Mackenzie Ford

by The Clouds Beneath the Sun (v5)

“Aren’t wildebeest kind of big? Big and fierce—dangerous, I mean. What can we do?”

  He squeezed her knee. “Yes, wildebeest are huge, savage creatures, with long, curling horns. We can do a number of things, none of them very effective but better than nothing.”

  He swerved to avoid a termite mound that suddenly loomed into view.

  “People will be converging on Olpunyata from all over the area, just as we are, in their four-wheel drives. Some of us will drive between the animals, try to divert wildebeest who haven’t reached the river to try to make them cross someplace else, somewhere safer. Then, together, we will shine our headlights on that stretch of the river where they are floundering. That will help at least some of the wildebeest find their way out of the ravine, and it will keep predators—crocodiles, lions, hyenas—away. Obviously, in such a catastrophe, such a panic, with wildebeest thrashing about in the water, drowning and being knocked about by the others, they are sitting targets for predators.”

  He changed gear and drove a little faster, closing the distance between them and Daniel.

  “The third thing is to lasso the young. Normally, wildebeest don’t calve until January, but as it’s now mid-December some of them will already have produced their young early. They are not so heavy, or anywhere near as fierce, and their horns aren’t formed, so a couple of men can usually haul them to safety. Sometimes they get separated from their mothers but we can’t help that and it’s better than dying.”

  Natalie looked about her. It was too early for the moon and she could make out almost nothing at all, except the flatness of the plain.

  “If it takes two men to pull out even a baby wildebeest, why am I here? Won’t I just be in the way?”

  He grunted as a family of birds, caught in the Land Rover’s headlights, hurried out of harm’s way. “Three reasons. We’re going to be here all night and well into the morning. Daniel’s loaded a primus stove and some tins of soup. We’ll all need a break from time to time. Also—” he changed down, to negotiate a deep rut in the track, “it’s quite a sight, all these animals thrashing about in the water. I thought you’d like to see it.”

  She nodded. “And the third reason?”

  He changed up again, and accelerated. “Don’t let this go to your head, Dr. Nelson, but I like having you around.”

  • • •

  “Is there any of that soup left?”

  “There’s plenty—and it’s piping hot. Let me get you a mug.” Natalie reached into the back of the Land Rover and took an enamel mug from a cardboard box. She took it to the primus stove and poured the tomato soup into the mug.

  “Here you are,” she said softly, handing the mug across.

  Daniel looked exhausted, she thought.

  It was an hour off dawn, almost four-thirty, and they were all dirt tired.

  What a night it had been.

  Some two dozen four-wheel-drive vehicles were drawn up, on either side of the Mara River at Olpunyata. All had their headlights full on, and some had game lights fixed to their roofs as well, beaming across the river.

  When Natalie had first seen the heaving mass of bodies, the wet, black-brown torsos, writhing and flailing, sinking and reemerging in the water, screaming, squealing, roaring into the night, the white flashes of their distended eyeballs, their horns piercing the flanks of their neighbors, their glistening hooves sinking down the steep riverbank as each plunged headfirst after the creature that had gone before, she thought she had never seen anything so awesome, so terrible, so final, so catastrophic. It was like a scene from one of those huge Victorian paintings about the damned in hell.

  Between them, Daniel and Jack and Christopher, too, with Aldwai’s help, had managed to lasso perhaps a dozen young wildebeest and haul them to safety. It was plain, to Natalie at least, that the poor creatures didn’t want to be helped, and though she couldn’t be sure, because outside the range of the headlights it was deadly dark, she suspected that more than one young wildebeest, once released from its rope, had plunged back into the river all over again.

  She had found a flat stone, between two vehicles, where she could light the primus and warm the soup. Daniel had packed a dozen mugs, so she had been able to help men from other locations who had answered the call that had gone out on the radio-telephone.

  She was standing now, a mug of soup in her own hand, looking down over the lip of the riverbank. She supposed their presence was having some effect, but the shapeless, writhing mass of contorted bodies below her seemed as dense and as demented as when they had arrived. The shrieks and squeals and yowling had not ceased. The stench was as bad as ever.

  Jack and another man were jointly holding the same rope, which was looped around the neck of—as Natalie could now see—a wildebeest that, though not a fully grown adult, was on the large size for a newborn infant. Even by the light of the Land Rover headlights it was difficult to make out the age of the creatures in the mayhem of the river.

  Jack and the other man were winning, sort of. Both were lathered in mud, and they were edging back onto the flat ground at the top of the riverbank. But the animal didn’t want to be helped, and writhed and thrashed, pulling them back towards the river. And this one had horns.

  The two men heaved, and heaved again, and were back on level ground.

  Suddenly Jack took the end of the rope which he had wrapped around his lower back and threaded it into a metal hook on the front of the Land Rover. He tied it in a double knot.

  “Good idea,” shouted the other man.

  “Hold it there, Ted,” gasped Jack, almost out of breath.

  He jumped in the Land Rover, switched on the engine, and threw the four-wheel traction into reverse. Slowly, he moved backwards as the animal was dragged up the riverbank.

  Ted whoever-he-was peered over the lip of the riverbank and motioned for Jack to continue.

  Jack reversed the Land Rover away from the lip of the bank, his wheels spinning in the mud, and Natalie watched, transfixed, as the wildebeest was hauled steadily and reluctantly into view. It thrashed for a moment, squealed, reared up, and then slumped into a sullen stillness. Then it writhed again and called out. Then it lay still again, moving its head from side to side, looking for someone to blame.

  As it reached level ground, however, Ted backed away, as Jack killed the Land Rover’s engine and got down. “Watch out!” he yelled as he disengaged the rope from the metal hook.

  With the smaller animals, as Natalie now knew, several men would lie on the newborn wildebeest while someone else unwrapped the lasso from around its neck, so it could be used again. But this creature was too big for that. What was going to happen this time?

  Sensing level ground, the wildebeest got to its feet and looked around. Steam escaped from its nostrils, rose in clouds from its wet haunches; mud clogged its legs, dripped from its horns. The creature’s eyes stared wildly, it was angry and bewildered at the same time. The animal shook its head, swirled its tail, and kicked out with its hind legs. Then, lowering its head, it rumbled forward. It was in a panic, understandably enough, entangled in rope, and it charged straight ahead.

  Towards Natalie.

  “Watch out!” cried Jack again. “Get out of the light!”

  The wildebeest picked up speed surprisingly quickly and Natalie was disconcerted to see how wide apart the tips of its horns were. She stepped back.

  Still the animal seemed to be making for her. She was still in the shaft of light from the Land Rover’s headlamps. She stepped back again.

  On to nothing. There was nothing behind her. Without knowing it, because outside the light beams it was deadly dark, she was on the very lip of the riverbank and had stepped over the edge. She cried out as she fell, dropping her mug with the soup in it, and slithering down the mud of the near-vertical bank, smelling its wet smell. She dug her fingers into the earth, feeling them slither through the mud, encountering small stones but nothing she could hold on to. Her body kept going.

  Suddenly her hand e
ncountered something substantial but she immediately cried out. It was a whistling thorn bush and the spikes punctured her flesh and drew blood. Her face scraped the riverbank, her hair sluiced through the mud, mud caked her eyes, she tasted it on her lips. It clogged her nostrils. Again she dug her fingers into the mud. Again, all she encountered were stones and thorns, too sharp and too quickly gone to hold on to. Still, her body kept going.

  She hit a rock and cried out, her clothes snagged on thorn bushes but didn’t break her fall. Thorns scored the flesh of her arms as she went by and she called out again in pain.

  Her skin was wet, wet with mud, wet with sweat, wet with blood. Like the wildebeest she’d been so close to, the sweat was steaming off her.

  How far had she fallen? How far was she going to fall? Was she going to end in the river, a river of sand, mud, blood, all manner of excretable substances and fluids, and the natural habitat, as Jack had pointed out, of crocodiles.

  Despite the taste of mud on her lips, the hot streaks of pain where the thorns had scored her skin, the grit in her eyes and clogging her nostrils, she reached out, hoping to hit a branch, a firm rock, something—anything—that would stem her fall.

  Nothing. Just mud and thorns, sharp rock that buffeted her shoulder, pummeled her hips, bounced off her skull. Thorns ripped into her neck, sliced into her wrists, drew blood from her cheeks, tore at her shirt. How much further was the water?

  Suddenly she hit something, and immediately stopped falling. What she had hit was firm, solid, but not stone-solid—and it was warm. She had, she instantly realized, landed on the newly dead, drowned carcass of a large adult wildebeest, half in and half out of the river. All around were thrashing, writhing, vast contorted bodies of animals still alive, still panicking, still squealing and moaning, still kicking, still biting, their twisted, bayonet-sharp horns slicing through the night air, gouging the eyes, necks, and bellies of other animals.

  The smell of wildebeest was overpowering, the stench of their hot, panic-stricken breath even worse. The dead animal that had broken her fall was being kicked, knocked, pummeled in the mayhem.

  How long would Natalie remain safe? What could she do? No one could see her. The lights were shining elsewhere.

  She had hit the wildebeest’s rump. It was, she realized, lathered in mud and fresh, wet, warm dung. In its panic it had defecated. But she wasn’t yet in the river and she had something to hold on to, the animal’s tail.

  Blood was caking her cheeks, she felt it running across her arms where her wrists had been torn, her hip hurt, and her head, where she had bounced off some rocks on her way down.

  The way she had fallen, she was looking at the river. The light from the four-wheel-drive vehicles was mainly upriver of her, but she could make out the dense shadowy form of one wildebeest after another, flailing and kicking and twisting in the water. Then she saw—or thought that she saw—a smoother, more sinuous, far more controlled form as it whipped out of the river and, in no time, smoothly slapped back into it. No more than a second passed before she realized she had seen a crocodile swoop on a young wildebeest—one they had obviously not rescued—crush the animal in its jaws, and drag it back down, under water.

  What if a crocodile came for the dead animal under her?

  Instinctively, she tried to crawl up the riverbank. After two steps, she slithered back down again, till she came to rest on the warm, dead wildebeest.

  She had to get away. That much was obvious.

  Holding the wildebeest tail with one hand, she shook herself free of one half of her jacket. Transferring the tail to her other hand, she shook herself free of the other half.

  Another wildebeest blundered against the dead one she was holding on to, and she dropped her jacket. It disappeared into the night.

  Crying out, she searched frantically with her free hand.

  Her fingers found the woollen sleeve and she snatched it to her. It was lathered in dung.

  Holding the wildebeest tail and her jacket in one hand, she took one step up the riverbank and reached upwards. Her hand struck a thorn bush and she yelped in pain. But now she reached down, snatched at her jacket, and threw it over the thorn bush. Then she scrabbled for a branch to hold on to, her flesh protected from the needle-sharp thorns by her jacket.

  She found a branch, her fingers closed over it. Her jacket did its job and her flesh was spared the thorns. She pulled herself clear of the wildebeest and lay on the bush, in the bush, her hand gripping the branch. She pulled her knees up to her chest. Her clothes were plastered in mud, blood, dung, and sweat.

  She saw all this more clearly, she now realized, because the light had suddenly changed. A game light must at last have found her and was playing on her shape.

  She could now see clearly the animal that had broken her fall. It was dark, almost black, a huge bull wildebeest whose carcass was mostly in the water, though its massive horns poked up out of the river into the night air. At least two of its legs were broken and its belly was bleeding where another animal’s horns had ripped deep inside, penetrating its heart and killing it. Maybe its back was broken too.

  Natalie wanted to look up, to see if anyone was coming for her, but her main worry was crocodiles. While she was hanging on to her thorn bush and the massive bull wildebeest was between her and the water, he would surely be the crocodile’s easiest prey. But if he were to be taken …

  Steam and mud slithered past her. Someone was coming.

  As she thought this, the horns of the dead wildebeest rocked from side to side as the animal’s head was pulled into the river, until only its hindquarters were left above water. There was only one explanation for that.

  Natalie tried hard to crawl further into her thorn bush but she was no more than six feet from the water’s edge. The riverbank was steep but she simply had no idea whether that would deter a crocodile.

  A moment later mud cascaded on her head, lodged itself in her eyes, wedged itself in the corners of her mouth. She spat it out. She could feel her hair caked with yet more mud and grit, some of the mud already drying.

  She was engulfed in shadow. Then she cried out, a despairing gasp. Something—or someone—hit her hard and knocked her out of the thorn bush, down towards the river. She shouted but her shout was stifled as a hand grabbed her by the back of her collar, and the front of her shirt was pulled up against her throat, blocking her windpipe, choking her, so that she coughed and coughed again.

  But at least her fall towards the river was broken.

  She felt an arm worm its way around her abdomen. It pulled at her shirt so that the skin on her stomach was exposed and she felt thorns scratching her flesh. She was gasping, almost crying, but she felt another arm going round her, and wedging itself under her armpit. She was pulled upwards, then the arms went all the way round her chest and closed over her breasts. She was held in a tight embrace.

  Her legs had slithered down the bank. The heels of her boots were in the river.

  Still the wildebeest stampeded in the threshing water, still the squeals and whinnies bounced off the steep walls of the riverbank, still the stench of dung and blood polluted the air.

  The heels of her boots were in the water.

  The hands of whoever had come for her tightened over her breasts.

  “Okay! I’ve got her. Pull!” shouted a voice, Jack’s. “Quick, pull!”

  Off to Natalie’s left, animals were still blundering into the river, still sending showers of muddy water over everything.

  There was the sound of a gunshot.

  “One less to worry about,” murmured Jack. Then he shouted again, “Pull!”

  Suddenly, she felt her body jerk upwards. The flesh on her back where her shirt had been pulled free of her trousers scraped against the thorns of the bush she had lain in and she could feel that yet more blood had been drawn. She tried not to call out, but failed. Sweat and tears mingled in her eyes, her nose was running—but her boots were no longer in the river.

  “Again!�
� shouted Jack. “Pull!”

  Another jerk, another rise of a couple of feet.

  The smell of Jack was hardly better than her own. He’d been straining all night, in the mud, wrestling with one newborn wildebeest after another. He was covered in as much dung as she was.

  Another jerk, another thorn bush, then a sharp rock, hard and jagged, which scraped against her already-raw shoulder. She cried out again.

  Her hair was plastered to her face, it was in her mouth, mud had slipped down inside her trousers where her shirt had been pulled free.

  The glare of the game light was very bright now. She could hear other voices.

  “Careful!” “Hold that rope!” “Watch it doesn’t slip!”

  She could see the scratches and lines of blood on the backs of Jack’s hands that were held over her breasts in the tightest of squeezes. She could now make out the blood and mud and dung on her own trousers and boots.

  She felt a hand grab the collar of her shirt. Other fingers were inside her belt and, suddenly, with a heave, she was lifted through the air and then soft grass was under her. Jack was next to her, his arms still wrapped tightly about her.

  They both lay there for a moment, exhausted, breathing heavily. In the weird contrasts of the Land Rovers’ headlights, she was aware of shapes standing over her.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Any bones broken?”

  “You were lucky you hit that dead animal. We had to shoot that croc. He was taking an interest in you.”

  She was too winded to offer any reply. Tears and sweat mingled in her eyes.

  Jack too was breathing heavily but he loosened his grip and propped himself up on one elbow. He noticed the blood on her wrist and leaned over, pulling a short branch of thorn from where it was lodged between her shirt sleeve and the flesh of her arm.

  “Nearly lost you there,” he said softly.

  “That would have solved a lot of problems, eh?” she managed to say.

  He gave a hard laugh. “It would have suited my mother—I suppose, you’re right.” He wiped the blood from her hand with a handkerchief. “But it wouldn’t have suited me.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Oh no.”