jade shook her head.

  “I missed the sounds,” she said softly. “All of them. You can hear them out here, you know. You can’t hear sounds in London, only noise. Why do people like all that noise?”

  Jade thought about it for a moment. “Have you ever noticed that little children are afraid of a strange or loud noise? But you rarely hear of a child being afraid of the quiet. That’s a grown-up fear. Noise keeps us from feeling alone with our thoughts. Maybe we’re actually just afraid of ourselves, so we surround ourselves with noise to drown out our thoughts.”

  “We whistle in the dark, so to speak?” suggested Madeline. “That’s an interesting idea.” She glanced sideways at Jade. “Somehow, I don’t imagine you’re afraid of very much.” When Jade arched her brows in surprise, Madeline quickly apologized. “I don’t mean to sound impertinent. You have to forgive me. Living out here has apparently made me tactless. What I mean is, I saw how you reacted to Harry’s shooting the other evening. Everyone else held back, but you . . . well, you rushed in there and took the gun right out of his hand. Wherever did you learn to do that?”

  Jade shrugged. “A person learns a lot of things growing up near Cimarron, New Mexico.”

  “I don’t believe anyone can teach you to respond the way you did. That’s instinctive. You must not be afraid of any thing.”

  Only terrified of failing David.

  Jade noticed the graceful arch of the Athi River in the valley before them and the play of long black shadows stretching out beneath the spindly thorn trees across the undulating brown and tawny-colored hills. Tributary channels cut deeply into the red soil and converged like bloody claw marks into the Athi. Beyond the river, the land rose into a gracefully rounded hill topped with a thick hardwood forest. The shadows shrank from view even as she watched. “You’re wrong. I’m afraid I’ll miss photographing this gorgeous play of light and shadow,” she said.