The Leopard's Prey Part 22

"Mr. Featherstone," said Perkins, "we'd just about given up on you."

"Mr. Perkins," Sam said as he shook his hand, "my apologies for being late. I had some difficulties."

He watched the other two men as he spoke but saw no sign of surprise or anger. Cutter listened with the air of a man ready to get to work. Anderson's lips twitched in a slight sneer.

"Difficulties," repeated Perkins, as Daley joined them. "Nothing serious, I hope." He frowned. "You look like h.e.l.l."

"He looks like he's been c.r.a.pped out of the south end of a north-facing bull," said Cutter.

Sam nodded. "Feel that way, too." Seeing that they all expected more, he elaborated. "There was a problem with the airplane's engine. Some fouling forced a landing." He didn't bother to tell them that he wasn't the one who had put down in the bush. Again, he kept his eyes on all the men, especially Anderson. "However, you do have a rhino calf waiting for you. An orphan. It's in a Maasai village right now."

All four men grinned and whooped at the news, which surprised Sam. He expected Daley and Perkins to be happy, but he'd have bet money that both Anderson and Cutter would see retrieving the rhino as more hard work.

"This is great news, Mr. Featherstone," said Perkins. "Not only did you find us a calf, but we don't have to contend with its mother. You've earned your pay for sure. We'll all get a hefty bonus if we can bring this animal back safely."

That explained their exuberance. It also made Sam question Anderson's role in fouling the engine. If he wanted this bonus that much, he'd ally himself with the devil before he did anything to muck it up.

"How far is this village?" asked Daley.

Sam explained the location, drawing a map for them. "If you leave by noon, you can get to the village by sunset."

"Camp out in a truck with a bunch of killer natives around us?" said Cutter. "h.e.l.l, why not stay at the Naivasha Hotel tonight and get an early start tomorrow? Not too early, though."

Daley agreed. "I'd like Jade to join us to take pictures. Ought to be some zingers with those Maasai warriors in there. Would you tell her for us?"

Sam saw Anderson's face erupt in a big grin that Sam wanted to smear in the dirt. Instead he made a counterproposal. "I need Jade to help fix my plane. She's a top-notch mechanic, you know. How about I take her out there today? We'll camp and work on the plane at first light. You pick up Jade later on your way to the village. Then, after you've loaded up the rhino and Jade has the pictures, leave her with me on the return trip so she can help me finish up."

Mr. Daley looked at his partner and shrugged. "Suits me. I'll pay you the rest of your fee on our return trip, once we've caged the rhino."

They shook on it, and Sam watched Anderson's face fall. Perkins and Daley headed into their office, leaving Sam alone with the two Americans.

"Well, flyboy, you're a real smarty-pants, aren't you?" said Anderson. "Bet that pilot c.r.a.p works on all the skirts, doesn't it?"

Sam could put up with a lot of things, including insults to pilots, but calling Jade "a skirt" wasn't one of them. He stepped closer to Anderson until they were only inches apart.

"I don't appreciate your talking about Jade that way," Sam said, his gravelly voice a low rumble.

Anderson didn't move, but Cutter put a hand between them. "Break it up. Wayne, you know the rules on fighting." He turned to Sam. "I don't think he meant any disrespect to Jade-did you, Wayne?" When his friend didn't reply, he shot him a look. "Did you, Wayne?"

"No insult meant for Jade," Anderson said, inferring there was one meant for Sam.

"Well, then," continued Cutter, "that's that. If you'll excuse us, we got work to do."

Sam nodded and let Cutter lead Anderson away. He wondered at how quickly Cutter had stepped in. Almost as if he'd been afraid for his friend. Had he been the one who saw Sam's argument with Stokes?

"You're lucky, Anderson," Sam said, calling after him.

"Oh?" asked Anderson, turning. "And how's that?"

"You're lucky Jade didn't hear you call her a skirt. That lady throws a mean right."

AVERY AND JADE took Jelani to be fingerprinted and doc.u.mented before they brought him back to Avery's home. The three rode in a bicycle-propelled rickshaw, which Avery hired. Jelani hadn't spoken much throughout it all, but Jade placed a rea.s.suring hand on his shoulder in case he worried that he was in trouble with them as well as with the Bureau of Native Affairs. They arrived home at the same time Sam did.

Beverly's delight at seeing Jelani turned immediately to worry when she heard of his arrest. "You poor dear," she said, "did they hurt you? Avery, please find the boy something to eat. Oh, I've got to hire some staff."

"I am well, Memsahib Dunbury." Jelani remained standing in the fancy parlor.

Jade noted that he'd switched from the more colloquial term "memsabu" to the more formal "memsahib" since their last meeting. "Jelani, please sit down. I want to talk with you, but as long as you are standing, I feel as if I'm interrogating you."

Jelani lowered himself to the polished parquet wooden floor next to a zebra-skin rug. Jade sighed. He gripped his kipande in his right fist, refusing to wear it.

"I will not treat you as a boy, Jelani. Not after what I saw and heard today. Tell me, as your friend, what has happened."

She saw Jelani take a deep breath and bite his lower lip as the frightened boy inside struggled to stay hidden behind the developing leader. She knew then that he longed for a comforting embrace or a sympathetic smile, but was forcing it back. A soft gasp from Beverly told Jade that her friend saw it, too, and wanted to give in to her growing maternal instincts. Jade held up her hand to stop her.

Avery returned with a tray containing a chicken quarter, a banana, and two pawpaws. He set the tray with a gla.s.s of water on the floor next to Jelani and went to stand behind his wife. Sam leaned forward in an armchair, his forearms resting on his thighs and his hands clasped. Jade wished Biscuit was there. His presence would go far toward easing the lad's troubled mind. She tried another tactic.

"You're probably angry at us for coming to court. I can't say as I blame you." Jade was gratified to see Jelani look up suddenly at those words. At least I have his attention.

"The magistrate treated me like a child." Jelani ignored the food but drank the water.

Jade nodded. "He would have done that even if we hadn't been there. He doesn't know or care what deeds you have done in your youth." She looked at his wounded foot, which peeked out from under his crossed legs. Instead of a rounded heel, the foot ended in a flat, callused plate. Another flat red circle appeared where the ankle bone should have been.

"He judges me by my size," he said, looking up at Jade.

"He judged you by English law," said Avery, holding up a hand when Jelani would have protested. "I think he knows now that you wield as much power over your village as if you were a man of twice your years. But if you are not thirteen years of age, then he must, by law, still treat you as a boy. But the next time he won't. He's declared that next month you will be a man."

"And made to wear the kipande and told where I may go and where I may not go." Jelani dropped the small metal cylinder by his feet, put his head between his hands, and sighed deeply. When he looked up, his soft brown eyes were moist. "My mother is too old now to work and pay her hut tax, and my father is dead."

"What?" the others shouted in unison. "When did this happen?" asked Avery.

"Last month," said Jelani.

Jade closed her eyes and silently reproached herself for not visiting the boy sooner. "I am sorry, Jelani."

"Do not be, Simba Jike," said Jelani. "He died at peace, knowing that I would be the mundu-mugo. But I must work on some bwana's farm for six months to pay the hut tax for my mother and for the mundu-mugo, since that is now my hut. And I must also have a hut to live in on the bwana's farm, since wherever I go, it will be too far to come home each day. Then I must pay tax on that hut as well."

"Indentured servitude," muttered Sam. "Only one step removed from slavery."

"And if I am working away from the village, how will I learn to be the mundu-mugo like the elephant told me? My master has already dreamed of his death. It will be after three more long rains. I have much to learn."

"I'll pay your hut tax, Jelani," said Avery, "and your mother's."

Jelani produced a thin, grim smile. "You are a kind man, Bwana Dunbury. But what of the others in my village? Many men do not come home anymore after being away so long. Their wives cannot leave the village and cook for them, so the men take new wives. The village has not so many babies now. The mundu-mugo has seen his future. I have seen my village's as well. It will die unless I help it." He put his head down again and rocked to and fro. "I do not know how."

No one spoke for a while as they looked from one to another and back to the sorrowing boy before them.

"I would be happy to hire you," said Beverly, "but I don't think it would solve this dilemma. And," she added, "I shouldn't like giving you orders to fetch and carry."

Avery slapped his leg and paced the floor. "Well, the entire system is completely fouled." He jabbed his finger in the air as though pointing to a culprit. "The case against it has been argued over and over again back in London, you know. There are even antislavery leagues back home protesting, but no one here seems to think it's a problem."

"Avery, love," said Beverly as she reached out her hand and took hold of his. "This is our home, now. You must get on the governing council and try to change things. Speak to the governor when he returns. Surely your voice will carry some weight."

Avery patted her hand and smiled. "Only with you, my love. I'm afraid I will not have nearly as much influence as the older settlers, but I will do what I can. How can I not? But it still won't solve our immediate problem."

Jade smiled as he labeled the problem "our" instead of Jelani's. "I'll hire you, Jelani."

He looked up. "I do not understand how that will help. If I must travel with you, how can I study with the mundu-mugo ?"

"You won't travel with me. You will live at your village and be my source."

"Source? I do not understand, Simba Jike. Do you mean sorcerer? I have heard that word. I will not be something evil."

Sam sat up straighter. "I think I understand, Jelani. A source is a beginning, a place where something starts, like the spring at the head of a river."

Jelani frowned as he looked from Sam to Jade.

"You'll be the source of my information," Jade said. "I'll write about the Kikuyu and you will tell me what I should write."

"By thunder," said Avery, "that's a splendid idea."

"You should write as well, Jelani," said Beverly. "You should sell articles in your own words to the London Times."

"Earn his own money, rather than depend on us for wages," said Sam. "Beverly, that's inspired."

Jelani lifted his head higher and squared his shoulders. "Would it work? Would this paper pay for my stories?"

"We cannot make promises for them," said Jade, "but I think so, yes. Still, until the money comes, please accept my offer."

Sam leaned forward again. "If you're going to write about what is happening to your people, Jelani, then I think that you need a bigger view of Africa. I can give you that."

Jelani's eyes opened wider, but, Jade noted, not with that innocent sense of excitement she'd seen in the past. Instead, his eyes held the gleam of a general who had been offered a view of the enemy camp.

"In your airplane?" Jelani asked. Sam nodded. "Thank you. Yes, I will go up."

"Good," said Sam. "I'll take you aloft as soon as I get her back and running."

"Well," said Beverly and clapped her hands together, "that will be three authors among us: Jade, Maddy, and now Jelani. Perhaps I should try my hand at it next."

Avery kissed his wife on the forehead. "Give it up, my dear. You cannot bear to write so much as a letter."

"That's not true. Jade, tell him what a fine correspondent I've been."

"I've received one letter from you since the end of last January when you went back to London. One entire page in large hand, so you are definitely not ready for a novel."

Beverly stuck out her tongue at Jade.

"And what happens now?" asked Avery.

"I need to find my plane," said Sam, "and get it cleaned, repaired, and back in the air." He looked at Jade. "Your bosses are going out today as far as the Naivasha Hotel and then on tomorrow to the Maasai village. Perkins wants you to photograph them at the village. Thinks it will be great publicity or something." Sam explained how Anderson had expected Jade to be with them in the Naivasha Hotel and how he'd smashed that idea by telling them he needed Jade with him as a mechanic. "We should leave soon so we can get to the plane before nightfall."

"And how are we going to get there if we don't ride with Perkins?" asked Jade.

Sam cast a hopeful glance at Avery. "I was hoping we could use the Hupmobile?"

"And if you're flying back, Sam, and Jade is still with the crew doc.u.menting their great rhino capture, what happens to my new automobile?"

Sam scratched his head. "Dang. Guess I sort of overlooked that part in my haste to salvage my plane and," he added with a sidewise glance to Jade, "my girl."

"Darling," said Beverly, "why don't you go with them? Then when our Jade has to leave Sam, he's not bereft of mechanical a.s.sistance. You can drive your Hup back."

"And leave you alone in your condition? I should think not. You cannot even get out of your chair without help."

"I'll have Jelani with me." She turned to the young Kikuyu. "You could stay for a few days, couldn't you, Jelani?"

"But the mundu-mugo-"

"Will not expect you for a while yet," finished Jade, "not after you were hauled out of the village under arrest." Jelani nodded his a.s.sent and started in on the chicken.

"I'll send a wire to the Blue Post Hotel at Thika and ask someone to deliver a message to the Thompsons," said Avery. "Neville ought to be able to spare Maddy to stay with Beverly for a few days, too."

"Maddy'll be wanting to check on any replies to her advertis.e.m.e.nt anyway," added Jade. "Don't forget you promised to talk to that Berryhill boy for me, Bev." She stood up. "Oh, blast! I never reported the sabotage to the police. Sorry, Sam."

Sam's lips twitched. "It's understandable, considering. And by the time we all handle the plane tomorrow, there probably won't be any usable fingerprints on it anyway."

Jade waved her arms to the door, "Well, we're burning daylight, gentlemen. Let's get a move on."

CHAPTER 17.

The most trusted warriors are employed to procure food for the manyatta.

If they need to, they are allowed to take it with force.