A Spear of Summer Grass - By Deanna Raybourn Page 0,66

be with Gates around. Moses waved goodbye from the pasture where he stood with the cattle, saluting his brother. Gideon lifted his spear in farewell and we were off.

We hiked down the Nairobi road some distance toward Rex’s place then turned abruptly down a narrow track of beaten earth.

“Where are we going?” I asked Ryder.

“Nyama Ranch. I need to see Tusker before we set out. We’ll need some men, and she’ll probably want to come along. She loves a good lion hunt.”

“She makes a habit of hunting lions?”

“Don’t look so surprised. She breeds racehorses, and lions are her biggest nuisance. She doesn’t bother with them until they come in and bother the horses. Same with leopards.”

I shuddered.

“What’s the matter, princess? Lost your taste for this? You can turn back now. I’ll have Gideon walk you home.”

“Absolutely not. That thing is a man-eater and I want to see it taken care of. It’s just easy to forget.”

He slowed a little, slanting me a curious look under the brim of his hat. “Forget what?”

“How vicious this place is. How life can just turn on a dime. My mother breeds horses, too, you know. She has a fine stable in England, and she says a hundred different things can kill her stock. She worries about bad water and bad food and hoof-and-mouth, but the one thing she doesn’t ever have to worry about is some damned cat clawing her horses to pieces in the middle of the night.”

“True, but does she have all this?” he asked, sweeping an arm out to take in the country before us. The flat savannah stretched for miles, dotted with thornbushes and acacia trees as it ran up to a tall purple escarpment in the distance. A herd of elephants grazed at the foot of the escarpment, heavy grey shadows moving in the bushes. Over it all, a dome of vast blue sky rose so high I got dizzy just looking up at it. Ryder moved on then, not waiting for an answer. I slowed to walk with Gideon. I smiled at him.

“You seem in very good spirits, Gideon. For a man that usually means a woman, but I’m guessing for a Masai man, it means a lion.”

“You begin to understand us, Bibi,” he said, returning the smile with interest.

“Gideon, I hope you don’t think me rude, but may I ask about the gap between your teeth? I’ve noticed most of the natives here have it.”

He put a finger to the space where his two lower teeth ought to have been. “They are pulled when we are very small children. Then when our second teeth come, these also are pulled. It is so we may be fed if we are sick with the lockjaw.”

It made perfect sense; it was actually a rather clever solution to the problem of tetanus. Most people who got it starved to death because they couldn’t take in food. Pulling the teeth at least meant there was a way to nourish them until the fever passed and the jaw muscles unclenched.

“But Moses’ teeth haven’t been pulled.”

It was as if a shutter came down over his eyes. “No, Bibi. It was his mother’s wish that he be left as he was born.”

“Why? If he gets tetanus, he’ll almost certainly die.”

“His mother would not mourn,” Gideon said, his tone edged in bitterness. “She is an unkind woman and her heart is closed. She does not love her son as she should.”

“You mean she’s content for him to die? Is it because he won’t speak?”

“No, Bibi. It is because of his leg. He was born with a twisted leg, and she was beaten very badly by our father for adultery. He said all of his other children were born straight and tall, and this child must not be his. His mother was very angry and her anger has turned against her son.”

“Was she telling the truth? Or had she committed adultery?”

“Both, possibly. She was caught with one of my brothers in age. This is a very bad thing. A woman may lie with her husband and sometimes with the men who were circumcised with him. But to lie with a man from another age group is a very bad thing indeed. My father beat her when he caught her. She says Moses is his son and already growing inside her when she lay with the other man and that it was my father’s beating that caused him to grow a twisted leg. My father beats her for