What wasn’t inevitable was that they would have called it Ellen’s Road.
Lew hadn’t known about that, and didn’t see it until the end because he stayed at the lake during the whole transfer operation, traveling up with the last truckload, he and Frank in the cab, the final ten workmen and the last miscellaneous cases in the back.
Frank wrestled with the wheel, the truck grinding slowly up along the faint line of roadway, its headlights partially covered with tape but still showing the straight road steadily sloping upward, the dark trees and brush on both sides, here and there the startled red reflections of animal eyes. “I’ll tell you something,” Frank said.
“What’s that?”
“This is exactly like the night before a war.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“Yeah, but do you know what makes this job better?”
“What?”
Frank released the wheel for just a second to jab a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the men out of sight and hearing beyond the cab partition. “Those assholes don’t have guns,” he said.
“I know what you mean. Unfortunately, the people on the other side do.”
“We won’t see no people on the other side.”
“I hope you’re right,” Lew said, and awhile later Frank grappled the truck to a standstill, saying, “We’ll walk in.”
With the truck engine and headlights off, the world was at first absolutely black and absolutely silent. None of the starlight or faint moonlight reached down to here through the branches, and all of the surrounding animal life had been frightened into silence by the arrival of the truck.
But gradually new sounds filled the emptiness, the vague mutterings and jostlings of men in an encampment. And off to the left through the trees were glimmers of both flashlights and firelight.
“This way,” Frank said.
They tramped in on a rustling roadway of crushed branches and leaves, soon seeing the depot up ahead, the dim forms of people moving against the lights. “So this is the place where I didn’t get to take pictures,” Lew said, and saw the sign on the tree, and said, “Oh, shit.”
“What’s up?” Then Frank followed Lew’s gaze and said, “Oh. I forgot about that.”
“Your idea?”
“Well,” Frank said, immediately on the defensive, “she did design the fucking thing. And I put it up before she walked out on you.”
“She didn’t walk out on me,” Lew said, obscurely angry. “Not the way that sounds.”
Frank stopped and held Lew by the arm. “Listen, my friend. I’ve known an awful lot of women in my life, and sooner or later every damn one of them will leave you walking around, scratching your head, and saying, ‘What the fuck was that all about?’”
“Frank, don’t give me a whole locker-room—”
“Hear me out, goddammit.”
“Let go my arm,” Lew told him, “and then I’ll listen.”
Frank released his arm. “Ellen was a very good woman,” he said. “One of the best. Too fucking good for the likes of you.”
“And you.”
“I know that. The point is, she packed up her little ditty bag and she went. And you can poke around for weeks if you want to, like you got a thorn in your paw. Or you can say, ‘Screw it, there’s more of them out there in the bushes.’ What the hell, you did all right before you ever knew that particular woman.”
With a crooked smile, Lew said, “Ellen made the same point.”
“There, see? Be as smart as she is and you’ll be a man, my son.”
Lew said, “I’ll tell you what the situation is, Frank, but I don’t feel like talking about it a lot. Ellen leaving was like catching the flu. You get over the flu, but first it gets worse for a while. I saw that sign and I realized it was getting worse.”
“Okay,” Frank said. “I can follow that. Get well soon, pal.”
“Thank you,” Lew said, and walked on with Frank, not looking up again at the sign.
Some of the tarpaulins had been brought up from the lake and had now been made into lean-to tents. Cartons filled with large cans of stew were among the supplies; the tops had been levered off these, and the stew was heating in the cans over several small fires, filling the air with an aroma of dinner. The endless kalah games continued, beer had been distributed, men were laughing and visiting, settling down on blankets inside the tents, starting to relax at the end of a day of hard work.
Lew took a bottle of the warm beer and strolled around the encampment, not wanting conversation with anybody. Just uphill from the maintenance depot, away from the people, there was a clear spot in the roof of branches, where he could look up and see the stars. The moon had risen almost to its apogee. Ellen is ninety miles from here, he thought. Only ninety miles.
42
Ellen couldn’t sleep, but she didn’t want to admit the fact by turning on the light or getting out of bed. Her room here in the transient aircrews’ quarters at Entebbe was small and clean but very cold and impersonal; more a prison cell than a hotel room. There was a slatted blind to cover the window, but she’d raised that some time ago so she could watch the quarter-moon climb diagonally up the sky, moving almost stealthily in its slowness and silence.
Is Lew in Uganda now? They’ll be coming over tonight, to steal the train tomorrow, if nothing’s gone wrong. Has something gone wrong? Is he in Uganda, or have they had to give it up for some reason?
Should I have stayed?
When she’d arrived here yesterday afternoon, it had seemed at first as though she were wasting her time, as though she should have stayed in Kenya merely because there was nothing for her at Entebbe. Certainly the planes weren’t here, and the smiling false man from the government had lied to her for two hours before she’d finally brow-beaten him into admitting the truth.
The truth was that everything was still tentative. It was still, even at this eleventh hour, possible that Coast Global would not be able to assemble sufficient planes, or sufficient personnel to crew them, in time for Friday’s scheduled operation.
The contract Ellen had signed had of course given Coast Global an out, but it was the sort of boiler plate she’d come to accept in such contracts; it never meant anything. But this time it might. According to the contract, if for any reason the job she’d been hired for failed to materialize, she would be paid her expenses to and from her home (Kisumu!) plus one quarter of the agreed-on salary, which would probably be not much more than a thousand dollars.
And at the end of it back she’d be in Kisumu, instead of in Baltimore. Even with her airline discount, it would take most of her money to get to the States via commercial carrier. If she hadn’t quit Balim, of course, he would have been obligated to pay her return fare, but now he was off the hook and Ellen was firmly on it.
Through all the irritation about money and contracts and lying government men, she had kept tucked away in the back of her mind one oddly comforting thought: if the job fell through, if she wound up back in Kisumu after all, it would be some sort of sign or something that she should stay with Lew.
Unless he’d already moved Amarda in.
Her thoughts had grown increasingly troubled, not eased by the five other crew members—casuals, hired like her for this one-time job—who’d showed up in the course of the evening and then this morning. And it wasn’t till nearly noon today that they’d known for certain the job would take place.