Rare Earth Page 3

  The formalities observed, Marc said, “I need to know what problem to attack next.”

  The elders seemed to have been expecting this very statement. There was a brief exchange, a low murmur as the clay pot made its way around the circle. Charles translated, “The younger women and the widows and the lonely grandmothers. They have a problem.”

  “The most helpless,” Marc said, showing he understood. “The ones with no man to protect them.”

  “The camp lacks many things, but the most serious need is cooking oil. There is firewood. The forest you see beyond the camp boundary has mostly died with the drought. But many of the women refuse to go. We are hearing tales.” Charles hesitated. “This is a sad thing.”

  “I am listening,” Marc said. He did not know what he was going to hear, but already his gut burned with live coals.

  “The elders suspect some of the men wait for the young women and demand sex in exchange for granting them passage. Some of these maidens refuse to enter the forest. They are starving, even when they now have grain.”

  Marc stood and made a process of dusting off his pants, trying to hide his rage. “I will see what I can do.”

  The elders had the same red-rimmed eyes as everyone else in the camp. They studied him carefully. The youngest finally spoke. Charles translated, “They wish to know your name.”

  “Marc Royce.”

  “They ask if you are a chief in your homeland.”

  “Sorry. No.” He turned to leave. “Just an accountant.”

  At a signal from the young chief, Charles remained where he was as Marc rose and departed. Gathered in this circle were eleven elders from five different tribes. Two were in fact not officially elders at all, merely those selected to speak. Only one was a true chief, of the Luo. He was the youngest, not yet forty. His name was Philip. Philip had taken this new name when he had turned to Christianity. His clan had been animist for over a thousand years, worshiping the sun and certain trees and the hill known in English as Kilimanjaro. Charles held this one in something akin to awe.

  The elder from the Ndebele tribe asked, “Truly, this newcomer is a man who looks at numbers?”

  “Why would he lie?” another replied.

  The clay pot was passed from hand to hand. Only a few drank. Among the tall tribesmen of the Rift plains, the pot would have been spiced with fresh cow’s blood. When it came to Charles, he dipped his nose into the pot’s opening, then passed it on. As a child, he had become physically ill merely from the odor. He still found it faintly nauseating. But he had learned to mask his distaste. He said, “Marc Royce genuinely cares for those affected by this latest trial.”

  “I sense this as well,” Philip said.

  The fact that Philip had spoken in agreement ended the discussion. One of the older men asked him, “Do you think he is the one?”

  “I only know what I dreamed,” Philip replied. “You have all heard this. Many times. Since the night a month and more before the eruption.”

  “Tell us again.”

  “A man arrives on a chariot. He enters through the camp’s front gates in the day’s high heat.”

  There was a respectful murmur, a rumbling deep in the chest. A Kikuyu elder called for a smoke. His senior wife approached, drawing a long-stemmed clay pipe from a pocket. She used a curved knife to pare shavings from a compressed plug of native tobacco. She lit a twig and puffed deeply before handing the pipe to him.

  Philip continued, “He halts the chariot and enters through the gates on foot.”

  “This the newcomer did not do,” an elder said.

  “Perhaps his entering on foot suggests a deeper meaning,” Charles offered. Any who are offered the pot might speak as an equal. “A symbol.”

  The eldest among them responded, “But a symbol of what?”

  “Humility, perhaps,” a third said. “Or a desire to be accepted.”

  There was no impatience, no need to press forward. The elders counted time by a different clock. The story was less important than understanding what role Marc Royce might play in the days to come.

  When the others went silent, Philip said, “Where he stepped, the ash disappeared. Grass shoots rose from the earth. And then I was lifted up. High as an eagle’s flight I rose. And far as I could see, all the earth bloomed. Trees whose limbs are now white as old bones bore fruit. As I awoke, I heard the maidens and the children singing the harvest song.”

  “It cannot be this one,” the eldest murmured. “A man who dwells in a room without windows and eats numbers as we would mealy bread. This one cannot bring the rain. This one cannot save our land.”

  “I saw what I saw,” the young chief replied.

  “Did you see his face?”

  “I did not.”

  The eldest among them held up one arm. His senior wife stepped forward and helped the man to his feet. He took the clay pot a final time, drank deeply, and smacked his lips. He leaned heavily on his cane as he started toward his hut. He said as he departed, “This new one will stay only as long as he can take money from our plight. He will count his winnings, and he will leave. Numbers are the white man’s fascination. He must fill the forms. He must count the heads. And when he goes, we will be as we are now. Seeking to survive another day.”

  Chapter Four

  The sunset was spectacular. Even the elders emerged from their huts to observe the pyrotechnics. The volcano’s plume became a fiery staff that challenged the heavens. To the southwest the descending ash formed a veil of glistening jewels.

  Throughout the camp Marc could see people watching. The medical staff gathered by the screens and murmured softly. Marc could not make out any faces, but he noticed Kitra’s slender form among them. Only Valerie, the French aid worker, remained unmoved by the sunset. Marc could see her sitting in the admin building.

  The mess hall was a long lean-to attached to the bunkhouse. Marc ate dinner with the others, but remained isolated by more than the generator’s constant grumble. Kitra ate with the medical personnel. The only time she showed an awareness of his presence was when one of the technicians stopped by Marc’s table. Kitra smoldered the air with her expression.

  After dinner Marc joined the drift toward the chapel. It was dark enough now for the candle by the sacristy to offer a soft defiance to the shadows. Sergeant Kamal and two of his men came. Camp dwellers filled the pews and then pressed in on all sides. The faces surrounding the chapel’s perimeter gradually faded into the night.

  Kitra and one of the other nurses were among the last to arrive. Marc noted with surprise as she joined in with the formal response and opening prayer. From her file Marc knew she was an Israeli Jew. He forced himself not to stare, and tried not to worry. For the file to miss such an important point left him worrying over what else might have been gone unnoticed.

  Charles looked very regal in his white robes. He spoke every sentence first in Swahili, then in another native tongue, then in English. Marc prayed for a time and afterward stared over the heads of the parishioners at the southern reaches. The volcano painted a sullen red glow beyond the horizon. Now and then it emitted a deep rumble, a drumbeat more felt than heard.

  He found himself thinking back to his last assignment, rescuing a group of Americans and an Iraqi who had been abducted in Baghdad. He recalled another dark-haired lady, with flashing eyes and a beautiful daughter and a heart big as the desert sky. Marc did not miss her so much as wish he had been ready to give what she had hoped to receive. But in the weeks that had followed his departure from Baghdad, he had come to realize he was not yet ready to love another woman. He no longer ached with the loss of his own wife. But as he sat and watched the Kenyan night envelop the gathering, he offered a silent prayer, asking God if he was ever meant to love again.

  When the service ended, Marc waited until the last villager departed before approaching Charles. “I need to ask your help once more.”

  “Let me remove my robes, and I am ready.” The service’s formal tone remained in hi
s voice. “Are you a believer?”

  “I am.”

  “Then we are joined by more than concern for the people of this camp, yes?”

  In the candle’s dim glow, Charles resembled a mystic from some ancient age, only partly connected to the harsher realities of here and now. “I’d like to think so.”

  Sergeant Kamal chose that moment to emerge from the shadows. Charles listened to the man’s rough burr, then translated, “The sergeant says he has a problem and hopes you can help.”

  “If I can, I will.”

  The pastor motioned them into the second pew. Marc seated himself next to Kamal while Charles slipped the white robes over his head and carefully folded them. His black T-shirt was stained with sweat. Marc asked, “Would it be impolite to ask how a sergeant commands a camp’s guard?”

  Charles seated himself so his legs extended into the aisle and he could face them. He spoke swiftly, then translated Kamal’s response, “There were a captain and two lieutenants. All had families housed in the UN military compound on the volcano’s eastern slope. They left to get their families to safety. They have not returned.”

  “His men are fortunate to have Kamal.”

  “As is the camp,” Charles agreed.

  Kamal nodded his thanks for the compliment and then launched into a longer discussion, which Charles translated, “He needs more men. Right now he has enough to patrol the central compound only. He keeps two men on the main gate, but otherwise the camp is not secure. The elders cannot maintain order in the camp without soldiers to give strength to their words.”

  “How many more does he need?”

  Kamal responded before Charles had completed his translation. “Ten for perimeter patrol. Twenty for the camp. Split into units of five.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” When Kamal started to rise, Marc said, “We have another problem, one that cannot wait.”

  As Marc described his discussion with the elders about the dangers the women are facing, Kamal’s features took on a bitter cast. He replied, “We have suspected this. But without more support, there is little we can do.”

  Marc said, “I have a plan.”

  Marc used the rudimentary shower, then dressed once more in the same sweat-stained clothes. He selected an empty bunk in the men’s chamber, stowing his carryall in the trunk at the bed’s foot. A lone ceiling bulb burned midway down the central aisle. Five ceiling fans drifted in lazy circles. Marc pulled the mosquito net around his bed and lay down. He could smell the bitter odor of disinfectant and hear bugs strike the screen by his head. In the distance, the generator chugged. Gradually the day’s tension released him. He watched the fan’s lazy orbit until he fell asleep.

  The night was strong and black when Kamal touched his shoulder. Marc slipped from the bed and followed him from the bunkhouse. They were joined by two other soldiers and Charles. Five was the standard number for nightly patrols. Any more would attract attention. Marc had disliked the idea of bringing the pastor along. But his plan required a translator.

  They took the central road and padded toward the main gate. Their boots squeaked softly in the ash. There was no moon. The camp was draped in a gentle myth of calm. Somewhere to his left a baby cried. Marc saw no one, but felt eyes on him at all times.

  Marc had no idea if the soldiers could be relied on. He disliked entering an ops situation with an unknown team. His life could well depend on them following orders. The sergeant seemed trustworthy enough. But Marc had only observed him within the central compound’s relative safety. If they faced a free-fire situation, which he imagined they probably would, he would have to take great care.

  They collected the two men on gate duty as they passed. At a signal from Kamal, they left the road and drifted into the woods. The trees all appeared dead to Marc, the limbs leafless and silver-gray in the starlight. But Marc had been in other arid places. He knew how such vegetation adapted to the absence of water. When rain fell once more, the entire world could flash into colorful and abundant life. Marc followed in Kamal’s footsteps, ducking under the occasional limb, and thought how much his own life resembled this landscape. Blanketed by ashes of regret and loss, waiting for that faint blessing of rain. Waiting.

  They were in position before the first light of dawn touched the east. The volcano’s rumble seemed stronger out beyond the camp’s relative safety, a noise filled with anger and phlegm, like the earth was clearing its throat. Kamal handed out energy bars and encouraged his men to drink. The two men off gate duty looked very tired after a night without sleep. But they joined in the soft banter and showed Marc feral grins. Wanting him to know they were ready.

  Kamal squatted down on Charles’s other side. His voice was a soft whisper, the sound of a hunting cat waiting on prey. Charles translated, “He misses the birdsong at dawn.”

  “It is quiet,” Marc agreed.

  “The birds and the rest of the game began leaving four years ago, when the rains failed. Each year the dawns have grown quieter.”

  “Four years without rain.”

  “Yes, so long. Now, with the volcano, the elders ask if the land will ever live again.”

  “Your family are farmers?”

  “Since the time before time.” Charles’s translation matched the sergeant’s rolling plainsong. “On a plateau above the Rift. We grow millet, corn, melons. Even a few almond trees. Some coffee. Good land.”

  “And yet you became a soldier.”

  Kamal flashed a rare grin. He was the only one of the team whose smile did not come easily. “One can love the land and not the life.”

  “There is much wisdom in what you say.”

  “Someday I will go back. Raise fat babies. The land is good for children.”

  “I wish you success with your dream.”

  “And you? What is the dream of a Western man in Africa?”

  “To be here.”

  Kamal’s hand swept slowly over the vista of dawn-lit ash. “I am thinking yours is a strange dream, to stand in the shadow of doom. I mean no offense.”

  “None taken.” It became increasingly easy to ignore the pastor’s translations. The American and the sergeant spoke in a cadence that was both friendly and extremely African. “I meant, I wish to be here. Helping others. Doing good in dangerous times. It is where I feel most alive.”

  One of Kamal’s men hissed a soft warning. Charles confirmed, “Here they come.”

  Chapter Five

  The slender shapes only took on true form when they were close enough for Marc to hear their voices. The women spoke anxiously, like the chirp of dawn birds. There were several dozen of them, most in their early teens. They remained close together, not quite touching, their fear evident in their unsteady gaits.

  The elders had done their job well. The previous evening, Marc and Charles and Kamal had approached them and explained the plan. How they needed a number of young women to go out with the dawn, enough from various parts of the camp to attract attention. The elders had responded with only two questions, and one command. The questions had been, would Kamal give his solemn oath to protect the young women, and would the American be with them. The command had been, only use their firearms as a last resort. Kamal had balked at the order, but the elders had remained adamant. Guns had decimated their world and way of life. Unless some attackers fired first, there would be no guns. Reluctantly Kamal had agreed. His men would carry only pistols, and keep them holstered.

  Behind the girls came a second group, moving slowly. In the gathering light, Marc saw that many were little more than children. With them came the widows. The old women set the pace, some leaning heavily on the young ones.

  And behind them lurked the wolves.

  Marc saw them rise up like phantom beasts on two legs. Kamal hissed to his men and pointed.

  The closest girl heard Kamal and froze in the process of picking up a dead branch, her eyes wide and glistening in the gray dawn. To Marc she appeared like a nymph of a mythic age. Their eyes locked. Her
defenseless terror gripped him so tightly his rage ignited.

  Then one of the small girls in the second group spotted the predators and squealed.

  “Now!” Marc rose and bolted forward. The young girl screamed, but he was already past her, threading his way through the group, heading for danger.

  Kamal appeared at his right, flying gazelle-like, his boots pushing up tiny clouds of ash. The sergeant found the breath to shout an order. Marc assumed he was telling his men to spread out.

  The wolves paused, caught off guard by the soldiers’ sudden appearance. Two attackers bolted for the camp and safety. But that still left a far larger group than Marc’s paltry band. The leader of the gang yelled words that required no translation. Marc took aim straight at him.

  The leader crouched in hungry anticipation and yelled a second time. His voice was hoarse. His two closest mates took up station on either side. Marc’s initial thought was confirmed. These were not merely young toughs. They were either former soldiers or criminals. They were trained for the assault.

  But they did not appear to be armed. Which was as Marc had expected. Why bear guns when their prey was simply women from the camp? To carry arms would mean revealing themselves to the guards by the gate.

  Two of the attackers facing Marc hefted staves from the deadwood littering the ground. The leader motioned at Marc and crooned softly. His mates laughed and whistled and made smacking sounds.

  Marc knew they expected him to hesitate, to show caution at their greater numbers. Instead, he bulled straight in. There was a brief instant when surprise registered on the leader’s face, a tightening of the skin, a warping of the scar rising from his jawline. Then Marc struck.

  He slipped easily under the right-hand attacker’s swing. He was then too close for the staves to do any good, as they risked striking one of their own. He uncoiled so fast the leader probably did not even see the two strikes, a fist to the point over his heart and another to the jaw’s hinge. The man was unconscious before he was fully aware of having been hit.