The Clouds Beneath the Sun by Mackenzie Ford

Author:Mackenzie Ford
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical - General, Literary, Fiction - General, Kenya - History - Mau Mau Emergency, 20th century, British, Fiction, Romance, Romantic suspense fiction, Suspense, English Historical Fiction, British - Kenya, Kenya, General, Women archaeologists, 1952-1960, History
ISBN: 9780385529112
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2010-07-27T07:00:00+00:00

7

THREATS

Natalie crouched over a patch of soil-sand, feeling the high sun on her back. Her eyes were aching, her spine complaining, her knees sore. Sweat coursed down her face, seemingly intent on searching out her eyes and stinging them. For the moment, paleontology had lost its allure.

For about a week now, Daniel and she had been searching the wall of the gorge for any more remains of the skull she had spotted. Experience told Eleanor that such fragments could be no more than the size of a fingernail, and that the only way to distinguish them from the surrounding rock was by small gradations in color and texture. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack that was on fire. And nothing more had been found.

Natalie decided to take a break and straightened up. Her spine complained again. There was no breeze today, it was airless in the gorge, and as always the faint smell of herbivore dung tweaked at her nostrils.

She stretched. She could feel the damp patch of her shirt down her spine. She rubbed the muscles in the back of her neck. The base of her hairline was damp too. How many more days like this? she wondered. They were getting further and further away from where the skull remains had been unearthed. But then the skull and knee joint had been found some yards apart.

She felt in her pocket for her bottle of water. Then she remembered she had left it in the shade of a tree, hoping it might keep cooler there than if she had left it in her pocket. She turned and made for where she had hidden the bottle.

She had gone barely ten yards when she heard a voice.

“Miss Natalie, stop!”

Despite her repeated requests, Daniel still referred to her as if she were the daughter of a plantation owner in the American Deep South and he was a slave.

She stopped, turned, and said, “What is it, Daniel? And please call me Natalie.”

He smiled and nodded. “Don’t go near that tree, Miss Natalie.”

“But I left my water there. What—?”

“Drink my water.” He stepped forward and he took a bottle from his pocket. “But don’t go near that tree—it’s what we call a sausage tree and there’s a leopard sleeping in the branches. Leopards like sausage trees.”

Natalie turned to look again at the tree, only more closely. She was already walking back to where Daniel stood.

Reaching him, she took the bottle and drank lustily, all the while searching for the leopard in the tree. Finally, she found it, spread out in the angle of a branch about twelve feet off the ground.

“Leopards don’t normally attack humans, do they?” she said, wiping her mouth.

“It’s rare, but it happens sometimes.” Daniel took off his hat and wiped his forehead. “If they have young nearby, they are much more dangerous—and look.” He pointed to the left of the leopard.

With difficulty, Natalie could make out two smaller animals, not cubs exactly but not fully grown leopards either.

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