More porters arrived. Some carried zebra between them, others gazelle. The animals were suspended by their hooves on poles, their heads bounced limply, their tongues lolled. Lord Delamere had lied. He said they would not shoot the animals with guns, only cameras. Grownups always lied. Charlotte edged away from the dead animals and the laughing men toward her mother and the other women, who were sitting in camp chairs underneath the broad canopy of some acacia trees. She came up behind her mother, pretty in her lawn blouse and khaki skirt, and pressed a cheek to hers.
"There you are, Charlotte, darling," India said, turning to kiss her.
"Papa's back. Lord Delamere and Sir James, too."
"Are they?" Lady Delamere sighed. "And here we were having such a lovely morning."
All the ladies laughed. All but her mother. She stiffened slightly at the sight of her father. It was barely a movement, imperceptible to everyone-- everyone except Charlotte. Her mother looked as if she could not breathe when her father was near. It was as if he sucked all the life out of her. He was cruel to her, not with his hands, but with his words. And his silences.
When he was gone, away on the government's business, which he often was, her mother was different. The sadness, almost always there in her eyes, went away. Charlotte often dreamed of them running away, she and her mother. Mostly to the sea, because she loved the sea. But anywhere would do, as long as it was somewhere her father would never find them. She wished they could slip away from their tents at night, ride into the African hills, and never come back. How she loved the grassy plains that stretched out into forever. And the wide blue sky. She loved the Masai warriors, tall and fierce in black feathers and red paint. She loved the Kikuyu villages with their huts and farms and the hardy Somalis who kept their women veiled head to toe.
Perhaps they could run away when this awful safari was over. If only for an afternoon.
They had traveled from Mombasa to Nairobi, where her parents were celebrated for a fortnight with balls, dinners, luncheons, and parties. They'd gone to the Delameres' enormous farm after that, where they'd spent another week, then to Lake Victoria, at the end of the Uganda line, and now they were on safari in Thika. When it ended, there would be a holiday in the hills of Mount Kenya. In a house that they'd rented from Lady Something-or-Other. It would be just the three of them and a handful of servants. Her father needed to write articles and reports. He needed peace and quiet to do so. Maybe she and her mother could run away then, while he was busy with his work.
"The great hunters are back!" Lord Delamere boomed, bringing champagne to the ladies.
"Did you catch anything, dear?" his wife asked.
"Scads!" he said. "And Lytton bagged a lion. Big brute of a fellow!"
Charlotte looked over at the growing heap of dead animals. She looked at the lion again, robbed of his grace and majesty, and tears stung her eyes.
She didn't want to see him anymore. She was just leaving the sitting area, ready to go to her tent and fling herself down on her bed, when Delamere stopped her. "All right, old girl?" he asked. He was frowning at her.
She nodded gamely. "Just a bit tired," she said. She knew it was the thing to say when something was wrong but you didn't want to talk about it. She knew because it was what her mother always said.
"Too much sun. Have yourself a kip. Just the thing."
Charlotte nodded. He tousled her hair, disturbing her neat blond braids, and she continued on her way.
"Charlotte?" she heard her mother call, though she pretended she hadn't. Then, "Where's she going, Hugh?"
"She's fine, India. Leave the poor girl be."
"Charlotte, make sure you tell Mary where you're going!" India called.
"For goodness' sake! She's only going to take a nap!" Delamere bellowed.
Charlotte walked toward her tent, the one she shared with her mother's maid, Mary. She looked around for Mary, but when she couldn't find her she went into the tent and lay on her bed. After a few minutes she stood up again. She wasn't that kind of tired, not the kind of tired that made you want to sleep. She was tired deep down inside. It was the kind of tired that made you want to be alone. She had to get away from them all for a bit. Away from her father. Away from the sad, dead lion. She remembered seeing a beautiful, silvery waterfall on their way into camp. She didn't think it was too far away. She would go there and listen to the rushing waters, maybe take off her boots and stockings and dip her toes. She grabbed her doll Jane for company and set off.
Charlotte was a quiet, careful child, not the type to wander too near a camp stove or play with a loaded rifle. People knew that about her, so they did not tend to watch her as closely as they might watch other children. No one made sure she had gone to the tent. India, as Freddie's wife, was obliged to listen with unmitigated interest as Lord Delamere launched yet again into a diatribe on why Parliament must do more to further the settlers' cause. Mary, sitting in the kitchen tent listening to a handsome guide tell her how a water buffalo had given him the jagged scar on his arm, didn't check on her either.
It was not until dinnertime, nearly three hours after Charlotte had left the campsite, that India came running from her tent, wild-eyed, shouting, "Where's Charlotte? Please, has anyone seen my daughter?"
Chapter 95
Sid felt the riders before he saw them. He was sitting on the grass by his campfire, finishing his breakfast, when he felt hooves pounding the ground.
They're coming on bloody fast, he thought. Why?
He stood and looked for them, shading his eyes with his hands. He spotted them. Two of them. Coming from the direction of Thika. It wasn't far. He was near enough to have ridden home last night if he'd wanted to, but he'd fancied one more night out under the stars. And, if he was honest, one more night's distance between himself and the Lyttons. He could make one of the riders out now. It was Maggie. There was a man with her. Sid squinted at him. He was young, slim. He knew him. It was Tom Meade, the ADC.
"What the hell does the government want now?" he wondered aloud. "I just took their bloody map maker all around Kenya and back."
Maggie rode up to him breathless and unsmiling. Her horse was lathered. She never rode him that hard. Sid suddenly got a bad feeling. He tried to shake it off.
"Miss me that much, Maggs?" he joked, when she was near enough to hear him.
"Never mind that. We've got trouble," she said. She jumped down and started kicking dirt over his fire.
"What is it? What's up?" he asked, looking from her to Tom.
"Lost girl," Tom said, winded. "Delamere sent me to Maggie's to fetch you. Said you know the area better than anyone. Maggie said you were gone, but due back soon. We looked north, on a hope, really, and saw your smoke."
"Tom, who's lost? Where?" Sid asked, already breaking camp.
"Never mind your things. I'll get them," Maggie said. "Saddle up."
"The undersecretary--Freddie Lytton--his daughter's gone," Tom said. "The Lyttons are on safari with the Delameres and the governor and me and--"
"Her name, Tom."
"Charlotte. She wandered off and--"
"How old?"
"About six."
Sid was slipping the bridle over his horse's head. His hands faltered. "Jesus Christ," he said softly. "How long ago?"
"Yesterday afternoon."
Sid turned at that. "For God's sake, Tom! Where are the bloody guides?" he shouted.
"They've been searching ever since her mother discovered she was gone. Can't find a trace of her."
"Where was she last seen?"
"In her tent. But one of the guides tracked her to the river."
"That river's full of crocs. And a python as big as a bloody tree!"
"Not anymore. Guides shot everything."
"Snake, too?"
Tom nodded. "Opened them all up. Nothing."
"She went walkabout then," Sid said. He threw his saddle over his horse's back. She. She was India's daughter. He would do anything to spare India what was to com
e. Anything. Even his own life. But he couldn't. It was too late. He knew it was.
"You'll want to go straight to camp, I imagine. See the undersecretary."
"No, I bloody well won't," Sid said.
"But--"
"I'm going straight to the river. I'm going to hope those bloody fools who call themselves guides have managed to leave a track, a print, something I can use."
"But the Lyttons are out of their minds with worry. Lady Lytton's been sedated. They want to see you."
"There's no time! Don't you understand that? It's lion country, Tom. A little girl all alone out there ...she's got no chance, has she? None at all."
Tom shrank in his saddle. "What are you saying?"
"That it's a recovery you're sending me on, not a rescue. I'm giving the parents something to bury, that's all. Now get the hell out of my way so I can find what's left before the vultures do."
Chapter 96
Sid gazed at the torn, mauled carcasses on the ground and breathed a ragged sigh of relief. He'd heard the flies, smelled the blood. He'd been certain it was her--Charlotte Lytton--but it was only a dead Tommie. He backed away from it warily, knowing that whatever had killed it was probably nearby. He swung back into his saddle and spurred his horse on, riding southwest from Thika, toward the Athi plains.
He'd been searching for the girl for two full days now. After talking to Tom Meade, he'd ridden hard to the Thika river. No one from the Lyttons' party was there anymore. They'd all moved off. He'd cursed them roundly as he looked at the riverbank. Their big, stupid footprints were all over it, obscuring any Charlotte might have left. He asked Tom where they'd gone. Tom said half had ridden west, half east. They would all sweep north and meet at the Tana River.
Sid had kept searching, eyes on the ground, as Tom explained the guides' movements. He walked in a widening arc from the river's south bank, the bank closest to the campsite, hoping to spot something. And then he did. One small, narrow bootprint in the red dirt, its toe pointing east. As he looked at it, he realized that it made sense. It was afternoon when she'd wandered off, Tom had said, and the sun would have been beginning its descent.
Charlotte would probably be fair--like her mother and father--he reasoned, and unused to the African sun. She'd probably been warned against it. She wouldn't walk toward it; she'd turn away from it and walk east.
He'd told Tom he'd be back in three days at the latest. Tom had wanted to come with him, but Sid had refused. He worked best alone.
He'd been rewarded toward the end of the first day with a small white handkerchief embroidered with the initial C. It was caught in some tall grass and crumpled. She must have been crying, he thought. But it wasn't bloodied; that was something. It meant she was alive when she dropped it. Hope flared in him. After spotting it, he shouted her name until he was hoarse, but there was no answer. The trail had gone cold again, but he felt buoyed by the handkerchief. He felt connected to the little girl. He had guessed her moves correctly so far; he knew how she thought. He would keep on trusting his instincts; maybe they would pay off. He'd ridden on into the evening, stopping only when the dark finally forced him to.
Today, twenty-four hours after finding the handkerchief, the hope was gone again and he was angry at himself for having dared to even feel it. He knew better. Everything was against her. Hadn't he said as much to Tom? The lions were only the start. Even if she'd somehow managed to avoid them, there were still the night prowlers--hyenas and jackals. There was the harsh sun. A lack of food and water. There were game pits--large, hidden holes dug by the Kikuyu to trap animals. And there were the siafu. It had rained the first night, and the rain always called them out. Sid felt a shiver go up his spine at the thought of them. He'd often seen them--hordes of ravening warrior ants marching in an endless black column. Most creatures knew to get away from them, but those who didn't--or couldn't--were eaten alive. Hens in a henhouse. Puppies. Babies in their cots.
He pushed the thoughts from his mind. He desperately wanted to give India her daughter back. She was the only woman he'd ever loved, and he loved her still. He wanted to help her, to save her from a grief so terrible. The image of her keening over her dead child was unbearable to him. If he couldn't do that, if the lions had gotten her, he would bring back something--her boots, perhaps. A ribbon or a piece of jewelry. Something to clutch at, something to hold. But not the remains. For India would insist on looking, he knew she would. People always wanted to look. They thought they could handle it. They had no idea what Africa was capable of.
He rode over a gentle rise on the plains and brought his horse up short. From this vantage point, he raised a pair of field glasses to his eyes and looked for movement in the grass--the raised, blood-stained face of a lion, or a boiling brawl over the kill. He looked for movement in the sky, the lazy wheeling of vultures certain of a meal. But he saw nothing. He was ready to ride on, but something kept him. He held the glasses to his eyes a bit longer, slowly sweeping his gaze along the horizon. Just a minute more, he thought. And then he saw it--a patch of white in an acacia tree. It didn't register at first. His eyes traveled past it, discounting it, then snapped back. There was something wrong about it. It was too large to be a bird. Too bright to be an animal. He tightened the focus. The white was still indistinct, obscured by branches. And then, suddenly, it moved. And below it, something else moved. Something tawny.
Sid fumbled the glasses back into his pack. He spurred his horse. It was her, Charlotte. She was up in that tree and lions were circling below. Hope sparked again. He tried to damp it, telling himself that he didn't know if she was alone in that tree. Or alive. The big cats sometimes defended their kills by dragging them up into low-lying branches.
A hundred yards away he saw them clearly--two lionesses. One reared, put her front feet on the tree, and tensed her haunches, then quickly dropped down again, snarling. Fifty yards away he stopped his horse, grabbed his rifle, and fired into the air. The animals ran. Seconds later he was off his horse and at the tree, looking up into the branches.
A little girl, blond and very dirty, sat about twenty feet off the ground in the crux of two limbs, her head resting against the larger of them. She held stones in her hands. Her skirt pockets bulged with more. Sid was amazed by her resourcefulness. The stones had kept the lions at bay.
"Charlotte? Charlotte Lytton?" Sid called.
The girl picked up her head. She opened her eyes. They were gray eyes, soft as a gull's wing. They were India's eyes. "I'm very sorry, sir," she said hoarsely, "but I am not allowed to speak to strangers."
"I'm not a stranger. My name is Sid Baxter. Your parents sent me to find you."
"What are their names, please?"
"India. India and Freddie... Frederick ...Lytton."
Charlotte nodded. She tried to say something, but her eyes fluttered and she slumped forward. The stones fell from her hands and pattered to the ground. She nearly fell, too. Sid was up the tree in a twinkling. He put the girl over his shoulder and got her down. He laid her on the ground, grabbed the canteen from his saddle pack, and trickled water on her face and throat. She woke, clutched at the canteen, and drank deeply.
"Slow down," Sid said, easing her into a sitting position. "Take a little at a time or you'll be sick."
She took another sip, then said, "Please, sir, you forgot Jane."
Sid looked around. "Who the devil is Jane?"
"In the tree," Charlotte said. She tried to point.
Sid looked up at the spot where she'd been sitting. Just above it was a doll wedged into another, smaller crux.
"I'll get her in a minute. I'm more worried about you. How did you get all the way out here?"
"Walked. Sometimes I ran. When I heard things."
"I'll bet you did."
He propped her against the tree trunk, fed her bits of hard cheese that he had in his pack, and gave her more water. He rescued the doll, then he gently patted a cooling salve Maggie had made him for sunburn over Charlotte's face. Eventually
, her eyes became more focused. She leaned forward, able now to sit up on her own. Sid felt an immense admiration for this brave little person.
"You are a very clever little girl, do you know that? I know some grown men who would never have thought to get up a tree, much less take stones up with them."
"My mummy says I must always think for myself. She says all girls must."
"Does she?" Sid asked.
"Do you know my mummy, Mr. Baxter?" Charlotte asked, her eyes large and searching.
"No, I don't," Sid lied.
"I think she knows you. Someone said your name once. On the train. It made her very sad. I don't know why it would. Do you?"
"No idea," Sid said, his voice suddenly husky. He coughed to clear it, then quickly changed the subject. "Do you feel up to riding? For an hour, maybe two? Give us a bit of a head start, it would."