Promise the Night (12 page)

My ground crew is waiting impatiently by my lovely new plane, The Messenger. Suddenly, I hear a loud boom and the ground shakes. The bomber has crashed. We all start to run toward the burning hulk of metal. The smoke billows from its carcass. We’re all watching for the same thing: Did the pilot survive?

A voice at my shoulder startles me. It’s my engine mechanic, Josh.” We’ll have to wait for that to be cleared before you can take off,” he says.

I nod, but my eyes are locked on the smoldering cockpit. “I hope you’re not superstitious,” he says. “That can’t be a good sign.”

“We all know the dangers,” I reply. “A landing can go either way.”

Something’s happening…shouting and frantic activity at the cockpit. The pilot stumbles onto the tarmac. There’s the wailing siren of an ambulance. He’s being helped onto a wheeled cot. Better that than a hearse.

“Whew, that’s a relief,” I say. “Let’s get started. I’ve got an ocean to cross.”

BERYL RAN FULL TILT DOWN THE STEEP PATH TOWARD THE village. The valley spread out in front of her, shimmering in the pearly light just before dawn. Her feet slipping on the small rocks, she spread her arms wide just to keep her balance. When she hit the flat part of the trail, she settled into a steady jog. The hunters would be gathering at the Nandi village soon. She circled a stand of acacia trees and stopped short. Kibii was standing there. The expression on his face made her stomach twist.

“Kibii! What’s wrong?” Beryl cried.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.” His voice was low and angry. “You don’t belong on a hunt.”

“Why not?” Beryl shot back.

“You are only pretending to be a warrior. You have not trained. You could be hurt or killed.”

“I’m trained well enough.” Beryl tried to sound confident. “Kibii,
I’ll be all right. Your father will look after me.” She reached out to pat his shoulder.

Kibii recoiled from her hand. “He may get hurt because he has to look after you!”

“Is that why you’re upset? You’re worried about Arap Maina?”

“No, of course not.” Kibii bristled at the insult to his family. “He is a great warrior.”

“Then what’s the problem?” she asked, exasperated.

“You used to respect our traditions. But now you are just like the other settlers. You take what you want.” Kibii stared at her with his dark eyes. Beryl was shocked to see that he was almost in tears.

She shifted from foot to foot, tugging on her braid.

“You should have to wait, like me!” Kibii burst out. He turned away, his straight back rigid with anger.

“If I don’t have to wait, then neither should you,” Beryl said eagerly. “What if I ask your father…?”

Kibii gave her a withering look. “Beru, you can make up your own rules, but I cannot. Besides, my father would never let me go. I will not go after the lion for two more seasons.”

“I’m really sorry,” she said.

“You say you want to be like me, but I would never do what you are doing.”

“I said I was sorry, but I’m going on that hunt.” She was beginning to get angry herself. “You would do the same if you could.”

Kibii shook his head. “It’s not just me who is angry. All the boys are. Mehru is the worst of all; you’ve made an enemy.”

“He never liked me. But what about you? Are you still my friend?” Beryl asked in a small voice.

“I haven’t decided yet.” He turned his back on her and headed for the village. She followed, but her feet felt heavy.

They arrived at Arap Maina’s hut as the pink of the sunrise appeared over the mountains and the valley began to emerge from its nighttime shadows. The village dogs greeted them with their wet noses and wagging tails. She thought regretfully of Buller, left asleep in her hut. She wished he were here. The village had suddenly become a place full of strangers speaking a foreign language.

Arap Maina’s wives were preparing the fire. Naipende nodded to Beryl in greeting, and Namasari gave her a piece of fruit. From their silence, Beryl knew that they, too, disapproved.

Arap Maina stood in the doorway of his hut, waiting for them. Kibii nodded stiffly to his father. Arap Maina patted the boy’s shoulder. “Kibii, you may blood the ox.”

Kibii’s eyes lit up. This was a worthy task. He nodded eagerly and ran toward the cattle enclosure in the center of the kraal. Beryl started after him, but Arap Maina stopped her with a gesture of his hand.

“No, Beru. Women do not touch the ox before a hunt. It is forbidden.” A shadow passed over Arap Maina’s face, and Beryl knew he was thinking that girls do not hunt either. But he said nothing.

As they waited, Arap Maina prepared for the hunting ritual by breathing deeply, standing on one leg. To Beryl, he seemed to be in a trance. She lifted her right leg, but her left leg seemed to have a mind of its own. Hoping Arap Maina wouldn’t notice, she switched from one foot to the other.

She caught a glimpse of two brown eyes staring at her from inside Arap Maina’s hut. It was Kibii’s older sister, Jebbta.
Glancing warily at her father, whose eyes were half-closed, Jebbta came out. She grabbed Beryl’s hand and pulled her around the back of the hut.

“Hello, Jebbta,” Beryl said warily.

“Beru, go home.” Jebbta wore an ankle-length skirt made of zebra skin and had sticks of wood pierced through her upper ear. Her many bracelets jingled as she moved. She spent all her time trying to attract the attention of the boys, particularly Mehru.

“I’m tired of everyone saying that,” Beryl said.

“You don’t have the courage to hunt with the murani. Mehru says you will be killed. And your father will blame the tribe. He’ll demand a blood price, and we will lose all our cattle,” the dark girl said.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jebbta,” Beryl muttered. “My father would never do that. Anyway, I’ll be fine.”

“It is you who are being ridiculous,” Jebbta said earnestly. “Your body is like mine, no stronger. You will hold them back.”

“Just watch me!” Turning her back on Jebbta, Beryl walked back to Arap Maina. She was startled to see another warrior standing beside him. He towered over Beryl, and his chest was crisscrossed with scars. He handled his spear as though it were another limb.

Arap Maina announced, “Beru, this is Tepli. You will stay with him during the hunt. Behind the murani.”

“But,” Beryl protested. “I want to hunt with everyone else.”

Tepli was even more disgusted than Beryl. “Arap Maina, I am no nursemaid! It dishonors me.” He looked down his nose at Beryl.

Arap Maina held up a hand. “Beru, if you want to come, you will do as I say. Tepli, it is your duty to protect the daughter of
Cluttabucki.” He stared until both Beryl and Tepli reluctantly nodded.

Tepli removed his shuka from his shoulder and tied it around his waist. He wore only a loincloth under the scarlet cloth.

Beryl felt herself reddening, and stared at her bare feet.

A few moments later Kibii returned, leading a healthy reddish-brown ox with a rhino-hide halter. He was flanked by the warriors who were hunting that day. Arap Maina signaled to Jebbta, and she scurried forward to hand him an arrow and a gourd. The arrow’s shaft had a block of wood a fingertip’s length from the arrowhead. Arap Maina nodded to the other warriors to keep the ox still. Beryl crowded forward with the rest, her eyes wide to see everything.

The ox moaned when Arap Maina punctured its neck with a swift jab of the arrow. The block of wood kept it from penetrating too deeply and killing the beast. Kibii ran in with the gourd and placed it to catch the blood. When the gourd was half full, Arap Maina removed the arrow, and another man quickly wrapped the bull’s neck to stop the bleeding. Mehru, puffed up with his own importance, led the lowing beast away, back to the herd.

Jebbta added curdled milk to the gourd. Kibii mixed it and brought it back to Arap Maina, who held it up to the rising sun.

“Praise Enka for the blood, which brings strength to our loins,” he chanted.

Beryl glanced at the sinewy legs of the murani. The thin red togas strapped to their bodies barely covered their private parts. She looked down at her own scrawny legs, poking out like sticks encased in baggy khaki shorts.

Arap Maina took a deep swallow of the blood and milk. Then he handed the gourd to Tepli, who said, “By the sacred womb of my
mother, we will kill the wild lion today.” He looked down at Beryl with dislike and deliberately passed the gourd over her head to the warrior standing on her other side.

Beryl didn’t protest; her stomach was already roiling.

Without warning, Kibii was at her side, handing her a lightweight spear. “I hope to Enka you do not need this,” he whispered.

She touched the blade at the end of the spear with her fingertips. “Thanks, Kibii,” she whispered back, but he had already moved away.

Arap Maina pumped his fist in the air. The tall warriors began to move out, the sun glinting off their spears. The women and children shouted cries of encouragement.

Kibii and Mehru were standing off to the side, glaring at Beryl. She tightened her hold on her new spear and followed the murani into battle.

LOCATION: Abingdon, England

DATE: 2:00 P.M. GMT, 4 September, 1936

Flash. Pop.

My eyes are blinded by a photographer’s bulb. No doubt the evening papers will have a caption: “Society blonde wears a no-nonsense Burberry, gray flannel trousers, and a jaunty white hat as she sets off for her transatlantic air flight.” As if it matters what I wear!

I deliberately turn my back on the press to say good-bye to my friends.

Josh, my engine mechanic, gives me a sprig of heather.

Brian, who has helped me train for the flight, gives me the newest lifesaving device, a pneumatic jacket I can
inflate through a rubber tube. “You could float around in it for days,” he says. But I have to decide between carrying the weight of the lifesaver or a warm sweater. If I go down, the jacket will just prolong the inevitable. I choose the sweater.

Finally, Jim Mollison, a pilot who has crossed the Atlantic twice and a staunch friend, lends me his watch. I’ll set mine to GMT and set his to New York time. If… when I arrive, the time change might be disorientating.

Jim grins at me as I strap his watch on my wrist. “Don’t get it wet!”

BERYL PLACED HER FEET AS QUIETLY AS SHE COULD, AWARE THAT Tepli’s hostile ears were listening and judging every step. She was determined to prove that she could hold her own with the murani, that she, too, had wings on her ankles. Thinking hard about being light on her feet, she forgot where she was stepping. Her heel landed on a pat of cattle dung and she nearly lost her footing.

“Ugh!” she exclaimed, wiping her foot on the dry grass. Tepli grabbed her elbow and wrenched her upright. Arap Maina glanced back and scowled.

They ran in single file into the valley. It was the end of the dry sea-son, and the papery grass reached to Beryl’s waist. She couldn’t help but notice that the grass went only to the knees of the warriors.

Arap Maina led them down a path she couldn’t see. The line of hunters swerved to avoid thorn bushes and the rock-hard anthills that towered above their heads. Within an hour they had run farther
than Beryl had ever ventured. As they descended deeper into the valley, the sun rose higher in the sky. Waves of heat came up from the valley floor, hitting Beryl in the face like a stone wall. She had a stitch in her side, and every breath she drew hurt her chest.

A bevy of partridges flew up from a copse of trees sticking up from the grassy valley floor. The murani froze. Taken by surprise, Beryl would have bumped into the man in front of her if Tepli’s iron grip on her shoulder had not held her back.

He glared at her, his eyebrows pulled together high on his bulging forehead. “Watering hole,” he said.

“What frightened the birds?” she whispered. “Is it the lion?”

“Ssshh,” he hissed.

The warriors stood like statues, muscles tensed, arms halfway raised to the spear-throwing position. Wordlessly, Arap Maina signaled the fastest warriors. They took off at a run, spreading out to either side of the distant watering hole. In a few moments, they disappeared into the haze. Only Arap Maina, Tepli, and Beryl remained.

Beryl looked questioningly at Arap Maina.

He answered quietly, “They flush out our quarry. If he is a lion who runs, they will chase him down.”

Beryl hefted her small spear and wondered what use it would be against a lion who runs.

Arap Maina inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring. “He is there,” he said confidently. “But I think he may be a lion who prefers to wait. To attack from a place of concealment.”

Beryl gulped at the thought of a lion smart enough to hide. She wished that Arap Maina had not sent away all the warriors.

The three of them advanced cautiously toward the waterhole. Butterflies were everywhere, bumping up against their sweaty bodies.