‘Are you sure you’re okay, Makena?’ her father asked for the third time. ‘You have been waiting for this day for so many years, I predicted I’d have to restrain you from flying up the mountain like a helium balloon. Instead you are quiet. Were you able to sleep? Did you wake me last night because you were afraid of the hyenas or did I dream that?’
‘You dreamed it, Baba,’ lied Makena. ‘If I was restless it was because I was a little cold.’
‘A little? Then you are stronger than I am. The night frosts are vicious. A famous professor by the name of Hedberg once said that on equatorial mountains such as Mount Kenya it can be “summer every day and winter every night”. Hopefully, your bush hot water bottle kept you warm.’
‘It helped so much. Sorry if I’m not talking, Baba. I’m trying to take everything in so I never forget it.’
That part was true. The steep, muddy descent to the River Kathita was already lodged in her memory. In the arc of her father’s headlamp, the ripples and eddies had been as black-gold as an oil slick. The current had sucked at her legs. Stepping from rock to slimy rock in five a.m. darkness had been heart-stopping too, but in a good way. It was the kind of adventure she’d always longed for.
At first light they’d passed the Rutundu Log Cabins where Prince William had proposed to Kate Middleton. Makena tried telling herself that nothing evil could happen in a place where future princesses accepted marriage proposals, but the sense of foreboding that had gripped her since her nightmare clung to her like a snakeskin.
She was tempted to feign an injury and end their expedition right there. What if the dream had been a premonition? But her father had chosen that moment to turn to her with a smile.
‘I’m so glad you are here with me, daughter. I’ve waited eleven years to share my mountain with you. I thought this day would never come.’
Feeling guilty, Makena looped her arm through his and walked with more enthusiasm up the rocky trail.
As the sun rose, it revealed a moorland landscape of staggering beauty. Apple-green Erica, taller than Makena and speckled with tiny pink flowers, carpeted the slopes. A Verreaux’s eagle, the most regal hunter in all of Kenya, wheeled overhead.
Watching the black eagle calmed Makena. She tried to keep it in sight. Her father crunched along the path beside her. ‘My Scottish clients tell me that the moors and tarns on Mount Kenya remind them of the Highlands and lakes in their own country. They don’t call them lakes, though. Their word is “loch”.’
All Makena knew about Scotland was that the men wore tartan skirts and everyone ate haggis, which her mother had explained was a combination of cow’s stomach lining stuffed with sheep’s heart, liver and lungs and oatmeal, a much-loved national dish. Makena, a vegetarian, had been in no hurry to visit the country.
Now she revised her opinion. If the Scottish Highlands were anything like this, they must be close to heaven.
At Lake Rutundu, a rowing boat was waiting for them. Makena clutched at its sides as her father pushed off from the shore. The wooden seat felt chilly beneath her trousers. Jurassic trout glided through the clear shallows beneath the boat’s peeling hull.
Breakfast was peanut butter and jam sandwiches, a bruised banana and a flask of chai out on the water. The lake was so still the boat barely shivered beneath them. They bobbed in the reflection of the mountain, an extinct stratovolcano that was over three million years old.
Her father was in his element. ‘My ambition is to have a view like this when me and your mama retire. I’m not in love with cities. I have no wish to become a millionaire. I want to grow old looking out at mountains and water.’
Makena dropped her crusts overboard. A quicksilver shoal shot up to snatch the crumbs.
‘Which is the best mountain, Baba – Kilimanjaro or Mount Kenya?’ She knew the answer but never tired of hearing it.
He scoffed. ‘Kili is a giant hill, easy for mzungu tourists. Mount Kenya is a real mountain.’
‘But Kilimanjaro is the highest in Africa. It’s close to six thousand metres. Mount Kenya is only five thousand one hundred and ninety-nine metres.’
‘Yes, but before it erupted Mount Kenya’s original crater was a thousand metres higher, making it the highest in Africa.’
Using her sleeping bag as a pillow, Makena lay back and mentally mapped the route they’d be taking to Lake Alice. It was a tough but straightforward hike via Rutundu Hill. What could go wrong? What was it that her intuition was trying to warn her of?
‘Do you ever get scared when you’re on the mountain, Baba? Have you ever been afraid of dying?’
‘Once. I was climbing the Diamond Couloir, an icy gully that splits the Southwest face. You start with eight metres of overhanging rock, dry-tooling. Dry-tooling is—’
‘—When you climb a rock face with an ice axe and using crampons or rock shoes,’ finished Makena.
He laughed. ‘I always forget – you are already a mountaineer in theory. All you need is some practice. So anyway, I got through the hard part – the overhanging section – easy enough. But halfway up the couloir, a chunk of ice calved. That’s what they call it when seracs fracture: calving. I felt the draught of its passing. If I hadn’t shaved, the serac would have done it for me. Hakuna Matata. No worries. I am here to tell the tale.’
‘You could have died, Baba!’
‘But I didn’t. Instinct told me that all was not well on the mountain that day. I was on the look-out for disaster and I was ready for it. Each climber has his or her rules of mountaineering and those must become second nature. Ignoring them, forgetting them, can cost you your life.’
‘What are your rules, Baba?’
‘You know them better than I do, Makena.’
Still he ticked them off on his fingers. ‘Always triple-check the weather and your clothing and equipment before setting out to climb even the easiest or most familiar route. Do all you can to minimise risk. Keep the pace of the slowest person in your group. Listen to your body and your mind. For me, that’s number one. Trust your intuition.’
Infected with some unspecified terror, his daughter stayed silent beside him.
They moored on the far side of the lake. Her father took out his fishing rod. Makena set off to explore the shore. Lilies, herbs and blue delphinium lined the path. Proteas with velvety yellow flowers brushed her hands.
Birds sang and flitted. The alpine chats were so tame they barely moved out of her way. Jewelled sunbirds drank nectar from the gladioli. Red-winged starlings hunted through the lobella for snails.
It was every bit the mountain paradise Makena had imagined. She only wished that she felt better so she could enjoy it more. In a little while, she and her father would begin their two-hour hike up to Lake Alice and Ithangune Ridge. She’d waited for this day for so long. It seemed unfair that it had been tainted.
Through the reeds, she glimpsed a narrow beach. She wandered down and kneeled on the fine sand. Cupping her hands, she washed her face in the freezing tarn. It made her feel alive. She smiled at her own reflection.
A rustle of reeds set her pulse racing. The sunlight on the water cast dazzling shards of light. Through wet lashes, Makena saw a dark gold shape emerge from the greenery. A duck? A mongoose?
Reluctant to move in case she scared it, Makena became a statue. She tried not to breathe. The creature dipped its head and drank.
Makena blinked rapidly and her vision cleared. It was a bat-eared fox, backlit by the sparkling lake. There was no mistaking its bushy tail or the curving black ears that cupped its elfin, pointed face. Its golden brown fur was silky-soft. Makena was tempted to reach out and stroke it.
The fox lifted its head and turned a fearless gaze on her. There were diamond droplets in its whiskers.
‘Are you there, Makena?’ Baba came trampling through the reeds. ‘We’d better go if we want to reach Lake Alice before the Gates of Mist come down between Batian and Nelion.’
The fox fled and took the shadows with it. The most intense happiness Makena had ever known flooded through her.
‘Baba, Baba!’ She raced up the bank. ‘You won’t believe it. I saw a bat-eared fox. He was so close I could almost touch him. He was magical. Completely magical.’
‘A fox by the lake? I’m not so sure, Makena. I’ve never heard of any on the mountain. They tend to live on the plains, in dens with their families. Maybe it was a silver-backed jackal. They can look similar from a distance. Or perhaps a white-tailed mongoose.’
For a second Makena was thrown. Could it have been a jackal? But, no, she was positive. The shining fox had stared right at her. It had banished the gloom and given her back her joy.
‘It was a bat-eared fox with water diamonds in its whiskers. I’m a hundred per cent certain.’
He put his arm across her shoulders. ‘A bat-eared fox with water diamonds in its whiskers? If you say you saw it, that’s good enough for me. Seeing is believing, Makena. Seeing is believing.’