Two Moons by J. Raymond Ractliffe - Chapter 35

Two Moons is a new novel by J. Raymond Ractliffe that explores the inner spirit life of Africa, her people and their powerful faith in the world of the Unseen.

The Mark of the Two Moons
Chapter 35

      How long she stared at the dripping cold tea from the overturned cup, she did not know. Claire could still feel where her finger nails had dig deeply into her clenched palms as she held the corner of her blue shawl across he cramped shoulders. She had dared not move after she had woken with a start, certain she clutched in her hand the life dreams that had left waving hats high in the air just two days before. She had felt the shawl slipping until too late. Her hand had darted out to catch it as it fell, her mind numb with the long fear that had gripped since they had not returned from their hunt.

Claire could see the soft colours painted broadly across the new horizon. The house was still quiet, cushioned from the soft echoes of the red land as the leaves and gentle limbs of the swaying blue gums beside them sang their long endless songs. Long shadows lay slowly shrinking, held in by the last blankets of darkness that had slipped in from the night. No banging doors from stretched coiled springs suddenly closing, holding back the endless sea of flies to greet them after the household had come to begin their day.

In her heart she knew, whatever had bound them all, hindering their return, had finally broken. The aftermath of what had kept them was all that remained of their journey.

If they were alive, wounded or not, they would be making their way home, walking or limping today. Those not able to return, would be found and brought home. Scented water washing away their death, loving hands clothing them for their final meeting with those who cherished their lives.

Claire stood up from the white wicker chair, hand-stitched cushions falling behind her, her hands pushing up as tired muscles strained against the cool morning, this time the blue shawl fell to her feet without her noticing.

Thomas had told her the direction they had taken and the general area where the rhino had tried to maim young Matthew. They would have back-tracked to where they had found their story churned in the sands of the rhino's rage and looked for the new trail before first light.

If they were returning, she could meet them there, quickening the rest of their journey home. One was terribly wounded, this she already knew. Of the others, something more must have happened to them, otherwise they would have returned sooner than this new morning.

Her slippered feet cushioned her footsteps over the hard veranda floor through an open doorway that led down the long corridor to Jeremy's study. She went behind the darkly polished oak desk, sat in the familiar leather chair and picked up the phone. She dialled briskly, pausing as each digit whirled back to their original setting.

"Hello! Hello Doc Thompson! It's Claire Baldwyn.

"No, they're not back. No, I haven't heard yet. No, I sent them back out last night when they came back. They had found where an accident had taken place, there was a dead rhino but the markings showed they had gone off somewhere, carrying Matthew, but not here."

"No, it's not Jeremy; Matthew seems to be the one hurt."

"I don't know how bad."

Claire paused now, listening politely but her taught shoulders spoke how her controlled silence came at a price.

"I want you to come to the farm. No, I want you to wait here for them, I am going out to find them this morning. I have a pretty good idea where they might be. I'll take a first aid kit with me."

Again she paused.

"No, your farm is still too far away, if I still have to call you when I get back with them it might be too late."

"I have to go! Thanks - bye!"

Claire slammed the phone down, a little louder that she had intended but her mind was already on the next thing to be done and the voice of the doctor had already faded.

The back door suddenly banged as the first soul returned, signalling their arrival and the beginning of their day. Fresh bread to be baked, preserves cooked and sealed with wax, the endless chores that were the centre of any African household.

"Mavis? Is that you?" she called out down the corridor.

"Yes Bibi!" was the long reply. "I am here"

"Get Joshua, tell him to bring the Land Rover over to the house. Tell him to fill it up with petrol, and the Jerry cans as well. I am going out to get them and bring them home."

"I need fresh water and food, plus new cloth strips for the first aid kit," she said.

Clair came around the desk, her slippers flicked off one by one as she strode quickly down the long hall. Had any of the farm hands been early that morning, strolling by the veranda to begin their lawn work, they would have seen her white shoulders and slim waist as she slipped off her nightclothes before she turned into her room.

The large cupboard doors opened and a shower of clothes suddenly littered the floor. Not able to quickly find the outfit she needed, it seemed easier to see them all, then choose what was available.

"Bring me my tall boots from the kitchen. I don't care if they are not polished, just bring them, Tell Manti to have the spare room made up. The doctor is coming!"

"If he has to stay over night, he will need somewhere to rest if he is up all night with the men. Tell him to do it now!"

Somewhere a lone dog began barking, not angry or guarding against a sudden intruder to his compound, he had picked up the excitement that the new morning now brought, a new urgency to them all.

Another bang of the screened door, feet suddenly came running as the first instructions had been loudly directed out beyond the rear of the house. The small brown children stared, eyes wide in silence as they floated past the main house road, carried daily on the backs of their mothers. The farm workers who had come to begin filling the great canvas bags by the open aired sheds that lined the rear of the farm.

"I want to leave here in fifteen minutes." as another hairclip fell to the floor. A wooden hair brush seemed to spring into her hand, the coiled blond hair glinted in the morning light, silver strands mingling as they danced together.

Claire sat on the bed, long socks complete when the tall boots arrived through the doorway. Broad bare feet thumped their arrival from down the wooden hallway from the kitchen, no new polish but an oiled rag quickly passed over them.

"You cannot go to that place alone!" Mavis pleaded with her, placing the boots by the bed. Her huge breasts jiggled as she folded her ample bosom to bent over and reach the floor.

Mavis filled the warm kitchen, not just with the songs of the Kikuyu women who worked over many of the farms of the area. Long years in the open kitchen proved the old adage that all food prepared was to be tasted, the greater quantity the better.

It was a family joke told over many a dinner night with invited guests; no delicate meal could be prepared, the tasting of it in the process of its creation would bring on its complete disappearance.

 "You cannot go to that place alone!" was her final word. Most of the workers had come to know her final words were indeed final. She would never speak of it again once she had made up her mind and no force known to them all could move this small loving mountain. What she cherished, she encircled in her heart and allowed no living form to threaten it. Better to skulk away and find some other matter on which to wage a war, her folded arms over her great breasts signaled the finality of this talk.

Claire did not have time to be delicate this morning. Leaving all sensitivity to the needs of this morning she said,

"Mavis, do not get in my way!"

"My Land Rover can drive over you if you stand in my way. Be sure of this!" and with a glare hurled back at Mavis, Claire found her riding trousers waiting for her on the floor and slipped into them, forcefully one leg at a time.

Her chauffeur days in the war had left her with one gift, a piercing glare that dared one to continue; it could stay any uniformed hand that strayed onto her stockinged leg as she drove.

Mavis stared at her for a moment, then turned mumbling down the corridor. She would find some other time, to renew the truth that her word was final. Her mistress had been very tired from the second night of no sleep; it was this thing that made her not see her ways.

Mavis whistled out of the back door and called Simon. He would sit in the back seat and protect her mistress. He was an old tracker who lived by the wood pile that stoked the hot furnaces.

The sudden roar from the garage spoke that the Land Rover had come to life. Grating gears testimony that Joshua had yet to find the key to shifting gears into position without grinding them away.

His white smile and unabashed joy driving the short trip from the garage to the main house would be the highlight of his day. The camp fire at days end lighting up his wide smile, night dreams filled with polished cars and silver suits complete with dark sunglasses, driving down the high street of Mombassa.

The Land Rover roared out of the garage in a haze of dust and crashing gears, this morning's gear shifting more hopeless than could be remembered.

Joshua came to a crunching stop by the side of the veranda, the engine screaming until it could return to its normal idle speed. Sheepishly, he opened the door and got out through the billowing smoke and dust and decided he had left something important back at the garage.

The Jerry cans were all full, lashed firmly to the back, each still to be tested as nothing could be taken for granted here in Africa. Spare tires in place on the roof rack in case of the inevitable.

Claire had completed her dressing. No quick look into the mirror. Now the First Aid Kit had to be opened, then checked. Everything from snake kits, bandages, syringes, pills, morphine, ointments of all kinds to thread for stitches. You lived and died in Africa carrying what you had. A missed medicine brought only death.

"Tell Manti to take this to the car.' she slammed the lid shut and closed the lock. No matter what the emergency, medicine was a prized possession. An unlocked box quickly thinned as trusted fingers found their way past locks and keys. It was not a moral point, medicine was about living and for people who lived closer to dying in their every day, it was not stealing, but holding onto life, whatever the cost.

A fevered child in the night could not ask for medicines that would not come. Eyes would roll away from the light of the fire and silently begin the wailing song of the dying.

Claire walked back to Jeremy's study. The gun cabinet was to the left, staring at the oak desk that dominated the room. She opened the first drawer, reached in and pulled at a small lever found under the top of the desk. A spring clicked and a thin drawer sprang open from under the desk top. The most important keys to the house were kept here, from filling cases, car keys to bank deposits and especially the gun rack.

Her rifle was the second from the left, smaller than the big bore gun that the men talked endlessly about in the night. Two empty racks glared at her and made her heart beat faster.

Off the rack, her rifle was easy to handle, testing its weight against her shoulder that was the automatic reflex of all who had learnt the power that could be unleashed within its bore. She opened the breech; saw both barrels clear and true. Her other hand reached for a box of ammunition that lay stacked on top of the shelf. One handed, she opened the box and spilt the shells out onto the desk, where their polished casings rolled shining against the dark wood.

Claire picked up a handful and one by one slid the shells into her hunting vest that she was wearing. Four shells on each side were enough. Closing the box, she reached up and put it back where she had found it.

Then after closing the gun rack door and locking it, she replaced the key back into its thin hiding place and closed it under the top of the desk. She walked out of the study, her mind set firmly on the next task to come.

Claire did not hear the small latch click into place as the hideaway drawer was pushed back to its original position. Jeremy had shown her countless times how to do it but in the haste of this morning, it was a detail she had missed.

Her rushed footsteps down the hall muffled the delicate sound of the small spring releasing the drawer of keys.

Dogs barking, the Land Rover waiting patiently, they all filled the new morning with its urgency and chaos. Claire checked the Jerry-cans of petrol, the medicine box firmly in place at the back, folded stretchers, water bottles full and the rifle strapped into position beside her.

Final instructions to Mavis and the rest of the workers who had suddenly crowded the Land Rover made her departure as noisy as a camel driver leaving an oasis for the marketplace.

Claire opened the door and slid in behind the wheel, testing the accelerator and brake. She peered up into the rear mirror to find a smiling Simon sitting comfortably, a wide smile unable to hide his excitement.

Claire looked out at a grinning Mavis who waved back to her, with calls of a speedy and safe return. Her ancestors were to follow her and guide their way so that they would all return safely to the ample warmth of her bosom.

Her open twinkle made Claire momentarily forget the reason for this mad dash to find her husband in the fields that led away from a dead rhino.

Mavis had the final word of the morning.

It was ridiculous to have thought otherwise.