Rhinoceros Summer

by Jamie Thornton

A minute later, Caleb heard a shot and saw the leopard tumble. He scrambled out of the blind.

  “Damn thing! Did you see it go down?” Paul leveled his shotgun to his hip. Caleb scanned the area.

  “I saw him fall,” Caleb said.

  Lydia showed Paul her camera. “It’s not dead. I kept my camera on a narrow focus. Allen shot it on its side, but too low, I think.”

  Caleb examined the markings underneath the tree.

  “What do you think?” Paul asked in a low voice that didn’t reach the rest of the group. “Give me your measure of this.”

  Caleb couldn’t count the number of times Paul had asked him this question. As a kid, he’d tried to earn Paul’s pride. Some of that old yearning rose up in Caleb now, but he pushed it down. He saw how the leopard’s tumble had messed up the sand. The spoor showed spots of blood, but nothing sufficient to signal an imminent death. “We have ourselves a not-so-wounded leopard,” Caleb said.

  “I agree,” Paul said.

  Caleb didn’t like the stab of pride that rose up in him. He was an adult now. He didn’t need his father’s approval.

  Paul told the rest of the group the news.

  “You did it again, darling.”

  “Shut up, Claire! SHUT UP!” Allen clenched the barrel of his double rifle hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

  “Are we going to track him?” Claire asked.

  “You aren’t doing anything,” Paul said. “Everyone’s going back to the cars. Ask either Juja or M’soko to come out and help me track this thing.”

  Lydia stepped forward. “I’m coming.”

  “No way,” Caleb said. “Experienced hunters only.”

  “He’s right,” Paul said. “This is out of your league, Lydia.”

  “Out of my league? After everything I’ve done for you?” Lydia stood with one hand on her hip, the other balanced her camera.

  Caleb pulled at Lydia’s arm. “What do you mean?”

  “Lydia,” Paul said.

  “You haven’t told him yet?” She shook her head. “Of course you haven’t.”

  “What haven’t you told me?

  “About the rhino. We saw it. Billy hunted it,” Lydia said. “I’m sorry I didn’t—”

  “You—” Caleb’s thoughts whirled. He turned his face in shock to his father. “—killed it?”

  The color drained from Paul’s face. “We green hunted it,” Paul said. “It’s alive. It’s perfectly alive, Caleb. We didn’t harm it.”

  Caleb tried to digest this new information. A rhino killed, then raised from the dead in less than a second. “But you knew. You knew and gave me that crap about opening your books.”

  Claire stepped between the two of them. “Sorry to break up this little family spat, but this is my money. My safari. I want to go after the leopard. I say Lydia can go too if she wants.”

  “If Claire’s going, then so am I,” Allen said.

  Paul ran a hand through his hair and spat on the sand. “Any of you ever hunt a wounded leopard before?”

  Claire and Allen shook their heads.

  “This isn’t a wounded lion that coughs before it charges, or a two-ton hippo you can see coming from a hundred yards away. This is a leopard. It don’t make a sound until you hear your own flesh tearing. When it wants to hide, you’re not gonna see it. It won’t charge till you get real close and it knows it can nail you. And if you don’t get a shot off fast enough when it’s coming at you from behind—because you couldn’t even see the thing streaking through the bush—that’s it.”

  Claire replanted her black-oiled boots in the dirt. “Well, Mr. Hunter. What kind of experience do you think we’re paying for?”

  Paul shook his head and crossed his arms across his chest.

  “The more guns you have, the less likely the leopard will kill someone,” Allen offered.

  “This conversation is over,” Paul said. “You’re not coming.”

  Juja and M’soko arrived with the cars. Caleb left Paul arguing with Claire and Allen. In this one thing, they were in absolute agreement. Only experienced hunters and trackers should go after a wounded leopard.

  He explained the situation to Juja and M’soko, and then jumped into one of the Land Cruisers. The moisture from the rain outside fogged the windows. He made a quiet radio call-out to Mark. Caleb needed another gun behind him. Right now it was him and M’soko alone against Paul, a wounded leopard, probably Juja, and maybe Claire if she saw some advantage in it. He forced himself not think about Lydia’s part in all this yet.

  Mark’s staticked reply sunk Caleb’s hopes for a quick finish to this mess.

  “Are you sure? Over.” He gripped the little rectangular receiver, willing a different answer.

  “Rain causing problems. ETA two and a half, maybe three hours. Over.”

  “Copy. Get your ass here as fast as you can. Over. Out.” Caleb threw the plastic receiver onto the dash. There was no way he could stall that long.

  He stepped back out into the rain.

  “I’ll triple your fee,” Claire said. “If we don’t find him before dark, we’ll go back to camp, and you’ll still get to keep the money.”

  “All right,” Paul said.

  Just like that? Paul thought he was strong, accused Caleb of being the weak one, but Caleb knew the bitter truth. His father could be bought for any price.

  Caleb placed a hand on Lydia’s shoulder, ready to push her to the Land Cruiser. “They might be going but not you.”

  She shrugged him off. Her legs sunk into the mud like tree roots. “I go where no one else will go.”

  He wanted to yell at her until she gave in.

  M’soko caught his eye and shook his head. “She will not be persuaded, I think.”

  Caleb knew he could force her into the ca, but suspected she would only come after them, alone and unprotected.

  M’soko’s hand came to rest on Caleb’s shoulder. “The leopard cannot be left to injure someone.”

  7

  As a kid, Abiba told Caleb to always treat a wounded leopard like a mythic god rising up from the underworld—avoid such a thing at all costs. Paul had told him a bedtime story once. A leopard had mauled seven armed men and melted back into the darkness. Not one person got off a shot, but five of the group ended up dead from the attack.

  Caleb did not hesitate to take the shotgun Juja handed him. There were rules in hunting. Never kill a female or an adolescent male. Never let an injured predator suffer or kill an unsuspecting person.

  M’soko checked ammunition, Paul pulled out the first aid kits and Caleb made sure they had easy access to the antiseptic buckets.

  Paul and Juja took the lead. Claire and Allen followed, then Lydia. Caleb and M’soko flanked the group. Juja had switched out everyone’s double rifle for shotguns so they could shoot from the hip. Paul and Allen both kept their rifles. Caleb thought this was a stupid move. Buckshot pellets might not kill the leopard, but when it charged from a brush thicket not ten feet away, you didn’t have time to bring a double-rifle to your shoulder to fire off one bullet. Try to shoot a rifle from the hip and the recoil would break a person’s wrist, leaving him useless while the cat ripped into his intestines. He’d argued with Paul but failed to persuade either him or Allen to switch.

  “They should have shotguns,” Caleb said in frustration to M’soko.

  “Yes.”

  They tracked the leopard by his spoor for over an hour.

  A light sprinkle continued. The clouds roiled above them and spoke of a heavier downpour to come.

  Paul and Juja raised their hands to signal a stop. They’d walked deeper and deeper into trees and bush thickets. Every rustling movement made Caleb’s trigger finger itch. He carefully swept the perimeter to the right side of the group. M’soko did the same on the left.

  Caleb saw Paul whisper first to Allen, who passed the message back to Lydia. She turned to Caleb and said, “Paul thinks the leopard’s close. He’s going to try and flush it out with buckshot p
ellets.”

  A look of fear passed between M’soko and Caleb.

  “Crap,” Caleb said.

  “Yes,” M’soko said.

  “Lydia,” Caleb whispered. “You get over here so we can flank you.” She didn’t argue.

  The rain came down heavier, further obscuring their line of sight. Tree silhouettes looked like a leopard about to leap. He was used to the odd storm, the way it steamed the air up sometimes, the way it brought spring out in the wildebeests. He remembered how as a kid he’d watch the animals jump and zigzag after a rain, the adults bouncing around like children.

  This was a different kind of rain.

  The hair on the back of Caleb’s neck rose. He could feel it now. The leopard was close.

  Wounded. Angry.

  Watching and waiting to disembowel.

  Paul traded his double rifle for Juja’s shotgun. He raked the area in front him with buckshot. All seven people froze, waiting for a sound or movement.

  Nothing.

  Paul reloaded and sent more buckshot into the tall grass, thorn bushes, scraggly-branched trees, a gleam of water covering all of it.

  Nothing.

  Paul moved to the left, near Claire, reloaded, and sprayed the shot. Moved to the right, near Allen, reloaded, and sprayed the shot.

  Nothing.

  Caleb’s hands went clammy on the walnut grip.

  Paul motioned the group forward. Those with shotguns kept them at hip level. Allen and Juja positioned the rifles at an angle, ready to bring it to the shoulder.

  Lydia held her camera in front of her face, as if it were also a weapon that might ward off a charging leopard.

  And then, because of the buckshot, or because they’d moved, or because it started pouring, a tiny blur shot through the grass, on the left side of their group, straight for Claire.

  Shots from Allen and Paul went off. Before gunpowder obscured his view, Caleb saw the cat tumble onto Claire, her hat and blonde hair tangling in the leopard’s fangs.

  The leopard jumped off Claire and lunged through the rain. Its mouth revealed fangs ready to drive into Caleb’s chest if he didn’t take his shot now.

  Now.

  There was no boom. Misfire.

  He closed his eyes, readying himself for the feel of its teeth in his shoulder so the cat could windmill its hind legs into his intestines.

  There were no fangs sinking into his shoulder.

  Caleb opened his eyes.

  Lydia.

  Caleb pulled out the misfired shot, pumped in a new cartridge and ran up to the beast spearing its fangs through…god.

  He angled the barrel’s path away from Lydia and fired into the leopard’s head, not three inches away. Pumped in a new shell and fired again. Brushed water from his eyes, pumped in a new shell and fired again.

  Pumped out the spent shell and his knees gave out.

  He smelled the rain, the mud, the leopard’s fur, the blood. He kneeled into the muddy ground next to the leopard lying dead on top of his girl with the camera. He dropped his shotgun and tore into the leopard with his bare hands.

  He was going to push this monster off her if it was the last thing he ever did.

  He was going to carry his girl through the mud and the rain to the Land Cruiser.

  He was going to run back with her in his arms and he was going to save her.

  But he had to get this leopard off first.

  CHAPTER 22

  Paul

  That was the way of it then. Claire dead. Lydia on her way to the same.

  Except not the same.

  A hole through the side of Claire’s temple—the tattoo of gun powder a spatter of black dots on her white skin, the jagged edges of the wound—told death, not by animal, but by close range buckshot.

  M’soko and Caleb worked on Lydia and the dead leopard, but Paul paid them no mind. He crouched in the mud next to Claire’s body, his ears ringing from the gun Allen had shot not three inches from his head. Claire’s body twisted to the side as if she’d laid down for a nap.

  “Is she? Is she dead?”

  Paul didn’t bother looking up at Allen, though he could see his pant legs on the other side of Claire’s body. “You do this on purpose?”

  Allen backed away, sloshing in a puddle of water that wet his pants to the knees, the jeans turning a dark blue.

  “No way. No way!”

  “You aimed for the leopard, right?”

  “What the hell you accusing me of?”

  Paul looked up at Allen then. He felt rivulets of rain stream down his face. Memories crowded in of other times rain had run down his face in the midst of blood and cowardly men. M’soko, Juja, and Caleb carried Lydia away, running back the way they’d come. Paul and Allen were alone with Claire and the leopard.

  “Not a goddamn thing. I just want you to remember you fucking shot the leopard to save your wife.”

  A long pause. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I did.”

  “Yeah. You shot the leopard, but the bullet went through and into your wife. Such close proximity and all.”

  Paul examined the hole in Claire’s head. If Allen knew anything about buckshot, Paul was done. No way that entrance wound was made by anything but buckshot. No way had buckshot traveled through the leopard with enough force to kill Claire, which meant Paul missed the leopard completely, though he didn’t think the authorities would see it as anything but murder.

  Paul fingered Claire’s blonde hair as if it were the mane of a trophy lion. He’d lost his son as soon as Lydia opened her mouth about the rhino. He was going to lose his license. He was going to lose the resort. He was going to jail if Allen didn’t believe the goddamn story. Because of course the shot hadn’t been Allen’s—his aim not worth a damn, him carrying a rifle besides.

  But there was one way left to him.

  “Help me with her.”

  “What?”

  “We’re taking her back. Help me turn her over.”

  Allen didn’t move.

  “You gonna explain to the authorities how this was an accident. That you love your wife and all but decided to leave her body behind cause you don’t like touching dead things?”

  Allen bent down. His splotchy face came into view.

  “First we got to turn her over,” Paul said.

  They rolled and then draped her onto Paul’s shoulders. He grabbed his GPS unit, handed Allen’s gun back to him, but kept his shotgun in his right hand. He adjusted the weight so he could walk. “Keep the safety on.”

  Allen nodded.

  “Follow me.”

  “What about the leopard?”

  Paul looked at the dead animal, its muzzle all shot up with Caleb’s buckshot, a red line where Allen’s solid had glanced off the skull. Half the jaw blown off, but it was still a fine specimen. Award-winning even.

  “Which one you want?” Paul motioned for Allen to either take his dead wife’s 120-pound body or the 180-pound dead leopard covered in mud.

  Allen looked between Paul and the leopard. “This is crazy!”

  Paul wondered if he should just punch this guy. Knocking him unconscious wouldn’t make the body go away, but it’d sure feel good.

  “How far to the Land Cruiser?” Allen asked.

  “One should be heading our way after Caleb and them get there, but at least a half hour walk,” Paul said.

  “Half hour in the mud and rain?” Allen looked around wildly, revealing the whites of his eyes. “My wife then.”

  “Fine.”

  They maneuvered the loads around. A bloody spot of mud marked where the leopard had eaten into Lydia. Her camera bag lay on the ground, the strap still intact, though he could see a lens and the camera itself had been crushed.

  He groaned as he bent into a squat and took up the camera bag.

  They trudged through the slick bush, their feet slipping in small gullies and instant ponds of water that formed under the onslaught of rain. The leopard’s belly wrapped around Paul’s shoulders so its fur st
uck to either side of his cheeks, keeping his face warm but blocking his vision. He maneuvered sideways to pass through a narrow aisle of trees. They walked for more than half an hour. Paul wondered if there would be a Land Cruiser left. He knew he’d shoot Allen dead before trekking thirty miles to base camp with him, his dead wife, and a leopard around his neck. They crested a small hill. Even through the rain, which was letting up some, and the sweat and water in his eyes, Paul made out a vehicle driving their way.

  It wasn’t one of his.

  As soon as Allen saw the approaching vehicle, he dumped his burden in the mud and sighed with relief.

  As the jeep came alongside, Paul saw the game warden insignia on the door.

  2

  The game officer, Mark, deepened his frown after he confirmed Claire didn’t need an emergency ride to a hospital. “What happened here?”

  Paul knew Mark and Caleb had a professional connection. He didn’t think his appearance was a coincidence. “Killed a leopard here, but not before it got one of ours.” Paul nodded to Allen, and then shook his head. “Devastating. The husband put a shot into the leopard to save his wife from getting her throat torn out. The solid passed through the leopard and into his wife.” He shifted the leopard so Mark could see the wounds. Paul hoped he wouldn’t take too close a look at either of the bodies. Close range buckshot wounds appeared an awful lot like a wound from a solid, unless a man knew what to look for. “Bullet didn’t kill the leopard though, just threw it off the wife. It scrambled away, mauling another of our party until my son shot it point-blank.”

  “I drove up on them. That’s how I knew to come out.”

  “Girl still alive?”

  Mark shrugged. “Looked bad.”

  Paul shifted the leopard, wondering if he should set it down in the mud. Better to wait for the jeep and keep the pelt clean. “We got a Land Cruiser coming for us.”

  “Better you come in with me.” The game officer rested his hand near his gun belt.

  “We’ll wait for our own vehicle,” Paul said.

  “Why the hell—” Allen started, but Paul cut him off with a look.

  “I’m taking you in,” Mark said. “Authorities will sort this mess out. Of course, there will be an investigation to confirm your story.”