I fed Peter a bite of mishkaki, compact beef kebabs. “What will you do when you go out with that WildLot man?”
“What do you mean?”
“Will you shoot?” The various possibilities of where Peter’s undercover work might lead had been bothering me from the time he’d told me he had hooked the job.
“We have permits for five of the animals on the punchlist.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Yes, it is.”
“So you could pull the trigger?”
His eyes narrowed and I knew I was about to be sorry for pressing this conversation. “How many animals have you killed?”
I went cold. “That’s different.”
“So every one was out of mercy.”
Of course. Except the ones that weren’t. Except the ones that were out of convenience to owners no longer willing to be bothered by the responsibility of a life they’d taken in. The golden retriever pup with a mild case of mange the owner refused to pay to treat. The purebred puppies with the audacity to be born with the wrong color fur. The others… I remembered each and every one with a tear.
You can’t save them all.
Peter’s arm slipped around me. “I want this over as quickly as you. I’ll do what I can to go for targets we don’t have permits for first. That way I can text the police sergeant with the location and they can be out there ready for us. But…we have to have proof of a crime. Something more than just trespassing.”
“Which means something has to be killed. The good of the many… I get it.” I squirmed away from him and stared across the river. “That wasn’t what I was asking exactly.”
“Then ask it exactly.”
“How would it make you feel, inside, to pull the trigger?”
He caught my chin, thumb to one side and fingers to the other, and turned my face to his. “I’ve killed people out of duty. An animal? I’d feel…cold. How do you want me to feel? I wouldn’t do it for sport, no, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I continued to meet his eyes and the unflinching sincerity within them. Nodding, I managed, “Yes, that’s what I was asking.” It was important to know this man, to know his quality. Because knowing only his physical self no longer seemed enough.
He looked exasperated, but still he tilted my head and kissed my lips before releasing my chin. I watched him take another couple of bites of mishkaki before my gaze drifted back across the river.
The herd was in motion, a beautiful gallop staged just for us, waves of flowing stripes making a graceful turn for the water.
I blinked.
It took a few seconds to register. Zebras didn’t normally run just for the pleasure of it in the heat of the day. And that graceful turn for the water and the steep bank was more a panicked flight.
Something was after them.
Squinting, I grabbed the binoculars leashed around my neck. Sweeping the field glasses across the pounding legs of the herd, I saw a flash of tawny gold and black. Hurriedly, I cut my eyes toward Peter, saw he had his binoculars up too.
“Leopard!” I shifted my glasses, hunting for the second of the pair, catching her not far from the first, their carefully coordinated efforts narrowed now on cutting a half-grown foal from the rest.
Concentrating as I was on the spectacle at the back of the herd, I only saw how close the rest of the herd was running to the river when the lead zebras, pounding toward the cliff, wheeled at its edge to run along the rim and cut off the view ahead from those behind. A handful at a time they made the wicked turn, one by one dropping their rumps and skidding around their haunches, legs flying, then scrabbling for ground as they whirled hundreds of pounds 90 degrees around.
To my horror, I realized those mid-herd, unable to see the peril ahead of them and pushed by their herd mates from behind, were coming closer and closer to the bank’s edge.
“They’ve got him!”
I whipped my binoculars from the zebras at the cliff’s edge to the lone foal now trailing behind the running herd. Locked to the poor beast’s throat was one of the lithe and graceful cats, teeth sunk deep, front claws raking at the equine flesh, using its weight to twist the foal’s neck down. One stumble and the foal was lost. The second leopard sprang, burying its jaws just above the withers, its added momentum dragging the foal the final way to the ground. A last kick of hooves and then the foal went still, it and the leopards half-hidden now behind the grass and the uneven land.
When I spoiled my view to readjust my glasses, a commotion on the far bank wrenched my eyes there instead. A young zebra scrambled desperately to turn, but the herd momentum behind her was too strong a force as she tried to brace her 200 pounds against the last dozen zebras in a panic turn themselves.
I watched in horror as one of her back hooves went over, her leg flying behind and her rump following in a slow-motion arc that ripped her other back hoof off the edge and left her dangling half-way down to the water, barely holding onto the rim by the thin bones of her front legs and hooves. Not that they could sustain her there more than a couple of seconds while half-a-dozen more zebra rounded the dangerous curve above her.
It was a foregone conclusion that she would fall, but I still heard myself gasping when she did. Or maybe it was Peter gasping.
Luck was with her in the mid-dangle that broke the plunge over the side. Too, the height of the cliff was maybe only ten feet at the point where she fell, and the few rocks at the river’s bed were smoothed by centuries of flowing water.
Where luck abandoned her was where and how she fell, her right back hoof hitting first, momentarily taking the brunt of her tumble, twisting the fetlock. She fell heavily, first to her haunches, then to her side, barely keeping her head held above the rocks.
Above her, the last of the herd whirled by and, as they discovered they were no longer being chased, they eased off their head-long flight.
The young zebra, maybe four or five months old, lay for a moment catching her breath before she struggled to her feet. Head low, no doubt her body bruised and in pain, she took a halting step, then another, and another before pausing with a sigh so deep and obvious I felt I could hear it clear across the river. At the water’s edge, the hoof that had caught the weight of the fall curled gingerly, only the tip of it touching the ground.
I swung my binoculars left then right along the far bank. To either direction, the cliff face undulated, never more than about 12 feet high but also never shallower than about six feet. Certainly for a mile in either direction, maybe more than two.
Beside me, Peter was just realizing the filly’s predicament as well. “She’s trapped.”
I flicked my binoculars back up to where the leopards were lunching. Even standing, I could only catch a brief hint of spots or stripes, but a half-grown zebra would likely keep the leopards occupied for a while. They might even try to cache bits of it elsewhere—up in a tree, perhaps, out of the reach of obnoxious hyenas. In any case, they had no interest in the drama at the river, and likely wouldn’t unless the zebra was still there in two or three days.
Given the nature of the river and its fauna, that was highly unlikely.
“Do you think it’s broken?” Peter’s binoculars were still trained on the zebra filly.
“The leg?” She struggled another step. The fetlock and hoof seemed able to move, they just hurt so badly she didn’t want to move them. “More like a very bad sprain, I think.”
“We can’t just leave her there.”
I lowered my binoculars in surprise. Not at the sentiment, but at the way Peter spit out the words, as if he were arguing—either with himself or with me.
“We can,” I pointed out. “The question is do we?”
“And if we do?”
I sighed. “The crocs will have her by nightfall.”
“That isn’t what I meant. What happens to us if we leave her. Here.” He pounded his fingers against his chest. “I didn’t swear whatever oath naturalists do before heading into the wild to
do their studies or make their documentaries.”
Wasn’t this the man who admitted earlier he would shoot a healthy and endangered animal and only feel cold afterward? How was he able to compartmentalize death so easily? Or was that a trick most people were capable of and I was the odd duck out?
“The crocs will just find something else to eat. Somebody else’s baby. Some other mother’s heart to break.”
Peter lowered his binoculars and stared at me. “I just figured out the difference between us. You see innocence and weakness and are willing to sacrifice it to some Darwinian ideal. I see weakness and want to protect it in order to maintain the character of a civilization evolved beyond the primitive. Is there any compromise between?”
“Compromise? No. Exceptions? Always. Few ideals are absolute.”
“Such as?”
“A certain kudu calf. A headache of an elephant. The first target or two on your punchlist. We all break our own rules for reasons we feel are perfectly justified or because we’re willing to live with the consequences of the decision. Like when an end does justify the means.”
Peter nodded toward the zebra filly hobbling one slow and painful step at a time toward a short and tragic future. “Is she a means to an end?”
I took his hand. “I have a feeling she’s an exception.”
His grin was swift, the kiss he planted on my nose sure, as he swung into action. This was his use, his reason for living. Why was he here in the middle of nowhere when he could be anywhere serving as a firefighter, EMT, or search-and-rescue?
“I’ll have to swim across.” He grabbed one coil of rope out of the Land Rover and threw me another.
“Get her here and I can give her a sedative that should knock her out long enough to load her up and drive her over the bridge to the other side. Assuming her fetlock isn’t messed up too badly. Otherwise…equines live and die by the health of their legs.”
“So do kudus,” he reminded me.
“Let’s see what shape she’s in when she gets here.” I yanked out the emergency kit of vet supplies that were always in the Land Rover and started clearing the cargo bay out so it could safely carry a young zebra at need.
The bank on this side sloped comparatively gently into the water. A shelf extended a foot below the surface for about six feet before plunging away. How deep it was, I didn’t know, but it was deeper than Peter could comfortably reach and he struck out swimming the 200 feet or so of river between. A slow current caught him halfway across, but now in the dry season he had only to adjust course a little to counter it.
Peter angled for a landing just a few feet in front of the filly. The binoculars narrowed the world to Peter who struck the far bank and easily climbed the shelf that sloped to the edge, and to the filly, her head tucked in, her eyes rolling wildly at his approach. Her front feet danced nervously as he came closer, but she didn’t back away. Her twisted fetlock had its use, I thought.
I shifted more comfortably to watch the capture up close, the binocular field jostling for only a moment, slipping behind the zebra but close enough still to see the nervous twitching of her bottlebrush tail.
Then another flicker of movement caught my eye.
Peter and the zebra were not alone.
24
Nicky
Their companion stood half-submerged on the sloping shelf of the riverbed, its belly back to its long, thick tail that was half its 12-foot body hidden in the murk, low chest barely clearing the water, elongated snout slightly agape. With the sun to aid, even at this distance, I could see its jagged line of teeth.
A stocky foreleg swung out, propelling the beast forward.
“Croc!” I yelled, but either the distance was too great or Peter was too intent on capturing the filly to hear. Should I phone or text? I didn’t know if Peter had his phone set to ring or not. I only knew it wasn’t among the things Peter had dumped from his pockets before he swam out, so I assumed it was waterproof. The zebra seemed to know the crocodile was behind her, which was why she was allowing Peter to get so close in front, but would a sudden ring-tone be enough to frighten her backwards?
And then I saw the second croc swimming up.
Damn it. I had to risk the phone.
The filly’s ears flattened and she threw her head back at whatever music played, but she held her ground, more terrified of the croc than the phone.
Please, please, Peter. Pick up. Pick up.
One ring. Two. Peter moved to silence it, and for a golden second, out of pure habit, flipped it just far enough out of his pocket to see the display. His double-take was clear through the binoculars.
“Yeah?” he whispered.
“Look in the water behind the zebra. Thirty feet. 2 o’clock.”
“Jesus!”
“There’s another one in the river to your right of it. Once you’re in the water, that’s where those guys excel in hunting and killing their prey. Keep that filly between you and them, and if they attack, just remember that they’d already have her if it weren’t for you being there. Don’t be a hero.”
The quality of the binoculars was good, but not good enough to parse out the sudden set to his jaw and the shadow that fell over his eyes. “I’ll handle it,” was all he said, cold, clipped, and quiet before hanging up.
Peter had a lot of skills, but cowboying wasn’t among them. He had to get close to the filly to get a rope over her. Being hobbled by her twisted fetlock helped, but it would have taken far longer to catch her without the help of the crocs. When he twitched the rope over her neck, I only hoped she didn’t struggle too badly. A twisted hind foot, at least, made her easier to control. She couldn’t dig her heels in and throw her weight backward. Nor could she rear up and strike out with any kind of force. On land. Once in the water, though, she’d be kicking to swim anyway. Peter would just need to give her some distance, if he didn’t want to return black-and-blue. I didn’t worry for his bones or his life—she wasn’t that big—but an ill-timed kick to his crotch or head…
He snaked the rope in front of her and pulled, angling her away from the crocs. The first was on the bank now, only the tip of its tail dragging the water.
The filly balked, but Peter weighed nearly as much as she did and if she didn’t want to be choked by the rope… She took one step, then two toward him as he backed toward the river, alert to all directions.
The croc on the bank padded after them. It would, I realized, be much happier lunging for the filly from the water. Or did it think it was herding them into the river? Was it purposefully closing in behind them to give the second croc the kill? Did crocs ever hunt in pairs or packs? A semester of zoology wasn’t nearly enough to teach all the life skills needed, was it?
At some point between the croc and the river, the little zebra gave in. There was only so much adrenaline, so much lactic acid to combat the terror. When the body’s chemical defenses were depleted was when numbness set in. That’s when patient predators made their kills. The filly followed Peter obediently into the river, down the sloping shelf of the bank till it fell away beneath their feet and they struck off swimming.
The croc on the bank slid into the water behind them. The second croc—God, where was it? I swooped the binoculars over where it had been then followed the shortest path through the water between there and where Peter now was. Nothing. How long could crocs swim underwater? How fast?
I considered the handgun or one of the rifles. But would a few bullets zinging into the water deter them? The noise might, but the noise would be coming from the bank, not close enough to do Peter any good. Of course, if they couldn’t be scared off, a rifle might be necessary regardless. I ran to the Land Rover, scooped up a safari rifle and the ammo beside it, and ran back to the bank, loading it as I went.
Peter and the filly were more than halfway across when, the rifle tucked under my arm, I swept the binoculars around them. The first croc was easy to spot—its eyeridge and the swell of its back visible on the water surface about 30 feet
behind them.
Frantically, I searched for any sign of the second croc, peering intently behind and to the side of them where the croc had been. Nothing.
Peter and the filly kept coming. Only 50 or so feet before they’d hit the shelf and the awkward scramble from swimming to wading.
The awkward transition that would have no effect on a crocodile more flat than it was tall. Hell, if I were a crocodile…
I dropped the binoculars and they bounced on their strap against my chest. With pent breath, I scanned the water in front of Peter, between him and the bank.
And then I saw the eyeridge of the second croc.
It was…triangulating was the only word that came to mind. With the precision of any geometry professor, it was calculating the point where Peter and the filly would hit the edge of the shelf, and adjusting the angle of its track as Peter’s own track subtly shifted by a footfall or two.
And it was no more than 20 feet away from them.
“Go right! Go right!” I screamed. “It’s on an intercept course!”
Without question, Peter struck off hard to his right, pulling the filly along with him. That would, of course, only buy him time. But it put the croc crossing directly in front of me. I acted without thought much less plan, stupidity being the better part of my valor. Splashing into the water on my own intercept course, making as much noise as possible, I got to within a dozen feet of the croc, then fired in front of it.
At the sound, it stopped swimming and thrashed its tail in agitation as it considered me—was I a threat or prey?
I kicked at the water and shouted.
Not convincingly enough.
It started a slow but intent crocodile crawl toward me.
I fired a second time, backpedaling quickly while trying not to appear like panicking prey. Once again the croc paused at the sound of the rifle, giving me time to—
Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology Page 33