A Spear of Summer Grass

12



I slept poorly that night. The moon was small and lopsided, like a child’s balloon being slowly inflated. But still it poured its silky light into my room, and I lay awake watching it move the shadows across the bed. I heard the nightjars singing in the garden and the crickets serenading one another, and under it all the occasional low rasp of the leopard. When I did sleep, my dreams came fast and sharp, like a moving picture running at too high a speed, jerking from one scene to another. I could not remember them in the morning, but when I woke my pillow was wet.

That afternoon my cows arrived. Gideon collected them from the Kikuyu and walked them to Fairlight. He brought with him a boy who walked with a limp, leaning on a crutch. He might have been ten or twelve, with a slender build and a solemn face. He stared at me as Gideon made the introductions.

“This is my brother, Bibi. He is called Moses.”

“Hello, Moses.”

“My brother Moses does not speak, Bibi, but he hears perfectly, and he is very good with cattle. It is a great responsibility to care for your cattle, and Moses will do an excellent job.”

“I’m sure he will. Thank you, Moses,” I said, turning to the boy.

He looked startled at that. I suppose most whites didn’t bother thanking Masai for anything, but Gideon instructed him where to take the cattle and turned to me.

“He will sleep in the barn with the cows, Bibi. Perhaps occasionally, when his work is finished and the cows are safe, he may go home and see our babu.”

“Of course. Whenever he likes.”

“No, Bibi. It is for you to say.”

“I think we are about to have our first argument, Gideon.” I smiled to show I wasn’t serious, and to my relief, his face split into a wide grin.

“You are joking with me.”

“Yes, I am. I really am quite happy for Moses to go back home whenever he is needed so long as the cattle are secured. What about his schooling?”

“Most Masai never go to school. Moses has already learned much more than many of our people. He is happy to have a job that will pay him money.” He hesitated, and although he said nothing, I sensed there was more.

“Gideon?” I made the word gentle, coaxing.

He took a breath, his voice pitched low as he leaned on his spear.

“Bibi, I worry for my brother. His leg is weak and he cannot tend cattle as Masai do, walking many, many miles every day. Without this, he cannot be a man of importance in our tribe, and he will not marry. It is a very bad thing for a man not to marry and have children. It is not our way for a man to be alone.”

“I see. And by earning a wage, he can contribute?”

The tension in his face eased.

“This is true, Bibi. And I would not tell you an untruth. If I say that Moses is good with cows, he is very good indeed. He does not speak, but he can whistle and he has a sense for what they need. They like him. Your cattle will be in good hands.”

“I never doubted it. You really think this will help him?”

“Yes, Bibi. He will earn money, and in time he will buy his own cows and then a girl will be happy to marry him and give him children because he will be a man like others.”

“Very well. He can skip school and tend the cattle and he may visit your babu whenever he likes.”

He gave me a nod. “I will tell Moses of this. He will come to you before he goes to make certain it is your wish.”

“Fine.”

He paused. “Is there anything else you would have me do?”

I shrugged. “Nothing I can think of. I suppose you will be off with Ryder, hunting.”

“No, Bibi. I am to remain here.”

I lifted a brow. “To do what?”

Gideon shuffled a moment. The Masai do not like to tell untruths. Neither do they like to admit something distasteful, but then no man likes to tell a woman something that might annoy her.

“Gideon?”

“I am to watch over you, Bibi.”

“I do not require watching over.”

“Regardless, Bibi, this is the thing I have been given to do.”

I kept a rein on my temper and thought the matter through. I liked Gideon. Ryder had set him to watching over me, which I deplored, but that was my issue with Ryder, not Gideon. I nodded.

“I understand. It’s not your fault Ryder is a high-handed arrogant jackass.”

“I beg your pardon, but this word I have not heard. What does ‘jackass’ mean? Is it like ‘son of a bitch’?”

“I’m assuming you didn’t learn that phrase at the mission school?”

“Oh, no. Bwana is very fluent in bad language.”

“No doubt. And no, ‘jackass’ isn’t quite as bad as ‘son of a bitch.’ It just means someone who gets on your nerves.”

He nodded, his expression serious. “A woman could love a jackass. She could not love a son of a bitch.”

“Many have tried, Gideon. Many have tried.”

* * *

Gideon put himself to work finishing the fencing in the small pasture where I had elected to keep the cattle. The huge Masai herds roamed over vast tracts of the savannah and scrubland, but a few dairy cattle would be far easier to keep penned near the house. Moses moved among the skittish cows, petting them and humming an odd little tune. From time to time he gave me a wide smile, very like his brother’s, and I carried lunch out to them, leaving it on a rock for them to find since they didn’t like to eat directly from a woman’s hand.

As I walked back to the house, I saw the rising dust cloud on the horizon, and in a very few minutes Mr. Patel arrived in his motorcycle, his turban half-unwound and fluttering behind him and his motoring goggles coated in red dust. His sidecar was packed tightly with all I had ordered and a cage of traumatized chickens was lashed to the top. His monkey had ridden pillion, and as soon as he stopped it launched itself at the nearest tree, chattering angrily.

“Then why do you insist on coming, you diabolical creature?” Mr. Patel demanded, raising his fist. He climbed off the motorcycle, shaking out his robes and winding his turban firmly about his head. He pulled the goggles down to his neck and smiled.

“Memsa! I have brought your things. And would you like to buy a monkey? I could give you an excellent price.”

“No, thank you, Mr. Patel. Would you like help with all of that?”

“Absolutely not! A lady should not sully her hands,” he insisted. Dora emerged from the house then and I introduced them.

“Dora, this is Mr. Patel. He’s the nearest thing we have to Harrod’s out here. Mr. Patel, this is my cousin, Miss Brooks.”

Patel bowed with a courtly flourish as Dora inclined her head. “How do you do? I’ll show you where to put all of that if you’d like to follow me.”

He trotted off, shouldering the cage of chickens as if they weighed no more than a pillow. Well, they were mostly feathers, I supposed with a shrug.

I had just turned to follow them when I saw another cloud of dust approaching. I shaded my eyes and stayed to watch, waving as I saw Rex’s buttery Rolls coming down the drive.

“Hello, Rex. Goodness me, but it’s like Grand Central around here today.”

He stepped from the car and dropped a friendly kiss to my cheek. “Hello, my dear. I was on my way to Nairobi and thought I would stop in and see if you needed anything from town.”

“That’s terribly neighbourly of you. We’re fine. Could I interest you in a drink to speed you on your way?”

He grinned. “I oughtn’t. I’m going to be frightfully long on the road as it is, but a man can only resist so much temptation.”

“Am I temptation?” I teased.

The smile deepened. “More than any woman has a right to be,” he said lightly. “A gin and tonic if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. Let’s have them on the veranda. The house is filthy enough without me tracking half the savannah inside.”

He followed me up to the veranda and I poured. He took his first sip and something seemed to roll off him then, some hidden weight that had bowed him down.

“Everything all right, Rex?”

He struggled with himself. Whatever was on his mind, he was itching to share it, but something stopped him. He merely gave me another of his remote smiles and sipped at his drink.

“Have it your way,” I said with a shrug. “But you’re always welcome here if you need a friendly ear.”

He drained his glass and put it down with a loud crack. I jumped a little and he clamped a hand over mine. He didn’t look at me, but his hand stayed where it was, covering mine as he drew in a deep breath. He let it go, surrendering something.

“I wish I could tell you. I wish I could tell you everything,” he said, his voice sharp.

I put down my glass. “You can, Rex. Of course you can. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Are we?” He looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Yes, I think we are. I think I could tell you anything.”

“Then do. Clearly something’s troubling you. Get it out and you’ll feel like a new man,” I promised him.

His smile was back, smaller and more tentative than before. “Is that really how it works? I think you must be more American than English to suggest it. We’re good at bottling things up, holding them so tightly we can’t let them go even when we want to.”

He didn’t say anything more and I sat back with a shrug and picked up my drink.

“This place breaks my heart,” he said finally. “It is so beautiful and so vast and so untouched. There’s nothing ahead but destruction if something isn’t done about it. Someone has to protect it. Someone has to love it enough to try.”

“Are you talking about Africa or Fairlight?”

The smile was still small, still tentative. “Both, I suppose. I’ve offered to buy Fairlight, you know. More than once. But Sir Nigel is sentimental, too attached to the place to let it go. I can’t blame him. I feel that way about all of Africa.”

He fell silent again and I went back to my drink. He rose then and put out his hand, pulling me to my feet.

“I think I might actually feel better.”

“I can’t imagine how. I didn’t do anything.”

“You let me sit and just be. That’s a rare gift for a man. You have no idea how rare.”

He dropped another kiss, this one markedly warmer, to my cheek and left, his step lighter. Dora appeared just as he drove away.

“Was that Rex?”

“It was.” I poured her a gin and tonic of her own and handed it over.

“What did he want?”

“To have a moan about an unrequited passion. Apparently he’s in love with Africa and she doesn’t love him back.”

She kicked off her shoes. “Mr. Patel has stacked everything in the storeroom, and retrieved his vile little monkey. He just left. I managed to get Gates to finish the henhouse just in time for the chickens. They’re not settling in at all well. The hens are all huddled together in the corner, whimpering, and the rooster is making a nuisance of himself by trying to escape.”

“Just make sure you warn them, the first one to wake me at dawn is going into the cookpot.”

She saluted wearily. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

* * *

It wasn’t the rooster that awakened me at dawn. It was the shouts of the Kikuyu, keening and wailing as they gathered in the garden. I shoved my arms into a kimono and hurled on my slippers, falling over Dora as we threw back the locks and hurried outside. All the Kikuyu farmworkers were there, clustered around a group in the centre who were carrying something on a blanket. As we got closer, they set it onto the ground, and it took me a moment to realise what I was looking at. The body was small and so broken I could only recognise bits of it. I saw the white bandage, grubby and torn and a handful of shredded skin attached to small braids. The feet were entirely intact, the little white bones snapped just above the ankle, and there were long white femurs, cracked open, the marrow lapped. Above the ululations of the Kikuyu, I heard another sound, a high, gasping shriek that went on and on.

I turned to Dora and shoved her head down onto my shoulder, shielding her eyes and muffling her scream. After a moment she stilled and pushed away from me to be sick in the bushes. I moved forward to the mother who had collapsed onto the ground. She was tearing a bit of bougainvillea into shreds in her fingers. I covered her hands with my own.

She looked up at me, and the word came out flat and dull between lips that were stiff with shock. “Simba.”

I nodded. A shadow fell over us, and I looked up to see Gates, struggling into his shirt, the broad fish-belly white of his torso gleaming in the early morning light.

“A lion has killed her child.”

He nodded. “You can tell from the bites. Lions like big muscle. That’s why the thighs and buttocks are gone. They don’t bother with the smaller bits,” he added, pointing toward the tiny feet.

I swung around on my heels. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.” Each word was punctuated by a slap to his legs.

His eyes were round as he stared from the mother to me, comprehension slowly dawning. “Are you worried about her? These Kukes don’t speak English, Miss Drummond. There’s no need to tiptoe around their feelings. Besides, if it wasn’t lion or leopard or snake, it would have been disease or fire. They don’t always have the best luck keeping their children alive,” he finished with a shake of the head.

I rose, putting one hand to the mother’s head as I did so. I turned to the Kikuyu and addressed them in halting Swahili. I asked if the lion had been killed, and they shook their heads. After a great deal of pantomime, it became clear that this was why they had come. They wanted to show me the lion’s work and take back with them a promise that it would be taken care of. I turned to Gates.

“Did I understand them correctly? They expect us to hunt down the lion and kill it?”

He nodded. “They could do it themselves, but it’s dangerous work and they aren’t allowed guns. It’s easier for a white man to do it.”

“Fine. Then you will do it.”

He blinked rapidly. “I don’t think so, Miss Drummond.”

“You just said—”

He held up a meaty hand. “I said it was easier for a white man to do it. But not this white man. I’m a farm manager, not a hunter. It’s not in my job description. Now, I’ve been accommodating since you arrived, Miss Drummond, very accommodating, and I’ve done many things that weren’t strictly speaking my responsibility. But I draw the line here, I do draw it here. I am a family man. What would become of my family if I died trying to kill a lion that wasn’t my place to kill?”

He was sweating, but his expression was smug. He had me. I couldn’t force him to risk his life to kill a man-eating lion. But I knew exactly who would do the job.

I said whatever words of comfort I could manage in Swahili and the Kikuyu accepted my promise that the lion would be dealt with. Dora turned away as they gathered up the blanket with its small, broken burden. I watched them leave then turned to Gates.

“You’re entirely correct, Mr. Gates. You are a farmer. So get back to your plow and I’ll talk to you when this is over.”

He slunk away and I headed into the house to dress. By the time I finished, Dora had seen to breakfast and I choked down a piece of toast and a cup of tea before I stood up.

“Wrap a few sandwiches for me, Do. I’ve got to find Ryder and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

She opened her mouth then clamped it shut again as the man himself stepped onto the veranda.

“Didn’t I tell you not to go looking for me?” he asked, his mouth quirked up. “You don’t listen very well.”

“Oh, thank God you’re here.”

He raised his brows. “That’s a greeting a man could get used to,” he said, settling himself at the table.

“May I offer you some breakfast?” Dora asked kindly. “There are plenty of eggs and we’ve toast and tea and some lovely preserves.”

She loaded a plate for him while I stewed. “This isn’t going to be a social call, Ryder. I need you to go kill a lion.”

He held up a hand. “I know all about your lion. That’s why I’m here.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, we ought to discuss terms.”

Dora rose and murmured something about making more tea as Ryder fixed me with an amused look. “Terms?”

“Yes, the terms of your employment.”

He laughed aloud. “Princess, you can’t afford me, so let’s just dismiss that idea right now.”

“How do you know what I can afford?”

He smiled, the lines at his eyes and mouth crinkling gently. “Because I know what I charge and it’s generally only royalty and Rockefellers who can match my prices.”

“Name it,” I challenged.

He did and I stared at him as he loaded a second plate with eggs from the chafing dish.

“Jesus Jiminy Christ, Ryder, if that’s how much you make you ought to be feeding me breakfast.”

He grinned. “Told you.”

“How on earth do you get away with charging that much?”

He shrugged. “People are always willing to pay for the best.”

I snorted. “I see modesty doesn’t number among your virtues.”

“No, but honesty does. I am a damned good hunter, princess, but I hate guiding for other people. I figured if I charged outrageous prices people would stop hiring me and I could do whatever I liked, but it hasn’t turned out that way.”

“No?”

He forked in a bit of egg and followed it with half a piece of toast. “It turns out that charging astronomical prices only makes people want you all the more. Apparently it offers cachet,” he said, tipping his head to the side.

“Cachet aside, you’re right. I can’t afford that. I could buy a flat in Paris for that kind of money.”

“So I’ll do it for free,” he finished.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why?”

He sat back and folded his arms. “What’s the matter? Don’t like the idea of being beholden to me?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t.”

“Then come with me. I charge half as much to get rid of man-eaters if someone else takes the shot. You’ll only be half-beholden to me then.”

I hesitated for all the right reasons. And I accepted for all the wrong ones.

“Fine,” I said, putting out my hand.

He took it in his and shook it slowly. He was still holding on to it when Dora appeared with a fresh pot of tea. I jerked it back and she put on a deliberately blank expression.

Ryder rose and thanked her. “I’m going back to my place to put a few things in order. I’ll be back after luncheon and we’ll head out then.”

When he left, Dora looked up sharply from the teapot. “I don’t see why you must do this. Surely Sir Nigel never intended—”

“Nigel isn’t here,” I reminded her.

She went on patiently. “Even so, if he knew, I cannot believe he would want you to risk your very life over such a thing.”

“Such a thing?” I kept my voice gentle. “A child is dead, Dora.”

She winced. “I know. And I don’t mean to sound uncaring—”

“Then don’t.”

Her pale complexion flushed deeply. “I say, that isn’t fair. I take an interest in their welfare, a healthy interest,” she said, stressing the word healthy. “But I think it shows a strange sort of arrogance to involve oneself so deeply in their affairs.”

“Arrogance?”

“Yes,” she said, two spots of colour still high on her cheeks. “We are not meant to understand them, Delilah. Their ways are simply too different. The role of the white in Africa ought to be a simple one—to set an example of learning, of civilisation, of good management.”

I let her ramble on in that vein for a few minutes before I stopped her with an upraised hand and a thin smile.

“I’ve heard it before, Dora. You forget, I was brought up in a place not terribly different from this. The blacks do their work, the whites count their money—at least that’s what most people think. The reality is quite different. There has to be understanding on both sides. And it begins with not being afraid of them.”

The hot colour ebbed. “That isn’t fair.”

“Isn’t it? I see how you draw back when you have to speak to an African.”

“That isn’t because of their skin,” she returned hotly. “I’m simply unaccustomed to giving orders. It makes me uncomfortable.”

“You do well enough back in England. You bawl out the butcher if the chops are too fatty or tear a strip off the boy at the garage if he tries to charge too much to mend a puncture on your bicycle. You’ve no trouble speaking your mind to them.”

“Of course not! They’re—” She broke off, setting her lips stubbornly. “Oh, never mind. But I still say it’s wrong, it’s very wrong for you to mix with them as if you were friends. You ought to hold yourself above them to set the very best example you can.”

“I’m nobody’s best example,” I reminded her. “Anything else?”

“Yes, in fact, there is. He’s a good man, Delilah.” She didn’t say his name, but there was no mistaking who she meant.

“Is he? I’m not sure I would know a good man if I saw one.”

“Then take my word for it. He is a good man.”

I shrugged. “If you say so. But you probably don’t know the half of it.”

“I’m not talking about local gossip. I know he’s a bit of a philanderer and his morals are unique.”

I snorted, but she went on, her cheeks heating up again. “Laugh if you like, but there’s something fine about him. Underneath the wildness, there’s something pure.”

Pure might have been the last word I would have chosen to describe Ryder White, but Dora did have a point. I decided not to tell her about his threat to violate me and feed me to the hyenas. Her illusions were too pretty to shatter. Besides, for all I knew she was right.

She broke a piece of toast to bits and threw it out into the garden.

“What did you do that for?”

“There’s a tortoise living under the veranda. He likes toast.”

I rose and she put her hand to my arm. “I know you think I’m a fool, but I mean it, Delilah. Don’t hurt him.”

I thought of the miserable bet he’d made about getting me into bed. If I did hurt him, it would only be fair. He’d drawn first blood.

“I’m not sure I could,” I told her.

“Then you’re not half as smart as I gave you credit for,” she said, releasing my arm.

“Go feed your tortoise, Do,” I told her as kindly as I could. “And leave my life to me.”

* * *

True to his word, Ryder appeared after luncheon, Gideon trotting quietly behind. I had prepared as best I could, packing a small bag with necessities and making sure my guns were clean. I left Dora in charge of Fairlight, or at least, as in charge as she could be with Gates around. Moses waved goodbye from the pasture where he stood with the cattle, saluting his brother. Gideon lifted his spear in farewell and we were off.

We hiked down the Nairobi road some distance toward Rex’s place then turned abruptly down a narrow track of beaten earth.

“Where are we going?” I asked Ryder.

“Nyama Ranch. I need to see Tusker before we set out. We’ll need some men, and she’ll probably want to come along. She loves a good lion hunt.”

“She makes a habit of hunting lions?”

“Don’t look so surprised. She breeds racehorses, and lions are her biggest nuisance. She doesn’t bother with them until they come in and bother the horses. Same with leopards.”

I shuddered.

“What’s the matter, princess? Lost your taste for this? You can turn back now. I’ll have Gideon walk you home.”

“Absolutely not. That thing is a man-eater and I want to see it taken care of. It’s just easy to forget.”

He slowed a little, slanting me a curious look under the brim of his hat. “Forget what?”

“How vicious this place is. How life can just turn on a dime. My mother breeds horses, too, you know. She has a fine stable in England, and she says a hundred different things can kill her stock. She worries about bad water and bad food and hoof-and-mouth, but the one thing she doesn’t ever have to worry about is some damned cat clawing her horses to pieces in the middle of the night.”

“True, but does she have all this?” he asked, sweeping an arm out to take in the country before us. The flat savannah stretched for miles, dotted with thornbushes and acacia trees as it ran up to a tall purple escarpment in the distance. A herd of elephants grazed at the foot of the escarpment, heavy grey shadows moving in the bushes. Over it all, a dome of vast blue sky rose so high I got dizzy just looking up at it. Ryder moved on then, not waiting for an answer. I slowed to walk with Gideon. I smiled at him.

“You seem in very good spirits, Gideon. For a man that usually means a woman, but I’m guessing for a Masai man, it means a lion.”

“You begin to understand us, Bibi,” he said, returning the smile with interest.

“Gideon, I hope you don’t think me rude, but may I ask about the gap between your teeth? I’ve noticed most of the natives here have it.”

He put a finger to the space where his two lower teeth ought to have been. “They are pulled when we are very small children. Then when our second teeth come, these also are pulled. It is so we may be fed if we are sick with the lockjaw.”

It made perfect sense; it was actually a rather clever solution to the problem of tetanus. Most people who got it starved to death because they couldn’t take in food. Pulling the teeth at least meant there was a way to nourish them until the fever passed and the jaw muscles unclenched.

“But Moses’ teeth haven’t been pulled.”

It was as if a shutter came down over his eyes. “No, Bibi. It was his mother’s wish that he be left as he was born.”

“Why? If he gets tetanus, he’ll almost certainly die.”

“His mother would not mourn,” Gideon said, his tone edged in bitterness. “She is an unkind woman and her heart is closed. She does not love her son as she should.”

“You mean she’s content for him to die? Is it because he won’t speak?”

“No, Bibi. It is because of his leg. He was born with a twisted leg, and she was beaten very badly by our father for adultery. He said all of his other children were born straight and tall, and this child must not be his. His mother was very angry and her anger has turned against her son.”

“Was she telling the truth? Or had she committed adultery?”

“Both, possibly. She was caught with one of my brothers in age. This is a very bad thing. A woman may lie with her husband and sometimes with the men who were circumcised with him. But to lie with a man from another age group is a very bad thing indeed. My father beat her when he caught her. She says Moses is his son and already growing inside her when she lay with the other man and that it was my father’s beating that caused him to grow a twisted leg. My father beats her for saying such a thing.”

“You mean they’re still together?”

He shrugged. “She is very lovely. My father drinks moratina and forgets why he hates her. Then he drinks more and remembers again. They fight very much, and my father has sold his cattle to buy moratina.”

“What is moratina?”

“Honey beer. It makes him forget how to be a good man and he raises his stick to his younger children. Most of them are out of his house now. The girls have married, bad marriages, because they had few cattle to take to their husbands. And the younger boys get up to much mischief and are often beaten by the morani for their disrespect. He has not taught them to speak with dignity and to be useful. He has taught them only to despise others and so they are despised. Only Moses is free of him.”

“How?”

“One day when our father was drinking much moratina, I stood over him as he lifted his stick to Moses. I told him for every blow he struck my brother, I would strike one upon him. I am taller than my father,” he said with a small, sad smile. “My father was frightened of me and he shoved Moses into my arms and said he would be as my son now and I would have the care of him. I took him to my mother’s father, my babu. He is a very good man, Bibi. He opened his home to the child of his daughter’s husband’s other wife, and this is not often done.”

“Your babu is generous.”

Gideon’s brow furrowed. “Yes, but he grows old, Bibi. And when he dies, his cattle will be given to his sons and daughters, as they must be. There are no cattle for Moses. This is why I am happy Moses has work. He will be a man with cattle because of you.”

We walked on then and he pointed out the tracks of the tiny mice that lived on the plains and the soft swirl left by a passing snake. He gave me the leaf of the leleshwa and crushed it into my palm so the sage-smell of it would fill my nose. He lifted a tiny bone from the dust and explained that it came from the spine of a porcupine, and he taught me to hold myself very still to watch the antics of a small black bird that leaped and swayed.

“The white settlers call this a widowbird, but it is not a lady bird. It is the male. For most of the year he is grey and plain, but once a year his feathers change and he looks as you see him now.”

It seemed impossible that this bird could ever be plain. His plumage was glossy black and the feathers of his tail swept into a long train that he carried behind him with kingly dignity. As we watched, he capered and danced, all the while singing an elaborate song and flapping his wings for emphasis.

“That is his dance to bring a lady bird so they can marry,” he told me.

I peered into the bushes. “I do not see another bird.”

“Then he dances for you, Bibi,” he said with his broad, gap-toothed smile. “You are welcome in Africa. Africa wants you here.”

And as we walked through the warm sunlight of that afternoon, I believed it.