Safari

by Parnell Hall

  “Your secret’s safe with us,” Alice said.

  He went back to staring moodily out of the side of the jeep. He hadn’t asked Alice what she did. He was either rude, or just didn’t want to talk. Probably both.

  It was getting on and we hadn’t seen anything. I wondered if Keith was giving Clemson a hard time. I couldn’t hear what he was saying from the back seat. I could hear Clemson when he made a pronouncement, of which there had been damn few, but I couldn’t tell if Keith was whining. If so, it must have taken great forbearance for Clemson not to draw his revolver and shoot him in the head.

  I realized I had to mark my territory. “Hey, Clemson,” I called. “I’d like to own some of this land. You think I could stake it out?”

  Clemson pulled up by the side of the road. “Let me check the bush.”

  He did, found nothing. I’d have been surprised if he had. We hadn’t found anything all afternoon.

  I got out, marked my territory, came back to find a line of fellow markers. I climbed up over Alice.

  “Got the hand sanitizer?”

  “Uh-huh.” She dug in her backpack. “Just a drop. Here, I’ll do it for you.”

  I held out my palms. She squeezed the barest trace of hand sanitizer out of the plastic bottle. I rubbed my hands together, became socially acceptable again.

  We drove on, saw nothing.

  About ten minutes later, Clemson stopped the jeep and got out. That was weird. We’d just had a pit stop. What was he doing?

  Clemson walked around to the front of the jeep, knelt down, examined the road. He raised his binoculars, looked off to the left.

  I raised my binoculars, tried to see what he was looking at. I didn’t see anything. I was not surprised. I’m an expert at seeing nothing.

  Clemson got back in the jeep, turned around. “Hang on, kids, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”

  With that he jerked the wheel to the left and drove off the road.

  It was a bumpy ride, all right. Branches were not whipping at us and small saplings were not being plowed underneath the jeep, but as far as bumps went it was everything he’d advertised.

  I found myself clinging to the metal handrail across the back of the seat. Alice was cradling her camera like a newborn child, and jouncing up and down.

  Up front people were bouncing in all directions, at least as far as they could go without bumping into someone. Which wasn’t far, the jeep being crowded as it was. Keith must have been cursing himself for not ousting the librarian. If he had, Victoria would have been falling all over him.

  The field we were bouncing through was pretty wide open. There was a tree line at the far side. I couldn’t imagine hanging on like this for that long. About a hundred yards from the trees, Clemson stopped, raised his binoculars, and said, “Look!”

  There was a single tree somewhat out in the open, and that seemed to be what Clemson was looking at.

  I scanned the tree with my binoculars. Saw nothing in the branches, nothing in the leaves. Moved down the trunk.

  And there at the bottom!

  Could it be?

  Were those ears?

  Yes, they were! And a tawny feline face!

  “Leopard?” Edith said.

  She’d spotted it just before me, and I’d missed another chance to be wrong.

  “Cheetah,” Clemson said. “A mother and her cubs.”

  Cubs!

  The buzzword raced through the jeep.

  Cubs!

  I half expected Clemson to leap out of the jeep and lead us across the field. Instead, he inched the jeep forward. We were still bumping along, just not at teeth-rattling velocity.

  Clemson drove up about as close as we could get, then went closer. Finally he pulled up and parked sideways to the tree. Luckily it was Alice’s side, or she might have climbed over me.

  At the base of the tree were a mother and three cubs. The mother was sitting up. It was her ears I’d seen. The cubs were big. Not as big as mommy, maybe three quarters of her size. I was disappointed. I’d been hoping for kittens.

  Still, it was a mother cheetah and her cubs. Only they were sleeping. And showed no signs of waking up.

  That didn’t stop the cameras. There came a staccato burst of click, click, clicks as photographers fired off shot after shot like machine guns. Even I whipped out the video camera and shot mommy and the cubs. About a minute of them sleeping was all I could handle, even with zooming and panning and pulling back to include a piece of the jeep in the foreground, which was all I could do without getting out and walking around. I wondered if we would.

  We didn’t. Even after the cameras stopped shooting. We just sat there. Watched the sleeping cubs.

  “What are we doing?” Keith wanted to know.

  “Waiting,” Clemson said.

  That we were. A few minutes later we were still waiting, the cheetahs were still sleeping, and I was beginning to feel like a man trapped in a shaggy-cat story.

  Mommy got up, yawned, stretched, walked over to the cubs, and lay down again.

  Audible groans rippled through the jeep.

  “Why can’t we wake them up?” Keith said.

  Clemson shook his head. “We’re just observers. We can’t interfere.”

  “With what?”

  “Nature. It has to take its course.”

  “Why?” Keith demanded. “What difference could it possibly make whether that cheetah is awake or asleep right now?”

  “It’ll make a difference to whatever it kills because it wakes up angry and hungry.”

  “Isn’t it going to kill something anyway?”

  “Yes, but it should be her choice and not ours.”

  “Can we go?” Keith whined.

  “Oh, let’s have a snack first,” Clemson said. He reached in a storage compartment, pulled out a cellophane bag. “Who wants some chips?”

  They weren’t potato chips. They were banana chips, a safari snack staple. They were as crisp as potato chips, but not as salty and a little thicker. We passed the bag around, and I took a few. Alice eyed me, counting the calories.

  “Anything to drink?” Victoria said.

  Clemson hopped out of the jeep, retrieved a cooler of soda and water out of the back. This pleased everyone but Keith, who was in a foul mood, probably because he wasn’t sitting next to Victoria. “How come you can get out of the jeep and we can’t?” he demanded.

  Clemson smiled. “Because I have a rifle and a handgun and a hunting knife the size of a machete.” He pulled the knife out of the sheath on his belt, held it in front of Keith’s face. There was nothing overtly hostile in the gesture, but it got the point across. Keith shut up.

  We drank the soda and nibbled the chips, pretended we weren’t tired of watching sleeping cubs.

  Mommy’s head came up. I figured she was going to move another three feet and lie down again.

  “Photo op,” Keith said sarcastically.

  Clemson stifled him. “Shhh! Look!”

  I didn’t know why he said that. We all were.

  Then I realized he wasn’t looking at the cheetah. He was looking behind her and off to the left.

  Then I saw it.

  An impala, standing in the clearing, looking around.

  Mommy got up. Began to creep in that direction. Keeping low to the ground, out of its line of vision. She didn’t creep straight at the impala. She crept off to the left, until she had a bush lined up between it and her. She crept slowly, quietly up behind the bush. Lay down. Inched up until she was peering out.

  The impala, unaware of the danger, continued to nibble on leaves.

  I had switched on the video camera the minute mommy got up, filmed her long stalk, what I could see of it in the tall grass. I zoomed in close on her lying under the bush. Pulled back to include the impala. They were both too small in the shot. I zoomed in on the impala, panned back to her.

  She was moving! Slowly, very slowly, she had gone into a crouch, taken a step forward. And another. And another. And
suddenly she was creeping along the ground, faster and faster, until—

  She took off! And just like that she was gone, racing full-tilt after the frightened impala.

  The jeep roared to life.

  “Hang on!” Clemson shouted.

  This time he really meant it. Clemson did his best cheetah impression, flying though the long grass as if his next meal depended on it. This time we really were snapping small saplings, and this time we really did have to hold on, or risk the very real possibility of being thrown from the jeep.

  Mommy cheetah was not in sight. Nor was the impala. But my camera was still rolling lest they appear. Did I just say lest? That shows how excited I was. I couldn’t even talk English, even bad, stilted, archaic English, and incorrect too. I don’t mean lest. I mean in case. And—

  Oh, my god! Did we just lose Trish!

  We hadn’t. She’d merely been thrown sideways and disappeared behind her seat. She emerged unscathed, joined the throng of fearless impala hunters.

  I don’t know how long it lasted. It seemed forever, but was probably not more than a minute. The camera would tell me later.

  And suddenly, there they were. The cheetah and the impala. They were on the ground. Mommy had it by the throat. It was dead. That was quick work. And a relief too. I didn’t really want to see her kill it.

  I had no sooner had that thought when it kicked. Not much, maybe just a reflex action. No, it kicked again, stronger this time. Mommy shifted her hold on its throat.

  Cameras were clicking furiously. That reminded me I was holding mine. Realized I was focused on the scene. Did I really want to film this? Should I turn the camera off?

  I didn’t. I kept the camera on. I don’t think I consciously considered being ridiculed as a wimp. At least not till later.

  Mommy stood up, began dragging the impala through the tall grass.

  “What’s she doing?” Victoria asked.

  Clemson turned in his seat. “Bringing it back to the cubs.”

  “But it’s still alive.”

  “She’s a good mommy. She wants the cubs to finish it off. She’s teaching them to kill prey.”

  Good lord. That’s not how I would have thought of a good mommy, but it made perfect sense. And I kept the camera rolling, filmed the good mommy dragging the still-breathing impala through the bush.

  Mommy didn’t have to drag it far. The cubs had woken up and followed. She dragged it into a little clearing, assured herself it wasn’t going to get up and run away, which it certainly wasn’t. She let go of the neck and left it for the cubs.

  They tried it, one at a time. Copied mommy. Grabbing the neck. Shaking and dragging.

  They couldn’t drag it. And they couldn’t kill it. After all of that, one leg still kicked.

  Finally mommy came back and finished the task. I could practically see her shaking her head. Boys, boys, when will you ever learn?

  I wondered who’d eat first. Would Mommy take the cheetah’s share, and leave it for the cubs to clean up? Or would she let her children eat? And, if so, would they be able to, or would she have to rip it open for them?

  I was not to know. Having finished off the cheetah, Mommy walked over to a tree, lay down, and went to sleep.

  So did the cubs.

  I couldn’t believe it. The cheetahs weren’t dining. They were just stocking the refrigerator.

  “They’re not going to eat it?” Keith said. He sounded terribly disappointed, like some blood lust was going unsatisfied. I was not surprised. He was at the age it probably seemed like a video game. Blood Hunt, on PlayStation 3, or whatever number they were up to these days.

  “They’re tired,” Clemson said. “You know how fast she went? She used up a lot of energy. They’re set for dinner. They’ll enjoy it better after a little nap.”

  “More waiting?” Keith said disgustedly.

  I smiled, shook my head. Before Keith had been all, let’s get out of here. Now he was like, how long will we have to stay?

  “What?” Alice said.

  I waved it away. “Tell you later.”

  38

  SECOND NIGHT OF RIVER CAMP

  BEFORE DINNER I WANDERED DOWN by the river. I was restless, needed time to think. I tried to check out the wind. Were those whitecaps in the gathering dark? It was hard to tell. We’d been catching the wind all day, and things are relative. I hoped it would die down. After our eventful hike and drive, I could use a calm day drifting down the river.

  I looked up to see one of the librarians wandering over to me. It was Pam. It took me a moment or two to name her. My first thought was still a librarian. Which was progress. It had been a Hells Angel.

  “Looking at the river?” she said.

  “Look calm enough to you?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Me either,” I said. “I hope we go.”

  “You didn’t enjoy today?”

  “I did. I’m just not sure I can handle more enjoyment.”

  “The elephant charging was a little much.”

  “I’m not that keen at seeing animals torn limb from limb either.”

  “Oh, that’s just nature. That’s what predators do.” After a pause she said, “Hard to believe one of us might be a killer.”

  I was surprised she’d brought it up. Most people had been avoiding the subject.

  “Do you think it’s one of us?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just can’t picture one of the boys from bush camp killing Alice.” She grimaced. “It must be hard for you, being married to an Alice.”

  “I doubt if she’d appreciate you saying being married to her must be hard.”

  “You know what I mean. You’re the detective. Who do you think did it?”

  “I have no idea. Do you?”

  “Sure, but I’m not an expert.”

  “Me either. We’re just people on a trip. If you have any ideas, I’d like to hear ’em.”

  Pam looked around. Lowered her voice. “Well, just between you and me, I think Alice suspected Jason.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, I know she singled him out to talk to. And he’s not easy to talk to.”

  “That’s for sure. And she did?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me.”

  “Oh?”

  “She said he was very evasive. Like he had something to hide.”

  “Did you tell this to the police?”

  “You mean to Duke? Of course not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it’s hearsay, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. If it’s something the victim said, it might be part of the res gestae.”

  “Oh, I forgot. You know these things.”

  I don’t really. I knew the term from reading Perry Mason books, but I didn’t know if it meant what I said it did, or if it even applied.

  “Anyway, you weren’t in court. Didn’t he ask you what she said?”

  “Yes, of course. And I told him what she said to me. I just didn’t tell him what she said someone else said to her.”

  That was a fine distinction. I don’t think a lawyer could have split it better. I don’t think the lawyer would have won the argument, but that’s neither here nor there.

  “What else did she tell you about Jason?”

  “That was it. He was evasive and didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to talk about the crime, and he didn’t want to talk about where he came from and what he did.”

  “He sells insurance.”

  “That’s what she said. Frankly, I just can’t see it. Would you buy insurance from that man? Anyway, he didn’t want to talk about it. And insurance salesmen always want to talk about it. That’s why they’re insurance salesmen.”

  “He’s on vacation.”

  “You wouldn’t know it to look at him. I don’t know why he came.” She cocked her head. “So. Who do you think did it?”

  “Colonel Mustard, in the bi
lliard room, with the rhino rifle.”

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  “I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  “So you do have an idea.”

  “Not a clue.”

  Pam looked dissatisfied. I couldn’t blame her. “Have it your way,” she said. “But if you need someone to talk to, I’m available.”

  She squeezed out a forced, indulgent smile and grudgingly tore herself away.

  I went back to staring moodily at the river.

  “Hello, handsome.”

  I turned around to find Victoria smiling at me.

  “You can drop the act. Your sister’s not around.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You only flirt to make her crazy.”

  “Can’t I just find you attractive?”

  “You can’t kid me. I know you’ve got a thing for Keith.”

  She made a face. “Pul-lease!” she said. I could have sworn she was sixteen. “He is such a pest.”

  “Attentive, though.”

  “That’s why he’s a pest.”

  “That’s what girls used to say in high school when they really liked someone.”

  “I’m not in high school.”

  “Me either.”

  “It’s not like I’ve given him any encouragement.”

  “What more encouragement does a guy need? The indifferent act gets ’em every time.”

  “It’s not an act. I don’t like him. He’s an arrogant creep. With his big Hollywood act.”

  “Hollywood?”

  “Yeah, his whole are-you-an-actress-I-work-in-film act. Probably a gofer on some movie. If he works in film at all. Believe me, I know the type. He’s a real pain.”

  “The guy he’s traveling with is no picnic either.”

  “Jason? He’s interesting.”

  “Because he’s immune to your charm?”

  “There’s something about him.”

  Oh, my god, she had a thing for Jason. I felt a sinking feeling in my heart. Not that she liked someone else. That she liked him. His sullen act really worked on women? I guess it did. They’ve always been attracted to the loner, the outcast, the fugitive, the rebel. Why did I waste my youth being affable?

  “What does Jason do?” I asked.

  “He didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Is he gay?”