Endangered by Linda Chaikin

Author:Linda Chaikin [Chaikin, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC026000
ISBN: 9781441263100
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2012-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

Ten

Leaving the medical camp, they started inland on the twenty-mile journey. Crossing a ridge, the Land Rover bounced and jolted over the rough track, with an inevitable dust cloud trailing behind in the stifling afternoon, the sky blue and brilliant.

The track narrowed to two wheel marks bordered by thick acacia thornbush. For an hour they slogged through heat and dust, and on either side of the Land Rover, the dense scrub raked the sides with a screeching that set Sable’s nerves on edge. Her light cotton dress was covered with a fine layer of dust, and her back was sweaty against the leather seat. Kash looked over at her and smiled. She turned her head away. He handed her the canteen. “It’s lukewarm,” he teased. “You left your ice cubes in Toronto.”

“I don’t like ice water,” she retorted good-naturedly, out to prove she hadn’t forgotten, and unstopped the canteen to drink, but it tasted miserable.

Sable lifted her field glasses from her lap and scanned the savanna. There was much game to be seen at this time of the day, for in the hot noonday the great herds of zebra and gazelle that grazed across the open ranges in the early morning would retire to the shade of trees, and in the late afternoon, especially in this dry season, they came in herds to the water holes.

Noticing she was searching, Kash motioned to a grove of acacias. Sable turned her head quickly so as not to miss the sight as Kash slowed. A troop of baboons howled, leaping and dancing among the branches as the Land Rover passed.

Sable looked at Kash and laughed. “I never get over seeing them. I used to think of all this in Toronto and wonder if my memories were merely nostalgic.”

“And,” he said quietly, looking ahead as the speedometer climbed, “now that you’re back and have seen it as it is again, does it live up to your memory?”

Why did she think he was including himself in that question? She busied herself with the field glasses again. “Yes, it’s as I remembered it to be,” she said casually.

Kash made no comment at first. “So, in spite of everything, you’re glad you’ve come back to Kenya?”

He was being rather direct. “Why shouldn’t I come back? I always intended to. Kenyatta’s my home—at least until the lease with the government runs out again and they decide on another game warden…. I can’t even bear to think it might happen.”

“Most likely it will,” he said with nothing in his voice. “You’ll need to get used to walking away from your loves…like the rest of us.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.” Sable’s mood had changed from one of exhilaration to concealed despondency.

He looked over at her. “I didn’t mean to ruin your outing.”

“I didn’t think I was openly sulking.”

“You weren’t. But I read you like a map.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

He smiled. “Anyway, I wasn’t asking if you were sorry you’d come home, but about the situation you found when you arrived.

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