A Spear of Summer Grass (15 page)

We walked on then and he pointed out the tracks of the tiny mice that lived on the plains and the soft swirl left by a passing snake. He gave me the leaf of the
leleshwa
and crushed it into my palm so the sage-smell of it would fill my nose. He lifted a tiny bone from the dust and explained that it came from the spine of a porcupine, and he taught me to hold myself very still to watch the antics of a small black bird that leaped and swayed.

“The white settlers call this a widowbird, but it is not a lady bird. It is the male. For most of the year he is grey and plain, but once a year his feathers change and he looks as you see him now.”

It seemed impossible that this bird could ever be plain. His plumage was glossy black and the feathers of his tail swept into a long train that he carried behind him with kingly dignity. As we watched, he capered and danced, all the while singing an elaborate song and flapping his wings for emphasis.

“That is his dance to bring a lady bird so they can marry,” he told me.

I peered into the bushes. “I do not see another bird.”

“Then he dances for you,
Bibi,
” he said with his broad, gap-toothed smile. “You are welcome in Africa. Africa wants you here.”

And as we walked through the warm sunlight of that afternoon, I believed it.

13

We reached Nyama at teatime, and I was surprised to see Kit happily devouring sandwiches.

“Delilah!” he called through a mouthful of crumbs. He rose and pressed a kiss to my cheek. Ryder shot us both a cool look then moved to sit next to our hostess. Jude was on his other side, sipping slowly at a cup of tea.

“Afternoon, Tusker,” Ryder said, helping himself to a plate. “Hope you don’t mind, but we’re after a lion. I need to collect my gear and I could use a few of your boys as bearers.”

She waved him to a chair. “Anytime. You know that.” She turned to me. “So, Miss Drummond. Your first lion hunt. I hope you won’t turn soft when the time comes to shoot. They’re beautiful monsters, lions, but monsters they are and don’t mistake it. They’ll just as soon tear you to pieces as look at you.”

I thought of the broken bits of flesh that had been carried into my garden on a blanket and pushed the sandwiches aside. Jude poured me a strong cup of tea and handed it over. “There’s whisky if you need a stiffener,” she said. Her voice was cool, but there was recognition in her eyes. She understood something of facing down new horrors, I realised.

“I’ve half a mind to go with you,” Tusker announced. “It’s been ages since I had a good break from this place. I’d like to feel the wind in my hair again and get out there.”

“Then pack up,” Ryder told her. “I want to leave tonight.”

She shook her head. “Not if you’re after the lion that ate the Kuke child at Fairlight. It’s been seen on the other side of the
lugga
at the edge of my property. The moon’s still a bit too dark to try that at night. Best to start first thing in the morning. Don’t worry, I’ll put you up tonight and give you a proper feed before we leave tomorrow. Jude can look after Nyama while I’m gone.”

To my surprise, Ryder agreed. He turned to Kit. “Coming with us, Parrymore?”

There was an unspoken challenge in his voice, and Kit must have heard it. He lifted his chin and smiled. “I don’t think so, old boy. I think the hunting is plenty good right here.”

He slanted Jude a mischievous look and she ignored him, as inscrutable as some Eastern goddess. She merely sat sipping at her tea while Ryder’s eyes narrowed at Kit.

“Watch your mouth, Kit. Do you think talk like that will do her any favours if Wickenden hears you?”

“I shouldn’t think that would bother you. If Anthony gets out of line, it will just give you an excuse to thrash him again. After all, everyone knows how much you like to play the hero.”

“Or I could just eliminate the problem at the source,” Ryder said, his voice soft with menace.

Kit hesitated, his
sang-froid
slipping slightly. Ryder saw it and smelled blood. He smiled, baring his teeth as he sat back in his chair. He folded his arms over his chest, the scars on his left arm chillingly apparent in the bright afternoon light. Kit’s eyes fell on them and he looked quickly away.

“Men are such children,” Tusker said to me. “Really, I’ve seen male lions mauling each other with more subtlety.”

Jude laughed suddenly, and I wasn’t sure at whom. “Come on, Kit. Say goodbye. You were just leaving.”

“Oh, was I?” But he obeyed. “Goodbye, all.” He paused at my chair and bent over me. He swept my hair away from my ear and pressed a kiss to the hollow just below it. “Be safe out there. Don’t let anything eat you that shouldn’t.”

He left laughing, and I lit a cigarette. Ryder made a short remark about checking his gear and stalked away, shoulders very square. Tusker sighed as she watched him go.

“Ryder’s a dear boy, but it’s rather like keeping a pet panther in the drawing room to have him around.”

“Do he and Kit always go at it?”

Tusker put her hands through her cropped grey hair. “Ryder puts most men’s backs right up. He doesn’t mean to, but look at the fellow. He’s like something out of a myth, covered in battle scars and women throwing themselves at him. It makes other men nervous. And he takes it all in his stride, the women wanting him and the men hating him. Nothing touches him, not really.”

“What happened to his arm?”

Tusker reached for the whisky. She poured a healthy shot into both of our cups. “Drink up, child. It’s almost cocktail hour anyway.”

She took a deep sip, closing her eyes as the whisky ran down her throat. “God, that’s good. We owe those bog-Irish a medal for that. What were we talking about? Oh, yes, Ryder’s arm. Leopard.”

“A leopard did that?”

She nodded. “He was guiding a Scandinavian prince—it wouldn’t do to say which one because the story does not reflect well on his people, but I can tell you he was a Dane. Anyway, they were stalking a black leopard that had killed several Masai cattle. It was the sort of hunt he’s led a hundred times without incident.”

“But not this time,” I prompted. I sipped at the whisky and raised a brow. Ryder apparently wasn’t the only one with a taste for single malt.

“This one was a brute, big and fast. Ryder tracked it for his prince, but the prince only winged it, a glancing shot on its flank, just enough to make it good and mad. It turned to charge at them and the prince stood there and pissed himself.”

“Good God.” I took another deep swallow. “Then what happened?”

“Ryder stepped in front of him. He only had time to get off a single shot, but the prince shouted and the cat turned, so the shot wasn’t true. It hit the leopard in the leg just before it landed on Ryder. He managed to get his left arm down its mouth and he held it with his right hand. It clawed and struggled, but it was the only chance Ryder had. If he’d let go, it would have killed him for certain. His only hope was to suffocate it. So he kept shoving that arm down its throat and squeezing with the other as it mauled him.”

I shoved the cup aside. The whisky was sour on my tongue. “How did it end?”

She shrugged. “The cat bled out or Ryder suffocated it, he never knew which. But they lay on that ground for almost half an hour, eye to eye, just staring at one another and waiting for one of them to die. He told me later it was the most spiritual experience of his entire life. He saw God in that leopard, and God let him live, Miss Drummond.”

I didn’t speak.

“He knows death and he knows God. Most men are too afraid to look either one in the face and he’s walked right up and shaken hands with them. It makes him special and it makes him stupid.”

I roused myself. “Stupid?”

She flapped a hand. “That business in the station with Anthony. He shouldn’t have whipped him, at least not publicly. It’s bad form for a white man to be lowered so much in the eyes of the Africans. Could cause trouble. There are far more of them than of us. If we start letting them lose respect for us, for any of us, it could have consequences.”

“Speaking of consequences, will he face any for assaulting Mr. Wickenden?”

She laughed, a deep belly laugh. “Child, the lieutenant governor told him off for doing it in public, but believe me, the government doesn’t care about family squabbles.”

“Family squabbles?”

She poured more whisky into my cup.

“Didn’t you know? Ryder is my nephew. Now finish your drink. My cook is appalling and dinner will be foul. Much better to be drunk by the time it’s served.”

I sipped at the whisky and thought of what Ryder had said to me that first afternoon, my assumption that he had been defending a paramour when he thrashed Anthony Wickenden. But Jude was his cousin, and I thought of his casual greeting to her when we’d arrived. I could smell attraction on a man. I knew what it meant when his eyes were hot, and I knew that it meant more when he never looked at a woman at all, keeping his need bound up and secret. Ryder and Jude had been perfectly comfortable with one another; they talked with the ease of siblings. But why had he been so needled by Kit’s presence?

I thought of Kit’s warm lips on the skin of my neck and I took another sip of my whisky. Tusker was watching me closely.

“I suppose you’re also going to tell me that he’s a good man and not to hurt him,” I said sharply.

She laughed again. “You couldn’t, Miss Drummond. To hurt a man you have to hit him in his heart and Ryder doesn’t have one. Oh, he can be kind, but he doesn’t really let anyone or anything in. You see, he was married once, years ago. And losing her changed him. He closed himself off. One can’t blame him, of course. It’s quite a common reaction. He thrashed Anthony as much for the family name as for hurting Jude. He’s loyal and he’s strong, and he’s put up a wall so high you can’t even see to the top of it. Take my advice and don’t even try.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I told her, arching a brow.

“I like you, Miss Drummond. In fact, I like you so much I’m going to call you Delilah.”

“By all means.”

“And I’m going to give you a piece of advice.”

“Oh, dear.”

She snorted. “Pay attention to your elders, child. We have the wisdom of the ages within us.”

“Very well. What advice do you have for me?”

“Don’t risk your happiness on a man with a stone for a heart.”

Her lip trembled for a moment, and I wondered about her own happiness. She seemed hugely content with her lot in life, mistress of a vast property in a beautiful wilderness, doing work that she loved. She ought to have been happy. But something softened her mouth, making it vulnerable.

I covered her hand with my own. “Don’t worry about me, Tusker. Ryder may have a stone heart, but mine’s diamond. And there’s nothing on earth harder than that.”

* * *

For all its spaciousness, Nyama lacked guest rooms. Ryder pitched a tent in the garden, Gideon slept underneath a tree, and I shared with Jude. Anthony had gone to Nairobi, and the evening was a pleasant one. Dinner was every bit as foul as Tusker had warned. I pushed gristly meat around my plate and drank a bottle of excellent red wine to fill in the empty spaces.

“Don’t worry,” Jude murmured as she passed me a bowl of grey peas, “her camp cook is the best in Kenya. You’ll eat well on safari at least.”

It was the longest comment she made the entire evening. She was full of cool reserve, and I was rather surprised when she offered to let me share her room so I didn’t have to sleep outside.

I thanked her and she shrugged. “Bath is that way if you want to go first. Just save me the water. I’m not fussy.”

I scrubbed up quickly and scrabbled in my bag for a fresh set of white silk underthings. Jude dressed herself in what I can only think must have been one of Tusker’s old nightdresses, voluminous pink flannel and worn nearly through.

I gave her a look as she climbed into bed with me and she shrugged again. “It’s comfortable.”

“It’s vile. You really ought to do something with yourself, you know. You’re quite the loveliest woman I’ve ever met but you dress like a farmhand.”

“I am a farmhand,” she said, giving me a lopsided smile.

I pulled out my nail buffer and began to polish my nails. “Have it your way. I never have any luck getting Dora to spiff herself up either.”

“I just don’t see the point.” Jude settled herself on her side, watching me buff. “I spend all day with horses.”

“And all night?” I asked pointedly.

She gave me a cool look. “Anthony doesn’t seem to mind the way I look. As he is so fond of saying, all cats are black in the dark.”

“I know it’s none of my business, but he’s a cad. You have to know that. Why do you stay with him?”

She laughed then, and there was something like pity in it. “Do you really think I’m any better? If he’s a cad, I’m a whore. We’re well-suited.”

“I’m not just talking about adultery, Jude. You’re both grown up. Whatever you get up to in other people’s beds is your own business. I mean the other.”

“The hitting?” She rolled onto her back and stretched. “I feel sorry for him sometimes. He just doesn’t know any other way to reach me.”

“He hits you and you feel sorry for him?”

“He loves me more than he’s ever loved anything in his entire life,” she said, relating the words in her cool, passionless voice. “All he wants is to touch me, to move something inside of me so that I will love him back. And I can’t. I give him silence and pity and sometimes it’s just too much for him. He hits because it’s the only way he can get a reaction out of me.”

“And bruises are better than kisses?”

“Something like that. Haven’t you ever seen a small boy trying to get his mother’s attention? He’ll tug at her skirts and call her name, and if she ignores him, he’ll just get louder and louder, poking and pinching until she sees him. That’s Tony’s problem. I can’t see him, and no matter what he does, he can’t make me.”

“Why hasn’t he tried to get back at Ryder for thrashing him in public?”

“Because he knows I’d kill him. That’s the difference between us,” she told me, her eyes wide and untroubled. “Tony gets mad and he goes hot, he lets it burn him up. My rage is cold, the sort that would poison his dinner or put a cobra in his bed and watch him die.”

“Would you kill him? Could you?”

“Probably not. But Tony thinks I can and that’s enough. He’s quite good company, really. He keeps me from thinking too much. And most of the time he’s happy he married me because it gives him something to work for, making me love him back.”

“If you don’t love him, why did you marry him?”

The silence between us was so heavy it took on its own form, like a third person in the room. Finally, she broke it, weighing her words like stones.

“I suppose it was because he loved me. And it had been a very long time since anybody looked at me like I was the most important thing in the world.”

“My husband died in the war, too,” I told her. I turned away and put aside my buffer. She blew out the lamp and we lay in the dark, watching the sliver of moonlit shadow move over the ceiling.

“My husband didn’t die in the war.” Jude’s voice was small in the darkness. “I think he’s still alive somewhere. Only he doesn’t know how to find his way home again.”

“I thought he had been declared dead.”

I felt her shoulders shrug into the mattress. “That’s the courts. Just because the law says it’s so, doesn’t make it true.”

“What if you were right? What if he did come home and he found you married to Tony?”