Every Serengeti Sunrise

by Rula Sinara

  * * *

  MADDIE READ HER email twice and scrunched her face. The message was from her office in Nairobi. She’d been afraid of this. They were impressed by the testimonies and information she’d sent, so much so that they wanted her to ask Lempiris if he could meet them in Nairobi for an in-person testimony—a final step to strengthen their position and assure that their efforts to halt the proposal didn’t fall short. They also asked that she keep the meeting to herself. Just in case. They didn’t want the opposition finding out about it and making arrangements with him first. Just in case. Lempiris didn’t have a phone or computer, which was why the firm needed her to revisit his village.

  She closed her laptop. This meant she couldn’t tell Haki. She wouldn’t make the trip with him again anyway. She wouldn’t put either of them in that position, and Pippa was acting funny as it was.

  She tapped her fingers against the table. The only person she could think of asking for help was Uncle Mac. Would he keep their trip confidential? No one, including him, was on her side in this whole matter. Her family and friends here had respected the line between work and personal relationships, but would it be fair to put him in a position where he might have to lie to family? The other option was asking the office to send someone—a guide or pilot—to take her, but as she’d been told before, bribery was so common in the city and poachers so insidious, that sometimes it was hard to know who to trust.

  She would feel safer with Mac, for sure. He had not been available the first time, but if she gave him notice, maybe he could find time in the next few days. The trip would be much faster in his helicopter than it had been in Haki’s jeep. She picked at her cuticle. If she made sure the firm contracted Mac’s services and paid him, then she could request confidentiality as a customer. The rest would depend on if Lempiris could spare a day or two in Nairobi. She had no idea if he’d ever flown at all.

  * * *

  SOME DAYS WERE just rotten. The morning would feel off; then there’d be a death or some sort of bad news and everything would seem to go wrong from there. Haki sat on the edge of his bed and tried to shake the feeling he’d woken up to. Maybe he’d just gotten up on the wrong side of the bed...or maybe he was getting sick. Stress did weaken one’s immune system. Oh, no way. Not that. He’d remembered Roinet’s goats and the suspected Q fever. He hadn’t come in actual contact but he had touched the ground near the pen. The bacterium was known to exist in the soil and dust around infected animals, as well as in their body fluids. He cringed at the memory of being offered the milk and blood. They’d declined, though. He touched his forehead. No fever. Come to think of it, he felt okay physically. Being tired was too nonspecific a symptom. He’d get a blood test done to be sure he wasn’t acting as an incubator and leave it at that. He’d recommend the same to Maddie.

  He stood and went over to the window. The energy of Busara was starting to pick up. His dad was on field duty today. They’d agreed that he would do vet rounds with the orphans, since Anna wanted to go check on some of the wild herd positions. He got dressed and left his room.

  “Good morning.” He took the cup of coffee his mother offered.

  “Good morning. You feel better today?”

  He shrugged. “Where is everyone?”

  “I think Mac took Maddie to visit Tessa and Kesi. Anna and Pippa are in the clinic.”

  More testimonies. He figured he shouldn’t be surprised that she’d left him out of it this time.

  Haki skipped breakfast and headed for the pens. He heard an agonizing wail before reaching them.

  “No!” Pippa rushed out of the clinic, her eyes red and swollen. She saw him and broke down. Anna stepped out with her hands covering her mouth and tears pooling. She was tougher than Pippa when an orphan didn’t make it, but he knew it cut her deep. But he’d never seen Pippa this bad. He rushed to her side.

  “Pip, what happened? Who?” he asked Anna. Pippa collapsed in his arms and he held her against his chest, but when her knees gave out, he picked her up and carried her to the porch and cradled her on the step. “Someone tell me what happened. Etana?”

  Anna shook her head and sat next to them. She took Pippa’s hand in hers.

  “KWS called in because they recognized an elephant that was—” Anna started crying and put her face in her hands. He’d never seen her fall apart like this. Niara came running out of the house.

  “What’s going on?”

  Pippa fisted her hands against Haki’s shirt.

  “They killed Bakhari. Haki,” she sobbed. “They killed him.”

  Niara gasped and put her arms around Anna.

  “Oh, God.” Haki tried to process the news. He held on to Pippa even tighter. Bakhari...the baby orphan Anna had saved from a snare wound when Pip was only four. Bakhari, who’d become her favorite elephant—like one of the family—and who she’d watched grow into an adolescent and majestic eighteen-year-old bull. A favorite amongst Busara’s supporters and subscribers to their online posts. Haki swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. He’d been a little over five when Bakhari was first brought here. He and Pippa had played with him alongside Ahron, who’d been his keeper. They’d known Bakhari all his life.

  A horrific image of their beloved bull lying on the ground, a rotting, deflated mass, covered with flies...and faceless...like so many he’d seen before flashed before him. Only this time the atrocity burned a hole through him. It was personal beyond measure. He let go of Pippa and pressed his palms to his eyes, then suddenly his mourning shifted to rage. He nudged Pippa down next to Anna and Niara. He needed to leave.

  “Tell me where. He had a tracking device. Bullets or arrows?” He wanted information. He wanted the murderers to rot in jail for eternity.

  “Arrows,” Anna said. “South of here, not far from that clan you took Maddie to.”

  Lempiris.

  His blood heated and his head pounded. Lempiris wasn’t getting off this time. He’d make sure of it. He had his contacts in KWS.

  “Anna, you have the clinic. I’m leaving.”

  “Where?”

  “To Bakhari.”

  “I’m coming.” Pippa looked bleary-eyed and limp but tried to get up.

  “No. Absolutely not.” He couldn’t let her see Bakhari in whatever state he was in. It would be too devastating for her. The images would scar her. “Don’t let her leave camp.”

  With that order, he stormed off.

  * * *

  KWS WAS STILL present at Lempiris’s village when Haki arrived many hours later. The families stood in a grouping in one area of the enkang and rangers were searching their homes, the fields and even the nearby streams. First and foremost, they needed to find Bakhari’s tusks. They couldn’t let them reach the black market.

  Something pinched in Haki’s chest, as if Bakhari’s spirit was calling on him to save one shred of his dignity, to make sure his ivory was burned so that he wouldn’t be a part of the evil cycle and so his ashes could feed the earth. A wave of cold washed over him when he marched through flattened crops and spotted his old friend’s body. He gritted his teeth and went to pay his respects by laying his hand against Bakhari’s leathery skin. He only stayed a moment. Action was needed more than anything else right now. He stepped away and went to speak to one of the rangers he knew well.

  “Where is he? Lempiris.”

  “Missing.”

  That was a sign of guilt. Between the crops raids he was suffering and now being MIA with the tusks still missing, it was hard to believe he wasn’t responsible.

  “Are you sure?”

  “His wife says he went to the city, but we’re still trying to confirm that. There were some tracks leading north of the body, but they disappear at the creek. I have some men searching the water and we’re combing the ground for any sign of burial.”

  Tusks were often
wrapped and hidden until it was safe to collect them.

  “I want him arrested. I will help search every tree and field, but we can’t let him walk.”

  “We’re following protocol and doing our best.”

  Haki scrubbed his jaw. “I know, I know.”

  The whir of a helicopter indicated an aerial search. He prayed that they’d be able to pick up a trail or spot clues from above. He shielded his eyes and looked up. Air Walker Safaris. Mac still kept his old business name on his bird, even if Camp Jamba Walker was his home base now. Mac had known Bakhari as long as the rest of them. He had to be as livid and determined to seek justice as Haki was.

  The chopper landed and he waited for the all-clear. Mac got out, adjusted his cap and put his hands on his hips, waiting a moment before walking around the chopper and opening the passenger doors. Lempiris appeared and several armed rangers hurried toward the chopper.

  Lempiris carefully gathered his garments before stepping onto the ground. He spread his hands to his side and teetered for a moment. Then Maddie appeared behind him, offering assistance.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” Haki yelled as he marched over. For a second, he thought maybe Mac had picked her up from Busara and they’d been on their way to his camp when he’d heard news of Bakhari over his radio. But Mac wouldn’t have apprehended someone involved in a killing, let alone endangered Maddie in the process. He would have left that part to KWS.

  “Haki. We heard. I’m sorry,” Maddie said, leaving Lempiris’s side and meeting Haki halfway.

  He glared at her.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” He heard how harsh he sounded. He didn’t care. Her eyes widened and she took a step back before noticing the rangers surrounding Lempiris and Mac trying to intervene.

  “Leave him alone!” she insisted, then turned to help the man, but Haki stopped her.

  “Do you mind explaining?”

  “He didn’t do this. He was with us in Nairobi offering testimony in person.”

  “But you have no proof he or his family weren’t involved! Him not being here doesn’t mean he didn’t give the order or condone it. You’re still fighting me on this after all you’ve witnessed? Now Bakhari is lying over there dead and as far as I’m concerned, unless someone with bloody hands is dragged out of the bushes right now, Lempiris and his clan are the prime suspects.”

  “Innocent until proven guilty,” Maddie said, matching his tone.

  “Arrested if there’s enough evidence, unless bail is posted.”

  “Hey, back off, Hak. This is getting out of hand,” Mac said, stepping in. “Everyone is upset. I get that. But we stick to facts and defer to the authorities.” He looked directly at Haki. “That’s how we’ve always done things.”

  Haki couldn’t meet her eyes. She’d gone behind his back. She’d lied to him.

  He felt his soul crumbling to his feet. His world turning gray and white and bleak.

  He took one last look at Bakhari’s remains and headed toward his jeep.

  If the law let his death go unavenged, Haki would never forgive her.

  * * *

  MADDIE WAS GONE.

  She’d stayed at Camp Jamba Walker the night of the raid, then by the time Haki returned to Busara from rounds the next afternoon, Mac had already flown her there to gather her things before dropping her off at the closest airport in the Mara so she could catch a flight back to Nairobi.

  He studied the report Kam had just given him. It normally took much longer to track down poachers, but they’d lucked out. They’d found the ivory buried under a pepper tree in haste and left it there as bait. Among the men who returned for it, they identified Gathii, Roinet’s son.

  Maddie had been right. Lempiris wasn’t guilty. Haki lowered his head and sat there for what seemed like forever. He’d messed up. Haki Odaba, the composed, methodical and loyal guy he’d always striven to be, had lost his temper and prejudged an innocent man. Even worse, he’d lashed out at Maddie.

  Maddie was gone and the ache felt as raw as the first time she’d left years ago. Only now, he deserved it and worse.

  * * *

  MADDIE THREW HER backpack into Jamal’s sedan and closed the door behind her. She was grateful that Uncle Mac had helped her catch a charter to Nairobi. The change in scenery and assault on her senses helped to wash out everything that had happened. Blaring horns and acrid traffic fumes gave her relief in the same way bad-tasting medicine treated symptoms. It was a distraction. A temporary fix until she could get back to the US, hole up in her apartment for a few days, then bury herself in work.

  “How was your trip, Maddie?” Jamal asked as he inched past the cars waiting in line for passenger pickup. He finally merged onto the road for home.

  “Tiring.”

  “Good tiring or bad tiring?”

  Maddie caught his eye in the rearview mirror.

  “Let’s just leave it as tiring for now.”

  “Whatever you say. You’re reminding me of your mother when I used to pick her up after rounds in the hospital when she was an intern. You look wiped out, as they say.”

  Maddie rested her head back against the seat. Her mom had been saving lives. Maddie wasn’t sure anymore if she was helping or hurting.

  “Is she home?”

  “She just returned from a Luo village.”

  Hope was half Luo, from her mother’s side. It was sort of cool that she got to visit and experience the culture firsthand, while helping with vaccines and any medical care needed. She was amazing, keeping up with her cause while running a pediatric clinic in Nairobi and raising her kids.

  “How does she do it all?” Maddie didn’t realize she’d asked the question out loud.

  “Love.”

  Maddie straightened her neck and narrowed her eyes at Jamal. He sliced the air with his finger.

  “If you love what you’re doing—if you’re passionate about it—the energy comes to you. The walls crumble and become bridges you can cross. Hope loves medicine and healing, but even more she loves children—all children, but, of course, especially hers and her family. Ben is the light of her life, as are you, Chad, Ryan and Philip. I knew her before you all came into her life, and let me tell you, there’s no comparison. Love helped her find her way.”

  Maddie looked out the window, letting his words sink in. She could see Nairobi National Park, where giraffes strolled against a backdrop of high-rise buildings instead of mountains. People taking land and absolving themselves of guilt by granting pockets of it to displaced wildlife. She wiped her face with her hands.

  When two streams merge, the watering hole is less likely to go dry.

  Niara’s tender voice echoed in her mind.

  “Maddie, you know, before Hope met you, when she used to finish with her hospital rounds, the first thing she did when she got in this car was to tear off her shoes and put sandals on. Every single time. It wasn’t really the shoes that bothered her. It was that she was wearing them for someone else. When she finally found her own path, I noticed she’d forgotten about her sandals. She no longer felt suffocated or bound. As for you, don’t worry yourself with how or why others do what they do. The only shoes you have to fill, Maddie, are your own.”

  “Jamal, you’re the best. I get what you’re saying. My only problem is shopping for the right pair.”

  “Ah, I can’t help you there.” He laughed, but quieted when her cell phone buzzed.

  Maddie took one look at the screen and opened the full message from her senior at the Nairobi office. Her eyes stung and all the emotions she’d bottled up flooded through her. She gasped and covered her mouth. Everything she’d worked so hard for and hoped for had boiled down to a single text.

  Jamal pulled up to their driveway and parked. She closed her eyes and tried to take it all in
. The message. All that had happened.

  “Go on. I’ll take your bags in,” Jamal said. “Are you okay?”

  “Thanks. I’m fine,” she reassured him. She walked through the iron gate and straight into the villa’s garden. The white-washed plaster walls that enclosed it were brought to life with climbing passion fruit vines, jasmine and giant urns filled with vibrant yellow flowering hibiscus. Hope was sitting at a rattan patio set with a stack of patient files in front of her and a bottle of her favorite ginger soda in her hand. She looked up from the paperwork she was filling in and set her drink on the table.

  “Maddie!” Her mother held out her arms as Maddie approached.

  “Hey, Mom.” Maddie gave her a tight hug. Hope held Maddie’s cheeks in her hands.

  “How are you? You look exhausted. And tense. We weren’t expecting you back for another week, but Jamal told me you’d called for a ride. Are you getting sick?”

  “No. I’m fine.” Maddie took off her shoes, and instead of sitting in the other chair, she lay down on her back in the grass with her knees raised. She scrunched the cool blades with her toes.

  “I just found out we won the case. The proposal was thrown out. It’s done.”

  “Honey, that’s good news for you, isn’t it? I thought it would all take longer. You must have gathered exactly what they needed and left quite an impression.” Hope frowned. “You don’t sound excited, though. Is everything okay? ”

  “No. Yes. Mom, I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know what to think anymore.” She covered her face and lay there. The ground felt real and solid and secure, and the green, earthy scent of fig leaves from the overhanging tree seeped into her lungs and steadied her breathing.

  “You’re overwhelmed.”

  “I’m overwhelmed.” She nodded without uncovering her face. “I should be happy about it, but I’m so confused.”

  She could hear Hope getting up and coming over. Maddie let her arms fall back to the grass just as Hope lay down next to her.

  “This feels good,” Hope said, wiggling her toes. She took Maddie’s hand and gave it a squeeze. They peered up into the tree canopy, bits of blue sky sprinkled throughout it. “I have a feeling this isn’t just about the proposal. Do you want to talk about it?”