by Darrel Bird
the chest, laughing.
“It’s good to see you laugh.” He looked at her, now serious. “We have to keep our heads, or we won’t make it out of here.”
Her smile faded as she knew the truth of what he said. “Aren’t you going to light a fire? It's almost dark now.”
“No, not now; maybe not at all. Fire will destroy our night vision, so only if we have to.” He began to scrape back a spot to lay down as darkness fell with a vengeance. He lay down with his head on the shirt he wore as a turban, propped against the root of the tree.
Gloria observed and, following suit, lay down next to him. There were plenty of sounds as the night insects came to life on the African plain. Night birds began giving their weird calls also, as night took hold. They could hear the chuff of a lion away off, in the distance.
“Dan?”
“Yes?”
“What is your wife like?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“No, but tell me anyway.”
There is no figuring women; they don’t want to hear it, but they do. Dan thought about his wife, safely tucked into their Dallas suburban home. “She is a lot like you, only prettier! Now go to sleep.” She turned around and whacked him on the shoulder with the palm of her hand.
“Ouch, quit that!”
“That’s what you get for telling a woman that another woman is prettier!”
She snuggled her body back into the fold of his stomach, and he gently wrapped his arms around her. Soon he heard her deep breathing and knew she was asleep. He was aroused with her sleeping in his arms, and he fought to go to sleep.
Dan awoke about two in the morning. His arm felt numb where she lay; he extricated his arm and sat up rubbing it vigorously to get the blood flowing again. He heard the bark of a hyena close by and knew that was what awakened him. Another hyena gave the answer a few feet away; they had been attracted to their smell. Gloria groaned loudly, and then sat up.
“What was that?”
“Hyena.”
“Are they close?”
“Yes. I am going to light a fire, but don’t look at the flame. Keep your eyes on our surroundings; they might try to break through, and I won’t be able to see.”
He struck the flint on the plastic lighter and the small flame shot up, he held that to the little pile of dry grass and limbs he had prepared before they lay down. The grass burst into flame and licked hungrily at the dry limbs and lit up the area inside their little compound. He piled on more wood as the flame took hold. Soon he could make out red eyes around the compound. He let out a loud whoop, and the eyes receded.
“I don’t think they will come near the fire.”
“But what if they do?”
“We have the spear; I don’t know what to tell you, Gloria. It's not every day I am surrounded by hungry hyenas, you know!”
“Well you don’t have to get cranky!”
“Well, get my morning coffee made, woman!”
He saw her beautiful smile as it lit her face in the firelight, and he loved her more than he had the day before. He felt the primitive feeling of love, conquest, and the need to protect. The power of nature amazed him. He had never felt more alive in his life. He soon sat down with his back to the bole of the tree; she sat down beside him and gently leaned her head on his chest. The smell of her long hair fired him, and he wrapped his arms around her. They soon dozed again.
The hyenas did not make any more attempts to come within proximity of the little compound. He awoke an hour later and stoked the fire, piling on more wood; and they slept until the sky began to grow pink in the east.
Just as the sun rose, he pulled the thorn bushes back, gathered up the water bottles, and they made their way back to the dry stream bed to refill them. Animals had made a mess of the holes, covering the bottom of the holes with sand and gravel. Dan scooped out the seep again and waited for the water to clear. Soon, he was able to fill the water bottles with what he hoped was clean water. If either one of them got sick out here, he knew they would be in for it for sure.
They both drank all they could hold, and then he placed the full bottles across his shoulder and led the way up and out of the dry streambed. He looked around, and then without a word, struck off across the savanna, following his nose.
They walked until noon, and then lay down under a lone tree. The tree spread its branches wide in that weird way of the savanna trees. The plains looked limitless, empty, and primeval. Gloria sat down and laid her head against his shoulder, and the smell of her hair again fired him to the bottom of his soul. He was helplessly and hopelessly in love with this woman.
Again, he was amazed at the power of nature; she felt it too, and raised her head to him, and he kissed her there, under the African sun.
“What are we going to do, Dan?”
“I don’t know, Gloria; keep walking, I guess.”
“I mean about us.”
“I know what you mean, Gloria. What we do is to put one foot down in front of the other. I didn’t plan on this; I just wanted to get to the next ship, and then get back home to my wife and kids, and mow my lawn. I don’t know what to do with this. We have to try to live. We both have obligations to fulfill. Let's walk.”
Gloria was silent as they began walking again. Soon the sun wiped away all thoughts except the heat, as they picked their way through the interminable African bush. They stopped again at sundown and began to prepare for dark, only this time with no water other than the two bottles they had left. The thorn bushes were scarcer and spread further apart, and by the time Dan finished finding, cutting, and hauling enough to make a small compound, he was exhausted. His lips were cracked and beginning to bleed. He lay down just at the time it was getting dark, and nursed his way through half of one of the bottles. He hated to drink the water, knowing how much they would need it tomorrow, but felt he had no choice.
“Drink half a bottle, Gloria.”
“I can make it without it.”
“No, do as I tell you and drink half a bottle. You will lose more than that during the night. Now do it while I watch you.”
She obediently sipped the tepid water, and he saw how her lips were swollen and cracked. “Gloria, if you favor me any more, I am going to bust your ass! Do you hear me?” She turned, wiggled her hips at him, and smiled, her countenance lighting off the fires of his love for her.
They both slept fitfully during the night, but Dan didn’t have to light up the wood Gloria had dragged into the compound. It was drier here, and more desert than it was bush. Dan feared for their life that night, and Gloria entrusted her life to him that night.
The following morning they awoke thirsty, stiff, and very sore. Their shoes were almost worn through from walking on the sharp rocks that covered the landscape. Gloria had a cut on her ankle, and he attended it with what remained of the alcohol swabs, and then dressed the wound with a bandage. The bandages were almost gone too.
Just as he finished the bandaging, he laid his hand on her shoulder, “Don’t move, don’t you move,” he said quietly. She froze as she read the fear in his eyes. He moved his hand slowly toward the spear lying beside him, his other hand still resting on her shoulder. He inched up the spear past her, and suddenly, with a flick of the spear, he threw a black snake away from her. She screamed when she saw the snake crawling off.
She buried her face in his chest and cried. He let her cry it out for a while. “You’re wasting water,” he said gently; let's walk.”
There was not much shade to be had as they started across the dry savanna. They saw few animals, just catching a glimpse here and there. It was their fifth day without much food, and little water. All that day they walked, both knowing if they didn’t find water, they were through.
The land began to take on a different look about three in the afternoon – more vegetation – and Dan hoped it would lead to water. They walked until an hour from sundown, and began the routine of another night on the African p
lains. When they were finished making camp, they both fell to the ground, exhausted.
About eleven o’clock, the lions came. In the dry season a hungry lion will eat anything, and Dan and Gloria were on their menu. A male lion came up to the thorn wall, roared and stopped. Dried blood was on his mouth from the last kill; he growled and looked through the thorns at them. Two females came running up and began circling the thorn wall. The male reached out a paw and tested the thorns, feeling them, and then pulled it back. He roared again, and Gloria screamed. Dan capped his hand over her mouth before the scream was finished.
“Gloria, stop that,” he yelled, but her eyes were wild with fear. “You have to get hold of yourself; screaming only makes it worse; they can smell the fear.”
He grabbed the spear and began jabbing at the lions through the thorns. He hit one as it came too close, and elicited a growl, but the lion withdrew. The growling, huffing, and chuffing kept up as the lions circled the thorns. Eventually, one got into a frenzy and lunged at the thorns; the wall caved as the weight of the lion hit it. The lion yelped and withdrew; it growled and moaned as it walked away a little way and sat down, licking its wounds from the thorns. The others kept circling the little compound. Dan, jabbing his spear through the thorns at them, yelled, “Get out of here, and go on!” The lions looked at him as if trying to figure out what he was telling them.
“Go on! Scat!”
“Scat?” Gloria looked at him; he turned and grinned.
“Well…they’re cats aren’t they?”
A smile came to her parched lips. At length, hunger drove the lions to make a decision to hunt easier game, and the large male moved slowly back out of the light of the fire. When morning came, the lions were gone.
“They may still be nearby, let's wait and watch.”
But they neither saw nor heard anything except bird calls as the morning wore on. Gloria looked at Dan in amazement as he leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes. She snuggled up to him. Her thirst was almost more than she could bear, but she slept on a little. He stirred about an hour and a half later, gently extricated from her embrace, and began removing the thorns. She stirred and looked at him with dull eyes as he pulled at the thorns. The thorns pricked his hands; he didn’t have the dexterity that he needed, and he knew they were both growing weaker by the hour.
They started walking about ten o’clock. They stumbled on through the day. Dan cut green pieces of wood and they sucked on that, the moisture in the wood kept their mouths from drying out, but they were both growing weaker.
Along toward sundown Dan stopped suddenly and Gloria ran into his back. She stumbled and looked up at him with glazed eyes.
“I see something.”
“Where?”
“Away over there,” he said, pointing; doesn’t that look round to you, sticking above the trees?” He slurred through his thick swollen lips.
“Where? I don’t see it.”
“Get behind me and follow my finger; see it?”
“Yes, it does look round; it could be a round hill.”
“It just doesn’t look like part of the terrain; it could be some kind of house. Let’s aim for it and find out.”
They stumbled on for another hour, doing their best to keep the round object in sight, but finally, coming to the thicker trees, they lost sight of the object. The trees grew thicker the further they went, until suddenly they came upon a village of mud huts in a clearing. The village was surrounded by thick piles of thorn bushes with one