Adventures (6 page)

“All nice and official,” he said, signing his name with a flourish. “See you tomorrow morning, Doctor Jones.”

I made my way back to the hotel, where I found Major Dobbins, the Dutchman, and the Rodent waiting for me in the lobby. I bade them all goodnight, and went up to my room.

I was awakened by a pounding at the door. I looked out the window and saw that it was still dark. Using the Lord's name for purposes other than it was intended, I pulled on my pants and walked across the room. When I opened the door all three of them practically fell through it.

“Gentlemen!” I said harshly. “I thought we were to meet at breakfast.”

“Quickly!” said the Major. “What have you done with the money?”

“I hardly consider that a proper request,” I said, pushing my hair back out of my eyes.

The Rodent pulled out his pistol and pushed it into my belly. “Where is the money?” he shrieked.

“Brothers,” I said, “I am truly shocked. I thought we had an understanding.”

“The money!” screamed the Rodent. “Who did you give it to?”

“To Captain Peter Clarke of the Dar-es-Salaam police force,” I replied angrily. “It'll be kept there in safety and security until I make my decision. Although,” I added, “based on this unwarranted intrusion, I wonder if the Lord would wish me to enter into financial dealings with any of you.”

“Fool!” yelled the Dutchman, and the Rodent began crying.

“What's going on here?” I said to the Major, who seemed to be the only one who had retained his composure.

“After you evaded us,” he said, “we got to discussing matters, when suddenly it dawned upon me that all of British East has extradition treaties with its neighboring nations. So we sent Le Rongeur to check with the police, and found that they had no record of a Captain Peter Clarke.”

“I don't understand,” I said with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“You damned imbecile!” shrieked the Rodent, wiping the tears from his face. “You turned the money over to Erich Von Horst!”

I was struck dumb for a minute. Then I raced out the door and ran for the waterfront with the Major, the Rodent, and the Dutchman close on my heels. When we arrived the Dutchman pointed out the pier where the ship was docked, and we got there just in time to see it putting out to sea.

Von Horst, still dressed in his British police uniform, was standing on the deck, and as his eyes fell upon us a broad smile spread over his face. Then he bowed deeply, straightened up, and gave us a snappy German military salute just before the fog obscured him and the boat (and the Tabernacle of Saint Luke) from my vision.

I left my companions weeping and cursing on the pier, silently promised the Lord never to offer my pearls to swine again, gathered up my few worldly possessions, and left quietly so as not to disturb the desk clerk. Then, pausing only long enough to refresh my spirit at Maurice's, I left the sinful city of Dar-es-Salaam behind me and set forth once again to do the Good Lord's bidding.

Chapter 3
THE VAMPIRE

How I met Herbie Miller and made eighteen thousand dollars in twenty-seven days came about like this:

Shortly after I took my leave of Dar-es-Salaam I did a little computing and figured out that fifty British pounds, which was all I had in my pocket, wasn't quite enough to start building my tabernacle. So I went out into the wilderness (of which there was an awful lot back in those days) and had a little conference with my Silent Partner, Who advised me that if I was to properly carry on His work I'd need considerably more in the way of a grubstake. It was about this time that Karamojo Bell and Deaf Banks and Pondoro Taylor and John Alfred Jordan were making big names and even bigger fortunes for themselves by the killing of elephants, and I figured that with God to guide my bullets, knocking off a few tons of ivory shouldn't be so very difficult.

Of course, I did have a couple of minor problems. For one thing, I didn't know the first thing about tracking or killing elephants, and in fact had never even held a rifle in my hands. For another, elephant licenses were very expensive, though since the Tabernacle of Saint Luke was to be a nonprofit enterprise I felt certain that the purchasing of licenses didn't really apply to me. Just the same, Kenya and Tanganyika were pretty well patrolled by game wardens and various other gendarmes who might view the license situation more narrowly, which meant that I would have to go to the Interior to find my fortune. I had heard tell of huge herds of elephants in the Lado Enclave, a large and savage area just west of Uganda. This wasn't officially in Africa's dark Interior, but it was Interior enough for me, since I didn't know where to begin looking for it.

I took the East African Railway to the railhead in Uganda, a long and arduous trip which left me barely enough money to buy an old military rifle. I spent my last couple of pounds buying bullets, and then asked the local constabulary to direct me to the Enclave. He waved his hand in a northerly direction which covered approximately three-quarters of Uganda, and so, armed only with my rifle and a copy of the Good Book, I began my career as an ivory hunter.

I had walked about fifteen miles when night fell, and I spent a chilly few hours communing with God and Nature out in the African bush. I awoke stiff and hungry, especially hungry, and decided to hone my aim while shooting down a little something for breakfast.

I began walking through the grasslands and came upon an old waterbuck grazing alone. Seventeen shots later he was still grazing, and I began to realize that there was more to hunting than I had been led to believe. After my first two shots thudded home into a tree some fifty feet from him, he didn't even bother to run away, but just stared at me for a moment and then went back to his grazing.

I kept walking north for the better part of a week, living on a diet of fruits and berries, and wondering how I was going to kill an entire herd of elephants unless they stood in a nice long nose-to-tail line so that my bullets were bound to hit
some
thing. The vegetation was getting pretty lush, which meant that the ticks and flies and spiders and mosquitoes were out in force. Then one afternoon I saw a native village in the distance, and remembering my experience with Kitunga's friends and relations, I decided to give it a wide berth. As I was doing so I came to an undersized and undernourished white man staked out in the sun.

“Good day to you, brother,” I said, walking up to him.

“Good afternoon, friend,” he replied, turning his head to get a better look at me.

“Lovely day,” I said, wondering what to say or do next.

“Think it may rain, though,” he said.

I looked up at the sky. “Not enough clouds. The rainy season is just about over. By the way, brother, are you trussed up on the ground for any particular reason?”

“None that I happen to agree with, friend,” he said. “It was done to me by a vile and barbarous tribe called the Ankole. I wonder if you, being a God-fearing Christian and a white man to boot, would mind cutting me loose of these here stakes?”

“Well, brother,” I said, “it does seem the Christian thing to do. On the other hand, I passed an Ankole village not too far from here, and they might not understand a gesture of Christian charity.” I sat down beside him to mull it over in my mind. “What did you do that set them against you?”

“They objected to some of my personal tastes and habits,” he said, blinking his eyes to get some of the sweat out.

“You're not some kind of moral degenerate, are you?” I said, my good pious blood starting to boil about the edges.

“Perish the thought, neighbor!” he said vigorously. “It was a simple misunderstanding. Now won't you be a gentleman and cut a fellow white man free?”

“I've got to weigh the question carefully,” I said, shooting a glance in the direction of the village to see if any of them were approaching us.

“Well, in the meantime,” he said, his skin kind of twitching, “you wouldn't have any insect repellent with you, would you, friend?”

“Sorry,” I said. “You must be right uncomfortable.”

“Well, it's getting kind of warm, what with the sun beating down on me and insects crawling all over me,” he admitted. “How about some gin? Being staked out like this is mighty dry work.” A tsetse fly landed on his face and began crawling up his nose.

“What's your name, brother?” I asked, shooing the fly away.

“Miller,” he said. “Herbie Miller, from Amarillo, Texas.”

“Well, I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Brother Miller,” I said, extending my hand and then quickly withdrawing it when I realized that he was in no position to respond in kind. “And I'm the Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones, pastor of the Tabernacle of Saint Luke.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Herbie. “I'd get up, but...”

“I quite understand, Brother Miller. What's a fellow like you doing out here in the wilderness anyway?”

“I was fighting as a mercenary for the British against the Germans in Tanganyika during the Great War, but they threw me out, and I've been wandering around Africa ever since.”

“Why did they throw you out?” I asked.

“Personality conflict,” he said.

“With the whole British army?”

“I'd like to go into the matter in greater detail,” said Herbie, “but there's a poisonous scorpion crawling up my leg, and I fear that my story may come to an abrupt and painful end if you don't do something about him, Doctor Jones, sir.”

I flicked the scorpion away and stomped on it. Then the Good Lord took a hand in the proceedings and hit me with another of His revelations.

“When you were in the army, did you ever have occasion to fire a rifle?” I asked.

“I most certainly did,” said Herbie. “You know, I'd even settle for a little taste of vodka.”

“How good a shot were you?”

“A crackerjack shot, sir,” said Herbie. “But you needn't worry, Doctor Jones. I'd never turn on the man who set me free, and besides, I don't have any weapons with me.”

“You ever shoot an elephant?” I asked.

“On occasion,” he said. Then his face tensed up. “Don't tell me there's an elephant about to charge us!”

“Wouldn't think of it,” I said, pulling out a jackknife and cutting his bonds.

“Thank you, Doctor Jones,” he said, rising to his feet and rubbing some circulation back into his extremities.

I threw a friendly arm around his shoulders. “Think nothing of it, Brother Miller. After all, what are partners for?”

“Partners?” he said.

I nodded.

We left the area right quick, not wishing to run into any Ankole tribesmen who might not understand the fact that I couldn't leave a fellow white man to the mercies of the elements, and headed on up to the outpost of Arua, just a handful of miles from the Uganda-Congo border.

“How much money do you have?” I asked Herbie.

“Maybe five pounds,” he said, pulling out some faded, miscolored bills and a handful of coins.

“Give it to me,” I said, “and wait for me about a mile west of town.”

“That's all the money I have in the world,” he protested. “How do I know you'll come back?”

I tossed the rifle to him. “Keep this as security.”

He began walking to the west, and I entered the outpost and sought out the local bar. I waited for the better part of an hour, until a pair of men dressed in British military uniforms came in. Inside of five minutes everyone else had left and I walked up to the bar, announcing in a loud voice that I'd like to buy a drink for everyone in the house. They looked around, figured out that I meant them, and invited me to join them at their table.

“Pleased to meet you, brothers,” I said. “I'm the Honorable Right Reverend Doctor Jones, preaching my way across this savage continent.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” said the older of the two men. “I'm Captain Michael Holmes, and this is Lieutenant Richard Thorpe. Where are you heading for?”

“Wherever I can bring peace and contentment to my fellow man,” I said devoutly. “I'll go anyplace where the spirit of these godless savages needs uplifting.”

“That's highly commendable,” said Lieutenant Thorpe. “I wish there were more people like you, Padre.”

“Why, thank you kindly, Brother Thorpe,” I said, signaling the bartender to bring the bottle. “Have another drink.”

We got to talking for a while then, and drinking pretty hard, and before long we were all loosened up and pretty good friends.

“I just think it's wonderful,” said Captain Holmes after a long silence.

“What is?” I asked.

“A man of God going fearlessly through the bush, bringing the Word and the Spirit to the savages.”

“There's no resisting the call once it comes to rest on you, brother,” I said modestly. “However, I'd be Iying if I didn't tell you that I'm far from fearless.”

“Certainly you are,” objected Captain Holmes. “How could you be a coward, rubbing shoulders with cannibals and pygmies and the like?”

“I'll tell you, Brother Holmes,” I said. “Not all of us are afraid of the same things. Now, as for me, I know that all men are God's children, so I don't have no fear when I walk into a native village. But that don't mean I ain't afraid of other things.”

“Such as?”

“Such as elephants, Brother Holmes,” I said with a shudder. “Creatures of Satan they are, with them incredible proboscises and little red eyes, and able to crush the life out of a man so easy-like.” I downed another drink emphatically.

“Nothing to worry about, Padre,” said Thorpe. “There's no elephants within twenty miles of here.”

“A comfort,” I said. “A definite comfort. But my call has been made clear to me, brothers. I got to go through some place called the Conclave or something like that, and I'm told that it's absolutely rife with bloodthirsty pachyderms.”

“You mean the Lado Enclave?” asked Holmes.

“The very spot!” I said. “The very spot indeed. I don't suppose I could, as one good Christian to another, ask one of you gentlemen to escort me safely through there so's I don't fall prey to some elephant's dark and bloodthirsty desires?”

“I'm afraid not, Padre,” said Thorpe. “We're on duty here. But elephants are a pretty peaceful lot, by and large. If you see any, just give them a wide berth.”