“You are welcome, memsahib. Come.”
I approached her and then reached to touch the silky plait of the child on her hip, then the sheen of his shoulder. Jebbta had grown into a proper woman, with a woman’s burdens. That was the way things worked in the Kip village. Nothing had changed there.
“Is this your only child, Jebbta?”
“The youngest. And your children, memsahib?”
“I have none.”
“Are you not married?”
“No. Not any longer.”
She tipped her head back and forth as if to say she understood, but she was only being polite. At the outdoor hearth fire, yellow flames licked up the sides of a black pot, the smells of the bubbling grain inside making me feel hungry in a way I’d forgotten. “I’ve come for arap Ruta, Jebbta. Is he nearby?”
“No, memsahib, he hunts with the others.”
“Oh, yes. Will you tell him I was here and that I asked for him?”
“Yes. He will be sorry to have missed such a friend.”
—
Molo was eighteen miles north and west from Njoro, and stood on a plateau at the top of the Mau Escarpment, ten thousand feet nearer the stars. The elevation made it dramatically different from home. Icy streams and rivulets ran through dense bracken; woolly sheep grazed on low, misted hillsides. I passed farms, but they were mostly pyrethrum crops, miles and miles of the white chrysanthemums that flourished in the highlands, their dried heads used as insecticide when ground into powder. They were striking now, the bushes snowy and rounded as drifts. It did snow in the highlands, and I wondered if I was ready for that.
The small village was a clustering of battered wooden houses and shops, tin roofs and thatched ones, cold hammered streets. It was a harder place than Njoro or Nakuru or Gilgil, and I saw instantly that it would be more difficult to love. At the first café I came to, I tethered Pegasus and went in to enquire about Westerland. With a very few questions, I learned what I needed to know, and more, too—that the neighbouring estate, Inglewood Farm, was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Carsdale-Luck, the stodgy couple I’d met at Karen’s shooting party the year before. I hadn’t developed any relationship with either of them in the handful of days we were thrown together, but as I made my way towards Westerland, I tried to think how I might stitch the two opportunities together. The scheme would take some fast talking, but I did have wins behind me. I knew my trade and could prove it; I would only need time and a little faith.
—
Cockie’s cousin Gerry turned out to be a warm and level-headed fellow. Cockie had already sung my praises in a long letter, and he was ready to let me have a try with a two-year-old bay stud, the Baron, which he owned along with a silent partner, Tom Campbell Black. The Baron had yet to find his footing, but he had fire and plenty of guts, too. I knew I could do something with him and also with Wrack, a yearling stud sired by Camciscan, the star of my father’s breeding roster from days long past. Wrack belonged to the Carsdale-Lucks, who had also agreed to take a chance on me. They had given me a nimble filly, too, Melton Pie, and a hut on their property and the use of one of their houseboys as a groom.
“With Camciscan’s blood, Wrack is sure to have some winning in him,” I promised the couple when they came to watch us work. George Carsdale-Luck smoked spiced cigars that made the paddock around him smell like cloves and Christmas. His wife, Viola, was forever perspiring even in Molo’s chill, with always-damp collars and a host of paper fans. She stood at the edge of the track as I ran Wrack a mile and a quarter at half speed, and then said, as I paraded him by, “I haven’t seen many women in this line of work. Aren’t you afraid it will coarsen you?”
“No. I never think of that.”