The Greystoke Legacy (2 page)

Samson died with a single blow.

Silence fell but for a moment. Then the vicious roar resounded across the mountain. A victory bellow radiating power and dominance of all living things.

It was the roar of Tarzan—Lord of the Jungle.

T
he heavy throb of the chainsaw changed pitch as it was thrust into a branch thicker than a man's arm. Chrome-plated steel teeth effortlessly chewed through the wood. Robbie Canler grinned as he slashed the chainsaw through another limb, pruning the fallen log into a smooth finish. The blade spat splinters of wood at him, which clattered against his eye protectors and covered his sweaty brow in fine sawdust. Hacking things apart with a chainsaw was exactly the kind of fun a teenager should be having, or so he thought.

A firm hand on his shoulder made him jump and he swung the saw around almost cutting Clark in two.

“WHOA!” yelled Clark. “Turn that damn thing off! Didn't you hear me shout?”

Robbie switched the saw off and placed it safely on the ground. He removed his eye protectors and dabbed what little sweat the sawdust wasn't clinging to.

“Sorry. Didn't hear a thing,” Robbie answered sheepishly.

Clark must have been in his forties, but Robbie had never dared ask. Half Dutch, half South African, Clark spoke with a pronounced Afrikaans accent. Robbie didn't know too much about his past, other than that he appeared to be a drifter with an uncanny knack of getting involved with illegal activities. He was the one who had found Robbie stowed away on an American freighter destined for Africa when he ran away from home. Clark hadn't asked too many questions, which suited Robbie fine. He hadn't discussed his past with anybody, although he occasionally longed to unburden his conscience.

Until Clark had found him, Robbie had no idea what he should do or where he should go. Fate had led him to the logging expedition where he had found friendship and a surrogate family life. He'd even found Jane, warming to her like the sister he had lost. The situation was perfect because nobody at the camp tended to ask too many questions since the whole operation was illegal.

Clark had taken Robbie under his wing and allowed him to join the loggers as long as he agreed to keep studying. Clark had insisted that it was one thing to run away, but only an education would give the boy somewhere to run to. Robbie had agreed, happy to take advice from the closest he'd ever had to a father figure.

Clark picked up the chainsaw. “You should be in class.”
Class
sounded more like
cliss
under his thick accent.

Robbie indicated the tree he was clipping. “I thought it'd be more worthwhile doing this. We're behind on the quota . . .”

“You let Archie and me worry 'bout that. You and I had a deal, remember?”

Robbie weighed up his possible responses, but complaining about the lessons would be futile so he reluctantly trudged back to the huts.

•••

Jane Porter removed a layer of dust from her iPhone's scratched screen. She was annoyed to see the battery level was bottoming out, the result of a partial recharge when the generator shut off early the previous night.

With a reluctant sigh, she turned her attention back to the yellowing book on the desk in front of her. She was in class . . . well, what passed for a classroom out here. It was nothing more than three wooden walls supporting a corrugated-iron roof that was more rust than metal. It didn't so much keep the frequent rain off than deflect it inward. The last week had been a long dry spell that turned everything to dust but now black clouds hung low on the horizon, threatening to turn the weather again.

The classroom looked out across the dusty camp filled with machinery, gasoline-spewing generators and huts made from anything that could form a wall. They moved the camp every two months to follow the logging operation. It sported a bar, which was the only place for the twenty-two occupants to eat and drink and was where the loggers regularly got drunk. The workers called the camp
Karibu Mji
, Swahili for “Welcome Town,” but it was far from welcoming. It certainly wasn't Baltimore. Jane called it hell.

Jane's attention waivered over the dog-eared copy of
The Tempest
, which must have passed through a hundred other grubby hands before reaching hers. The yellowed pages had long gone from possessing a musty book smell, to something biological and rank.

“Jane?” She could just hear the voice above the pounding rock music of track twelve. “Jane?”

With a truculent sigh, Jane pulled the ear buds out and arched a questioning eyebrow at her teacher, Esmée, a huge black woman who appeared to possess an expansive knowledge of everything. But Jane thought the woman's talents were wasted out here trying to teach her.

“You not listenin' to me again.”

With a sigh, Jane pulled her iPhone from the pocket of her faded blue jeans and stopped the music. Robbie slouched into the classroom, occupying the only other desk. He was still grimy—there was little point in cleaning up too often out in the jungle.

“Ah, glad you joinin' us, Mister Canler,” said Esmée with a smile.

“Wouldn't miss your lesson for the world, Esmée,” said Robbie with a cheeky smile.

Jane acknowledged his arrival with a tiny nod, then stared blankly at the words on the page before her. “This is a waste of my time, Esmée. It's not like we have proper tests to pass. None of this is of any real use.”

She heard Esmée sigh and a creak of wood indicated her teacher was leaning forward on her desk, looking over the top of her thick lenses, no doubt donated from some far-off charity bin back in civilization.

“An education's a darlin' thing to have. Knowledge don't need tests to be useful. Your papa knows that.” Esmée's comment was delivered to the top of Jane's head. “Else why we all here? Or am I wastin'
my
time?”

“I can most definitely say: You are wasting your time.” Jane regretted the words the instant they tumbled from her lips. She was in an irritable mood, the humidity was too much to bear and she felt she was nearing her breaking point for staying in the jungle.

Esmée nodded. She never lost her temper. Never argued back. That made Jane feel all the guiltier. She put her head in her hands, resisting the urge to start shouting. She glanced at Robbie, who was watching her curiously. Was that a look of concern or pity?

“I hate it here, Esmée. There's nothing for me! This place is a dump and what friends do I have here? They're all back home.”

“You have Robert here.”

Jane scowled at Robbie. They were the same age, but that was their only similarity. He was secretive, but they had got on well until he had butted into an argument between her and her father. That was a cardinal sin in Jane's book, but then he had made it worse by accusing her of not appreciating that she had a father who loved her. What did he know? What kind of loving father drags their daughter to a remote African jungle? Since then she had stayed away from Robbie and neither had taken the opportunity to apologize.

Esmée pulled up a wooden stool and sat opposite Jane. Sliding her glasses onto her head she gently took both Jane's hands in her huge hands, and looked her squarely in the eye.

“You ain't lookin' properly. Out there is a land of beauty.”

Jane glanced outside again. Black dust, litter, hastily constructed drainage ditches filled with dirty water and a pair of fat cats bathing in the afternoon sun.

“It's a crap shack, Esmée.”

Robbie nodded. “She has a point. It's hardly a luxury hotel.”

Jane managed a smile, thankful for the support.

Esmée gave them both a measured look.

“You gotta look beyond that. The land out there is more wonderful than anythin' you imagine.” Esmée had tried to educate them about the vast range of wildlife around them.

“You mean the land my dad's chopping down?”

A pained look crossed Esmée's face. She was born in Zaire, a country that no longer existed by that name. Now it was known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The scars on Esmée's arms and right cheek were testament to the bloody wars and genocide that had ravaged the country. She had survived that only to become a teacher for a bunch of illegal loggers who were now tearing apart her country in a different way. Jane had built a picture of Esmée's life over the last four months only through clues and occasional history lessons. She had no idea how her mentor felt about her father's actions.

Esmée gripped Jane's hands a little tighter. “Mr. Porter, your papa . . .” she faltered, searching for the right words. “He doin' what he's doin' cuz he has ta, not cuz he wants ta.”

Jane smiled and slipped her hands away. “That's the kind of trash he's been telling me ever since we got here. It doesn't make sense when he says it either.”

Jane was frustrated. She wanted to shout, but knew it was unfair to burden Esmée with her troubles and she no longer trusted Robbie. Out here, she had nobody to confide to; nobody to laugh with. Nobody.

Jane stood up, snatching the iPhone from the table. She stormed from the classroom. Esmée got up so sharply the stool topped over.

“Miss Porter! Where you think you're goin'? Come right back here until I say you can go!”

Jane drowned Esmée out with the music's angst-ridden wailing. She didn't look back; Esmée never followed her and always behaved the next day as though nothing had happened.

Robbie leaned over and took the book Jane had left.

“Shakespeare? OK, I'm willing to give it a shot.”

Esmée watched Jane disappear amongst the shacks before she turned her attention to her remaining pupil.

•••

Jane ignored the workmen returning from the front line. They were a mix of nationalities—Congolese, a few Rwandans, some Zimbabweans who had fled here for a better life, and a couple of Indians. They knew well enough to leave Jane alone, even if her lithe figure and cascading blonde hair made her stand out wherever she went. She headed to the outskirts of Karibu Mji, away from the stench of the communal toilets, stale beer, and sweat.

It was the only form of escape she had.

At the edge of the camp she screamed as loud as she could, knowing the rattle of the generators would drown it out. She cursed her life, her father and mother, and the annoying Robbie Canler who had butted into her business.

Jane vented her anger until tears rolled down her cheeks. Then she collapsed on a tree stump with her head in her hands.

After she had calmed down, she pulled her phone out and her fingers danced across the phone's keyboard as she composed an email to the friends she had been forced to abandon in Baltimore. Her emails were all the same, filled with sorrow and expletives describing the hostile sweat box where she had been dumped. Everything in the jungle—trees, insects, and animals—seemed deadly. It was here she had seen her first dead bodies, loggers who were killed in accidents. It was a place where life seemed cheap.

She hit send and the message filed itself in her outbox, next to the other 142 pleas for help she had written since arriving in the jungle. None of them had been sent. A phone signal was unknown out here.

The jungle was isolation. A wall-less prison.

Jane resisted hurling the phone away. It was the final link she had to her past life and the only thing that was keeping her sane. She stared at the jungle that began yards away from the camp's buildings. Around the perimeter towering trees had been stripped of their lower branches by the workers, as the leaves made the best available substitute for toilet paper. The trunks had since turned gray and lifeless. Darkness lay beyond.

Goosebumps suddenly prickled her arm. She tried to rub them away but couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. She found herself drawn to the gloomy trees and could almost sense the malice emanating from them.

•••

After a very short lesson, Robbie ambled back to the logging operation in time to watch Clark sink his chainsaw into the heartwood of a broad trunk. Clark stopped the moment he felt, and heard, a mighty crack ripple through the mahogany tree. He quickly withdrew the saw and backed away.

“She's going!” he bellowed.

Two other loggers hastily moved away. Clark's incision was perfect and there was little doubt in what direction the tree would fall, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

The trunk of the tree was almost wider than he was. With a wrenching crunch the 120-foot giant keeled over, smashing its way through other trees and crushing the foliage beneath. Robbie felt the ground tremble as ancient roots were ripped to the surface.

Clark whooped victoriously and clapped Archie Porter on the back. Both men were sweating, their shirts black from exertion.

“A few more bucks in the bank, eh?” said Clark.

Archie Porter grinned, more out of habit than humor. “Deserves a beer or three, but we've still got to get her out of here. Light's fading. Trim her off tomorrow, Phil.” Archie occasionally teased him with “Phil” from his surname, Philander—a name that got him into many bar fights.

“Light's good for another half-hour, mate,” grinned Clark, then he noticed that Robbie had joined them. “What happened to our deal?”

Robbie shrugged. “Esmée didn't feel like it.” He glanced knowingly at Archie. “Jane was being a pain again and stormed off.” He saw Archie tense at the mention of his daughter.

“Is that a fact? Well, come an' help with this big sucker. We'll get her ready for floatin' tomorrow.”

Clark headed toward the tree, yelling orders to the other two loggers in Swahili.

“Rob, hold up a moment,” said Archie as he wiped the sweat from his brow with the hem of his shirt. He unclipped the drinking canteen from his belt and took a long hard drink. He still wasn't used to the chlorine taste of the water. Nor was he really used to his new lifestyle. “You said something about Jane?”