Gold Trap by Lilly Maytree

Author:Lilly Maytree
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harbourlight Books, a division of Pelican Ventures, LLC

Gold Trap

14

Bush Pagans and Cannibals

“I must warn you also that your own mind requires protection when you send it stalking the savage idea through the tangled forests”

Mary Kingsley

“Shhh…do you hear that? Voices.” Meg stopped walking and listened. “Oh, and look…just above the tops of those trees, I’m sure that’s smoke.”

“I think we’ve found the road crew,” said Tom.

Within another few minutes, they came upon the slow-moving crew, burning the giant trunk of another tree that had fallen across the road. There were six or seven workers, along with an old flatbed truck that was loaded with saws, axes, shovels, and other road clearing equipment. The task was nearly finished, and even though most of the men were just visiting around the fire, no one noticed Tom and Meg until they were less than a hundred feet away.

“What the devil happen to you?” A dark man in a blue, sweat-stained work shirt looked up with a startled expression.

While Tom began to explain, Meg suddenly found it impossible to concentrate. Everything seemed to be happening around her in a movie-like slow motion as the wafting fire engulfed her in its sickening heat. A man standing nearby offered her a battered, metal canteen, and she gratefully reached out for it before Tom noticed and waved it away.

“Thanks, anyway,” he said. “But we tourists have to stick to bottled drinks.”

“Tom,” Meg objected, “I hardly think…”

“Do you have anything bottled?” he asked their hosts.

“Got beer.” Another man replied with a broad smile.

“Beer!” The man in charge gave the offender an incriminating glare. “I told you once already, next person bring beer on this government job gonna get beheaded!”

“What?” Meg was appalled.

“Have his pay chopped, he means,” Tom explained. “How far is it to Akosombo from here? Think you could give us a lift in your truck?”

The town was only a little more than a mile away. After some debate over who would drive the American and his lady (as Meg was referred to) they started for the truck. For some reason the men seemed to think the task required two men, so Meg was squeezed into the cab next to the driver, and while Tom was busy tossing their bags up on the back, another man squeezed up against her from the other side.

“Oh, but where’s Tom going to…”

“You sit on top, missy.” The man scooped her onto his lap to the overpowering accompaniment of the smell of beer and sweat. “Plenty room for all.”

Meg had heard it was typical to crowd as many people as possible into vehicles in these regions, but, between the heat and her exhaustion, she felt she actually might be ill if she had to breathe such fumes for any length of time. Much less bounce along a sodden, pot-holed road on a strange man’s lap. Just as she was contemplating if it would be more polite to insult someone by refusing the courtesy, or throw up on them, Tom climbed up into the cab and collected her (like a piece of luggage someone else had been holding for him) to sit on his lap, instead.

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