Till Death Do Us Part
By
Darrel Bird
Copyright 2010 by Darrel Bird
Smashwords Edition
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Till Death Do Us Part
Dan Baldwin was minding his own business, sitting in the seat of the company plane, reading a book. His working partner, Gloria Akins, was doing the same. Dan had a sweet job, a nice home, a loving wife, and two beautiful kids; his partner had the same, except she had one kid.
Dan was on the board of deacons at his local church in the “burbs” of Dallas. He was gone a lot, but his was a happy life. When his church asked him to serve on the board, he was glad to get a chance to serve. Gloria had just come on board as a company inspector, but she seemed a nice person; she was outgoing, and she was also a Christian. They were both dedicated to their marriage partners, to their families, and to God.
Dan and Gloria were the only passengers aboard the plane for this trip. Dan noticed she wasn’t beautiful; but she wasn’t ugly by a long shot, and he liked her constant cheerfulness and smile. She wasn’t skinny, but she wasn’t fat; she was just normal. She had long auburn hair that flowed around her shoulders, and her smile lit up her face.
He would normally have preferred a man on this job, but $200 grand a year made him a lot more amiable about whom the company chose, and when his partner retired a month ago, Gloria was chosen. They were the only two ship inspectors the company employed. This was his first trip with her on board.
Life was good and they both knew the direction they wanted to take in life. They were “settled” and that was that. That is, until the plane received a direct hit by a bolt of lightning, killing all power aboard the plane, 15 minutes into the flight over the plains of Tanzania, Africa, and dumping them onto a dry region, killing both pilots.
The plane hit the top of a large tree, dead center, and the branches that skewered the pilots softened the blow just enough to allow Dan and Gloria to come out with only a few injuries. The trees knocked both wings off and left the body of the plane skidding on the rock and sand soil to a halt on its side. Since the fuel tanks were in the wings, the body of the aircraft was in no danger of fire.
Dan heard a moan when he came to and looked across the plane at 16 seats above and to his left. There hung Gloria, still fastened into the seat belt. Blood dripped off the end of her finger, hit the side of the plane and ran down. She appeared unconscious.
Dan moved, and a pain shot down his arm. “Aw.” His voice sounded loud in the silence. He moved again and it didn’t hurt too badly, so he struggled to a sitting position, the rounded sides of the plane now being the floor, and the seats sticking out at 90 degree angles. He crawled over to her; she had been sitting four seats behind him and across the isle. He began to struggle with her seatbelt and finally hit the release button. She tumbled to the floor, moaning loudly. He found an 8-ounce water bottle, and spilled some on his hands to bath her face; her eyes fluttered open.
“Where are we?”
“The plane crashed and we are on the ground. How are you?”
“My hand hurts.”
“Let me look at it.”
He lifted her hand in the dim light and found a fairly deep cut, but it didn’t look too serious. “I have to see to the pilots,” he said, and then crawled to the door of the pilot’s cabin. After a few jerks on the door, it came open.
Both the pilots lay in contorted positions, one pilot's neck was stretched horribly out of shape; a limb had gone through his throat and broken off. The other pilot's arm was twisted behind his back, his shoulder dislocated in the grotesque silence of death. He felt for a pulse, but there was none.
“They’re both dead” he called back, then crawled back the way he had come.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, Gloria; just deal with it a step at a time, I guess. First we have to take care of that hand.” When he touched her hand again, something like a spark of electricity went through him, as Mother Nature made its age old siren call between a woman and a man. It startled him, but he neither looked at her, nor said anything.
He poured more water over his clean handkerchief and bathed the hand, and then he tied the handkerchief around the wound. He would look for the first aid station later. For now he had to try and get the door open, which was directly overhead. At least the plane was not lying on the door. He climbed on a seat and, bracing his legs on two seats, he managed to swing the latch on the door and unlock it. With a shove, it swung open and flopped back on the plane's skin with a bump.
Dan looked out over the African plain of bunches of grass and stands of trees that stretched as far as he could see in all directions. Everywhere he looked was dry and parched in the African heat. The sun looked to be about an hour high – it was getting close to sundown.
He dropped back down between the seats to the floor. “It looks dry out there, but we are clearly visible from the air, so it won’t be a problem for them to spot us. All we have to do is wait for rescue. I don’t think we can expect them today because the sun is almost down, but I think we should expect a helicopter tomorrow.”
Jed Miller, the pilot, and Hank Fullerton, the copilot, had been flying for Global ten years, and today was just another routine flight to carry two company employees to a small city off the coast of Africa. They would then ferry a load of crew from the drill ship back to Durban, and then head home for two weeks. They both had fresh coffee and sweet rolls as Jed called off the checklist in preparation for takeoff. What he didn’t know was that the compass was off. An hour into the flight, they hit a front that they could not go around. They had been through many of these fronts, and there was not much cause for concern, but this day, a lightning bolt had their name on it.
The conditions in the cloud front became just right at the right moment to release pent up electrical energy, which penetrated the plane's electronics and knocked out all power to the plane, and what turned out to be a routine flight propelled it far from routine. Jed tried to let the two passengers know, but the call speaker was dead, and a few minutes later, he was dead.
Dan lay down on the curved floor and tried to get comfortable on the hard skin of the plane. His shoulder hurt and his back hurt. He looked at Gloria, a few feet away, and saw the discomfort on her face. A reinforcement in the skin of the plane dug into his other shoulder; he did not quite fit between the close reinforcement in the skin. They lay there in the now sweltering heat inside the fuselage with the door open to the sky.
Soon it began to cool, as the sun sank below the horizon. Dan crawled forward again and found the first aid station, which was almost to the roof. The case was attached to the fuselage with bolts, he opened the door to the box and retrieved all the items in the box and crawled back to where Gloria lay.
“Give me your hand.” She extended her hand, and he cleaned the cut with alcohol swabs, then applied antiseptic and bandaged the hand. Again that something shot through him, leaving him feeling like a teenager working on his first kiss, and he began to see Gloria with new eyes. It wasn’t something he chose to do – it just was.
They dozed until about nine o’clock, and that was when the lions and hyenas came. The roar of a lion’s call sounded loud in the stillness, and Gloria jumped to her knees. “What was that?”
“A lion, I think. I heard one in a zoo once. I don’t think they can climb the nose of the plane; it’s too slick.” As he said that, he remembered seeing a rock outcropping near the nose of the plane, and no sooner than he thought of it, he heard a thump of paws hit the nose of the plane, and then a softer thud and a “ruff!” He knew the lion had fallen off on the other side.
“Oh my God!” Gloria said.
“He fell off the nose cone,” Dan said. He also knew that it would only be a matter of time until the lion or lions would figure it out and jump for the cock pit from the rock outcropping, but he said nothing. He took his shoe off and beat on the side of the plane's skin, but the smell of blood overcame a lion's caution, and about ten minutes later he heard the thud of the lion's paws and scratching, as the lion's nails got a perch on the edge of the cockpit windshield; immediately he was in the cockpit, tearing at a body.
Gloria landed on top of him and held on to him as the lion growled and fought to drag a body out of the harness. Then he heard the screech of a hyena as it leaped into the cockpit with the lion; then another, and pandemonium broke loose as the lions and hyenas fought over the pilots’ bodies. They could hear the tearing of flesh as the animals tore them out of the safety harness and dragged them to the ground.
Gloria hung on to him, shivering, “Can they get through the door?” she asked.
He shushed her, “I don’t know.” He whispered in her ear, “Don’t make any noise,” he said, as she held him tightly. After about 30 minutes of this it grew silent in the plane again. He put his hand over her mouth to signal her to remain quiet. Toward two o’clock in the morning, they both slept a bit.
When the sun rose again, Dan crawled forward and gently unlatched the cockpit door. The bodies were both gone, and the cockpit was an unspeakable mess of hair and blood. He closed the door and crawled back. “They’re both gone, the bodies, I mean. I don’t know where the animals are.”
Gloria wept silently, “Oh my Lord, those men’s families, what will we tell them?”
“I don’t know, Gloria, the truth I guess; what other choices do we have? Gloria, until rescue does come, we need to plan every move we make.”
“What do you mean?” she said, looking startled at him.
“We haven’t heard even a search plane.” Dan just decided to give it to her straight. “We have three bottles of water to last us until help arrives. If we don’t get help by tomorrow night, we will have to find water. We can do without food, but we can’t do without water, and we will have to go look for some.”
“You mean we have to leave the plane?”
“Yes.”
“No, I don’t want to do that.”
He said nothing, but he felt strongly that something, he didn’t know for sure what, had gone very wrong for them besides the crash, as if that’s not enough, he thought. But he still said nothing.
They spent the day in the heat, drinking up what bottles of water remained, and listening for the sound of search planes that did not come. Then they spent another night on the uncomfortable ribs of the plane’s fuselage. About eleven o’clock they heard the roar of a lion that had come close to the plane; the lions were again hunting on the plains of the African savanna.
“Dan, can I lay by you?”
“Sure, come on over.” And Gloria came next to him and lay down.
“I’m scared, Dan.”
“I know, try to get some rest. If there is no sign of rescue, we have to walk in the morning.”
“I’m not leaving the plane,” she said flatly.
“Look Gloria, we can’t stay here without water. I think the plane was off course. We should have at least heard a search plane.”
“I’m not leaving.”
Dan again felt something go through him that shouldn’t have been there as she lay beside him, his arm behind her back and across her shoulder. He was all too aware of the smell of her and the feel of her soft body lying against him.
Morning came, and he gently extricated his arm from behind her back. His arm had gone to sleep, but he was still very aware of the smell of her and the softness of her body. He rubbed his arm vigorously to get the circulation back. He felt the needle-like effect as the circulation returned.
He began to gather the empty water bottles. He found two more empties in the cockpit, and three more in the little galley. There was no electricity to run the pumps, and no way to get to the water in the tanks. He rose and climbed up and tossed them through the door, which was open to the sky, and they rolled to the ground.
He searched through his suitcase and found the spool of fishing leader he always carried with him. He usually liked to throw a line over the side of whatever ship he was on to see what he would catch. They would normally be aboard ship for several days. The crews treated inspectors like outsiders, and there was plenty of time to be bored.
He took the fishing leader and the few hooks in his fishing kit and stuffed them in the oversized pockets. He took the scissors and the bandages and stuffed them in various pockets. He found the fire axe and removed that from its holder.
“What are you doing?” Gloria asked, but he said nothing. Dan Baldwin was a man who made decisions, and thereafter carried them out. It was his ability to do that that had made him into a good ship inspector.
He took the two white shirts out of his suitcase and stuffed that into his waistband then reached up for the rim of the plane's door and pulled himself up and over the edge. He slid down the skin of the plane, his feet hitting the ground lightly. Hunger pangs had begun to gnaw at him, and he took the bloody candy bar he had found in the cockpit and squirreled it away, out of Gloria’s sight. He knew what the blood was from. He broke the chewy bar into two pieces, and began to chew on the one piece.
Gloria came sliding down the plane’s skin, almost tipping forward on her face as she hit the ground. He handed her the other piece of the candy bar, “Eat.”
She said nothing as she took it, looked at it, and started chewing hungrily. “What’s with you?” she gazed up into his face as she saw the set look.
“I told you we have to leave the plane to look for water.”
He took out the spool of fishing line, gathered together the eight plastic water bottles, and then began tying the fishing line around the necks of the bottles tightly and close together. Soon he had a gaggle of water bottles, which he slung over his shoulder. He began walking, following the groove the plane's fuselage had left, back to one of the engines, which lay on the ground. Gloria followed him, watching.
Dan looked around until he found what he was looking for – a sharp broken piece of metal that had broken off the engine. He took the dull fire axe and began to rub it on a stone. He rubbed until the axe took on a sharp edge, then he proceeded to find a straight bush. He hacked the bush off about a foot off the ground, stripping the limbs off. He cut the bush at about six feet. Gloria followed him, looking on.
“I’m not going to leave the plane,” she repeated.
He turned to her with a hard look in his eyes, which scared her. “Look, Gloria, you do what you want, but I am going to try to live. It may be the wrong decision to leave the plane, but I have made my decision. At best, I have but a fool’s chance to find water out here. It could be five miles, ten miles, or a hundred miles to the nearest water. I may miss water even if I come near it, and die of thirst anyway.”
He looked at her fiercely as he spoke in his usual honest and straightforward manner. “I know I am in a difficult situation here. I have a wife and two kids who love me, and I owe it to them to try and live…In addition to that, I think I am falling in love with you. Now if that isn’t just something…here I am in the middle of the damned Gobi desert of nowhere, full of lions and hyenas who want to eat me, and snakes who want to poison me, and no telling what else, but I’ll be damned if I am going to just lay down and die, and I’ll leave your ass right here, so you choose."
Gloria looked at Dan with shock on her face as she heard out his tirade. She knew that nothing in the world besides a rescue helicopter or plane would turn this man. She thought of what he said, “I think I am falling in love with you.” His honesty brought to the fore her own feelings, and she knew that she was feeling the same thing.
What is this? she thought. I am a happily married woman with a husband who loves me; how can this be? She was even more attracted to him as she prepared herself to submit to this man she hardly even knew. But she knew she would submit; that was just the way of it. She also had qualities that made her a ship inspector, and that was to see things the way they were and to quickly identify something out of place.
Dan knelt down on the ground, again took out the roll of fishing leader, and began tightly wrapping the sharp iron piece to the split head of the pole. He held the leader in one hand and turned the pole in the other to get a tight wrap on the device. He eventually got up and hefted the make shift spear. He threw it at a sand hill, and the spear made a satisfactory thud as it buried itself up over the hilt of the makeshift spear head.
He walked out and retrieved it. He began wrapping the white shirt around his head in a sort of turban, tossed the water bottles over his shoulder, and walked back toward the fuselage. “What will it be, Gloria?” He looked at her with unrelenting and unmerciful eyes.
“Could you make me something to go on my head?”
His eyes softened a little. “Sure.”
He walked back to the plane, climbed into the cabin and came out with another white dress shirt. He slid to the ground and began tying another turban-like affair around her head. She stood still and looked up at him as he worked.
“Look straight forward. I can’t work on this thing with you looking up.”
She obeyed, saying nothing as he finished the job and gave it an appraisal. He was satisfied. It looked ridiculous, and the head band came to just over her eyes, covering her forehead. She giggled at him; here they were in the middle of nowhere with shirts tied to their heads. His faced softened and he laughed; then they both laughed loudly and long as the tension broke in the laughter. “You Tarzan, me Jane.” She poked him in the stomach and the laughter broke out again.
They looked around at the patches of trees, patches of tall dry grass, and clearings that seemed to stretch to infinity, and they both sobered at once. “Which direction?” he said. “Pick one.”
Gloria turned slowly, her gaze on the horizon. She pointed her finger. “That a way.”
“Ok Jane, let's go.”
Dan led off in the general westerly direction she had indicated. The sun was getting high by now, and he knew they would only be able to walk a short way in the full sun, but at least they had started. They walked steadily for two hours. It was not too difficult because of the sparseness of the patches of trees; and thorn bushes grew everywhere, it seemed. Random bunches of tall dry grass blew in the breeze. It was a weird landscape, with thicket and open spaces alternating to dry grass.
In the shade of a tree, Dan stopped and sat down, his back against the bole of the tree. Gloria flopped down beside him. Sweat beaded her face, and she was white around the mouth. He pulled out two pennies and gave one to her. “Suck on this. It will help.” He plopped one in his own mouth, and immediately the sharp copper taste began to bring saliva to his dry mouth.
“How long are we going to stay here?” she asked.
“Until the sun gets low; then we’ll walk some more.”
He looked at the water bottle and saw a couple of drops had formed on the bottom of each one, and began to gently unscrew the cap. “Open your mouth.” She opened her mouth, and he watched the drops of water hit her tongue. She swallowed. He did the same with the rest of the bottles, and then screwed the lids back on.
She looked at him in wonder, “You didn’t drink; why? Where did you learn all this stuff?” She looked at him tenderly.
“Why, I was a Boy Scout, didn’t you know?”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“When you said you thought you were falling in love with me, did you mean that?”
“Yes, I meant it. No more questions; we have to try and get some rest.” She laid her head on his shoulder and pensively slipped her hand into his, and they soon fell asleep in the humid tropical heat.
Dan awoke suddenly an hour later to the sound of a horn; he looked around to see three elephants, off in the distance. That was the horn he had heard. Gloria stirred. “What was that?” she asked, as she extricated her hand from his.
“Elephants, three of them, see?” he said, pointing. She looked in awe at the huge animals as one of them pushed over a tall sapling to get at the green vegetation at the very top. The others began stripping leaves; then they proceeded to do the same thing again.
“There may be water nearby. When it gets late we’ll circle around that area and see.”
About three hours before sundown, they started off in the direction in which the elephants were grazing. They circled until near sundown, when they came upon a dry stream bed. They followed that about a mile, and came upon deep holes dug in the sand. Elephant tracks and dung were there aplenty. There were about six inches of water at the bottom of one of the holes.
Dan gently lowered himself down, and taking the water bottles, began filling them one by one with the cool water. He handed the water up to Gloria, who drank two of them before stopping. He drank two, himself, while he waited for the water to fill the seep again. Then he refilled the six spent bottles.
“We have to find a place to bed down for the night, and we don’t have much time,” he said, leading the way up an elephant trail and out of the dry streambed. He walked a few yards until he came to a lone tree in a small clearing, and gently laid the water bottles down.
“You get wood; I want to gather thorn trees to make a shelter from the animals.”
“Ok.”
“And watch for snakes; be careful where you put your hands.”
“Yes, Bwana.” Gloria smiled at him and started off to gather dead wood.”
Dan worked for an hour, dragging thorn trees to the single tree, and arranging them in a circle to the bole of the lone tree. The thorns in this area were all of two inches long, some even longer, and they were stiff and sharp like thousands of long needles. There was some blood on his hands, but not a lot, as he was as careful as he could be with the thorns.
Gloria had a respectable pile of dead wood by the time he was finished, and he drew the last thorn bushes around the small enclosure. “Are you going to tell me you learned that in Boy Scouts?” She smiled up at him.
“Saw it on National Geographic. I really don’t know if it works or not.”
“Oh thanks a lot!” she feigned a frown.
“You're welcome, my queen; I am at your service.” He bowed deeply, and she slapped him on the chest, laughing.
“It’s good to see you laugh.” He looked at her, now serious. “We have to keep our heads, or we won’t make it out of here.”
Her smile faded as she knew the truth of what he said. “Aren’t you going to light a fire? It's almost dark now.”
“No, not now; maybe not at all. Fire will destroy our night vision, so only if we have to.” He began to scrape back a spot to lay down as darkness fell with a vengeance. He lay down with his head on the shirt he wore as a turban, propped against the root of the tree.
Gloria observed and, following suit, lay down next to him. There were plenty of sounds as the night insects came to life on the African plain. Night birds began giving their weird calls also, as night took hold. They could hear the chuff of a lion away off, in the distance.
“Dan?”
“Yes?”
“What is your wife like?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“No, but tell me anyway.”
There is no figuring women; they don’t want to hear it, but they do. Dan thought about his wife, safely tucked into their Dallas suburban home. “She is a lot like you, only prettier! Now go to sleep.” She turned around and whacked him on the shoulder with the palm of her hand.
“Ouch, quit that!”
“That’s what you get for telling a woman that another woman is prettier!”
She snuggled her body back into the fold of his stomach, and he gently wrapped his arms around her. Soon he heard her deep breathing and knew she was asleep. He was aroused with her sleeping in his arms, and he fought to go to sleep.
Dan awoke about two in the morning. His arm felt numb where she lay; he extricated his arm and sat up rubbing it vigorously to get the blood flowing again. He heard the bark of a hyena close by and knew that was what awakened him. Another hyena gave the answer a few feet away; they had been attracted to their smell. Gloria groaned loudly, and then sat up.
“What was that?”
“Hyena.”
“Are they close?”
“Yes. I am going to light a fire, but don’t look at the flame. Keep your eyes on our surroundings; they might try to break through, and I won’t be able to see.”
He struck the flint on the plastic lighter and the small flame shot up, he held that to the little pile of dry grass and limbs he had prepared before they lay down. The grass burst into flame and licked hungrily at the dry limbs and lit up the area inside their little compound. He piled on more wood as the flame took hold. Soon he could make out red eyes around the compound. He let out a loud whoop, and the eyes receded.
“I don’t think they will come near the fire.”
“But what if they do?”
“We have the spear; I don’t know what to tell you, Gloria. It's not every day I am surrounded by hungry hyenas, you know!”
“Well you don’t have to get cranky!”
“Well, get my morning coffee made, woman!”
He saw her beautiful smile as it lit her face in the firelight, and he loved her more than he had the day before. He felt the primitive feeling of love, conquest, and the need to protect. The power of nature amazed him. He had never felt more alive in his life. He soon sat down with his back to the bole of the tree; she sat down beside him and gently leaned her head on his chest. The smell of her long hair fired him, and he wrapped his arms around her. They soon dozed again.
The hyenas did not make any more attempts to come within proximity of the little compound. He awoke an hour later and stoked the fire, piling on more wood; and they slept until the sky began to grow pink in the east.
Just as the sun rose, he pulled the thorn bushes back, gathered up the water bottles, and they made their way back to the dry stream bed to refill them. Animals had made a mess of the holes, covering the bottom of the holes with sand and gravel. Dan scooped out the seep again and waited for the water to clear. Soon, he was able to fill the water bottles with what he hoped was clean water. If either one of them got sick out here, he knew they would be in for it for sure.
They both drank all they could hold, and then he placed the full bottles across his shoulder and led the way up and out of the dry streambed. He looked around, and then without a word, struck off across the savanna, following his nose.
They walked until noon, and then lay down under a lone tree. The tree spread its branches wide in that weird way of the savanna trees. The plains looked limitless, empty, and primeval. Gloria sat down and laid her head against his shoulder, and the smell of her hair again fired him to the bottom of his soul. He was helplessly and hopelessly in love with this woman.
Again, he was amazed at the power of nature; she felt it too, and raised her head to him, and he kissed her there, under the African sun.
“What are we going to do, Dan?”
“I don’t know, Gloria; keep walking, I guess.”
“I mean about us.”
“I know what you mean, Gloria. What we do is to put one foot down in front of the other. I didn’t plan on this; I just wanted to get to the next ship, and then get back home to my wife and kids, and mow my lawn. I don’t know what to do with this. We have to try to live. We both have obligations to fulfill. Let's walk.”
Gloria was silent as they began walking again. Soon the sun wiped away all thoughts except the heat, as they picked their way through the interminable African bush. They stopped again at sundown and began to prepare for dark, only this time with no water other than the two bottles they had left. The thorn bushes were scarcer and spread further apart, and by the time Dan finished finding, cutting, and hauling enough to make a small compound, he was exhausted. His lips were cracked and beginning to bleed. He lay down just at the time it was getting dark, and nursed his way through half of one of the bottles. He hated to drink the water, knowing how much they would need it tomorrow, but felt he had no choice.
“Drink half a bottle, Gloria.”
“I can make it without it.”
“No, do as I tell you and drink half a bottle. You will lose more than that during the night. Now do it while I watch you.”
She obediently sipped the tepid water, and he saw how her lips were swollen and cracked. “Gloria, if you favor me any more, I am going to bust your ass! Do you hear me?” She turned, wiggled her hips at him, and smiled, her countenance lighting off the fires of his love for her.
They both slept fitfully during the night, but Dan didn’t have to light up the wood Gloria had dragged into the compound. It was drier here, and more desert than it was bush. Dan feared for their life that night, and Gloria entrusted her life to him that night.
The following morning they awoke thirsty, stiff, and very sore. Their shoes were almost worn through from walking on the sharp rocks that covered the landscape. Gloria had a cut on her ankle, and he attended it with what remained of the alcohol swabs, and then dressed the wound with a bandage. The bandages were almost gone too.
Just as he finished the bandaging, he laid his hand on her shoulder, “Don’t move, don’t you move,” he said quietly. She froze as she read the fear in his eyes. He moved his hand slowly toward the spear lying beside him, his other hand still resting on her shoulder. He inched up the spear past her, and suddenly, with a flick of the spear, he threw a black snake away from her. She screamed when she saw the snake crawling off.
She buried her face in his chest and cried. He let her cry it out for a while. “You’re wasting water,” he said gently; let's walk.”
There was not much shade to be had as they started across the dry savanna. They saw few animals, just catching a glimpse here and there. It was their fifth day without much food, and little water. All that day they walked, both knowing if they didn’t find water, they were through.
The land began to take on a different look about three in the afternoon – more vegetation – and Dan hoped it would lead to water. They walked until an hour from sundown, and began the routine of another night on the African plains. When they were finished making camp, they both fell to the ground, exhausted.
About eleven o’clock, the lions came. In the dry season a hungry lion will eat anything, and Dan and Gloria were on their menu. A male lion came up to the thorn wall, roared and stopped. Dried blood was on his mouth from the last kill; he growled and looked through the thorns at them. Two females came running up and began circling the thorn wall. The male reached out a paw and tested the thorns, feeling them, and then pulled it back. He roared again, and Gloria screamed. Dan capped his hand over her mouth before the scream was finished.
“Gloria, stop that,” he yelled, but her eyes were wild with fear. “You have to get hold of yourself; screaming only makes it worse; they can smell the fear.”
He grabbed the spear and began jabbing at the lions through the thorns. He hit one as it came too close, and elicited a growl, but the lion withdrew. The growling, huffing, and chuffing kept up as the lions circled the thorns. Eventually, one got into a frenzy and lunged at the thorns; the wall caved as the weight of the lion hit it. The lion yelped and withdrew; it growled and moaned as it walked away a little way and sat down, licking its wounds from the thorns. The others kept circling the little compound. Dan, jabbing his spear through the thorns at them, yelled, “Get out of here, and go on!” The lions looked at him as if trying to figure out what he was telling them.
“Go on! Scat!”
“Scat?” Gloria looked at him; he turned and grinned.
“Well…they’re cats aren’t they?”
A smile came to her parched lips. At length, hunger drove the lions to make a decision to hunt easier game, and the large male moved slowly back out of the light of the fire. When morning came, the lions were gone.
“They may still be nearby, let's wait and watch.”
But they neither saw nor heard anything except bird calls as the morning wore on. Gloria looked at Dan in amazement as he leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes. She snuggled up to him. Her thirst was almost more than she could bear, but she slept on a little. He stirred about an hour and a half later, gently extricated from her embrace, and began removing the thorns. She stirred and looked at him with dull eyes as he pulled at the thorns. The thorns pricked his hands; he didn’t have the dexterity that he needed, and he knew they were both growing weaker by the hour.
They started walking about ten o’clock. They stumbled on through the day. Dan cut green pieces of wood and they sucked on that, the moisture in the wood kept their mouths from drying out, but they were both growing weaker.
Along toward sundown Dan stopped suddenly and Gloria ran into his back. She stumbled and looked up at him with glazed eyes.
“I see something.”
“Where?”
“Away over there,” he said, pointing; doesn’t that look round to you, sticking above the trees?” He slurred through his thick swollen lips.
“Where? I don’t see it.”
“Get behind me and follow my finger; see it?”
“Yes, it does look round; it could be a round hill.”
“It just doesn’t look like part of the terrain; it could be some kind of house. Let’s aim for it and find out.”
They stumbled on for another hour, doing their best to keep the round object in sight, but finally, coming to the thicker trees, they lost sight of the object. The trees grew thicker the further they went, until suddenly they came upon a village of mud huts in a clearing. The village was surrounded by thick piles of thorn bushes with one single entrance.
A young boy came out of the bush, saw them and went running through the entrance to the village. Soon, people appeared in the entrance, staring at them in amazement. Several of them carried what looked like AK 47 automatic rifles.
“I wonder if they will give us water and food. We may as well go and see.” The black skinned villager didn’t move as they walked up to the entrance. The kids hung back as the villagers looked stoically at these people who had appeared out of the bush.
“Do you understand English?”
They looked at one another in wonder at the strange language, and then turned their gaze back on Dan. The women eyed Gloria with curiosity. Suddenly, a very black man pointed to a boy and jabbered a few words; the boy went running back into the village. Soon, he appeared again with a short black man who looked at them in amazement. He walked through the entrance of the compound without hesitation.
“Are you European?” he asked in English.
“American.” Dan said.
“I am Mica Telaka. I am a missionary here. How did you get here?”
“Our plane crashed and we have walked three days now. Can you give us water?”
“Surely, my friends.”
“These villagers are my people; we will smile at one another, so they will accept you as my friends.” Mica began smiling; he pointed at his face to smile, so both Dan and Gloria forced their cracked lips to smile. Gloria did a better job of it, since she was a natural.
Mica turned and talked to the old black bearded man, who in turn motioned them into the compound. The old man walked proudly ahead of the villagers to a small round mud hut. He turned and pointed his machete at the door of the hut.
“He says you both stay here; he has given you my house, and I will go and stay with my brother and his family while you are here.”
“But we are not married.” Gloria looked startled at Mica.
“You do not understand, you both must stay here; my people are at war over grazing land for their cattle; it is not safe here, and you must stay here. My people will try to protect you until we can get you to the airstrip, but you must do as I say.”
“Thank you,” Dan said, shaking Mica’s hand. “We will do as you say.”
A young girl walked up and offered them each a clay bowl of water. Dan and Gloria smiled at her, then took the water and drank deeply of the cool liquid. She took the empty bowls and ran back for more.
Gloria looked up at Dan, “Well Bwana, what do you think?”
“I think we just got shacked up is what I think.”
Mica laughed; he seemed delighted at the situation. Gloria gave her best frown, and Mica slapped his thigh and laughed again.
Turning serious, he said, “Please do not go outside after dark; is too dangerous. It used to not be this way, but since the land has dried up, there have been constant skirmishes over grazing land; everybody has automatic weapons; there are many people killed and murdered here.” He looked sadly away.
“I’m sorry.” Dan said.
“We must get you to the airstrip, two days walk from here. We must get you safely back to your country. I have been there; is a beautiful country and no war,” he finished wistfully. “You go inside and I will bring you food.”
Dan bent over to go through the low door of the hut and Gloria followed him. They straightened up and looked around in the dim light. The hut had two small open windows, with a thatch covering that could be pulled down for privacy. There was one bed made of animal hides, but no cooking stove, so Dan guessed all the cooking was done outside. The only other items were a small table with a chair, and some of Mica’s clothing hung on the walls of the hut. The place was very primitive and simple. Mica had a writing tablet and two yellow pencils lying neatly on the table. Dan could only imagine the life of some of the missionaries who chose to come out here to minister to these herders and their families.
Soon Mica knocked on the edge of the door and brought some plates of food and a small pot. He gingerly sat the plates down on the table.
“This is beef and other vegetables; I hope it suits your taste.”
“Sit,” he motioned for Gloria to sit at the one chair at the little table. Mica prepared them strong tea laced with sugar.
“Thank you,” she said, as she sat down and went to work on the food. Mica poured them each a cup full of the strong tea. Dan took his plate and sat on the edge of the bed. Mica sat down to talk while they ate.
“The missionaries came here and they sent me to school in England. I decided to return home to try to help my people.”
“It is difficult here, because they have their shaman. But I have made some headway in evangelizing them. I want to go to America to school, and perhaps I will.”
“Since the land got drier, there is so much trouble here; the people fight and kill each other for the grazing of cattle.”
“I could possibly get you out,” Dan told him.
“No, I cannot go and leave my people; it is I who must get you out.”
“If the fighting does not cease, there will be nothing left of my people. Then I would go.”
“You may not live to get out,” Dan returned.
“I know this, but I must stay until the last one is gone.”
“I will go now and let you rest, I hope you will remember me. Tomorrow there will be a truck to take you to the airfield. I have sent word.” The sad missionary got up to leave.
“We will remember you.”
Dan handed him back the utensils, and he disappeared through the door.
“Is there nothing we can do?” Gloria asked.
“I don’t know what it would be, Gloria.” Dan laid his tired body down on the bed. Soon Gloria slipped in beside him, and that night, they consummated their love for each other.
The next morning at daybreak, Mica knocked on the door post again. “Awake! We must go, the truck comes.”
Dan and Gloria hurriedly dressed again in their filthy clothes and turned toward the door with swollen eyes at the sound of a truck buzzing toward the village. They rode in the back of a Toyota pick-up four hours with Mica, eventually arriving at an airstrip heavily guarded by soldiers. A plane sat waiting on the tarmac as the truck pulled in the gate. A man met them as they got down and rubbed their stiff legs.
“I have come to escort you to Durban.” He said, shaking their hands.
Mica hugged them both, bid them farewell, and climbed into the truck for the trip back to his village.
Three hours later they were in the busy airport in Durban, and two hours later they were sitting together on the way back to the states.
The company had called them at the Durban airport. “We thought we had lost you. Welcome back.” The voice of their boss sounded good to Dan.
They sat, saying nothing until Gloria said, “Dan, what are we going to do about us?”
“We’re going to do nothing, Gloria; we are going home to our families. Now wipe the tears from your eyes. You and I both know what we have to do, and we will do it.”
His hand found hers and she leaned her head against his shoulder, still crying softly.
The end