The man at Kambala (9 page)

While Mr. and Mrs. Willard took drinks with the three men on the veranda, Sara kept her promise to show the boys the view from the bluff. She took the field-glasses with her, and gained a gratifying response from Travis as he swept from horizon to horizon in rapt attention. Chipper was far more interested in looking for the snakes which Sara had mentioned, and terribly disappointed when he failed to find any in the immediate vicinity.

`They don't hang around if they hear you coming,' she explained. 'Poking a stick into a hole is about the quickest way of scaring them off. Anyway, we don't want you getting bitten.'

`The snake would probably come off worst,' commented his brother dryly as he leaned back against a
rock. 'This is the life! I'm going to hate going back tomorrow. Another night here, then one more in Nairobi, and then home.'

`Well, you could hardly study architecture out here on a reserve,' Sara pointed out practically. 'Not unless you concentrated on mud huts and log cabins. Once you're back home you'll soon forget all this.'

`Not all of it,' he returned softly, looking at her with frankly admiring eyes. 'I've never met a girl like you before, Sara. All the kids back home think about is dressing-up and dating. I'll bet you never even bother to look in a mirror, yet you look better than most of them do after spending hours in front of one.' He caught the expression in her eyes and looked surprised. `I can't be the first guy who ever told you you're pretty. What about all the others who've been to the Lodge?'

Sara smiled and shrugged. 'I don't go over there all that often. And I haven't noticed anybody taking any particular interest before.'

`Maybe because you froze them off before they could get started. You looked at me a bit as if I were a reptile slithering over the grass yesterday.'

`Did I?' She was startled. 'I didn't realize.'

Travis laughed. 'Oh, that's okay. It takes more than that to put me off. Pop says I lack sensitivity. Do you think I do?'

`I'd have to know you better before I answered that,' she answered on a light note.

`Not much chance of that. I'll probably never see you again after today. I don't suppose there's any chance of you coming
across
to the States some time?'

`I don't suppose there is.' Sara wondered why she couldn't rouse herself to more enthusiasm for this conversation than she felt at the moment. Here was a very attractive and rather nice young man paying her just the kind of attention all girls were supposed to like, whether they believed it or not, and yet she might just as well have been talking to Chipper for all it meant to her. Travis was so young, and it was a well-known fact that girls were always emotionally ahead of boys hi
s
their age group. But it was more than just that, she realized. The whole atmosphere between them was lacking in any kind of excitement. Yesterday with Steve in the car, her pulses had been racing and her heart hammering into her throat before he had even touched her. Not fear, more a kind of quivering anticipation. And yet he wasn't half as nice as Travis. He bullied her, mocked her, even threatened her when he felt like it. It didn't make any sense.

She came back to earth to find Travis standing right in front of her, his face resolute. 'I don't usually have to do any asking,' he was saying, 'but I want very badly to kiss you, Sara. Are you going to let me?'

Her mouth went stiff. 'Chipper . .

`He's off exploring. We'll probably have to look for him when we want to go back.' He put a hand on her forearm, smiling, his face a little flushed. 'You're so different. I don't think I've ever felt quite like this about anybody before.'

She gazed at him like a child at a problem picture, not at all sure how to handle the situation. She liked Travis so much — what she knew of him — and she knew that if she said no then he'd accept it without attempting to force the issue. It was perhaps this latter fact which helped to make up her mind — that, and a certain curiosity. She smiled back suddenly. 'Why not?'

His mouth was cool and gentle and tasted of mint. Sara found the experience pleasant and somehow

comforting, and felt no particular wish to stop it. Only

when his arms started to tighten and his lips to move against hers did she stiffen slightly and draw back.

Travis let her go at once. He looked a bit sheepish. `Sorry,' he murmured. 'I got a bit carried away. Haven't you been kissed before?'

`Not since I was sixteen,' she admitted. 'And the boy was the same age, so it didn't get far.' She pushed her hair back and summoned a smile. 'You don't have to be sorry, Travis. You didn't do anything out of place. We'd better look for Chipper and get back.'

Looking for Chipper proved no great difficulty. His voice came excitedly from the other side of the big rock over which he had scrambled a moment or two before. `Hey, come and look ! I've found a big one !'

`Stay away from it Chipper!' called Sara urgently. She took a hasty step twards the voice, slipped on some loose stones and fell heavily against a jutting piece of rock at her back. There was a burning sensation under her left shoulder-blade and an arrow of pain as she pushed herself upright again, but she shook her head when Travis asked if she was hurt. 'No, I'm all right. Get to Chipper before he does something silly.'

They found the boy peering regretfully down a slit between two rocks. 'It got away. You should have seen it, Travis. Real long, it was, and thin with a funny

pattern. I wonder what kind it was.'

`It could have been a lot of kinds,' said Sara steadily, pushing away the terrifying image of what it sounded like. 'You mustn't ever go too near a snake, Chipper, unless you're quite sure it's harmless. They'll nearly always get away if they can, but if they're cornered they'll defend themselves.' Her back was really hurting now and she was having difficulty in not showing it. `Come on, it's time we were going back.'

The climb down was painful. She could feel her shirt clinging to her back and hoped that it was perspiration and not blood. She kept her back to both Travis and Chipper as much as possible as they walked through the low scrub to the fence, and for once was content to go round by the gate instead of climbing over.

Steve was still entertaining the Willards on the veranda, both Ted and Kimani having disappeared. Sara sank into a chair with her drink, concealing a wince as her back came into contact with the cane. As soon as the Willards had left she would go and see what the damage was and put something on it. It was hurting like blazes. Meanwhile she must make an effort to ignore it. She had no intention of letting Steve know that she had hurt herself.

Chipper was telling them about his encounter with the snake, reeling off its vital statistics which had just about doubled since coming down from the bluff.

`Probably a rock python,' said Steve reassuringly. `They're quite harmless.'

`Oh?' Chipper looked positively disappointed. Sara suspected that by the time he returned to school that rock python would have become something much more

excitingly dangerous. She stole a glance at Steve, to have it returned expressionlessly. He knew as well as she did that it had been no rock python, and he was going to have something to say later on about letting Chipper go off like that on his own. She could read all the signs by now.

The Willards stayed a further half an hour before making a move to return to the Lodge for lunch, and an afternoon's game hunting for last-minute camera trophies. Both Mr. and Mrs. Willard were profuse in their thanks for the hospitality offered them at the Station, and Travis took no trouble to conceal his reluctance to depart, holding on to Sara's hand far longer than he needed after shaking it. Her last sight of him was of a fair head thrust through a side window and a hand waving vigorously as the car vanished among the trees beyond the compound gates.

`Nice people,' commented Steve, lighting a cigarette. `It would have been a real pity to have ruined their whole vacation.'

`I know.' Sara was standing with her back to one of the posts, although not quite touching it. 'You don't have to say it. I should have watched him more closely.'

`I assumed you were otherwise occupied.' He said it dryly. 'You seem to have knocked young Willard for six.'

`How British,' she mocked back deliberately.

`Cricket isn't confined to the British Isles,' he came back, equally deliberately. 'What game does friend Travis play?'

`A fair one. He doesn't try to take advantage of a novice

His mouth pulled into a slow smile. 'You may be a novice in some things, but when it comes to answering back you're an expert. One of these days you'll . .' He broke off as she eased herself away from the post, catching the flicker of pain across her face. 'What's wrong?'

`Nothing.' She looked him straight in the eye. 'I'm a bit stiff from climbing.'

`Like hell you are!' He whipped out a hand and caught her by the wrist, turning her sideways so that he could see the back of her shirt. 'There's blood coming through. What the devil have you been up to now?'

`Don't bark,' she snapped peevishly. 'I told you it was nothing. I slipped and fell against the rock. It's just a graze. I'm going to put something on it now.'

`And how do you think you're going to see to do it?' with sarcasm. He let her go. 'Come on inside and I'll have a look at it.'

`I wouldn't let you touch me with a barge-pole,' she said between her teeth. 'I can manage, thanks.'

He said something explosively under his breath, and then out loud, 'I'm not asking you I'm telling you! Now get inside and get that shirt off while I fetch a first-aid kit.'

She was still standing where he had left her in the doorway when he came back with the box. He gave her an exasperated look and nodded towards the nearest hard-backed chair. `For God's sake, you can sit with your back to me if you're that modest. I saw you in just as little at the Lodge yesterday.'

`No, you didn't.' She tried to say it matter-of-factly.

`I'm only wearing this at the moment.'

His lips twisted faintly. 'It figures. So what?'

`So I'm not taking my shirt off. I daresay life holds nothing new for you, but I've had a sheltered upbringing.' Despite everything she could do to stop it her voice quivered just a little on the last word. 'Let me do my own first-aid.'

`You won't be able to see properly. It looks as though you've cut or grazed yourself right under the shoulder blades. Lie on your stomach on your bed if you must, but one way or another I'm going to take a look at that back. Right?'

She gave in. There was nothing else she could do. With her head up she walked past him and along the corridor to her own room, took off the shirt and sat down on the edge of the bed with her back to the door and the garment held stubbornly across her front. When he came into the room she didn't look at him.

Steve took one glance at the slender tanned back presented to him and whistled softly between his teeth. `That's some graze ! It must be giving you gyp. You're going to need some kind of dressing on it until it stops oozing blood. At least it's clean.'

Sara felt the mattress sag as he sat down just behind her and opened the first-aid box, and then the light, spine-tingling touch of his fingers and the bite of antiseptic. Her lower lip caught between her teeth, she sat there motionless while he dressed and taped the wounded area. She could feel the faint stirring of his breath on the back of her neck among the tendrils of hair which curled into her nape. She wanted desperately to say something to break the silence, but she

couldn't think of a single thing. She had never'" been more relieved in her life when the last piece of sticking plaster was in place.

`There,' he said. 'All done and dusted. Wasn't so bad, was it?'

`No,' she managed on a reasonably even note.

He ran the back of a knuckle over her nape, the kind of gesture she could imagine him making to his sister Jill in one of his softer moods. It was something to cling to at a moment when her emotions were in such a state of confusion. He was simply being brotherly.

`It's going to stiffen up when it starts to skin over,' he added, getting to his feet. 'Nothing much we can do about that.' There was a brief pause before he tagged on satirically, 'At least it should keep you out of mischief for a day or two. You can get dressed again now'

Sara waited until the door had closed behind him, then she got up herself and went over to the wardrobe, twisting her neck to study his handiwork. The dressing was neat and quite extensive. Steve had been right about one thing, she wouldn't have been able to do much with it on her own. She looked dispassionately at her reflection, still holding the shirt to her. It hadn't meant a thing to him seeing her like this. She could have sat there without a stitch on and it still wouldn't have meant a thing to him. She was just a kid it amused him to taunt on occasion, and that was all. She'd better keep telling herself that.

THERE was a letter from Sara's father a couple of days later, backing up the telegram he had sent immediately on landing in London. The weather was terrible, he said, but matters were well in hand. He was going to spend a few days with some old friends in the country, perhaps get in some fishing if the rain stopped. London hadn't changed all that much. There was more traffic on the streets, of course, and a few familiar landmarks had disappeared
forever
, but essentially it was still the same old place. He doubted that Benston would have altered at all in the years since he had last been there. He certainly hoped not. At one time he had intended to retire there.