Let me introduce Rueben

Blog post #4 from the deleted files of “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”.

Today’s installment of the “lost files” occurs fairly late in the book, chapter 26. Rueben was the unsavory manager of the safari camp where the businesswoman befriended the lost boy. As I keep reading over all these deleted scenes, I start to wonder why I didn’t leave them in, make it work. Well, maybe it was so that I could share them all with you here.

I haven’t gotten my supply of books to sell yet, but you can order “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” from Amazon.com and you’ll probably get it in the mail around the same time that I get mine. Or download it now and start reading today. 

Oh, and the picture is from Narok when I road through there in October 2015.

Rueben crawled into his Jeep and took one last look up the street. People crowded the sidewalks, heading in every direction, a buzz of humanity. Where they were always going, he did not know.

He thought about the many times he had visited this dirty busy town. The tourists heading out on safari, the locals taking advantage of as many of them as they could. The women looking to do anything they could for any money they could.

He sighed. Even the thought of the brothel down the road did little for him. Maybe I really am sick. First no booze and now no women. He shook his head and tried to clear his thoughts.

On the seat next to him were all of his possession, little though they were. A few changes of clothes and that was really all. He rubbed a hand across his rough hair. Where had his life gone? What had all the years of driving across the plains, showing the tourists a good time done to him? And why was he so alone after all of that?

He started the engine of the Jeep and shifted into gear. As he turned the first corner at the end of the street, his pile of clothes shifted and slid to the floor. Left behind on the seat was the book he had taken from the abandoned hut at Red Rock Camp.

Without looking where he was going, he pulled the jeep to the side of the road. That book. What was it even about and why now in the middle of Narok, in the middle of the street did he have to pick it up?

He tentatively opened the first page.

“This very day in David's town your Savior was born.”

Rueben looked around him. The street had suddenly gone quiet. People still scurried about and vehicles of every shape and size drove up and down the road. But all noise seemed to have stopped. The only sound Rueben heard was the sound of his own words in his head.

“You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

He studied the pictures on the page. A young woman, a tiny baby. He turned the page and beautiful men and women filled the page, dark-skinned men and women dressed in glistening white.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased!”

He continued reading the book, studying each page, each picture, saying the words out loud. All around him people kept walking by and cars and trucks rumbled by, but Rueben didn’t hear any of them.