The Crocodile's Last Embrace Page 16

  “Beware of mamba jike,” she whispered as she passed Jade. Jade was glad Mumbi left without striking her on the head again.

  “Why are his hands tied?” asked Holly, his voice edged with scorn. “What have you done with him, you filthy native?”

  “Shut up, Mr. Holly!” snapped Jade. “I suspect Harry needed to be restrained.”

  “He tried to harm himself,” said Jelani.

  Jade knelt down where Jelani’s mother had been and picked up the wet shirt. She squeezed out some of the excess water and dabbed Harry’s face and neck. Biscuit added his raspy tongue to the cause, licking Harry’s arm. “Tell me everything,” Jade said.

  “It is quickly told. Bwana Nyati was found by his gun bearer wandering along the river, shooting into the water and screaming. The bwana did not even recognize this man. When he had emptied his rifle, Nakuru wrestled the bwana to the ground.” Jelani shook his head. “It was a battle to see. Nakuru is a strong man, but Bwana Nyati fought like one possessed. Three of the village men saw this and did not know what to do.”

  “They just watched?” Jade asked.

  “Who should they help?” Jelani asked. “They did not care to find themselves in prison for harming a white man.”

  “Then Nakuru managed to subdue Mr. Hascombe?” asked Jade. “Did he bring him here?”

  Jelani shook his head. “No. When the battle ended, both men lay as fallen warriors on the grass. My people brought them both here.” He jerked his head to the side. “Nakuru is resting in another hut, but he bears many bruises and perhaps a broken arm.”

  “Oh, dear,” murmured Jade. “He’ll have to see a doctor at that horrible native hospital in Nairobi to have that set.” She remembered that Dr. Mathews often visited villages, but she had no idea where he was right now. Fort Hall? Too far. Perhaps Dymant would treat a Nyamwezi man. He was willing to take care of the Indians, and there were few British doctors who cared to do that either.

  “I have set Nakuru’s arm,” said Jelani. When Jade looked up suddenly, he added, “You forget, Simba Jike, that I am a healer. There were broken bones in our villages long before British doctors came to fix them.”

  “Yes, of course,” Jade said, sorry that she’d touched yet again on the issue of British rule, which rankled Jelani so much. “I didn’t mean that—”

  Jelani squatted beside her. “Do not distress yourself, Simba Jike,” he said with a slight smile. “I know you are my friend.” He held out the gourd bowl. “This is a healing drink. It will help him sweat out the rest of the poison. I have gotten one bowlful down him during the night, but perhaps you can get him to take some.”

  Jade hesitated a moment and sniffed the concoction. It smelled mildly fragrant, reminiscent of lemongrass or sassafras, something cleansing. She took a tentative sip and found it palatable. Biscuit tried to push his nose into it, but Jade elbowed him away.

  “It is what I gave to Irungu after Mutahi gave him the same poison,” Jelani added.

  Jade looked up sharply. “Irungu is the man who accused Mutahi of witching him, isn’t he?” Harry stirred and moaned, and she turned her attention back to him, cradling his head and holding the gourd to his lips.

  “Yes,” said Jelani. “Irungu’s actions were those of Bwana Nyati. Fighting things we cannot see, shouting and clawing.”

  “I would like to talk to that Mutahi again,” Jade said, “and find out more about what happened.”

  “As would I, but Mutahi has gone. Irungu says he had nothing to do with Mutahi’s running away, but I am not sure. Irungu was very angry.”

  Harry moaned and coughed as some of the brew went down the wrong pipe. Jade put the gourd down and wiped his mouth. “Harry,” she called softly. “Jelani, I think we can untie his wrists now. I want him to sit up.”

  Jelani cut the leather cords, leaving them wrapped around his wrists. Jade shifted her hand under Harry’s head and propped it up on her knee. Biscuit padded around to the other side and butted his big, blockish head against Harry’s shoulder.

  “Harry, it’s me, Jade. You’re safe.”

  Harry’s eyes flashed for a moment, darting wildly from Jelani to Biscuit before settling on Jade’s face. They opened wider as though recognition dawned on him. His sun-browned face seemed paler and more drawn, and he started shivering.

  “Easy, Harry,” Jade said, her voice soft and reassuring. “I need you to drink this.” She raised the gourd to his lips again. Harry’s lips moved as his mouth reached for the drink. He took several swallows and fell back against Jade’s leg. “Don’t try to talk.”

  That suggestion had the opposite effect. He began to blurt out one question after another. “Where am I? What happened? Where’s Nakuru?” He looked back at Jelani. “Isn’t that the boy who came—”

  “Shh,” Jade admonished. “Yes, that’s Jelani. You’re in his village. His people found you and Nakuru injured and brought you here.” When Harry heard of Nakuru’s injury, he looked wildly at Jade and clutched at her arm. “He’s all right,” Jade assured him. “His arm may be broken.”

  “How?”

  “As I understand it, you did it. Jelani says that you were raving out of your mind, shooting your rifle at the water. Nakuru tried to restrain you and you fought him.”

  Harry sat up with Jade’s help and ran his hands through his hair and across the back of his neck. His shoulders twitched as though something was tickling them. “I . . . I don’t remember. . . .” He stopped when one of the dangling leather straps brushed his face. “What’s this?”

  “They had to restrain you as well. You would have hurt yourself,” Jade said. “Here, hold out your hands and I’ll get them off.”

  The straps had been tied with a little room to spare so that they didn’t cut into Harry’s wrists when he struggled. Jade pulled her knife from her boot and carefully slid it under the leather, slicing out, away from his arms. The straps fell to the ground and Harry rubbed his wrists.

  “I suppose I owe you my life,” he said to Jelani.

  “No, Bwana Nyati,” said Jelani. “You owe it to Nakuru.”

  Harry looked around the hut and, for the first time, noticed Mr. Holly standing by the door. “What are you doing here?”

  “I should like to know that myself,” said Holly. “I feel as though I were abducted.”

  “Mr. Holly happened to come by the camp, Harry, when the runner came with news of your sickness. I brought him along to drive your truck up to the village.”

  “Ah, good of you, Holly,” said Harry. “But what—”

  Jade held up her hand for silence. “That’s enough for now, Harry. You look like hell. I need to get you and Nakuru back to Nairobi.” She held the gourd to his lips. “Finish this.”

  Harry pushed the gourd away. “I’m fine. Just . . . tired and . . .” He flexed his shoulders and arms. “I feel as if I were hit by a rhino.”

  “That would be Nakuru’s doing.”

  “I should think that this Nakuru would be in line for a beating of sorts,” said Holly. “How do you know that he didn’t do this just to have a chance to take a swing at a white man? For that matter, these natives—” He shut up when he saw Jade’s and Harry’s expressions. “Well, it was only a thought.”

  “A damned stupid one, too,” said Jade.

  Harry echoed it with a “Hear, hear.”

  Holly snorted and folded his arms. “Native lovers, I see.”

  Harry struggled to his feet and stepped to within an inch of Holly’s face. “I neither love them nor hate them, but I trust Nakuru with my rifles and that means with my life. I may not like their heathen religions or the way they dress and live, but I know a good man when I see one. At present, I’m not sure I’m looking at one.”

  Holly stepped back, his eyes wide with alarm. “That’s the thanks I receive for driving your vehicle to you.” He turned to Jade. “I’ll be outside should you need me.”

  “What the devil was he doing at your camp to begin with, Jade? A dandy like that doe
sn’t generally leave the city.”

  “He’s hiding from someone who threatened to kill him.”

  Harry nodded once, then put his hand to his head as though to steady it. “That makes sense. I can see any number of people wanting to kill him. And no great loss, either.” He closed his eyes. “I feel bloody awful.”

  Jelani, who’d stood silently in the background during the exchange, stepped forward. “Your body now remembers what your mind forgot. You will be well enough in another day. But,” he added, “if you leave now, you may have another attack. That is what happened to Irungu. Only when your sweat and urine no longer smell like the drug is your body clean.”

  Harry studied the youth, taking his measure. “Yes, I do remember you. Kilimanjaro.” Jelani nodded, meeting and returning Harry’s gaze. “You were also with Simba Jike on Marsabit. You’re the boy who was captured by the slavers.” Harry’s eyes sought out Jelani’s mutilated foot. “I remember now. You freed yourself at some cost.”

  Jelani simply nodded.

  “Jelani is the tribe’s new healer,” said Jade. “He said that you’re not the first person to have this sickness. Another man, one of the villagers, behaved the same way recently after eating some herbs. That’s the man he just mentioned, Irungu.” She tentatively sniffed at Harry’s shirt. “You do smell funny. I noticed it at camp, too.”

  “I’ve been hunting crocodile in the bush for two days. What the blazes do you expect me to smell like? Primroses?” Harry snapped.

  “Answer this,” said Jade. “Did you feel as though your skin were crawling? Did you see things? Hallucinate?”

  Harry twitched his shoulders and rubbed his arms, noticing for the first time that he had no shirt. “What the . . . ?” He found his shirt, wet and sopping, and put it on anyway, turning away to button it. “I don’t remember everything, Jade, but somehow, all that rings true.”

  “Well, to a lesser extent, it’s been happening to me as well,” said Jade. Both Jelani and Harry stared at her. “I thought it was a mental breakdown, something belated from the war. Then I thought I had malaria. But now I believe it was the tea. I never drank more than one cup at a time, but you had three and it had been steeping longer than usual, so it was potent.”

  “Someone put a drug in your tea?” asked Harry.

  “Then the herbs that Irungu ate were the same as what was in your drink, Simba Jike?” asked Jelani.

  “Maybe. I’d like to talk to Irungu and get the rest of the herbs from him.”

  Jelani shook his head. “Irungu burned the herbs just before Mutahi ran off.”

  “Son of a biscuit!” said Jade. “Whoever replaced my coffee with that spiked brew must have left some lying around and Mutahi found it. Jelani, I know I have asked you this before, but have there been any new hunters or visitors in the area?”

  Jelani shook his head. “Not that I have seen. The giant man who lives atop Kea-Njahe,” he said, referring to Lord McMillan and using the Kikuyu name for Ol Donyo Sabuk, “used to hire many of our villagers for his farm. But he has gone away again and the farm rests.”

  “McMillan wouldn’t do something like this,” said Harry.

  “But he might have some guests staying on,” said Jade. “I’ll ask around about that.”

  “I’ll ask,” said Harry. “But who in the bloody blazes would do that to you, Jade?”

  “Simba Jike has made enemies before,” said Jelani.

  “Haven’t we all,” Harry countered, “but I can’t think of anyone who would stoop to this. Wait a minute,” he said. “Didn’t that native who stabbed the movie man last September have some drug like this? Do you think some of it was left lying around?”

  “That wouldn’t explain how it got into that tea.”

  “Who has visited you, Simba Jike?” asked Jelani.

  “No one,” said Jade. “Just a group of young girls, and they haven’t been in my rooms.”

  “Not that bloody Holly?” asked Harry.

  There was an edge to his voice that Jade couldn’t quite place. Jealousy? She lowered her voice in case Holly was close enough to overhear. “No. He didn’t even show up when his niece needed him to bring her to one of the Girl Guide meetings.”

  “He’s related to one of those girls?” asked Harry, raising his voice. “Maybe he had her slip something in your tea when you weren’t looking.”

  “I resent your implication!” snapped Holly from outside the hut. “And if you don’t mind, I should like very much to get out of this . . . this village.”

  “As would I,” mumbled Harry. He nodded once to Jelani. “Thank you for your, er, help, but if you’ll take me to my gun bearer, we won’t impose on you any longer.”

  Jelani shook his head. “Bwana Nyati is as stubborn as the buffalo.” He looked at Jade. “You must tell him that he is not well enough to leave. He must drink more of the medicine to cleanse his body. As should you, Simba Jike, since you too have had this poison in you.”

  “I didn’t drink any today. I’m fine.”

  “No, you are not.” Jelani’s statement brooked no argument. Jade gave him one anyway. The young healer finally settled for getting both of them to drink one gourdful of his healing herbs. He pressed two packets made of folded banana leaves into her hands. “There is medicine in them. The same that you just now gave to the bwana. Pour it into water and drink it. The bwana, too.”

  Jade took it, if only to allow Jelani to save face. Harry, seeing his opportunity, sidled closer to Jade. “Looks as though you’re supposed to take care of me for a while, Jade. Be my nurse. We could use my old house.”

  Jade slapped a packet against Harry’s chest. “You’re obviously yourself again. Take this and help me get Nakuru.”

  Jelani nodded across the compound. “Nakuru is in the hut by the gate. Your rifles are with him.”

  For all his bluster, Harry was weak from his long battle with the drugs and Nakuru. Jade could see he took a deep breath to steady himself and started slowly across the compound, followed by Jade and the others.

  “What have you seen in your visions, Simba Jike?” Jelani asked softly.

  Jade decided there was no harm in telling him. “A dead man,” she whispered. “And once I thought I saw that old native from Marsabit. The one called Brother to the Elephants.”

  “Ahhh,” said Jelani. When Jade gave him a questioning look, he merely shrugged. Then he nodded to Harry. “Bwana Nyati will get better faster if he drinks more of the medicine. But you, Simba Jike, watch carefully what you eat or drink until you find who has done this.”

  “I will. And you, my friend, need to find Mutahi. He can tell us where he got the herbs.”

  Nakuru was delighted to see Harry alive and well and immediately apologized for all the bruises and pain he’d inflicted on his boss. Harry waved it all off magnanimously and went so far as to express his pleasure that he hadn’t killed Nakuru. After a brief conference, Harry decided that Nakuru did require the native hospital in Nairobi. As for himself, he declared that he didn’t need to see any bloody doctor and thought he could just hole up downriver at Percival’s camp and sleep it off overnight.

  “I’ve still got that croc to find,” he finished. “What do you say, Jade? Watch over me tonight?” He stumbled on his next step. “See? I’m still not steady.”

  Jade deemed it more of an act, despite how sick he’d looked when she’d first arrived. He was a rounder at heart and wouldn’t scruple to use any ploy to get her alone. “Then you should stay in the village another night.”

  Harry scowled and tottered off towards his truck.

  In the end, Harry drove off to find the game warden. Jade took Nakuru to Nairobi, Biscuit wedged in beside him in the backseat of the Overland. Holly decided he had little choice but to return with Jade and opted to hide away at the Blue Posts Hotel near Thika. It was late Saturday night when she arrived home. After a cursory report to Avery and Bev, and hearing that the girls had all made it home safely, she crawled onto her own cot.


  She lay awake, wondering at what had happened. Mumbi and the old mondo-mogo had both warned her of a killer crocodile and she’d certainly seen it. Then she recalled Mumbi’s words. The old woman spoke of mamba jike, a female crocodile, not the piebald bull. Jade decided that Mumbi had really said her name, Simba Jike, instead, and tried to sleep. She slept poorly, listening for stealthy footsteps, wary of every night noise. When Jade did sleep, she kept dreaming of Harry tied down, ranting. Only instead of Harry’s voice, the sounds that came out of his mouth were those of that gray parrot, squawking, “Salt” and “Pile in.”

  Only this time, Jade heard it as a name, Pellyn, the name of Lilith Worthy’s lover.

  CHAPTER 14

  Once prey is secured, it is often stored in an underwater larder, often on a

  shelf that the crocodile has dug out of the embankment with its claws.

  —The Traveler

  “I’M TELLING YOU, that parrot has been screeching ‘Pellyn,’ not ‘pile in’ or ‘pile on,’ as we first thought.” Jade sat in the Dunburys’ sitting room nursing a glass of lemonade. At present, it seemed like the safest thing to drink. At least it was freshly made, if the number of seeds in her glass was any indication. She felt drained, having slept poorly. After Sunday Mass, she tried to sleep again but it eluded her. Jade thought the only way she could gain any peace would be to share her ideas about what had happened.

  Beverly cradled baby Alice in her left arm, a bottle of formula in her right. She wore a loose blue linen dress that complemented her fair complexion and corn-silk hair. Bev gently swayed in her chair, a picture of maternal contentment as the baby sucked at the bottle’s nipple. Jade, on the other hand, felt as if she were about to explode from frustration.

  Why are they treating me as if I’m the one who took sick instead of Harry?

  “You’re exhausted, Jade,” said Beverly. “I knew last night when you gave us that very thin report on Harry and Nakuru that there was more to it than you let on, but I thought you needed sleep, so I didn’t press it. Now that we’re certain you’ve been drugged these past days, I think you should go back to bed or see a doctor. Let me send for someone.”