Dangerous Ground
“ What you have to do with him is to be very thankful you have had the honour of knowing him. ”
Mary Kingsley
“I can’t imagine anything you could say or do that would change my mind that quick.” But inwardly, she wasn’t so sure, because she suddenly found herself wanting very much to believe him. Oh, why did things have to be so many shades of gray instead of simple black and white? If only there was some sort of sign (did God still do that these days?) not lightning, or anything, just the smallest little hint of…
His only reply was to unzip one of his smaller vest pockets and take something out that flashed a reflection of the sun when he held it out to her. “You left it on the table at the cafe. The waiter gave it to me because he thought we knew each other.”
Meg slowly took the antique pen she had so carefully selected for her journey into the past, and felt her emotions begin to churn. The Lord had just answered that thought as quickly and easily as if He had been walking, here, between them. “For I know the thoughts...saith the Lord...” (what was the rest of that scripture?) And if this was her man in the rain, the dashing prince, then Tom Anderson must truly be her divine appointment. A divine appointment! But to what extent and for what purpose?
“I...went back there, you know.” She began rather hesitantly because she found herself having to reign in the sudden desire to tell him everything she was thinking and feeling at the moment. She couldn’t just throw herself at him. What had gotten into her? “But you had left already, too.”
“I was drenched and my grandmother insisted.”
“That was your grandmother?”
“Mm-hm. She likes to eat there when I’m in town. But if I’d known you were coming back...” He lifted the edge of the umbrella to look under, again. She was struggling with her emotions and clutching the pen close up against her as if it were a lifeline. “What’s wrong, priss? Disappointed that it was me?”
“It’s just that this whole situation is so complicated and confusing! You thinking I’m a criminal, and I…”
“I said I didn’t, anymore.”
“And I don’t know anything about you! Who you are, or where you come from…and why you would have the slightest interest in someone like me!”
“Maybe I can clear that up for you, too. I’ll start by telling you what I’m the producer of.” He let go of the edge of the umbrella when she put the pen away and began looking for that package of tissue. “Ever hear of the Adventure Company?”
“The one hosted by Bertram Hunter? Of course. I love that program.”
“Bertram Hunter is my oldest brother, Bobby.”
“Well…my goodness… no wonder you looked familiar when you put that hat on.” Now it was Meg’s turn to tip the umbrella up and look at him as if she were just seeing him for the first time. “But you don’t have the same name.”
“Bertram Hunter is just a stage name. His real name is Robert Anderson.
“So, there really is another Anderson son named Robert. Is there a John, too?”
“Johnny’s the youngest of us. Anyway, it’s more or less a family business that we’ve been at for quite a few years. Moving back and forth across the continents, trying to inform the public about the state of things in the natural world. We’re actually due in Akosombo next week to do a follow-up on the dam.”
“But what’s the dam got to do with the state of the natural world?”
“It’s the largest manmade lake on earth. You can see it from space. Besides breaking up the cycle of life along the riverbanks I was telling you about, the sheer weight of the thing is the problem. It’s actually causing earthquakes.”
“Earthquakes! I should…” Meg returned the tissue to her bag, grateful for the switch to a lighter topic and more than a little relieved she hadn’t burst into hysterics, again. What an effect all this was having on her! “I should think something like that would be all over the news.”
“The tragedies of third-world countries have never been first choice topics for the nightly news.” He helped her over another rockslide. “Which is exactly why my father started the Adventure Company in the first place. To familiarize people with people instead of problems.”
“The human connection. I quite agree. I’m…” She realized he didn’t let go of her hand after she stepped down. “I’m trying to make something of a human connection myself with this film project.”
“Probably why you caught his attention. Pop’s always been a soft touch for anyone trying to reach for something.”
“And you?”
“I’m usually the one who has to follow up behind him and make things work.”
She self-consciously pulled her hand free and offered him her umbrella. “Would you mind?” She searched through her bag for the digital camera. “I’d really like to get some pictures of this steamy fog before it all drifts away.”
His only answer was to close the umbrella and hang it from one of the straps on his backpack as he walked along.
“Tell me”—she stopped to look through the lens—”What was your reason for wanting Mary Kingsley as a film subject?”
“Love of the human spirit, I guess,” he replied. “What it’s capable of. I’ve got an insatiable interest in heroes of any kind. Seems to be a shortage of them these days.”
She filled a frame with Tom’s hat and the back of his head as he continued walking, and then snapped a picture when he turned around to see what she was doing.
“Pretty handy with that thing.”
“This camera has been one of my best friends for a long time.” She took a few pictures of the steaming trees and then caught up to him. “What made you settle on Mary Kingsley?” She took the umbrella, again.
“Well, a little over two years ago, I happened to be killing some time during a layover in London, waiting to connect up with my film crew. We were headed down here to shoot a documentary about the gorillas of the Cameroons.” He glanced down through a brief opening in the nearby brush below them and then pointed. “Look, the hippos seem to be traveling along with us, but it’s the same bend, actually. We’ve just come around to the other side of it.”
Meg stopped to watch for a moment. “Am I seeing things…or is that really a pink one down there?”
“You can see that far away without your glasses?”
“Far away I can see perfectly. It’s close up I have problems.”
“Ah, so, that’s it. Well, the younger ones can be that shade, sometimes. They grow out of it though.”
“It’s…oh, it’s just the most amazing place I’ve ever been!”
He laughed at the exclamation, and it suddenly seemed to be the most pleasant sound Meg had heard in a long time. “You’re awfully easy to please, Meg,” he said. “A good sport, too, considering everything I’ve dragged you through.”
“If you still think that at the end of all this,” she replied as they continued on. “I’ll believe you. Now, go on with your story, please. You were killing some time in London.”
“So I thought I’d take in the Royal Geographical Society’s Africa collection. Anyway, I saw this hat. A strange-looking, battered, fur thing that didn’t even have a brim. Of no use under any African sun, in my estimation, and there it sat in a place of honor all by itself. Well—”
He steered her clear of another swampy spot that she would have stumbled right into because she had been staring up at him instead of the road. Of course she knew about that hat. Mary Kingsley’s hat. Knew about it and wanted to see it with all of her heart.
“Knowing how great a value the Africans place on respect”—he went on—”I suddenly wanted to know everything there was to know about a woman whose very hat was enough to inspire awe. Turned into something of an obsession for me. Been driving the rest of the crew crazy with it ever since.”
“How so?”
“For wanting to veer off the present and dip into the past, I guess. Like I said, historical biographies are a dime a dozen in this business. Especially, if you don’t have something new to tack on.”
****
The wisps of fog finally began to disappear, and by ten o’clock, they had been walking in the direct sunlight for quite some time. And even though they came under another leafy canopy, again, the heat was stifling. Meg’s boots (practically new because she bought them expressly for filming) were starting to give her blisters. Just when she felt the most incredible urge to sit down on the riverbank, even if she couldn’t stick her feet in the water, Tom motioned her over to the side of the road.
“Better sit on this and rest for a while.” He set the duffel down for her. “As beautiful as they are, lounging on riverbanks around here isn’t too enjoyable. Most of them are infested with ants.”
He was reading her mind, again.
He handed her one of the remaining water bottles from his backpack, and brought out the last orange, along with the cheese and crackers. They had been talking nearly non-stop, and it wasn’t until the silence of taking a long drink of water that Meg suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of something large moving through the trees a short distance away. A tremor of fear rippled through her. She glanced up at Tom. But he ignored it, intent only on drinking the entire bottle of water down at one time.
He seemed very much at home in this environment. Almost as if being out in such places suited him more than suits or crowded cities. Still, no matter how strong and fit he looked, she wasn’t at all certain he could overcome an enraged lion or elephant, should they happen to run into one. Whether or not this was lion and elephant country, she had no idea. But her imagination was working overtime.
“Tom, do you”—Meg handed him half the orange she had just nervously peeled—”Do you have a gun in that backpack?”
“Of course not. You can’t carry guns on commercial planes these days.”
“But how are we going to protect ourselves if some wild animal charges us?”
“They’re more afraid of us than we are of them. You know they actually try to avoid people? Besides,”—he sat on the ground next to her—“ of all the times I’ve been here, I’ve never needed one. And I’m too much of a conservationist to enjoy hunting.”
After that brief rest, they continued on for what seemed like hours. They talked about any and every subject that entered their minds and were continually surprised at how many things they had in common. They both had aggressive fathers and adoring mothers. Except Tom’s mother was French (no wonder he spoke the language so perfectly). His grandmother still lived just outside Paris, but his mother had spent years in the States, even before she married the professor.
When the road began to pitch into a steep decline, Meg found it easier to close the umbrella and use it as a walking-stick rather than shade. She felt oddly unsteady all of a sudden. What was the problem? She loved hiking. Could walk for miles without getting tired. But there was Tom Anderson walking along beside her as if it were a couple of cool blocks in a park, while she suddenly felt eighty years old. Well, she wasn’t going to say a word. Not one word. Better to ignore it and keep talking.
“The professor must know a lot of influential people around here if he can just call up somebody to take him wherever he wants to go in a private plane.”
“Pop has a lot of friends everywhere. He’s like a magnet that way. Besides, it was about the only thing he could do without money or a passport. I just can’t figure out why he ditched Gilbert. Seemed for a while they had ironed out their differences. But where the devil does that put Gilbert? He should have called in by now. Or at least left another message. We’re out of range with all these trees and hills, though, so we’ll have to wait until town to find out.”
“Strange being in the back regions of Africa and seeing so many people with cell phones. You would think they would need more consistent electricity.”
“They’re pretty ingenious about that,” he replied. “You’ll see when we have to film in some of the more remote places. There are street vendors set up to charge them off car batteries.”
Meg might have been more properly impressed if he hadn’t sent something of a thrill through her at the mention of filming in remote places. Maybe he really had meant what he said about working on her Mary Kingsley film…with a real film crew, yet! As if she wouldn’t gladly trade a voodoo tour (she had plans of skipping out of the voodoo parts, anyway) for an experience like that. Maybe that’s what had attracted the professor to her, too. Hadn’t he been unusually interested in her cameras? And if Tom had been talking to him all along about Mary Kingsley…well, it was no wonder he…
“Do you want to rest, again, Meg?” He broke into her thoughts. “You should be careful in this heat until you get used to it.”
“I do feel a bit lightheaded. But let’s just get this over with. Besides, maybe we won’t have to do the whole eight miles. I think I smell smoke somewhere...do you?”
“Hopefully, it’s the road crew.”
“Tom, you...well, you don’t suppose we’ll run into any unsavory characters, do you? The kind who like to rob stranded people like us, on the road?”