Stalking Ivory (22 page)

Wait a minute!
Jade remembered the day Chiumbo was hurt. Claudia saw Jade, Sam, and Chiumbo and immediately wanted to go back to camp, ostensibly to keep an eye on her daughter. Did she leave in order to signal to someone to shoot Chiumbo? But it was Vogelsanger who followed after her.
What did he say?
Something about going along to protect Claudia. Maybe they
were
having an involvement. But blast it! His military haircut didn’t match the thicker hair in that photograph. That left Mueller and Harry again.

Jade sighed.
Blasted romantic triangles or quadrangles or whatever this one is. Stick to the important facts.
Someone wanted her and her friends off the mountain and had tried to accomplish it using fear before escalating to violence. First someone shot an arrow into her tent; then someone shot Chiumbo without killing him. Only after they left did the criminals actually kidnap Jelani.

Perhaps someone did see his capture and sale as an opportunity for extra profit, but maybe not. More likely Jelani saw or heard something that could identify the mastermind. Jade wished she knew just what German words he’d overheard.

They all knew that she cared for the boy. He was an obvious way to get to her. But why get to her if they thought she’d left? Did they know she’d sneaked back up the mountain? Maybe she and Sam weren’t as clever as they thought. Maybe someone knew they’d sneaked back and was determined to get them off the mountain.

Then another thought crept into her brain. Did someone out there hate her so much as to use the boy for revenge? The very idea made Jade fume inside, her anger smoldering, ready to burst into flames as soon as she had a target.

How much does Harry know?
She didn’t really believe he had orchestrated the incidents, but he might not be above receiving payment for turning a blind eye. After all, how could anyone in his group haul in several boxes of rifles and not have him notice, especially when they’d gone missing? Then she recalled his rather slipshod running of her own safari and thought he might not even notice what personal effects his group carried around, especially not the women.

Jade sat up straighter. That could have been it. Harry wouldn’t question what the women brought personally. They could smile and tell him it was private, feminine needs and he’d run off before looking further. It was a near-perfect way to sneak just about anything into an area. Maybe Claudia wasn’t such an innocent dupe after all. Well, that was fine with Jade. She had no qualms about shooting a woman. If only she had her Winchester. The beloved rifle had been taken from her along with her knife when she and Sam had been left chained to die in the desert.

By the time they reached Chiumbo, Abasi, and the Dunburys’ two Overlanders, Jade’s anger had regrown to an all-consuming beast inside her, clawing at her insides to get out. While Avery helped his wife, Jelani, and the ever-attentive Biscuit into the other vehicles, Jade rummaged through the equipment and retrieved the stolen bow and arrows and her hat. Only Sam saw her thin smile and the firm set of her jaw. He put one hand gently on her right hand and met her eyes.

“Remember, Jade, you are not a killer,” he whispered. “And vengeance is the Lord’s.”

She smiled, a seemingly innocent little smile, and nodded once, slowly. “Yes,” she purred, “but satisfaction is mine.”

S
AM TURNED OFF
the truck’s engine once they were close to the location they’d doubled back to the first time around. “We can’t drive any farther, Jade. It’s getting dark, I’m exhausted, and you need some sleep, too.”

She curled up on the seat and leaned her head against the door. “I’ll sleep here.”

Sam climbed out of the truck, went around to the other side, and opened her door, catching her as she spilled out. “No, you won’t. We’re not safe down here. I’m going to cover the truck with brush to hide it, and you’re going back up that tree.”

Jade shook her head and pinched her arms to rouse herself. “I’ll help you camouflage the truck. Give me the panga. I’ll cut, you cover.”

Exhausted, they worked like mindless drones, slashing brush, hauling it to the truck, and stacking the brush in front of the vehicle to prevent detection. It wasn’t animals they needed to hide from, but humans. This time, no one must know they’d returned. When they finished, they hauled their meager supplies and themselves up the rope ladder and onto the boards. Jade secured her bow and arrows next to Beverly’s rifle, which Sam had borrowed.

“What is there to eat?” asked Sam.

Jade opened the pack that Beverly had replenished, and inspected the contents. “Dates, figs, a tin of crackers, and some canned meat.”

“No steaks?”

Jade’s shoulders twitched as she chuckled silently. “There is something very ironic about having only dried and salted foods when one has just escaped dying of thirst.” She handed a box of figs and a tin of meat to Sam. “I don’t think I could swallow a cracker if I tried.”

Sam ignored the can of salty meat and popped a fig into his mouth. “Steak, two inches thick, medium rare.”

“Grilled over an open campfire,” added Jade, playing the game. “With potatoes baked in the coals.”

“Ears of corn, roasted in their own husks.”

“Do you pull back the husks first and butter the corn, then tie them back over so it’s all buttery inside?”

Sam nodded. “Only way to do it. And coffee. Pots of coffee.”

Jade sighed. “Nectar of the gods. But I prefer my steak a little less rare. There’s nothing like an elk steak, well-done over a mesquite fire.”

“Slathered in ketchup.”

Jade bolted up, eyes wide in horror. “Ketchup? What are you, a heathen? You don’t put ketchup on
any
steak.” She scooted farther away from him. “I’m not talking to you anymore.” Suddenly her teeth chattered, and she hugged herself. “Makes me shiver just to think of it.”

“Are you all right?” asked Sam, his face etched with worry lines.

“Cold,” she answered. “And we left the blankets in the truck.”

He scooted over and put his arms around her, pulling her close. When she stopped shaking, she started to push herself away. “Thanks. I’m all right now.”

“No, you’re not,” he said. “You’ve been through hell physically and emotionally. I’m going to make a nest for you in the hammock. All this moss in the trees ought to make decent bedding.” He stood up on the planks and gathered as much of the silvery moss as he could reach and arranged it to cover the hammock. “Try that out,” he said when he’d finished.

Jade hesitated before crawling into the hammock. “Where are you going to sleep?”

“Next to you.”

She pulled back, but Sam reached out and took her gently by the shoulders. “Simple matter of body heat, Jade,” he said as he slid onto the hammock and pulled her in after him.

She plopped onto the moss and nestled up with her back against him, grateful for his warmth.

He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in closer. “Do you know what my favorite part of Madeline’s book was?” he asked. “It was when you were changing that tire and met up with the lion. How did she put it?” He started reciting from memory.

“What did you do, memorize the book?” She tried to prop herself up on one elbow to see his face, but managed only to get a bunch of dry moss in her mouth.

“Parts of it,” he admitted. “But that’s the point where I knew you were the woman for me.” He toyed with a stray curl on her forehead. “Jade, you have to know this. I’m in love with you.”

She spat out the moss and twisted around. “Don’t,” she said softly as she put a finger to his lips. “I’m not ready for someone being in love with me again. I’m not sure I’ll
ever
be ready. It’s too hard when you lose them, and I’m too independent anyway, and—”

This time Sam shushed her with a finger to her lips, his dark eyes reflecting the thin sliver of moonlight. “Well, you know my feeling, so you think about it. And to prove to you how sincere I am, I’ll even give up ketchup on my steaks.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek, letting his lips brush against her ear.

Jade laughed. Then exhaustion took over and she drifted into sleep.

“W
HERE DID YOUR
B
OGULI
say to meet him?” whispered Sam the next morning as they peered out from the shelter of trees near Harry Hascombe’s camp and up the mountainside.

“He didn’t, but I suspect he’ll find me. The man is uncanny.” She’d woken alone in the hammock with Sam sitting on the plank nearby, popping dates in his mouth. An impeccable gentleman, he had yet to refer to their night cuddled together against the cold, and Jade felt an upwelling of gratitude. She hadn’t felt this emotionally overwrought since David died in a plane crash a few days after he’d proposed.

“From the way you speak of him, he’s a rather unusual guardian angel,” Sam said.

“He’s no angel,” Jade said, “but there is something very”—she paused and searched for a way to explain—“familiar about him.” She scanned the surrounding trees. “He may be watching us now.” She pulled a piece of paper torn from her field notebook and a pencil stub out of her pocket, placed the sheet on her thigh for a writing desk, and began a brief note. When she finished, she started to rise, and Sam reached forward and tugged on her sleeve as a signal to stop. She glanced at his leg, then at him, as though to ask if it was giving him problems.

He shook his head. “I’m fine,” he whispered, “but I’m a little concerned about your plan. You really intend to walk into Harry’s camp without consequences?”

“No,” she whispered back. “But I need to communicate with him. Enlist his help.” She waved the note in front of him. “If he can get all of them out of camp at once, we could get in there and do a
thorough
search. Somewhere in that camp there must be something tying one of them to the poachers. I’d like to find a stash of those coins in someone’s bunk. I just wish we’d find Boguli first, but I can’t sit tight and wait for him.”

“You are assuming, of course, that Hascombe isn’t part of the plot himself. What makes you think you can trust him?” He leaned forward to see her face better. “Are you perhaps harboring any residual feelings for the scoundrel? Don’t assume that just because he wanted you once, he won’t sell you up the river now.”

Jade sighed and tightened her lips. Once a man started acting even remotely possessive, her independent nature took hold. Now she knew how that cow pony felt when the bull elk kept pursuing it. “Harry may be a scoundrel, and an opportunistic son of a biscuit who would sell his own mother, but I don’t think even he’d ever resort to shooting his own cheetah. He
really
likes that cat.” She turned and met Sam’s gaze. “
That
is why I think he’s not involved.
Not,
” she added firmly, “that my feelings about Harry should concern you.” She turned her gaze back to the woods so she didn’t have to see any hurt in his face. “You’re a very nice man, Sam, and we’ve been through a lot together, but…”

Sam leaned back against the tree and sighed. “I take it that means our date to tour old Purdue is off.”

Jade suppressed a chuckle. She couldn’t help but admire Sam’s indomitable spirit. She turned and faced him. “You don’t really know me, Sam. You love some fiction that Madeline cooked up.” In the back of her mind she wondered if she was making this argument to convince him or herself.
You don’t really know him. Maybe you only care about what he represents.
She took a deep breath and continued. “I’m too—”

“Bullheaded?” he suggested. “Stubborn, mulish, independent, reckless?”

“Hmmm. Sounds like you know me better than I thought,” she muttered. “Let’s just say I’m not ready for any entanglements right now.” She turned back towards Harry’s camp. “I think the way is clear.” She planned to use one of her arrows and shoot a note into Harry’s tent through a gap in the
boma
wall. She knew from the first cursory search in his camp that his tent stood apart from the others, closest to the
boma
gate, putting him in the front line if something came through.

A makeshift quiver manufactured from a square of canvas hung from Jade’s belt. She’d ripped the fabric from the Overlander and used Beverly’s sewing kit to stitch it into a tube to hold her newest ammunition. Jade extracted an arrow and rolled her note tightly around the shaft. Then, while Sam held the paper in place, she broke off a length of Beverly’s sewing thread and tied the note securely to the shaft close to the fletching.

“What does the note say?” whispered Sam.

“It says someone in his camp shot Biscuit and tried to kill us. He should get his group all out of camp immediately and keep them out while I search, or I’ll shoot them all in turn, him first.”

“Subtle but effective. What if he’s not there now?”

“Then we wait here until he comes back.”

“Let her fly, then,” said Sam as he settled himself to see better. “Just be sure not to hit Harry with that arrow.” He paused and reflected on that order. “At least,” he amended, “not fatally.”

Jade grinned as she slid the poacher’s bow from around her back and nocked her arrow.

Harry’s crew had already rebuilt the
boma
walls, broken during the elephants’ rampage, but either due to carelessness or a lack of available thorn brush, they had left a few gaps. Jade slid her arrow into one closest to Harry’s tent and peered through another hole to aim. The camp was actually quiet, but Jade didn’t want to risk going in now. Someone might come back soon and catch her before she was finished.

She drew back the bow and aimed for the lower portion of his tent’s doorway, then released the string. The arrow pierced the canvas and thudded into the dirt just inside.
Perfect.

Sam patted her on the shoulder. “Impressive,” he whispered. “You’re a regular Amazon.” He started to rise, then stopped when he saw Jade stay put, eyes on the camp. “Let’s go,” he whispered. “We can’t wait here.”

Jade never took her eyes off the camp. “I don’t hear anyone.” She looked at Sam. “I mean
anyone
. Not even the cook. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“Do you think something happened to them?” asked Sam.

“Maybe,” agreed Jade. She got up and headed for the
boma
gate. “I’m going to have a look.”

Sam followed her. “I’ll keep you covered.” He gripped Beverly’s Enfield in his hand. They went first into Harry’s tent, giving lie to Jade’s supposed trust in him. She found blessed little beyond his cot, a shaving kit, a box of rounds for his Mannlicher, a folding chair, and a book. Sam flipped through the book, a novel by Dickens, and paused.

“Find something?” asked Jade, who was busy lifting the cot’s mattress to see if anything lay hidden underneath.

Sam held up a photograph. “Just his bookmark.”

Jade noted the growl when he spoke, dropped the mattress, and went over to look. “It’s me!” she exclaimed. In the photo Jade stood next to her coffee-growing friend and would-be chronicler, Madeline. Both wore formal dresses. “Must have been taken at the Muthaiga Club,” she said. “Put it back and let’s move on. There’s nothing here.”

Under Jade’s watchful eye, Sam replaced the picture in the book and slammed the cover shut. “At least the picture tells me he’s not a likely candidate for hurting you. So where to next?” he asked, setting the book back on the table.

“Vogelsanger’s.”

They entered each tent in turn. Sam stood at the tent flaps keeping watch while Jade pawed through every item in each tent. By the time they’d searched Vogelsanger’s and the Muellers’ tents, Jade felt a growing frustration.
Nothing.
Oh, she now knew a lot more about each of them. Vogelsanger read books on machines; the Muellers didn’t read at all. Liesel’s vanity held no limits, if her cosmetics box was any indication, and she was definitely not a natural blonde.

Jade rubbed her aching back. “We’ll search the von Gretchmars’ next, then Mercedes’ tent last.”

In the elder von Gretchmars’ tent, Jade started with Otto’s side. Once again, she lifted camp cot mattresses, flipped through books and magazines, and opened all the boxes. Otto’s side of the tent contained nothing out of the ordinary. Claudia’s side had already revealed the incriminating blouse with the missing button. She also had a lot more personal items, including a very large and full cosmetics box. Unfortunately, it was evidence of nothing more than a middle-aged woman’s desperate grasp on youth and beauty.