A Touch of Betrayal (8 page)

Worse, the woman obviously had endured some kind of physical trauma. A scratch on one arm was caked with dried blood on which flies clustered like a string of black beads. Round purple contusions marked her flesh. Grant lifted the blanket in which the men had wrapped her and flicked on his flashlight. The woman’s sunburned arms led to torn palms and tattered fingernails. Her bruised legs looked like a pair of knobby canes, and the soles of her bare feet were raw.

“Do you know the woman’s name?” he asked, kneeling beside the litter and taking her wrist to check for a pulse.

“Sambeke Ole Kereya talked to her in the tongue of the English. She is called by the name of Alinkanda.”

“Alinkanda?” Grant stroked his thumb over the woman’s battered fingers. “Ma’am,” he said softly in English. “Can you hear me? My name is Grant Thornton.”

Her puffed eyelids opened slightly. Two feverish blue eyes focused on him. “Grant,” she mumbled.

“Good, you’re conscious. Listen—we’re going to take you to my camp. We’ll get some liquids into you, cool you off, see what we can do about those feet. You’re going to be all right. We’ll take you back to your tour group—”

“No!” Her fingers gripped his hand. She struggled onto one elbow, her eyes wild. “No . . . not . . . man . . . can’t . . . man . . .”

“Hold on, now. Calm down.” He eased her back onto the cowhide litter. “Just relax, okay? Nobody’s going to take you anywhere until you’re better.”

Standing, Grant faced the leader of the warriors. “What happened to her, Kakombe?” he asked in Maasai. “Did someone in your
kraal
injure this woman?”

“No, my brother!” All the men clustered forward, eager to reassure him. Their leader spoke for the group. “A pack of wild dogs tried to attack the woman, but one of our boys drove them off. A brave child. He killed two dogs. We have been most honorable in the care of her of the English.”

Grant studied the woman again. He had always trusted the Maasai as truthful and fair. It wouldn’t be like them to harm a defenseless woman. And they clearly knew the government would not be pleased if an American should die in their care.

“Enough talking. I delay you, you delay me; we depart without profit,” Grant said, repeating a common Maasai proverb. “Let us take her of the English to my camp. Maybe she will be able to tell us what happened on her journey.”

Grant took part of the cowhide near the woman’s head and began to walk. He hadn’t seen anyone so sick, swollen, and miserable in a long time. She needed a doctor. Probably a hospital.

Though he was sympathetic to her plight, he guessed she was probably just another tourist who had gotten into trouble through carelessness—like those who stepped out of their cars to take a closer gander at the lions, those who ignored warnings to take their malaria medicine, those who photographed the native people without offering to pay for the privilege. They treated Africa as though it should conform to them instead of the other way around.

The thought of driving this woman all the way to Nairobi in his Land Rover made Grant groan inwardly. In less than a week, the Maasai of the nearby
kraal
would be holding a major ceremony marking the confirmation of elderhood. Grant had never been invited to witness
Eunoto
, but if he could convince the elders to let him attend, he knew the experience would be invaluable. Not only would he be able to gather more stories and traditions, but he would also enjoy seeing the initiation of Kakombe and several other close friends during the ceremony.

The gas lantern hanging from Grant’s tent pole shone like a guiding star in the dark night. As the group approached, Mama Hannah emerged from a second tent, her yellow cotton dress drifting below her knees in the breeze that swept down from Mount Kilimanjaro. She hurried toward the warriors.

“Grant?” she called.

“It’s us, Mama Hannah. Do you have the cot ready? She’s in pretty bad shape.”

The warriors carried the cowhide into the lantern light and set it gently on the ground. “Oh, look at her skin!” Mama Hannah said, kneeling and pulling back the blankets.

“The sun has burned her. She is so—” Her words stopped, and she looked up at Grant. “But this is Miss Prescott!”

“Who?”

“Alexandra Prescott! This is the woman we met at the airport in Nairobi. Do you not recognize her?”

Grant scrutinized the woman. “I don’t think this is Alexandra Prescott. She had that New York look. She was . . . sleek and elegant . . . and . . .” On the other hand, the hair was the same. She was the right height. If you could picture the face and the eyes in a different light, you might actually be close to the image of the woman whose memory had played through his brain in flickers of shadow and light.

“Miss Prescott?” he asked. “Is that you?”

Her puffed lids opened again, and she mumbled something.

“It is she. Carry her into the tent, Grant,” Hannah ordered. “Take that blanket away before she smothers. Bring me some water. Do you have clean water? I don’t want anything dug out of a riverbed.”

Still bewildered that he hadn’t recognized her—while Mama Hannah had known right away—Grant slipped his arms beneath Alexandra. Her body was so feverish that he could feel the heat through her clothing. He tucked her against his chest and stood.

“Relax now,” he said. “I’m taking you into the tent.”

“Don’t . . . the man!”

“What man?” He started walking with her, but she began to writhe.

“Man . . . here . . . he’s—”

“Nobody’s here but the warriors and us.” He drew her closer. “We’re going to take care of you, Miss Prescott. I promise we won’t let anybody hurt you.”

“Dogs!”

“No, there aren’t any wild dogs around. You’re safe. Mama Hannah’s going to wash you up in a minute, and . . . and . . . hey there, don’t cry.”

“Mama Hannah?”

“I am with you,” the old woman murmured as Grant laid Alexandra on the narrow aluminum-framed cot. She pushed back the injured woman’s hair and placed a dark hand on the feverish forehead. “‘Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak,’” she recited softly. “‘Heal me, Lord, for my body is in agony. I am sick at heart. How long, O Lord, until you restore me?’”

Grant walked outside toward his precious container of clean water. He could hear Hannah’s soothing voice coming from the tent. It reminded him of the crooning of Maasai women as they sang their prayer songs:

Naomoni aaayai
The one who is prayed for and I also pray.
Nairkurukur nesha,
God of the thunder and the rain,
Iye oshi ak-aaomon.
Thee I always pray.

Mama Hannah wouldn’t like it if she knew he compared her devotion to Jehovah to the Maasai’s veneration of
Engai
. But to Grant, it was all so much mumbo jumbo. Alexandra Prescott would get better if she rested, drank a lot of water, and took a round of antibiotics.

Infectious germs could be seen through a microscope. So could the medicines that would attack and destroy them. But God . . .
Engai
. . . was ephemeral. The Indescribable Color, the Maasai called their unseen deity. Christians called him the Holy Spirit. Either way, scientific evidence was definitely lacking.

Grant filled a bowl from the twenty-gallon plastic tank of city water he had hauled from Nairobi on his last visit. Then he went over to his own tent and dug around in his first-aid kit. By this time the visiting Maasai warriors had wandered to the nearby
kraal
to seek shelter for the night with others who were preparing for the initiation ceremony.

“‘He lets me rest in green meadows.’” Hannah’s voice sounded through the canvas tent wall as Grant approached. “‘He leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength.’”

“But can he do anything about a bad sunburn?” Grant asked, pushing back the flap that was intended to keep mosquitoes outside. “How’s the patient?”

“Calm.” Hannah touched Grant’s arm. “This is more than a sickness of the body. Something terrible has happened to our friend.”

Friend? We don’t even know this woman,
Grant thought. He knelt beside the cot and slipped his hand behind her neck. “Time for a drink of fresh water, Miss Prescott.”

She moaned and placed her swollen lips on the rim of the cup he had poured. As she gulped the cool water, Grant pondered what on earth could have happened to the sophisticated lady he had met in Nairobi. An unexpected stab of fear ran through him. What if she was sicker than he thought? What if she took a turn for the worse? She was acting a little shell-shocked, and the burn was pretty serious—not to mention the scratch on her arm and those flies. . . . He should take her to Nairobi as soon as possible. Better yet, he could drive her to the lodge at Amboseli Game Park. Small planes regularly flew in and out of there. She could be in a Nairobi hospital by tomorrow night.

“Miss Prescott,” Grant said. “Can you hear me? Can you understand what I’m saying?”

She nodded.

“You’ve been badly sunburned. I suspect you may have heatstroke. You may need professional medical attention. I’d like to drive you over to the lodge at Amboseli and put you on a plane—”

“No!” Her eyes flew open, and she gripped his arm. “Not there! The man . . .”

“You are upsetting her again,” Mama Hannah said. “Come, Miss Prescott. Take some more water. Grant, you wash her face while I go to the other tent and prepare some broth from the stew.”

“I’ll do the broth,” he said quickly.

“You bathe her.”

When Mama Hannah spoke in that tone, Grant knew there was to be no argument. He set the bowl on his lap and dipped a rag into the water. Brushing back strands of the woman’s blonde hair, he stroked the wet cloth over her forehead. She moaned slightly.

“Miss Prescott . . . Alexandra,” he said in a low voice. “Can you tell me why you left your tour? Has someone tried to hurt you?”

“Man,” she muttered.

“Which man? Was it one of the Maasai? The African warriors?”

She shook her head. Her eyes opened. “Jones.”

“A white man?”

“The lodge.”

“Someone attacked you at the lodge? One of the guests?”

“Jones. Nick Jones.” She reached up and laid her hand over his. “Please . . . Grant. Don’t take me there.”

He studied the dark bruises on her skin. “Look, I’m going to drive over to Oloitokitok tomorrow morning. With a white woman disappearing from a lodge and her tour, this is going to be all over the news. The police are searching for you already, I’m sure. I’ll tell them what’s happened, and they can haul the guy into custody.”

“No—”

“Yes, Alexandra. If some maniac is out there attacking women, the authorities need to know about it.”

“Please, Grant.” She swallowed hard. “Can’t talk. More water.”

He helped her take another sip. “You’d better rest. Mama Hannah will be in with the broth in a minute.”

“The man,” she said, catching his sleeve before he could move away. Her voice was deep and hoarse as she spoke. “If you tell anyone, it’ll get into the newspapers. Then he’ll know I’m still alive. Where I am. He’ll come after me. He wants to kill me.”

“Kill you? Why would anyone want to do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“That settles it. Whether you approve or not, I’m going to the authorities with this.”

“Please don’t.” Her face tensed with emotion. “He swore he’d find me. He has a wire. A knife.”

“This is unbelievable. You’re a couple of tourists, right? So what’s the guy’s problem? He chases women all the way to Africa to kill them? I don’t get it.”

Grant continued bathing her swollen skin in silence. The whole thing made no sense—unless Alexandra had been involved in some kind of relationship with the jerk. A love affair gone wrong. Maybe this Nick Jones had gotten too serious too fast. Or maybe he had wanted more than she was prepared to give.

But to threaten to kill her? Leave her out in the wilderness to die? That went beyond anything Grant could fathom.

“How long have you known this Jones fellow?” he asked.

“That evening. Sitting by the pool. Bad poetry.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Her words were barely audible. “A cablegram came. I had to make a call. A deficit. He ordered me a sandwich. And I told him I didn’t want to . . . to go . . . and he grabbed me . . . the tree . . . under the tree . . . the leopard.” Her eyes opened. “I saw a leopard.”

Grant scowled. What on earth was she babbling about?

“It’s the strange part,” she said. “A leopard in the tree.”

“In the game park? I don’t think so. Leopards prefer dense bush like the forests on Mount Kilimanjaro. I doubt you’d ever see a leopard in Amboseli.”

“Yes,” she insisted as a tear squeezed out of the corner of her eye and began to slide down her cheek. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“Do you make her cry now, Grant?” Mama Hannah asked when she walked into the tent. “A woman so ill, and you cause her to weep?”

“I was just asking her a few questions.”

“The scientist. Always the scientist.” The old woman motioned Grant away from the cot and bent over Alexandra. “I bring you warm soup. This is made in the way of my tribe, the Kikuyu,” she said softly. “It is not like the food of the Maasai. We are farmers, and they are owners of cattle. This soup is rich with beef and good vegetables. Potatoes, beans, cauliflower. You will try it?”