A Tale Of Choice

  THE CROSSING WAS over before Shelly knew it. Mattie had taken the boat straight across the bay to her brother’s house, a short 10-minute trip.

  “Hurry, Shelly. My brother is away in Tanzania on a business trip. He left his car in the garage. We can use it to get out of town and to safety,” she said as they ran up the private dock, to the back door of a small pink house with the red petunias blooming in the window boxes.

  If there is any safety, Mattie thought to herself. Has a war broken out? I saw soldiers, but who are they? How big is the army? Where is the war, everywhere or just in Mombasa for now? Why are they killing everyone? Dear God save us!

  These thoughts flitted through her mind as she found the key on her keychain and opened the back door to her brother’s home. Mattie didn’t share any of these thoughts with the American woman. She seemed so weak and defenseless. Mattie was determined to keep her safe.

  In a flash, she found the keys to the little white Volvo parked in the attached garage. Mattie took a second to write a note to her brother, telling him that she had the car and that Mrs. James Ferguson was with her, and that they were going to try and make it out of town to find a safe place. She left him instructions to tell her Auntie and Uncle that she had made it this far and would contact them as soon as she could. She ended the note by saying: PLEASE PRAY FOR US.

  Mattie grabbed some bottled water from the fridge and a box of crackers from the cupboard. As she got into the car and started it, she was relieved to see the fuel gauge registered FULL. She turned to see Shelly getting in the front seat beside her.

  For just a second she hesitated, trying to make up her mind. Only a few years ago, rebels were robbing and killing along the roads of Kenya at night. It had been a while since that unrest had caused fear and hardship in her country. But, Shelly would be a prime target for any rebel or terrorist. She knew the hotel guests were probably being gathered up as hostages. Their governments would pay dearly to get them back, if they got them back at all.

  “You need to hide in the back. I will put something over you. You cannot be found. They will kill you, or worse,” she said with a grim look.

  Shelly sat for a second with a bewildered look on her face.

  “Hurry!” Mattie said firmly, with a tinge of fear. “I know it will be hot, but I will leave the windows open,” Mattie said as she jumped from the car, ran into the living room and pulled off a large wall hanging made of lightweight native fabric from the wall.

  Shelly was lying down on the back seat when Mattie quickly returned. She threw the fabric over her new friend, ran over, threw open the garage door and then pulled the car out. People were fleeing all around her. The traffic was frenzied and dangerous.

  Booming sounds could be heard from across the bay. When will the fighting come here? Seconds? Hours? But come it will, Mattie understood.

  Mattie jumped back into the car after slamming the garage door shut. As she backed out of the driveway, she could see a large military ship firing into Mombasa. Was the Kenyan military fighting the invaders? The horror of innocent people getting killed while the conflict raged only made her set her jaw more defiantly as she tore down the road, desperately weaving around fleeing people, and contending with frantic cars and trucks.

  Mattie prayed and prayed as she drove away from Mombasa, heading northeast along the road toward the golf course. If she could make it to the beach road, it would take her north and out of town. Her goal was to eventually get to the Kengelani Road. That was the best way to go around the fighting, at least she hoped so. She knew it was only logical for the militants to try and hold both bridges onto the island. Oh, the poor people trapped there! She fought back tears for her people, for her family, her friends and for herself.

  As she struggled toward the intersection between the golf course road and beach road, the traffic was becoming crammed into a nightmare of cars, trucks and frightened people. Slamming on her brakes, she took the nearest side street around the traffic jam, deftly driving along with others of the same mind.

  Please Lord, let the roads be clear. Help us to find safety, she prayed.

  Finally, as she turned down a less-traveled road that went in the desired direction, north, the traffic started to thin out.

  Mattie was now making for Mariakani, a small town an hour north. There, she could link up with Route A109, the Mombasa Highway. This life line would take them straight through the heart of Kenya to the capital, and the American Embassy. For an image of the embassy had begun to grow in her mind. She could see American Marines at the gates with big guns and safety for Shelly behind the fortified walls. That would be the safest place to take her friend. The Americans would keep her safe and see that she got home, if God would grant it.

  “I think it is alright to talk now,” she said to her passenger in the back. “But do not show yourself!” she said firmly. “I do not know whose is watching and what will be around the next corner,” she said as she continued speeding down the road a little too fast.

  “Mattie, do you know what’s going on?” Shelly asked in a soft frightened voice, peeking from under the fabric in the back seat.

  “No, but my country has not always been a happy one. There are a lot of poor and desperate people who would join terrorists. Or maybe a warlord has raised an army to take over the government. It could even be a military coup. I just do not know. I do not know why they are killing everyone! I do not know who to trust or where I can go to be safe. What I do know is that if I can get you to the American Embassy in Nairobi, they will keep you safe. They will protect you and get you out of here,” she said with conviction.

  “No, Mattie… I can’t leave Jim! Can’t we just stop somewhere and get help? I need to find him!” she declared desperately from the backseat.

  “No!” Mattie said firmly and with determination. “There is no safe place here, right now. And, if by God’s grace your Jim is freed, they will take him straight to the embassy in Nairobi. It is the only place where we can go. It is the only thing we can do,” She said resolutely, tears sliding down her cheeks.

  “Mattie, I’m sorry,” Shelly whispered, as she watched the tears slide down her rescuer’s face. Then she thought about Mattie’s family. “Will your family be okay?” she asked with belated regret.

  “I do not know. I just do not know,” she said sorrowfully as she thought about how life could change so forcefully and suddenly. One day, everything is fine, and now… God only knows what lies ahead, who I have left to go back to, or if I will live to go back at all.

  Silence ensued between the two women. What more could be said? Shelly so desperately wanted to find Jim, but how could she? She was a stranger here, with no means of getting help. Mattie was right. They must get to the American Embassy as quickly as possible. Shelly could get help there. They would know how to rescue her husband.

  Shelly lay under the cloth of Kenya, dust drifting into the open windows of the car periodically as she cried silent tears, praying to God for help, feeling so lost and alone in this land that Jim loved so much.

  Mattie drove on, silently, stone-faced, and determined to find a safe place.

  About an hour out of Mombasa, traveling the back roads, the little dusty car neared Mariakani, a small town of about 13,000 souls. Traffic was becoming congested on the wide open streets as the terrified citizens from Mombasa and the surrounding areas funneled into town. The citizens of Mariakani seemed to be oblivious to the danger that might be coming their way. They were out in the streets, selling their merchandise and going about their business, as they had the day before. Hadn’t the news reached here yet? They didn’t seem concerned that war could be coming. Mattie wondered when they would care.

  The Volvo slowed and joined the flow of traffic through town, moving toward the highway. As the little car entered the Mombasa Highway, the major arterial that traversed through the center of Kenya, the traffic became horrendous. Everything was going north, away from the fighting, and clogging the road.

&nb
sp; Mattie clutched the wheel with stone-hearted resolve, following the truck ahead of her. She was determined to get to safety, and going north on this road was the only way. How long it would take her, she could not guess, for the 3-hour drive was impossible now. They were moving at a crawl. But at least they were moving.

  Mattie spotted a convoy of Kenyan military passing her, traveling south. Soldiers with guns sat in the back of transports going to war. Large cannons were being towed behind war machines.

  War, dear Lord, war, grieved Mattie as she continued north.

  It was so warm and stuffy in the backseat that Shelly drifted in and out of sleep, exhausted from the turmoil of that morning. Jim was constantly on her mind when she was awake and in her dreams when she slept.

  She awoke to find the car moving at a faster speed. As she peaked out from under her hiding place, she could see a wall of green - a forest of trees, shrubs and bushes - flashing by the window. Some of the trees were blooming and she saw clouds of yellow, pink and white rushing past.

  “We seem to be making good time,” she said from the back.

  “Yes, the traffic has been steadily pulling off the highway,” her friend said from the front seat. “I think most of them feel they are out of danger. They want to see what is happening by stopping off in one of the towns along the way. They are probably getting provisions as well, if they can,” she added. “Here, you better drink this,” she offered a bottle of water to Shelly.

  “Thank you,” Shelly said as she sat up, stretched from her cramped position in the back seat and took the bottled water. As she opened it, she glanced out the windows around her. They were climbing in a forested hilly country, with tall jagged mountains up ahead. As she looked back the way they had come, she could see the scrub brush and open country behind them, then the ocean far in the distance. The thought of Jim stabbed her in the heart again. She looked away from where she had left him, tears welling in her eyes.

  Mattie said from the front seat, “Please, Shelly. Do not stay up too long. We are probably out of danger, but I have a bad feeling in my heart still. I am scared. Please keep yourself hidden until I can get you to the embassy. We have several hours of travel to go yet. I will look for a place we can stop and rest soon, if I can find one. I am sorry you must be treated this way. I am sorry that my country has done this to you. I am sorry…” her voice trailed off in grief.

  Shelly reached over and squeezed Mattie’s tense shoulders fondly. “I’m very happy to have you as a friend, Mattie. I’ll never regret meeting you,” she said warmly and genuinely.

  Mattie smiled a sincere smile, the first in quite a while.

  Shelly sat back and drank her water in several large gulps. Then she proceeded to braid her hair because it was so messy and windblown. She needed to get it out of her eyes.

  That morning, they had dressed in clothes that Jim had bought in Old Town. Their safari outfits consisted of a camouflage long-sleeved shirt, khaki shorts, knee-high socks and sturdy walking shoes. She was wearing the fanny pack, packed with the essentials they had talked about before coming to Africa. Her soft wide-brimmed camouflage hat was neatly folded in the pack around her waist. She looked around her one more time, then crouched down in the backseat and pulled the golden-brown textile over herself again.

  The rhythm of the car’s motor droned on, as it swayed around each bend and accelerated up the inclines. She was drifting off to sleep when she was rudely awakened by screeching brakes and gunfire. The car rocked with the explosions around her. It slid violently off the road and into a ditch. Shelly’s door was flung open and she was thrown into the brush and tall grass a short distance from the car, the native fabric laying in a heap at her feet. She lay stunned where she’d been flung. She could hear the sound of traffic driving past on the other side of the Volvo.

  Tears filled her eyes as she looked in shock at Mattie’s body lying where it had been tossed halfway out of the passenger side of the car during the brutal assault. Bullet holes made an ugly pattern on the windshield where Mattie had been driving just seconds before. Blood was spattered everywhere. It ran down her lifeless body and face, dripping onto the dry earth. Mattie was dead.

  Shelly was about to be sick, when two men with guns ran up to the car. One man ran around to the passenger door and pulled Mattie’s body from the car. It fell to the ground with a heavy thud that sickened Shelly to the core. A younger man with a heavy-looking machine gun walked around to the back of the car to watch for trouble. Both men stood within feet of Shelly lying on the ground near them. They seemed to not see her, yet if they had really looked, she would have been discovered.

  Just as quickly as it happened, they darted into the car, spun the tires, kicking up dust to get it out of the ditch and sped down the road.

  As the dust was flung into her face, she rose to her feet, turned from the roadway, and started to descend the terrain nearby… away from the danger. She started slowly at first, but quickly the fear urged her feet to go faster and faster. She took huge leaps, ignoring the danger of her head long plunge down the hill, trying to outrun the pain and misery that was swelling in her heart. Finally, exhausted and spent, she fell in a heap at the bottom of the descent and was sick.

  How could God let this happen? A stab of doubt grew in her heart about the sovereignty God. How could He allow this to happen to Mattie… to Jim… to me… and to all the innocent people who have died this day? Where is God in all of this? she grieved in her spirit.

  In wretched pain of heart, she turned from her lost breakfast, curled up into a fetal position and wept, deep and long. She was now alone in a strange place and so lost. Lost without her Jim, her friend Mattie and now maybe even without God.

 

  The Bush