Softly Calls the Serengeti (37 page)

Riley swung the Land Rover to a screeching stop, quickly reversing and making a U-turn at the wide section near the level crossing. The Peugeot swung through ninety degrees, blocking their expected retreat.

‘Beauty,' Riley chuckled. He could see the men's faces in the Land Rover's headlights, grinning smugly. ‘
Go!
' he said to his passengers.

Joshua and Mayasa leapt from the car, but as Charlotte was
about to leave the seat beside him, he caught her hand and turned her to him. Reaching over, he kissed her. ‘Now run!' he said.

She did.

The big man in the front seat of the Peugeot spotted them running for the train and swung his door open. Riley dropped the clutch and lurched the Land Rover towards the car, forcing him to retreat inside. There was a crash as the Defender slammed into the Peugeot.

The man's face filled with poisonous anger, and he turned from Riley to his driver, pushing at him to get out of his door. Before either man could alight, Riley again gunned the motor, rocking the Peugeot onto two wheels.

Again the man pushed at his driver, but Riley crunched the four-wheel shift into low range and applied the power again. Smoke billowed from the Land Rover's screaming rear tyres. The blue car shuddered, rocked, and edged inexorably towards the deep culvert running alongside the road. With a final abrupt jerk, its rear wheels lost grip on the bitumen and, with a gathering pace, the car slipped from view. An enormous crash and the sound of shattering glass signalled the end of its plunge into the rocky ditch several metres below road level.

Riley turned the Land Rover towards the crossing, shining its headlights onto the three figures trotting beside the last carriage as the train passed through. Joshua stepped onto a foothold, opened the carriage door and climbed in. The train began to gather speed. He pulled Mayasa up and into the doorway. Charlotte stumbled in the loose ballast, nearly falling under the wheels, but gathered herself and scrambled into the carriage.

‘
Yes!
' Riley whooped, and gave a blast on the horn.

 

Charlotte couldn't see the hands on her little diamanté watch, but she thought it must be beyond midnight. The carriage was
quiet and Joshua and Mayasa were asleep, curled together like a pair of otters. She felt alone in the carriage that she shared with a dozen others. She wondered if Mark was thinking of her.

She'd been unable to get him out of her mind since leaving him behind at the road crossing near Kikuyu village. He'd kissed her as the train whistled closer. The lingering touch of his lips on hers had been tender; it might have been the start of something significant, had they had the opportunity to pursue it. Or so she imagined. Then again, it could have been merely an expression of the friendship they'd shared during trying times.

Her uncertainties troubled her. Until she was back in a more familiar environment, she couldn't know for sure what had enchanted her over the last few weeks. Was it the new sense of freedom she felt after leaving Bradley? Was it Africa? Or was it Mark?

 

As the train began its climb out of the Great Rift Valley towards the heights of the Mau Escarpment, Joshua began to contemplate what reception he might receive when he reached his father's village near Kisumu. He tried to reassure himself that they were his relatives too, not only his father's, but it was difficult when for so long he'd thought his father the only family he had.

Mayasa and Charlotte were asleep. Charlotte was slumped against the window with her head on a pillow fashioned from her padded leather handbag. Mayasa's soft warm breath caressed his neck as she slept with her head on his shoulder. The gentle rocking of the carriage and the mesmerising
clatter-da-clatter
as the train rattled over the rail joins almost lulled him into sleep too, but his mind kept returning to the imminent meeting in Kisumu.

It was more than twenty years ago that his father had left his
family's home near the lake. Twenty years during which the family and the community might have blamed their misfortunes on the runaway Simon Otieng. Joshua could imagine a hostile reception awaiting him. Perhaps there would be reprisals. After all, it was unimaginable what twenty years of bad luck could do to a person, and how simple it would be to blame an absent culprit. He began to doubt the wisdom of bringing Mayasa with him, but then, he'd had no alternative. To stay in Nairobi was to invite serious trouble from Koske.

A crescent moon flew through the silhouetted trees, disappearing for moments behind a ridge, then chasing the train again as it dashed westward through the dips and bends. The mournful cry of the train whistle bounced off the railway-cutting walls. Opposite him, Charlotte stirred in her slumber, adjusted her position, and was soon sound asleep again.

What could he say to appease his relatives? What excuse could a son offer on behalf of his father? He carried a letter from his father requesting the cleansing ceremony, but would that be enough after twenty years?

Joshua was on the point of discovering who he was; who his real people were. But would they accept him under these conditions? In spite of his excitement, he was filled with fear and apprehension.

Immediately he'd seen Charlotte and the two young Kenyans safely onto the Kisumu train, Riley headed for Nakuru.

The narrow bitumen road from Kikuyu station, dotted with earthworks and perched atop deep culverts, was the first but the least of his difficulties. The line markings on the main Nakuru road were faint, making them difficult to see when heavy semitrailers—concealed behind the blinding glare of their high-beam headlights—swooshed past, jolting the Land Rover with the force of their air wake. At times he wasn't sure where the road edge ended and the precipitous drop into the Great Rift Valley began.

White eyes appeared along the roadside as hawkers ventured into his oncoming lights to tempt him with their roasted corn, peanuts or drinks. The smoke from illegal charcoal-making fires wafted among the folds in the escarpment, concealing hopeful hitchhikers thumbing a ride. He nearly collected a small crowd edging into his path and had to blast a warning when an oncoming lorry narrowed his available bitumen.

Exhausted, he gave up after an hour and slept in the cabin somewhere off the highway. He awoke soon after dawn with the wide eyes of four small children staring through the windows at him. They ran off giggling when he lifted his head.

He drove directly to the national park, arriving at the front gate around seven. As he was paying for his entry pass, the canvas-covered truck from the Circularian clinic drove out the gate.

Riley hurried to the Land Rover and followed it.

The truck was slow and easy to find in the traffic. Riley's problem was keeping it in sight without arousing the driver's
suspicion. He was following in the hope of linking Koske's Kenyan operations with the adoption racket in Somalia, but soon after leaving Nakuru, the truck appeared to be heading towards Nairobi, rather than to the east, and Somalia. However, south of Naivasha it made an unexpected turn onto a road through the Aberdare Forest.

By mid-afternoon, it was obvious that the truck was not heading to Nairobi after all. Then, seventy kilometres past Thika, he checked his map and his confidence soared. At that point, the A3 had only two real destinations: Kismayo on the coast, or Wajir.

 

Dust and heat filled the cabin. Riley had a difficult time keeping his eyes open. He had been following the truck at a snail's pace for ten hours with only one break, back in Thika when it had stopped for fuel. The A3 had long ago lost its veneer of bitumen and now the lorry's dust plume was like a beacon leading him relentlessly into the dry country of the north-east. Stretches of spindly grey plants and granite boulders filled the flat plains between small volcano-shaped hills. It was stupefyingly monotonous.

He lost concentration in the Galla Hills beyond Garissa where the road climbed and twisted among the rock piles. As he took the Land Rover through a high cutting, a flash of reflected sunlight from an opening door about two hundred metres ahead caught his eye. The truck had stopped by the side of the road. He swung the Land Rover into the cover of the cutting and climbed out to see what was happening up ahead.

Two men were at the back of the truck, letting down the tailgate. Under the high canvas cover, Riley could see figures stirring in the shaded interior. He counted six boys who climbed wearily from the cabin, lined up along the edge of the road and urinated into a culvert.

It was the first evidence that he wasn't on a wild-goose chase out there in the limitless expanse of the Northern Frontier District.

 

There was less than an hour of daylight remaining when Riley saw the truck turn off the main road. He had stayed well back until now, as he had no difficulty keeping it in sight in such open terrain. It would be a different matter after dark, when he would face the double trouble of either losing them or, should he be forced to use his headlights, signalling his position to them across many kilometres.

The side road, heading east, was nothing more than a track, which meandered through rock piles into the only set of hills as far as the eye could see. He estimated they were about a hundred kilometres north of Wajir. They had just passed through a blindingly white patch of country surrounding what he'd assumed to be the small village of El Wak, which would place him very close to the point where the Somali border almost intersected the road north. He thought it possible the track might even lead him across the border, but there would be nothing to indicate it in that remote part of the country. He began to wonder how he would respond if a gang of the notorious Somali
shifta
, or raiders, appeared.

The truck disappeared over a ridge and shortly thereafter its dust plume evaporated in the breeze. Wherever they had been headed, the boys had now arrived.

 

Riley plodded up the road towards the place where the truck had disappeared from sight. The powdery dust rising from each step convinced him he'd done the right thing leaving the Land Rover on the road below.

The sun dipped below the horizon as he crested the rise. There was a number of indistinct shapes in the shadows of the shallow valley below him. He could just make out the truck and what might have been tents and other vehicles. It looked like someone had established a camp down there.

He sat on a rock, wondering about his next move. Having come so far, it was heartbreaking to retreat so close to what he believed would provide the answer to the missing children. He stared into the gloom, then had to admit defeat. He would have to return again at first light.

 

It was a cold night and Riley dozed fitfully until, around five, the eastern sky began to brighten.

He took one of the three hard-boiled eggs from the cool box and peeled it. He washed it down with a Coke, and stuffed one of the cooked corn cobs he'd bought from a roadside vendor into his pocket.

There was just enough light to pick his way up the rock-strewn slope to the vantage point he'd occupied the previous night. He pulled the corn from his pocket and ate it while he sat to await the dawn.

The grey shapes he'd seen the previous day began to take shape.

Five minutes later they looked like clumps of vegetation.

After a further ten, when the sun came up, it was clear. There were no tents or vehicles. There was no camp where the boys could be photographed in confinement.

What he'd seen in the gloom of the previous dusk was, in fact, a cluster of stunted shrubs.

 

Riley came upon the boy stumbling along the dirt road about twenty kilometres north of Wajir, an automatic rifle on his shoulder. He unslung the rifle and took a position behind a boulder as the Land Rover drew nearer.

Riley stopped short of him and climbed out of the cabin, a plastic bottle of Coke in his hand. ‘
Habari
,' he said, guessing the boy understood Swahili.

The boy, who looked about fourteen and was wearing heavy boots and mottled khaki trousers and shirt, made no reply. He jerked his rifle towards the vehicle.

‘Okay,' Riley said, smiling. ‘I'll leave you alone.' He raised the bottle beading with condensation. ‘Just want a chat before I go.'

He thought the boy's determination wavered a little at the sight of the Coke. The rifle's nose dipped slightly towards the dirt.

‘A drink?'

The boy glared at him. Said nothing.

‘I was looking for a camp, which I thought was out past El Wak,' Riley said, indicating the road behind him. As he was speaking, he edged slowly forward. ‘I'm looking for a boy, about your age. His name is Jafari. Do you know him?'

Riley had long ago given up hope of finding his sponsored child, but he thought it a useful ploy to overcome the boy's obvious animosity.

‘My wife and I used to send money to him while he was in the Circularian orphanage in Nairobi.'

There was a hint of recognition in the boy's eyes. Riley thought he understood English, and, from his expression, might even be familiar with the Circularian orphanage.

‘Are you sure you don't want a drink?' Riley said, holding the bottle up. ‘It's nice and cold. And I have plenty more in the car.'

The boy stepped forward a couple of paces and took the bottle from his hand, gulping the Coke down while keeping his eyes fixed on Riley.

Riley squatted at the edge of the road. The rifle snout was uncomfortably close.

‘Do you know a boy named Jafari?' he repeated.

The boy gasped as he lowered the Coke. His eyes watered from the build-up of gas from the drink. He burped loudly.

Riley smiled. ‘Finish it. It's yours.'

‘This boy,' he said. ‘This boy with the name Jafari. What is his father's name?'

‘Su'ud. Jafari Su'ud. Do you know him?'

‘Why you send him money?'

‘For whatever he needed. Food, school fees. Everything.'

The replies seemed to puzzle the boy. After a further moment he asked, ‘You know this boy, Jafari Su'ud?'

‘Never met him. That's why I'm here in Kenya. I was hoping to find him. Say hello. Where are you going?'

The boy shrugged, indicating the general direction of Wajir with a nod of his head.

‘Why?'

He refused to speak, looking at Riley with sullen eyes.

Upon reflection, Riley thought the boy was probably closer to eleven or twelve than to fourteen. His brown face was angular, his eyes slightly sunken, with what might be the legacy of a fever in the dark smudges beneath his lower lids. His shirt was torn and his trousers too short by half a shinbone. His boots were laceless and the soles turned up at the toe because they were several sizes too large. The hatred and determination that had been apparent upon Riley's arrival were flagging. Clearly, the reason for Riley's visit—to see a boy he'd sent money to but had never met—had fascinated him.

It took Riley an hour, and much of the food and Coke that remained in his cool box, to elicit his story.

His name was Hamood, and he'd been in the Somalia border district for about two years. He was born near the beachside town of Malindi, where he'd lived with his only surviving relatives, his aunt and uncle. When they died of cholera, he
started to steal food to survive. He was caught and sent to the Circularian orphanage in Mombasa. He then followed the trail that Riley now understood very well: from Mombasa to Nairobi to Nakuru to Wajir. What Riley hadn't known, and could even now scarcely believe, was that this boy, and several more like him, had been handed over to the al-Awaab Resistance Army. They were given rudimentary weapons training and then sent to fight a militia war along the Somalia borders. Now Hamood had decided to leave, but he wouldn't say why. He did say that if he were caught he would be severely punished.

Riley's original intention had been to try to find the camp where the children were handed over to the foreign adoption agency, and to get a photo of it or some other form of evidence. It was always going to be a long shot, and dangerous. Now he thought that if he could convince the boy to return to Nairobi with him, he would be living proof of Koske's trafficking of kidnapped orphans to serve as soldiers in Somalia.

Riley decided to press his luck.