Lioness

by Nell Brien

  He did not argue, or defend himself. Cat bit back the hot words she wanted to hurl at him. She tightened the belt on Joel’s robe, took a breath, forcing herself into a shaky calm.

  “Let’s get back.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re wound up tighter than a bloody watch spring—”

  “Campbell, thank you, but I don’t need any advice from you about the state of my nerves.” She thrust her hands deep into her pockets among the tubes of shampoo and soap. “What I need from you is a hotel site I can use. That’s all. Let me worry about the state of my nerves.” Pain shot through her head, and she had to force herself not to put a hand to her eyes. “Now, please, let’s go. I’m hungry.”

  He started to turn away, then turned back to face her. “You are just like your brother, you know that? You insist on making everything a bloody sight harder on yourself than it need be. Thomas would have brought water up for you, it’s no problem, but no, you had to prove you can do it. Whatever ‘it’ is to you.” He swung the rifle in a small arc. “You can’t control any of this. This is my backyard, and I can’t, either. But I know it and you just have to trust me.”

  “Like my brother did?”

  Campbell opened his mouth, then closed it without speaking. He turned abruptly and led the way back to camp.

  Ten

  Smoke from Tom’s cheroot scented the air, mingling with the smell of coffee and brandy and wood smoke. Two days had passed without incident. Each morning they left the men to break camp and did not see them again until evening.

  They had stopped at several possible sites, a couple that were wonderful—a waterhole surrounded by waist-high golden grass, with banks churned into blood-red clay by countless hooves, the contrasting colors of sky, grass, water, mud, dazzlingly beautiful; a rocky promontory that gave limitless views over the grassland. Each different from the others, each spectacular. None of them matched Joel’s sketches. She’d taken pictures, made notes and some thumb sketches of her own.

  While she poked around with Tom as escort, Campbell quartered the countryside with his binoculars and kept radio contact with someone—the other Land Rover, she guessed, riding point somewhere out of sight.

  Cat leaned back in her chair, staring at the millions of stars hanging just above her head. But the perfect peace was an illusion. Weapons were always within reach, leaning against camp chairs, and hunkered down around the kitchen fire she could see the three heavily armed Maasai.

  “If we eat like this all the time, I’ll have to be rolled onto the plane home,” she said. “What was the name of that soup again?” A thick and unprepossessing brown, it was surprisingly tasty.

  “Brown Windsor,” Campbell answered. “Inflicted upon the defenseless every Sunday in every boarding school in the British Isles. Thomas was taught by missionaries, and for some reason known only to God and the British Baptist Society, that was part of his education.”

  Cat laughed. “Well, it’s very good.” She felt caught in a time warp. The table lit by a blazing fire, heavy, horn-handled silverware that looked a hundred years old, worth a fortune to an antique dealer, the four-course meal served impeccably by Thomas, his Uzi put aside for the occasion. Even the formidable Thomas found it difficult to juggle Brown Windsor soup and an Uzi.

  “You said we’d be traveling hard. I hadn’t expected such luxury. Do you always do this?”

  “Not anymore,” Tom said. “But we thought we’d give you a taste of what safari used to be.”

  A glass suspended from his fingers, Campbell leaned back, stretched his feet toward the fire. “My great-grandfather always dressed for dinner on safari,” he said idly. “Took a hip bath with him and his evening clothes wherever he went.”

  “Yes, and my baba carried them,” Tom said.

  Campbell made an amused grimace. “Now, you know that’s not true, Tom. Your great-grandfather was so bloody dignified, no one would dare suggest such a thing. He was the one bossing the other fellers who carried his gear, too.”

  Tom laughed and blew a series of perfect smoke rings. Firelight threw the high ridges of his cheekbones into sharp relief, gleamed on blue-black skin. Even lounging in his chair, he seemed poised to spring into action.

  “I heard that in two world wars the Campbells raised their own companies, joined everyone in the King’s African Rifles and marched them off to do or die for Empire,” Cat said.

  Campbell grunted a half laugh. “Good God! Who told you that?”

  “I have my sources.” A small breeze rustled through the branches of the thorn trees and the weaverbird nests swayed gently. A large night bird swept low on silent wings. “I even heard about the famed Campbell bloodstock. In demand in racing circles all over East Africa, I’m told. Very impressive.”

  “Who’ve you been talking to? Ward?”

  “No. I had tea with a friend of Joel’s. Father Gaston. He’s a parish priest, been in Kenya for years. Do you know him?”

  There was a beat of silence, then Campbell said, “I know him. Your brother never mentioned he was a friend.”

  “Didn’t he? He’s a nice man. Full of information about the Campbells.”

  “Mostly claptrap, no doubt. What more did he say?”

  “Well, he would certainly like to know how you’ve managed to recoup your fortune. He’d like to do the same thing for his church.”

  Cat intercepted the glance that passed between the two men before Tom leaned forward, threw his cheroot into the fire. “I bet he does. Well, I have to check a few things with the men, so I’ll say good-night.” He picked up the Uzi leaning against his chair. “Sleep well, memsahib.”

  Cat murmured a good-night and watched Tom walk to the kitchen fire and hunker down with the men. She could just see the outline of them beyond the smoke and flame, the gleam of fire, a glint of metal as firelight touched a weapon. Tom spoke at length, gesturing to either side of them, the men nodding as they listened. It was the nightly ritual. Then one of the Maasai, usually Moses or Sambeke, disappeared into the darkness.

  “What else did the estimable Father Gaston have to say?” Campbell asked.

  “Nothing much.” A soft drumbeat reached her ears. “Who’s the musician?”

  “Olentwalla. It’s a finger drum. Listen.”

  Another, deeper note twined around the rhythm. The tattoo progressed, weaving a complex pattern of sound, loud then soft. A gentle, high-pitched chorus of tree frogs was in counterpoint to the boom of bullfrogs in the marshy ground by the river. Overhead a sliver of moon hung against the glittering backdrop of stars.

  “Tom’s English is very good,” Cat said. She spoke to fill the silence between them. “Not his native language, though.”

  “No. His mother’s from the Cameroons. His first language was an obscure dialect. He’s multilingual, several African languages, French, of course. Swahili, English.”

  “An educated man.”

  “Better scholar than I ever was. Graduated with honors from the University of Nairobi.”

  She almost asked him where he went to school but stopped herself in time. She was not interested in a friendly relationship with this man.

  For a few moments, she listened to the night. The cry of a far-off bird and the closer rustle of dry grasses as the breeze shook them, or a small animal passed, the gurgle of the river, and the frogs. A series of yelps Tom had said earlier were made by spotted hyena. Laughter from the men. Beneath, she felt rather than heard the repetitive, insistent rhythm of the drum.

  Campbell left his chair, stood with booted foot on a log bordering the fire and threw more wood onto the coals. Sparks exploded through a diaphanous silver veil of smoke, and shadows danced against the canvas walls of her tent. Beyond the ring of firelight, Cat could feel the pressure of a limitless Africa. She was alone out here. Out of touch with all she knew. And very conscious of how vulnerable she was, surrounded by armed men.

  “I think I’ll turn in,” she said.

  “I’ll walk you home.”

 
Totally unnecessary as far as she could see, but either he or Tom always walked her to her tent, a matter of half a dozen paces. And the fire was kept up all night, a watch always posted. Tonight it looked like Moses, a shadowy figure watching the darkness from the cover of the Land Rovers parked on the other side of the grove of trees. She started to ask Campbell what he was watching for, when coughing grunts cut her off. An answering roar seemed to come from only yards away. Hair on the back of her neck prickled. The sound faded into a rumbling growl.

  Lions. And at least one seemed to be sharing their campsite.

  “They’re not as close as they sound,” Campbell said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I’m not worried, Campbell. I’m too busy trusting you. That’s what you said I should do. Remember?”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it.” He picked up the weapon leaning against his chair. “If you’re ready?”

  Cat sat bolt upright, staring around at her white-shrouded bed, a restless, dream-filled sleep shattered by voices. Men’s voices, shouting. Gunshots galvanized her into action.

  She scrambled from the cot, fighting with a mosquito net that fought back. She dropped to her knees, crawled beneath it. She ran to the door of the tent, fumbled with the zip fastener with fingers that would not work.

  The voices were louder, and she heard the drum of hooves increasing. They were real, not part of her nightmare. The zipper door opened and she burst through, almost running over Thomas standing outside, a snub-nosed weapon held across his chest.

  “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

  Both fires were blazing, and in the flickering light she could see clearly. Buffalo were stampeding between the Land Rovers. Only Campbell and Tom, arms spread, prevented them from invading the camp. A fusillade of shots came from the direction of the river, and she could hear men’s voices.

  “Thomas, what’s going on?” It sounded as if someone was deliberately driving buffalo into the camp.

  Suddenly she was living her nightmare. All she could see was lowered heads, horns, huge black beasts dappled with firelight. Confusion and death. Campbell shouted, Tom answered, but she could not understand what they were saying. She screamed at them to speak English, but her voice was lost in the din of a volley of shots they fired over the heads of the rampaging animals.

  Thomas shouted at her, and uncomprehending, she stared at him. He shoved her down and stood over her.

  “What is it? Who’s out there?”

  Then Moses and Olentwalla appeared at the edge of the firelight, herding the buffalo away from the camp. The jostling animals melted into the darkness, the sound of their hooves faded.

  It was over.

  Thomas pulled a camp chair forward. “You sit, memsahib. I get you chai.”

  She was shaking. “Yes. Just a minute.” She went back inside the tent, groped for Joel’s robe, pulled it on, then stepped outside into the night. Campbell stood there, waiting.

  “Sorry for the disturbance,” he said. He held his rifle loosely in one hand. “This sort of thing rarely happens, but you never know on safari—”

  “Someone was out there.”

  “No. You simply never know—”

  “I’m not a fool, Campbell. Animals don’t stampede at night for no reason, and I heard the shots—”

  “That was Moses and Olentwalla,” Campbell said. “It was their shots you heard, trying to turn them.”

  She could see Tom and Sambeke prowling through the grove where the Land Rovers were parked. Thomas was bending over the kitchen fire. “Where are they now?”

  “Making sure nothing more happens tonight.”

  “Campbell, I saw which direction the men came from, and it wasn’t from the river. The shots came from the river—”

  “I’ll have Thomas bring you some tea.” He cut her off, his voice curt. “Unless you’d like something stronger.”

  “Tea’s fine. Thomas is already making it.”

  “Right. Well, stay here, please, until he brings it.” He shouted to Thomas in Swahili.

  “N’dio,” Thomas shouted back. He straightened, waving a teapot in one hand. In the other was an Uzi.

  Campbell turned to leave. Cat watched him until he was beyond the ring of firelight. Buffalo, the animals that had killed Joel, had been deliberately stampeded into camp.

  Why? And for whom were the Maasai trackers searching?

  By eight the next morning they had broken camp and continued their drive toward the northwest and Mount Elgon. Tired—sleep had been impossible for the rest of the night—Cat was willing to let the hours pass without much conversation. Tom had already made clear his reluctance to talk about what had happened. Cat did not insist. The last thing she wanted was to put him on his guard. Instead she watched the herds, already able to identify the curved horns of the Grant’s gazelle and the black-striped sides of the much smaller Thomson’s.

  “Why are they jumping like that?” The little Tommies sprang into the air, bouncing forward on stiff legs like rubber balls thrown by an unseen giant hand. “It’s a strange way of getting about.”

  “It’s called stotting. Dan’s made them nervous.” Campbell was a cloud of red dust fifty feet ahead of them. “They do it when they’re anxious.” Tom waved toward the west. “Could be that, though. Lions will be hanging about.”

  In the distance, a solid line of black bodies moved purposefully.

  “Wildebeest,” Tom said. “About a million and a half go down every year to the Serengeti in Tanzania, following the grass. Back again July to September, after the big rains. One of the last great animal migrations left on earth.”

  Bracing herself with one arm against the dash, Cat watched through Tom’s window. Red dust hung low over the herd, drifting toward the Land Rovers on a hot breeze that carried a harsh, acrid smell of animals. Flat-topped thorn trees dominated a landscape that was drier, more forbidding, than yesterday. She thought of Joel, dying under the crush of hooves. They’d never even said goodbye, she’d just dropped him off at LAX, rushing as usual to an appointment, concerned about the traffic piling up around the airport.

  Ahead, Campbell’s arm appeared out of his window, gesturing upward and to the north. Acknowledging with a wave, Tom leaned out to see where Campbell pointed. Cat followed his gaze. Birds hung in the sky, circling lazily on giant wings.

  “Are they what I think they are?” she asked.

  “Vultures,” Tom said.

  He wrenched the wheel, following Campbell across the savannah toward the circling birds.

  “Tom, they must be circling a kill.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Why do we have to detour to look at it?” These men had spent a lifetime slaughtering animals. One more kill could be of no interest to them.

  “Well, it’s on our way,” Tom said.

  “No, it’s not. We’ve changed direction. Tom, I don’t like this. It’s gruesome, and we don’t have the time. We have a lot of ground to cover today.”

  Tom slowed, following Campbell. Out of the haze of dust kicked up by the Land Rovers, large, immobile forms appeared. Six or seven—it was hard to count in the thick dust. Overhead, vultures circled.

  Elephants.

  A sick dread rose like bile in her throat. Campbell had stopped and was climbing out of his Land Rover. He reached behind his seat, wrenched a rifle from the gun rack. The elephants did not move.

  “Cat, stay here.” Tom got out, unracked a rifle.

  The animals seemed in shock, heads low, trunks trailing on the ground. And they were small. None of them seemed fully grown. Even to her untutored eye there was a look about them that the young of any species had. The dust was settling. For the first time she saw blood trickling from the faces of two of the larger animals. Gunshot wounds.

  Campbell walked slowly toward them. They turned, dispersing but giving no ground. As they parted, Cat saw an enormous prostrate body lying in a pool of dried blood. The trunk had been slashed, hacked from the body, an
d shreds of dirty white tissue hung into the ghastly wounds. Where the tusks should have been were gaping, bloody holes. A tiny elephant, no larger than a Saint Bernard dog, nuzzled at dry teats, squealing weakly as it butted a small head against its dead mother.

  What felt like an iron fist closed over Cat’s heart, squeezing tighter and tighter. She couldn’t breathe. Sweat was icy on her skin.

  She opened the door of the Land Rover, got out. The dazed animals did not look in her direction. Their eyes barely left the dead cow.

  The skull beneath the wrinkled gray skin was prominent, cavities sunk deeply over the eyes and temples. Cat tried to keep her eyes away from the terrible mutilation. A sweet, sickening smell hit the back of her throat, and she gagged, then swallowed the rising bitterness.

  For ivory. For carvings and jewelry and piano keys and mah-jongg tiles and chess sets.

  She turned to look at the vultures circling above the little party of stunned survivors. Three birds landed, waddled forward, wings outstretched. Squealing with anger, a half-grown elephant ran at them. The vultures flapped huge wings, keeping just out of range until the elephant lost interest in them, then they turned back toward the corpse.

  “Campbell.” Her voice was hoarse. She ran her tongue over her lips, tasting the grit of drying dust. “We’ve got to help somehow.”

  “Get back in the Land Rover.”

  “That baby needs milk—”

  Campbell raised the rifle, slammed a clip into place. The sound cracked through the silence.

  She realized what he was going to do. “Tom, don’t let him. For God’s sake, we can radio for help—”

  “There’s nothing to be done here, Cat,” Tom said.

  “We can give it water, then get it back to Nairobi. It’s not that far, we can keep it alive—”

  “Tom,” Campbell said.

  Tom took her arm. “Come.”

  “No. Wait. We can get it to Nairobi. I’ll foot the bill if that’s a problem—”

  Tom placed himself in front of her. A shot crashed, echoed across the plain. The vultures rose into the air.

  She wanted to kill him. Joel would have wrenched that rifle from his hands. Joel would have tried to kill him. The shutters in her mind opened onto her father’s face, the surprise as the bullet hit him. She forced her mind away. She could not think of that, not now…not now…