by Rula Sinara
“Is that true? You’re trying to stop a law that would discourage the retaliatory killing?” Haki got up from his chair without meeting her eyes. He didn’t have to. His mere tone made her stomach tense. He leaned forward, braced his hands flat against the table and stared at the spot where his plate had been. “A law that would protect the intelligent, compassionate and persecuted beings your family has dedicated their lives to helping? You have some nerve coming to dinner.”
Maddie, the Trojan horse. She licked her lips and cocked her head toward him. No one at the table spoke, especially not wide-eyed Huru and Noah, who’d either figured out that silence was a form of self-preservation or were starved for entertainment.
“Yes, it’s true. Let’s talk about why. You make it sound wrong, but hear me out.”
“I’ve heard enough. I can’t believe all of you. I won’t be taking her anywhere.” He left the table and stalked toward the front door.
“Hak-man,” Jack called after him. “We have a saying in America. ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’ Sorry, Maddie. Don’t take that the wrong way. We love you, but you all get the point,” he added, addressing everyone including Haki.
Haki turned and, for the first time since he’d freed her from the ladder, he looked directly at her. His lids sank at the corners and the rich brown of his eyes faded. There was something more intense than anger in his eyes—more penetrating, more personal. Something that crushed her core and ripped her heart open.
Disappointment.
* * *
CHANGE WASN’T ALWAYS a good thing.
Haki sat on the front stoop peeling a tangerine as the sun scattered its first rays across the eastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance. With death came rebirth, and he’d always loved that sunsets promised sunrises. A new day meant that wrongs could be righted, that mistakes could give rise to better choices, that dreams could awaken progress. Every sunrise was supposed to bring with it the chance to make progress, whether it meant saving a species or a single life or, at least, stopping evil from leaving permanent scars. But this sunrise was different.
He put a section of fruit in his mouth but the fresh tang of citrus failed to energize him. Instead of waking up another day wiser, he’d woken up a fool. A rooster cried out and was answered by the trumpeting of elephants. A door to one of the pens creaked open and Haki could hear singing. Ahron, who had begun working as a keeper at Busara back when it was a mere seedling, always sang to the orphaned babies in the morning, as their bottles of milk were prepared.
Haki couldn’t fathom the idea that those same baby elephants they’d put so much effort into saving would someday be free to roam, only to end up getting killed. It was wrong. He thought of Bakhari, one of their first rescues from when Haki was only five, who they’d been tracking ever since. Bakhari was out there now. He could end up a victim once again, only this time, he wouldn’t get a second chance at life.
Mosi scampered along the thatched roof of the porch and climbed down one of the hand-hewn wooden columns that held it up. He eyed the tangerine, then wrinkled his brow and gave Haki the most pitiful look. Haki chuckled.
“Mosi, the master manipulator. At least I know what to expect with you.” He tossed the monkey the rest of the tangerine. Mosi caught it, squealed in appreciation and ran off to enjoy his effortless breakfast.
Keep your enemies closer. That was essentially manipulation. The word had such a negative connotation, but what if it harmed none? Mosi got what he wanted by tapping into a human’s emotions with one harmless look. Nature was full of lessons, wasn’t it? And Jack was right. Spending time with Maddie meant having the chance to sway her. He needed to find the old Maddie, the girl who’d once dreamed of visiting Kenya and going on safari, and had had that dream come true in spades...then abandoned it. He needed to find the Maddie who used to love tagging along with the keepers and begging them to let her bottle-feed the baby elephants. He needed to save her from that high-achieving, put-together, lawyerly facade.
The sun uncovered its full self and cast a blend of shadows and reflections across Busara. He stood and stretched his back. Perhaps progress could happen today after all. He simply needed to appeal to her emotions and conscience. Sure, he’d take her wherever she wanted to go, to get whatever information she needed, but she was going to get a lot more than she bargained for.
The screen door opened and clattered softly shut behind him. He glanced over his shoulder.
“Good morning.”
Anna had always been an early riser. She held her mug of coffee to her lips and closed her eyes.
“Mmm. Sorry, I needed that sip too desperately to talk. Good morning.” She leaned against the porch banister. “Plans today?”
“Do you need help in the clinic?”
“No, I’m good. And you don’t take enough time off. As soon as I guzzle this mug, I’ll check on Etana. The baby from yesterday,” she explained.
“Interesting name choice. I hope it helps.”
“You know Pippa. She insists it can’t hurt.”
Pippa had been naming the majority of their baby orphans since she was just out of babyhood herself. Etana meant “strong child” in Kiswahili; as weak and malnourished as Anna had said the baby elephant was when they found her, Pippa was no doubt trying to give it hope in her own way. Haki tipped his head to the side.
“No, it can’t. Is Mac picking her up?”
“Yes. Very soon. I told her if they get too busy at Camp Jamba Walker, she can always stay overnight to help until he can bring her back.”
“I might be able to loop around and get her, depending on how the day goes and if she wants to wait for us.”
Anna took her last swig of coffee.
“I was afraid to ask what you’d decided. Are you taking her?”
By “her” he knew she meant Maddie. He inhaled through his nose and let it out with a sigh.
“I’ll take her. Jack made a good point last night.”
“Ah. So you plan to change her mind about the case?”
He shrugged. Anna smiled as she set down her mug and pulled her hair back into a ponytail.
“And here I thought that all you men in the family learned long ago how hard it is to change the mind of a strong woman.”
The image of Maddie stuck to the ladder and looking like her pride would never recover came to mind. Strong woman? If anything, she seemed unsure of herself.
“You’re frowning.” Anna’s voice softened and she put her hand on his arm. “Haki, the ones who’ve had to overcome the greatest hurdles usually have the greatest inner strength. Having a gentle soul doesn’t make a person weak. Take your parents, for example—especially Niara. And Maddie. And you, you’ve had a good life, but you’re so much like your father.”
He flinched. His father as in Kamau, not the man who fathered him.
“Am I?”
“I helped to raise you, didn’t I? Just like Kam. Always the strong, quiet protector.”
The back of his neck warmed and he tucked his hands in his pockets.
“Just remember,” she continued, “Maddie is not so different.”
Anna patted his back and headed to the clinic to check on Etana and the others.
Maddie a protector? Anna was right in a sense. She’d always been the older one, making sure her brothers’ or Pippa’s feelings weren’t hurt growing up. Same for Haki. But now, she was here to defend the villagers and Haki was born to defend the elephants.
The problem was that only one of them could win.
And someone was going to get hurt.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE JEEP HIT another rut in the dirt trail Haki was navigating and Maddie’s ballpoint pen slashed across her notepad yet again. The list of villages the latest crop-destruction complaints had come fro
m, plus her notes on what questions to ask, were beginning to make a modern art statement. Haki picked up speed, though he had to have noticed her failed attempts at writing. She put the pen between her teeth and shoved the notepad between her knees to keep it from blowing away while she tightened the purple scarf she wore as a headband to keep her hair out of her face. He hit another rut and the bounce of the jeep had her grabbing for something to hold on to. She pulled the pen from between her teeth.
“Are you trying to hit potholes?” The long stretch of redbrick earth ahead of them didn’t look as rough as it felt. She was pretty sure he’d killed his shock absorbers.
“Absolutely.”
He snatched the pen from her hand before she realized he was going for it, put it to his side where she couldn’t reach and set his hand back on the steering wheel as if he’d done nothing wrong.
“Haki, please give me the pen.” She held her hand out but had to clutch the dashboard when he hit another bump. She glared at him and held her hand out again, this time a little closer. “Please.”
He took her hand in his, then guided it back to her lap.
“I don’t think so,” he said. His hand felt warm and calloused and...safe. No, never mind safe.
She swiped the notepad from between her knees and set it out of his reach before he could steal it, too.
“I wasn’t going to take it,” he said, taking his hand back. “I don’t need it. You don’t need it, either.”
Heaven help her, they definitely didn’t need their hands touching. As annoyed as she was with him and despite the hot sun, goose bumps ran up her arms and she had the dangerous urge to weave her fingers through his and leave them that way for the entire road trip.
He’s talking about the writing pad, you dork. And he’s off-limits. Stay on the task.
“You don’t know what I need. I’m not on a safari here. I’m working.”
“Who says a person can’t enjoy their work?” he called out over the engine noise.
“I do. This is serious. If something I need answered comes to mind, I need to jot it down. And I have where I need to go written down, too. I’m not calling the office and telling them I lost my information. Do you want to get me fired?” Lists and notes made her feel in control. Her attention to detail was what she had going for her at work. Without that, she’d be the lowest junior lawyer on the totem pole and her chances at partnership would be nil. In her dad’s world, she’d be outranked by just about everybody. She wasn’t screwing up this assignment. “Come on, Haki. Swear you won’t try to take my papers. It’s not funny. We’re not kids anymore.”
He glanced over at her, not quite smiling, and in that fraction of a second, their eyes connected and she knew he remembered. The way he’d sneak up behind her and run off with the book she was reading. She never visited Busara—or went anywhere, for that matter—without a book and she’d always finish whatever she was reading before heading back to the city, so she could leave it for Pippa and Haki to read: stories with animals and adventures in the wild, or stories of life off the grid. Classics like Watership Down, The Swiss Family Robinson, The Call of the Wild and oh, her favorite, Little House on the Prairie. Haki claimed it was a series for girls and refused to read it, though he’d snatched Little House books from her plenty of times, flipped through and mocked some of the passages. Maddie loved those books. Despite the quintessential American setting, something about the Ingalls’ life seemed to parallel life in the savannah. It tied her two worlds together and fueled her daydreams. But as a teenager, it was My Side of the Mountain that had really struck a chord with her. She’d felt so much like Sam it scared her at times, though she’d never had the courage to run away and live alone on a mountain.
“Trust me. I know my way around. I don’t need your paper.” He gave her a mischievous grin. “You think I’ll only take you to where the crops look bountiful? Or I’ll read it and know your secrets and battle plans?”
She folded her arms and lifted her left brow, the only one she’d ever been able to lift. She used to give her brothers the same look when she knew they were up to something, but they simply began imitating her.
He put on the brakes and came to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Maddie looked behind them out of habit. It wasn’t like they were going to cause a traffic jam out here.
“Why’d you stop?”
He crossed his hands behind his head and leaned back, his broad chest and chin raised to the sun. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to his elbows and she could see a few small scars along his forearms. He was definitely not the same young Haki who’d stolen her books. He looked like he’d caught up to or even surpassed her in age, but mischief danced on his lips the same way it had back then, whenever she was around. He’s always so serious. We only see this side of him when you bring Maddie around. She remembered how special she felt when she’d overheard his parents saying that to hers. She had the power to make him act silly and put a smile on his face. Except she didn’t mean to be making him smile right now, and they certainly didn’t have time for fun.
“Start the engine. We have several stops to make and not enough hours in the day.”
“Mads.” His lips flattened and he turned his entire body toward her, resting one arm on the back of his seat. He’d called her Mads. Her dad was the only one who ever called her that. Haki had always called her Maddie-girl and somehow it always sounded endearing and a bit wistful when he said it.
“Look around you. How can you be writing? Take in the scenery. Feel the sun. Breathe the air. See the land. I’m not driving until you let yourself get lost in it for just a moment.”
“I need to do what I’ve been assigned to do. There are people counting on me.”
“Which people? The Masai? Or the men in suits you’re reporting to?”
Reporting to. It was a cut-down. Like he knew her degree held no power. Like she had no voice of her own. Her eyes stung. No voice, like when she was ten and had to use pen and paper to communicate. She cleared her throat and blinked away the burn.
“What I tell those men in suits makes all the difference. I may not own a practice yet. I may not even try my own cases yet, but I will. And when I do, I’ll give it my all, just like I currently put everything I have into gathering the information needed for my firm to win a case. I believe in what I do.”
“If you do, then stop making military-style checklists and let yourself see the big picture. People aren’t checklists. The Masai you’re defending? This is the land they hold sacred—all of it, from the soil to the plants to the animals that roam it. Look around. How can you understand the situation if you don’t?”
“Why should you care? You should want me to fail at this.”
He rubbed his lips and stared off for a second.
“I have never wanted you to fail at anything. That’s not what this is about.” He sat back in his seat and rested his elbow on his door frame.
She rubbed nose against her shoulder and looked out onto the dry grassland. A herd of zebras grazed peacefully in the distance. An egret took off from its perch on a lonely tree and landed near a muddy watering hole. A gazelle lay lifeless near the edge. She imagined it had spent its last drops of energy in search of water, only to collapse at the parched bed. Its body gave life to the flies and buzzards that hovered over it. The circle of life. Desperation. Survival of the fittest. A willingness to adapt to change.
All life here adapted to change. The Masai and other native tribal people had been given no choice but to adapt.
“I’ll never forget the first time you came from Nairobi to visit Busara—the first time we met,” he said. “You were ten and I was almost seven. You’d been promised a safari up in the Masai Mara. We needed three jeeps to fit everyone. You sat next to me in the one my father was driving. I’d never seen anyone’s face light up the way yours did. Me, I’d alway
s lived here, but you? I was mesmerized by how mesmerized you were by everything. Even by ridiculous Ambosi.”
“Especially by Ambosi. I really loved monkeys.” She smiled at the memory. Yes, she’d been out here before. Not for a very long time, though, and not specifically on this trail. She’d never forget the Masai Mara, Kenya’s section of the Serengeti ecosystem, which extended from Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park across the border. The Masai lived all along that border, and the first clan she and Haki were headed toward was near the Ewaso Ng’iro River, still quite a distance from the Mara and not an area invaded by tourism. However, she knew from her aunts and uncles that the border with Tanzania made the fight against poaching more difficult. Since the Masai knew the land so well, they made convenient bribery targets for poachers crossing the border seeking elephants or rhinos for ivory.
“I thought you and Pippa were the luckiest kids on earth, getting to live out here,” Maddie said. “It’s the only place I’ve been that manages to be wild and dangerous, yet so serene and exquisite in its beauty.”
“We always looked forward to sharing it with you. When you left Kenya for college, we were—I mean, she was—heartbroken.” He started the ignition. “By the way, I read every one of those books, even the ones I said I wouldn’t.”
She hadn’t mentioned the books out loud. Had she?
“Why?” He’d been so dead set against them just because the main character wasn’t a boy. She’d never insisted. He had free choice.
He scratched his unshaven jaw and twisted his full lips, but didn’t look at her.
“Those books knew how to get your attention and make you light up like the sun or, sometimes, bite your lip and frown like a volcano on the verge of erupting. Just watching you read was captivating entertainment.”
