The Greystoke Legacy Read Online Free Page B

inside,” she said quietly.
    Archie hid his surprise. For once she was being reasonable. He hoped it was a sign of things to come.
    The bar was swelteringly warm and unusually quiet, save for the continuous drumroll of rain on the iron roof. The entire workforce was here, staring thoughtfully into their beers. Robbie played pool with an Indian logger, Anil. The table was so old that patches of felt had torn away leaving black tarry streaks. Mister David sat solemnly in the corner with Serge, a logger who had joined the operation at the same time as him. Clark sat at the bar, already on his third beer. Jane sat next to him, her father on the other side.
    â€œA beer for me and something for Jane,” said Archie. Esmée served behind the bar when she wasn’t teaching and Jane judiciously avoided her gaze. Esmée popped the cap off a Tusker beer for Archie and gave Jane a bottle of cola, slamming it a little harder than usual on the bar.
    Nobody said a word. Deaths in the jungle were frighteningly regular, and every couple of months somebody new would turn up as a replacement, lured by the cash the wood brought in.
    Jane caught Robbie glancing over with the look of concern he wore every time she argued with Archie. He smiled, although the death had clearly shaken him. Jane smiled back and felt the sudden need to talk to a friend. A loud belch from Clark interrupted her reverie.
    â€œWhy do you do this?” Jane suddenly asked him.
    Clark finished the dregs of his beer before answering. “Why do I drink or why am I out here rather than with a family back home?”
    â€œBoth.”
    â€œBecause the beer costs less.”
    â€œThat’s lame.”
    Clark had been a friend of her father’s for many years. He was always traveling and, when Jane was younger, she used to enjoy his visits and stories of far-flung places. He had been responsible for suggesting he and Archie start logging in Africa to make their fortunes.
    â€œJane . . .” said Archie. He knew what she intended.
    â€œIt’s OK,” said Clark, taking another beer that had been automatically replaced by Esmée. “I’m here because I plan to retire early. Go back to South Africa, buy a ranch . . . meet the right bokkie and have a dozen pikkies . Your problem, kiddo, is you think you’re gonna be out here for ever, right?” Jane shrugged. Clark was the only person alive who could get away with calling her “kiddo.” “You’re not lookin’ at the bigger picture.”
    â€œNo, I’m looking at a blank canvas.”
    Clark snorted with laughter, beer tickling the back of his nose. “Jeez, Arch, you really have a sharp one ’ere! Sarcastic wit and sharp tongue—that comes from your mother.” Jane was bemused by the remark, but Clark pushed on. “You’ll be back home soon enough, the difference being, you’ll go back rich because of your dad.” Clark extended his bottle and clinked Archie’s beer, a simple act that immediately absolved their earlier argument.
    â€œThat doesn’t matter . . .” began Jane.
    â€œDon’t it? Listen, Jane, when you get back home you’ll have everythin’ you ever wanted: your own apartment, new car—a sporty car. Clothes . . . anythin’—all because you and your dad made a bit of a sacrifice now. Trust me, you’ll look back on this experience and laugh. And then you’ll laugh at all your mates who are strugglin’ to make ends meet ’cause they stayed home and didn’t chase fortune and glory.”
    â€œFortune and glory?”
    â€œMother Nature’s given all this bounty for us to use. So why not use it, eh?”
    Jane didn’t answer Clark and Archie began talking about the numbers of logs they needed to shift and the problems floating the logs down the tributaries feeding the mighty Congo River. Logs got snagged, jamming the flow;