A Spear of Summer Grass - By Deanna Raybourn Page 0,75
Masai cloth about my shoulders. Gideon had presented it to me before trotting off to make a bed for himself under the trees, and I was glad of it. Nights on the plains could be cool.
“Delilah,” Ryder called as I reached my tent. I paused.
“Yes?”
He looked up from where he lounged, hands laced behind his head, legs crossed at the ankle.
“You might get scared,” he said evenly. “There are noises in the bush, scary things with teeth and claws that go bump in the night. You might need protecting. I could help with that.”
“Don’t worry,” I said sweetly. “I have my gun. If I hear anything coming toward my tent, I’ll just shoot first and worry about what it might have been later.”
He was still laughing when I shut myself in my tent.
The next morning we picked up the track again and it veered sharply south. Ryder was quiet, his mood solemn, and Gideon must have sensed it. He didn’t ask for poetry and I doubt he would have gotten any if he had. Ryder grew even quieter as we approached an outcropping of rock. Gideon fell back with the headman and the porters and together they kept to the track. Only Ryder struck off, heading straight toward the rocks. I followed him, and he slowed, matching his pace to mine. I did not ask where we were going. The rocks rose straight before us, grey and weathered, the only real landmark in this part of the savannah.
We stopped at the foot and I saw where a cross had been carved roughly into the rock. Ryder took off his hat as we moved close. He passed his hand over it, tracing the lines, first down, then across. He laid the flat of his hand over the stone, palm to rock, and remained that way for several minutes. Then he gave a great sigh and backed away to stand next to me. His hand brushed mine, but he did not reach for my fingers.
“Is this where your wife is buried?”
The question seemed to surprise him. “Eliza? No. This is my father’s grave.”
“Why is he here and not the churchyard?”
“Because this is where I killed him.”
He clapped his hat back onto his head and swung around to rejoin the group. I strode after him, matching him step for step. “You can’t just say something like that and walk off, you know. What happened?”
He took in a deep breath then blew it out slowly. “Elephant attack. He was hunting and got too close to a cow, the biggest female I’ve ever seen. Each tusk was two hundred pounds and he wanted the ivory for a trophy.” His jaw was set as he told the story, grinding out the words as if each one hurt to give. “He slipped as he made the first shot. She was on him before he could fire again. I shot her twice and she rolled to the side, but it was too late. She’d already torn him open from neck to groin. It was just a matter of time.”
“So you shot him to put him out of his suffering.”
“You can dress it up to sound noble, but the ugly truth is that I put a bullet straight between his eyes. I did it because he asked me to.” His gaze had gone flat and cold. “He wanted to do it himself, but she had crushed his fingers. He couldn’t pull the trigger on his own revolver.”
I shook my head. “Don’t tell me any more.”
“You asked, princess. Don’t you want to hear it all? Don’t you want to know that we fought just before he took that shot? I told him she was too close and he didn’t need another damned trophy. I called him an old fool. Those were the last words I said to him, you know. He asked me to kill him and I did it and I forgot to tell him I was sorry. I forgot to tell him I loved him. I forgot to tell him that everything I know about being a man I learned from him. I forgot everything I should have said, and then he was dead and it was too late. It will always be too late.”
I slipped my hand in his, and that small touch seemed to release something within him. The coiled tension eased, and his shoulders lowered. His jaw softened and he took out his handkerchief and handed it to me.