Stalking Ivory (24 page)

“C
APTAIN
S
MYTHE!”
Jade stood up and stepped out from behind her hiding spot. Sam emerged from the other side and stood next to her. “You are a sight for sore eyes, sir,” she said.

Smythe stopped abruptly in his tracks. His two accompanying soldiers stood back a respectful three paces and held their rifles poised upward and crossed in front of their left shoulder. Smythe stared and sputtered once or twice as if his tongue had quit working properly.

“Miss del Cameron?” he finally said. “What the deuces are you still doing here?” He stopped and studied Sam, pointing a finger at him. “And who the thundering blazes is this?”

“Captain Smythe, allow me to introduce Mr. Sam Featherstone. He’s an American filmmaker. Sam, this is Captain Smythe of the King’s African Rifles.”

Sam reached out to shake the officer’s hand. “Glad to know you, sir. We could use your help.”

“Oh? And how is that?”

“There’s another hunting party up here run by Harry Hascombe. It seems that three of his people are missing,” replied Sam. “A German couple, and another man. Hascombe found the couple’s daughter on the trail outside of their compound. She’s hysterical. We can’t make any sense out of her at all.”

Smythe frowned and passed a hand over his cheeks and mouth. “Indeed. Well, at least she is safe, then,” he said. “I presume she’s under guard at the moment?”

“Not really,” added Jade. “Everyone else is looking for the von Gretchmars and Eric Vogelsanger. There’s just one woman at camp with her.”

The British captain pursed his lips and stroked his mustache while he considered the situation. Then he turned abruptly to one waiting askari, who immediately stood at rigid attention. Smythe spoke briefly in some African tongue to the man, who saluted and trotted off towards the compound. His black skin melted into the forest’s gloom until only the red fez atop his head stood out, reminding Jade of the Cheshire cat fading from view with just a smile remaining to mark his spot.

“She’ll be under guard soon enough,” said Smythe. “As for those other three, I’ll round up the rest of my men and have a look-see. Wouldn’t want some stray leopard to maul them.”

“That’s not the entire situation, sir,” said Jade. “I think they’re involved in gunrunning to the Abyssinians. I found some evidence in the poachers’ cache which points to it.”

Smythe’s toffee brown eyes opened wide, his brown brows tilted upward. “The devil you say. You found their cache?”

Jade nodded. “Yes, sir.” She proceeded to outline most of the details of the last few days. “They have a cache farther up the mountain in a protective overhang. It’s full of ivory, but I also found boxes of Mauser rifles as well as a bag of German East African gold Tabora pounds. I also discovered a button from a woman’s blouse in the cache. I believe it belongs to Claudia von Gretchmar.”

The captain inhaled deeply and pulled himself up to his full five feet, ten inches so he could peer down his nose at Jade. “You have been a busy bee, Miss del Cameron.”

“That is not the half of it, Captain,” chimed in Sam. “One of our men was shot with a drugged arrow and left for dead, an African boy in her care was kidnapped, and we were left chained in the desert to die.”

Smythe snorted. “And who’s to blame? I told Miss del Cameron that these men are dangerous. I ordered her to leave and you have seen, firsthand, the consequences of her blatant disobedience. Now if you will be so good as to take me to this cache, Miss del Cameron, I will do my duty by king and country and take care of this matter once and for all.”

“We can both take you there,” said Sam.

Smythe studied Sam as though he were inspecting one of his troops. “You seem a capable chap. I spotted Hascombe and his people on their way up the crater to the lake.” He pointed up the slope. “Go find him. Tell him to get back to watch the Fräulein so that my man can get back to me and so I don’t have more idiots running around to fret about.
I’ll
find his stray people. Tell him to stay put in his camp and wait for me. That goes for you, too. I don’t need any more of you people traipsing around here and getting in trouble. I want you all in one spot.”

Sam looked at Jade. “And what about you?”

“It’s all right, Sam,” she said as she placed a hand on his arm. “I can lead the captain to the caches. At least you know I won’t be running around on my own getting into trouble.”

Sam frowned, the ends of his ragged mustache drooping. “Very well. I’ll wait for you at Hascombe’s compound.” He glared at Captain Smythe, using his extra two inches of height as a mark of power. “I’m trusting you to take care of her.”

“I assure you I will.” Smythe moved away for a moment to discuss the new details with his remaining man.

Sam stood next to Jade for a few moments as though trying to decide what to do. His eyes followed every contour of her oval face and olive complexion. They lingered for a moment on her short black curls as they peeped out from under the brim of her old battered felt hat. Finally they rested on her own eyes, the color of spring grass in the dew. He freed one curl from under her hat brim and left it coiled on her forehead.

“You behave yourself,” he said softly. “Remember, I haven’t heard the rest of your lovesick-elk saga.”

Jade nodded and smiled. “I’ll see you later, Sam.” He started to go and she grabbed his arm. “Wait.” Her voice dropped to a whisper so she wouldn’t aggravate Smythe by altering his orders to Sam. “I think I know where to find either the von Gretchmars or Vogelsanger. Follow the trail south around the crater. There’s a pit trap in the trail. Chiumbo and I took out the spikes, but it’s still a handy place to toss a body.”

“You think somebody’s in there?”

Jade shrugged. “I don’t know, but the poachers made the trap, so either Vogelsanger followed Otto there and killed him and maybe even Claudia or vice versa. Just be careful. Wounded animals are more dangerous, you know.”

Sam nodded to his own leg. “I know. I’m one of them.”

“Well, get moving there, man,” bellowed Smythe. “My stars! At this rate the next set of rains will start before you find Hascombe.”

Sam gave one last passing look at Jade as he headed up the narrow trail at a fast, limping walk. Jade, in turn, watched him disappear from view, aware again of a sudden emptiness inside her.
Blast it! This is no time to suddenly go soft.

“Shall we, Miss del Cameron?”

Jade nodded. “It’s on the east side of the crater. We go this way.” She turned to skirt around the north end towards the cache when her foot slipped and she went down hard on her left knee. “Ouch! Spit fire and save the matches!”

Smythe gave her a hand up. “What happened?” he asked.

“I slipped, that’s all. Blasted knee gives out easily. Shrapnel wound from the war.”

“Can you make it to the cache?”

Jade marveled at his brusque, businesslike tone of voice.
That’s an officer for you. Direct and right to the point. No concern about getting back from the cache, just in getting there.

She took a few tentative steps and winced. She wondered what it felt like to have an artificial limb like Sam. Did he have ghost pains? Did he have to rely on his knee and thigh telling him when he’d actually planted his boot on hard ground?
Hell’s bells. If he can live with that, I can walk with this.
“Yes, I’ll be fine.”

Smythe strode out in front, since he held a rifle and Jade didn’t, with Jade leading from behind. Smythe’s one remaining soldier brought up and guarded the rear. Once they were under way, the captain called over his shoulder, “You told that American you would direct me to the caches. That’s plural. What did you mean?”

“I held my own raid and took some of the rifles as well as the bag of gold. I hid them elsewhere.”

Smythe stopped so suddenly that Jade nearly bumped into him from behind. He turned slowly, pushed his solar topee back on his forehead, and stared at her with a look of newly found respect in his eyes. “You stole arms and money from the Abyssinians? Why, my dear Miss del Cameron, it seems I have underestimated both your valor and your foolhardiness.”

Jade frowned, her thick black brows forming a storm line over her eyes. “What would you have me do, Captain? Let them go? Let them take their rifles and slaughter some innocent villagers or wipe out more of your soldiers? Aren’t you forgetting the one poor soldier I found dead with the elephant? If I could have located you, I would have told you about them sooner. I sent a runner out days ago.”

Smythe’s face became stony as his jaw clenched and his lips formed one thin, hard line. “Miss del Cameron,” he said after a pause during which he seemingly mastered his anger, “I explained to you before, my men and I have a very large territory to patrol. As it is, we are spread too thin. If you think—”

“If
you
think I have forgotten the sacrifice your soldier made, you are mistaken, sir.” Jade’s voice was low, its subdued tone emphasizing her serious intent more than an angry shout could ever do, for it gave proof to her own self-control. “Nor am I likely to. I have seen too many good men die for someone else’s cause.”

Jade held her ground and her gaze until Smythe backed down and looked away. He pressed his hat more firmly on his head. “Perhaps you should just show me the other cache first.”

“No, sir. It’s too far out of the way. The poachers’ hideout is closer. Besides, the rifles I’ve hidden aren’t going anywhere and the Abyssinians may be holding some of Hascombe’s missing people as hostages.”

Smythe nodded and continued on as she directed. For the rest of the hike, they maintained silence, resorting to hand signals to communicate directions at trail forks. Near the cache, Jade tugged on Smythe’s sleeve and put her hand up to signal a stop. Then she held a finger in front of her lips for silence before pointing to the trees. Smythe nodded. They would proceed off the trail.

The captain and his lone soldier took the lead, pushing Jade to the rear as they crept closer to the cache. Jade worried how they would handle this assault with only two armed men and her bow. Surprise could count for something, but if they faced a large number of Abyssinians, they would be slaughtered. Well, as long as she could take some out with her, she’d go down valiantly, and let God defend the right, as the old soldiers used to say.

Smythe held his hand out to the side, palm down, and lowered it, a signal for everyone to drop. Since the cache itself was visible only from the side, they waited silently for a moment, listening for sounds of activity under the overhang. With any luck, Jade thought, it would be empty and they could plan an ambush.

But their luck wasn’t that good. From the interior suddenly burst the shouts of an argument. Of the two voices that echoed from the rocky shelter, one dominated and the other pleaded; both shouted in rapid German. Jade recognized them.
Von Gretchmar and his wife, Claudia!
She strained to catch the words, but several conditions hindered her: her position with most of the rock wall between her and the sounds, her lack of practice listening to rapidly spoken German, and the fact that Smythe had pushed her down to presumably get her out of any possible line of fire.

Before he nearly shoved her face in the dirt, she thought she heard Claudia whimpering about a promise that she’d be a queen, followed by something about the gold. So Claudia was involved. And it stood to reason that if Otto von Gretchmar was this angry, then he’d been paid that gold in exchange for the weapons, and his frumpy little Frau had double-crossed him for another man. But who? Vogelsanger? And how did Mercedes fit in?

Jade had no intention of staying flat on her stomach. She rose on her elbows in time to hear von Gretchmar punch his wife. The resounding smack of a hard fist on soft flesh was quickly followed by a surprised cry of pain and the sound of a body falling against wooden crates. Jade was on her feet in an instant, using her nearly squatting position to launch herself just as a sprinter would. She’d taken two strides when a strong arm yanked her back and flung her to the ground. She landed on her backside, just missing her bow.

“Son of a biscuit!” she swore as she struggled to rise. When she did, she faced a solemn African soldier who held his rifle across his chest in front of her and shook his head no.

In the meantime, Captain Smythe had slipped his Webley .455 from its holster and charged the cache. As Jade watched, unable to move past the soldier, she saw Smythe raise his revolver and take aim, his finger on the trigger.

She launched herself at the askari, using surprise and a few inches of superior height to force him aside. The man stumbled backward as Jade shoved past him. Her efforts to get to Smythe in time were ineffectual. The next sound to reach her ears was the crack of the revolver, followed immediately by a sharp scream of pain.

“No!” she shouted. “I need him alive!”

Smythe ignored her, and lowered the front of his Webley several inches, evidence that his target had fallen. He fired again.

Jade grabbed for his arm, anger lending strength to her body despite all the abuse it had recently suffered. “What the hell are you doing?”

Smythe recoiled under the attack of a five-feet, seven-inch, 130-pound human lioness. His hat fell from his head onto the ground as he wrenched his hand back, keeping a grip on his weapon. “Are you mad, woman?” he demanded.