Just Deserts
“I can confidently say I am not afraid of any wild animal—until I see it—”
Mary Kingsley
Meg felt a delightfully cool breeze against her face and opened her eyes. The gossamer net she had let loose around her bed the night before wafted gently before a scene of breathtaking beauty. Two white French doors stood open onto a balcony that overlooked a garden of fruit trees and colorful, sweet-scented flowers before giving way to the rainforest that surrounded it. Beyond that, one could just make out the ridge of hills they had flown over last night to reach what was fondly referred to as the Little De Ambe, the luxurious residence of Aram Fada, descendant of warrior kings.
She sighed and stretched deliciously in the wide, comfortable bed with smooth sheets, and then caught her breath when she moved against the solid form of someone sleeping beside her. What on earth? She turned over and came face-to-face with a disgruntled, full-grown leopard lying there.
Whether it was an awakening yawn or a snarl that sent a ripple of hot breath into her face, she had no idea. Instinctively, she slid back toward the edge of the bed, trying not to give way to panic…only to be stopped by the rubbing of a massive, but affectionate head against her shoulder.
She realized then that the throaty sounds were not snarls, but only the beginnings of an increasingly steady purr. When the large cat leaned an insistent head into her again, Meg noticed a thick leather collar with the word Sheba burnt into it, and realized she was only having an encounter with a house-pet.
“Nice, Sheba...” She scratched between the large ears (it was like running fingers through carpet!) and got up slowly, picked up her string bag under a nearby nightstand, and found a piece of gum. “Mmmm...want this?” Meg unwrapped it before waving it under the animal’s nose and then gave the collar a tentative pull. The huge cat obediently jumped down from the bed and followed her. “Go get it and it’s yours.”
She tossed the gum out into the hallway and then quickly closed the door after the cat went out after it. A mansion on a hill was the last place she would have expected to encounter a leopard! But as it was, nothing about this trip had gone as she thought it would. It occurred to her then that if she had known even half what she would run into in Africa, she never would have had the nerve to leave home.
But she had.
Now, the most sparkling possibilities lay ahead of her, and just thinking about them caused a thrill to pass through her. Not only was she going to return with the film footage she came for, but also with the most wonderful man in the world to help her put it together. Truly, he was her perfect match. The one whose existence she had stopped believing in because of her own quirky ambitions. Of all things, to have met him here on this road to her destiny that she had waited so long to step onto.
It was only the beginning of that road, but he had been waiting for her there. Meg didn’t know when, or if, they would ever see the perfection they were heading for. Then, again, maybe perfection was something that came one step at a time, like so many other things in life. The important part was that, for herself, she was finally sure she was on the right road. The one Tom had called the “glory road.” She knew, now, that if everything could feel so perfect at this moment, then she would be perfectly content to travel along that path with him “from glory to glory” for as long as it took, to wherever it might take them.
Starting with today.
This morning, she was invited to join the family for breakfast on the terrace overlooking the river. There they would finally be able to sort things out and make decisions amongst themselves before the authorities arrived for a more formal inquiry. An impromptu “family conference” Tom had called it, which had been the governing tradition for the Andersons ever since he could remember, he said. It would begin casually at breakfast, but not in earnest until all were present.
Meg quickly traded the colorful nightgown she’d borrowed from Miriam last night, for her own crinkle-cloth dress and sandals. The one in various shades of beige and cream that she had brought along (for the gala dinners) because it was not only cool, but could be crammed into a duffel or purse and still look wonderful weeks later. Her duffel had arrived, to her great relief, sometime early this morning, when Eddie’s jeep had been returned.
But just as she was twisting her hair up into the clip, she heard a thump, sounds of a scuffle, and a sudden, rather desperate yell from across the hall. Meg hurried to open her door in time to see Gilbert Minelli pinned to the floor by Sheba. Only a friendly pin, she realized, because the animal was merely licking his freshly-shaven face. However, he sent up a loud howl when the huge white cast that now surrounded his left foot was accidently stepped on.
Meg quickly reached for the leather collar and tried to pull and coax Sheba away just as a young house steward hurried up to them and took over. He made a clicking noise with his tongue to which the large cat immediately responded, and Gilbert wasted no time in trying to crawl away.
“Help me outta here, girlie,” he replied to Meg’s helping hand, “and you gotta friend for life!”
“Please to excuse, sah!” the steward apologized as he hustled the animal down the hallway. “She is missing breakfast because we are late in the kitchen with so many companies!”
Meg helped Gilbert back into the room, but no amount of coaxing after that, could persuade him to come out again. He was going to lock the door, sleep the day away, and have meals sent in from the kitchen. Meg reminded him there were a few things he would have to answer to, sooner or later, but she agreed to make his amends to the group. Which she didn’t mind one bit. Because even though Tom had not been so disgusted with the bodyguard that he would leave him stranded in a foreign jail, Meg wasn’t so sure a few days behind bars wouldn’t have done wonders for such an obnoxious attitude.
But perhaps she should reserve judgment until she heard the whole story.
So, she continued alone down the long marble hallway with guest rooms on either side, all the way to the end, where another set of French doors opened up onto a wide, stone terrace that overlooked a portion of winding, milk-chocolate river. The air was cool and refreshing at this hour and elevation. A short distance away waited an elegantly laid table with a white cloth and fine china, where the Anderson men had already gathered.
Tom rose from his chair as soon as he saw her and met her before she even finished coming down the steps. He was wearing his khaki vest over a blue shirt. His hair looked as if he had just run a hand through it, and his hat hung on the back of a chair...all tell-tale signs that he had already been out and about somewhere.
“Sleep well, priss?” He smiled and brushed the side of her face with a kiss. “You look beautiful this morning. Come have some breakfast. Aram Fada’s hospitality is legendary around here. But he’s in De Ambe dealing with the last of these tribal difficulties, at the moment.”
“I hope we’ll get to see him, and not just enjoy the hospitality. Good morning, Professor. And...” She sat down in a chair Tom pulled out for her, and looked up in time to catch a winning smile from Bobby, along with a mischievous grin from John. “Gentlemen.”
“Best morning I’ve had in a week, my dear,” replied the professor as he added a heaping spoon of sugar to his coffee. “Let me tell you.”
“That’s good,” said Meg. She blew softly on the coffee Tom had just poured for her and took a sip. Delicious. “Because you have a lot of explaining to do to clear my slate with Tom.”
“I’m pleased the two of you met. Saw right off you were alike as two people could be. It’s why I had your ticket changed to first class. Didn’t mean to get you mixed up in all this, though, my dear. I was just trying to figure out a way I could introduce you to Tom. That is, before I realized what a pickle I’d got myself into and had to enlist a bit of your help.”
“Well, it was some introduction, Professor. He’s been literally dragging me from one end of this country to the other for days, now.”
“That’s my boy!” The professor chuckled at the vivid picture. “Something needs to be done, he does it.”
Meg brought him back to the subject. “I believe it was not showing up when you should have, and then saying you’d been robbed that set him off.”
“Oh, Gilbert was the one who implied that,” he replied impatiently. “But considering I was out everything you took, I believed him. Strange thing about that, though. Without a passport they couldn’t take me out of the country, so they had to smuggle me in with the tour group from the east border, just behind the reserve. Even though I was half knocked out most of the time, it delayed their plans just long enough for you to find us. Gilbert almost got a message through once on the cell phone, yesterday, but it cut off.” He twisted around in his seat and looked back toward the French doors. “Where is that nincompoop, anyway? We have a lot to straighten out before the commissioner gets back.”
“I’m supposed to make his apologies because he won’t be joining us,” answered Meg.
There was a spark of irritation in Tom’s eyes. “He’ll join us if I have to…”
“Go easy on him, Tom,” said Bobby. “If it hadn’t been for him spilling the whole plot to Eddie when he did, we wouldn’t have got everybody here in time.”
“He did it out of self-preservation. He admitted it.”
“The point is, he did it,” said the professor. “What’s more, if he hadn’t knocked Sol Horn on his ear, that psychic wouldn’t have escaped to tell Meg where we were. As it was, the whole thing went off like it was”—he continued to stir thoughtfully as he chose the right word— “orchestrated.”
“Definitely a series of divine footprints,” muttered Meg.
“Pop doesn’t believe in any of that stuff.” John reached across the table for a bowl of cream cheese and spread it thickly over a fresh croissant.
“I do now, my boy. I’ve personally seen too blasted many of them over the last few days to deny it. Awfully glad you stuck with it, Meg. Not many people would go so far for a stranger.”
“You never felt like a stranger, Professor. A bit overwhelming, maybe, but…”
“You mean you’re finally going to agree with us, Pop?” John set the croissant back on his plate without taking a bite and looked over at his father with the wide-eyed wonder of a youth that had only just passed.
“Well...” The professor slid his chair back from the table and reached into a pocket for his pipe. It wasn’t there. “Blast…” He reached for a glass of tomato juice, instead. (Or, was it a Bloody Mary?) “Let’s just say I agree to look into the matter further.”
“That’s a start, anyway,” said Tom.
“Which is exactly what I said to Vidalia, yesterday.” Meg pointed out. “And here it is less than twenty-four hours since then, and she’s already headed out on a divine trail of her own.”
“That crazy psychic nearly got me walloped, again, on the way to Ouagadougou.” The professor complained. He finished off his drink and set the empty glass down with a disgusted thump. “Kept talking to me when I was pretending to be passed out. No, you can’t convince me she would take the slightest interest in any footprints other than her own.”
“The Lord meets us where we are, Professor,” Meg said. “Even psychics.” She took a small plate of bright orange fruit Tom passed to her. “And you’re quite right. She is following her own. Rather a good strategy on the Lord’s part, if you ask me, considering almost anyone is interested in themselves, wouldn’t you say?”
“I say it’s impossible to follow your own footsteps,” he replied.
“Unless you’re a psychic,” said Bobby, and then winked at Meg from across the table.
She cast another glance at the tanned, well-chiseled features of the familiar face she was already predisposed to trust because of the many Adventure Company shows she had watched (that would definitely take some getting used to!). But it helped that a few strands of his dark hair fluttered slightly against his forehead in the morning breeze as he looked back at her with that same intensity that all the Andersons seemed to share.
“Not if you’re backtracking,” she clarified. “I talked to her less than an hour ago, and she is taking a train to Accra this afternoon, where she will then be high-tailing her way home to her husband as fast as she can. Seems he wired her the money instead of abandoning her to her deeds. But I don’t think we’ve heard the last of her, so I’ll keep you posted.” She stared for a moment at the piece of sliced fruit on her fork, trying to figure out if it was a peach or a…
“Mango,” whispered Tom. Then he reached into his shirt-pocket and handed over her glasses.
“Where on earth!” Meg marveled happily as she put them on.
“Man who drove the jeep back was wearing them on top of his head, this morning. Said he was your good Christian brother, so he sold them to me at a discount.”
“My good Christian brother! His idea of helping was to turn me over to the very people I was trying to get away from. Honestly, this is the most deceitful place I’ve ever been to! Nobody thinks twice about lying, cheating, or even stealing as…as an everyday way of life around here.”
“Sounds like modern day America, doesn’t it?” Bobby commented. “At least most of these people have avoided our habit of being so secretive about it all. They’re a happy-go-lucky lot by nature. Makes things more tolerable.”
“I suppose,” Meg replied. “It does make for difficulties in judgment, though. Look at Eddie. One hardly knows which side he’s on, much less how to figure out what he’s up to from one moment to the next.”
“Eddie is on his own side, mama,” came the voice of Eddie Campbell from behind them as he stepped down onto the terrace. He had bare feet and an open white shirt that had obviously been tucked into his jeans in a hurry. Then he smiled the gracious smile of a host and said, “Good morning, my friends, and welcome to Little De Ambe!”
He sat down with them and continued. “It is one of the benefits of being the son of warrior kings. One gets to do with people whatever and whenever he chooses. Ah, but it pleasures me to be a man of justice...which I will remember when you are all put on trial, today!”