A Touch of Betrayal

by Catherine Palmer

  “We must capture him and take him to the district commissioner ourselves,” Grant said. “I will be the man to take his weapon.”

  The warriors studied their white friend, clearly assessing his ability to perform this most difficult of tasks. “Good,” Kakombe announced. “By this deed, you will prove your worth for the Eunoto. You will be our leader in this attack.”

  With one accord, the men began creeping silently through the grass toward the cluster of acacia trees. Heart hammering, Grant led them single file behind the tree under which the bare-chested Jones sat. The man’s dyed orange hair was matted with sweat. Flies danced around his face. The pistol lay cradled in his lap.

  Grant selected a round stone. Rising to his knees, he heaved it beyond the tree. When it thumped into the grass, Jones jerked upright.

  “Who’s there?” he called in the direction of the fallen stone. He lifted his gun into position.

  Grant tossed a second stone, this time causing it to land about ten feet to the side of the first. Jones leapt to his feet, swung the pistol and fired off three rounds. Pop, pop, pop.

  Grant glanced over his shoulder to find the Maasai warriors covering their ears in pain at the loud report. Frowning, he beckoned them. Certain they would follow, he charged out from behind the tree and plowed into Jones. The man yelped in surprise as he tumbled to the ground. Grant grabbed for the gun.

  Pop, pop, pop. Bullets sprayed harmlessly into the air. Grant smashed his fist into his enemy’s nose. They wrestled for control of the weapon as Jones struggled to aim it at Grant. Pop, pop. A bullet knocked a chunk out of the thorn-tree trunk.

  And then a spear sliced through the air and into Jones’s biceps, pinning his arm to the ground. A second spear tore through his pant leg. He let out a scream. Grant jerked the handgun from the man’s clutches.

  “Take the weapon, Kakombe!” Grant shouted, handing over the gun. “Now talk to me, man. Who are you working for?”

  “Get this spear out of my—” He let off a string of cursing.

  Grant jerked the spear tip from the man’s arm. Instantly Jones rolled to his side and leaped to his feet, tearing open the leg of his trousers. Blood streaming, he took off running.

  The warriors let out a whoop of delight and started after their prey. Grant caught up with the group just as the Maasai surrounded their quarry, spears pointed at his chest. Backed against a towering red anthill, Jones had grabbed his arm and was sputtering a string of invective. Spotting Grant, he moved as if to run, and four spears sliced neatly into him— two pinning his arms to the anthill and two immobilizing his legs.

  “Get these maniacs away from me!” he thundered at Grant. “They’re savages! They’re gonna kill me!”

  Grant cocked his hands at his waist. “You’re the savage, Jones.”

  “What are they—cannibals or something?”

  Grant’s translation for the warriors led to a round of guffaws. Loomali opened his calabash and splashed a little of the bloody milk mixture into Jones’s face. The man bellowed in terror, writhing against the blades that pinned him to the anthill.

  “Look,” he blubbered. “I’m just a guy trying to make a living, you know? I write poetry—ask Miss Prescott.”

  “You don’t deserve to speak her name,” Grant growled.

  “Hey, I didn’t have nothing against the lady. I was just doing my job.”

  “Who paid you to kill her?”

  “I don’t know his name. Honest.”

  Grant knew the man would not hold out long. “I guess you realize your predicament here,” he said. “All we have to do is walk away and leave you impaled on this anthill.”

  “Anthill?” Jones’s eyes bulged. “You mean like in the movies? Where the ants come out and . . . and . . .”

  Grant considered informing the man that these ants were harmless termites and wouldn’t be interested in his fleshy hide. They were nothing like the voracious safari ants that moved in long, black columns over dead birds and picked them clean to the bone. Termites were more interested in wood. But already Jones’s imagination had taken over, and he began to writhe in terror.

  “What’s that?” he screeched. “Is there one on my neck? I feel something crawling down my collar!”

  Grant inspected the fly that had lit on the gunman’s sweaty flesh. “You’ve got trouble there, for sure,” he said in a grim tone. “Won’t be much longer until they start to swarm. It could get pretty uncomfortable for you before the end. But, hey, if you don’t want to talk—”

  “James Cooper,” he blurted. “The guy’s a stockbroker in New York. He was pulling down some kind of scam on the lady—putting her money into a phony account or something. Ow! The ant bit me! Look, you gotta get me off this hill!”

  Grant plucked a termite from the mound and dangled it between Jones’s eyes. “So James Cooper contacted you?”

  “Not him.” He was sobbing now. “He knew a guy who knew me. I got half the money up front—plus the plane tickets and expenses. But I don’t care about the rest of the dough. It don’t matter to me. Just get me out of this godforsaken country.”

  “This is a God-blessed country, and don’t forget it. Now tell me your real name.”

  “Sam. Sam Jones.”

  “That’s not what Alexandra called you.” Grant lowered the termite. “Full name.”

  “Frank Jones.”

  Grant let out a breath. “You give me your name or you die.” He placed the termite on the man’s eyelid.

  “Ow! Ow! Okay, okay—it’s John Franklin. I swear that’s my name. Look, take out my driver’s license. My passport. That’s my name, okay? Get that ant off me!”

  Grant brushed the hapless termite to the ground and dug in the man’s pocket for his wallet. Without bothering to check data that he knew could be fake, he slipped it into his own pocket.

  “Well, Franklin, or whoever you are,” Grant said, “I’m thinking I’ll just leave you here. You deserve to have jackals tear you to pieces and vultures pluck out your eyes. Did you know a lion’s tongue can lick the skin right off your body— while you’re still alive? But they prefer to go for the throat. One bite will crush your windpipe—”

  “Don’t do that to me! I swear I’ll spill the beans on Cooper and everybody in the deal. You’ll get everything you need to know. Just let me go! I’m bleeding to death here already!”

  Grant pondered for a moment. Then he turned to the warriors and spoke in Maasai. “Set free the hippopotamus.”

  Loomali stepped forward. “This man shamed me. Brother, permit me to slit his throat.”

  “If you kill him, he will not be able to speak the truth about those who wanted to kill Alexandra. God forbids me to kill—and because I love you, I cannot allow you to make such a mistake. What other form of justice will satisfy you, my friend?”

  “In Maasai tradition, this man would owe me many bullocks.”

  “How many?”

  Loomali considered. “Forty-nine.”

  “Forty-nine is the payment for murder.”

  The warrior smiled. “You know our ways too well. Thirty bullocks will satisfy me.”

  Grant took out his captive’s wallet and removed enough money to pay for the cattle. Jones wailed that he was being robbed, blubbered about the ants he was certain were swarming to devour him, and mumbled at the disastrous turn of events.

  “I shoulda stayed in New York,” he groaned as the warriors pulled their spears from his arms and tied his hands behind his back. “Why’d I ever come here?”

  Grant tore strips from one of the warriors’ togas and tied them around his captive’s wounds. “We will take the hippopotamus to the lodge at Amboseli,” he said. “It is not far from this place.”

  “Africa,” Jones muttered as Loomali and Kakombe prodded him forward with their spears. “What a terrible place.”

  Grant raked his fingers through his damp hair and started walking. How could Alexandra feel any different about the country in which she had experienced such
pain and fear? How could she think kindly toward a continent that had permitted three encounters with death?

  Alexandra would never return to Africa, Grant realized as he sipped from Kakombe’s calabash. And how could he ever leave?

  Alexandra stretched out in the hammock that swung between a couple of big Texas pecan trees and tried to sleep. Two weeks had passed since her surgery at the hospital in Dallas. As she recuperated on the Prescott family ranch south of the metropolis, she did her best to put the past behind her.

  “Do you want the newspaper, Miz Prescott?” Uncle Zeke’s son now managed the small spread. Carrying a pile of mail in his arms, Pete ambled toward the hammock. “And you got a bunch of them padded envelopes from New York, too. You want me to put ’em in the house?”

  Alexandra sighed. “I’ll take them here.”

  “Okeydoke.” Pete set the mail beside her and flipped open the Dallas paper. “You want me to read you the weather again?”

  “No. It’s okay.” She paused, struggling. “Well . . . just tell me if it rained yet.”

  “It’s seventy-six degrees in Nairobi,” he said. “And sunny.”

  Alexandra stared up at the leafy pecan branches. She had to get past this compulsion to read the world’s weather listings every day. It would rain in Kenya one of these days. The Eunoto would take place. Grant Thornton would attend. Life was going on there without her.

  “That weather over there in Africa sure troubles you, Miz Prescott,” Pete said, pushing back his straw hat and scratching his forehead. “Them folks havin’ a drought or somethin’?”

  “No, it’s just that rain is necessary to them. . . . See, I’ve been thinking about this little boy with a bad leg. . . . I met a wonderful old lady I might never see again . . . and there was this man who . . . oh, never mind.” She swallowed hard and tried to force a smile. “Thanks, Pete.”

  “Sure.” He jammed his hands down into the pockets of his jeans. “Miz Prescott, I don’t mean to pry into your bidness or nothin’, but Josefina’s been goin’ half-crazy over all them telephone calls comin’ into the house. She’s threatenin’ to quit, and the hands ain’t too happy about losin’ such a good cook. I was just wonderin’ if you’d mind talkin’ to some of them New York folk that’s been callin’ here day and night. I mean, you got messages from doctors, lawyers—you name it. The mail’s been pilin’ up, too, and all you got the gumption to do is ask me to read the Africa weather report.” He sucked in a breath that swelled his chest. “Well, I’m just wonderin’ if you might ought to pay your doctor another visit. You got the blues badder’n I ever saw ’em.”

  Alexandra shut her eyes and struggled to hold back the emotion. “I’m just so . . . lonely.”

  “Aw, Miz Prescott, I bet you are.”

  “I never knew how it felt to be connected to people. I miss . . . everybody.”

  “Why don’t you give ’em a call? There’s folk up in New York just about to go crazy to talk to you. From the messages Josefina’s been takin’ down, looks like they caught the feller that plugged you. And they got the snake that hired him to do it. I reckon every lawyer in the big city wants to handle your case. And there’s some lady askin’ for your artwork, too. She’s been pitchin’ a downright hissy-fit to get her hands on some designs she says you promised her. Shoot, you got enough people wantin’ a piece of you to fill up this whole ranch.”

  They all wanted a piece of her, Alexandra acknowledged. That was right. They didn’t love her for who she was—as had Sambeke, Mayani, Mama Hannah, Grant . . .

  Had Grant ever truly loved her? Alexandra studied the cowboy whose brown eyes reflected his concern. Of all the calls and letters that had come in, none had been from Grant. Even if he had loved her—just a little—it hadn’t been enough to forge an unbreakable bond between them. He had let her go back to the world in which she had insisted she belonged. And he had stayed in his world.

  She had surrendered her need for her money. She had worked through her fear of death. Now she must submit to the Lord her aching passion for Grant Thornton.

  “Just let me know what I can do for you, Miz Prescott,” Pete said. “You want Josefina to bring you some lemonade— nice and cold?”

  Alexandra shook her head. “Thanks anyway, Pete. Tell Josefina I’ll come to the house in a while and start answering those messages.”

  The rancher smiled. “Sure thing, ma’am.”

  As he sauntered away, she leaned back in the hammock. Father God, she prayed, I give you my love for Grant Thornton. Teach me how to live without him.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Fabulous! Absolutely marvelous!” Barbara Stein spread her long, red-polished nails across the stack of designs on Alexandra’s dining room table. “Darling, you were inspired!”

  “I guess I was.” Alexandra had asked the head of the firm’s New York design team to visit her condominium penthouse to take a look at her sketches. Although Alexandra had been back in the city almost two weeks, she hadn’t had the energy to make the trip downtown. Barb had been more than willing to drive out to Westchester County, and her response to Alexandra’s work was gratifying.

  “This line is going to go so fast it’ll make your head spin,” Barb gushed. “I’ll bet we see it in Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus. And you know the discount chains will be scrambling to follow up. I predict your fabrics will be the look for the coming season.”

  Alexandra ran her fingertip over the detailed rendition of Grant Thornton’s green canvas tent with the spiky thorn branches silhouetted in black. “This idea came from an acacia tree in the camp—”

  “I’d love to show these to some of the top home interior designers,” Barb cut in. “What would you say to that, Alexandra?”

  “I guess I could see sheets in these patterns.”

  “Sheets? I’m talking upholstery! Curtains!” She pointed to the geometric design that incorporated blocks of coral from Fort Jesus juxtaposed against the ocean. “I mean these colors are simply fabulous. The turquoise! The terra cotta! This could go beyond the whole Africa thing. This could be Southwest. Or Aztec. You know how huge the Aztec look is becoming.”

  “But it’s not South America. It’s Africa. This is coral from an old Portuguese fort—”

  “And the beadwork! Alexandra, this pattern doesn’t belong on a fabric. These necklaces and earrings should be created—actually beaded and sold as jewelry.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. There’s a tribe in Kenya— the Maasai. The women design and execute wonderful beaded jewelry. And the money they would earn from their handicrafts could go to things like medicine. Their children are suffering. And the water situation is—”

  “Ralph Lauren.” Barb’s eyes had glazed over. “That’s who I’m thinking with these beads. Can you see this necklace against one of his dresses? Alexandra, he’d adore it.”

  Rafloren. Alexandra smiled wistfully. Yes, the Maasai women would agree. All her drawings were very Rafloren.

  “I almost hate to say this because I know you’ve been through such trauma, darling,” Barb said, “but these designs could propel you to the top. Straight to the top of this industry. You could achieve that goal of yours, you know. You could start your own firm. There are . . . some of us . . . who’d join you.”

  “Barb? Are you saying you’d step aboard a fledgling business if I’d start it?”

  “You’ve got talent, lady. I’ve been in this business long enough to know how important it is to go with the visionary designers. And right now you’re it—the one with the dream.” She smiled broadly. “Besides . . . you’ve got the wherewithal to make the whole thing happen.”

  Alexandra felt her spirits sink. Money. That’s what it was all about, wasn’t it? Although James Cooper had frittered a great deal of her money away, a substantial amount remained. During Cooper’s trial, his worth would be assessed. She was bound to be awarded a chunk of his assets.

  “No, Barb,” she said suddenly. “I don’t have the money.”
>
  “But I thought . . .” The woman’s face paled. “All the papers said . . .”

  “I’ve set up endowments with my father’s money. It’s going to hospitals like Mayo to fund research into tropical diseases. It’ll be used for anthropological research. And I’ve been thinking about starting a project with the Maasai women. Maybe I’ll even try to make that Ralph Lauren connection.”

  Barb stared unblinking. “You’re not going to start your own design firm?”

  Alexandra shrugged and gave the woman a smile. It still amazed her how good surrender felt. She didn’t regret the loss of her dream at all. In fact, she had new dreams.

  “Money is a gift,” she said. “It was given to me. And now I want to give it to others.”

  Barb gave an incredulous laugh. “Well, I’ll take some of it. Alexandra, I can’t believe this. It doesn’t sound like you at all. Honey, what happened to you over there in Africa? You’re . . . different.”

  “A lot happened. It was more than just the shooting. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Don’t even try. You’re scaring me half to death. I hope it’s nothing contagious.” Barb gathered up the designs. “Look, these are going to be great. The CEO is going to go wild over them. But, Alexandra . . . please. Try to get yourself together before you come into work.”

  “Together?”

  Barb’s red nails touched Alexandra’s hair. “You’ve gone . . . soft. Shaggy. You need a trip to the salon, darling. Get yourself a manicure. Have a makeover. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

  “Oh, Barb—”

  “And those shoes.” She frowned at the rubber-tire sandals on Alexandra’s feet. “Really, honey. You look like some kind of a derelict.”

  Tucking the designs under her arm, Barb headed for the door. Alexandra followed, trying hard not to laugh out loud. Derelict. That was exactly what she had first thought of Grant Thornton. How wrong she had been!

  “Promise me you’ll do something about the hair?” Barb said in the doorway.

  “Miss Prescott?” The doorman’s voice came over the intercom. “Miss Prescott, you have a package down here. Shall I bring it up?”