Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1. Whole No. 284, July 1967

Intruder in the Maize by Joan Richter

When EQMM published Joan Richter’s first two stories in 1962, the Richter family lived in Valhalla, New York. But the Richters have traveled since then. Mr. Richter became Deputy Director of the Peace Corps project in Kenya, and Mrs. Richter writes that each day in and around Nairobi unfolds some new surprise for her; much of the East African countryside, she says, is like New England and Northern California combined, with the added attractions of thatched huts and roaming wild game. And Mrs. Richter’s letterhead bears out the latter: the pale blue sheet of paper has a left-hand border in brown and black showing two giraffes, an elephant, a rhinoceros, a water buffalo, a lion, and other fauna of the Richters’ new home.

But we are happy to report that Joan Richter has not limited her writing to letters. Here is her first story about East Africa, and it has a perceptive quality — the freshness of perceptive eyes seeing new sights, wondrous and exotic sights, for the first time...

She waited until the churning of the Land Rover’s heavy wheels on the long gravel drive had faded into the softer sound of tires against murum and then she got up and quickly began to dress. She was annoyed that she had wasted the last hour in a pretense of sleep, but it had been preferable to a confrontation with Jack.

She had heard him get up while it was still dark and go outside. And she had imagined him as he crouched on the rise overlooking the field of maize, waiting, as he had been waiting and watching every dawn for the last two weeks. Sometimes she wondered if he remembered any longer what it was he was waiting for.

She threw a sweater over her suntanned shoulders and left the house by the veranda door, passing the kitchen as she went to tell Kariuki all she wanted this morning was coffee and she would fix that herself later. She walked across the dew-soaked lawn, past the bottle brush tree from whose rose-colored flowers the sunlight birds drank their morning fill, to where the shrubs thinned and she could look out across the green valley to the opposite ridge.

Overhead the East African sky was an intense blue, spreading endlessly, with high clouds that rose like white mountains asking to be climbed. Sometimes she wondered if Jack saw any of this, if he realized at all how much beauty there was just outside their window.

She breathed deeply of the cool air. It was dry, but it did not strike her as thin, not even on that first day, a year ago, when they had just arrived. The only time she felt the altitude was when she walked uphill, and then her breath came in quick, short pulls and her chest felt hard and tight.

A cracking of a twig caused her to look down the near slope into the valley where, among the trees and brush, the smoke of cook fires rose. She saw a man making his way up along one of the paths, his dark head bent, so that she could not see his face; but from his dress — the short-sleeved white shirt and the dark trousers — she was sure it was Molo, one of the few farmers in the area who had adopted European dress.

He had a small shamba on the other side of the valley where in previous years he had raised potatoes and maize, but this season he had set out his first real money crop — a half acre of pyrethrum, a silver green plant from whose daisy-like flowers an insecticide was extracted. She wondered what the occasion was for his leaving his shamba so early in the day.

“Habari,” she said, using the Swahili greeting.

“Mzuri,” he replied, but the look on his face did not seem to agree that everything was good.

There were a few more prescribed words for them to exchange before they exhausted her knowledge of Swahili. Then they would switch to English and slowly Molo would come to the point of his visit.

He looked up at the sky. “The rains come soon.”

She looked too, but saw nothing that resembled a rain cloud. But, then, both night and day the skies were strange to her. The stars were not the ones she knew, nor were the clouds. She knew only that they were beautiful, more so than any she had ever seen anywhere.

“Is the Bwana at home?”

He called her Memsab Simon, but he never called Jack anything but Bwana.

“He left early this morning on safari.” She smiled, still not used to the East African meaning of the word; only rarely did it mean sun helmets and bearers and trekking through the bush; most often it referred to any trip out of town, whether for a day or a week.

“Did the Bwana Red go with him?”

Lately Jack almost never went anywhere without Red, and she did not know whether that made her angry or relieved, whether it was an indication of Jack’s lack of trust in her, or lack of confidence in himself. She liked Red — perhaps too much — but she had done nothing to cause Jack to be jealous. Whether Red returned her admiration she had no idea, for he showed no sign; but her ego was mollified by the knowledge that Red was no fool. He had to work with Jack (another sticky point — Jack was the boss, but Red, having lived in East Africa for the last ten years, knew all there was to know).

“Yes, Bwana Red went with him. Is something wrong, Molo? Do you need more seed?”

Jack had come to East Africa on a two-year contract as an agricultural adviser, and one of the things for which he was responsible was the parceling out of seed. It was given on a loan basis, to be paid for when the crop was harvested. It was a precious commodity, doled out on the basis of past records of repayment. Jack had been concerned about stealing, so he kept the sacks of seed locked in a storehouse at one end of the maize field.

That was the one thing she didn’t like, the one thing that marred the beauty of the land and the sky; barred windows, locked doors — not just outside doors, but all inside doors, to closets and pantries, doors that sealed one section of a house off from another.

“It’s different with the seed,” she had said to Jack, though she had not really meant it — but the seed was not her affair. “But I’ll be darned if I’m going to lock up the pantry every time I leave the house, just so the houseboy won’t help himself to a spoonful of sugar!”

She had pointed to a peg board on the wall. “Look at that! There must be fifty different keys there. I won’t live that way.”

“The house is yours to run as you want,” Jack had said. “But don’t come crying to me the day one of them”—and he had nodded in the direction where Kariuki and his helper were preparing lunch — “walks off with something that can’t be replaced.”

After that she had put the silver that Jack’s family had given them in the wall safe behind the mirror in the bedroom and left it there. It was too much bother taking it out in the morning and locking it up again at night.

One day when Red was with them, Jack brought up the topic again, thinking he would have his colleague’s support; but Red had said, “If I bothered to check, I suppose at the end of each month I’d find I was out a pound of sugar and maybe some tea. On a day to day basis Jinja helps himself to a banana or toast that’s left over from breakfast. The banana would rot before I’d get around to eating it — and what would I do with leftover toast but throw it away?”

“That isn’t the point,” Jack had countered. “They ought to be taught that what’s yours is not theirs.”

“There’s a difference between stealing money and things of value — and taking scraps of food.” Red’s voice had been patient, but not condescending. “When Jinja washes my trousers, he checks the pockets because I’m ways leaving things in them — cigarettes, screws, keys, a few shillings. He keeps a basket on the shelf above the tub for all that stuff. I find the shillings there too, along with everything else.”

Jack had looked at him narrowly. “Have you ever checked? Have you ever left an odd bunch of change—”

“You mean have I ever tried to trap him?”

Jack nodded.

Red shook his head. “If I did that it would mean I didn’t trust him. And he would know, and then the whole thing would break down and I couldn’t trust him.”

Jack had continued the discussion, long after Red would have been happy to let it go. In a final effort to win a point Jack had flashed, “The Africans wanted freedom, now they have to accept the responsibility that goes with it!”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Red had said, “But I don’t go along with your methods. You want to police them — and that isn’t freedom. Sure there are thieves among them — but show me a society that hasn’t any. Just once suspect them of thievery without cause, and you will create a thief.”

After Red had left them, she had not been able to keep silent. Perhaps she had been too strong in stating her position, for Jack had said unpleasantly, “So you think the Bwana Red is a great hero too.” And Jack had turned away...

Now Molo shook his head, No, he had not come for seed.

What does he want, she wondered. What has brought him up from the valley at a time of day when he should be working his shamba? Although she was better at it than when they had first come, she still found it difficult to read the African face. Joy she could identify, but other emotions — anger, fear, distrust — eluded her.

She prepared herself for more small talk. “The tomato plants you gave me are doing very well, Molo. Would you like to see them?”

A sudden though almost imperceptible change in his expression made her realize that accidentally she had hit on what he had been waiting for. He had been waiting for her to invite him onto her land.

“I would like to see maize. Bwana says wild pig is coming and eating.”

So even Molo had heard of Jack’s morning excursions. “You can have my gun,” Red had offered. “I bet, whatever it is, comes around dawn. From that rise over there it would be an easy shot.”

“I’ll get him,” Jack had said, “but I won’t use a gun.”

“Suit yourself, but setting traps can be slow. That’s a big field.”

“Traps?” She remembered the arrogance in Jack’s voice. “I intend to use a bow.”

Red had looked up quickly and perhaps the look that crossed his face had been one of admiration, though she had not seen it as such. But Jack’s satisfied face had been evidence enough of his own interpretation.

“I’m a fair marksman,” he had said. “I had some practice in the States.”

Silently she recalled the country club’s manicured lawn, the steady bull’s-eye target.

“A couple of weeks ago I bought a bow from one of Molo’s brothers and a dozen arrows. It’s a different kind of weapon from what I’ve been used to, but it sure has zing.”

“A little light to do in a pig,” Red said, “unless you’re an incredibly good shot.”

Jack had given him a smug look. “I’ve got something else that will help it along.”

She remembered the frown that had creased Red’s brow. “I’d be careful with that stuff. It’s not something to fool with.”

“Thanks for the advice. I never did have a wet nurse, and I hardly need one now.”

Just the recollection of his retort made her blush...

Molo led the way along the ridge toward the maize. She knew that the polite palaver was over. They were getting to the reason for his visit. He turned when they reached the edge of the green field and continued along the north side of the planted area, moving in the direction of the rise, the lookout Jack went to every morning, where she knew he had gone this morning before he’d left to meet Red.

At the rise Molo stopped, and for the first time she noticed that he had his panga with him, the machete-like knife whose broad blade was used to cut grass, chop roots, dig potatoes, prune trees, and sever the heads off chickens. It was as much a part of the African farm scene as was the hoe in the States before mechanization. Usually when Molo came to pay a social call or to see Jack or Red on business, he left his panga behind. Idly, she wondered why he had it with him now.

He was pointing with it and she followed the dark line of his arm to the end of the blade.

“Pig come out of forest and walk low on belly through maize.”

For a moment she could not see the slight furrow in the sea of green stalks, but then her eyes discovered the thin line that traveled straight across the otherwise untouched field.

“You stay here, Memsab Simon.”

There was something in the tone of his voice that she reacted to. He was not being rude, but rather protective, and she wondered against what. Or was she misunderstanding completely? Was this like an expression she could not read?

“Molo, you don’t think the pig is there now?”

“No, pig is gone.”

“Then why, what—”

“It is better you stay. Let me see.”

She nodded. Molo might be a guest on her land, but she was still a stranger in his country. With an uneasiness — of what she was not sure — she stood watching him as he descended the small hill and entered the maize. Overhead the sky was the same blue it had been minutes ago, before she had seen him coming up from the valley, with the same white, climbing clouds. There was still no visible sign of rain. It was something else that had thrown a shadow over the day.

The maize was shoulder high, so that when Molo paused and looked at the ground she could not see what it was he was looking at.

What had he found? What was he looking for?

He straightened and walked forward, stopping again after a few paces. Then he walked quickly on as though he had seen ahead of him what he had been looking for.

He had entered the field from the side bounded by the forest and was following the path that had been broken for him. As she studied the larger picture she saw that the parting in the maize seemed to lead to the storehouse.

Oh, God, she thought. Some animal found a way into Jack’s burglarproof store! Had Jack come here every morning for the last two weeks and not discovered this for himself?

Molo had almost reached the wooden building. As she watched his movements a thought began to form in her mind. Had an animal made that path? Or had it been a man? A man trying to find a way to break into the seed store?

Molo had said something earlier that now made her wonder. “Pig come out of forest and walk low on belly through maize.” It was an odd way to describe an animal’s foraging.

Molo had reached the storehouse and was standing with his eyes cast down. Then he raised his head and called in Swahili. “Come now.”

Hurriedly she started down the slope, slipping as she went, but driven by an impatience that came of waiting, curiosity, and a mounting concern that something was wrong. Her sweater slipped off her shoulders, but she did not stop to pick it up. At the edge of the maize field she put her arms up in front of her face to shield it from the slashing leaves.

She stumbled and looked down at the ground and saw what Molo had seen — a stone smeared with blood and more blood on one of the low leaves. Ahead there were drops of blood, hardly visible on the red brown earth, but unmistakable and vivid against the pale green of the maize.

Had Jack hit his target this morning? Had he only wounded it? She looked around her, trying to see into the impenetrable maize. The wounded animal might be hidden, crouching, waiting to spring at her, or to charge. How could Molo be so sure it was gone? Already she had thrust the thought from her that her husband’s quarry might have been human.

Her breath was coming in quick shallow gasps when she reached Molo who was standing in the shadow of the storehouse. Her eyes fell to the ground and she saw a pile of dirt and a hole dug under the foundation; beside them a sack of seed and an abandoned panga that had been used to dig the hole.

She took all this in, and more, for at Molo’s feet lay an arrow, its shaft bloody, its sharp triangular point sticky. Her hands flew to her face and she heard herself moan. An animal could not use a panga, nor could it tear an arrow from its stricken body! The succeeding thought made her cringe and her head twisted between her hands. Jack had shot a man!

All arrows looked the same. Perhaps it wasn’t Jack’s at all. He had marked his, scoring the shaft. But from where she stood she could not see — the shaft was partially covered with the loosened earth.

With a supreme effort she slid her hands down from her face and brought them to her sides. She had to find out. She had to know. She hesitated, and then with horrified determination she took a quick step forward, her hand outstretched. But almost before she moved, Molo’s shadow was upon her and his arm caught her across the chest and threw her to the ground.

A scream choked in her throat as she stared up at him, a black man standing over her, his panga raised. It sliced through the air and caught the blood-smeared arrow and tossed it aside.

She saw him stab his panga in the ground and turn to her. “I am sorry, Memsab, but the arrow is poison.”

He held out his hand and helped her to her feet.

“Even a scratch brings death.”

A residue of terror filled her throat and she did not trust herself to speak, for she could not let Molo know what she had thought. She looked at him and pointed to where the arrow lay. The question formed slowly on her lips. “Is it the Bwana’s arrow?”

“Yes,” he said. “It killed my brother.”

Her hand reached out and then fell to her side. What was there for her to say?

“I am sorry, too,” Molo said and then she knew that her face did not present the enigma to him that his did to her. “I am sorry that my brother became a thief — and that your husband must die.”

Oh, God, she thought, what did that mean? Tribal vengeance? Could she reason with Molo? If not, she would have to get word to Jack somehow. It was possible that he and Red had not yet left town.

She turned to Molo, hoping she could find some words to reach him, but he had already begun to speak. The words came slowly, thoughtfully, half in English, half in Swahili.

“Before the Bwana came, my brother was watchman for the Bwana Red. He slept at night outside the seed store, the old one which we do not use any more. No one stole or they would know my brother’s panga.”

Molo’s eyes fell to the ground where the multipurpose knife lay. Then he looked at her again. “But then the new Bwana came and everything changed and my brother became a thief.” He stopped. It was as much as he could say.

“But why did your brother sell my husband a bow? Why did he give him the poison?”

“The bow he sold because he needed money, and because he thought the Bwana could not shoot well. But he did not give him poison. He would not. The Bwana got poison somewhere far from here, from someone he pay a lot of money.”

Suddenly Molo cocked his head, in response to some distant sound. She heard it too. It was the Land Rover returning. She heard it leave the murum road and turn into the gravel drive.

“It is the Bwana Red,” Molo said.

She looked, but it was too far for her to recognize who was in the vehicle. It bore down on them coming as close to the field as it could. Then she saw that it was Red driving and that the seat beside him was empty.

She ran toward him. “Where’s Jack?”

“In town. What’s going on? He sent me out here, said there was something for me to see.”

“There was no wild pig in the maize — it was Molo’s brother. He’d dug a hole under the storehouse.”

Red frowned as he climbed out of the Land Rover. “I guess that’s one for Jack’s side. I’d have said it would take a lot to make Molo’s brother turn thief.” A flicker of hope crossed his clouded face. “I suppose Jack caught him in the act?”

She took a breath. “Jack didn’t catch him. He killed him.”

Red’s face went blank with disbelief. “Why? He was a man, not an animal. Why did he kill him?”

Tears seared her eyes, but she fought against them. It was past the time for weeping. She had no answer to Red’s question. It was what she had been asking herself.

Molo had come up and was standing with them. Red turned to him. “How did he do it? He wasn’t that good a shot with the bow.”

“The arrow came here.” Molo touched the fleshy part of his thigh. “It would not have killed him — but it was poisoned.”

“Poisoned!” Red turned to her. “Where did he get poison?”

“I thought he’d gotten it from Molo’s brother. But Molo says no, that he got it somewhere far from here.”

“That arrogant — this can only mean trouble for all of us — whites and blacks.”

Molo shook his head. “No, Bwana Red. There will be no trouble. My brother is dead. And the Bwana will die. It will end there.”

“Molo, old friend,” Red said in Swahili, “the viper eventually spends itself. Do not put yourself in danger by seeking its death.”

“Do not worry, Bwana Red. The viper has felt its own sting.”

She looked from one man to the other. What had they said? She had caught the proverb, but did not understand its application. She turned to Red. “Why didn’t Jack come back with you? Where is he?”

“I left him at the dispensary. He cut himself on one of those damn arrowheads — not bad, but enough to need a couple of stitches. I wanted to wait with him, but he didn’t seem to want me around. Now I understand why.”

She listened to each word, each progressive syllable, and her realization grew until the horror of it was evident in her face.

Red caught her hand. “God, I’m sorry. I know what you’re thinking. But he’s all right. It’s just a simple cut. You see the poison is applied to the shaft of the arrow, not the tip — for reasons just like this — it’s so easy to get a scratch and that’s all you need.”

She looked at him and shook her head. Then she turned to Molo. “How did you know? How did you know the Bwana would die?”

“Many people were in town, waiting at the dispensary. They brought the news to my shamba.”

“What’s this all about?” Red said, turning to her. “I just told you. He’ll be all right.”

“No,” she said. “No, he won’t. You see he didn’t know about applying the poison to the shaft — he put it on the arrowheads.”