Mark of the Lion

by Suzanne Arruda

  On her cot, Jade shivered and tossed as the dream grew more threatening. She tried to shout, but the cries strangled into a whimper in her throat. Then the soft sound of fur brushing against wood woke her. For a moment she lay still on her back and tried again to separate reality from the nightmare. The sound repeated itself. Jade froze.

  Something scrabbled and scratched with large claws at the bamboo door. She strained her ears to listen. To her horror, the sound wasn’t outside her door. It was inside. Something had pulled the door open and slid past it into her hut. Its footfalls, though muffled on the dirt floor, sent shock waves up the cot’s legs and jarred her aching knee. Jade had prior experience with prowling, nocturnal black bears. This animal was a quadruped and a large one at that. A lion?

  The distinct musky aroma of a male animal mingled with the sickening scent of carrion. Jade forced back the nausea rising in her throat. She’d never felt so helpless. Air raids, artillery fire, and exploding shells never shook her as did this silent, stealthy padding in the dark. A cold sweat trickled down from her forehead and dribbled into her eyes. She tensed to keep herself from the convulsive shivers that threatened to give her away to the beast.

  The animal stopped moving. She felt its warmth inches from her face. Get a hold of yourself. Think! A sudden move for the rifle would only alarm it. Jade wasn’t sure what the reaction of this animal would be but doubted it would hesitate or run like a black bear. Cats like moving prey. She lay perfectly still and prayed it was only Biscuit wandering loose in the night.

  She listened in vain for the cheetah’s purr. The beast brushed against the cot beside her and moved the bed with its bulk. Her rifle clattered to the floor. A snarl was followed by a throaty growl that rumbled like thunder. Both sounds spoke of menace. It’s not Biscuit. Did Percy get loose? Visions of Colonel Patterson’s man-eaters ran through her head, which swam in dizziness. Perhaps if she startled it with a sudden shout she’d have time to grab her rifle.

  Hot, wet breath blew across her face, down her chest, before the beast sniffed at her belt. The creature snorted loudly in disgust and backed abruptly away. She heard the sound of the chair shifting, another violent snort, and the animal bolted out the open door.

  Jade forced herself to sit up. She pivoted around on the cot and grabbed her rifle from the floor. Moonlight filtered in through the cracks and the open door. Her eyes adjusted to the darkened room and picked out discernible shapes from indistinguishable shadows. Empty! And the door was ajar. She raced over and stared out into the night. Why is it so dark? She looked up at the black, empty sky. Where are the stars? Was the dream true? Did they really fall?

  Jade gagged from the fear knotting her stomach. One hand clasped her rifle and the other grabbed the door and quickly pulled it shut. Why is there no way to bar the door from inside? She removed her belt, slid it between the bamboo poles of the door and the hut, and tied the door shut. Then she collapsed back onto the cot and let her muscles give in to fear’s quaking aftershocks.

  Somewhere in the night sleep overtook her again, but it was fitful, and she woke often. At dawn, Jade got up and reached for her boots. Her hand stopped in midair. Before her loomed the muddy print of a huge cat’s paw stamped on the chair. Jade remembered Biscuit’s feet. Not only were they smaller, but a cheetah’s claws didn’t retract. They would have left scratches or muddy traces. These claws were retracted; a lion’s print, and a monstrous one at that. Percy?

  Jade pulled on her boots and hat, untied the door, grabbed the belt, and ran out of the hut towards the animal pens. Percy sat in the middle of his locked cage, serenely washing himself. He looked at her calmly, then returned to licking his tawny sides. Jade looked at the dirt in the pen, hoping to find the red mud that her nocturnal visitor had left behind. Dry!

  A wild lion had found its way into her hut last night. It stalked me, just like in my dream!

  Jade suddenly recalled the animal had sniffed her belt and snorted in disgust. She brought the belt, still gripped in her hands, to her face and inhaled. The pungent odor of the sorcerer’s paste emanated from the leather. She found herself considering the genuine protective properties of that concoction with gratitude.

  CHAPTER 12

  “If society whirls, as people say, then the Muthaiga Club is the Nairobi pivot. Jackal hunts, polo matches, horse races, and safaris are planned here. They’re also resurrected here with the prey becoming more elusive, the winning point more difficult, the horse faster, and the shot more impossible with each retelling. The flamingo pink building and its two dining wings (so divorced couples don’t have to eat in the same room with their ex-spouses) has hosted innumerable parties for nobles and notables. Dine, dance, drink, and flirt with elegant abandon. Use the outdoor electric lights for target practice. Come in a dinner jacket and tie for evening dinner or in bush gear for a drink. The Muthaiga promises all its visitors good fortune.”

  —The Traveler

  NEITHER MADELINE NOR NEVILLE SAID ANYTHING about hearing a lion in the night. Jade kept the event to herself lest they think her prone to delusions. Only Harry commented that she “looked like hell” and asked if she’d had a bad night. After breakfast, Harry, the Thompsons, and Jade left Hascombe’s ranch and rode to Colridge’s farm. Roger tagged along, and he and Harry spent the entire ride together. Jade couldn’t hear their conversation, but it seemed animated. She presumed Harry was renewing his bid for a merger. At the edge of Colridge’s farm, Harry took off with Roger, and with them went another opportunity for Jade to prod Harry for more information about Gil. The Thompsons and Jade rode to Colridge’s house, returned the horses, discussed the ngoma, and retrieved the Thompsons’ old box-bodied motorcar.

  Madeline nodded off during the drive back to town, to Jade’s great relief. She still felt too frayed and exposed after last night to handle personal conversation. She needed time to rebuild her defenses. Neville pulled up in front of the Norfolk and Jade went in while Neville woke his wife. Jade ran upstairs to her room and washed; then she tossed Gil’s map and the chain with the bone into her open suitcase. Since Jelani had remained in the village, Jade went back down and explained his absence to the hotel proprietor, who seemed to have not even noticed he was gone.

  “The native lads come and go,” he said. But he was delighted to report that he’d secured a motorcar for her. “The garage just purchased it from a Boer down south.”

  “A Boer?” repeated Jade. “Do you know his name? Was it Kruger?”

  The man shook his head. “I don’t know his name. One of our local lads brought the car up. Not exactly new,” he explained, “but it is American like you, miss. Are you interested?”

  Jade admitted that she was and received directions to the garage. “Please settle my bill. I’ll pick up my luggage as soon as I come back with the car.” She turned for the front door to tell the Thompsons and collided head-on with a man coming in. “Excuse me,” she began.

  “Not at all. I was hoping to bump into you.”

  Jade recognized the baritone voice and looked up quickly. “Mr. Hascombe,” she exclaimed in surprise. “You’re the last person I expected to see today in Nairobi.” She stepped back a pace to allow him room to enter.

  He touched his hat brim in salute. “Roger and I rode straight here after we left you. Decided we’d better put our names down for that safari before you changed your mind. Told them I’d see to the details. Just left their office,” he explained, “when I saw you come in here. Thompson said you were packing up, so I thought perhaps I could be of help with your luggage.”

  “Thank you. I’m going to pick up a motorcar, but I’ll be back shortly.” She slipped past him and escaped into the open air. Amazing how one man can make a lobby feel so crowded.

  Neville and Madeline had headed down the street to pick up a dress she’d left for alterations and an ax he’d left for a new handle. Jade walked in the opposite direction, to the garage. To her delight, she found herself behind the wheel of a Ford. Its chassis had
been replaced by wooden sides to make the standard box-body vehicle preferred in this rugged terrain, but the blood and guts of the machine was all Model T. When Jade puttered back to the hotel, she found not only the Thompsons but also Mr. Hascombe waiting on the veranda with her luggage.

  “I didn’t expect you to already have my bags. I wasn’t packed yet.” Jade rarely blushed, but the thought of him fumbling with her undergarments nearly pushed her to it.

  Harry Hascombe flashed a wide, toothy grin. “Have no fear. The desk clerk went up with me. Everything was neatly stowed away except for your traveling costume. It had just been cleaned, so I bundled it carefully on top and brought everything down.” He nodded to the bags. “You’re not only tidy; you pack lightly. I like that. No need for all sorts of frivolities.”

  Jade didn’t think two men handling her clothes made the situation any better than one. But frontier gallantry aside, she decided to check the room herself for stray articles. It was true, she had repacked most of her belongings before the hyena shoot, but she wanted to be sure.

  “Thank you, but I think I’ll go up and make certain I have everything.”

  “I’ll go with you, Jade,” said Madeline. “Neville will put your bags in our car.”

  Jade picked up the room key and dashed upstairs. Madeline followed on her heels. “I do apologize for Harry, Jade. He meant well. He’s just used to his rough bachelor ways.”

  Jade unlocked the room door. “Please don’t fret yourself, Madeline,” she said. “I’m not all that offended.” She opened the various bureau drawers and found them all empty.

  Madeline looked under the bed, while Jade checked the adjoining bathroom. “I think he’s taken an interest in you,” Madeline said with a note of hope in her voice.

  Jade returned with a tortoiseshell comb in her hand. She stopped in front of Madeline and waggled the implement in her face. “Madeline, I think what you are trying to do is sweet, but stop it. I like Mr. Hascombe. He’s very colorful, but I am not interested in matchmaking.”

  Madeline pouted. “But you two are perfect for each other. You’re both adventuresome and intelligent—”

  “And he must be at least twenty years my senior,” added Jade. “Thank you again, but no. I’ll gladly hunt with him, talk to him, and eat with him, but I draw the line at marrying him.”

  “You poor thing,” cooed Madeline. “Your heart must be absolutely broken. Perhaps if we give it time,” she suggested.

  Jade knew enough to not continue the argument. Instead, she simply turned and fixed her eyes on her new friend. Madeline flinched and looked away. It worked every time. “This is everything,” Jade said, holding up the comb. “Shall we go?”

  She returned the key, thanked the proprietor, and went out to the cars. Jade wanted to stop at the local doctor’s office to ask about Gil’s death, but Madeline wanted to get home, so she followed Neville to their farm eighteen miles to the northeast. There would be time, she reasoned, before the safari to come back to town. She’d see the commissioner then, too.

  Madeline rode with Jade and described their coffee plantation, her gardens, their two dogs, and their assorted projects with a good deal of vivacity and color. “Neville thought perhaps a good moneymaking project to help with our overdraft would be to herd crocodiles from the rivers into traps and kill them safely there. I gather there’s quite a good market for ladies’ pocketbooks and shoes in crocodile leather. Have you ever owned any?”

  “No, but I did have a pair of boots that bit my toes every time I wore them.”

  Madeline laughed at the joke, her voice rippling in merry peals. “Oh, I do wish you’d marry Harry.” She sighed. “I should so much like to have you as a neighbor.”

  Jade smiled at the frontier concept of neighbor—anyone within fifty miles. They passed the Ruiru flumes and saw no trace of the hapless hippo. She wasn’t surprised. Scavengers rarely left much behind.

  “Forget herding crocodiles. You should write stories about life in the colony, Madeline,” suggested Jade. “You’d be very good at it, and it sounds safer.”

  “Do you think?”

  Jade shrugged. “Certainly. You must have dozens of stories about the farm, the Africans, and Nairobi. Your real characters are better than most fictional ones.”

  Madeline beamed. “Well, perhaps I could try one. I rather like romances.” She winked at Jade. “I have just the right hero and heroine, too.”

  The remainder of the drive’s conversation revolved around the coffee farm and how the war had hurt so many farms due to neglect while owners were away at war. Between that and anthrax, many colonists found themselves forced to take out large loans.

  “Not that our overdraft is so large,” Madeline explained. “Neville has flat feet, so he served nearby overseeing transport operations. He was able to keep an eye on the farm off and on.”

  The Thompsons’ home fell in a class between Lord Colridge’s fancy estate and Harry’s rectangular shedlike structure and assorted huts. The main house’s stone foundation and walls rose to at least three feet in height, an indication that there once was enough money to hire a Sikh mason but not enough to complete the entire house. The upper portion was a put-together job of galvanized tin and wood from local hardwood trees. A separate building housed the kitchen.

  Like Hascombe’s house, gardens surrounded the building, and a veranda ran the length of one long side. Any similarity ended there. Blooming bougainvillea vines shaded both the veranda and the privy with aromatic flowers and cool leaves. Colorful blossoms ranging from flaming red-hot pokers to delicate pink roses alternated with assorted edibles in the gardens. Jade took this to be the “woman’s touch,” as Madeline had previously expressed it.

  The day was far advanced by the time they arrived, so Madeline busied herself with urging the cook into dinner preparations while Jade unpacked in the guest room. Happily, the bottles of photographic developers were intact, as were the boxes of film and ammunition. Her clothing was another matter. The traveling dress sat in a rolled-up wad atop her other clothes and, since nothing had been strapped in, everything sat collapsed into a jumbled heap.

  Men! Doesn’t it occur to them to secure the clothes inside before shutting the case? She shook out her best dress and draped it across a chair back. Perhaps the wrinkles would come out if she hung it over the tin bathtub full of hot water. She dumped the remaining contents on the bed, sorted them systematically, and put them in the dresser.

  The dresser was a makeshift affair arranged from six of the ubiquitous, empty debes, wedged with the open ends facing out of a wooden frame with a wooden top. Jade refolded her undergarments and placed them in two of the cubbyholes. Two spare shirts went in a third, another set of trousers and her corps overskirt in the fourth, and a nightdress in a fifth. As she lifted the nightgown, Gil’s map, the solicitor’s sealed packet, and the ring box tumbled out onto the bed. She fished the hyena’s chain from the pile and slipped it into her pocket.

  Madeline rapped on the door and came in. “Is there anything you need? I hope you don’t mind our simple furniture,” she said. “The bed is actually quite nice.”

  “It’s fine, Madeline. You can see for yourself,” she said as she pointed to her meager clothes in the debe drawers, “I don’t surround myself with luxuries. I hope I don’t shock everyone with my trousers,” she added. “I grew quite used to them during the war. Most of these items are my uniform pieces. Everything else was too out of style even for me. Didn’t have the time or the inclination to get new things.”

  “Lots of the farm wives wear their husband’s old trousers at home.” Madeline sat down on the edge of the bed and watched Jade sort her toiletries on top of the dresser. “Can I hand you anything?” she asked and turned to the nearly empty suitcase. “Oh? What’s this? Is Abel your father’s name?”

  Jade turned suddenly and saw Madeline holding the packet in one hand. “Please, if you would, just put that back.” Jade’s stern voice startled Madeline, and she dropped t
he packet on the bed. Jade grabbed both the packet and the ring box and shoved them in a cubbyhole.

  “I’m sorry,” Madeline said to Jade’s back. She studied Jade in silence for a moment. “You know, it isn’t good to keep things inside. If you want to talk, I know how to keep secrets.”

  “Thank you,” said Jade softly. She gripped the sides of the dresser and steadied herself. “I appreciate your concern, and I’ll keep it in mind. But not now,” she added, turning around. “All I need now is a place to hang these two dresses.” She pulled two wooden hangers from her suitcase and slipped the good dress on one and the traveling costume on the other.

  Madeline showed her the hooks on the far wall for hanging clothes and pointed out the nicer features of the room, such as the sanded wooden walls, a pull-down board that served as a writing desk, and the distant view of the south garden from the window. “You can leave the shutters ajar at night. We have mosquito netting to cover the bed.”

  After last evening, it seemed that mosquitoes weren’t the only danger in a seemingly safe bedroom. Jade shook it off. “Is there time for a tour?”

  “As long as you like.” The two women spent the remainder of the daylight hours strolling the grounds until dinnertime. Half of the coffee trees had been cut down to mere stumps after some fungus infected the leaves, and another five years would pass before they produced. The other trees, however, remained full and lush with young berries. These would provide ammunition against the overdraft. Neville joined them from his inspection of the coffee trees, and the three talked of coffee farming, both during and after dinner until they retired.

  Jade slept fitfully. Her mind replayed the old Kikuyu’s notion that two men were behind the native deaths. Could there be something to his dreams? And how would a hyena, controlled or not, get into Gil’s room to maul him? It seemed Mr. Jacobs’ theory of murder was true, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out how anyone had managed to kill Gil Worthy. With all this troubling her, Jade woke often and finally lit a lamp. She added her questions to her notebook, wrote an article on the hyena hunt, and penned a brief letter to Beverly before reattempting sleep.