Today's Embrace (42 page)

Though Mornay had made a map for Julien that he'd seen hanging in Parnell's office in Kimberly. That only showed the limited information that Mornay could acquire from his father's old records and the memory of past conversations about Henry's trek. But the secret emblems drawn
on Henry's map had not been seen by anyone else until Rogan showed them to Mornay and Derwent at the Zambezi gold mine.

“Yes, the
late
Giles Mornay … unfortunate mining accident. A twist of fate. Oh, did I tell you Mornay had a son? No? You do look a bit surprised. He naturally wanted the very best for his son. He's safe in England, attending Cambridge. Took some doing, as the boy wasn't that educated, but with private tutors to help him along, Giles Mornay the second is doing well. In return—yes, he told me what was on the map. Well, actually he was kind enough to draw one from memory. Would you like to see it?”

Rogan was frozen with anger.

Sir Julien removed a sheet from his locked drawer and extended it toward Rogan. “No use being obstinate. Anger and rage will lessen your ability to think clearly.”

Rogan walked toward him. Julien spoke cheerfully.

“I have good news for you, Rogan. All the gold on Henry's map is yours. Yes, yours alone. And now that I know where the location of his find is, the Company will let you keep it all. I had to finagle with Rhodes and Jameson to get you this kind of deal. Here, take a look at Mornay's map.”

Rogan fought his rising anger. He studied the map, recognizing Mornay's style of drawing. The map was close to the original. The emblems of the bird, the lion, and the baobab tree were correctly displayed.

He might hate Mornay for his betrayal, except that he was dead. And Rogan could also associate with Mornay's wishes to do something for his son. Mornay had never told him about his boy. A pity. He would have done for Mornay's son what Julien had done, without requiring that he sell out his personal integrity. Knowing Mornay, it must have troubled him afterward. His resulting depression was what Derwent had noticed.

Julien chuckled. “The same?”

Rogan met his eye with a hard look that caused Julien to arch his brow.

“Come, come, Rogan. It's not as bad as all that. Had I intended to register the claim for myself, I'd have done so while you were in England. No, you're getting all of Henry's claim, and I'll be content with retrieving the Black Diamond.”

“You? Content?” Rogan said with a cool, disbelieving look.

“About the gold on Henry's map? Yes. You may wonder, but yes. I told you one hundred percent, and I meant it. It's yours and Evy's … and your coming child's. Think of the child. You can have it all. Just the way Henry wanted it to be.” He poured himself another jigger of liquor. “On one condition.”

Rogan smiled wolfishly. “So now we finally get to it. What's the condition?”

“Nothing too difficult. As I've already explained, you'll come with me to the Matopos. Help me retrieve my Black. I don't trust all the men I must take, but you, Retford, and Derwent, I can trust—at least about being shot in the back.”

Rogan looked at him. “You think there's someone here who might do so?”

“I don't doubt it for a minute.” He took a drag on his tobacco. “You'll be my bodyguard and see that I and the Black are brought back safely and delivered to Kimberly. Do that, and the gold deposit is yours.”

Rogan stared at him a long minute without speaking. Was he serious? He could see that he was. The mask was gone from Julien's face, and he appeared almost vulnerable. There was a pitiable look about the haggard face with still a vestige of a handsomeness.

Rogan looked down at the gold falcon in his hand.

“You haven't explained about this. Where did you get it? What has it to do with Henry's deposit?”

“First, you'll need to promise your cooperation on Matopos.”

Rogan weighed the falcon in his hand. He was already wealthy without it. With Evy's inheritance they would be doubly wealthy. He also had Rookswood and a chance to make wealth on the three-thousand-acre farm he had here in Rhodesia, thanks to Rhodes's Charter Company
and his part in the pioneer trek. No, it wasn't that he wanted Henry's claim to get rich on. It was the need to know the truth after all these years … the need to settle the venture of Henry's map once for all … to fulfill a quest that had nagged at him since childhood. It had caused him years of concern and planning and the investment of his life.

No, it wasn't the gold. It was the adventure of discovery. A
cause
to which he'd given himself since a boy with fanciful dreams, and boasts of finding an answer to Henry Chantry's
secret
.

“I'm waiting,” Sir Julien said, breaking the silence. “Well, what do you say, Rogan? Do we have a bargain or not?”

Rogan continued to hold the gold falcon. He'd come too far in his quest to end it now.

“We have a bargain.”

“Ah!”

Julien shot down his liquor and banged the glass on the desk. He took the map Mornay had drawn and lit a match to it. As the flames licked and curled the ends of the paper into ash, he spoke casually.

“Ever heard of the ancient ruins of Zimbabwe?”

Rogan looked at him sharply.

“Yes, Zimbabwe. This bird came from there. If you search there you will find the secret of Henry's old map. His gold is an ancient shaft there from yesteryear.”

Rogan was elated and furious with himself. He should have guessed Zimbabwe Ruins long ago. Except that Henry had gone to the Zambezi region on his last trek, and it had been his last expedition that they'd all thought held the discovery of gold. The map had intimated Zambezi, not Mashonaland. Had Henry done so deliberately?

“You have a few weeks before anything of importance happens here at Bulawayo. If I were you, I'd go there and satisfy myself that I've directed you properly at last.”

Rogan masked his emotions. Evy was with Dr. Jakob. Just where she had wanted to be all along. She would be safe enough. Jakob was a doctor, there was a medical facility right on the station, and Arcilla and
Darinda could visit often. Derwent and Parnell would be at the mission station as well.

“No—keep the bird, my boy, keep it,” he said when Rogan began to hand it back. “A token of our bargain,” Julien stated with an unpleasant smile. “The thunderbird will make a wondrous souvenir for your son or daughter when they're grown up.” He chuckled. “You can tell them all about your Uncle Julien Bley, and what a sinister scoundrel he was in his dark day. They'll most likely be grave and piously utter something typical of a generation or two removed from the time. ‘If we had been alive way back then, we wouldn't have been so greedy and
unkind
to the poor natives!' ” He laughed coldly, mockingly, as Rogan strode from his office into the common room.

Julien was still laughing when Rogan, frowning to himself, settled his hat on his dark head. It was a Rhodesian style hat, gently curved up on one side and down on the other.

He went out the front door of Government House to where his horse was tied near an acacia tree. Great Zimbabwe.

Rogan stepped into the stirrup and mounted his horse. The gold thunderbird glinted in his hand. He placed it in his jacket and turned the reins to ride toward Parnell's bungalow. He was still frowning as Julien's words echoed in his mind.

The ruins of Zimbabwe were located about twenty-seven kilometers south of Fort Victoria.

Traveling first by C. H. Zeederberg's pioneer stagecoach and mail delivery, then securing horses at Fort Victoria, Rogan, with Parnell, Derwent, and a handful of Basuto, rode to the Valley of Ruins.

Rogan had first returned to Dr. Jakob's Bulawayo Mission to prepare for the trek and to inform Evy in a nonchalant fashion that he would be gone for two weeks. She had surprised him with her cooperation. Then again, two weeks to search out Zimbabwe wasn't a thousand
miles north to the Zambezi. He knew that she was also trying to reach out to him to make amends for deceiving him about their coming baby. Rogan remained angry over the deceit.
Stubborn
, she had said, was he?

“Do not let the sun go down on your wrath,” Dr. Jakob had confided to him before he rode out of the station. “Unresolved anger leads to a hardness of heart.”

He was still in love with her; naturally he would be. When he'd held her in his arms the night before they rode out, she had asked him if he still loved her. What a question! And yet he'd felt angry inside over Julien, over Anthony's death, about Henry's map, about most things, and he had answered her shortly. The fact that he had done so troubled him now, days later as he rode toward Zimbabwe. “Naturally I love you. You're still a beautiful woman, aren't you?” It had been a base thing to say, and if he hadn't been out of sorts with her, with himself, and everything around him, he would have been more reassuring about how he felt about her.

Derwent was singing; Parnell was looking bored, but sober. He hadn't wanted to come, but Rogan had forced the issue.

“For a few weeks you've got a bodyguard,” Rogan had said before they left the mission. “Between me and Derwent there'll be no Rhodesian beer. Besides, this way Derwent can preach at you. Maybe you'll learn to stay sober on your own.”

Rogan slowed his horse and dropped back beside his brother. “I've traversed these ruins before with Mornay. I don't see how Julien can be right. There's nothing there.”

“When did you see the ruins?”

“On Rhodes's pioneer trek.”

“I didn't see you go off.”

Rogan smiled and shrugged. “You were too occupied trying to please Darinda.”

Rogan thought again about his uncle. He felt a rise of frustration. “I should have understood Henry better. He expected me to.”

Parnell looked about uneasily. “Not an easy thing to have done. Who
knew the thoughts of Henry? He was always secretive. A strange one, I always thought.”

Derwent said, “It sure never entered my thinking that the gold on Mr. Henry's old map was here.”

Rogan resettled his hat. “Henry used Zambezi on his map for orientation. Just to show where north was. A man as canny as Henry could never have made such a mistake. He was quite the trekker.”

Derwent rubbed his nose. “Aye, and maybe he did it to kind of protect his discovery? That way, if the map was stolen from him, then they couldn't find his deposit.”

“C'mon, Derwent,” Parnell said impatiently, swatting at an insect. “That would be a fool thing for him to do. He left the map to Rogan to find the claim. How can he find it if Henry gives him a misleading map?” He glanced at Rogan. “Unless Uncle Henry was a trifle moldy upstairs.”

“Hardly that.”

“Well, then—”

“That's not what I mean, Mr. Parnell, about disguising the map. I mean, maybe it was just the
emblems
that were important, that your uncle wanted to impress on Mr. Rogan.”

“Perhaps,” Rogan muttered. “But I would have needed something else to direct me to Zimbabwe. Otherwise the emblems wouldn't have helped either.”

“Sure. And maybe it was the gold thunderbird he used,” Derwent said. “Soon as you saw it on Julien's desk, you was alerted to think of Zimbabwe. Most people do. So did Sir Julien. Where did Sir Julien get that gold bird anyway?”

Rogan slowed his horse and came to a stop. Gripping the leather reins he turned the horse to face Derwent, who had also pulled up with Parnell.

Rogan stared at Derwent. Parnell, too, gaped at him.

Derwent flushed and lowered his hat.

“Go on,” Rogan said in a low, urgent voice.

“Well—I've been doing some hard thinking ever since we left the mission. Thinking about what Dr. Jakob said about Zimbabwe and how some folks thought it was the land of Ophir in the Bible. Seems to me Henry Chantry would know that kind of talk about South Africa too, and a lot more about ancient history, same as Dr. Jakob. What's to say, Mr. Rogan, that Mr. Henry didn't leave you only the map, but that gold bird? If so, he would have expected you to recognize it as the Zimbabwe bird on the map.”

“Well, well,” Parnell murmured and looked with enthusiasm at Rogan. “Uncle Julien did come to Rookswood often enough while we were growing up. How many times did you catch him on the third floor in Henry's room sneaking around?”

“Too many times. You're right, Derwent. This bird could very well have been left to me, and Julien found it. Except he obviously didn't connect it with the map until recently because he hadn't seen the map.”

“Not until Mornay drew it for him,” Parnell said.

“Derwent, old friend,” Rogan said, reaching over and swatting his shoulder, “I think you've unveiled it.”

Derwent looked embarrassed. Rogan removed the gold bird from his saddlebag and looked at it, holding it to catch the rays of the sun as it shone and glittered in the light.