A shocking event.....
Swahili - Sisi Sote Abiria Dereva Ni Mungu
English - In this world we are all passengers, God is the driver.
Swahili proverb of East Africa.
It was only a two day trip to Mozambique so Shane Simba went with only the pilot and flight engineer. He was flying on one of the small craft that the president had at his disposal. It was a quickly gotten up, extremely low profile meeting with the Mozambique Department of Conservation to alleviate some of the problems they were facing with poachers and trophy hunters. Betty went with the driver and guard to see him off at the airstrip. It was a murky morning that showed signs of approaching storms. He gave her a final hug and boarded the Cessna. Betty watched the small plane lift off and vanish in a fog bank. She went on to the State House where she was slated to work with the First Lioness on their mutual project. Just as she was getting settled in Mildred’s office, a terrific thunder and lightening storm hit the area. The lights flickered in the State House as the storm seemed to strengthen.
An hour later, Ashley Lyon who had just landed his plane due to the extreme turbulence and fog, was monitoring his radio as he taxied to the hangar at the safari club in the Mara. He heard the mayday call that came from the Cessna in his father’s fleet. He turned the volume up just before there were no more signals from the plane. Suddenly, there was another transmission with the pilot announcing the Presidential flight was going down. After that was only a dreadful silence. Luke Leoparde was in the hangar as Ashley exited his plane.
“Damn, Luke, one of Dad’s planes has gone down. I’ve got to alert the State House. I hope to hell Dad or Mom weren’t on it.”
Luke drove with Ashley as he went break neck speed for the State House. Once inside he ran to his father’s office and felt incredible relief when he saw Ralph behind his desk. I was with him going over some papers.
“Dad one of your planes went down a while ago. Who was in flight?” asked Ashley, who was still fearful of his mother being on the fallen plane.
“Oh my God, Ash, Shane Simba was on that flight with a pilot and flight engineer. Where did you get this information?”
“I had just landed because of the weather when I heard their mayday and then the pilot saying that they were going down.”
“Oh no,” I interjected.
“Someone needs to tell Betts, Dad.”
“She’s down the hall with your mother, Ash.”
Ralph, Ashley, Luke and I went to Mildred’s office. Every one of us, I am damn sure, dreaded telling Betty that her adored husband was somewhere in the wreckage of a small aircraft. She took the news as we expected. She screamed and then began to sob. Unpredictably, she braced herself visibly.
“His children…I must be there to tell his children, myself. They can’t learn from anyone else but me,” she cried, her face stricken with immeasurable shock.
The Kenyan air force was put to the task of search and rescue. The navy used its helicopters. Having knowledge of the flight plan, all search and rescue craft focused their attentions on the area around the Arusha Crater in Tanzania, the most likely progress the Cessna would have made from the time it left the Mara.
Betty stayed in seclusion with Arlon, Staci and Sean. Leah Lyon came and went. Gloria Chimpo stayed with the stricken Betty. Lachlan and I spent time with her as did Bertram Baboon. Visitors flooded the home on Leoparde Drive leaving notes of sympathy in a silver tray. Sam Simba called but Betty was napping, having been given a very strong sedative by Lachlan. She stayed very closely with Shane’s children realizing that they had already undergone the trauma of their mother’s death and now faced their father’s. The first night after seeing Staci and Sean to their beds, she sobbed in her sister’s arms.
“I should have known it couldn’t last. I loved him too damn much. The gods became angry. We should have hidden ourselves from them,” she cried wretchedly.
“Betty, he could still be alive. Thank goodness it was a light aircraft instead of one of those monster planes. There are always discoveries of those found alive in small planes,” soothed her sister.
“Nooo, Glo, I knew it couldn’t last. It was too much joy and happiness,” she cried. “I will make a great home for his children. They are mine now. I will devote my life to them. I can never be in love again after Shane Simba. I will remain single and dedicate my life to our children.”
On and on she raved through the dark and frightening nights, her sister the only one hearing her soul rending cries.
Betty grieves for her lost husband…..
The Simba pride huddled together at Sarah Lee’s home. Sam Simba tried to comfort his mother who was feeling doubly bereft since she had not seen nor spoken to Shane since his marriage to Betty. Sam vowed to himself that if Shane made it through this crash alive there was going to be a renewal of their pride. He would make it so.
Upon the arrival of the first navigatable weather, Ashley Lyon along with Luke Leoparde took out one of their more sophisticated Cessna’s. On this particular plane were the best radar, radio and mapping system. Ashley piloted while Luke tried to spot any disturbances in the areas they flew over. Ashley and Luke put down for the night in one of the small airstrips that skirted the base of mountain range which included Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. They stayed with a couple of human bush pilots that thought the vice presidential flight might have gone down around the foothills of the great mountain. The pilots offered to help early the following morning.
“The wind gusts would have headed them off that way to the mountain,” added one veteran pilot.
The global media was having a field day with the information that the young, exciting vice president of Kenya had gone down in a storm. The more lugubrious cited the incident of John Kennedy and that long search that ended, finding death at the bottom of the ocean.
At dawn, after a cup of coffee only, Ashley, Luke and the two bush pilots took off in flight. Their destination was the Arusha areas of Kilimanjaro and the foothills. They flew for several hours before Luke spotted a glint from some thickets in a low lying area of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
“Try to go in lower, Ash,” shouted Luke over the sound of the engines. “Something shines like metal in those trees.”
Ashley flew in as low as the terrain would allow. With binoculars, Luke could make out a human signaling with both hands holding a piece of white cloth in the age old SOS. Ashley radioed for the nearest helicopter which arrived within thirty minutes. The helicopter lowered into a clearing in the tree shrouded area. Luke and Ashley circled waiting for the news.
Betty was sitting in her bedroom with her sister, Gloria, Sean, and Staci. The phone rang. Gloria answered. Her face lit up.
“They’ve found him, Betty. He’s alive!”
The helicopter retrieved the pilot, flight engineer and Shane Simba from the site of their crash. They were brought in by a Kenyan military hospital plane.
The media stormed the Exotic Animal Clinic to the point that the ambulances had problems getting their patients inside. Betty and Shane’s children were brought by the official Rolls to the clinic. An ashen Betty had not worn a turban caring not about her appearance. She had finally given away to a dead faint when Gloria had announced him to be alive.
Upon examination it was found that Shane Simba’s ribs were cracked. He was in terrific pain. The flight engineer, who had managed their rescue by flying the white cloth, had escaped unscathed. The pilot had a broken leg. They were all incredibly lucky.
When Betty got her first glimpse of Shane he was lying in bed in the clinic’s presidential suite. He was groggy from the pain medication that went in by IV attached to a pump. She placed both hands on his chest and wept at the glorious sight of him alive.
“I’m glad to see you, Fifi. How are the kids?” he managed to ask through the fog of throbbing pain and narcotics.
“They’re fine now that we know you’re alive. Oh my darling, Shane, I don’t know what we would done if this had turned out differently. We love you so very much.”
“As I do you, too, Betty.”
His eyes fluttered closed. He had given into the release of the narcotics in his bloodstream. She watched his even breathing for awhile to make sure it was only sleep. She had undergone the worst terror of her life. Even her own struggle with a potentially fatal disease had not measured up to the horror she felt at the thought of losing Shane.
Betty learned the next day, through the media, that it was Ashley Lyon, her first husband, who had gone on the search for Shane and with the help of Luke Leoparde, had saved the life of her third. She went immediately to his home a few doors from hers. Ashley was there with Leah and his children.
“Oh, Ash, how can I thank you and Luke enough for persevering and saving my husband?”
“Just enjoy life and your time with him now, Betts. Like I do mine with Leah,” he told her putting an arm around his wife.
With all of his ribs cracked, Shane Simba remained in pain depending on the medication to ease his agony. Pride members wandered in and out of his room hoping to get some reaction from him. Sarah Lee wanted him to acknowledge her and feel as sentimental about his survival as she. Intense pain prevents a great deal of emotion other than physical anguish. The hurt of cracked ribs is said to be the absolute nastiest. When the nurses would attempt to get him to sit on the side of his bed, he would roar in agony. Finally, Dr. Ted Tigeres barred visitors with the exception of Betty and his children. This didn’t keep those who wished to visit from congesting the halls outside his suite. In desperation the doctors put their heads together and decided that the best course of action was to send Shane home with a nurse who could manage his pain pump or give injections.
The ambulance bearing the vice president rolled into his driveway. The attendants got him to his bed. At last he was in the peace of his own marital boudoir and could finally with an injection of morphine get comfortable enough to have some quality time with his wife, children and step son, Arlon. He was relieved of the doleful attempts of his mother to wax schmaltzy and overly sentimental. Shane Simba was not ready for all that yet. He had lain for three whole days and nights in the wreckage of the plane experiencing dread and intense pain. He wondered if he would ever see his wife and children again. He could hear the roaring of the lions nearby and asked himself if his being one would hold any weight with the primitive types who ranged the Tanzanian plains. The flight engineer, who had escaped injury, had kept the hyenas at bay with an air rifle. Shane had been about to succumb to cold and exposure when the helicopter had landed and saved them. The first visitor he welcomed was Ashley Lyon who had saved his life by going into Tanzania and keeping up the search with Luke Leoparde.
President Ralph Lyon had the pleasure of pinning medals on his son, Ashley, and Luke Leoparde. It was in a late afternoon ceremony in the garden of the State House. The medals were for bravery and determination in the search and rescue of the vice president and his party. The media were present. They ran with the account of Ashley who had flown a rescue mission for his ex-wife’s current husband. Among those present at the ceremony was Arlon Lyon who had a renewed sense of pride in his father, Ashley. Ralph also pinned a medal on the flight engineer who had so valiantly kept the lions and hyenas at bay and waved the white cloth that got them rescued.
Another attendee at the medal ceremony was Caitlin Cougar. She was there for the Masai Mara Daily with her supervisor and friend, Jane. After the ceremony, Luke invited Caitlin and Jane to have dinner with him at OKAPI’S. They accepted. The chic restaurant was crowded when a white hoofed waiter showed them to a table. They ordered pre-dinner drinks. Luke brought up the subject of Caitlin’s articles on lion prides.
“I sort of got interested in the subject when…..” began Caitlin.
Luke’s deep green eyes were glued on her, waiting. Jane could sense the tension.
“When what?” asked Luke.
“I went with Sloane Simba to his mother’s house for supper. She started talking about prides and I decided to write the story.”
Luke’s eyes went cold. Jane could sense a beginning of the end to his affection for Caitlin. She wondered if he realized that Caitlin had never gone to bed with Sloane. Caitlin feeling the same loss of emotion in Luke made the appropriate excuses and headed for the powder room. Jane lit a cigarette.
“She’s never been to bed with Sloane, Luke. She’s told me this and I believe her.”
“That will follow soon enough, Jane. It’s just a matter of time. When those male lions scent in on a female they fancy they usually have their way with her. No offense to your kind but that’s the system with them.”
“Just don’t drop Caitlin as a lost cause. I know she cares about you a great deal. I’m sort of her confidante.”
“Do you like water sports, Jane?”
“I don’t mind them. I like to boat.”
“Have you ever gone deep sea fishing?”
“No, never.”
“I’ll invite you and Caitlin to my place in Mombasa some weekend. We have a great time there.”
Betty and Shane were lying side by side in their bed. She had to keep her distance for every little touch caused great pain to his broken ribs.
“Shit, I’ll never be able to have sex with you again, Betty. These ribs are going to hurt the rest of my days,” he moaned. “I’m a sexual cripple.”
She suppressed a giggle at this show of self pity.
“No, you won’t .my darling. You will be well and pain free in no time. Anyway, I don’t care as long as I can see you alive in this room.”
“Damn, I care, Fifi. Before long my dick will wither away.”
She laughed and said,” It has a long way to go, darling, before that happens.”
She summoned the nurse, who gave him morphine. He fell asleep with Betty holding his paw.