Kitabı oku: «Every Serengeti Sunrise»

CHAPTER ONE

HAKI ODABA’S FUTURE was written in the stones: a few goats, plenty of elephants and a wife who would light up his days like the Serengeti’s blinding sun. He grumbled, slid farther behind the brush that camouflaged his jeep and peered through his binoculars. There she was. Tracked and spotted. A beautiful sight for the worried and weary. He lowered his binoculars and rubbed the heel of his palm against his throbbing temple. God help him. According to locals, the stones never lied—at least not when thrown by the tribal elder. The local Masai’s Laibon had certainly earned his role as healer and wise man over the years, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist or a tribal oracle to know who was destined to be Haki’s “blinding sun.”

The sunrise backlit Pippa Harper’s unruly, corkscrew curls like a fiery beacon glistening against an emerald backdrop of tree canopies in the distance. Her focus on Malik, a beloved, old male African rhino deep in a courtship ritual with several females, didn’t waver.

Not good.

How many times had Haki warned her about being aware of all her surroundings at all times? The heart of Kenya’s savannah beat with the rhythm of life and death...predator and prey. She hadn’t even noticed his presence, and he wasn’t being particularly stealthy. What if Haki was a stalking cheetah or lion?

He pinched the bridge of his nose. As if that wasn’t dangerous enough, predators around here didn’t only come on four legs. What was she thinking? She might as well have radioed her coordinates to the poachers that the Kenyan Wildlife Service were tracking in the area. The KWS had informed Haki and his colleagues at the Busara Elephant Research and Rescue Camp of their presence early that morning, and everyone knew to be on the lookout. Given that her parents, along with Haki’s, ran Busara, one of Kenya’s most reputable elephant rescue camps, Pippa would make quite the prize if she got cornered by ruthless poachers.

Forget being destined to marry. At this rate, Haki would die from exasperation first.

The male rhino’s grunt rippled through the air. Pippa pushed her auburn hair out of her face, peered through her camera lens and began taking shots like her life depended on it.

Raised here or not, she either didn’t fully comprehend the danger she was putting herself in...or she didn’t care. Heaven help him. Haki had faced death before. The scar on his left thigh proved it. Working with wildlife, which included treating five-thousand-pound pachyderms in the field with fanged predators around, was risky business, but there was only one thing Haki truly feared, and that was Pippa’s fearlessness.

Haki put away his binoculars, grabbed his rifle out of the jeep and slung the strap over his shoulder as he made his way toward Pippa. He needed to get her back to Busara and convince her to stay put until they had confirmation that the poachers had been caught or were at least out of the immediate area. He seriously hoped that crash of rhinos Pippa was observing wasn’t what those poachers were after. They’d make a killing off rhino horn. Medicinal powder. Murder for money. It was all too sick and infuriating.

Fifteen meters and closing in, and Pippa hadn’t even turned around. The breeze whispered a soft, luring melody as it caressed the dry savannah grasses and urged each slender blade to stretch and claw at his hands like seductive sirens. Mesmerizing...and full of hidden dangers.

Pippa shifted her knees against the crusty soil and leaned her shoulder against the outcropping of boulders to her left, edging into its shade as the sun crested over it. She readjusted her camera angle and took another shot.

“Come on, girl. Show him your big, beautiful behind already. You’re such a tease,” she muttered as the female rhino stepped away from the restless bull. Two more females in heat joined the group.

“Crashing the party, are we?” Pippa chuckled.

Haki shook his head. That isn’t remotely funny, Pip. She’d been out here way too long and she was lucky her voice hadn’t carried toward the animals. He resisted calling out to her. A few more steps and he’d be able to keep his voice low enough not to startle the rhinos.

Malik, intent on his first choice, didn’t seem to notice the onlookers—two-footed or four. Much like Pippa hadn’t noticed Haki, now five meters away.

A young clump of elephant grass to her right swayed as a traitorous breeze lifted her curls away from her forehead.

The wind shifted.

She seemed to tense, then lowered her camera just as Haki stopped in his tracks.

Rhinos had terrible eyesight, but a keen sense of smell. They both knew it, too.

Malik grunted.

“Pip. Time to go.”

Pippa jerked around at the deep timbre of Haki’s voice and bumped her head against the rocky outcropping.

“Ouch! Get down before you get us both impaled.” She pressed her hand against the back of her head.

“We’re leaving right now. Get up and hope that he’s too distracted by his girl to charge.”

“Don’t give me orders like that. I have everything under control and my jeep’s not far,” she said. She rose to her feet and gave the dust on her khakis a brisk swat.

Haki glanced toward the battered jeep she’d driven from Busara. It was parked in the shade of an acacia tree less than twenty-five meters east of the rhinos. Not a safe spot at the moment. He looked at her pointedly.

“They weren’t there when I parked it,” she said.

“Of course not. Now back away slowly.” The bull raised his head and snorted, as if irritated by the putrid scent of man in the air.

Pippa steadied her camera with one hand as it hung from her neck strap and backed away from the rock. Knowing Pippa, she’d take a bruise to the head any day if it meant protecting that camera from damage. It was the same camera her father, geneticist Dr. Jack Harper, had been given by his adoptive parents during his troubled teen years. It was also the same one he’d brought with him on his first trip to Kenya. Pippa had been four, and prior to that trip, Jack had been unaware that he had a daughter, let alone one being raised in the wilds of Africa.

Haki waited until Pippa was at his side, then nudged her safely behind him as they retreated toward his jeep.

“I appreciate the lift, but I would have been fine,” Pippa said, climbing onto the front passenger seat.

“Fine? You didn’t even hear me walking up. What if it hadn’t been me?” Haki secured his rifle in the back, then got behind the wheel. They’d have to return for her jeep when the situation was safer. He churned the ignition and it choked several times before the engine roared to life. Malik raised his horn in their direction, but Haki left a screen of dust in their wake.

“I knew it was you all along. I saw your reflection in my camera lens when I held it away from my face,” Pippa called out over the engine noise.

Haki’s glower was met with a cheeky grin.

“You were ignoring me.”

“You were stalking me,” Pippa countered.

“Sta— I wasn’t stalking. There were poachers in the vicinity and your mother asked me to track you down when you didn’t answer her radio call. Ignoring is not okay.”

“I wasn’t ignoring her. I was going to radio in as soon as I got the shots I needed for the Busara website. I didn’t want to miss the moment.”

The Busara Elephant Research and Rescue Camp had come a long way over the past fifteen years. Its website was run and edited by one of the Harpers’ closest family friends, Tessa Walker. Everyone in the family contributed posts and updates, and Pippa was responsible for most of the photographs.

After marrying their “uncle” Mac, Tessa had begun building the site, which was dedicated to educating the public on just how precious and fragile their wildlife and the ecosystem were. It highlighted both Camp Jamba Walker and the work done to rescue elephants at Camp Busara. Mac Walker wasn’t blood-related to anyone at Busara, but he was everyone’s uncle Mac nonetheless. He was a bush pilot who’d spent years helping KWS and wildlife research groups in tracking both animals and poachers. He’d become friends with Pippa’s mother back when she first established Busara. So Uncle Mac had known both Pippa and Haki since they were babies and, as far as anyone was concerned, was their honorary uncle. Just as Tessa was an auntie to them all and the nephew she and Mac had raised together after his parents’ death, Nick Walker, was like a cousin.

“You know our safety rules.”

Pippa squeezed fistfuls of her hair before letting the wind have its way.

“How many times do I have to tell you all that I don’t need protecting? I’m twenty-two and you only have a year on me and we both grew up here. I know how to survive here as well as you do. Being a woman doesn’t make me stupid or less prepared.”

Her cactus-colored shirt and sun-kissed hair upped the intensity of her green eyes. Pippa was anything but stupid. Sometimes a bit reckless and sensitive. Always fearless, stubborn and headstrong, but not stupid. She’d even graduated with top grades from her geology program, back when the two of them attended university together in Nairobi. He’d learned about living things and earned his veterinary degree; she’d studied the nonliving. She knew all there was to know about the earth beneath their feet. If only she’d learned how to ground all that energy of hers enough to do something with that education. He reached over and gave her hand a squeeze.

“Of course it doesn’t, but it can make you more of a target or tasty morsel. I may have only a year on you, but I’m also bigger. Not to mention the intense, military-style training I endured alongside KWS. Do I need to remind you who my supervisor was?”

Pippa closed her eyes and slumped back against the seat. She tilted her chin up and let the sun warm her face. Haki put his hand back on the wheel and scanned their surroundings as he made his way toward Busara. She knew full well that, training aside, physical strength and fitness were crucial in his line of work. Even at his peak, his strength didn’t come close to the brute force some of the larger animals he treated or rescued were capable of. Plus, he’d trained under her uncle Ben.

“Fine. You win,” she said.

He glanced over at her and couldn’t resist smiling. Everyone knew that anyone training under her uncle deserved a medal. Ben Corallis had been in the US Marine Corps before losing his wife—Jack Harper’s sister—to a traumatic accident about seventeen years ago. His youngest son had been a newborn at the time—way out of Ben’s comfort zone. Plus, he’d had a hyperactive four-year-old on his hands and his only daughter, Maddie, Pippa’s then ten-year-old cousin. To make matters worse, Maddie had retreated into a shell of silence after the loss of her mother. It wasn’t until Dr. Hope Alwanga, the sister of a family friend in Nairobi, had entered their lives, that they’d begun healing. And that healing had led to Ben and Hope falling in love. Ben later began using his marine experience to help train Kenyan Wildlife Service rangers in their battle against illegal poaching.

Haki had learned from the best, even if he had only worked as a ranger for a year before quitting so that he could go to vet school. Now, working as a field vet for Busara, often in areas where poachers had been spotted, that training was priceless.

“I don’t want to win. I want you safe.” Haki leaned over, keeping one hand on the wheel, and kissed her cheek. Pippa smiled but kept her eyes closed.

She really was beautiful. Haki couldn’t ask for anyone with a kinder heart. The trumpeting of elephants reverberated through the air and he straightened in his seat as he rounded an outcropping and merged onto the worn dirt road that led into camp. Pippa sat up and took a shot of the view ahead. The same photograph she’d taken a thousand times. Busara. The one place that would always be their sanctuary and home.

“I’m sure Aunt Tessa will appreciate those photographs, but until we find whoever was involved in the killing yesterday, maybe you could help out with the orphan we rescued from the scene. I heard she hasn’t taken a bottle yet and you know if she’s too depressed to eat, she won’t make it. I’m betting a little attention from you might help.”

Pippa could never resist a baby elephant, and since her mother, Dr. Bekker, was known as Mama Tembo, or mother elephant, the keepers had nicknamed Pippa “Mini-Mama” long ago. In fact, the vast majority of photographs she took in her spare time were of baby animals. Helping their latest orphan would keep her safely at camp. At least for a little while.

“The poor thing. Of course I’ll check in on her, but don’t think I’m not onto what you’re doing. I’ve known you long enough to read your mind.”

“I’m not that easily read,” Haki scoffed.

“Is that so? Don’t worry. I won’t go walking into a lion’s den. Besides, my jeep is still out there.”

“Good.”

“Oh, I’m not done reading you. You’re extra upset right now because you think the poachers had help. Or maybe this wasn’t the work of poachers at all. It irks you even more when good people succumb to the dark side.”

Haki took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the wheel as they hit a rut on the dirt road.

“I’ll give you that. This baby should have been with her herd. Or if the herd had witnessed the murder, one would think the other mothers would have taken the little one into their protection. Unless, because of the drought and the baby’s age, the herd decided they had to move on and leave it to die. Maybe the situation was still too dangerous to keep the others around. As in, they sensed the human threat was still nearby.”

Female elephants were highly maternal and protective. They wouldn’t have abandoned one of their own, especially not a calf, unless circumstances were extenuating. Unfortunately, with reports of nearby crop destruction by elephants, he didn’t doubt some of the Masai farmers had taken to deadly means to protect their land. Pippa understood the dilemma as well as he did. Man’s indigenous rights versus the elephants’. And all the other wildlife. She touched his shoulder.

“You did your best. You rescued the calf. You’re a good man.” Pippa sighed and put the protective cover back on her camera lens. “How is that legislative proposal coming along? Any progress?”

Haki shook his head. That proposal had been keeping him up at night.

“Still waiting on cabinet approval. Apparently, it has raised the hackles of a human rights organization. No word on if that will slow things down or not.”

He’d helped a group of wildlife advocates draft the proposal aimed at increasing the punishment and/or penalty against individuals from indigenous tribes, like the Masai, who killed elephants in retaliation for crop damages. The killing had to stop. Hopefully, before the extinction of the species. This proposal was a step in the right direction, but the notion that anyone would want to block it made his skin burn. A very slow burn, considering how long it was taking for it to go through.

“Don’t give up hope. Maybe Uncle Ben can ask Maddie if she has any connections to lawyers who can help. Did you hear that she’s planning to visit? I’m so excited. I can’t wait to see her again.”

Maddie was coming to Kenya? Pippa had a knack for switching subjects as quickly as a cheetah on caffeine. He was used to it, but the mention of Maddie’s visit nearly gave him whiplash.

His thumb pricked against the rough patch where his steering wheel had been gnawed by something wild and nocturnal. He shifted his grip. It had been two years since he’d last seen her and even then, they’d barely had a chance to catch up. Usually, her family returned to the States during the holidays and the few times she’d visited her parents and brothers in Nairobi, she’d cut her trips short for some reason and Haki had never managed to see her. The last time she came around he was out in the field for several days with KWS teams and never made it into Nairobi. She’d had no real reason to fly out to Busara, since Pippa and her parents had gone to see her instead. Apparently, getting to see him hadn’t been reason enough.

“Is she coming out here or are you going to Nairobi?”

It didn’t really matter, did it? Haki had clued in long ago that spending time at Busara no longer held the attraction for Maddie it once had. When her family first moved to Kenya, she was only ten and had just regained her ability to speak. She used to beg Hope and Ben to let her spend the night out here so that she, Pippa and Haki could sit around a campfire surrounded by nothing but stars and the call of the wild. Maddie loved animals back then and had always wanted to visit Africa. Being out here had helped her heal after the loss of her biological mother.

Of course, they’d been within the safe boundaries of Busara and their parents were nearby, but those nights had been exhilarating just the same. The kind of experiences that childhood memories were made of. He and Pippa had loved having a new friend around and the three of them had formed what seemed like an unbreakable bond. At least Pippa and Maddie were still close. He still wasn’t sure why things had gotten awkward and distant between him and Maddie. Sometimes he wondered if he’d done something or said something to offend her. Her visits to Busara had slowly fizzled out, and once she took off for college in the US, it was as though they’d both gotten too busy with their lives to bother with one another.

“I honestly have no idea if she’s coming out here or how long she’s staying,” Pippa said. “She was a bit vague in her email, which is strange. I know law school wiped her out, so maybe with this new job in Philadelphia, she just needs a break.” Pippa sat up bone-straight and her eyes brightened. “Oh, my gosh! I bet she met someone. She’d want to tell me in person, especially if it’s serious. Think about it. She’s twenty-six, out of school and working at a firm that’s probably full of handsome, eligible bachelor lawyers. Her nerves must be fried right now. With brothers like hers...and Uncle Ben...I can’t blame her for not introducing any guys to them yet. This one would have to be worth it. But I can’t believe she hasn’t mentioned him to me. I wouldn’t have said anything. Well, maybe to you, but not to anyone else.”

Trust. Life was nothing without it. Trust meant a sense of peace, honesty and truth. It meant feeling safe. A person could be themselves around those they trusted. He was honored that Pippa would confide in him...but Maddie? Getting married?

Something faint and indefinable pinched at his chest. The young Maddie he’d known had loved wearing jeans, feeding baby animals and camping. The last Maddie he’d seen had looked more like a big-city office type: hose, heels and tied-up hair. Maybe the real Maddie was the one who’d be happy spending her life with a man in a suit. They could carpool to court the way he and Pippa liked to floor a jeep across the savannah. He lowered his chin briefly to release a cramp at the back of his neck. It was none of his business anyway. There was no reason why any of it should bother him.

“Maybe you should just wait and see before making up stories,” Haki said, pulling up next to three other Busara jeeps parked just far enough from the camp’s wooden pens so as not to disturb the baby elephants. They were all recovering from injuries incurred when their mothers were killed in the name of ivory. A keeper stood feeding a ravenous calf with a milk bottle in a small grassy clearing to the left of the pens. Dr. Bekker—Auntie Anna, as Haki called her—glanced over her shoulder and gave them a relieved thumbs-up when Pippa hopped out of the jeep. She shook her head at her daughter, then ducked into their small vet clinic.

Judging from the absence of their rescue vehicles, Haki’s father and his crew had already been called off on mission. Dr. Kamau Odaba was a field veterinarian who’d been working at Busara from the start...and who’d fallen in love with Haki’s mother, Niara Juma, and had taken them both under his wing when Haki was five. He was the only father Haki had ever known, and the only one he ever wanted to. He and his mother had taken Kam’s last name after the marriage and his legal adoption. Since his father was Dr. Odaba, their staff avoided confusion by calling him Dr. Haki.

“Maybe I’m right,” Pippa said as she came around the jeep and leaned on the rim of Haki’s open window. “Maddie will need us as backup if she tells Uncle Ben she’s getting engaged. If you thought training with her dad was tough, can you imagine the vetting he’d put this poor guy through?”

“Good. He should.”

“Haki, have a heart.”

“Me?” He couldn’t help but chuckle. “You spent too much time hanging upside down from trees as a child. You haven’t even met this man who—I might add—is a figment of your overactive imagination, yet you’re already defending him. But say he does exist. What if he’s not good for her? What if you end up hating him?”

“I won’t because I trust Maddie’s judgment. I’m sure I’d adore any man worthy of her love.”

Haki rubbed his forehead, then restarted the jeep. Mosi, a small vervet monkey, squealed at them before scampering down a nearby fig tree and eyeing Pippa for food.

“My hands are empty, Mosi.”

The little guy was the only child of the late Ambosi, a three-legged vervet who’d been rescued by Dr. Bekker when Pippa and Haki were infants and who’d spent his life hanging around Busara for treats...or because of the amusing crush he seemed to have had on Dr. Bekker. He’d gotten quite jealous when Pippa’s father, Jack, had shown up at Busara. It was no secret that Pippa missed Ambosi. Everyone did.

“I have to get back to work, Pip.”

“I know. It’s just...” She wrinkled her nose and shrugged. “Never mind.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing. It was a totally selfish thought. Best to keep it in my head.”

“There’s not a selfish bone in your body. An uncontrollably wild imagination, yes. But not selfishness. Out with it.”

Pippa sighed and looked at Mosi, then gazed wistfully at the house that her and Haki’s parents had built after they’d married. It had been built for both families so they could live more comfortably at Busara. Both of their younger siblings had been born in that home. Maddie had played in that home.

“It hit me that I hardly get to see her as it is. Once she’s married or has children, she’ll be even busier. I want her to be happy, the way you and I are, but a part of me is afraid of losing her. See? Rotten selfishness. Don’t you dare repeat anything I just said.”

Haki grabbed one of her hands and pressed her knuckles to his lips.

“First, you’re going to freak Maddie out when she finds out you’ve planned her wedding with a man she’s never met. Second, you’ll always have me. And third, you’ll never lose her. She’s your cousin. She’s family.”

Pippa gave him a small smile.

“Okay. You’re the best, you know? Now, go save some animals or help catch some bad guys.” She ducked her head in the window and gave him a quick peck. “Be safe.”

“You, too,” he warned, then backed out. He pulled his sunglasses out of the glove compartment and slipped them on.

You’ll never lose her. She’s family. But he knew Maddie was more than just Pippa’s cousin. They were best friends the way Haki’s mother, Niara, and Anna were. Pippa was right about a woman’s strength. Their mothers had raised them both at Busara when the remote camp consisted of nothing more than a few tents and a water well. They’d had no amenities. No extravagances. Just each other. Pippa hadn’t had a lot of other girls around growing up out here.

That’s why he hated that Maddie didn’t seem to understand how much Pippa missed her. It was also why Pippa wasn’t just any girl to Haki. He’d known her all his life. They’d been through every growing pain together, from infancy to toddlerhood to the troublesome teens. Maddie had been around during their teens, too. But he and Pippa had a future together. Not because Haki put faith in the Laibon’s divination methods—that silliness was Pippa’s thing, along with reading her horoscope every now and then. No, Haki knew she was the one because their lives had become so intertwined he couldn’t see them ever being apart.