Tiger Sky, page 3
'Another sip?' he offered when she recovered her breath.
'No! ... no, thanks. I'm so empty I won't be able to hold it.' She pressed a hand to her midriff as the scorching warmth spread through her.
'When did you last eat?' he enquired in a brusque tone.
`Last night ... dinner, of sorts. I didn't feel much like it, I was too worked up about the chances of getting clear. And this morning I sneaked out before dawn, and I couldn't think of anything except whether the kansama wanted the money enough to risk moving the jeep down the track for me so that I could start the engine without giving myself away.'
`You were bribing one of the servants to assist you, Miss Roxley?' said Narayan. How long he had been standing quietly near them Selina had no idea, but he seemed very concerned and she nodded:
I had to. Henry was paying them to see that I stayed in the compound and it was the only .way. But he gave me the wrong directions, or I was too jittery to take it all in ... I don't remember.'
`We'd better not delay any longer,' Luke clicked down the top of the flask decisively.
Selina looked from his face to the Indian's and back. 'What ... what are you going to do?'
`Get you out of harm's way for a start. I take it your obnoxious swain, Henry, is beating the bushes for you all the way to Ramnagar and beyond, but he'll have the search widened when he draws a blank, so the sooner we get moving the better. Narayan and I can't afford much more delay either.'
Feeling guilty, she said: 'I didn't mean to hold you up for such a long time. But I'm glad it was you who found me ... I mean, I could have been completely lost, or it might have been someone else less ...' she stumbled for at word, 'less scrupulous.'
`How do you know we're not unscrupulous?' was the bland comment.
'I don't,' she snapped with a return Of spirit.
have to take it on trust, won't I? I have to trust somebody.'
`The gullible Miss Roxley, on your own admission.'
She glanced uneasily at him and saw the twitch of humour on his mouth which belied his tone. Still light-headed with relief, she said with pert condescension: 'You're all I've got, and a jolly sight better than being lost in this—jungly place. I shall make use of you for as long as I can.'
`Brandy talking! ' he observed dryly, but there was a glint in the grey eyes. 'Come on, this is no time for backchat.'
He rose to his feet in one agile movement surprising for such a big man, and before Selina knew what was happening had swept her up into his arms. Narayan moved ahead, a slight smile on his lips as he opened the passenger door of the car so that Luke could deposit her on the front seat. As the door closed on her Selina fetched a deep sigh, still incredulous about the sudden turn of events. It was warm and stuffy inside the small car and she laid her head back, eyes half closed. ,
Luke van Meer was right, she thought, trying to rouse her faculties. She was very foolhardy to trust herself to a couple of complete strangers. They had spent a long time talking it over—talking something over. They could be abducting her for all she knew, planning to get money out of Henry for her safe return. They had come to her rescue, but she had no idea who they were, what they were doing, where they were going. She ought to have asked ... questions ... pertinent questions before....
It hardly seemed to matter. Was it 'better the
devil you know'—back to Henry and Delia? Or the devil she didn't know—yet? For some unfathomable reason she felt secure inside this stuffy little car and her choice was not really in doubt. Luke van Meer had decided and Selina was content for the moment to leave it to him.
He eased his hefty frame into the confined space behind the wheel and tossed the sheeting, and the cardigan which had been used to support her head, on to the back seat. As he moved round to put the key in the ignition his shoulder and arm was like a bulwark against hers.
She sat up. 'What about the jeep?'
He thrust his lead out of the window, looking back. `Narayan will handle it.'
`My case....'
His big shoulders turned and his mobile brows shot up, and at the mockingly aggrieved expression on his face the laughed, a thin quavering laugh but the first for many months. 'Sorry I spoke! ' she murmured, and found herself smiling into the glinting grey amusement of his eyes.
The jeep rolled slowly past them, Narayan at the wheel, her case on the seat beside him and the mongrel sitting sentinel behind. The Indian lifted a hand in a vague salute and accelerated away at a good speed, disappearing in a billow of dust.
`We'll give it a minute to settle.' Luke fished around among the maps and papers under the dashboard and took out a tin of glucose tablets, saying : `Dissolve a few of those in your mouth, it'll stave off the hunger and keep you going until we set up camp.'
`When will that be?'
'In a couple of hours.' He switched on and the car edged forward, bouncing off the verge into a well-worn track. Selina felt a little shiver of expectancy, a mixture of hope and uncertainty and anticipation, as the speedometer flickered upwards, and the wilderness began to sweep past in a blur of greens and golds with here and there a brilliant splash of colour from a mass of scrub jungle or a distant tree.
They were silent in a strangely companionable fashion for some, miles while she let the glucose tablets melt in her mouth and her muscles and nerves unwound in a way she would not have thought possible a day, a week, a month ago. Her mind had begun to ramble pleasantly, speculating on what the man beside her did for a living, and whether he was on holiday or duty of some kind, when he said: 'How did the accident happen?'
'M-m-m ...?' It brought her back to the realities of the situation, but she could be objective about it now. 'I was driving like a maniac because I was frightened. I kept glancing over my shoulder to see if Henry was following me and a herd of—deer, I think, leapt across in front of me. All I remember is a sort of reddish brown, and dancing spots, and I wrenched the wheel over and landed in the anthill, I suppose. I don't think I bumped them, injured any of them—at least I hope not.'
'I shouldn't think so. Narayan and I didn't stumble across any gory victims when we were searching for you.'
`It's-all very well for you to mock ... but the sun was just coming up and the light was peculiar, and I couldn't bear to kill anything! '
'Well, you didn't and there's no call for agonies
of remorse. I would guess that they were chital, quite common in the reserve. Beautiful little creatures, dappled with white spots in lines along their flanks and a black line from the nape of the neck to the end of the tail. The herds are usually feeding for three or four hours after sunrise, so they must have been on the move when you came streaking along and flushed them out.' The wheel slid through his big, competent hands as the track curved round a heavy clump of bushes. 'What possessed you to wander so far?'
Her shoulders lifted helplessly. 'Shock, perhaps. A panicky feeling that I had to hide myself—get away from the jeep, from Henry, from everything. I had a sledgehammer beating on my forehead and I must have been a bit demented. When I think what might have happened if you and Narayan hadn't....'
`Okay, forget it,' he said firmly, and Selina lapsed into silence again, shifting down into a more comfortable position in her seat.
She mused idly that he was much younger than Henry ... about thirty? Her gaze moved to the steering wheel, to his capable, square-tipped fingers. She pondered on the fact that his nails were remarkably clean and well kept considering the rest of his slovenly appearance. On his forearms and wrists the hairs were abundant yet so fine that it looked as if his darkly tanned skin was flecked with gold. She had an irrational desire to run a finger over the bare arm nearest to her; an idiotic notion, soon-quelled.
She swallowed a tiny yawn and wondered what time it was. Luke was wearing a heavy digital watch, an expensive one too, by the look of it, another item
out of keeping with his shabbiness. Her own wrist watch had stopped. Her eyelids had begun to droop. He was an odd type ... Luke van Meer ... with an odd sort of name ... it sounded Dutch, but his English was impeccable except for a faint trace of an accent at times ... North American, not Dutch....
When Luke threw another glance at her, Selina was asleep.
Barking and the harsh sound of crows prodded Selina back into awareness and on opening her drowsy eyes she beheld a flock of these feathered scavengers, with grey caps and sleek black wings, strutting around inquisitively a short distance away. Patch was chasing the crows off in short bursts of noisy energy to which they responded with raucous indignation before returning within a few seconds to torment him.
Smiling at the pi-dog's futile efforts, Selina tried to have a lazy stretch, but winced at the movement and then lay quiescent for a moment or two watching other birds wheeling overhead against a saffron sky as they came home to roost. The air was heavy but fairly cool now. A breeze ruffled through the leaves of a grove of shisham trees. She could hear the distant lap and ripple of water and smell the tang of wood smoke.
Presently she tested the unfamiliar surface beneath her and discovered that she was resting on a low camp-cot. She hoisted herself up on her elbows. The car and the jeep were parked on one side at the foot of a rock cliff, while on the other was an orderly camp of two small tents and other gear. There was a fire crackling hospitably inside a circle
of small boulders over which lay a rough gridiron with a cleaned and gutted fish on it, and nearby stood the Primus ready for the kettle.
Beyond the neat camp site the ground sloped down between bushes and rocks to a river bed of darkening water, It was all just as she had imagined and hoped it might be when she had agreed to the holiday, thought Selina, not quite sure if she was awake or dreaming. Then certainty returned as the tall, dark figure of Narayan appeared, walking back from the riverside carrying water bottles and the kettle.
He came towards the camp-cot and the crows took off, flapping and cawing, into the treetops. `Ah, Miss Roxley, I see you are with us again,' he said with a quiet smile. 'Sleep, is the best thing for regaining your strength.'
'I must have been completely out for the count!' She laughed a little ruefully. 'I don't remember a thing about all this.'
'Yes, you were deeply asleep and relaxed when we arrived here.' He set down the water bottles, lighted the Primus and put the kettle on it. 'You did not even stir when Luke carried you out of the car and laid you on the cot. It has been good for you, I think. Are you hungry?'
'I feel a lot better for it, and—yes, I'm starving! Have you just caught that fish?'
'Not I ' he gave her a humorous look. `Mr van Meer is a dedicated fisherman, Miss Roxley, which is a boon to us both. He caught that mahseer, a splendid specimen, in a rock pool a short way along the river. Fish seem to beg to be taken on his line.'
'They wouldn't dare refuse him!_'
,
'True,' he returned on the same light note. 'Luke can be very obdurate when his mind is set upon something.'
'Have you known him long?' she ventured casually.
'Oh, yes, a few years now.'
'He seems to know about animals.' A thought occurred to her which would explain their presence in the reserve. 'Is he—is he a naturalist?'
'A knowledgeable amateur.' He busied himself with the camp 'equipment and was not, apparently, inclined to elaborate.
Although Selina was disappointed she hadn't the nerve to persist with the kind of personal questions that would tell her more about the pair of them. It was hardly important, she assured herself a little crossly, she wouldn't be travelling with them long enough to make any difference. Yet she would have liked to hear a bit about Luke's background—and Narayan's too, of course, she tacked on hastily. Both her benefactors.
Swinging her legs over the side of the cot, she sat looking wryly down at her torn, dishevelled garments and grubby hands. She was tattered and sweaty and could do with a thorough clean up and change of clothes, and there were other pressing, more intimate necessities about which she was too shy to approach Narayan. He was the soul of courtesy and would help her all he could, but she already felt, quite irrationally, that she was on much closer terms with Luke. Like a—a brother, she thought, justifying the sudden need for his large, decisive presence to tell her what to do. Extraordinary, when
she hadn't even known of his existence a few hours ago.
Where on earth had he got to? she wondered impatiently; and at that moment he came up the slope from the river wearing only an abbreviated, damp-looking pair of khaki shorts, a towel slung round his neck, his fair hair darkened with wetness, and his bare arms and legs still glinting with drops of water. Watching him walk towards her, she was struck by the difference in the shambling figure he presented in ill-fitting clothes and the disciplined tension of torso, arms and muscular thighs that she could see now, and became aware of a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.
He stood in front of the camp-cot. Selina tilted her head back to stare up into his clear grey eyes. It seemed an age before she became self-conscious of her own appearance, swallowing a constriction in her throat, dragging her eyes away from his concentrated gaze.
'I'm sorry I wasn't awake to help with the chores.' It was the first thing that came into her head. Then hurriedly: 'Can I bathe too?'
'No. You look a good deal better for sleeping, but under the warpaint on your face you're washed out. I guess you've been a bit concussed, so take it easy for tonight.'
His tone was enough to shake off the disturbed sensation in which she had been caught a few seconds ago. 'I must have a proper wash,' she protested haughtily, 'and change, and there are other things....'
'Sure. There's a snug little corner which should do fine for the memsahib's toilette. If the memsahib
will graciously allow me a moment.'
She flushed scarlet at the ironic servility, and at the ghost of a smile on Narayan's lips as he bent to poke up the fire. How could she have thought that she had some special claim on Luke van Meer's consideration?' Hateful, sarcastic man! She said: 'Whatever you think best,' in a glacial voice, and was far from mollified when he laughed a deep resonant laugh and said : 'Good girl.'
Luke extracted a. clean but crumpled shirt from one of the kit-bags, shrugged his shoulders into it and buckled a pair of Indian chuppli sandals on his big feet. He produced a tin bowl and mug and picking up the hot kettle, ordered her to 'Stay put' as he carried them away behind a tumble of rocks. Narayan deposited her case on the camp-cot. She thanked him, avoiding his eyes as she selected another pair of jeans and a loose shortie kaftan of vivid cotton print she had bought in Delhi, and by the time she had sorted out a fresh bra and briefs, her wash-bag and towel, Luke had returned.
To Selina's annoyance she had to accept the support of Luke's arm to the secluded hollow among the rocks he had found for her. 'Shout if you need any help or see anything moving, I'll be waiting on the other side of that big boulder.' He took her chin and forced her round to meet his eyes. 'And no sneaking down to the river.' His mouth twitched with amusement at her cool air of disdain. 'There's a python down there large enough to crack your tender bones and squeeze the life out of you.'
Her eyes widened, she shuddered and pulled away from him.. Turning her back, she arranged her garments on a rock, and when she looked again he
had gone. The bowl was already filled, the kettle handy to replenish it, and if Luke had invented that python it was not worth the risk of trying to find out now! She stripped and made the best use of the 'snug little corner', revelling in the balm of the cool evening air on her skin. In' spite of her experiences with Henry it never entered her head that Luke would invade her privacy. Much as she might resent being the butt of his sardonic amusement she felt completely safe in the hands of this stranger out of nowhere. It made no sense, but she didn't question it.
Towelling herself quickly, Selina put on her clean clothes with a sigh of satisfaction, deciding not to bother with make-up. 'Luke?' she called, unaware that she had dropped the formality of Mr van Meer. 'I'd like to wash out my clothes.' He reappeared with surprising alacrity.
'Here, let me get that bandage off your head.' She stood perfectly still as he unwound the bandage, -inspected the bruise and tossed the bandage aside. 'The dressing will be enough. Sit up on that ledge and do your hair while I tend to these.'
She sat on the rock and there seemed nothing -incongruous in soothing the tangles out of her mass of silky chestnut hair with a brush as she listened to him laundering her discarded personal garments at the waterside. When he came back he spread them on the rocks, saying: 'They'll be dry by morning. You look like a mermaid perched up there.' He stooped and fitted her expensive leather, hand-made brogues on her slender bare feet, lifted her down and, gathering everything together, took her back to the camp.
Bemused and strangely content, Selina shared the camp fire with the two men, with the pi-dog squatting expectantly beside her. She ate fish and a small juicy orange, and drank tea with crude sugar called gur, and enjoyed it all with a hungry relish the most perfect French cuisine could not have aroused. The fire crackled and sparked, throwing a ring of wavering light into the purple shadows of a dream-like, self-contained world enclosed in rocky vegetation, full of the night sounds and dank .smells of the jungle yet curiously peaceful. The men held a desultory conversation which told her clothing about their plans, and it wasn't until she had taken her Paludrine anti-malaria pill and sat back, while Narayan chewed paan made of betel leaf and areca nut and Luke lit a cigarette, that she asked reluctantly:
'What shall I do tomorrow about—about getting to Delhi, I mean?'
The tip of Luke's cigarette glowed. He blew a wraith of smoke. 'We're not far from a place called Kaladhungi where Narayan knows some reliable people who will take you by road to Haldwani and by rail to Bareilly where you can catch a train to Delhi. You have your passport, return flight-ticket and enough money to see you through.'
