The Fugitive's Love

By P. G. Gatuna

Five years ago, a faceless benefactor saved James Lavin from custody during a trial that would have ended with him hanging from a hangman’s rope by his neck. After a chaotic five years, he decides to go back to his birth town, pulled to the ridges and the hills by the memories of an innocence he doesn’t feel anymore. His travails lead him to Kathleen, his childhood sweetheart who also happens to be his first and only love. Old flames are re-ignited, and Lavin only comes down to earth six blissful months later. To find himself surrounded. See, for a fugitive, a few moments of lascivious distraction can be the difference between freedom and freedom jail time, or worse, death. When old foes come calling, Lavin discovers that going back home may not have been such a good idea. Lavin appears to be destined for jail or a painful death, but the faceless benefactor, like a competent guardian angel, swoops in and saves the day. And his hide. The Fugitive’s Love is a romantic story infused with intrigue, mystery, and suspense.

• Language: English
• Publisher: P. G. Gatuna
• Release date: Jan 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370392971

P. G. Gatuna

The words just keep coming.

Book preview

The Fugitive’s Love

P. G. GATUNA

© Copyright 2018 Peter Gatuna

Published by Peter Gatuna at Smashwords

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

To everyone out there who has the audacity to pursue their dreams.

Contents

Cover Page

Dedication

Blurb

Prologue – Disjointed Flashbacks

Chapter 1 – Enter the Fugitive

Chapter 2 – Blast from the Past

Chapter 3 – Ceasefire

Chapter 4 – The Forbidden Fruit

Chapter 5 – The Worm in the Fruit

Chapter 6 – The Aftermath

Chapter 7 – The Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Chapter 8 – Fugitive Uneasy

Chapter 9 – Teenage Dreams

Chapter 10 – The Noose Tightens

Chapter 11 – Scorched Earth

Chapter 12 – Some Kind of Ending

About the Author

Blurb

My name is James Lavin. Five years ago, a mysterious person saved me from police custody in the middle of a trial for which I would have received the death sentence. The charges were false, but I had no defense other than my word and my honor

Now, five years later, I give in to the misguided urge to move to Murindati –a small town in the Aberdare Ranges with a close-knit community and all my happy childhood memories. Some of these happy memories come in the person of Kathleen Njoki; my first love and the love of my life.

What I find out, however, is that if I am to attempt to relive the happy memories of my past, I will also have to contend with the less pleasant past.

(Prequels and Sequel coming soon)

Prologue: Disjointed flashbacks

The bush party is alive. The music is on point. All the steaks are roasting by the fire pit, the grill manned by my good guy John. Single boys are stalking around, hunting for single girls. Couples hang around smooching and dancing.

I am one half of a couple. The distracted half of a couple, I might add. My eyes keep stealing glances at this beauty that lounges off to the side. Sorry, but am afraid am afflicted with the wandering eye.

Josephine, my girlfriend, follows my gaze and spots the object of my errant desire. She’s hot. she observes. I make a noncommittal gesture and steer her away. Only problem is, I look back fleetingly. The girl smiles invitingly at me. I lose my footing and almost take Josephine down with me.

Go on and say hi and stop acting like a stalker. Josephine shoves me towards the new girl. I hesitate, unsure. I had promised to stick around all weekend, but the good thing with being in an open relationship is that I get to do what I want.

The new girl introduces herself as Joanna, "with an a". Joanna turns out to be very interesting company. She knows all about hatches, cross-hatches, Easy-Frame frames, and pretty much everything about painting. I like girls who know all about art. As well I should. I am an artist.

Joanna is also very interested in me. She knows all about me from the tabloids but thankfully she doesn’t ask any awkward question. We end up spending the weekend together, doing things to each other that we enjoy immensely. I am seriously considering proposing that we make arrangements to continue doing them after this weekend.

Somehow I don’t think Josephine would like that very much. Speaking of whom, I have seen very little of her all weekend. She is probably mad at me.Then again, when has Josephine ever not been mad at me?

The weekend ends dramatically when my car crashes into a stationery bus on the way back to the city. Joanna had been acting weird on the way home. In fact, the pranks she had been pulling before the accident had made me very angry. I don’t think I want to continue seeing her after all.

I am arrested by two police detectives while recovering in hospital. I am accused of several counts of rape, unsolicited administration of an illegal substance, possession of an illegal substance, driving under the influence, public endangerment. You name it, and James Lavin has been booked for it.

My lawyer looks grim as we leave the courtroom two days later. I don’t like this. He mutters under his breathe. I don’t like this at all.

In my cell, he looks at me square in the eye. They are going to hang you, young man. His voice contains such conviction I am surprised a grab team doesn’t burst into the room and drag me off to the hangman’s.

I will be twenty two in three weeks. I am too young to die, but I will be damned if I let ‘them’ kill me. Just how sharp are these claws of mine? Can they tear through my own skin and reach something vital?

I find out and ‘they’ find out. ‘They’ don’t like being denied what is rightfully theirs. I am to stay alive until they give me permission to stay otherwise. Then they will give me a shove down the deep hole I imagine is death. Another hospital stay suffices.

This masked one though. Why don’t they remove that ugly thing and smile or glower at me? Everyone does either of the two.

Personally, I enjoy thescowls more. This one looks like they might have a really venomous one. The way she is driving this fat needle into my body… wait why do I feel funny? Is she singing to me? Wait, where is she taking me?

(five years later)

Chapter 1: Enter the Fugitive

Murindati is a small village town nestled against two hills in the Nyandarua Ranges. One of the two hills is smaller than the other, so that when you climb Murindati hill, the larger one, you can see rolling hills stretching into the horizon. The view reminds me of a sleeping herd of sheep. Murindati hill, the highest and steepest range around, also demarcates the natural boundary of the village and presents an imposing presence when observed up close.

At the edge of the village, River Morendat gurgles soothingly as her waters flow towards Lake Kirie a few kilometers away. On both side of the river stand tall indigenous trees that creak as they sway and dance to the rhythm of the wind.

My heart constricts with sweet longing as the taxi leaves the main road and starts towards Murindati town. After fifteen years, I am going back home where I was born and where my heart has always been. The fact that I am in disguise does not matter. I will walk the paths, climb the hills, and breathe the air of my childhood. And maybe, just maybe, I might see her too.

The car bounces gently as the driver maintains the speed limit of 35kmph on the murram road. With barely contained excitement, I watch the tree-lined roadside speed by, loving every pedestrian we pass, every fat cow grazing in the fields, every gate to another homestead full of clucking hens, mooing cows, and fussing mothers. And the cocoon of trees around the compound… there is always the cocoon of trees around the houses.

I am glad to notice that the taxi driver has the same awe-inspired look on his face, and I make a mental note to tip him heftily later. This is one hell of a beeautiful country mate, the word beautiful is extended to sound like two awed words.

I smile indulgently at him. It’s home sweet home man.

He leans across his seat to look at a herd of grade heifers through my side of the front windows. How is it that the lands are so big? A place like this should be teeming with people! Look at that maize-stalk man!

After fifteen years, I am glad tosee that nothing has changed. While the rest of the country has been going through a period of unprecedented development, the most significant change here is the occasional construction site as a farmer modernizes their homestead; a storage shed here, a silage silo there. The land looks the same as I had left it.

Some people call it stagnation. I called it maturity. The landowners here say call it whatever you want, we still won’t sell you our land. My father had hated the conservatism. He was of the opinion that development should not be hindered by silly little beliefs of old guard. I loved the idea of having my own piece of nirvana to come back to.

We used to live down that driveway when I was ten. I point, craning my neck to get a better look. The trees are taller, leafier, and greater. Their branches are sure to span over the whole driveway now.

I am overcome by another bout of sentimentality, remembering all the good times I had had in the grounds beyond that driveway. The fields were always green. The trees were great and gnarled with long stout braches. My friends and I had climbed the high ones, moving from tree to tree like ninjas, and swung on the low-lying ones. Ah, good times, I tell you.

My mother had enjoyed her reading near the stream that gurgled softly at the bottom of the property. I had painted my first landscape down there too.

That should give you a great view, take a few moments. The driver’s words cut into my reverie.

He has stopped the car at the top of a hill overlooking the property. I give him a grateful look and clamber out of the car. Climbing the high berm of the curved road, I cast my eyes on my first bird-eye view of my childhood home. It is just as I remember it.

Fifteen years ago I was an innocent boy whose only concern was having fun. Not too different from the young man I had been five years ago. I am now the kind of man that looks constantly looks