It wasn't unfair to say that the ground stank. The watercourse didn't stink, but once they'd dug deep enough, the earth acquired a quality of smell that best resembled the tangy odour of mold. The smell grew stronger the longer it went on, and the humidity increased.
Bates and Jackson were digging along the Nord-eastern wall of the dig site with van t' Sand and Wilson some two yards to the left of them. Silva was manning the small backhoe. Mary frowned at the screaming hawks circling the air. The fine sand powdered easily and moved solemnly around them. The wind had picked up again.
Currently, Mary Graves was sat with Henderson on the chair beside her and looked up at the sky which had nothing, but the birds and a handful of clouds blown over by the East wind.
"Christ," Henderson said. "We're becoming like Gould and Hanford."
"Who's Gould in this equation?"
"Both. Neither."
"It will be all right, Jacky."
"Sure," Henderson said. "And soon."
"You're confident we will get something, aren't you?"
Mary heard the noises of the people working and she thought, Charles would have liked this. She pictured Charles's smile, dark eyes sharp and knowing.
She sighed. Mary didn't wish to think about him again nor do all the practical thinking that she must do. I will enjoy the sunshine, she thought. Now we know that it's only a matter of time. And the kids are doing well. But there is no necessity to think about anything until Jackson and Bates are done.
She took a breath:
"Now one of us should go and put Silva in and let Bates and van t' Sand and the kids rest and tell McByrne to get started on his samosas."
"I did it yesterday." Henderson asserted.
"You called for Jackson and told him to do it."
"Now you get to call for someone and delegate your job to them."
Mary cursed, voice quiet in horrified realisation. "We're both Gould in the equation."
A loud noise came from upstream. They turned to look as one. Distantly, Mary could see Gerbrandy pointing wildly at something the labourers were doing. Tendaji and another engineer seemed to be in conversation with a delegate from the workers team.
"And why do you suppose they reached out to Greenwich?" Mary spoke.
"They got others here first and they did away with those people three weeks ago, say. But they got nothing because they were in disagreement that there was no endorsement from the locals. Something about the reserve."
Mary looked at Henderson. "So they call us in, counting on the odds that we had no such reservations."
"Do you?"
"No. Not really."
"I do." Henderson shifted in his chair, resting heavily against the back. He watched the site. When he started talking again, it seemed as if he was adding to a point rather than making one: "but yes— Gerbrandy reached out to Tazelaar, who told Greenwich. No moral reservations. No confines. No problems."
"It's a long way from home." Mary said.
"It is going to be a longer way from home each time I leave," Henderson said. "It's a bigger part of their childhood I miss each time." Mary frowned and regarded Henderson and said nothing. "I'll call them over the radio, tonight. There's a line from Meru. Willie always likes that," he was smiling now, "says he wants to travel when he's big. Going to ride a buffalo, he claimed. Last time I was home."
Mary hummed. She silently looked at the site and at Jackson and Bates and rose with a sigh and walked over to the edge where van t' Sand was working.
Anne van t' Sand always reminded Mary Graves of the sort of person that had a sound and humorous life by herself. She was a Dutch conservationist a few years younger than Mary and almost as tall as Jackson. She had good instincts. Anne was rigorous and rational and was good company overall. She had a somewhat formalistic mind and was an avid arguer but she teased well and without being mean. Mary knew she and Henderson had a past before Henderson met Tessa, but she also knew that both had made peace. Or at least as far as Mary knew about it. Mary reasoned that, had there indeed been a problem, they had never let it show or get in the way of work over the past twelve years of them both being part of the team.
"Anne. Anne—!" Bellow, the other woman looked up, a hand over her eyes, "Anne, get Bates and Jackson."
"Ma'am," Wilson asked, knelt beside Anne van t' Sand. "Do you want me to stay here and carry on or what?"
"Carry on until you are too tired and then clean up. I only want you, Leigh and Cools, helping McByrne tonight."
❧
That day it was an early dinner. Bates experimented with how many times he could gently bump his elbow against Henderson's before he broke and pushed his chair away.
"You are twelve," Henderson said.
"Could a twelve-year-old do this?" Bates hung a spoon on his nose.
Henderson didn't want to smile, but Mary saw the edges sneaking through.
"Did you see those hawks around half past six?" Jackson piped up, halfway to wolfing down his dinner. "You'd think we'd looked like rabbits to them."
"There's rats, small wild." Bates said. "They're becoming a problem for the garbage."
"They were harriers." Silva said. The four of them turned their attention to the man.
"How do you know?"
"Statistics. Eighty percent of birds you see here, are, in fact, harriers."
"And if not?"
"Next are seasonal birds," he said, scrunching his nose. "I think."
"Those should've gone ages ago. It's April." Bates said. "How do they know, actually?"
"Know what?" Silva said.
"Where to fly?"
"You know I'm not an ornithologist, right?"
"Evidently."
"Because, out of the two of us, you're the one closest to them."
"Isn't this supposed to be grade school knowledge?" Henderson remarked.
Bates shrugged. "Been a long time," he said.
"A good five-hundred-years?" Henderson said.
"Can't expect advanced mathematics from you, can I?"
"What—? Subtraction?"
"Well, then you should know how the birds know."
❧
The air smelled like a thunderstorm. It was past midday. Mary absent-mindedly rolled up her mud-caked sleeves. The harriers circled, the heat crawled with that well-known wet quality to it, and Mary sat crouched by the edge of the site consulting Jackson when Bates slightly tapped her elbow in quick succession.
"Mary… Mary." He said, something urgent lowering his voice. "Mary," he clicked his tongue. "Graves. Graves— get up here."
From the cliffs, a tribe of Turkanee locals could be seen descending the non-existent road. Some were sat on animals. Most could be seen barnashing a weapon. Mary rose from where she'd been kneeling and frowned as she took in the delegation of newcomers. Jackson, still unaware, deigned to hand her something, and Mary accepted without looking and laid it back down beside her and said: "—not now, Jackson," when he opened his mouth.
From one of the tents close by the boulder-strewn cliff, a group emerged, Gerbrandy and Tendaji being among them. Around the wadis, workers halted in place and just watched.
One of the tribesmen descended from his animal and started to walk towards Tendaji. Who greeted him. A slight nod. The conversation flowed fluently, although quickly back and forth, and Mary and Bates watched as the team of engineers and the Turkana Tribesman conversed. One of the engineers behind Tendaji was clearly trying to explain something, pointing at the dam and in the direction of the mine and various parts of the project. Then a sudden flurry of shouting erupted from somewhere from the group and a Turkanee was seen floundering his way across the sand towards the delagates, waving a rifle in the air. The tribesman conversing with Tendaji turned sharply and shouted something at him, and the rioter halted a few yards from the group. He continued to shout. Mary recognised Gerbrandy now standing beside Tendaji and the stout Friesian asked the leader of the Turkanees something. The man shook his head insistently.
The tension didn't calm again after that. The exchange became heated until eventually, Gerbrandy turned and walked away angrily.
Mary and Bates went to meet him. Henderson was first.
"—lievable. Unbelievable." Mary heard Gerbrandy tell Henderson. Who stood, arms crossed, looking at Gerbrandy and glancing over the man's shoulder at the retreating tribesmen. "These people— these men. They say that I am in violation with the accords of '24. It's inconceivable. They cleared it. They got people from Naorobi and they gave us permission," he turned and gestured wildly at the retreating tribesmen, "who are they? Who are they? I am improving this land. I am improving this country! They say I have insulted them. That this is a transgression. Are humans the only animals for whom enough— more than enough— is still insufficient? I say they are fools!"
Joseph Bates and Mary Graves exchanged a glance. Gerbrandy stood breathing heavily, his dark handlebar moustache weirdly animate. Henderson didn't meet any of their gazes.
Gerbrandy wiped his nose on his hand and then wiped his hands on his pants. "I give these men civilisation, life in this land, and they want to rouse a conflict—" he stopped. Drew a breath. Then looked at them, something more clear in his eyes pushing through. "A thousand apologies, my friends. Not everyone here entertains logical thought." He then gestured at the wadis and the dam and the people working. "But is it not amazing?"
"It is." Mary decided, warily. She searched Gerbrandy for further cause, but the man shook himself with a sort of agitated enthusiasm.
"Bloody amazing, I say." Gerbrandy nodded to himself. And he was once again all smiles. "Bloody amazing." And then he walked off.
Bates and Mary exchanged a look. Slight decisive resignation seeped in the space between them, and it was a feeling they both knew and recognised, and they recognised it in each-other. They no longer talked of it and simply contented themselves in the knowledge that they were both ready if need be. Mary broke Bates's gaze and looked behind her. Henderson's countenance stood carefully blank. She then looked from him back to the tribesmen.
The last animal dissolved with the horizon-line.
"They're good people," Bates said. "They're all brave and some of them are so damned admirable. Then there's bad ones."
"That's all a matter of perspective, Joseph." Henderson finally spoke up. He had a distant, dissatisfied look on his face. The area surrounding his nose and his mouth had contorted. "I imagine we're damn villains in their book." Mary looked after him as he walked off. Shoulders tense and back straight. "People or animals indeed."
Bates threw her another look. A silent question passed between them.
"Let's get back to work." She spoke. And she watched Henderson's retreating figure.
It was later Mary met Henderson in the kitchens. She leant herself against the cabinet with a cup of tea in her hands. "Do we need to talk?"
"I don't know, Mary, do we?"
"You can. Just tell me when you're doing bad."
"I'm not doing bad."
"But you will tell me if you are?"
"Has Bates taken the backhoe out yet?"
"This morning. Jacky?"
"Sure. I will."