A Spear of Summer Grass

5



The next morning I woke to find Dora creeping around the suite, finishing the packing. She looked like hell and moaned gently from time to time as she folded and organised. The porters brought breakfast and I helped myself to the full English while Do sat nursing a weak cup of coffee, a wet handkerchief tied about her brow.

I shook my head. “Do, I hope you’re not going to be difficult in Africa.”

“Difficult?” Her voice was hollow, as if she were speaking from a great distance.

“You take things too seriously, you always have. You ought to have some fun here, kick up your heels a bit. You’re only young once, you know.”

I dunked a bit of toast into my egg and Dora’s face went green.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. I ought to go see about the bags.”

She fled with the handkerchief pressed to her mouth and went down to supervise the loading as I finished up, taking my time with a second cup of tea. I stopped by registration to settle the bill and collect a packed lunch basket. A charming young man in livery trotted out to the curb with the hamper and added it to the mound of baggage piled on the walk. Parked next to it was an absolute heap of a vehicle. It had clearly started life as an ambulance and God only knew what sins it had committed to have fallen so low. It was pocked with rust and scarred with solder marks from where fresh bits of scrap metal had been used to bandage its wounds.

As I watched, the driver jumped out and began to instruct the porters on where to shove the bags and I recognised him instantly. He was wearing exactly the same clothes as the day before, which didn’t surprise me. He had probably slept in them. I stepped up and fixed my brightest smile.

“I didn’t realise you offered chauffeur service,” I said sweetly.

He turned and pushed his hat back a little with his forefinger. “Only one service of many, Miss Drummond.”

“That truck looks like it’s being held together with spit and a prayer.”

To his credit, he smiled. “It’ll do.” He nodded toward the pile on the curb. “I see you’ve come well prepared for roughing it.”

I shrugged. “I’m a girl who likes nice things,” I told him with the faintest emphasis on the word nice. “You haven’t told me your name.”

He removed his hat and inclined his head in as courtly a gesture as I had ever seen. “J. Ryder White.”

“And I detect by your accent you aren’t English, but I don’t think you’re a fellow American either, Mr. White.”

“I go by Ryder. You’ve got a good ear. I’m from nowhere and everywhere, but I was born in Canada.”

“A Canadian! How delightfully rustic,” I remarked in the same honeyed tones. “Tell me, are you housebroken?”

His mouth twitched, but he didn’t smile. He bent to the pile of baggage and selected a long, narrow case chalked with indecipherable symbols from the Mombasa customs house. “I see you’ve come fully armed, Miss Drummond.” He flicked open the latches and threw back the lid. Whatever he had thought to find, the contents surprised him.

“You’re not serious. Did a friend send this with you as a practical joke?”

“I assure you, I am perfectly acquainted with that weapon.”

He hefted the Rigby and smiled a crocodile’s smile. “Princesses shouldn’t try to slay dragons. Leave that to the knights.”

“And the peasants?”

He laughed aloud at that and replaced the Rigby, snapping the case closed. “Oh, I think we’re going to have fun.”

“Don’t bet on it,” I told him, baring my teeth.

I moved aside to let him get on with the business of loading his monstrous vehicle. Dora was standing at the passenger door and I went to shove her in. She shook her head desperately.

“I need the window,” she whispered, pleading.

“Oh, for God’s sake, when will you learn to hold your liquor?” The question was rhetorical. Dora got tight on a thimbleful of sherry and I had poured half a bottle of gin down her. The least I could do was give her a chance to be sick discreetly. I sighed and clambered into the wreck, settling myself in the middle while Dora crammed herself up against the door.

“Stop moaning, Do. We haven’t even started moving yet.”

“Maybe you haven’t,” she retorted. She closed her eyes and slumped, her head angled out the window. A moment later a shadow fell over her face.

“Miss?” Ryder’s voice was gentler than I had yet heard it. Dodo lifted her head like a dog sniffing the air. He smiled at her and handed her a tin cup. “This might help.”

She took an experimental sip. “Oh. Oh. What is it?”

He shrugged. “Cure of my own making. Pawpaw juice, ginger, a few other things. Just keep drinking. I’ve got a flask full of it.”

She stared up at him, her expression worshipful. “Thank you.”

I slanted him a look and he smiled over her head at me, then lifted his hat and actually bowed to Dora. “Anytime, miss.”

A moment later he was sliding into the seat next to me until his thigh touched mine. “Shove over, princess. I’ve got to work the gears.”

I moved over as far as I could and gave him another sweet smile. “And where is my morning libation?”

“You’re not hungover,” he pointed out.

“I’m not hungover,” Dora put in as forcefully as she could. “Ladies do not imbibe to excess. I am merely overtired.”

“Of course,” Ryder said soothingly. He winked at me and I folded my arms over my chest. Dora had her eyes closed again and was sucking hard on the cup.

“What did you put in that?” I demanded.

He leaned a trifle closer than absolutely necessary, his voice low. “Exactly what I said. Pawpaw juice, ginger. And half a bottle of gin.”

“That’s what got her into this in the first place.”

He shrugged. “Best cure for a hangover is to get drunk again. Believe me, I wouldn’t do this drive sober if I could help it. She’ll thank me later.”

“Yes, but will I?”

His only answer was a laugh and a crash of gears.

“You are the driver arranged for by that nice Mr. Bates from Government House, aren’t you? I should hate to be abducted and not know it.”

“You are my passengers. Paying passengers,” he added meaningfully.

Dodo opened her eyes and reached for her bag. I slapped her hand. “Don’t you dare. Not until he’s seen us safely to Fairlight. He might just dump us in the desert and then where would we be?”

He flicked me an amused glance. “The desert? Princess, where do you think you are? This isn’t the goddamn Sahara.”

With that he gunned the engine and we roared off, away from Nairobi and the last vestiges of civilisation.

* * *

We drove for a little while in silence as he negotiated the traffic out of Nairobi. It was surprisingly busy—donkey carts and rickshaws jostling with sleek new automobiles and pedestrians laden with bundles of fruits and firewood. He did point out a few of the local landmarks, including the Turf Club and Kilimani Prison and the Japanese brothel, but I didn’t ask questions and Dodo was too busy nursing her “cure.” I stared out the window, watching as the shabby little bungalows that dotted the outskirts of Nairobi fell away. The murram road stretched upwards now, carving its way through the wilderness, a wilderness that hadn’t changed since Eve went dancing in a fig-leaf skirt. The soil was as red as good Georgia clay, and here and there a flat-topped thorn tree shaded the high savannah grasses. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but land and more land, an emptiness so big not even God himself could fill it. The miles rolled away and so did my bad mood, and when the first giraffe strode gracefully into view, I gasped aloud.

Ryder stopped the vehicle and gestured. “She’s got a foal.” I peered into the brush behind the giraffe and noticed a tiny version, teetering on impossibly long legs as it emerged. The mother turned back with a graceful gesture of the head and gave the little thing a push of encouragement. They came closer to the truck and I saw it wasn’t tiny at all—it was frankly enormous, and Ryder eased down the road, slowly so as not to startle them.

“Why did we leave?” I demanded. “I would have liked to have watched them.”

“Second rule of the bush. Never get too close to anything that has offspring.”

“What’s the first rule?”

“Food runs. If you don’t want to be food, don’t run.”

I smiled, expecting him to laugh, but he was deadly serious. His eyes were on the road, and I took the opportunity to study him a little more closely than I had the day before. He had tidied himself up a bit, even if his clothes were disreputable. His jaw was still rough with golden stubble, but his hands and face were clean. He had strong, steady hands, and I could tell from looking at them there was little he couldn’t do. Mossy always said you could tell everything you needed to know about a man from his hands. Some hands, she told me, were leaving hands. They were the wandering sort that slipped into places they shouldn’t, and they would wander right off again because those hands just couldn’t stay still. Some hands were worthless hands, fit only to hold a drink or flick ash from a cigar, and some were punishing hands that hit hard and didn’t leave a mark and those were the ones you never stayed to see twice.

But the best hands were knowing hands, Mossy told me with a slow smile. Knowing hands were capable; they could soothe a horse or a woman. They could take things apart—including your heart—and put them back together better than before. Knowing hands were rare, but if you found them, they were worth holding, at least for a little while. I looked at Ryder’s hands. They sat easily on the wheel and gearshift, coaxing instead of forcing, and I wondered how much they knew.

They had known pain; that much was certain from the scars that laced his left arm. He had been lucky. Whatever had dug itself into his arm hadn’t wanted to let go. They were long, raking white scars, like punctuation marks, dotted here and there with a full stop of knotted white scar tissue where whatever it was had hung on hard. Some men might have covered them up, rolled down their shirtsleeves and pretended it hadn’t happened. Others would have told the story as soon as you met, flaunting those scars for any Desdemona who might be impressed. But Ryder didn’t even seem conscious of his. He wore them as he did his bracelets—souvenirs of somewhere he had been. I could have asked him, but I didn’t. I liked not knowing his stories yet. He was a stranger, an impossible and uncouth one, but a stranger nonetheless. And there is nothing more interesting than a stranger.

I decided to let him keep his stories and give me only the mundane things that didn’t matter. “So, you were born in Canada. Whereabouts?”

“Quebec.”

I lifted a brow. “Really? You don’t sound Québécois.”

“Left when I was a year old. My father and I travelled up and down the Mississippi and then west to California. Ended up in the Klondike by the time I was six.”

“That’s quite a lot of travelling for a young boy. What did your father do?”

“As little as possible,” he answered with a wry twist of the lips.

“And what did your mother have to say about this? Did she like being dragged around at his whims or was she afflicted with wanderlust as well?”

“She died before we left Quebec.” He said the words easily. They were just words to him. We might have had the loss of a parent in common, but not what we had done with the emptiness. Not a day went by that I didn’t think of Pink and how different my life would have been if he’d lived.

“Were you raised without a female influence, then?”

“There was an Algonquin woman who travelled with us. She took care of me and my father, although I’m not sure I’d exactly call her female. Her mustache was thicker than his.”

“How did you end up in Africa?”

“My father got lucky. He struck gold, and he worked it until the claim played out. By then he said the Klondike was getting too crowded and too cold. Africa was empty and hot. We landed here when I was twelve. Been here mostly ever since.”

“And what do you do here?”

He shrugged one solid shoulder. “This and that—lately quite a bit of guiding. I lead safaris. I have a little place on the coast where I grow sugarcane, and I own a few dukas.”

“Dukas?”

“Shops—each one is a general store of sorts. The closest thing you’ll find to civilisation out here. The post gets delivered there and people will come for a drink and to catch up with the neighbours.”

“God, it’s the end of the earth, isn’t it?” I asked. Africa had seemed a great adventure when I was sitting in a Paris hotel room. Now the reality of it intruded, vast and unsettled, and I felt very, very small.

He flicked me a glance, his expression unreadable. “It won’t be so bad, princess. You’ll see.”

Suddenly, I sat bolt upright, staring out the windscreen, all thoughts of exile gone. Stretching before me was the most spectacular thing I had ever seen in my life, and even those words cannot do the memory of it justice. It was the Great Rift Valley, spanning the view from left to right, slashing the surface of the earth in a crater so vast no man could see from one end of it to the other. Deep in the heart of this great continental divide the grasses waved, an immense green carpet dotted with animals the likes of which I had seen only in picture books and travelogues. A tiny herd of elephants looked infinitesimal from our lofty height, and when Ryder stilled the engine, I heard nothing but the long rush of wind up from the valley floor. It carried with it every promise of Africa, that wind. It smelled of green water and red earth and the animals that roamed it. And there was something more, something old as the rocks. It might have been the smell of the Almighty himself, and I knew there were no words for this place. It was sacred, as no place I had ever been before.

“My God,” I breathed. “How big is it?”

“Four thousand miles from the upper reaches of Syria to the depths of Mozambique. The width varies, sixty miles wide in some places, but here it narrows. Just about twenty miles across.”

“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” I shoved Dodo, who roused herself to look, blinking hard.

“How high are we?” she croaked.

“About six thousand feet.”

Dodo whimpered and clutched at the seat. “Best close your eyes until we’re down,” Ryder told her kindly. She nodded and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, leaning as far back as she could. He turned to me, his expression challenging.

“What about you, princess? Man enough to watch?”

“Drive,” I told him, gritting my teeth.

He laughed and crashed the gears into second to start the descent. I missed the Hispano-Suiza’s suspension desperately as we bounced and jounced our way down the twisting slope. The smell of overheated metal filled the air, and by the time we descended, the brakes were so hot and slick they were barely catching at all. We skidded to a stop at a stream and Ryder parked the vehicle, turning off the engine to let it rest. The only sounds were the ticking of the hot metal and the rushing of the stream and Dora’s faint wheezing.

Ryder glanced down pointedly, and I saw that I had been clutching at his leg. I moved my hand instantly, but he merely smiled.

“It’s over, Dora,” I snapped. She roused herself as Ryder jumped from the vehicle.

“Where are you going?” I demanded.

He reached into the back and lifted a can. “Water. After a ride that hot, you have to fill the radiator. Remember that if you ever do the drive by yourself.”

He stepped around the vehicle and I made to follow. “Stay inside,” he ordered. “There’s wildlife around here and you don’t know what you’re doing.”

I opened my mouth to argue when he raised a hand, silencing me with a gesture as imperious as a Caesar’s.

There was a low snuffling sound, and then a crash as something enormous moved in the bushes beside the stream. Ryder stepped carefully backward, his eyes never leaving the shivering bushes.

“Hand me my gun.”

I twisted, reaching into the gun rack behind me. “Which one?”

“The biggest. It’s already loaded and the safety is on. Just pass it over.”

I did exactly as he told me. “Good girl,” he murmured. “Don’t make any noise or any sudden movements. You can’t make it back up that hill, the engine’s too hot. If anything happens to me, drive like hell straight down the road until you come to a duka. The storekeeper will know what to do.”

“If anything happens to you?” I hadn’t known it was possible to shriek in a whisper, but I managed it. Dora was cowered against the seat, peeping over her handkerchief and pulling so hard on the flask I thought she was going to suck the finish off the metal.

“It’s probably a buffalo,” Ryder explained. “They don’t much like people, and if I have to take him, I’ll have one shot. He’ll be out of that cover too late for a second. If I miss, don’t stay to watch. It won’t be pretty.”

His tone was so calm, so matter-of-fact, we might have been discussing what he wanted for dinner rather than whether he would live or die. He hadn’t looked at me once. His whole attention was directed toward the coming reckoning. He was on the far side of the vehicle, and with his gaze fixed firmly on the bushes, it was easy to slip into the back and retrieve the Rigby. The ammunition was close at hand, and I took out two rounds, my fingers slick with sweat against the cool metal. There was no point to taking more. I wouldn’t have time to reload. I slid the cartridges into the rifle and closed the breach. I moved soundlessly to stand behind Ryder. He never moved his head, but he must have seen the shift in the shadows. His own rifle was lifted to his shoulder, one eye closed as the other sighted down the gun.

“Get back on the other side of the car. I want you to shoot from cover. Wait until you have a clear shot,” he instructed softly. “He’s coming head-on. Aim between the eyes. I’m taking the heart.”

There were a dozen things wrong with that, but I didn’t argue. I moved back to put the vehicle between us, using the hood to brace my arm. I cocked both barrels of the rifle and waited. It felt like the end of time and back again before the branches shivered hard and parted. What came through was the size of a small house, big and black and relentless. He was solid as the earth, and his eyes were narrow and mean. He paused for a moment, and I saw the sweat gathering on Ryder’s shoulders, soaking his shirt as he held the gun steady, waiting, waiting for a chance not to shoot.

But the buff didn’t oblige. It put its head down and gathered its strength, pushing off to run straight at us.

Ryder was wrong. He did have time for a second shot. His first was fast and hot and straight through the thick shoulder of the buff into its heart. I put one round into its forehead, and before I could recover from the punch of the recoil to sight the next shot, Ryder had put a second bullet into the same spot. The buffalo sat down heavily on its haunches and flopped forward, coming to rest inches from Ryder’s boot. I crept around the car, one round still in the chamber. I held the gun out to Ryder.

He didn’t take it. “No need. He’s finished,” he told me. We stood watching as the mean, piggy eyes went blank and soft and glassy. I was panting hard, and a trickle of sweat ran down the hollow of my spine, puddling in the curve of my bottom. I put a hand to my forehead and pushed away my fringe, letting the air cool my face. Little beads of perspiration rolled off my neck. I was damp and trembling all over, and my legs had second thoughts about holding me up.

Ryder looked at me closely. “You all right?”

“Yes.” The lie was easy.

He glanced at the stillness of the buffalo. “Damned good shot, princess.” He reached down and dipped a finger into the buffalo’s blood. He pressed the finger to my brow, marking me.

“First African blood,” he said gently. “It’s a hunter’s custom out here.”

He unloaded my Rigby and put the guns away. Dora was weeping quietly into her handkerchief in the car, and he said something consoling to her in soothing tones. Then he came to where I still stood, staring down at the vast emptiness of the buffalo’s corpse.

He took me by the hand and led me to the stream. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, and the sight of that small square of plain linen brought hot tears to my eyes. It ought to have been a Gypsy bandana, filthy and smelling of cheap perfume. But it was as white and clean as any my grandfather carried.

He took off his hat and knelt at the stream. When he bent his head I saw that his hair curled a little at his neck, and the bareness of his neck and the sweetness of that curling hair nearly did me in. He dipped the handkerchief into the stream and passed it over my face, wiping away the blood and the sweat, diluting my tears. “It’s all right, princess,” he said softly.

If I had leaned into him, he would have held me then. But I didn’t lean. I just sat on a rock, letting him clean me. “You’re a fool,” I told him. “You should have shot from cover as well.”

He didn’t say a word. He merely crouched at the stream and washed the blood from the handkerchief, wringing it out until the water ran clear.

“You put yourself between the buffalo and us to give us a chance to get away if it charged,” I accused.

He swivelled on his heels. “That’s my job. The clients’ safety comes first.”

“And if it’s a question of us or you, it must be you?”

He shrugged. “Like I said, that’s the job.”

“It’s a damned stupid way to earn a living.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette case. He extracted two cigarettes and lit them, drawing deeply until the tips glowed hot. He handed one to me and I took it. It wasn’t black and sleek like my Sobranies, but it would do. My hand shook a little, and he pretended not to notice. The cigarette case was slim and silver, sterling from the look of it. A tip from a wealthy client, no doubt. Most likely a woman.

“Why do you do this? Haven’t you any education?” The words were needle-sharp and chosen to prick.

He pulled thoughtfully on his cigarette. “I have as much education as any man needs.”

“Not if you have to risk your life just to haul stupid rich people around to shoot at animals.”

“Well, the rich are the only ones who can afford to pay me.”

He was smiling and I threw the remains of my cigarette at him. He ground it out slowly under his heel and reached a broad hand to help me up. I took it.

“Come on, princess. It’s time to get you on the road.”

I rocked a little on my heels. “I think I’m going to faint.”

“Don’t you dare,” he ordered through gritted teeth.

He made to loop an arm around my waist, but I batted him away. “I can walk on my own, thank you.”

I pushed off and made my wobbly way back to the truck, scrubbing uselessly at the bloody streaks on my white dress and shoes. I looked like a walking wedding night.

Dodo rushed from the truck as I approached. “Delilah! Darling, are you all right?”

“Quite,” I said with an artificially bright smile.

And then I slithered to the ground in as graceful a heap as I could manage.

I came to a few minutes later, my cheeks stinging and gasping for air as something toxically alcoholic was being forced between my lips. I shoved it away.

“I am awake, thank you,” I said coldly. Ryder shrugged and took a swig from the flask he’d been shoving in my mouth.

“Your loss. It’s single malt.”

I rubbed at my cheek. “Did you hit me?”

He shrugged. “It seemed called for under the circumstances.”

He moved away then, leaving Dora to help me up. “I have a vinaigrette somewhere, but Ryder said he could bring you to faster.”

“I’ll just bet he did,” I said, testing my jaw. “It’s going to bruise.”

“Not at all,” Dora assured me. “It was really just a tap, I promise.”

I took her word for it, although the pain in my cheek said otherwise, and I heaved myself into the truck. I turned to speak to Ryder.

“Get us to Fairlight. Get us there as quickly as humanly possible. And then go. I think I’ve seen quite enough of you for now.”

He smiled. “Pity you feel that way.”

I thought of the extremely arrogant bet he’d made at the club and felt a stab of satisfaction that at least I was making him eat his own heart out.

“Really? And why is that?” I asked sweetly, prolonging the pleasure of the moment and his humiliation.

He turned to face me. “Because I live at Fairlight.” He leaned closer, so close I could see the yellow flecks in the blue of his eyes. “Howdy, neighbour.”