The Leopard's Prey

by Suzanne Arruda

  Neville’s mouth gaped, as though taken aback by the thanks. “Of course,” he said after a moment’s pause. “One might deal with lesser bouts of the blasted disease at home but not one of that scale. The good news is some types of malaria don’t seem to come back again, so this may be it for Sam.”

  “It was good of you, Jade,” said Maddy, “to come out here so early to give us news.”

  “It’s not my only reason,” said Jade.

  “Yes, of course,” said Madeline. “You came to tell us that the Dunburys have come home. Such a surprise. I cannot imagine what you must have thought. Neville, of course, told me yesterday evening. I must own that I would never have expected Beverly to make such a long voyage in her condition, but I’m sure she’s glowing.”

  Jade waited until her friend had stopped prattling, something Maddy did when worried. “No more surprised than I was. It appears they missed Africa and all of us too much to wait. Bev’s fine. She wanted to surprise you by having you come to the house later today.”

  Madeline’s eyes brightened and her smile relaxed the worry lines on her forehead. “Of course, we shall come. After we see Sam, we’ll go straight to their home.” She turned to Neville and peered up at him pleadingly, one palm resting on his shirtfront. “Won’t we, Neville? We won’t stay the night, of course. It would only be for the afternoon.”

  Neville patted his wife’s hand. “Of course, darling. If the coffee washer operates, we can take one more afternoon off. Kimathi can see that the final work gets done.”

  “Speaking of Kimathi, I need to borrow him this morning to help me drag out the plane and then pull the prop.” Jade explained the need to take Sam’s plane up and scout for a young rhino. “I won’t keep him long. He’ll be back before it’s time for your elevenses.”

  “Oh, Jade,” said Madeline, “are you ready to solo?”

  She nodded. “I can handle it. I’ve had the best teachers.” The plain truth was, Jade herself didn’t feel as confident as she sounded. She knew she’d only logged a grand total of sixteen hours of flight time in her life. But Sam trusted her and she couldn’t let him down.

  “Do you need my help as well?” asked Neville.

  “Thanks but no. Kimathi has been through this procedure many times with Sam, so he knows what to do, and it only takes one man to turn the prop.”

  Neville called for Kimathi, a tall Kikuyu who had taken on the role of foreman several years ago. “Memsabu Simba Jike will fly Bwana Mti Mguu’s aeroplane,” he said, referring to Sam by the Africans’ name for him, “tree leg.” “Come back here when she goes up, but listen for her return and help her again.”

  “I’ll buzz the house when I’m back,” Jade suggested. “You won’t be able to miss me.”

  Biscuit started to follow her as she climbed back aboard her motorcycle and invited Kimathi to ride aboard the seat over the rear wheel. “No, Biscuit, stay.” She didn’t want to worry about him being in the way during takeoff. “Maddy, can you get Biscuit?”

  Madeline took Biscuit by the collar and held on to him. “Be careful,” she called over the noise of Jade’s cycle. It was an unnecessary admonition. Jade had every intention of doing just that. She adjusted the throttle, and she and Kimathi rode off north to the edge of Neville’s farm and Sam’s makeshift hangar.

  Jade first reoiled all the engine holes. Then she began her walk around the plane, checking the tail skid, twanging all the wires to see if they were tight and unfrayed. She studied the fabric skin on the wings, looking for any rents or holes. She added a few drops of oil to the hinges on the ailerons as well as those on the rear elevators and rudder. After that, she squatted down and inspected the wheels, making sure that the bungee cords that acted as shock absorbers were tight and the bracing wires were intact. What should have taken an hour took two as she did everything twice and more slowly.

  In her mind, she re-created Sam’s motions, never deviating from his routine lest she overlook anything. But imagining Sam brought back her last sight of him in the hospital, haggard and worn. She tightened her lips and forced herself to focus.

  This is no time to get maudlin.

  The honor of his trust in her was more than counterbalanced by the burden of responsibility. Jade was a good mechanic, having maintained her old flivver, or Model T, ambulance during the war. She also felt at home with her Indian Big Twin motorcycle’s motor. But all those machines had been hers and they stayed on the ground.

  While Kimathi stood by, Jade stood on the wheels and drained a little fluid from the bottom of the fuel tank, removing any water that might have settled. Then Kimathi pumped gasoline from Sam’s barrel into a debe, climbed up onto a stack of crates, and filled the tank while Jade inspected the rubber hosing. She filled the radiator, checked the prop, and finally decided she was ready to take the plane up. She and Kimathi grabbed the plane’s wing holds and moved it out of the little hangar and into the slight morning breeze.

  Sam had purchased a trainer, a plane with controls in both cockpits, but instruments only in the rear one. In practice, a trained pilot sat in the front while the student flew from the rear. If the student “froze” or otherwise put them in danger, the real pilot could take over. Jade had sat back here before, but this time there was no one in the front. The sight of that empty front seat sent a quiver into her stomach.

  Get ahold of yourself!

  She put her left foot in the recessed stirrup and stepped up. Behind the pilot’s head was a little space to store a canteen or some other small item. Jade shoved her Berber pouch in there next to Sam’s logbook and a spare canteen. Time to mount up. She swung her right leg over the side and pulled her left leg in. The narrow cockpit gave the pilot just enough room to sit, not to fidget. This backseat felt even more constrained because Sam’s friends, the “Bert Boys,” had rigged his rudder bar to work from a hand control as well as with the feet. Sam had discovered that his wooden leg didn’t impede controlling the rudder as much as everyone had feared, so he rarely used the new controls. But they were still there, and her knee brushed them when she tightened her restraining belt.

  This is it, girl. From her elevated position, she watched Kimathi move nearer to the propeller.

  As before, Jade retarded the magneto switch and primed the engine. Then she turned on the switch and cracked the throttle. “Contact,” she shouted over the side. Kimathi swung the propeller and moved out of the way. Once again, Jade was caught by the sensation that the plane, like a good horse, had a will to run and only waited for Jade to let her have her head. Jade opened up the throttle, and swept down the field, keeping the plane on the ground until the rpm gauge registered fourteen hundred rpms. She felt the plane jostle over the bumpy terrain as the grasses turned into a blurring rush of olive green. Above, to her right, she spied a black-shouldered kite, his wings outstretched as if in rapturous praise. Then, with a pull on the stick, she experienced the sensation of being suspended as she let the Jenny rise and joined the bird, soaring over the grasslands.

  The cool air helped with takeoff, especially as the morning sun did its part in creating breezes. The OX-5 engine sounded soft and sweet to her ears, its low, throaty purr reminiscent of Biscuit’s peaceful rumblings. Beyond that, silence. She increased her speed, climbed gently to one thousand feet, and began her turn. As she circled back over the hangar, she waved to Kimathi. He waved back and started the walk back to the house and his duties in the coffee fields. Jade was left alone, swaddled in fine Irish linen and a sapphire sky.

  She peered over the side, feeling the slipstream caress her face. Keeping the sun on her right, she headed north toward Fort Hall, then due west toward the more open land. Bob Perkins had thought Sam might find a young rhino near the Maasai reserves. She’d already decided that the most interesting route would be to head to Naivasha, skirt the lake’s southern side, and slip southwest into the rich plains between the Mau Escarpment and the Ngong Hills.

  Maps didn’t always mean much out here. Most of the existin
g ones were old and didn’t include the newer settlements or show anything beyond the farthest reaches of the Uganda railroad. Rivers were scrawled more or less haphazardly with bends where they didn’t exist.

  Sam had taken the best map he could get, made notations, and even drawn in a few of the newer homesteads and dirt tracts. Jade had found it with his logbook in the same tiny compartment where she’d stowed her water. She’d looked over the map that morning, plotted a course, and written down compass bearings. If she spotted a rhino, she needed to be able to get the location back to her employers as accurately as possible. Check that. She needed to get the information to Sam to give to them. This was his job.

  She planned to fly within sight of recognizable landmarks as much as possible. Below her stood Fort Hall, with its lone trading post and civic station. Just southwest of there they had caught the first leopard. That meant Alwyn Chalmers’ maize farm was close by. She doubted his missing polo pony was still alive, but if it was, she might spot it from the air and help the man out.

  Horses were social animals. If it hadn’t come home, then it had probably found company with its closest African relation and was keeping to the edge of a zebra herd. Jade spied what looked like a herd of something a few degrees south of her intended path. She banked, her feet adjusting the rudder bar while her right hand on the stick moved the ailerons to keep a smooth turn. Once again, her thoughts turned to Sam and his description of flying.

  Most of it isn’t done with hands or feet, he’d said. You fly with your head and by the seat of your pants. Then he joked that since some pilots he’d known had their heads up their rears, they thought they could fly better than him since the communication from brain to butt was shorter. It doesn’t work that way, he’d concluded.

  The herd was a mix of zebra and wildebeest. Jade pushed the stick forward and dropped enough to see the animals better. Nothing that looked like a pony stood out. Too bad. She climbed back up and headed toward the railroad crossing at Naivasha.

  Naivasha, home to cattle auctions and a gorgeous lake, boasted a hotel in addition to the railway station. Recently it had become a popular holiday spot for Nairobiites looking to get away for a day, hoping to see the wildlife they had evicted from their own lands. She turned south just past the railway station and followed the rail line. A black vehicle approached from the west, one of the district farmers perhaps. To her right, Naivasha Lake gleamed, a cobalt gem circled by pink flamingos.

  Jade flew toward the lake and dropped to get a better look. Two hippos lounged in the papyrus-fringed shallows, and several pelicans sat on the shore in attendance. An African fish eagle rose beside her, riding a thermal. She took in his white head and back flanked by great black wings. Her heart beat faster as she shared his dominion. Deciding she’d better not share it too closely, she veered toward the land just as the eagle dove for a meal. Jade tore her attention from the freshwater paradise and concentrated on the grasslands. After all, she wouldn’t spot any rhino in the lake.

  Mount Longonot rose in a graceful blue haze to the south with more than six miles of scrubby plains between it and the lake. Jade held the stick between her knees and consulted the map. She was in the Great Rift. About twenty miles west of her position rose the Mau Escarpment, but before that, there was a spot identified as Hell’s Gate, where red volcanic rock jutted out in dramatic columnar walls and steam vents exhaled Satan’s breath. Maasai land. Maybe not a good place to fly. She’d stick to these plains.

  A quick glance over the side revealed a herd of grazing buffalo, then several giraffe browsing among the acacia trees. Nearby roamed some tiny creatures that might have been dik-diks. No rhino. As she again turned the Jenny’s nose west, she spied a decrepit-looking farmhouse nestled against Longonot’s gentler tip. The dirt tract leading up to it looked fresh enough to still be in use. Jade didn’t see any evidence of cattle or crops and wondered if the place had been recently abandoned. Then she noted the even more dilapidated truck parked under a lone acacia tree. Perhaps not completely abandoned.

  Jade crisscrossed the plains twice before fortune blessed her just south of the lake’s lowest reach. If her eyes didn’t deceive her, a pair of black rhinos lounged under an acacia just ahead. She passed by, but the tree blocked part of her view. One definitely looked like a calf, but she couldn’t quite make out the mother. She circled and came back around. Sure enough, there was a calf, but now Jade could tell that the mother was not lounging. She was dead, and the baby had no intention of leaving the only protection it had ever known.

  “Hot biscuits!” Jade exclaimed. Many collectors, she knew, captured calves by shooting the mother, a practice Jade abhored. Since a mother rhino wasn’t easily run off from her young, killing her tended to be the only way to get the calf. Jade wondered how this mother had died. The railroad was only a few miles east of them. Perhaps she’d had a run-in with the locomotive.

  Rhinos had been known to charge the puffing engines, usually to the animal’s demise. If this female had survived the immediate confrontation, her injuries might have been severe enough to eventually take their toll. Most animals died on the spot when they’d been dealt a bullet to the heart or brain, but as Jade knew from her experience in Tsavo over a year ago, someone always forgot to tell the rhino. They had a tendency to run on pure momentum and anger.

  Another war casualty. But, like the leopard cubs, this calf had survived its brush with civilization. She’d turn back, pass on the information, and then let her bosses pick up the calf.

  Her engine shuddered. What the hell? Maybe she’d just hit one of those invisible booby traps where the air changed density. She was close enough to Hell’s Gate that there might be steam pockets where rising gases supplanted the oxygen needed for the engine to operate.

  The engine sputtered again, an old man’s cough replacing the throaty purr.

  Definitely time to turn back. If she could get as far as Naivasha, she could put down and get tools from someone there.

  But then, the engine went dead, and only primeval silence filled the cockpit.

  CHAPTER 13

  Warriors value the companionship of other warriors and, at some point later

  in their career, will live in the manyatta, a warrior village. We might think of it

  as an exclusive men’s club.

  —The Traveler

  SAM WOKE TO the pungent scent of disinfectant and the feeling that someone had replaced his tongue with a cotton wad. He didn’t think he could form enough spit to shine an ant’s shoes. He forced his eyes open and stared at the arrangement of beds, ordered like a barracks. His mind felt as foggy as his mouth, and he couldn’t comprehend the sight. He thrashed and his right arm brushed the top of the chair, knocking Jade’s note to the floor and under the bed.

  It must have been those dreams. So real. He could hear the roar of wind race past his ears, feel the plane buck against a strong crosswind, forced into a turn in a dogfight. But the wildest part was that he was flying a Jenny against the Germans. I flew a Spad.

  Sam closed his eyes and tried to gather his wits. There had been other sensations, other illusions or, more accurately, delusions. He’d felt the phantom pains in his missing lower leg and absentmindedly tried to ease it by rubbing the other leg against it. But he couldn’t move. His legs were pinned. He shuddered and once again felt the terror of his capture and imprisonment. Maybe I wasn’t dreaming. Maybe I’m still in the camp. He pushed the fear further back in his mind before it could take hold. Instead, he focused on one of the last thoughts he remembered. He could have sworn that he was home in Battle Ground, Indiana. He knew it was impossible, yet the feelings were so genuine, he could smell the fresh-cut hay and feel the sweat on his back. His mother brought him something to drink, lemonade, and he gulped it down before rejoining his brothers in the field. Gotta make hay while the sun shines.

  He thought he remembered hearing Jade’s voice once, but that made no sense. Jade doesn’t live in Indiana. He drifted back into oblivion o
nce more.

  You can do this, Jade told herself. It’s just a landing. The problem was finding the best spot. With Hell’s Gate in front of her and to the south, and the lake to the north, her options were limited. The beautiful grasslands had too many obstacles in the manner of wildlife.

  Even without power, the plane could glide for a while, especially if she could catch an updraft and ride it back up a little, like a vulture. It gave her a bit of time. She glided west, riding into the airstream pulled down from the distant Mau Escarpment, which created a small headwind. Huge cliffs, made from column after column of basalt, acted like a gate, beckoning her to enter the wild lands beyond. A few isolated volcanic towers dotted the landscape to the south. Here all the air became heated by the sun baking the red rocks. Too many rocks. She needed to set down now. She spied a level-looking patch without any wildlife to clutter up a decent runway.

  Hard on a plane, colliding with a wildebeest.

  Jade was too high to make this field, so she executed a gentle spiral to decrease her altitude. Even then she felt she was coming in too fast, so she used her rudder and turned the plane’s nose a few degrees out of the wind in a sideslip, letting the breeze hit the fuselage to act as a brake. So far so good. She was now about six feet above ground and had a decent stretch in front of her. She straightened out and put the nose right into the wind.

  Jade felt the wheels make contact and eased back on the stick to bring the tail skid down. Immediately she felt the plane jolt and buck. The grass was deceptive. It hid myriad dirt clods, dried dung chips, and volcanic rocks.

  The Jenny skidded to a halt with one final buck. Jade jerked forward. Her head struck the panel and she dropped into black silence.