Stalking Ivory (5 page)

“Mrs. Worthy won’t bother Pili anymore,” said Avery. Somewhere in the vicinity, a male lion called to his mate in a series of husky roars that ended in a set of short, choppy harrumphs. For the moment, everyone sat very still, drinking glasses in hand, as they listened to the throaty symphony. “We’ve seen to that,” Avery continued when the big cat had finished. “She knows we’ll charge her formally the next time she tries anything.”

“So you don’t think that runaway carriage was an accident after all,” said Neville. “I say, is the lad safe?”

Avery nodded. “Quite safe. We transferred him to a school in Scotland. He may not like the climate, but she doesn’t know where he is.”

“And,” added Beverly as she took a cue from Madeline and kicked off her own shoes, “she can’t get her hands on his money, either.” She stretched her long legs in front of her. “We have it secured in a trust for him. How such a sweet man as David could have had such a horrid woman for a mother is beyond me. To think she actually hired someone to kill her husband.”

“Something we’ve never been able to prove, either,” added Jade. “If there was any proof in Roger Forster’s papers, they burned with his house.”

There was a brief lull while everyone considered the meaning of that statement. “I suppose she had Gil Worthy killed so he couldn’t bring home another heir to replace her son?” said Neville.

Jade nodded, drained her glass of lemonade, and set it down. “My only question is, how extensive are her connections in Africa? Olivia Lilith Worthy does not leave many traces behind.”

“Speaking of sweet men, Jade,” said Madeline, as she tried to brighten the mood, “what did you think of Edmunde, Colridge’s son? I believe he took a fancy to you.”

Jade curled her upper lip and imitated a lion’s snarl. “Don’t start pushing more men on me, Maddy. First Hascombe, now Edmunde?”

The thought of Harry Hascombe sent a tingle down Jade’s spine, which brought her back to the present. She took out her knife and whittled a fresh pencil tip. Soft footfalls approached, and Jade looked up to see their headman regarding her with concern.

“Simba Jike is not tired tonight?” he inquired.

Jade shrugged. “Actually I am—tired of a lot of stuff, Chiumbo.”

The Tanganyikan sat down next to her. “It is that elephant cow and her
toto
that upset you. Perhaps you are only tired of death, miss.”

Jade propped her elbows on her legs and rested her chin on her clasped hands. “I understand hunting, Chiumbo. I’ve been doing it most of my life. We hunted for food or protection, same as the animals out here. I even partially understand hunting for sport. But I don’t understand waste and cruelty. Killing that calf was a waste and letting that cow die slowly and painfully was cruel. I don’t understand that. But it isn’t the cow and her baby that I was thinking of just now. I keep seeing that poor soldier.” She shuddered. “Chiumbo, that man was executed. His face was blown away after someone first shot arrows into his gut. That’s murder!”

“Cruelty is power, miss. You do not covet power.”

Jade studied the African’s face, scarred both by battle and by experience. The firelight highlighted deep wrinkles across his brow and around his mouth and cast a shadow over a badly healed rent that ran from his jaw to his temple, just missing his left eye. She wondered how old he was and decided he must be fifty at least. “You sound as if you speak from experience, Chiumbo.”

For a few thoughtful moments he watched the fire dance. “My people are called Nyamwezi, the people who bring the moon. We were traders. We left from Tabora at the new moon and always arrived at Dar es Salaam at the next new moon, so the people there joked that we”—he paused—“excreted the moon when we came.”

Jade smiled and nodded for the man to continue.

“I made some of those trips with my father. Before we left the village, we would go to the
mahoka
huts, where we prayed to our ancestors and left offerings for them.” His lips tightened, and he scowled, still staring into the fire. “Then these men you white people call Germans came to our land and destroyed the huts. They mocked our rituals. Chief Isike fought them, and I fought with him as a young warrior. When Isike died, these men took whole villages and forced us to work their cotton farms. Many died. Some of us joined the Hehe tribe to fight these men, who were led by an Englishman named Prince and aided by their missionary people. This man called Prince, he and his lieutenant killed my father. I saw, but I could do nothing. Then our leaders told us to drink and sprinkle ourselves with sacred water from the mountains. They said it would turn the bullets to
maji
, ‘water.’”

His smile was grim as he shook his head. “It only turned them to blood,
our
blood. They knew no mercy, Simba Jike. Only cruelty. All these people wanted power.”

“And what do you want, Chiumbo?” she asked. “Do you seek power or revenge?”

He turned to her. “Men pay me now to lead their safaris. I can say yes or no to their money. That is my power.”

“And why did you say yes to our money?”

“You must sleep now,” he said as he stood. “I will keep first watch.”

Jade nodded obediently and rose. Biscuit stood with her, and she directed him to Jelani’s tent to guard the boy. Suddenly she felt tremendously exhausted. Her head throbbed and her body ached. She rubbed her left knee absentmindedly and stumbled through the tent flaps. Perhaps she should rummage through her kit and find that little bottle of aspirin Beverly insisted she pack. Bev kept telling her that it was a wonder drug and claimed it would help her knee.

She lit the oil lamp and trimmed the wick. The cot looked so enticing, but the assorted aches grew steadily stronger. Jade turned aside, put the lamp in front of her on her camp table, and headed for her pack to find the needed medication, her shadow dancing on the tent’s wall.

From behind her came a soft
whoosh
followed by a muffled
thunk
. She whirled and saw an arrow protruding from the center of her cot.

I
T TOOK A FEW SECONDS
for Jade to come out of her exhaustion-induced fog and comprehend the wooden shaft sticking out of her thin mattress. For a moment she stared dumbly at it, mouth open, and wondered where it came from. Then it dawned on her that the arrow would have been sticking out of her body if she hadn’t opted for pain relief. At that point, the fog lifted in her head, and she raced back outside and peered into the gloom for movement.

Chiumbo read the anger and confusion on Jade’s face and ran to her side. “What is the matter, Simba Jike?”

“Someone shot an arrow into my cot. Did you see or hear anyone?”

Chiumbo shook his head. “From which way did the arrow come?”

Excellent question, thought Jade. In her haste to find someone, she hadn’t paid much attention. A quick inspection of her tent showed the rent where the arrow had entered but little else.

She pulled the arrow out of the cot and showed it to Chiumbo. It looked handmade with a straight wooden shaft that ended in a sharpened bone point. Both the feathers for the fletching and the point were lashed on with thin strips of animal hide. “Do you know who uses an arrow like this?” She wished she’d paid more attention to the ones in the elephants today.

He shrugged. “It could be anyone, Simba Jike.” The headman took it from her and carefully directed the point away from both of them. “You must be careful. Sometimes the tip is poisoned.”

Their movements and conversation soon drew the attention of the Dunburys. They hurried out of their tent as soon as they could slip into their clothes and boots. “Can’t you even go to bed without getting into trouble?” Beverly asked.

Jade scowled. “I don’t suppose you have anything useful to contribute, such as knowing who did this?” She took back the arrow and held it out, tip up, while pointing to the rent in the canvas.

Avery turned to peer into the darkness. “I say, Jade, have you an enemy we should know about? That makes two times today someone has aimed for you.”

Beverly’s jaw dropped in horror. “Avery!” she scolded. “I thought we decided that earlier incident was probably a shot gone wild and not someone aiming for Jade. We said as much to Captain Smythe.”

Jade held up her hand to forestall Avery’s rebuttal. “Once is an accident. Twice is another matter, Bev. I’m inclined to agree with your husband.” She turned the arrow in her hands and studied every aspect. “Well made. Lightweight but sharp tip. Rather efficient at puncturing skin, I should think.”

“Perhaps one of those Abyssinian raiders?” suggested Avery. “The back end looks a bit like the ones we saw earlier today.”

“Possibly,” Jade said. “Whoever it was, I don’t think they intended to actually kill me.”

Beverly gasped. “But it landed in the middle of your cot.”

Jade pointed with the arrow towards her tent, where the soft, flickering glow of her lantern illuminated the interior. “The lantern was in front of me and they shot from behind me. I think the archer could see my form standing upright. If he’d wanted to shoot me, he could have.”

“But why?” asked Beverly.

“Why shoot at me or why miss?”

Beverly frowned and shrugged. “Both.”

“Maybe someone wants to scare us away, but if they hit me, they’d run the risk of someone seriously tracking them down.”

Avery nodded vigorously. “That makes a certain amount of sense and it fits what Captain Smythe told us about the raiders. They probably want us to clear out of the area.”

Jade stuck the arrow, tip first, into the ground near a corner tent peg. Her head pounded, and she rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “I never took my headache pills,” she said in a soft voice as though thinking aloud.

“Beg your pardon?” Beverly asked.

“Oh, I just remembered that I didn’t take my aspirin. That’s why I wasn’t in my cot. I was trying to find them in my kit.”

Avery let out a soft whistle. “I say, it’s a good job you had that headache, then.”

Jade stifled a yawn. “Yep. I’d have really needed a painkiller,” she muttered as the situation’s irony kicked in. She let the next yawn rip her mouth wide open before she started towards her tent. She hadn’t gone more than two steps when a muffled boom erupted from the direction of her tree blind. Everyone immediately ducked, but Jade quickly stood back up again.

“It’s all right,” she said. “That was my flash powder going off.”

“That loud?” exclaimed Beverly. “The noise at the Muthaiga wasn’t half as noisy and we were closer.”

Jade nodded. “I probably used a bit too much powder this time. That boom is similar to thunder after lightning heats the air. If you were at the blind, you would have seen a very bright white flash first.”

“So something hit the trip wire,” said Avery. “That’s splendid, but I hope you’re not planning on checking on it tonight.”

Jade looked longingly into the darkness towards the camera blind and chewed her lower lip. “No, it can wait until tomorrow, I suppose. Whoever shot my cot might still be out there.”

“Jade,” called Beverly as her friend headed back to her tent, “what should we do?”

“Double the watch, I guess. I’m going to bed.” Jade yawned again. “Don’t wake me up unless someone actually shoots me.”

Perhaps it was the headache pulsing in her temples in time to her heartbeat. Perhaps it was the memory of the dead askari and the dying elephant’s open-eyed terror that she’d witnessed earlier in the day, or the ongoing din of elephants feeding in the distance. Whatever the underlying cause, horrifying sounds and visions wrecked Jade’s dreams. All during the night she was beset by elephants trumpeting in rage and panic as they crashed through the underbrush trying to escape an unseen danger. At one point, she saw old Lord Colridge and his cronies talking over a drink at the Muthaiga Club while a herd crashed through the bar behind them. Finally she dreamed the old bull himself stepped out of the morning mists and trumpeted a piercing warning. Curiously, she felt this warning was directed, not to the herd, but to her.

J
ADE WOKE AT FOUR A.M.
and took advantage of the blackness to develop a film roll. Knowing the ill effects of moisture on unexposed film, she continued to use individual film sheets in her trip wire cameras, but she had installed a roll adapter on the Graflex that she carried with her. When she finished, she scanned the developed negative for anything worthwhile and wished once again that she had a complete photo lab instead of a few tins of concentrated chemicals and some developing trays in the spare tent. Red glass covered her lantern and gave her just enough light to see the images. Making prints would have to wait until she returned to Nairobi and Beverly’s new house, where the Dunburys had generously added on a full lab just for her use.

“I got you!” she whispered to the big bull elephant in one of the frames. She grabbed a magnifying lens and studied the negative, hoping to find part of the female herd in the background. None of them appeared, but Jade knew that the old boy was on their track. He never ventured farther than a mile from them.

The moment she’d spotted this ancient bull circling the cows, Jade had amended her original intent to photograph only the elephant herds. He traveled alone, as did most mature bulls, his proximity to the cows only tolerated by the herd’s aging matriarch. The old dame ruled her herd with an iron trunk, guiding them through the mountain forest in the continuing search for fresh food, and she had little patience for would-be Romeos taking food needed by pregnant cows and growing calves.

Jade looked at the last negative on the short roll and saw the mother cow and her baby as they passed below her tree blind yesterday. The recollection of their subsequent slaughter brought a fresh upwelling of anger to her throat. She wondered if these elephants had been some of the matriarch’s own progeny.

Last night’s dreams flashed in her mind, and suddenly Jade felt a sense of urgency that made her hands tremble. This outpost was not the sanctuary she’d hoped it would be. She needed to document these giant animals before they and their world evaporated like the morning mists over the crater. Mr. Percival, who was forced to spend most of his time closer to Nairobi, must have suspected that as well, which was why he wanted her survey. If the herds were in danger, he could at least limit hunting permits.

“Ja-ade,” sang a clear soprano voice from outside Jade’s sleeping tent. “I say, are you up or are you being a slugabed?”

Jade left the developed negatives hanging from clothespins and tiptoed out of the makeshift darkroom. She slunk around the side of the tent as silently as a real lioness and paused. Then, in a single leap, she pounced behind Beverly and slapped her across the back.

Beverly jumped a foot and shrieked. “Blast you, Jade,” she said as she collapsed against the tent post, a hand on her chest. “You scared me! My heart is pounding.”

Jade chuckled, her voice a low contralto. “I’m sorry, Bev. Truly I am.”

“No, you’re not. At least you don’t sound very sorry.”

“You’re right. I’m not.” She clapped her hands together and laughed. “I couldn’t resist, you know. Don’t hurt me.” Her hands rose in front of her face in a mock defensive posture.

Biscuit bounded forward, wanting to join in the romp. He butted his head against Jade, then slapped at Beverly’s leg.

“Wonderful. All the cats are attacking this morning,” muttered Beverly. She put her hand to her stomach and grimaced. “Oof. I feel a trifle green today.”

Jade quieted Biscuit with a gentle but firm touch on the cat’s head, then apologized to her friend again. “Come and see what I’ve discovered this morning,” she said as she motioned Beverly to the darkroom tent. Beverly waited outside in the misty morning air while Jade slipped in and retrieved the developed negatives.

“Look at this one,” she said.

Beverly’s soft blue eyes opened wide as she examined the strip. “He’s magnificent! Oh, Jade. I say, well done, old girl.”

“What’s Simba Jike done now?”

The deep, purring voice caught Jade completely off guard. She’d been expecting Avery’s mellow tenor, not Harry’s rumbling baritone. She spun around in an instant, her fists clenched at her sides.

If Harry noticed, he pretended not to. “Good morning, ladies. I came to invite you to dinner tonight. Lord Dunbury as well, of course.”

“Harry,” Beverly said. “Good morning. I’m afraid you gave us a bit of a start.”

“My apologies.” He touched his hat brim in an attempt to be polite. “I wanted to catch you all early before you left camp. Guess I didn’t bother to think of the consequences of intruding on you so suddenly.”

Jade let out a muffled snort, which Harry ignored as he did her pugilistic stance.

“So will you join me and my crew for dinner?” He sounded hopeful, almost pleading.

Beverly picked up on it immediately. “Avery just left to hunt for the pot now, but I can answer for him. We’d be delighted to come.”

Jade snatched the negatives from Beverly’s hand. “I won’t be able to join you. I have work to do.” She turned her back on Harry and entered the darkroom tent. The last thing she wanted to do was dine with him. Beverly’s lilting voice chattered briefly outside, followed by Harry’s muffled response. The tent flap moved aside, and Beverly stepped in.

“Why did you refuse Harry’s dinner invitation?”

Jade scowled and nodded to the entrance to indicate she had no wish for Harry to overhear her conversation.

Beverly waved her arm in dismissal. “Oh, Harry has excused himself to visit with Biscuit.” She took a moment to scrutinize Jade’s face. “You look like hell, Jade. Those dark circles under your eyes are as big as saucers. Didn’t you sleep?”

Jade shrugged. “Yes, but fitfully.”

“Bad dreams again? What was it this time, more plane crashes?”

“No. Stampeding elephants and…” She paused as she recollected parts of her dream. “Colridge was in it and the commissioner, but I’m stumped if I can figure out why.”

Beverly patted her friend’s back. “Who knows? But you still haven’t explained why you don’t want to dine with Harry.”

“I don’t care to break bread, or antelope, or anything else with that man. I don’t much like him and I certainly don’t trust him, Bev.”

Beverly shook her head, making her curls jiggle. “Then wouldn’t it be a good idea to see what he’s up to?”

Jade’s head snapped up. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”

Beverly shrugged. “Jade, darling, I do not consider Harry an enemy, but if
you
do, then by all means keep an eye on him.”

Jade pursed her lips as she considered the situation, then nodded. “All right, but you tell him. Seeing him again will only ruin my appetite for breakfast.” She picked up some cans of developer and rearranged them in a pretense of being busy.

Beverly laughed at her. “I already told him you’d come. He’ll stop by to get us in midafternoon.” She left before Jade could retaliate.

Jade stuck her head out of the tent and shouted after Beverly, “He’d better not serve any blasted tea!” She went back into the darkroom tent for a while and considered the advantages of inspecting Harry’s camp. She had no idea what sort of people he was leading on his safari or how competent they were at shooting game, but hunters liked to brag. She could find out if they’d killed any of her elephants, especially the calf. Jade frowned at the thought of the calf. Few hunters would brag about shooting a baby. She knew Harry wouldn’t.

Harry said they were just scouting right now. Was he lying? How hard would it be to hide the ivory? Large tusks would be obvious, but baby ivory would be easy to stow out of sight. For a moment, she considered the chances of slipping through Harry’s camp while Beverly and Avery kept the others occupied. Then she quickly discarded that idea. Hascombe was no fool. He’d know what she was up to. After a little more consideration, Jade decided the best way to find out about the baby ivory was to ask the porters and gun bearers. If she couldn’t get to them, perhaps Jelani could.

A smirk stole across her lips. Surely Harry would like to show off Biscuit to his people, and she couldn’t take Biscuit without taking Jelani along. No one would pay any attention to an African boy. To many arrogant whites, the Africans were simply scenery or part of their safari equipment. And even if they did notice him, they wouldn’t think twice if Jelani sat to talk with their men.

After a breakfast of leftover bustard on flat bread and a mug of fragrant hot coffee, Jade and Chiumbo, who also acted as Jade’s personal gun bearer, left camp to check on her cameras. To her delight, both of the two set for day photographs had been tripped. She hoped the pictures had been taken yesterday afternoon or early this morning and not overnight, but if the flashlight picture showed promise, she’d set them all up for night shots in the future.
That old tusker’s dust-bathing grounds ought to do well for a shot.

Jade checked the cameras for condensation and saw that the lenses were dry. She decided to reset them both in hopes of another day shot and bring them back into camp on her return trip to avoid undue exposure of the lenses to the mountain mists until she saw her results. After making the rounds, she and Chiumbo headed up the mountain with her fourth camera in hand in the hopes of photographing the old bull again.

The problem was finding the bull. Jade knew he sometimes trailed the main herd, but it could be anywhere by now. Based on their last route, the cows might be heading up to the big crater lake at the top of the mountain. If that was the case, he’d be in his favorite bath, water lilies clinging to his back.

Jade scanned the trees for telltale signs of recent elephant passage, looking for broken branches, stripped bark, and polished tree trunks where a large body had rubbed against them. She found some of those indications, but none looked fresh. She pointed up a steep incline and suggested to Chiumbo that they try a shortcut in hopes of catching the herd on the other side of the ridge. He shook his head and led her a few yards to the right into the forest. Then he pointed to a dinner-plate-sized, steaming manure pile.

Fresh droppings!

“Good job, Chiumbo. Someone’s been through here recently.”

The trail they found followed the contour of the land around the southern side of the crater, with sharp ravines appearing on their right as the mountain sheered off. More scat littered the ground ahead of them, giving testimony to the number of elephants that had followed this path. Chiumbo took the lead, cautioning Jade to proceed slowly. A trail this fresh meant the elephants could be very close, and the last thing they wanted was to stumble into them. A week ago the idea of running smack into a herd of elephants without knowing they were there would have seemed ludicrous to Jade, but not anymore. She’d witnessed firsthand how silent these massive beasts could be.

That day, she’d been waiting in her first blind, built from brush and set on the ground to the side of a dust-bathing area, when several elephants had emerged like ghosts from the forest right in front of her. The old lead cow had stopped short of her blind and waited, swaying gently from side to side, agitated but not dangerously so. The unexpected blind clearly puzzled her, and as much as she wanted to spray her back with the red earth, she had no intention of leading her troop into danger. Caution eventually won out and the entire herd stepped back into the forest’s shadows as silently as they’d appeared.

The saplings along this current trail had been stripped of their branches, and several larger trees bore fresh scars where a thick bough had been pulled down and snapped off to give access to the tender shoots at the tip. This must have been where the herd fed last night, Jade mused.

Chiumbo stopped suddenly and pointed ahead.
Elephants! Dozens of them!
Jade froze. At present there was no breeze, so the herd didn’t have their scent, but breezes shifted and twisted in the forest. They’d do better to move off the trail and up into a tree, where they could watch in relative safety.

Jade pointed to a heavily buttressed tree and Chiumbo nodded. The elephants couldn’t easily knock it down if they were spotted, and they should be able to see the herd from above. Jade uncoiled a span of rope from her pack and made several loops along its length and another at the end. She next tossed the looped end over a stout branch, slipped the entire coil through it, and pulled. With the rope firmly attached to the branch, they could use the other loops as hand-and footholds to climb.

Chiumbo went first. Jade waited until he was in the branch before she tied her day pack to the rope. After Chiumbo hauled up the pack, he lowered the rope again for Jade to climb. Both of them managed to get into the tree without making undue noise, but Jade wasn’t sure the elephants would have paid it any mind anyway. The beasts were clearly absorbed in watching their leader.

From her perch, Jade could barely see the old cow for all the Spanish moss hanging in her way, so she climbed up another tier of branches for a better view. The matriarch kept sweeping her trunk across the trail in front of her, each pass removing a layer of leaf litter. When the leaves had been cleared away, she started dragging away sticks, first small ones, then larger. Jade watched, fascinated, then signaled to Chiumbo to hand up her camera. This was too good to miss.
What is the old girl digging up? An old blind?

To her amazement, a gaping hole appeared as the cow hauled away a slender branch. Jade focused and took her photograph. The cow had detected a trap dug in the middle of their trail and deftly uncovered it. From her perch, Jade could see several sharpened stakes in the bottom of the pit, intended to impale the victim, and judging from the size of the hole, elephants were the victim of choice. Once the leader exposed the entire dimensions of the trap, she stepped aside while each of the other cows and the younger bulls took turns inspecting it. Then the entire herd simply walked around the pit and continued on its way.