Authors: Jennifer Donnelly
More porters arrived. Some carried zebra between them, others
gazelle. The animals were suspended by their hooves on poles, their
heads bounced limply, their tongues lolled. Lord Delamere had lied. He
said they would not shoot the animals with guns, only cameras. Grownups
always lied. Charlotte edged away from the dead animals and the laughing
men toward her mother and the other women, who were sitting in camp
chairs underneath the broad canopy of some acacia trees. She came up
behind her mother, pretty in her lawn blouse and khaki skirt, and
pressed a cheek to hers.
"There you are, Charlotte, darling," India said, turning to kiss her.
"Papa's back. Lord Delamere and Sir James, too."
"Are they?" Lady Delamere sighed. "And here we were having such a lovely morning."
All the ladies laughed. All but her mother. She stiffened slightly at
the sight of her father. It was barely a movement, imperceptible to
everyone-- everyone except Charlotte. Her mother looked as if she could
not breathe when her father was near. It was as if he sucked all the
life out of her. He was cruel to her, not with his hands, but with his
words. And his silences.
When he was gone, away on the government's business, which he often
was, her mother was different. The sadness, almost always there in her
eyes, went away. Charlotte often dreamed of them running away, she and
her mother. Mostly to the sea, because she loved the sea. But anywhere
would do, as long as it was somewhere her father would never find them.
She wished they could slip away from their tents at night, ride into the
African hills, and never come back. How she loved the grassy plains
that stretched out into forever. And the wide blue sky. She loved the
Masai warriors, tall and fierce in black feathers and red paint. She
loved the Kikuyu villages with their huts and farms and the hardy
Somalis who kept their women veiled head to toe.
Perhaps they could run away when this awful safari was over. If only for an afternoon.
They had traveled from Mombasa to Nairobi, where her parents were
celebrated for a fortnight with balls, dinners, luncheons, and parties.
They'd gone to the Delameres' enormous farm after that, where they'd
spent another week, then to Lake Victoria, at the end of the Uganda
line, and now they were on safari in Thika. When it ended, there would
be a holiday in the hills of Mount Kenya. In a house that they'd rented
from Lady Something-or-Other. It would be just the three of them and a
handful of servants. Her father needed to write articles and reports. He
needed peace and quiet to do so. Maybe she and her mother could run
away then, while he was busy with his work.
"The great hunters are back!" Lord Delamere boomed, bringing champagne to the ladies.
"Did you catch anything, dear?" his wife asked.
"Scads!" he said. "And Lytton bagged a lion. Big brute of a fellow!"
Charlotte looked over at the growing heap of dead animals. She looked
at the lion again, robbed of his grace and majesty, and tears stung her
eyes.
She didn't want to see him anymore. She was just leaving the sitting
area, ready to go to her tent and fling herself down on her bed, when
Delamere stopped her. "All right, old girl?" he asked. He was frowning
at her.
She nodded gamely. "Just a bit tired," she said. She knew it was the
thing to say when something was wrong but you didn't want to talk about
it. She knew because it was what her mother always said.
"Too much sun. Have yourself a kip. Just the thing."
Charlotte nodded. He tousled her hair, disturbing her neat blond braids, and she continued on her way.
"Charlotte?" she heard her mother call, though she pretended she hadn't. Then, "Where's she going, Hugh?"
"She's fine, India. Leave the poor girl be."
"Charlotte, make sure you tell Mary where you're going!" India called.
"For goodness' sake! She's only going to take a nap!" Delamere bellowed.
Charlotte walked toward her tent, the one she shared with her
mother's maid, Mary. She looked around for Mary, but when she couldn't
find her she went into the tent and lay on her bed. After a few minutes
she stood up again. She wasn't that kind of tired, not the kind of tired
that made you want to sleep. She was tired deep down inside. It was the
kind of tired that made you want to be alone. She had to get away from
them all for a bit. Away from her father. Away from the sad, dead lion.
She remembered seeing a beautiful, silvery waterfall on their way into
camp. She didn't think it was too far away. She would go there and
listen to the rushing waters, maybe take off her boots and stockings and
dip her toes. She grabbed her doll Jane for company and set off.
Charlotte was a quiet, careful child, not the type to wander too near
a camp stove or play with a loaded rifle. People knew that about her,
so they did not tend to watch her as closely as they might watch other
children. No one made sure she had gone to the tent. India, as Freddie's
wife, was obliged to listen with unmitigated interest as Lord Delamere
launched yet again into a diatribe on why Parliament must do more to
further the settlers' cause. Mary, sitting in the kitchen tent listening
to a handsome guide tell her how a water buffalo had given him the
jagged scar on his arm, didn't check on her either.
It was not until dinnertime, nearly three hours after Charlotte had
left the campsite, that India came running from her tent, wild-eyed,
shouting, "Where's Charlotte? Please, has anyone seen my daughter?"
Sid felt the riders before he saw them. He was sitting on the grass
by his campfire, finishing his breakfast, when he felt hooves pounding
the ground.
They're coming on bloody fast, he thought. Why?
He stood and looked for them, shading his eyes with his hands. He
spotted them. Two of them. Coming from the direction of Thika. It wasn't
far. He was near enough to have ridden home last night if he'd wanted
to, but he'd fancied one more night out under the stars. And, if he was
honest, one more night's distance between himself and the Lyttons. He
could make one of the riders out now. It was Maggie. There was a man
with her. Sid squinted at him. He was young, slim. He knew him. It was
Tom Meade, the ADC.
"What the hell does the government want now?" he wondered aloud. "I just took their bloody map maker all around Kenya and back."
Maggie rode up to him breathless and unsmiling. Her horse was
lathered. She never rode him that hard. Sid suddenly got a bad feeling.
He tried to shake it off.
"Miss me that much, Maggs?" he joked, when she was near enough to hear him.
"Never mind that. We've got trouble," she said. She jumped down and started kicking dirt over his fire.
"What is it? What's up?" he asked, looking from her to Tom.
"Lost girl," Tom said, winded. "Delamere sent me to Maggie's to fetch
you. Said you know the area better than anyone. Maggie said you were
gone, but due back soon. We looked north, on a hope, really, and saw
your smoke."
"Tom, who's lost? Where?" Sid asked, already breaking camp.
"Never mind your things. I'll get them," Maggie said. "Saddle up."
"The undersecretary--Freddie Lytton--his daughter's gone," Tom said.
"The Lyttons are on safari with the Delameres and the governor and me
and--"
"Her name, Tom."
"Charlotte. She wandered off and--"
"How old?"
"About six."
Sid was slipping the bridle over his horse's head. His hands faltered. "Jesus Christ," he said softly. "How long ago?"
"Yesterday afternoon."
Sid turned at that. "For God's sake, Tom! Where are the bloody guides?" he shouted.
"They've been searching ever since her mother discovered she was gone. Can't find a trace of her."
"Where was she last seen?"
"In her tent. But one of the guides tracked her to the river."
"That river's full of crocs. And a python as big as a bloody tree!"
"Not anymore. Guides shot everything."
"Snake, too?"
Tom nodded. "Opened them all up. Nothing."
"She went walkabout then," Sid said. He threw his saddle over his
horse's back. She. She was India's daughter. He would do anything to
spare India what was to come. Anything. Even his own life. But he
couldn't. It was too late. He knew it was.
"You'll want to go straight to camp, I imagine. See the undersecretary."
"No, I bloody well won't," Sid said.
"But--"
"I'm going straight to the river. I'm going to hope those bloody
fools who call themselves guides have managed to leave a track, a print,
something I can use."
"But the Lyttons are out of their minds with worry. Lady Lytton's been sedated. They want to see you."
"There's no time! Don't you understand that? It's lion country, Tom. A
little girl all alone out there ...she's got no chance, has she? None
at all."
Tom shrank in his saddle. "What are you saying?"
"That it's a recovery you're sending me on, not a rescue. I'm giving
the parents something to bury, that's all. Now get the hell out of my
way so I can find what's left before the vultures do."
Sid gazed at the torn, mauled carcasses on the ground and breathed a
ragged sigh of relief. He'd heard the flies, smelled the blood. He'd
been certain it was her--Charlotte Lytton--but it was only a dead
Tommie. He backed away from it warily, knowing that whatever had killed
it was probably nearby. He swung back into his saddle and spurred his
horse on, riding southwest from Thika, toward the Athi plains.
He'd been searching for the girl for two full days now. After talking
to Tom Meade, he'd ridden hard to the Thika river. No one from the
Lyttons' party was there anymore. They'd all moved off. He'd cursed them
roundly as he looked at the riverbank. Their big, stupid footprints
were all over it, obscuring any Charlotte might have left. He asked Tom
where they'd gone. Tom said half had ridden west, half east. They would
all sweep north and meet at the Tana River.
Sid had kept searching, eyes on the ground, as Tom explained the
guides' movements. He walked in a widening arc from the river's south
bank, the bank closest to the campsite, hoping to spot something. And
then he did. One small, narrow bootprint in the red dirt, its toe
pointing east. As he looked at it, he realized that it made sense. It
was afternoon when she'd wandered off, Tom had said, and the sun would
have been beginning its descent.
Charlotte would probably be fair--like her mother and father--he
reasoned, and unused to the African sun. She'd probably been warned
against it. She wouldn't walk toward it; she'd turn away from it and
walk east.
He'd told Tom he'd be back in three days at the latest. Tom had
wanted to come with him, but Sid had refused. He worked best alone.
He'd been rewarded toward the end of the first day with a small white
handkerchief embroidered with the initial C. It was caught in some tall
grass and crumpled. She must have been crying, he thought. But it
wasn't bloodied; that was something. It meant she was alive when she
dropped it. Hope flared in him. After spotting it, he shouted her name
until he was hoarse, but there was no answer. The trail had gone cold
again, but he felt buoyed by the handkerchief. He felt connected to the
little girl. He had guessed her moves correctly so far; he knew how she
thought. He would keep on trusting his instincts; maybe they would pay
off. He'd ridden on into the evening, stopping only when the dark
finally forced him to.
Today, twenty-four hours after finding the handkerchief, the hope was
gone again and he was angry at himself for having dared to even feel
it. He knew better. Everything was against her. Hadn't he said as much
to Tom? The lions were only the start. Even if she'd somehow managed to
avoid them, there were still the night prowlers--hyenas and jackals.
There was the harsh sun. A lack of food and water. There were game
pits--large, hidden holes dug by the Kikuyu to trap animals. And there
were the siafu. It had rained the first night, and the rain always
called them out. Sid felt a shiver go up his spine at the thought of
them. He'd often seen them--hordes of ravening warrior ants marching in
an endless black column. Most creatures knew to get away from them, but
those who didn't--or couldn't--were eaten alive. Hens in a henhouse.
Puppies. Babies in their cots.
He pushed the thoughts from his mind. He desperately wanted to give
India her daughter back. She was the only woman he'd ever loved, and he
loved her still. He wanted to help her, to save her from a grief so
terrible. The image of her keening over her dead child was unbearable to
him. If he couldn't do that, if the lions had gotten her, he would
bring back something--her boots, perhaps. A ribbon or a piece of
jewelry. Something to clutch at, something to hold. But not the remains.
For India would insist on looking, he knew she would. People always
wanted to look. They thought they could handle it. They had no idea what
Africa was capable of.
He rode over a gentle rise on the plains and brought his horse up
short. From this vantage point, he raised a pair of field glasses to his
eyes and looked for movement in the grass--the raised, blood-stained
face of a lion, or a boiling brawl over the kill. He looked for movement
in the sky, the lazy wheeling of vultures certain of a meal. But he saw
nothing. He was ready to ride on, but something kept him. He held the
glasses to his eyes a bit longer, slowly sweeping his gaze along the
horizon. Just a minute more, he thought. And then he saw it--a patch of
white in an acacia tree. It didn't register at first. His eyes traveled
past it, discounting it, then snapped back. There was something wrong
about it. It was too large to be a bird. Too bright to be an animal. He
tightened the focus. The white was still indistinct, obscured by
branches. And then, suddenly, it moved. And below it, something else
moved. Something tawny.