The Leopard's Prey
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 - KENYA COLONY, July 1920
OTHER BOOKS IN THE JADE DEL CAMERON SERIES
Mark of the Lion
Stalking Ivory
The Serpent’s Daughter
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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,
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First Printing, January 2009
Copyright © Suzanne Arruda, 2009
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Arruda, Suzanne Middendorf, 1954-
The leopard’s prey: a Jade del Cameron mystery/Suzanne Arruda.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-440-65594-4
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This book is dedicated with love to my brothers and
sisters: Dave, Michael, Nancy, and Cynthia
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MY THANKS TO: the Pittsburg State University Axe Library Interlibrary Loan staff, for their tireless efforts to help me run down all the research books, especially the rogue
Red Book
; the National Wild Turkey Federation’s Women in the Outdoors program, for roping lessons; Terry (Tessa) McDermid, for her help as my writing buddy; James Arruda, for help explaining ailerons; Michael Arruda, for explaining dead-stick landing; Dr. Vic Sullivan, for his hints on how to sabotage a biplane; Mr. Ken Hyde of the Wright Experience, for sharing his vast knowledge and love of maintaining and flying Jennies; Barbara Brooks of Elefence International, for her input on raising leopard cubs; Mike and Nancy Brewer, for original and inspired musical accompaniment to my Web and publicity CDs; my NAL publicists, Catherine Milne and Tom Haushalter, for all their hard work; my agent, Susan Gleason, and my editor, Ellen Edwards, for their continued belief and efforts in the series; all my family: the Dad, James, Michael, Dave, Nancy, and Cynthia, for helping me shamelessly promote the books. I especially wish to thank Joe, the greatest husband and webmaster a writer could ever want, for all his help and support; and Wooly Bear for keeping her hair balls off the keyboard.
Any mistakes are my own, despite the best efforts of my excellent instructors.
CHAPTER 1
KENYA COLONY,
July 1920
There is an African proverb that runs through many tribes.
“The foolish antelope cuts firewood for the leopard.” Basically, don’t give
your enemies any more help in establishing your demise
than they already possess.
—The Traveler
I’LL BE FINE.
Jade del Cameron wondered if those famous last words would soon end up gracing her headstone. The plan had seemed like a good one at the time, but it had been daylight then, the sun warm and benevolent. She’d watched the two Americans, Wayne Anderson and Franklin Cutter, enter the blind twenty yards away, and heard the three Kikuyu assistants settle into the tree that grew beside her. Soon after, darkness had swooped down upon the African landscape, a mythical black bird, immense, terrible, and predatory, devouring Jade’s previous cockiness. Her quivering limbs told her this had been one of her less intelligent ideas.
I’m safer in here than during the War in that Model T
ambulance with shells pounding around me.
But her heart didn’t believe her. It raced until the dull roaring filled her inner ears with a sound akin to a raging river. She took a deep breath and tried to relax by shifting her legs. The right calf immediately cramped, and she flexed her foot to relieve it. The cramp quit, but the left leg started twitching, the muscles fatigued from maintaining one position for over six hours in a two-foot-wide-by-three-foot-long-and-four-foot-high enclosure, built for something much smaller than a five-foot, seven-inch woman.
Get a grip on yourself. You’ve sat in blinds for longer than this before.
That was from her head. Her stomach responded with,
Yeah, but never as leopard bait.
She shivered, her sweat-soaked shirt sucking heat from her body. When she had first entered the cage of lashed limbs, its stifling warmth had stolen every breath. Then, as Africa released its captured heat like a nightly sacrifice to Ngai, the Maker, she longed for some of that warmth. And all just to save a bit of Africa from itself.
The leopard in question was one of a pair that had menaced the pastoral tribes for several months. Both were slated for death for their crimes, the male first. It wasn’t his fault. Easy game had diminished as the colonists expanded their farms. The pair of young cats, hungry and desperate, had first taken to the goats, conveniently clustered into low pens. On his last raid, the male was driven off by a brave villager, but not before the cat had slashed the man’s leg and bitten him in the thigh. Worse yet, at least as far as the residents of Parklands north of Nairobi were concerned, the cat had been seen stalking someone’s dog. The terrified boxer had raced onto the veranda and into his master’s house through a partially open window, his tail between his legs, leaving a puddle of urine on the new rug imported all the way from Turkey.
The arrival of the Perkins and Daley Zoological Company soon after this incident had seemed like a godsend to all. They wanted specimens for American zoos, the villagers and settlers wanted the leopards gone, and the goats and dogs wanted not to be eaten. It looked as if everyone, except the goats that would still be consumed eventually, would get his wish. The company suited Jade’s purposes, as well. She wanted to save these cats from extermination, and she needed the money.
Writing articles for the
Traveler
paid well enough, but traveling anywhere to write about a new location had grown more expensive, especially with the current petrol shortage. Even her photographic film seemed to cost more every time she picked up an order. It also gnawed at Jade’s conscience to take advantage of her friends, the Dunburys, by staying at their home. She longed for more independence. So after asking about the company and finding that they had a reputation for honesty, she hired on as a wrangler and photographer. Somehow, she hadn’t counted on ending up as leopard bait.
From lashed-together tree limbs, the company had built a double cage, one half for a goat, the other half for the cat. The leopard would try to get the goat from outside, but wouldn’t be able to drive its claws through the tight network of vegetation. It would finally notice that it could more easily see the prey if it looked through the open doorway into the empty half.
The illusion of accessibility was maintained by a double layer of bars, each constructed of branches lashed at right angles to one another, and each layer separated by a foot of space. In theory, the cat would enter, tripping the mechanism that would drop the door behind it. The men in the nearby tree would jump down and secure the door before the cat could get out. In theory.