Today's Embrace (44 page)

Had Henry discovered the tunnel? What had Henry said about fleeing for his life when under attack by Mashona? Was it possible his guide, an old bushman, might have known about the tunnel and led him to safety? Then why hadn't Henry made it clear on the map?

Rogan reached the top of the rocky ascent of the Acropolis, where the end was so low that he had to stoop. He came out high above the Valley of Ruins.

The wind roughed his hair and tried to push him backward. There was an excellent view of the valley, the stone walls, and beyond to the veld and hills.

Rogan took his map and opened it with its rough edges riffling in the breeze. Derwent and Parnell stood on either side of him, bending their heads to see Henry's emblems: the bird, the lion, and the baobab tree.

Rogan looked up and around him.

“I don't see a baobab tree anywhere,” Parnell said. “About the birds … I've heard they were large, sinister, eaglelike or falconlike, and carved out of soapstone. They were raised high on tall pillars.” He pointed below as though he could see them now. “Strange thing about those birds, Rogan. The Ndebele indunas are talking of the birds … I just now remembered—guess I wasn't all there at the bungalow the night Anthony was found dead.”

Rogan looked at him curiously. “The indunas? What do they say?”

“It was something Captain Retford mentioned. He told Peter he expected trouble with the tribal warriors. Retford knows a young Ndebele
warrior. His father was one of the indunas that Lobengula had his council smell out for spellcasting against him. The indunas are saying that the bird images flew from the Great Zimbabwe. Now there will be no peace in Matabeleland.”

The news was troubling. Especially with Julien's notion of entry into their sacred Matopos to unseal Lobengula's burial cave.

“The indunas say this among themselves?”

“They say the Umlimo is telling the indunas of war and trouble. But it was the birds that I was thinking of just now. Like that golden bird you have. And Uncle Henry's drawing. Do you think the indunas are talking about the same birds?”

“Must be.” Rogan took it from his pocket, comparing it again to the one on Henry's drawing. He looked at Parnell. “Looks identical, wouldn't you say?”

Parnell nodded, then looked around them. “So what do the indunas mean when they say the birds have flown from Zimbabwe?”

“Lost power, most likely. What's disturbing is, if they're talking like this, then they have a longing to get their power back. That's normal, but it's bad for the Company pioneers here building farms and stores.” He thought of Evy again … and worried. He'd told himself he could go away on a trek and not think about her for a few weeks, but that wasn't proving true. He thought of her constantly. Either the trek had lost its appeal, or he had changed. He felt restless and concerned, not because he wanted to be out on some adventure, but because he wanted to finish the adventure, solve the mystery, and get back to Evy.

“The more I compare Henry's map with this area, the more I'm convinced this is it.”

“Sure was a surprise to me.” Derwent squinted off toward the hills. “Sure surprised me about Mornay, too. I still can't reconcile his betraying us the way he did. Even if it was to send his son to Cambridge. No wonder he was unhappy toward the end. I think it got to his conscience.”

“We can forget all that,” Rogan said shortly, still feeling the loss of Mornay. “It's all over. And I hold him no grudge.”

“Well, it's all over down here,” Derwent said. “But it's just beginning when we step over to the other side of death. I suspect all this gold and diamonds won't mean a thing to us then.”

Parnell looked at him crossly. “Can't you stop preaching at us for five minutes?”

“I wasn't preaching at you, but to myself—”

“Well, never mind. Start looking for that baobab tree,” Parnell said testily.

Derwent straightened his hat. “I'll start exploring, Mr. Rogan, I think over on that ridge.”

“All right, but we stay together, Derwent. We can't be too careful. Keep that Winchester handy.”

“I'm a good shot, Mr. Rogan.” He started off toward the slope in his ambling stride.

“We should all be back here by the time the sun's shadows are on the wall face,” Rogan called after him.

Derwent raised a hand and continued on his way.

Rogan had started to follow Derwent, then turned to look at Parnell. “Let's keep together, Parnell. We'll go inspect Derwent's ridge.”

Parnell was sitting on a rock checking his rifle, looking as though he didn't intend to move before sundown. “Gullible, that's what the old bean is.”

“Not as much as you think. He's the decent sort.”

“I know, I know …” He laid his rifle across his knees. “I'll wait here and have a bit of a nap.”

“Get up, you lazy mongrel. You'll need to catch up.”

Parnell groaned as he pushed himself up. “All a pot of nonsense, if you ask me. All right, I'm going. Need to keep Derwent from falling into a cockatrice den.”

Rogan smiled. He could have mentioned Parnell's failure to shoot the spitting cobra that Darinda had faced a year or so ago.

“If I run into a lion, a bird, or a baobab tree,” Parnell said with mild sarcasm, “I'll fire my rifle twice.”

Rogan tilted his head and gave him a wry look. He pushed him on the shoulder. “Good man, now get moving.”

Parnell took off after Derwent as Rogan stood on the hill with the golden grasses waving hypnotically about his boots.

He looked after them, hand on hip. He sighed and shook his head wearily.
Dear old Henry, why couldn't you have made things clear and simple? What was this with you, a game?
After a moment he turned and strode purposefully after them.

He avoided the wild ebony plants, his boots stirring dust over the dry ground, as he stepped more quickly. Was there a secret tunnel to the other side of the hill? How would he know even if providence would lead him to its entrance?

“Maybe Mr. Henry didn't mean to look for a real image of a bird, a lion, and a certain tree,” Derwent said as he walked along with Rogan and Parnell Chantry. They had reached the top of the ridge. Rogan stopped and was glancing about thoughtfully.

“Well, we didn't expect there was going to be a real lion walking down through the yellow grasses,” Parnell said with a smirky smile. “Nor a great bird flapping its wings at us.”

“I know that, Mr. Parnell. That's not what I mean.”

“Well, what do you mean?”

“I'm not sure, but this here whole venture seems—”

A bullet whined past Rogan's ear, striking a rock beside him, spraying chips.

“Hit the ground,” he shouted, drawing his .45 and firing two shots toward the brush where he'd heard the shot come from, then rolling away into the cover of a bush.

Bullets thudded, kicked up grit where a moment earlier he'd hit the ground on his belly. Another bullet splintered rock. Rifle shots zinged and ricocheted off the nearby rocks, forcing him to keep his head down.

Where were his brother and Derwent? Were they hit?

Bulawayo Mission

Evy's first meeting with her mother's blood cousin Dr. Jakob van Buren had been affectionate. They not only had a van Buren connection, but as he'd said right off, “We're eternally united in the family of God.”

Jakob did not disappoint her expectations. The big Dutchman had flowing silver hair that made her think of a horse's flying mane when it was running free, enjoying liberty. He wore a typical long beard, Boer style, and he dressed almost always in dusty white, except for his Rhodesian-style hat, this one with a speckled feather stuck in its brim, and rugged Boer leather boots. His eyes, a faded blue, were small and sharp, but kindly eyes that welcomed her with genuine warmth when she'd arrived with Rogan.

Dr. Jakob had been carrying a photograph of Katie in his worn Bible, and he had shown it to her and Rogan at once.

“Well, there you are twenty-some odd years ago. You look just like her. Don't you think so, Rogan?”

Rogan's mouth tipped below his dark ribbon mustache, and his brown eyes glinted. “Not only is Mrs. Chantry the mirror image of Katie in appearance, Doctor, but she's inherited Katie's sprightly spirit.”

Evy felt her cheeks warm, but Dr. Jakob couldn't know the content of Rogan's words.

“Well, here she is, Doctor,” Rogan said cheerfully. “I've brought her
here to you. And we've come by way of storms and swells to get her here too.” He looked at her with a disarming smile. “Haven't we, Evy? And we've exciting news, as well. Evy is going to have a baby while she's here.”

“A baby?” Dr. Jakob put his arm around her and hugged her with a pat on her head. “Well, bless our God. Isn't that a celebration!”

“And a surprise,” Rogan said, folding his arms across his chest and smiling at her. “Nothing like a surprise to add spice to life. My son will be a Rhodesian.”

“Son?” chuckled Dr. Jakob. “What if I want a niece?” And he turned to Evy. “Well, I want to be an uncle. ‘Uncle Jakob'—that's what you will call me.”

In the weeks that followed, Evy had gotten to know Jakob well. She'd had the privilege of aiding him in the medical ward just as she'd hoped and planned. Jakob had told her all about Katie, as much as he knew. “She had a heart as big as life,” he said. “Only thing was, she was not submissive to her God. Her strengths became her weaknesses, and her bright spirit and adventurous ways led to calamity. But she loved you, Evy. She fought for you. She would not give you up. And because she had a weak faith in God in a time of crisis, she didn't turn to Him in her dilemma but relied on her own schemes. Not that her desires were wrong, but they needed to be directed by the purposes of God.”

Evy had heard a hundred tales about Katie, some humorous and warm, others showing her stubborn willfulness. In the end she knew she was more like her mother than she would have thought.

Perhaps Dr. Jakob had guessed the cracked and hurting relationship between her and Rogan because one Sunday morning his message titled “The Daughters of Sarah” fit her very well.

“Now Abraham failed to trust in the Lord during a famine, and he went down into Egypt. He was afraid of what would happen to him because Sarah was a beautiful woman. So he told his wife to say she was his sister. Now, Sarah could have refused. When the king saw Sarah and took her to add to his harem, she could have taken matters into her own
hands, but she depended on the Lord to protect and deliver her, and He did. She called Abram her ‘lord' and submitted to him. She submitted because she believed she was submitting to an even higher authority, God. And it was God and her trust in Him that delivered her.”

Evy drew her own conclusions as Dr. Jakob's message went on. If she had truly been trusting in the Lord, she would not have needed to deceive Rogan about her pregnancy in order to come to Bulawayo. She would have told him the truth from the very start and depended on the Lord to bring to pass His purpose for her. If He had wanted her here now, He could have worked in Rogan's heart. Instead, she had schemed, taken matters into her own hands, and so she had not only failed to trust God, but betrayed the trust between her and Rogan.

Yet confessing this to Rogan seemed the hardest thing that had ever stared her in the face. Somehow there was always a reason to delay, to try to pretend the anger would just go away and not leave a permanent stain. But the matter did not go away, and the longer it remained, the harder it was to deal with. So that it was easier to pretend all was right between them. And much of the time it appeared so.

Evy found she liked Dr. Jakob for his honesty, his selfless giving to the African tribesmen who came seeking his help. While Rogan was away, which became more frequent, she often talked long into the warm nights with Jakob, so that she felt she knew the van Burens in the Boer state of the Transvaal as well. She worried what would become of them in the war.