Treasure of the Golden Cheetah (9 page)

“It is well, Simba Jike. Bwana Nyati and I have come to Moshi before. The
mpishi
and I have a place to sleep. We will take the young warrior with us.”

Jade decided she wasn’t sending Lwiza off to fend for herself. Everyone would have to double or triple up to begin with. “We will take the eight rooms,” she said. Next came the hard part: convincing the director, actors, and cameramen to pair up. Harry suggested that, as safari leader, he should have his own room. Jade promptly put him with the director. Miss Malta agreed to let Lwiza stay with her, but the other two women refused to share a room with each other until Jade said it was that or sleep outside. In the end, Jade was the only one with a room to herself, primarily because no one else wanted to share it with a cheetah.

The rooms were clean, but Spartan, with creaky beds, sagging mattresses, and cracked cement floors. Each bed leg sat in a shallow tin of kerosene to keep the ants that emerged from the cracks at night from climbing into the beds. Harry urged everyone to stow their personal gear on top of the mattresses by their feet.

“Hell’s bells, Hascombe,” exclaimed Julian. “When I hired you, I didn’t anticipate staying in . . . in a place like this.”

Harry touched his hat brim and grinned. “No need to thank me, Mr. Julian. Although I can’t promise anything this luxurious once we head up the mountain.”

Julian stood by his open door, mouth agape as he stared at Harry.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Julian,” said Jade. “No ants would dare attack a big bwana’s room. You’ll be perfectly safe with Harry.”

Harry and Jade roused everyone at dawn and herded them onto the veranda for a breakfast of eggs, fried sweet potatoes, and coffee. Jade bolted down her food, found Jelani and Muturi, and headed for the market. They’d brought along potted and jerked meat, but they needed fresh produce and eggs and a lot of chickens if Biscuit was to be fed. Cheetahs needed open space to run down prey, a commodity lacking on Kilimanjaro’s slopes. She stepped off the veranda and stopped dead in her tracks, mesmerized by the sight of Kilimanjaro looming in front of her. The lush green of its base gave way to steppes and, eventually, the glistening ice and snowcap, shimmering with a pink blush in the early light.

Jade drank in the serene beauty of this ancient wonder. Born and grown in a violent, volcanic youth, as tempestuous and demanding as any conqueror, the mountain had eventually settled into a serene dignity. Once home only to myriad wildlife, it now tolerated newcomers on its slopes, feeding, sheltering, and watering them with a benevolence that came with old age. It was an elder with wisdom beyond any found in the villages. An elder revered even as the newcomers splattered the hems of its verdant robes with blood from sacrifices and war. It did not matter; a good rain always washed them clean.

Finally, after pulling her Kodak from her pack and trying to capture the mystical sight on film, Jade tore her gaze from the view and gave herself to the mundane task of buying food. They headed past a row of rectangular, mud-brick houses to the open marketplace. Moshi was home to several tribes: Nyamwezi, Swahili, Chagga, and a few Wapare, all of them represented in the market. All spoke Swahili ever since the Arab traders and slavers had made inroads from Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar long ago.

The Arab influence also showed in the men’s attire. Most wore white robes and red
tarbooshes
, brimless, flat-topped hats shaped like an inverted flowerpot. Others wore turbans. The white robes reminded Jade of Morocco, and she fingered the silver amulet worn around her neck. She thought about the old Berber woman who’d given it to her, and smiled at the memory.

The Swahili women wore long dresses made by wrapping colorful cotton fabric around themselves and gracefully draping the ends over one shoulder, leaving the other bare. Like the men, they wore
tarbooshes
, but most were heavily decorated with swaths of fabric and dangling ornaments. They sat on the ground next to trays full of flatbread, or walked the market carrying the trays in their arms.

Most of the Chagga lived hidden in the forests on the lower slopes, but some had moved lower and farmed the land near Moshi. A few wore the coastal Arab clothing, but many, including the partially clothed women selling bananas, continued to wear skirts of animal skins.

Indian shopkeepers stood beside their doors, displaying gaudy fabrics, sandals, books, beads, and hoes. They called to Jade as she approached, holding out a particularly bright bit of cloth or a new
panga
knife.

Bananas, sugarcane, sweet potatoes, onions, peppers, flat loaves of bread, eggs, and the occasional chicken were all available, and it fell to Jade to haggle for supplies. Luckily, the cook, Muturi, was an experienced hand at it here. Harry had already brought along ample stores of flour, meal, and other nonperishables. Muturi suggested purchasing a milk goat, and Jade considered the possibility while examining some fresh tomatoes.

Finally, armed with enough food for the next week, a dozen chickens for Biscuit’s dinners and six more for the crew, and three kid goats, and followed by six Nyamwezi lads to help carry it all, Jade returned to the hotel. She led a nervous nanny goat, bleating fretfully as Biscuit padded close behind it.

Harry had hired two trucks, one car, and enough Nyamwezi men to act as porters to carry their equipment to their first destination, an old farmhouse. They put the larger crates, goats, and the chickens in the truck beds and seated the men, including Jelani and Biscuit, on top of the boxes. The actors seemed delighted by the prospect of sitting next to the beautiful cat and laughed appreciatively. Harry drove one truck, and Julian drove the other. Jade piled the women and the valises into the old box-bodied car and took the wheel. The house stood thirteen miles from Moshi as the raven flew, twenty miles away as the road struggled to find the easiest path up the rugged, steep track.

Springs and streams cut across their route, the largest being the Una River. Plantain trees, tended by Chagga women, flourished alongside sycamores, olives, and baobabs. Abandoned rubber trees from some past venture scraped the roofs of the vehicles, and tree roots spread across and under the road as though they meant to trip these newest invaders. The route was rough enough to begin with, but it became worse from disuse once they’d passed the moss-covered ruins of a government fort near Marangu village.

Much to the chagrin of the actors, Harry ordered them to walk the last and steepest mile, saying that the engines had enough to pull with the gear. Nearly two hours later, they arrived at their base camp. The porters, led by Nakuru, who carried a sharpened
panga
, took a more direct but narrower route and arrived soon afterwards, the goat in tow.

Harry hadn’t been joking when he told the director that their other shelters might not be as nice as the hotel. The farmhouse had been built by a German before the Great War, but he lost it when the territory passed from German hands. It had fallen into disrepair until one of the many Greeks in the area purchased it. He leased it to the occasional botanist or adventurer, not seeing the need to replace broken roof tiles or replace the stolen woodstove. Harry had used the house in the past with other clients and knew its advantages as well as its drawbacks as a base camp. He had omitted talking about the latter.

“There’s clean water in the spring, and that’s half of any successful expedition,” Harry told them. “You can use the brick outbuilding to develop your film if you wish. We have a good cook, and before long, our neighbors will start coming to sell us their food, so we’ll eat well.”

The Americans stared at the stone bungalow with open mouths. “The windows are broken,” said Hall, rubbing his backside, sore from the ride. “Someone could climb inside in the middle of the night.”

“There’d be no reason for them to do so,” replied Harry, “considering there’s no lock on the door. But I assure you,” he added hastily when Cynthia squeaked in alarm, “the Chagga have never bothered me before. I fail to see why they would this time.”

“But there are women here,” said Cynthia. “What will prevent them from . . . trying to accost us?” She sidled closer to Harry as though for protection.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” said Harry, “but the Chagga rather prefer their own. Still, they might decide to take the fancy costumes, so I brought lumber and hardware to make shutters that we can latch from inside, and a new lock for the door. But first I need the men to make the chicken coop secure.”

“The walls look good,” said Jade, trying to promote the positive.

Harry nodded. “There’s a decent parlor with a fireplace. It will act as our dining room. Then there’s the old kitchen, which is empty. It’s good for storage. And there are two bedrooms.”

“Only two rooms to sleep in?” The complaint came from Bebe. She eyed the other women. “I had expected more privacy.”

“You don’t have to stay in the house,” said Jade. “We brought plenty of tents. You wouldn’t have to share one, and I’m sure that Mr. Julian would rather use the rooms for storage.”

Pearl folded her arms across her ample bosom and hugged herself. “Is there a bathing room and a toilet facility?”

Harry pointed to a distant, smaller brick building. “The privy is over there. We have a tin tub, which I’ll put in a separate bathing tent. The approved practice is to hang something on the pole when you go in so others know it’s in use.”

Bebe glared at the director. “Rex, I intend to be compensated for these . . . these hardships.”

Julian pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “You’ll have to take that up with our new producer,” he said, pointing at Cynthia. “She holds the purse strings now.” He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew out a lungful of smoke. “Anyone who wants use of the house, tell Mr. Hascombe. I presume you can set a cot up in the parlor, too?”

Harry nodded. “We’re presently at the end of the dry season, so you could even sleep on the veranda. Nights get cold, but we have plenty of blankets.”

In the end, the men and Pearl agreed to the tents. Bebe and Cynthia each took a room, and Jade put Lwiza in the former kitchen. Even with the camera equipment, costumes, and film taking up much of the space, there was more than enough room for her cot. Jade ordered a blanket hung as a screen for Lwiza’s privacy.

“What about you, Jade?” asked Harry after the porters arrived and Nakuru had seen to the camp’s setup. “You bunking inside or taking one of the tents?”

“A tent,” she said as she watched the Nyamwezi men work and the Americans break into small groups to walk around the area, talk, or just get in the way. Jelani, she noted, had tied Biscuit’s leash to the veranda railing and was pitching in with the Nyamwezi. “Preferably not in the thick of things, either.”

Harry moved closer beside her and whispered, “Of course, you could just—”

Jade turned and glared at him, her eyes snapping cold green fire. Harry backed off a step and put his hands up.

“I know,” he said. “Shut up.” He walked off laughing, his broad shoulders shaking.

At the moment, Jade’s job consisted of placing the women in their respective rooms or tent and seeing that they each had a cot, blankets, and their personal gear. That and chasing a small rodent out of Bebe’s room. She’d screamed for help, and Jade found her standing on her cot, a jumble of papers at her feet where they’d tumbled out of her hand. Jade grabbed a broom and swept the furry beastie outside, then came back to help Miss Malta pick up her papers—an assortment of letters, a Pond’s massage cream ad, and several photos of herself.

Jade next went into Cynthia’s room to see if she needed any help. The woman was stowing something under her cot’s mattress and dismissed Jade with a smile. “I’ve been in far worse conditions,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

But many of the men turned to Jade for help. Steve Budendorfer came out of his tent in his stocking feet, a big toe protruding from his sock. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have a file or scissors, would you? Maybe I could borrow your knife before I ruin another pair of socks?”

Jade shook her head. “You’d slice off your toe. Better ask one of the actresses.”

Conrad Hall lost his hair cream, only to find the tube in his hip pocket when he sat down on it. Lloyd Brown went off snickering, leaving Jade to think this was no accident.

Nakuru proved to be an efficient headman, not unexpected, since he’d been with Harry since the Mount Marsabit safari in January and probably before that. This was Harry’s second safari to Mount Kilimanjaro, so they already knew the location and the best arrangements. The director ordered a few of the tents to be set farther away, where he could film them without showing the rest of the camp.

Once her charges were squared away, Jade took a few photographs, including the house and Jelani. He’d moved on to assisting Muturi, the cook, who preferred using a fire pit outside to the hearth inside. Then she sat on the steps and took out her notebook and a pencil. She first wrote down her impressions of Moshi, the rough track up the mountain’s base to this camp, and the farmhouse. Over the chatter of voices, she heard the spring’s gentle burble, and beyond that, the push of water down the nearby Una River.

Jade pulled her knife from her boot and sharpened the pencil. As she did, she listened to some of the conversations and took mental note of the different affiliations. She wasn’t motivated by idle curiosity. With this many people to manage, there were bound to be conflicts. The trick was to minimize them before they had a chance to develop and fester. That meant knowing the lay of the land.

Julian wasted no time. He had his assistant, Morris Homerman, as well as the two cameramen in tow, pointing out good places to set the cameras. The man seemed to be all boss and bully. Hall had pulled a sheaf of papers from his valise and was looking over them, sometimes striking a pose or practicing an expression. Another man ready to get to work, Jade presumed.