16.

Vera’s journey was delayed for an hour when it was discovered that the tracks had been undermined by digging animals for reasons no one could fathom. The crew onboard had had to make repairs before they could continue on their way toward Lake Victoria. By the time Vera and her motley group descended at Naivasha, it was dark.

As they stood on the platform, the two engines pulled the train away into the primeval darkness, throwing up red sparks like a miniature fireworks display. Once the train’s headlight and lanterns had gone, the station and its surroundings were barely visible. Naivasha consisted of a sad collection of grass and wattle shacks and the boma of the local tax collector, which included some huts inhabited by his crew of ragtag Indian and native guards. No one had alighted other than Vera and her Kikuyu companions.

The Indian stationmaster lit their way with a single oil lamp. Ngethe Meru’s village was three miles away, too far to travel by night. The collector, a Welshman in his cups, staggered out and offered Vera a place in his dwelling. Vera did not think it merited the name “house.” As politely as she could, she declined his hospitality. She went instead with her Kikuyu into the one-room station. The Indian asked again if she would not feel more comfortable with the B’wana Collector, but she assured him she preferred to stay in the station.

He brought her and the others some roasted pumpkin, some lovely, chewy Indian bread, and for her alone a crockery bottle of lemonade and quinine water. He left her the oil lamp and went off to his own supper. She had Muiri unpack a camp bed for her and lay down fully dressed to wait for dawn.

*   *   *

The next morning while Vera was making her way to the nearby native village and the hut of Ngethe Meru, Justin Tolliver was sixty-five miles away, as the crow flies. In this case it would have been a pied crow of the horn of Africa, whose black-and-white markings nearly resembled the formal dinner dress favored by the British around well-set tables in Nairobi and Mombasa—as if the diners were in London or Bombay.

Having passed a largely sleepless night, Tolliver was barely awake when Denys Finch Hatton arrived with his tracker and a miraculously well-equipped entourage of porters and gunbearers. Tolliver’s good luck in having such a crew would have overjoyed him if he had not immediately contrasted it with the paucity of comfort and safety that Vera was likely to be experiencing. He had to get to her as quickly as possible and still look as if he was pursuing Newland. If his luck held, it would all be one and the same thing.

He tried his best to rush Finch Hatton away before the interloper learned anything of Vera’s whereabouts, but he failed at that, too. Blanche McIntosh greeted Denys warmly and told him immediately how sorry Vera would have been to miss him, but that she was away visiting a friend at Fort Hall.

And as soon as Mrs. McIntosh left them, Denys immediately guessed the truth of where Vera had actually gone.

“What, if anything, do we know of the Newland party’s direction?” Finch Hatton asked.

“They left from Nyeri,” Tolliver said, trying his best to sound as cooperative about it as he knew he had to be under the circumstances.

Finch Hatton discussed the matter with Kinuthia in Maasai. Libazo whispered to Tolliver that the tracker was saying that if they trekked twelve hours a day, they would reach Nyeri in three days. Vera was a day ahead of them, so they would have to make at least eighteen hours a day if they were going to catch her up before she got anywhere near the Newland party.

As it happened, at the same time, Vera was assessing her own possible speed and reaching a far less optimistic conclusion. Her guide, once she arrived in his village, turned out to be a disappointment. Ngethe Meru was still a legend, but he was now a man well past his prime. Vera worried that she would burst into tears when she saw that he was no longer the vital, powerful person she remembered. She had last seen him when she was fourteen. In the five years while she was blossoming into full womanhood, he had sunk all too quickly into old age.

Africans revered the elderly for their wisdom and experience. She prayed those qualities would make up for the stamina he certainly would lack. Enthusiasm he had aplenty. He immediately agreed to go with her. He longed for an opportunity to return to his former life trekking through the wilderness, but he had few chances of it anymore because what safari parties there were looked for fitter men with keener eyes.

Worst of all, Vera was astonished to find that the terrain around Naivasha was mountainous. All she knew of the route of the Newland party was that they had gone first to Nyeri and that they intended to end up at Berkeley Cole’s farm. But to get from where she was to Nyeri in a straight line would take them over some very high hills and rough areas. Ngethe said they would have to skirt the highest peaks, which would mean a longer distance than Vera had anticipated from the map she had consulted. Ngethe estimated two or three days, which seemed an eternity to her. But Ngethe made ready very quickly and took with him seven stalwart warriors armed with swords and spears, and that made Vera feel a bit better.

Their party proceeded. Their route took them through forested areas, largely in the shade, making it easier for them to keep moving through midday. But by around two in the afternoon, Ngethe was so tired that Vera wished she had a wagon for him to ride on. But that would have needed oxen. Impossible under the circumstances.

With a sigh, she slowed her pace, walking along beside him. All she could do was pin her hopes on the fact that the Newland party was out to hunt, and therefore they would stop sometimes for days in the same place. In the meanwhile, she vowed to do her best and take in the scene around her. After all, travel through the wilderness was one of her greatest pleasures. The marvels here—the birds, the monkeys, even the ill-tempered baboons—would ordinarily be entertainment enough. She hung her binoculars around her neck and tried to welcome the stops where Ngethe had to nap in the shade for a while before he could go on. They gave her the chance to look about her at the scenery while she rested her own legs.

*   *   *

As it happened, Tolliver marched his party until night fell completely and darkness made movement inadvisable. The crescent moon was waxing, but it gave them insufficient light. Torches would not suffice. The starlight was beautiful, but with nothing else to light their way, the territory was treacherous.

Tolliver was up at first light and pushing them to make tracks. Under these conditions, thirteen or fourteen hours would be their maximum. The loveliness of his surroundings warred with the turmoil of his thoughts. He comforted himself by imagining that one day he and Vera would enjoy peace and harmony in these places. But even those thoughts led to more and bitter imaginings. Was she rushing ahead of him to warn Newland that his guilt had been discovered? What he longed for was to take her in his arms and love her. But was he going to be forced to arrest her as an accessory to murder? That phantom kiss she had bestowed on him lingered in his thoughts and made him wish he could fly and find her.

Vera and Ngethe Meru and their group arrived at Nyeri at midday and continued on after only a brief respite. They were making good time despite Ngethe’s slow pace and her blistered feet. She would push their pace as fast as she could without harming Ngethe, not rest until she had found her brother safe and was nearby to keep him so.

The old tracker proved his mettle in picking up signs of the Newland group only a few leagues out of town. He knew the habits of the safari men and how to find good spots for shooting game. He guessed Newland’s tracker and gunbearers also knew the best way to take, and he was right.

Passing through Nyeri the next morning, Tolliver learned from the local people that Vera had left the town not twenty-four hours before. The trail that Kinuthia picked up just after noon was not that of the Newland party but Vera’s. As they followed, the tracker confirmed that Vera was on the right trail. Older indications showed that an even larger party had come the same way two weeks or more ago.

Tolliver was relieved. Whoever was guiding Vera had the right skills. Then he wondered if she herself were capable of reading the earth like a tracker. He did not like the idea that she might have such a manly talent that he did not possess.

*   *   *

While Tolliver was wondering what it would be like to be in love with a woman who knew more than he, Ngethe was convincing Vera that they should take a brief detour. Ngethe reckoned that the Newland party would have lingered on the plain that surrounded them, since game was so plentiful here and the little river would give them an ample source of water. There was a high outcropping across the river. Though the Newland party had not crossed here, he proposed that they do so. He wanted to climb the tor. The view from the top would allow them to look out a long, long distance. At dusk, they would very likely be able to see the bonfire Newland’s guides would use to signal the position of their camp. Then all they would have to do was to make straight for the camp. If they did not see a fire, then they could easily come back, recross the river, and pick up the Newlands’ trail again. Vera welcomed any shortcut that had a chance of getting her to Otis faster.

So they crossed the river.