karama: noun (Swahili) 1.a gracious gift
from God 2.a high honor bestowed upon one
PROLOGUE
The Serengeti, Tanzania 1967
A Masai warrior in tribal dress, resting in his customary onelegged
stance, was
silhouetted next
to the single engine plane as the Hunter walked toward the airstrip.
The Hunter pulled his hat down to shield his eyes from the glare of the
rising sun, and shifted his suitcase from one hand to the other.
"You're out and about early, Old Joseph" he said to the Masai,
who though only a few years
older, had the adjective 'old' irrevocably married to his English name.
Old Joseph said nothing, but took the suitcase and heaved it into the plane,
stowing it behind the pilot's seat.
The Hunter went over the plane inch by inch, a safety precaution.
Satisfied that all was well, he turned to his companion.
"Well, this time it's for two years. Be well, Joseph."
Old Joseph shook his hand. "Be well, Sahib. Don't come back alone."
The Hunter looked at Joseph quizzically, then shook his head. He was
more than accustomed
to this old friend's peculiar remarks. He climbed aboard and fired the
engine, completing his safety check before he taxied, gathered speed, and
became airborne.
A flicker of light below made the Hunter look down as he banked around
and flew toward
the mountains and the sea beyond. He rolled the airplane in answer,
smiling to himself.
Old Joseph, on the ground, was signaling farewell with his mirror.
England, 1970
"I know it's been a terribly confusing day for you, but I'd like
to introduce you to just a few
more people before we have a drink, if you don't mind," Miss Keach
prattled on, pushing Theo ahead of her like a shopping cart. "And
you'll want to have dinner, and you'll probably be overjoyed to sit down
and rest..."
Miss Keach's one sided conversation flowed on as they traversed a glass
walled corridor and
emerged into a large airy dining area, crowded with more people than
one weary young woman wanted to face.
"Now, just let me introduce you around, and then you can relax,"
Miss Keach said kindly.
Oh God, as if I can relax with a million strangers staring at me, Theo
moaned inwardly,
wishing she'd never put on these torturous shoes this morning. She was
shivering with fatigue. Why do I have to meet all these people tonight?
I just want to soak in a hot bath and then go to bed. She forced a smile.
Miss Keach was in introduction mode. She'd been introducing Theo to
people for the last two
hours, and was gearing up to start again. Secretaries, security, veterinarians,
assistantsnames and faces flew by as Miss Keach hauled her on a whirlwind
tour of the room while Theo's weary feet turned into two discrete points
of pain. Miss Keach finally settled her in a chair and signaled a waiter,
who presented them with imposing menus.
"Robert, this is the new head of accounting, Theodora Franklin,"
Miss Keach trumpeted.
Robert smiled and nodded, and Theo somehow managed to respond civilly.
The endless
stream of faces and words combined with the head knock she'd gotten
on the plane already had her nettled, but Miss Keach's continued use of
her full name Theodora, which she hated, was the icing on top of a tiring,
endless cake.
"Well, now you've met nearly everyone. Once we're open you won't
see nearly as many
onsite staff. Not everyone will be living here as they are now because
the lodge will be open for visitors, naturally. Oh, right now it's chaos,
all hands on deck you know. Now, order anything you like, dear, it's complimentary
for onsite staff. Do let me run away from you for a just a minute, there's
our director. I haven't been able to catch him all day, and I want to introduce
you to him..."
I wonder what she'd do if I ordered a double martini and a tub of water
for my feet, Theo
thought
tiredly, slipping her shoes off under the cover of the floor length
table cloth. She tried to look at the menu, but her eyes were bleary with
a combination of jet lag and the tremendous headknock she'd received.
"Would you care to order now, Miss, while you're in the eye of
the hurricane?" Robert said
with amusement, returning to her side.
Theo actually felt a wide monkey grin grow on her face, and she finally
relaxed, sinking down
several notches in her chair.
"I don't know what to order. Two weeks in Bermuda and a pack of
Winstons, I guess," she
smiled.
"I can manage the Winstons. Did you run into a door, or did your
husband hit you with a
lamp?" he replied, leaning over her and fingering the lump on her
forehead lightly.
"A fellow traveller pulled his suitcase down on my head this morning,"
Theo answered,
blinking a little.
"And then the Keach has been dragging you around all day? She's
a dear, but she gets
overexcited and never notices that someone's ready to drop. Poor girl,
you could have a concussion. You certainly look it." He took the tooled
leather menu away from her. "Don't even look at it, all that rich
heavy stodge would make you ill with that goose egg. There's a nice light
consomme, and I'll throw together a salad in a flash. Do you like spinach
and mushroom? Good, I'll make that. And a small glass of rose--very
small"
"Bless you, my child," Theo sighed, and he gave her a funny
tender smile, looking at the lump
on her head in such a way that as soon as he went toward the bar for
her wine, she began to rummage in her purse for her compact.
"Oh my God," she muttered when she'd finally opened it and
gotten a good look at herself.
The mirror reflected a pale greenish face with darkly circled eyes,
a purple stoplight on the forehead, framed with wild unruly hair, which
was escaping from the French twist she'd skewered it into that morning.
Robert's hand slid a glass of rose in front of her, and he leaned over
to murmur in her ear.
"You're signaling a Great White Hunter, my dear."
She stared at him in confusion, and he smilingly pointed behind her.
Theo craned around in her chair and saw that the mirror of her compact
had flashed in the
face of a tall silhouette standing in the entry of the dining room.
She snapped it shut instantly, and stared at the man in the doorway.
He'd raised his hand to his eyes, startled by the sudden flash, but
now he lowered it and
stepped forward into the room, looking directly at the source of the light.
Theo couldn't believe what she was seeing. Khaki shorts and bush jacket,
boots, a white
hunter's broad brimmed felt hat? A stern, impassive face punctuated
by piercing deep blue eyes that took her in cooly. All the man needed to
complete the picture was a native gun boy.
Theo turned around frantically when the man's rugged face developed
an expression of
concern and he started toward her.
"Oh Jesus! I must have a concussion," she gasped to Robert.
"Is that character really
dressed like someone in The Snows of Kilimanjaro?"
"You're saved by the vet," Robert grinned as another man rushed
up to the Great White
Hunter, caught his shoulder and muttered something which made the hunter
turn on his heel and stride back out, the vet in his wake.
I know I wasn't introduced to him , even if I did meet everyone
else in England today, Theo
thought as she stowed the compact and Robert hurried away to the kitchen
for her dinner.
England, 1970
"...but John, we hardly know each other!"
He stopped in his
tracks and looked down at
her again.
"We know each other. We'll be catching up on the details, but we
know each other,
Theodora."
Theo couldn't come up with anything.
"Oh...you want me to ask you," he said softly, the hardness
suddenly leaving his face as it had
the night before. "I did assume. Well then."
He took the clothing from her, dumping it on the ground, and then clasped
her hands with his.
"Would you care to marry me, Theodora, and come home to Africa
with me when I'm finished here, and perhaps have children, as married people
do? I'd give you a longer courtship, but I'm getting close to fifty, and
I don't have all the time in the world."
Theo just gaped up at him, and managed to sputter a few inanities and
token protests, which
he finally brushed aside.
"Good God, little woman, what do you want to do? Don't worry about
everyone else in the
world, or what you were raised to consider proper. Be sensible, decide
what you want, and take it if it's offered."
"Sensible!" Theo burst out. "This is the craziest thing
I ever heard of!"
"It's crazy for two people who are perfectly matched and madly
in love to marry?" he asked,
lifting his eyebrows. "It seems perfectly sensible to me."
"I'm beginning to dislike the word sensible," Theo said slowly.
Suddenly the Great White Hunter and all his majesty was gone, and her
lover was
standing before her, leaning down to kiss her.
"Did I seem terribly sensible last night, my little darling?"
he whispered. "Do let me keep my
mythologies. Being sensible is one of them. If you want what I'm offering,
don't play games. Reach out and take it."
What do I want? What do I want? Theo thought wildly, intoxicated by
his closeness, by his
clean smell. I don't know him at all, I don't know a damn thing about
his family, or his habits or where he lives. Africa? Where in Africa? I
don't know anything about Africa. She looked at him in confusion.
Suddenly the sensible course was right in front of her. Take what I
want, Mr. Parker,
Great White Hunter?
"Yes," she said emphatically.
"Good. Now, into the Jeep."
The Serengeti, Tanzania
1976
Theo walked along the rim of a precipice, using her field glasses to
scan up to the
horizon. One of the work teams was severely tardy getting back to camp,
and Mac had sent her with Old Joseph to take a look for them.
She and Joseph had cruised in a wide perimeter all morning, trying to
spot the missing
Land Rover and its occupants. She'd finally scaled a rise to get a better
view of more area.
She lowered the field glasses and moved farther along the rise, remembering
as always
the day when John lectured her about running along a cliff edge to him.
"Always test every step you take on one of those shelves," he'd
scolded, oblivious to the fact that his newlywed bride had come running
across the cliff to throw her arms around him. "You take a nasty slide
down one of these slopes and you'll stop pouting and listen to me."
Now she lifted the field glasses and scanned again. Nothing, not a puff
of smoke or a
reflection. Maybe they'd slipped off to Arusha and were drinking beer
while she was getting sunstroke looking for them.
It was her first time back in the Serengeti in years, since she'd first
been pregnant with
Johnny. He was six now, and Roger and Dellie were four and a half. The
children were staying with Alice at the big house while she was scheduled
for three days in the Park. Mac was short a ranger, and had agreed to give
her very short work schedules if she could return and lend a hand. She'd
been uneasy over leaving the children, but was able to radio several times
a day, and was due to go home tomorrow. And she did love being back in
the Serengeti. She'd forgotten how much she missed it.
Light flickered in her eyes, and she turned back to the Jeep where Joseph
was waiting.
He was twinkling his signal mirror at her. Joseph made no bones about
having no
intention of keeping up with Theo's energy. Theo had asked John about
Joseph's ability to handle a problem if one should arise. John refused
to dignify her question with an answer--he thought the sun rose and set
on Joseph, so now she was doing the legwork while he sat in the Jeep.
She waved impatiently to calm Joseph down. He got nervous if she went
far from the
Jeep, and started signaling her with his mirror to come back. Theo looked
through the glasses again. Lou and the graduate student who was assisting
him were probably on the other side of the park anyway. If the student
was navigating, they might even be in Uganda by now.
A slight shifting under her feet made her move away from the edge, but
the entire shelf
was sliding under her. She went right down with it. It was a slow motion
disaster, and it looked as if she would only slide halfway down at a stately
pace, scraping her knees and elbows.
The dust settled and Theo began to stand, halfway down the slope, swearing
to herself.
This would be worth a lecturette from Mac when she got back to camp.
The entire cliff fell out from under her then, tumbling her to the flat
twenty feet below.
The pain in her right ankle was immense. She didn't
think someone belting it with a
sledgehammer could hurt that badly. Theo lay still and tried to inventory
her body through the pain. She could see, hear, breathe; her arms and one
leg moved. She didn't dare move the other. Don't cry, she thought, clenching
her teeth and lifting her head to look at the painful ankle.
Theo fell back against the dirt. It was broken. Really broken. Jagged
bone ends were
protruding through and above her sock and her foot was twisted at a
horrible unnatural angle. Blood pooled below the injured joint, seeping
into the ground. To add the finishing touch, she'd fallen where Joseph
wouldn't be able to get the Jeep around.
"Mem Sahib," he said right beside her, making her start, sending
jolts of pain up her leg
that forced wails of pain from her lips. Joseph crouched by her injured
leg and held it still while Theo forced herself to stop yelling and looked
at him. How the hell could he get here so fast?
"Poor Mem Sahib," Joseph said cooly, surveying her leg. Theo
fumbled with her belt.
The ankle was still bleeding badly.
"We'll have to make a tourniquet," she said through clenched
teeth.
"No need," Joseph waved the belt away. He reached over and
brushed away the tears
that trickled back into her ears. "Not that much blood. We must
splint it."
"Don't reduce it," Theo begged. She couldn't bear that.
"Your ankle is falling out of your skin. I would not even try,"
Joseph answered. "I will bring the kit."
He jogged away and Theo remembered. He was Masai. They jogged enormous
distances.
She fell back against the dirt and gave in briefly to the impulse to
cry. Labor pains,
bruises from conflicts with animals, bites, burns--nothing had ever made
her cry. Yell, yes cry, no.
She wished John was here. She needed those big hands to bind her ghastly
ankle up,
that matter of fact voice to tell her that it didn't matter a bit, that
she would be fine.
A thrumming sound broke through her thoughts, and she jerked upright,
oblivious to
the pain.
An old lioness was stalking her. Theo could see by the hide and the
bone structure that
she was old, with nursing cubs, the teats hanging low and dark. Probably
the last in the pecking order. Probably glad to find something helpless
on the ground.
Something that couldn't run.
Theo groped for a rock and flung it. She was a lousy shot, the rock
thumped down
past the lioness, which barely blinked, sniffing the air.
Oh Christ, she smells the blood, Theo thought wildly. Oh Joseph, get
back here! The
lioness went into a crouch, advancing on her belly. Now Theo could smell
cat. She grasped another rock.
She tried to remember what John had told her about lions. Try to avoid
them if
possible, but if confronted, make noise, threaten them, stare into their
eyes, try to look bigger by standing tall.
Stand tall? She couldn't stand or even move. She should be yelling,
but her throat
seemed to be swollen shut.
Theo flung another rock, missing again, but the lioness, hungry and
desperate, never
flinched. Now she could hear John telling her about lions, and she didn't
want to.
"They generally make a kill by grabbing the throat and shaking,
once they bring the
prey down." Theo could hear herself laughing on a high hysterical
note. She was already
down. The lioness was ready to spring any second.
At least it would be quick.
She hitched up and pulled back, mesmerized by the yellow eyes. She stared
into them
in horror. Time clicked to a standstill as she and the lioness stared
at each other.
Theo heard the bullet ricochet and saw the puff of dust from its impact
before she
registered the shot. The lioness jumped back, looking to her left, and
Old Joseph was running forward, shouting and waving his medical kit and
rifle, making enough noise to wake the Seven Sleepers. The lioness snarled
and slunk away.
Theo was dimly aware of Joseph running to her side.
"It's gone, Mem Sahib. You held her
until I could shoot,"
he said kindly. Theo just
stared at him.
"You can faint now. I don't need you here," Joseph directed,
opening the medical kit.
"Thank you," Theo gasped, and promptly did as he'd suggested.
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