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.
