Free Night Must Wait by Robin Winter Page B

Wilton. More news by the look of her tight face.
    "The Biafrans have claimed major sections of the oil production areas for Biafra," Wilton said.
    "Oh shit," Sandy said. "That's money."
     
     

 
    Chapter 12: Wilton
    January 1967
    Nsukka, Biafra
     
    The afternoon that Lindsey and Sandy returned West, Wilton drove up one of the great green-flanked hills outside of the town, left the car and stood on the ridge, alone with her Africa.
    "I thought I heard you call my name," Wilton said. She walked through the shimmer of wiry grasses, the wind blowing her hair about her face. On every side of her rose the repeating shapes of the ancient land to which she spoke.
    Under the clouded sky, that land took on a somber magnificence, the dry grass gold subdued. Swathes of blades bent in the wind, catching the fugitive light with a gleam a thousand times mirrored. Below in the narrow valleys clustered the secretive darkness of palms and vines, more black than green. She heard the wailing, repeated cry of hornbills down among those tangled branches.
    Wilton started for the next crest, climbed the rising ridge. She shivered at the sensual attraction of the earth, pushed her shoulders into the full warm rush of air.
    She'd bound herself to this place—she knew its secrets. There would come a day when she would hold this nation in her hands and shape it for the future. The most powerful black African nation would become a reality—democratic and tribeless. She swore it anew to the land around her, pacing the spine covered with bent grasses, her hands catching at the wind by her sides.
    She looked down at her right hand, and to her eyes, more used to the rich tones of teak or ebony Nigerian skin, that hand looked branded by its pallor. Set apart, excepted. An outsider from the start, all her life she'd worked her will through others, starting with the education and conversion of servants, moving inevitably to the more delicate selling of dreams to her American friends. She had from her birth borne the stigmata of her difference. Scars that held power. She had from youth known that what she did must be done indirectly. Out of pain came the will to act.
    She looked up and laughed, not hearing the sound in the wind. Oh no, never a racist—if anyone asked she would honestly say she dreamed of a day when her Nigerians would become her equals, yes, and her superiors too. Now they had no chance. She would make it for them. But to call them her peers today was sentimental foolishness. She and her kind must first share opportunity and knowledge. Her aristocracy took its roots in her education, her culture, her ethics and this God-given vision.
    Wilton and her friends would educate, manipulate, groom the best of the Nigerians they found until they were fit for rulership. Lindsey could pull down the foolish men who borrowed her money, dictating policy by economic blackmail. Sandy would keep Lindsey connected to the people—Sandy had a gift for friendship, a talent that would hold Lindsey back from too little passion. That was Lindsey's fault, her indifference to the sins and loves of other human beings. Gilman would be Wilton's one pure gift to the common people, a doctor with gifts of skill and adaptability like no other, who could mend and comfort the poor and wealthy alike.
    She whispered their names in painful delight, "Lindsey, Sandy, Gilman," as though she'd tell the land around her who they were. She'd brought them here to serve. What higher calling could they have? What a joy that they were of such quality that separations and trials would never break them. These women were her own tribe until the day no tribes would stand. Wilton, near tears, smiled.
    Dreams, such dreams, as though she would be the one to begin and end the story. But for what other reason had she been born and bred and given this vision?
     
     

 
    Chapter 13: Wilton
    January 1967
    Lagos, Western Region, Nigeria
     
    Three weeks later, feeling that she had already been