I won’t bore you with all the silly committees I still take part in (behind the scenes, of course). However, I must let you in on a secret. You know Avery has all the inside news politically. He has heard a very well-founded rumor that, when Governor Northey returns to Nairobi shortly, he will announce that the British East African Protectorate will be officially known as the Kenya Colony. But keep it under your hat, darling. It’s supposed to be a surprise.
Your motorcycle sounds like a great bit of fun to ride, but I’m sorry the petrol shortage hasn’t improved. They’d be better off getting that Natalite plant in full production and make the fuel alcohol they produced during the war. Oh, it makes me positively restless to get back to Africa again, and as soon as little Jade or little David is born (Avery insists we name the baby Gwenevere or Arthur), we shall be on the first boat home.
Please write again and tell me all the news. I miss you all and Africa so dreadfully. I feel positively smothered here, and my sister is driving me to Bedlam.
Your dearest friend and “comrade in axles,”
Beverly Dunbury
Jade chuckled, imagining her friend chafing under society’s restraints. Yes, it would be good to see Bev again, but she worried about them traveling with a new baby. She’d have to trust Avery’s judgment there. She wondered how Maddy would handle this tiny addition to their group. The Thompsons, with classic British reserve, didn’t discuss children much, but Jade had learned that they’d tried unsuccessfully for years to conceive. So far, with no other children close by, they’d handled their disappointments, but Beverly’s baby would make it harder to bear the anguish. Maddy had become more moody ever since Beverly’s announcement.
As Jade folded the letter and slipped it back into her pocket, she saw a flash of white light and heard a muffled boom. My camera! The men also heard it, and everyone ran to the vehicles, too impatient to wait to see their prize. Jade climbed into the front seat next to Perkins, as anxious to retrieve her camera as to see the leopard.
They sped past the stables and the horses’ paddock, leaving the farm and the cornfields behind them. In the distance was one lone, scrubby acacia, pruned of its larger branches so that the leopard couldn’t find anything strong enough to perch on. Jade’s camera and the flash pan sat up in the remaining limbs, aimed and focused on what had been the top of the pit trap. With any luck, the cat had taken its own picture just before plunging into the hole.
But the sounds that greeted them when they shut off the engines were not the angry snarls of a leopard. Several high-pitched whoops followed by a cackling laugh erupted from the pit. A cold chill chased down Jade’s spine and she shivered involuntarily. Blast. I’ll never get used to that sound. With it came the image of bandaged, broken bodies, the front lines, and the horror of the shell-shocked wounded, giggling insanely. She took a deep breath and forced herself to think about the present. Best to shinny up the acacia and retrieve the big Graflex before someone knocked it out in the excitement.
“It’s a hyena,” said Cutter. “I thought we were supposed to get a leopard.”
“Looks like someone forgot to tell the leopard,” said Daley. “Do we need a hyena, Bob?”
Perkins peered at his list. “Yep!”
“Bring the cage, boys,” yelled Daley to his crew. “It’s a keeper.”
By the time Cutter and Anderson explained the proceedings to the hired natives and hauled the wooden cage to the edge of the pit, the sun poked over the horizon, spilling liquid gold on the scene. Jade set her camera on the truck seat and retrieved a lariat and a pair of gloves.
The capture crew, expecting an agile leopard, had designed the original extraction scheme with that in mind. The idea was to first rope the animal through the mouth and pull back so it couldn’t bite without biting its own gums. While the cat was preoccupied with its restraint, a bottomless cage would be dropped over him, followed by a half dozen native African men on top to weigh it down. Once they had the animal inside, the rope around the mouth would be relaxed, allowing the leopard to pull free.
It was Jade’s job to wrangle the lariat around the animal’s mouth. She held most of the coiled length in her left hand and held the loop, or honda, in her right.
“We won’t need that, Miss del Cameron,” said Perkins. “We can just lower the box right on top of this critter.”
Jade shrugged and peeled off her gloves. “Suit yourself, Mr. Perkins. That leaves me clear to photograph the capture.” Jade set aside the lariat, grabbed her more portable Kodak from her day pack, and positioned herself to record the proceedings.
One of the men tossed a chunk of meat into the pit. The hyena, a young male judging by his size, fell on it with a hungry purpose. Jade wondered why he was separated from his pack. Hyenas rarely hunted alone. Perhaps there hadn’t been enough game in the vicinity to support all of the animals and the young males had been driven out. Whatever the reason, he didn’t flinch from his meal even as the box dropped on top of him.
Immediately, four African men jumped onto the box to hold it down while Cutter and Anderson slid into the pit, carrying a large wooden panel. The Americans inserted the panel into grooves, and slid the floor into place as the hyena lifted one foot after the other. Last, they slipped ropes under the box and tied them at the top so the box could be hoisted up.
“Done!” called Anderson.
Several Africans hurried to and from the trucks, bringing wooden beams from which they set up an oversized sawhorse with a block and tackle suspended on the central beam. The remaining men in the pit pulled hard on the rope and the hyena, now nervously whooping, was slowly raised up to the surface. Finally, a ladder was lowered for the men to climb out of the pit.
Jade took her last shot of the men carrying the cage to one of the trucks.
“Sorry we didn’t get the leopard, Mr. Daley,” said Jade, putting her camera in her pack.
“Call me Hank and leave that formal stuff to old Perkins,” he said. “And it’s all right. We needed a hyena anyway, so we haven’t lost any time. We can cover up the pit and try again tonight.” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them as if to signify a job well done. “I’m ready for some breakfast, or at least some coffee. Let’s go back to Chalmers’ and see if he’s made a fresh pot.”
When Jade had met Alwyn Chalmers last night, she’d been struck by how homely one man could be. A lean man to begin with, his face looked as though it had been pressed between two boards until the chin poked out sharply at the bottom from the force. At five foot, six inches, he was an inch shorter than Jade, but he made up for it with a tuft of golden brown hair that stuck up like the tassels on his own maize crop. The term “ugly as homemade sin” came to mind.
“Did you get the leopard?” he asked as Jade climbed from the truck and headed toward the veranda. She shook her head and stepped aside.
“A hyena fell in instead,” said Perkins. “But we can try again tonight.”
Chalmers scowled, sucking in his thin cheeks and pulling his long face down even lower. “That cat is a menace!” he said, his voice reedy. “It needs to be taken before it kills White Fire, if it hasn’t already.” His face reddened as his anger grew. “If you can’t get it, then I’ll put out some poison bait and kill it.”
“Is White Fire the pony you’ve run the notice for?” asked Jade. “The one missing for two weeks?”
“Three weeks,” snapped Chalmers. He blushed. “Sorry to be so short, Miss del Cameron, but that was my prize polo pony and best stud. Race week and the big match are coming up in another week and a half. I heard that leopard screaming nearby one night when I was working one of White Fire’s colts, and he took fright. He kicked and his stall door flew open. Before I could stop him, he ran out into the night. I haven’t seen him since. And he probably won’t come back as long as that beast roams this area.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jade. “But it’s possible he’s already dead.”
“In that case, I have a score to settle with that leop
ard. I was willing to let those American friends of yours try to trap it, but I can’t afford to let it take another of my horses.”
“Mr. Perkins and Mr. Daley are my present employers,” said Jade. “I wish you’d give them another chance.” She put her camera equipment in the truck.
Perkins had quietly backed down the veranda steps in the face of Chalmers’ anger. Now he stepped forward at this newest request to plead his own case. “It can’t hurt to let us try again, Mr. Chalmers. The pit’s already dug.”
Chalmers grunted; then his face blanched as a new horror popped into his mind. “White Fire could fall into it. He’d break his leg.”
“I’ll leave some of the native men in one of the blinds to watch for him,” said Perkins. “Let’s all just have some coffee and talk about this like civilized men.”
Jade suspected Perkins wanted coffee as badly as she did, and all pretense of discussion was for the sake of having a cup. Chalmers mumbled that he did have coffee, and Jade offered to fetch it along with cups. Chalmers pointed out the way through the house to the back pantry while he went to the separate kitchen to get the enameled coffeepot. Jade took two steps into the abominably messy front parlor, sidestepping empty wooden crates and a mound of rags, when her attention was caught by a long Maasai spear and a leather shield hanging on the far wall. She instantly forgot all about the coffee.
The spear, as long as a man was tall, was made in three sections. The end pieces were steel joined by a central shaft of dark wood over a foot long. Two black ostrich feathers were attached to the sharp tip with a string of red and black beads. The shield, made of buffalo hide, was about three feet long and two feet wide, coming to points at each of the long ends. The hide was stretched and stitched over a wooden framework and painted a rust red, white, and black. A series of six white diamonds ran down the length in the center, bordered by a strip of red on one side and black on the other. Concentric black arcs graced the side with the red stripe and matching red arcs adorned the other half.
Below the weapons was a small table with a few framed photographs and a decade of dust. One showed five men posing beside and partly in front of a zebra with a very short-cropped mane. A younger-looking Chalmers held the animal’s head with a halter. The other men weren’t identifiable through the accumulated dirt. Beside this photo was a picture of Chalmers posing with a rifle. Behind these two photos was a third picture of a lovely young woman with pale, delicate features and blond hair. Unlike the other photos, this one had been wiped clean. Before Jade could study the image more closely, Chalmers came into the room looking for her.
“Did you get lost, miss?” he asked. He didn’t sound angry, but Jade could tell that the question was a polite way of asking her what the hell she was doing.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Chalmers,” she said. “I saw this spear and shield and couldn’t take my eyes off them. They’re Maasai, aren’t they?” Jade followed him into the back pantry.
“Yes. I picked them up during the war when I joined some of the other chaps around here as mounted volunteer rifles.” He handed two tin cups to Jade and kept four.
Jade noticed he didn’t mention how he had acquired them. “Volunteer rifles?”
“A bit of a home guard, miss. Never saw much action, though.”
“Do you know what the feathers on the spear mean?”
“Peace. That’s why they’re on the tip.”
He escorted her outside and handed a mug each to Perkins, Cutter, and Anderson. Jade passed her extra cup to Daley while Chalmers poured a thick black brew into Cutter’s mug. Cutter took a sip and winced. He tried another and coughed.
“Too strong for you, Mr. Cutter?” asked Chalmers.
“No,” Cutter squeaked.
Jade could tell by the pungent aroma that the coffee had bubbled past the point of no return, and she knew it would be bitter. She also knew this was a test of some sort, and she was going to have to represent the Americans. She smiled and hoisted her mug in a toast.
“Here’s mud in your eye,” she said and, after testing the coffee with her lips for temperature, drained the cup in three gulps. “That might keep me awake.” She set the cup on the veranda railing. “Thanks, Mr. Chalmers. Now, are you going to give us another chance at that leopard tonight?”
Chalmers waggled his head as though he was still thinking about it and walked over to confer with Cutter.
“We really need to give that leopard another chance,” Jade said to her bosses.
Daley nodded and fished in his pocket for a cigarette. “Especially as it’s reported to be a female,” he said. “A mated pair sells for three times what a lone male fetches.” He watched as Cutter grabbed a gunny sack and a pole from the truck and ran off to an outbuilding. “Now where do you suppose Frank’s going?”
Jade shrugged. “Outhouse?” But why would he take a sack and pole? To the side, she caught sight of Chalmers chuckling as he walked into the house. “Hey, Wayne, what’s Frank up to?”
Anderson hurried over to her. “Chalmers told him there was a small animal hiding under the woodshed we could have if he wanted it. Something called a zorilla.”
“Zorilla, huh?” said Daley. “Sounds like gorilla. Some kind of monkey, Jade?”
She shoved her empty coffee mug into her boss’ hands. “Hold this,” she said, and raced after Cutter. When she caught up with him, he was squatting next to a burrow, poking the stick into it. “No, Frank!” she yelled.
Cutter turned, pulling out the pole as he stood. “What? I can hear him in there.”
“You’re going to get more than that if you don’t get out of the way.” She grabbed his sleeve and jerked him back just as a small, bushy-tailed creature emerged, its fur bristling.
“Holy cow, it’s a danged skunk!” shouted Cutter.
The black-and-white polecat sprang forward and backward on its stiff, stumpy legs, growling and screaming.
“Back away, slowly,” said Jade as she took her own advice. “If he starts to turn around, beat it fast.” She got to the edge of the shed and ducked behind it.
The zorilla wasn’t mollified by their retreat. He pivoted and let spray, covering a wide arc, part of which caught Cutter’s shoes. He let loose a furious stream of cuss words.
Chalmers was sitting on his porch stoop chuckling to himself until he saw Jade’s stern look. “Very funny,” she said. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Chalmers never had a chance to answer. They were interrupted by the puttering chug of a well-worn engine. Everyone turned to see who was driving up the road, and Jade heard Chalmers mutter under his breath. The newcomer was his northern neighbor, Charles Harding.
Charles Harding was a medium-built man with a protruding stomach, long, skinny legs and next to no backside, making his suspenders indispensable for keeping up his dungarees. His solar topee hat sat atop dingy yellow hair gone to white at the temples. The effect was echoed by his equally dingy linen shirt and slightly jaundiced eyes.
Harding reached into the seat next to him and extracted a large wooden crate with the words ALL-PURE CANNED MEATS painted on the side. His hands and arms bore many scratches, as though he’d been in a blackberry patch. He handed the crate to Daley, who lifted the lid.
“I’d be careful if I were you. They’re small, but full of mean,” said Harding. “Shot their mother last night on my land.”
Jade peered over Daley’s shoulder at two snarling and spitting leopard cubs, about seven weeks old.
CHAPTER 3
Leopards, due to their stealth, are feared and figure in many sayings.
“The leopard has a beautiful coat, but an evil heart”
smacks of our own “Beauty is only skin-deep.” Yet “Even the
fierce leopard will not devour her cubs.”
—The Traveler
BOTH MR. DALEY and Mr. Perkins stared at the box’s scrappy contents as though their minds couldn’t reconcile what they saw with what they heard.
“You shot the mother?
” Jade asked. “The one we’ve been trying to capture?”
The question was rhetorical at best. Jade had even anticipated such a result, but it didn’t make the reality any easier to accept. The fact that this second leopard was nursing and providing for kittens went a long way toward explaining why she’d remained in this area and hunted the domestic animals. It also made the outcome more predictable and tragic.
The first leopard had put up enough of a struggle. A mother would have fought desperately against the ropes and the box, to the point of doing serious injury to herself or the handlers. And once they’d captured her, there would have been no way to find her young. Old Africa was at war with the new. At least these cubs had survived this latest skirmish between the farms and cities versus the ancient ways of the plains and hills. The fact that they were young made them more tractable. They would adjust, but either way, another part of wild Africa was lost.
Bob Perkins’ thoughts had probably followed similar lines because his protest seemed little more than token words. “You should have told us she was on your land, Mr. Harding. We might have taken her alive.”
“Not without serious risk,” said Harding. “And I couldn’t afford to lose more livestock to her. I tracked her and shot her near her lair.” He spared a glance for Chalmers and gave one short nod. “Alwyn,” he said.
“Charles,” responded Chalmers.
Jade noticed that the men used each other’s first names, which suggested friendship, but the greetings were curt and the voices cool. Had they had a falling-out?
“It was good of you to save the kittens,” said Jade.
“I expect they’re worth one hundred pounds apiece,” answered Harding. “Assumed you chaps would just as soon have something young rather than that hellcat anyway.” He reached into the back of his truck and pulled out a swollen goatskin bag. “Here, this is full of goat’s milk. I rubbed the bag against the mother so it would smell like her. Ought to take one of the corners like a teat. I wouldn’t have let them starve to death. That’s too cruel even for a leopard.”
The Leopard's Prey Page 4
