Today's Embrace (32 page)

“They are, from the
mutarara
tree. Sixteen to the set, I think. The ngangas throw them the way a gambler tosses dice.”

Peter called for the young Ndebele guard again. Jo came back reluctantly, cautiously circling the hakata. He said something in a hushed whisper to Captain Retford. Then Jo looked over at Sir Julien.

“Out with it, Retford. What's he gibbering about?” Julien asked.

“He says the
ngwenya
bone is pointing upward. Means the future is black.”

“No,” Detlev said. “No one can say such things but God.” Julien sat stiffly in a chair. “Absolute poppycock,” Peter agreed.

“It may look like a mixture of nonsense, but don't underestimate the nganga's witchcraft. It's demonic,” Retford stated.

Peter scowled. “Are you trying to tell us, Retford, that the ngangas have power to cause some sort of impending doom?”

“Demon worship is rampant in the tribe's religion. The Umlimo, who they think speaks the oracle, is a girl possessed with an evil spirit. The tribe believes in their nganga witch doctors as well as their divining bones, and if the Umlimo tells the warriors to rampage and kill, they will. It's wise to stay away from the nganga. You may remember, sir, that when King Saul of Israel visited the witch of En Dor, Samuel the prophet informed him that he would lose his life on the next day.”

“Balderdash, my good fellow. You're not telling us this hocus-pocus is real?”

“As real as Satan and his demons. But that's no reason for undue alarm. The Scriptures record that demons are subject to Jesus Christ. He cast them out whenever He encountered them. You may remember reading of the madman of Gadara? Jesus freed him from a legion of demons, also seven evil spirits from Mary Magdalene, as well as many others.”

Peter straightened his gun belt and looked uneasy. “No, I've not read that, Captain, but I will.” He looked over at Julien.

Julien downed his jigger of brandy and shuddered.

Captain Retford gestured to Detlev to get the divining bones and chicken parts out of the room.

“Leave the hakata,” Julien said huskily. “They belong to me.”

They turned to look at him. He was measurably calm again, having his wits about him.

“Yours?” Darinda was shocked. “Grandfather—”

He stood, swaying a little, so Peter steadied his arm, but Julien shook off Peter's hand, turned, and walked out of the office.

Parnell followed at a distance and watched Julien climb the steps to his room. “He's snapped out of his fear,” he said. “I didn't believe I'd ever see the day that Uncle Julien was as scared as a rabbit over a cauldron of mishmash.”

Darinda heard the wood bones click together as Detlev gathered them up from the top of the desk.

“What'll I do with 'em, sir?”

“My advice? Burn them,” Retford stated.

Peter came out of his thoughtful scowl and looked over at Detlev, who was clutching the pieces of wood. “You heard Sir Julien. Better dump them in his drawer, I suppose,” Peter said crisply. “If we burn them, he'll rant at us all.”

“Yes sir.”

The bones clattered as Detlev dropped them into the drawer and shut it. Detlev looked up at the dead remains.

“A waste, sir, if you ask me. Woulda gone for a good smoke pit back home.”

“We agree on that,” Retford said with a wry smile.

They left the office for the common room, leaving Detlev to clean up.

“My good fellow,” Peter said to Retford, “who do you think was behind this?”

“I wish I knew. I'll have another talk with the Ndebele guards. Someone is either trying to frighten Sir Julien into leaving for Capetown, or worse … perhaps even wants him like Lord Brewster.”

Though not intended, Darinda had overheard the two men talking. Julien's fear had notably affected her, and she clamped her jaw to keep the men from noticing her teeth chattering.

“But why?” she asked.

She found sympathy in Retford's eyes. “Why don't you go up to your room, Miss Bley? I'll see that matters are taken care of here. It's been a long day for you.”

“For all of us,” she said. “Yes, thank you, Captain. Coming, Peter? Arcilla will be on pins and needles by now.”

“Yes, I'd best get up to her,” Peter said.

She turned to Retford and smiled ruefully. “Good night.” She looked away from his steady gaze.

Parnell looked too upset to be thinking of anything else except the evening's events.

“I'm with you, Retford,” Parnell was saying. “I'm not walking back to the bungalows alone. I understand you have the one next to mine now.”

“Yes, Bungalow thirteen,” Retford said as a faint smile touched his lips.

“Dumaka,” Parnell murmured again. “I wonder … Maybe he's not dead. He has plenty against Julien. All this talk about the Matopos and
the Black Diamond being there with ol' Lobengula in his burial cave. If Dumaka thinks Julien is going on that expedition, then he could be as riled as a banded cobra. But Julien won't listen. He's obsessed with the Black Diamond.”

Detlev appeared from the office. “Jo wants to see you, Captain. Something about the way the hakata bones were arranged.”

Captain Retford and Parnell went with Detlev as Darinda went upstairs with Peter.

“Peter,” she whispered. “If it isn't Dumaka, who else wants Grandfather—dead?”

Peter's craggy face was reflective. “That isn't the question, Darinda. The real question is, who doesn't?”

Arcilla walked to her vanity table and placed the paper scrap from the ashtray in Uncle Julien's office inside her decorative letter box. After putting the box back, she closed the drawer. She left the bed chamber and went to the next little room.

Marjit, Detlev's wife, was dozing in a chair while Baby Charles slept in his cradle. Arcilla smiled for the first time and gently rubbed her infant's back. She made a kissing sound. “Hello, my sweetie.”

Marjit stirred awake. Seeing Arcilla, she rubbed her eyes and sat up straighter.

“Thought you'd have supper first, Mrs. Bartley.” Marjit stood and stretched like a skinny cat.

“I wasn't hungry. You can go now, Marjit, and thank you.”

Marjit looked at her kindly. She and Detlev had a farm, but when their only child, a girl, died of what Dr. Jameson had called blackwater fever, Marjit abandoned the farm and came to Bulawayo with Detlev, intending to return to Fort Salisbury. Arcilla had begged her to stay with her for a few months and help look after the baby. Peter had then offered Detlev a job working as Captain Retford's assistant. Arcilla and Peter offered the couple a good salary, and they'd decided to stay indefinitely. Marjit was a wholesome woman who liked her and said so.

“Sound asleep,” Marjit said of the baby. “Would you like some tea before I go find Detlev, Mrs. Bartley?”

“Yes, please do, Marjit. I'm done in. It's been a horrible afternoon.”

“So I heard. Gruesome and positively frightening. Who could have done such a thing to his lordship? Was it the Ndebele? Just like poor Major Tom Willet?”

“Oh, Marjit, I can't bear talking about it anymore tonight. All I want is that hot cup of tea. Just to hold Charles Rogan in my arms when he wakes is enough … Could you let that rattan shade down, please? I think I'll just lie down awhile till Peter gets here …”

Marjit, a tall, thin woman with braided yellow hair and lashless blue eyes, looked at Arcilla concerned, and nodded.

“Yes, you do lie down, my dear. You look ill. I'll get that tea.”

Arcilla sank into the narrow cushions and lay on her side so she could watch her baby sleeping so sweetly. She found comfort watching him. Soon, tired tears blurred her eyes.
My poor, poor darling baby. How can I get you to Rookswood safely?

The cold cup of tea was sitting on the table when Arcilla sat up in the semidarkened room. How long had she napped? Baby Charles was not in his crib.

Lamplight filtered in from the main bedroom. She heard heavy footsteps moving about and knew it was Peter. She arose, smoothed her hair, straightened her skirt and blouse, and stepped through the doorway to the next room.

Peter was relaxing in shirt sleeves, collar unbuttoned, pacing leisurely with his son asleep in his arms.

Arcilla watched soberly. Peter saw her, and he paused, their eyes meeting for a long wordless moment.

He looks dreadful
, she thought.
He's worried
.

He went to put the baby in his crib and rejoined her a minute later, drawing the door partly closed.

He was strained, tired lines showing beneath his eyes.

“Oh, Peter.”

He held her quietly, rubbing and patting her back much the same way he did with Baby Charles.

“It's horrible,” she cried. “Someone bashed in the back of poor Cousin Anthony's head. They snuck up behind him and—”

“Enough, Arcilla. You'll make yourself ill. Try not to think about it.”

“I can't get it out of my mind.”

His mouth tightened. “There's been more trouble since dinner. Someone played a nasty bit of goods on Julien tonight. A taste of witchcraft in his office.”

“Oh no, not again?”

“It was more serious this time.”

She suspected he left out the hideous parts in his explanation, but even so it was all quite ghastly.

“Who could it be? Who is doing this? The same person who killed Anthony?”

He held her from him, his craggy face looking a bit stern. “If we knew, we'd handle the blithering fiend at once. Arcilla, until this is solved, I don't want you out on your own.”

“Then let's leave Bulawayo now. We'll go to Capetown, to Camilla. She'll need help after what's happened to Anthony.”

“We cannot leave now, Arcilla. You know that. I have my duties here.”

“What of your duties to me and your son? Parnell says the natives will attack all of us. Don't you care?”

“Need you ask so cruel a question of me? You and Charles mean everything to me.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“Parnell drinks too much, I've told you so. He's destroying himself. If anyone should leave Bulawayo, it's Parnell. He should forget Darinda. She's only toying with his affections for her own ends.”

She watched him walk over to the window and stand tall and straight, hands clasped behind his back.

“Darinda again,” she scoffed. She sank into a chair, leaning her head back. Peter turned his head.

“Why do you speak of her so disparagingly? It isn't becoming of you.”

She leaned forward. “Because you speak too well of her.”

He turned about. “Don't be ridiculous. She's only one more matter for you to seize upon to criticize me. I would think a husband is entitled to a bit of respect from his wife.”

“I would respect you more if you stood up to Julien. Tell him you're taking your family and returning to England where we belong.”

He snatched up his pipe and tensely filled it with tobacco. He was frowning as he struck a match and lit it. He bit the end and looked at her with narrowed eyes.

Arcilla was sorry she'd spoken hastily. She did respect him. She stood and began to walk across the room to him, hands extended, but he turned his back and looked out the window into the darkness.

Her shoulders slumped. The baby began to cry. She went to see to his care. When she returned ten minutes later, Peter was sitting in the large chair smoking his pipe, his long legs crossed at the knees. He looked at her soberly.

“Everything all right?”

She nodded and walked over to the window. The cry of some animal stabbed through the darkness. She whipped the curtains closed and turned to look down at him where he sat.

“Did Anthony mention your father this morning?”

Peter shook his head no.

She tightened her mouth and plucked at her hair. “Uncle Julien said we couldn't leave until the Boer situation is resolved.”

Peter remained silent, puffing his pipe. She gave a short laugh. “That will be years. I told him so. Charles will be four or five and have never met his grandfather Lyle and Great-aunt Elosia.”

“You imagine the very worst, then become depressed.”

She looked over at him. “Peter?”

He looked at her more tenderly. She said, “The letter from the authorities in Capetown—what was in it?”

He lowered his pipe and curled in his brows. “Letter?”

“You know, the letter Anthony brought to Julien. Would you mind telling me what was written in it?”

“Just government business, I suppose.” His brows curled even deeper. “That Matopos map … I wonder now. Anthony mentioned no map. Seems out of character for him to have brought something he so heartily disagreed with. That expedition means nothing but trouble. I wish Julien would come to his senses about the Kimberly.”