Stalking Ivory (19 page)

Sam saw her tight-lipped mouth and her distant stare. “Jade, what is it? What are you thinking?”

She continued to gaze out at the featureless landscape. “That this was not a coincidence. Someone lured Biscuit away, knowing the boy would follow.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes in a vain attempt to shut out the pain in her temples. “Think about it. No one shoots at cheetahs. They’re harmless. They’ve never been known to attack humans, and I’ve never ever heard of them harassing livestock, either. And everyone at Hascombe’s camp has seen how Jelani and Biscuit go together, and most of them witnessed the time when Biscuit broke free and the boy came after him.” She looked at Sam. “You were there, remember?” Sam nodded. “So if they wanted the boy, they knew to use Biscuit to bring him out, then eliminate the cat so he couldn’t follow.”

“But how would they get Biscuit to wander off?” asked Beverly as she pushed away from her husband and dabbed at her eyes. “The only time the cat goes off, it’s to look for you.”

Jade nodded. “So maybe they have something with my scent on it. Or maybe they lured him with some meat or even called to him.” She didn’t add that the cat also knew and liked Harry and might have gone looking for him. “I’m convinced that at least some of Harry’s crew are involved in this gunrunning, poaching operation.”

“So you think this is revenge?” asked Sam.

Jade didn’t answer for a while. “For what? We were leaving, remember? Or at least that’s what they believed. In that case, why not just let us go?” She stroked the cheetah while she organized her thoughts. “Jelani’s been in their camp a lot. I thought they didn’t pay any attention to him, but maybe someone did. Maybe this person thinks Jelani heard something that would incriminate him.” She looked up at Sam. “Or her, if that button is any clue. Remove the boy and remove the evidence.”
And it’s my own damn fault for encouraging him to spy on them.

“What button?” asked Avery.

“We found a woman’s button in the poachers’ cache. We searched their tents and found it belonged to Claudia von Gretchmar. Jelani’s probably been seen snooping in the camp by Otto at least.”

“So they might kill him after all?” moaned Beverly.

“No,” Jade quickly answered. “No. We’d have found his body with Biscuit’s.”

“I’m almost done with the car, I think,” said Avery. “Another hour should do the trick, and I have a spare tire.”

“We’re not waiting for you, old man,” said Sam. “Sorry, but they’ve got too much of a head start already.” He looked at Abasi. “I want you to stay here and help Bwana Dunbury. He’ll need another strong arm to take care of that tire. And we want as little weight as possible in the Dodge to get up some speed and keep from digging our own tires into the rocks any more than necessary.”

Jade heard Sam’s decisive tone and felt a faint stirring of hope. She had an ally here, a good one. She smiled her gratitude.

Sam caught her smile and stood a little straighter. His eyes sparkled and he returned her look with a nod. “You ready, Simba Jike?”

“Yes. Let’s put whatever we don’t need in Avery’s car.” They quickly stowed their remaining tarps, bedroll, and packs in the Overlander, eliminating everything but the necessary food, water, medical supplies, and ammunition. Jade slipped the poacher’s bow and the arrows into the other car and took only her Winchester. This was not the time for experimenting with another weapon. “Keep one of the blankets,” she added softly so that Beverly wouldn’t hear her. “We may need it for carrying Jelani.”

Avery came up behind them in time to hear. “Make certain you have enough medical supplies and water,” he said in a hushed voice. Then in a more conversational tone he added, “With all this extra weight, I don’t think I can tail you without risking the rest of the tires. We’ll wait here for one day for your return. If we don’t see you by the morning after tomorrow, we’ll drop most of this gear by the wayside and follow you.”

“We don’t have any cans to leave for markers,” Sam said. “Hand me that empty chop box back there.”

Avery lifted the box from the Overlander and handed it to Sam. “Good idea. You can break this up and leave us some wooden markers with compass bearings on it.”

Jade rummaged in the car for Jelani’s book of fables as well as the notebook in which he’d been practicing his writing, her hat dropping from her head as she hunkered over the boxes. When she found the books, she felt her throat constrict again as she visualized him proudly reading another story. Then she undid the cheetah’s lead from the car and tied it securely to her belt. “Biscuit,” she called as she squatted down beside the big cat. She held out the two books and watched as Biscuit sniffed them like a hound. Normally sight hunters, cheetahs also relied on scent markers to identify territory. She counted on the cat’s sense of smell to help them now. Biscuit flared once, opening his mouth and curling his tongue to catch the taste of the scent as well as its odor.

The slender animal crouched low on his forelegs and sniffed the ground for nearly a quarter of a minute before he lifted his head and stared out at the distant horizon, a high-pitched staccato churring sound, the cat’s equivalent of a growl, issuing from his throat. Jade waited, her legs tense, her eyes expectant, as Biscuit stood as immobile as a statue for another half minute. Suddenly the cat chirped a sharp barking sound as though calling to someone. As he bent his forelegs and sniffed the ground again, Jade rose and walked just behind him, letting him take the lead as he picked up Jelani’s scent.

Suddenly Biscuit pulled hard at the lead, nearly causing Jade to pitch forward off-balance. She would have fallen but for Sam’s strong arm grabbing her waist. Biscuit rebelled against the restraint by turning and first butting Jade in the legs before slapping her ankles with his large paws, his claws scraping her boots.

“He’s got the scent,” shouted Jade. “You
were
on the right track.”

Sam held on to Biscuit’s lead to prevent the cat from bolting while Jade untied it from her belt and retied it onto the door handle. She scrambled over the door into the passenger side to be closer to the cat. Sam clambered into the driver’s side, and released the hand brake.

“Remember Biscuit’s still wounded. He needs to pace himself, Jade,” said Beverly over the noisy sputtering of the car’s engine.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do once you catch up to these men?” asked Avery.

Jade’s emerald eyes gleamed and she flashed her teeth in a predatory snarl. “Oh, yes,” she said in a low, breathy tone geared to send shivers down the spine of the listener. She patted the Winchester on her lap. “I’ve thought about it a lot.”

Avery’s brow furrowed, and he reached across Sam to take hold of Jade’s left arm. “You’re not a killer, Jade,” he said. “Self-defense is one thing, but don’t become like these men. Don’t kill for pleasure.”

Jade gently pried his hand from her arm. “Don’t worry, Avery. I won’t kill them unless I have to. But by the time I’m done, they’ll wish I had.”

J
ELANI LOOKED UP
at the stars and silently thanked Ngai, the Maker, for creating the night. Normally it was a time of fear, a time to huddle in a hut and listen to the roar of the prowling lion or the cackling laugh of the hyena, but now it brought relief from the sun’s searing heat. It also brought secrecy.

The small caravan had paused in its northward trek for a few hours’ rest while the sun sat high overhead and devoured their shadows. Then, once their shadows dared to crawl out to the length of a man’s pace, they marched on again. Jelani had made good use of his time while the slavers slept. As he relieved himself, he scanned the ground for a sharp rock, one small enough to fit hidden in his clasped hands. He found one, about the size of an arrowhead. While his drowsy guard looked away, he pretended to stumble, not a hard trick considering how tired he was. His hands braced his fall against the barren ground, and he retrieved his prize.

The men had depended on fear of the blistering desert more than anything to keep him securely in their camp. After all, the waterless wasteland was death to a runaway slave. But the cruelest slaver tied a leather thong around Jelani’s neck and attached the other end to the boy’s hands. They left him sitting hunched slightly, trusting him to sit or lie still rather than risk the cutting abrasion of the raw leather.

Jelani knew he could not escape them in daylight. Instead, he first worried the leather around his wrist to weaken it. He couldn’t break it now, though. They’d see it and only tie him up again, so he slipped the hard black rock into a rip in his waistband to hide it. When night came, he would finish the work.

Then it was night, and the men prepared to sleep by the side of a dried watercourse. Jelani had pretended to faint as soon as they stopped. One man threw the rancid water sack on the ground next to him and tossed something on top of it that was probably supposed to be food, dates by the smell wafting towards his nose. The aroma woke his stomach, which responded by tightening and growling. The hunger pangs nearly drove him into grabbing the scant meal, but he forced himself to lie still and wait.

They left him alone. Soon they would be asleep and he would finish sawing through the thong and slip away. While he lay in his pretend faint, he heard the thumping trot of a camel followed by a new voice. Someone came to the camp, someone the men respected as a leader, if their voices were any indication. The man spoke to Jelani’s captors in their own language, but with an accent. He was not one of them. Jelani tried to risk opening one eye to see this man, but he faced the wrong direction, and it was too dark anyway. There was no moon up yet, but something about the accent, about the careful way he spoke, told him the man was white. He understood only two words, spoken with scorn, followed by a sneering laugh.
Simba Jike.
An echo of the man’s voice speaking English when Jelani had first been captured rang in his memory.

“Let Simba Jike find you now. Let her follow you like you did the cat.”

Determined and hurried strides vibrated the ground as one of the captors stomped towards him. He hoped they wouldn’t force him up. It would spoil his entire plan. But the man only grabbed his right leg. He felt something cold slip around it, then felt more than heard the stake being pounded into the ground. They had shackled his foot.

T
HE BLACK ROCKS
went on forever, while to the rear Mount Marsabit diminished to a hazy blue bump on the horizon. Biscuit followed the scent track easily, impatiently tugging at his leash whenever Sam and Jade stopped to pound a wooden stake into the hard ground and print a compass bearing on it. But Jade saw that the cat was tiring, and judging by the slight limp, his footpads hurt from the sharp, volcanic gravel. Jade rummaged through the vehicle, found another rag, and ripped it into strips, which she wound around the cheetah’s feet.

About an hour before the sun set, they found where the slavers had rested during the day. Biscuit hunkered a long time over one spot in particular, and Jade’s fist clenched when she saw the rough ground where Jelani must have sat. She took advantage of the last bit of daylight to scan the horizon with her binoculars while Sam poured another can of gasoline in the Dodge and added water to the radiator.

There was no sign of a caravan. Surely they should be getting close, even considering how slowly they’d had to creep along in some spots. Biscuit picked up the exit trail, which appeared to follow a dried waterway. Jade restrained the cat while she took a compass bearing and wrote it on a wooden stake. Then Sam pounded a marker into the ground for Avery and Beverly.

They continued on, Jade sitting on the car’s hood with her flashlight in order to spot hazards in the dark. Biscuit needed only a scent and none of them had any intention of stopping for sleep. They hoped the slavers would.

She and Sam hadn’t spoken much during their long, slow search beyond an occasional “Hang on” or “Watch out for that rock.” Jade had no idea what Sam would do once they located Jelani and his abductors. She just hoped he didn’t get in her way.

“Can you see anything at all up there?” he asked from the driver’s seat.

“Just Biscuit,” she replied. He still tugged on the lead, so Jade knew he was on the scent. “If anything, he seems more insistent,” she added. “The scent must be stronger. We’re gaining on them.”

Sam didn’t reply for a few moments. “I’m not sure how much longer we can go on driving in the dark, Jade. It’s getting too dangerous.”

The car slowed as if in punctuation to his statement. She turned on the hood and faced him. “We can’t stop now. I’m not quitting now.”

He brought the Dodge to a halt. “I didn’t say we should quit. But I think we need to proceed on foot. If we are gaining on them, then we need some element of surprise. We’re not going to get it with the car. It’s sputtering too loudly as it is. We also need to conserve the fuel and water or we won’t be able to bring ourselves and Jelani back.”

Jade considered his proposal for a moment as Biscuit tugged at his lead. She wrapped the leash around her wrist once more for a better grip to restrain the anxious cat. Sam was right. As much as she hated to lose time walking, she knew the slavers would hear them coming and be ready for them. They might even try to use Jelani as a shield.

“Shut it off,” she said.

Sam complied, then grabbed one of their medical kits and strapped it to his belt. Both of them took two canteens apiece and their respective rifles. Jade wrote a note to the Dunburys explaining their plan and their last direction, and held the note in place on the driver’s seat with a large chunk of basaltic rock.

“Let’s go,” she said. Sam replied with a firm nod of his head.

Biscuit, now unencumbered by the car, pulled vigorously at his lead. He chirped once, and Jade shushed him with a gentle voice and a firm hand on his head. The cat led a fast pace despite his injuries, pulling on Jade’s left hand until her shoulder ached. She longed to switch hands, but knew she needed to keep the right free to shoot if danger suddenly appeared. After two hours of walking and tripping in the dark, she was ready to hand over the lead to Sam and tugged hard on the leash to halt the cat.

A slight grumbling grunt to her right caught her ear.
A camel?
Perhaps they were closer than they thought. She handed the lead to Sam and held one finger to her lips for silence. They listened again, but the sound didn’t repeat itself.

Sam took over as cheetah handler, and Jade massaged her sore shoulder.
Actually, every dag-blasted joint in my body aches.
Even her ankles hurt from twisting her feet over the uneven ground. And so she never noticed the warning ache in her left knee, losing it in the rest of the general pain. Her only clue that there might be any danger was the sudden
thwack
like wood on wood, followed by a dull thud as Sam toppled to the ground. By then it was too late.

“Jade,” he said with a groan, which ended with another
thud
.

“Sam?” Then something struck her from behind and she knew only blackness.