Mark of the Lion

by Suzanne Arruda

  He loaded his rifle and handed a second one to Ruta. After a brief conversation in Maasai with the tall, laconic gun bearer, Harry turned to Jade and Avery. “You two are the best shots. But you might want to go up into the cave anyway to be safer.”

  “We’ll build a fire near the mouth,” suggested Jade.

  “Good idea. There’s canned meat in the Dodge, and plenty of water in the springs around here. But be careful. Other animals like the springs, too.”

  The two men walked down into the grasslands, while Jade and Avery retrieved bedrolls for all, some food, the remaining weapons and ammunition, and toted it in several trips up the rocky path to the cave. Beverly, Madeline, and Pili worked to gather a store of firewood.

  “What I don’t understand,” said Beverly as she dropped a load of sticks by the cave’s entrance, “is why Memba Sasa had to wander off to look for game. I’m no tracker, but even I can stand up here and see every herd for the next fifty miles.”

  “What was all that business about drugs, Jade?” asked Madeline.

  Jade shook her head. “You might as well know. There was a packet of heroin hidden under the car. I found it when I dismantled the carburetor.”

  “Heroin!” gasped Madeline.

  “That explains Cissy Estes, doesn’t it?” said Beverly. “Roger must be her supply line.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” said Jade. “It’s certainly incriminating enough, but maybe Roger’s just the dupe in all this. Someone brought those cars up from Mombasa and sold them to him. Perhaps they intended to get the heroin after the cars made it to Nairobi. I assume Roger planned to put them on the train and take them back there.”

  “Here’s a nasty thought,” added Avery. “What if Harry is the drug runner? After all,” he explained, “he hired Roger for this job. He might have suggested that Roger bring up these cars.”

  “Oh no,” protested Madeline. “Not Harry.”

  Jade smiled. Poor thing, she’s so desperate for Harry and me to get together, she’d hate anyone to think ill of him. “Harry said the cars were Roger’s idea,” she offered, “and Roger’s claims of innocence were pretty weak.”

  “Could Harry be taking advantage of it?” asked Bev. “Maybe Roger’s angry because Harry’s accusing him.”

  “I don’t know who’s to blame for the heroin,” said Jade. “Maybe both of them. But you may be right. Harry may try to blackmail Roger into selling his land to him.” Jade looked across the river to Poacher’s Lookout. “Harry knew about this place. I think he recognized the etchings the first time he saw the ring.”

  “Do you think he suspected or knew that Roger was Gil’s son?” asked Madeline. “Is Roger in danger now like Gil was?”

  Jade shook her head. “I have no idea.” Then she remembered the snippets of conversation between Harry and Roger that she had heard when the first car overheated. “So far no one’s tried to kill Roger.” She squatted down beside the cave’s mouth and arranged the wood for a fire by putting smaller kindling under a tepee of twigs and thin sticks. “We need to get a fire going here and stay behind it.”

  Pili reached into a metal box and handed a match to Jade. She swiped it across a rock and set it against the grass kindling. As the fire grew, she added a few larger sticks to feed it.

  “Thank you, Pili,” she said. She eyed his scratches. “You were lucky that lion didn’t drag you out of that crevice.”

  “He tried, Mistress Jade, but remember? You protected me with the old sorcerer’s paste. The witch lion could not stay close for very long.”

  “So you believe this lion belonged to a witch, Pili?” asked Avery. He leaned forward, eyes alert.

  Pili nodded. “Yes. It carried the mark of a witch, too. The bone bead.”

  “Most interesting,” murmured Avery. “But supposing there are such things, why would the witch send an animal all the way out here?”

  “And why would it attack Pili? Twice,” added Beverly. “Wasn’t the laibon supposed to be angry with you, Jade, for killing its familiar the first time?”

  Jade nodded. “You’re both right. It makes no sense.” She sat down beside Lord Colridge’s personal servant, horse handler, and gun bearer. “Pili, what are your thoughts on this? Why would a witch send an animal all the way out here to come after you?”

  Pili stared at the flames for a while as he pondered the question. Finally he spoke. “You ask two questions. One I do not know the answer to. I do not know why a witch would come after me. But you also ask why a witch would send an animal all this way out to the edges of Tsavo. I do not think that is the case.”

  “What?” asked Jade. “But you said the lion belonged to a witch.”

  “Mistress, the lion is the witch. The witch did not send the animal out to us. The witch himself is here among us.” He paused while the others exclaimed incredulously among themselves. Beverly huddled closer to Avery and clung to his arm.

  Only Jade sat silently, her green eyes fixed on the handsome young Somali and his clear hazel eyes. The eyes, she noted, showed no trace of hysteria. Instead, they reflected a quick wit and a clear-thinking, intelligent mind. “Go on, Pili,” she said. “Who is it?”

  Beverly gasped audibly. “What? It’s someone we know?”

  Jade and Pili both nodded. “Who was not here when the lion attacked me either the first time or the second time?” asked Pili.

  “And who,” added Jade, “led us to kill the wrong lion?”

  “And who,” finished Madeline, “has not shown up since . . . Oh my lord,” she gasped.

  “Memba Sasa?” breathed Beverly.

  “The swine!” cursed Avery.

  “What’s more,” added Jade, “I think our safari leaders know or at least suspect. Think about it,” she added when they looked at her with open mouths. “Was either of them thinking of Memba Sasa when it was time to leave? No. Harry just wanted to go, and Roger only had thoughts for the secret of those ring etchings. It was Avery who remembered him.”

  “But they’re out there looking for him now,” protested Madeline.

  “Naturally,” explained Jade. “Once we observed that he was missing, they could hardly just say the hell with him and go off. They at least need to make a show of it. And,” she added quickly to alleviate some of Madeline’s distress, “I may be wrong about one or both of them. Maybe they didn’t know.”

  “So we should be safe now, shouldn’t we?” asked Beverly. “If that elephant really trampled the witch, then the danger is gone, isn’t it?” Her voice, Jade noted, betrayed more fear than Jade had ever heard from her friend during their entire time in the ambulance corps. But then, they never dealt with witches in the corps, just howitzers.

  “I suppose so,” agreed her husband. He, too, didn’t sound certain.

  Jade didn’t answer. She was busy trying to figure out why the witch would attack Pili. That it didn’t go after her again was no surprise. After all, she wore the protective paste and the witch knew it. The paste had succeeded before in keeping the big cat at bay when it came into her hut and again when she changed the tire. According to the Kikuyu, no witch could get too close to her when she wore . . . Her thoughts trailed off abruptly as a new and more awful one took its place. The lion was not the only creature that wouldn’t approach her when she wore her protective hat. Harry stayed away from her at those times, too. It was at Harry’s hut that the first lion stalked her, and Harry knew the Maasai and had a menagerie of animals. She and the Thompsons never saw what lived in the distant pens. They only had Harry’s word about the illtempered baboons.

  She shook her head. No, it was too preposterous an idea. She tossed it, but another took its place in her mind. The hyena had borne a bead and carvings to mark the laibon’s control over it. This lion had a bead, too. Even if Memba Sasa could transform himself, did that bead mean he was under the control of a stronger laibon? The old Kikuyu said he saw two witches in his dream. His words came back to her. The new witch is younger and very powerful. Was it Ruta?
/>   Pili’s voice brought her out of her macabre musings.

  “I was very young when my mother died, and the fathers at the mission taught me many things about God.” He fingered his gold cross. “They also taught me to be wary of Satan. They said to be alert. Be on watch! Your enemy, the devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”

  “Yes,” said Jade, “that’s from First Peter.” Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized that Pili had done more than just attend school at the mission.

  Pili turned his face to her and met her gaze with one equally serious. “Well, Mistress Jade, I believe that Satan is stalking us. And I do not think he is finished.”

  CHAPTER 24

  “The animals in native legends are often capable of speech. Whether they’ve lost the ability to speak or we’ve lost the ability to understand is not known. But if the thoughtful person would listen to their cries and calls, they would still catch a glimpse of the animals’ story. It is very like our own, filled with desire.”

  —The Traveler

  THE SUN HAD DIPPED MORE THAN halfway below the horizon when Harry and Ruta returned to the cave and the welcoming fire. Beverly offered them each a cold sandwich of hard bread and tinned meat before anyone asked them about their search. After all, they had returned alone.

  “We didn’t find him. Not so much as a trace.” Harry chewed a hunk of the stale bread and swallowed. He scanned the campsite. “Roger’s not back?” They shook their heads no, their mouths set in worried lines.

  “Damn!” Harry looked up at the sky. Already, the first stars glowed weakly through a thin haze after the last gasps of sunlight played out. “It’s getting dark, and that veil overhead means rain later. Blasted fool,” he muttered. Jade didn’t know if he meant Roger, Memba Sasa, or perhaps himself for suggesting they come here. She didn’t ask.

  “He should be able to spot the fire,” Madeline suggested as more of a question of hope than a statement of fact.

  Harry agreed and plopped down near the cave’s wide entrance on top of a bedroll. “Everyone needs to get some sleep. Ruta will stand first watch. When the moon’s up, I’ll take second watch.” He passed on the instructions to the Maasai warrior.

  Ruta took his place at the cave mouth by the fire, and Jade retrieved a burning Commiphora branch to use as a torch. She led the others a few yards inside and made certain that the area was still safe. Jade saw no fresh animal sign and stuck the thorny branch in a wall crevice for light. Everyone rolled out the thin bedrolls and made themselves as comfortable as possible on the hard volcanic rock.

  “I say, Jade,” remarked Avery, “you wouldn’t happen to have more of that stinky ointment around, would you?”

  “Sorry. I left it in the Ford. It was leaking into the camera bag.”

  “Well, maybe you should sleep to the outside of us all. You know, be a sort of protective barrier,” Avery suggested in a weak attempt at levity. Jade snorted in derision.

  “Obstinate gypsy,” he muttered.

  “Be quiet,” snapped Harry. “Get some sleep.”

  A heady, spicy perfume drifted across them, and Jade vaguely recalled that frankincense and myrrh were both extracted from some species of Commiphora. The fragrant scent lulled her into a drugged sleep where red eyes stalked her in the darkness.

  The witch man watched with his predator’s eyes. He saw the tall Maasai, Ruta, standing on one leg, storklike, with his left foot resting lightly on his right knee. The guard gripped a spear in his right hand. The others slept soundly thanks to the scented wood. The others, he didn’t need them now. He could finish them at his leisure, revenge and sport all in one. The witch padded softly around the guard’s right side and saw the Maasai pivot as his ears caught the stealthy sound. Then the witch whispered the guard’s name.

  “Ruta.” The voice came out rasping, almost growling, as though a man were injured. “Ruta, help me,” the voice hissed in Maasai. The witch hoped to overcome the Maasai’s wariness and make him think that one of the two missing men had returned.

  As he watched from behind his rocks, Ruta trotted lightly towards him, his gaze piercing the black night for a wounded man. The witch knew exactly when the Maasai first saw his eyes, which glowed with a predator’s night shine.

  “Ruta,” he rasped once more. He saw the Maasai’s face writhe and contort in horror when the warrior realized that the sound came from the throat of a massive hyena. The witch didn’t allow his prey any more time and tore into Ruta’s throat before he cried out.

  Jade woke an hour before sunrise to Harry’s deep, bellowing swear.

  “What in blasted Hades? Ruta should have woken me hours ago. Where the devil is he?”

  The torch had sputtered out long ago, and embers had replaced the bright fire at the entrance. Ruta certainly was derelict in his duties, and Harry got up to inform him of that fact. Jade went to the dying fire and stirred it back to life with some fresh twigs. Her head ached, and she felt drugged. An explosive gasp replaced Harry’s Maasai curses. Jade took up a fresh torch and ran to follow him. She caught up with him at a cluster of rocks thirty yards away.

  “Stay back!” he ordered.

  The others stood clumped back at the cave mouth. Jade hesitated for a second, then ignored his decree and stepped to his side. The torchlight provided a dim illumination, enough for Harry to identify the heap in front of him. As its flame danced, the flickering torchlight caught the trail of sticky red blood and gave the illusion that it still bubbled and flowed from the large gash in the warrior’s neck.

  “His throat’s been ripped out,” she whispered in horror. “Lion?”

  Harry shook his head. “Bite looks too small. Whatever it was had powerful jaws. Maybe hyena, but I’ve never heard of a hyena taking a full-grown man like this. Ruta was no fool.”

  “Any sign of Roger yet?” she asked.

  “Did you see him inside?” Harry snapped as an answer.

  “What’s happened?” asked Avery as he came up behind them.

  Jade and Harry turned to meet him. “Ruta’s dead,” Harry answered.

  “Dead?” Avery looked over Jade’s shoulder and his face betrayed his battle with disbelief, or rather, with not wanting to believe the truth in front of his eyes. His square-cut jaw worked as though words tried to form until finally one word managed to squeak out. “How?”

  “Some animal tore out his throat,” replied Harry loud enough for the others to hear.

  Beverly shrieked, and Avery ran back to hold her. Madeline wept silently, and Pili stood next to her. Tentatively, his hand touched her shoulder. Madeline grabbed it and held it tightly.

  “Roger’s not back yet either,” said Jade. Her stomach churned as several possibilities popped into her mind, and she fought down a rising taste of stomach acids. It wasn’t the sight of a man with half his neck missing, or even the staring eyes that disturbed her. She’d seen as much if not worse while moving wounded men in France. It was the thought of losing David’s brother so soon after finding him. Where can Roger be? That thought was replaced by another. Is Memba Sasa still alive after all?

  “Back to the cave with you and stay there,” ordered Harry. “It’ll be light in an hour. I’ll look for Roger, but I want the rest of you to be ready to leave. If necessary, I’ll stay behind with one of the cars and follow after I’ve found him.”

  Jade refreshed the fire and took up a fresh brand. Then she went into the cave to retrieve her Winchester from where she’d slept. Only a dark blank wall met her. “Who moved my rifle?” she asked. “Pili, where did you put my rifle?”

  “We did not bring the broken one, mistress. You kept the other beside you.”

  “Well, it’s not here.” She held her torch out at arm’s length and made several sweeps of the floor with it. On her third pass, a horrid sound welled up from the ground below. The high-pitched, giddy laughter of a hyena echoed from beneath her feet and the surrounding walls. It rose and fell in its senseless babbling. The undul
ating laugh bounced off the hollow rock and added more voices till it grew to a lunatic chorus.

  Jade dropped the torch and put her hands over her ears to shut out the hellish sounds. It didn’t stop. She ran past the others from the cave and down the trail to the motorcars. There she nearly collided with Harry as he stood staring at the Dodge. She followed his gaze and sank to her knees in shock. Something had ripped two of its tires to shreds.

  CHAPTER 25

  “It is very easy to become caught up and lost in the life of Africa; in its tales, mysticism, beauty, and blood. Perhaps that is why so many of the colonists still insist on maintaining their own traditions of dressing for dinner and using fine crystal even on safari. Many of them claim that to do anything less would be uncivilized.”

  —The Traveler

  DISBELIEF REPLACED THE SHOCK, WHICH IN turn gave way to anger. Jade scrambled to her feet and kicked the slashed tire savagely. “Blast it all to hell!” she shouted. Harry reached for her and dragged her back from the car. “Let go of me,” she yelled and dug her heels into the dirt.

  “Easy there, Jade,” he said. She swung her right fist around in an attempt to hit him in the side. Harry stopped pulling, and she wrenched herself free and spun around to face him. Jade stood a yard away, feet apart, fists clenched at her side and black curls tousled, just as she had the night he pulled her from the scalding coffee. Her green eyes blazed. Harry couldn’t resist the smile of admiration. “Easy, Simba Jike,” he added. “I’m on your side, remember?”

  “Are you?” she demanded.

  Harry jerked his head back as if slapped. “What do you mean?”