Behind them, Margaret looked my way and shrugged as if to say, They don’t listen to me. She mouthed the words “thank you.” I suspected she had given up trying to direct her daughters or at least decided to choose her battles. George apparently avoided family dramas as much as possible. He sat back in his seat, squinting through his binoculars at who knows what.
In the side mirror I discovered a pretty good view of the girls behind me. Slim had perched the hat on her head at a jaunty angle without using the chin strap. Lacey’s head remained bare except for the shiny crimson clip. They were rubbing sunblock into their pasty skin, unaware of my gaze. Observing such an intimate, unguarded moment felt embarrassing and wrong, so I picked up my binoculars, George-like, as a diversion. A moment later we crested a grassy berm and came upon a trio of warthogs rooting in the soil.
“Pigs!” Lacey jumped up and sat down again.
“Warthogs,” Luke responded, stepping on the brake. “The only pig species adapted to grazing. These three are digging for tubers and roots, the occasional delicious worm. Subterranean delicacies.”
“Ewww.”
“Blech.”
The sighting was brief because the warthogs preferred to dine alone. They raised their heads to glare at us, turned heel, and trotted off with their shoestring tails pointed skyward.
“Cuuuuute!” Slim aimed her camera at the three round black bottoms rapidly receding in the distance. Not a great shot, she must have decided, because she swung around to photograph Lacey instead. “Say cheetah!”
“Cheetah!”
Luke turned the key in the ignition, looking grim.
“Cheetah!”
“Oops! We hit a bump. Say it again.”
“Cheetah!”
The girls fell into fits of laughter. The hilarity continued as we pitched over the rough terrain. George told them to pipe down. They did, for a minute or two, until the hat I had given Slim flew off and sailed into the grass.
“Stop! The hat!” she yelled.
Luke hit the brake. I leapt to the ground, checking right and left for man-eating predators. When I jogged back with the hat in my hand, Luke shot me a look that said, Isn’t this fun?
We were approaching the river when a tall black ostrich wandered out from behind a bush. Seeing us, the giant bird froze midstride. Luke drew within a Cruiser length. The girls, eye-to-eye with an eight-foot creature standing stiff as a fencepost, at last fell silent.
“The common ostrich. Male.” Luke looked past the girls to address Margaret and George. “This bird is not particularly intelligent. He thinks he’s invisible.”
“Because he’s not moving?” Lacey was sliding into Slim again, wary of a dark, glassy eye fixed on her.
Luke shrugged. “His brain is smaller than his eyeball.”
“Ridic!” Slim exclaimed.
“How come he doesn’t get eaten?” Margaret asked.
“He has excellent vision.” Luke pointed toward a distant copse of marulas. “This ostrich could spot a lion in those trees, or even a snake on a branch. Plenty of time to run away.”
“Snake?” Lacey shrieked. “Gack! I hate snakes. Keep me away from there.”
“Will do,” Luke said, starting the engine. The odds were good that we were within a stone’s throw of a snake at that very moment—in fact, at almost all times. Luke would not mention this, I was pretty sure.
A few minutes later, we reached the fringe of trees that marked the river. Luke steered under a dense roof of intertwining strangler figs and down a gentle slope. After the heat on the plain, the deep, moist shade felt like a dip in spring water. The Cruiser crashed through thickets of foliage that made everyone duck and lean toward the center. The girls shrieked a few times at the novelty of knocking over bushes and slender trees that then sprang up behind us. Before long we nosed into an opening that gave way to a panoramic view of the main channel and its slow-moving current. The wide, sandy shore I had previously used as a road stretched before us. But on my initial visit I had failed to appreciate the vibrant birdlife.
Margaret quickly checked off black-winged stilt, glossy ibis, and curlew sandpiper. A flock of chittering red-billed queleas swooped in for a drink. We saw a number of waders, gulls, and terns. In a few minutes we had identified a dozen different species.
Even Lacey and Slim were paying attention now. When Lacey asked to borrow Margaret’s binoculars, I handed her mine. She adjusted the focus and surveyed the scene. “I’m looking for snakes,” she finally said. “I hope I don’t see one.”
I hoped so too. Most particularly, I hoped she never laid eyes on a certain long, green reptile that made its home in the thatched roof at Motembo.
When we had spotted and named every bird on the scene, we relocated to a new vantage point, one I recognized from my adventure in the mud. Caper bushes fringed the riverbanks. Date palms dense with fronds leaned toward the water. Luke parked the Cruiser and wasted no time identifying a saddle-billed stork and a pair of little grebes.
I scanned the foliage lining the banks, hoping to spot animals of greater interest to Lacey and Slim. A short distance upstream, I spied a structure that took me by surprise: a hunting blind partially covered in vines. Surprise quickly gave way to gratitude as I recalled my rescue at the hands of Good Sam and his sons. Jackson had said the men maintained a blind on the river. They hunted to feed their families, he had told me—for the pot only and only when visitors were absent.
A troop of vervet monkeys erupted in excited chatter. I looked up to see a dozen monkeys vaulting toward us.
“Chimps!” Lacey announced, pointing her camera skyward.
“Monkeys,” Luke said. “Vervet monkeys.”
In short order, the cheekiest ones among them leapt into the date palm leaning over the Cruiser. They jumped and swung, jockeying for a good view of the humans parked below. A quick, bright-eyed juvenile achieved a perch directly over Lacey’s head. The monkey appeared particularly interested in the shiny red clip in her hair.
“Time to go,” I said, pointing upward. Luke, whose hand was already on the ignition, had come to the same conclusion. Then two things happened at once: the engine roared to life, and the monkey urinated. It was only a slight dribble, but as I turned in my seat, I braced for all hell to break loose.
Slim’s eyes went as wide as the O of her mouth. Margaret, admirably calm, pulled a tissue from her pocket. George sat back and bit his lip.
But Lacey appeared unaware of the droplets glistening in her crown of hair. Looking at Slim, she said, “What’s wrong with you?”
A loud, snorting guffaw rendered Slim momentarily speechless. She waved a finger at the top of Lacey’s head. Choking with laughter, she finally managed, “He got you.”
Baffled, Lacey touched her hair. Her expression shaded from confusion to disgust to horror as she examined her fingers and brought them to her nose. “What …?” She cast a look back at the spot we had hastily vacated. “Monkey pee? Flipping monkey pee?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Only a trickle. From a very small monkey.”
“Ewww! Ebola!” Tears pooled in her wide, frightened eyes. With her contaminated hand suspended in the air, she sat rigidly upright, paralyzed by the possible consequence of tilting her head.
“She’s totally skeeved out,” Slim informed me, patting her sister’s knee.
“Really, Lacey, you’ll be fine.” I had never addressed any of the Havilands by their given name. This seemed to get her attention. She blinked.
“In a minute we’ll stop for sundowners and clean it off. You’ll be good as new.” I was making this up, of course. I had no experience with monkey pee on the hair or skin. But it was probably not a death sentence. Luke seemed cool about it, so I guessed I was on the right track.
While Margaret patted Lacey’s head with a tissue, we sped toward the baobab tree, the same one I h
ad explored on my way to Motembo. This struck me as an excellent choice for drinks at sunset and maybe a soothing antidote to Lacey’s unfortunate experience.
The tree itself was phenomenal—gigantic, ancient, rare. Its huge trunk offered privacy to guests who might need to pick a flower or kick a tire, with the added surprise of a hollow interior. The Havilands, three of them at least, could relax with their beverages while taking in a panoramic view of the sunset. If luck came our way, a Technicolor horizon might silhouette an elephant family or a pair of giraffes ambling across the plain.
As we made our approach, Lacey still hadn’t moved except to perfect the downward curve of her frown. Her attitude required adjusting, in my opinion. So I tried a diversion. “The baobab tree is the world’s largest succulent,” I said, puffing up the modifiers as if I were imparting the world’s most amazing fact. “The tree before you is at least a hundred years old.”
Margaret and George looked suitably impressed. Even Slim sat up and squinted at the behemoth rising from the plain. Lacey leaned stiffly toward me, so close I could feel her breath on my ear. “I don’t give a rat’s butt about the tree. What about the freakload of pee on my head?”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. The girl had backbone, after all. I gestured for her to come closer. “Some people think monkey pee is good luck. Good luck in love and, uh, school.”
She looked at me.
I nodded. “You can buy it in bottles, like perfume. Very expensive.” I put a finger to my lips—our little secret. In the rearview mirror I watched her peer at her hand. Whether or not she believed me, the frown had disappeared.
A moment later we rolled to a halt beneath the baobab’s weirdly branching limbs. Luke made a show of scanning the boughs overhead. Then he killed the engine and stepped out. “Wait here.”
While he made his way around the tree, scouting for animals, I retrieved a handful of disinfectant wipes from the first aid kit and handed them to Lacey. “Monkey pee erasers. We always carry these.”
Her face softened, as if a smile might be forthcoming.
I leaned in. “They don’t erase the good luck.”
As expected, the temperature plunged along with the setting sun. And as expected, the girls’ clothing proved wholly inadequate. Unlike their more suitably dressed parents, Lacey and Slim never left the Cruiser during sundowners. They did not go to pick a flower or view the opening in the hollow tree, not even after Margaret returned proclaiming its wonders. They sat like two brown lumps bundled in ponchos and a blanket, peering at the flaming sky. Occasionally, a pale hand snaked out to lift a can of Diet Coke to thin, bluish lips. Faced with a new way to die, Lacey shivered noisily, tapping her flip-flops against the metal floorboard. By the time darkness fell, Luke had decided the fun was over. With permission from Margaret and George, he cut the drive short and headed straight back to camp.
21
AS PLANNED, THE HAVILANDS DEPARTED after four nights, a fairly typical length of stay. Thinking back, I felt grateful to the British family for their excellent introduction to guiding. In Margaret and George I had met engaged, inquisitive travelers whose special interest in birds sharpened my own avian skills and my comfort using a guidebook as backup. In Lacey and Slim I had met distracted, fearful, hapless adolescents who required extra attention, patience, and diplomacy.
I recorded in my journal the animals we spotted during the Havilands’ visit. Fortunately, Motembo’s green boomslang was not among them. The list included close to a hundred bird species. To Luke’s credit, we also racked up the Big Five: elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard, lion, and rhinoceros. His tracking skills plus his knowledge of every hectare in our vicinity had never failed to result in the sighting we wanted. Slim, unimpressed, grumbled that we hadn’t seen a tiger. I informed her that seeing a tiger would require a very long drive, all the way to Asia.
Four days in charge of Lacey and Slim had required me to call upon a storehouse of wit and practical skill. I got to practice shower drain routing, poisonous plant identification, first aid, and card tricks. Most important, girl duty taught me that foreigners, just like the people I had known at home, respond gratefully to kindness and respect—at all hours of the day and night. (A hippo honk plus a skeeved-out girl had equaled a whistle call at 3:00 a.m.) After a particularly harrowing encounter with a monitor lizard, Lacey had thrown her arms around me and pressed her lips to my cheek. This felt more like an assault than a kiss, but I wasn’t complaining.
On the morning of the Havilands’ departure, the girls took numerous photos of themselves snuggled up against Luke and me. Smiling along with them wasn’t difficult. The girls could be exasperating, but they were harmless and predictable. I felt great relief that I had made it through my first guiding experience without any major goof-ups. I had managed to identify all the birds Margaret and George spotted, sometimes before Luke did. The gin and tonics I mixed for sundowners won special cheers. (I unknowingly poured in twice as much gin as required.) I learned to maintain guide-like cool in the face of girlie transgressions, bare skin, and a butterfly tattoo. Khaki fever never broke out of the temperate zone.
My final duty was to accompany Luke and the Havilands on the drive to the airstrip. As the family climbed aboard a Cessna for the flight to their next camp, Luke and I stood next to the Cruiser, waving goodbye. “Well done, Bones,” he said. “Now you can handle anything.”
His approval boosted my confidence, as he knew it would. But I would soon learn that girl duty barely cracked the surface of things a guide needed to handle.
The Japanese left that day too. When the entire camp emptied all at once, a frenzy of activity erupted in every quarter. As soon as the guests vacated their tents, Jaleen and her helper moved in to ready the accommodations for the next occupants. Extra-thick towels and silky cotton sheets thudded in the dryers. Nate turned up the volume in the kitchen. His voice and laughter rang out amid the clang of metal, the rattle of glassware, and the groaning and thumping that accompanied weighty deliveries. Teaspoon got busy scrubbing the pavilion and polishing the already gleaming lacquer that armored the bar. Kiki caught up with paperwork and the scheduling of future guests. I joined the other guides in vehicle maintenance and forays into the bush to clear brush, scout for animals, and plan promising routes for the game drives ahead. The camp turned over at a hectic pace—cleaned, resupplied, and ready for new visitors in less than a day.
Over the next several weeks, a steady stream of guests flowed in and out of camp. We hosted singles, couples, and groups; English speakers and non-English speakers; ecotourists, journalists, honeymooners, families, and everyday travelers from all over the world.
Many of our guests were glossy with wealth and accomplishment, as solid and self-contained as planets. Yet they often surprised me with their friendliness and approachability. Others, strenuously rumpled and outdoorsy, proved skittish and difficult to please. We welcomed barrel-sized individuals whose bellies spilled over their belts, as well as the intensely aerobicized who missed their daily runs. These latter guests usually worked off excess energy on yoga mats in the pavilion. Some of our visitors had unhealthy relationships with alcohol or drugs, some with each other.
The ditzy-looking woman who couldn’t find her tent turned out to be a renowned theoretical mathematician. The white-haired gent who walked with a limp was a mountaineer who had summited Annapurna. As they poured out of the vehicles that delivered them, occasionally wearing baseball caps emblazoned with the name of a tour company, we never knew what to expect.
At first I felt shy around these visitors—people so worldly, with college degrees and passports stamped at borders all over the globe. Gradually, I came to realize that the visitors found me equally interesting and exotic. Though I learned the value of listening well, I also learned to hold my own in conversations, drawing upon knowledge and experiences they seemed eager to hear. With every passing week as a guide train
ee, I grew more self-assured.
Local people visited the camp too. I formally met Good Sam’s sons, a modest lot who shrugged off my gratitude for winching me out of the mud. Newsom’s wife came by, white-haired and smiley, with elegant, upright posture that suggested a history of balancing burdens on her head. The most surprising person I met was a friend of Jackson’s, a professional wildlife photographer who stopped at Motembo on his way to photograph game. The man was small and wiry, with slicked-back hair and a gravelly voice. He was dressed from head to toe in denim except for the flashy red jewel that sparkled on his pinky finger.
Jackson made the introduction. “Bones, this is Ruby.”
I blinked. “Ruby? Of Ruby’s Amazing Safaris?”
“The same,” Ruby said, pumping my hand. “You’ve seen my calendars?”
* * *
My days as a guide trainee began before dawn and ended after we escorted the last guests from the campfire to their tents, often well past midnight. The work absorbed, exhilarated, and exhausted me. I slept as hard as I worked, frequently falling into bed fully clothed.
Thoughts of home and my family, even my worries about Zola and Skinner, seldom penetrated the more immediate priorities that crowded my head. Mima’s image frequently flashed before me, though—her heart-stopping smile, the shine of her hair, the two of us entwined and breathless. In the press of work, those sweet memories flared and died like fireworks melting in the sky.
But Zola and Skinner had vanished almost completely from my mind. In the brief moments they reappeared, I felt a rush of guilt mixed with something akin to disbelief. How could I so abruptly put aside concerns that had consumed me only a few weeks earlier, concerns that could still overwhelm me if I let them?
Baba must have guessed that the dramas playing out at home would recede in the face of my training at Motembo, at least in the beginning. “Become the best guide you can be,” he had said. I was working hard to follow his advice. But I hadn’t realized how thoroughly guide training would refocus my attention.
The Story of Bones Page 22