They’d been racing across the uneven plain for almost forty-five minutes when Dr. Tomie suddenly put on the brakes. The rear of the safari Jeep shuddered as the vehicle came to a skidding halt.
“I was afraid of this,” Dr. Tomie said.
They had stopped just short of the boulder area near the trees where Ally had last seen Sasha and her cub rejoin the pride.
Two male lions were lying on the ground, trampled to death. The rest of the pride was nowhere in sight.
“My God, what happened?” Ally said.
Dayo pointed to the trees.
A large herd of Cape buffalo was standing under the shade.
Ally counted roughly twenty. Each animal was as big as a bull and had to weigh a ton apiece. They had large horns with curled tips that sat across their foreheads like matador hats. Another herd of about the same number was a hundred yards off, except there were a dozen or so calves mingled in the center of the group.
“Black death,” Dr. Tomie said.
“What?” Ally asked.
“That is what they call the Cape buffalo,” Dayo said.
“Some say they have killed more big game hunters than any other animal on this continent,” Dr. Tomie said. “I suppose for that, they should be rewarded.”
“I don’t understand. You mean the buffalo killed those lions?”
“They are mortal enemies,” Dayo said.
“Buffalo will purposely seek out lion cubs and kill them.”
“Because they will grow up to be predators, I remember you saying that,” Ally said.
“Dr. Tomie, look!”
The buffalo were staring at the Jeep. One by one they began to leave the shade and march out into the sunlight, their heavy hooves kicking up dust. The lead buffalo lowered its head, snorted loudly, and charged.
“Brace yourselves!” Dr. Tomie yelled to Dayo and Ally.
Ally watched in horror as the herd stampeded toward the Jeep.
30
Wanda walked over to Isoba, who was guarding the animal enclosure being used as Duna’s jailhouse. Adanna held a garden hose through the bars. Duna was guzzling water greedily from the nozzle.
“That’s enough,” she said and yanked the hose out.
“Any luck reaching the rangers?” Wanda asked.
“No,” Isoba said disappointedly. “I have tried twice but no one answers the radio.”
“You haven’t seen Ally by chance?”
“She and Dayo left with Dr. Tomie in the safari Jeep more than an hour ago.”
“Did they say where they were going?”
“No.”
Wanda heard an animal cry and followed the sound to one of the pens. It was Lucy. The baby rhino looked so sad and lonely.
“I bet you’re hungry,” Wanda said. “You just hold on and I’ll be right back.”
Wanda cut across the compound and went in the doorway that led into the dining hall and the kitchen. She found a large baby bottle used for the animals. After a brief search in the refrigerator, she found a large jug labeled as Lucy’s special formula mix. It took some doing, but she managed to fill the bottle using only one hand.
As she was coming out of the kitchen, Frank and Dillon strolled in.
“Oh, there you are,” Frank said. “What’s up?”
“Ally’s not around and its time for Lucy’s feeding.”
“Can I do it?” Dillon asked.
“Sure you can.” Wanda handed the bottle to her son. He carried it in both hands and hurried off.
“We better keep an eye on him,” Wanda said.
They rushed after Dillon. When they caught up to the boy, he was already in Lucy’s pen and was holding the bottle up so the rhino could suck the nipple. The white formula was dripping down Lucy’s chest and onto her short, thick legs and Dillon’s sneakers.
“I think we might have a Kodak moment here,” Frank said. He took a small digital camera out of his pocket and took a picture of the boy feeding the baby rhino.
“Let me see.”
Frank showed Wanda the new photo on the tiny screen.
“I’d say that’s a step up from the petting zoo, wouldn’t you say?” Frank turned off his camera and put it back in his pocket.
“I’m a little worried,” Wanda said.
“About what?”
“The poacher, Duna. You don’t think his brother will really come looking for him?”
“I don’t know,” Frank said. “Have you spoken with Isoba?”
“He’s been trying to reach the rangers, but so far, no luck. Does Dr. Tomie have any guns?”
“I would imagine so. Let’s wait until Dillon’s finished and we can go ask her.”
“She’s not here. She left in the big Jeep with Ally and Dayo.”
“They did?”
“Do you think they’re okay out there?”
“Sure. Gayle wouldn’t let anything happen to them.”
31
All three women screamed when the safari Jeep was lifted off the ground by the massive bovines and the heavy vehicle flipped upside down. The windshield smashed on the ground and shattered. Dr. Tomie and Dayo were pinned under the seats. The two other bench seats behind Ally had been higher than the one where she sat and saved her from being crushed.
Even though they were trapped and surrounded by the fierce buffalo, there was one factor in their favor. The overturned Jeep had rested on top of a shallow gully that once had been a streambed but was now dried up.
“Are you girls okay?” Dr. Tomie asked, her voice etched with pain.
“Yes, I’m all right,” Ally replied, lying a few inches under the bench seat. She was definitely shaken up and bruised but nothing serious.
“Dayo?” Dr. Tomie reached over and shook the woman’s shoulder. Dayo let out a groan.
“How are you, Dr. Tomie?” Ally asked. “Are you hurt?”
“My right foot is wedged under something.”
“Let me try and help.” Ally squeezed out from under the back and crawled in the depression until she reached the doctor. She grabbed Dr. Tomie by the shoulders and tried to pull her free.
“No, please...stop. It’s my ankle.”
Ally could hear the heavy stamping of the buffalos as their thick bodies kept brushing up against the Jeep’s bumpers and fenders. She glanced over and saw Dayo open her eyes.
“Dayo!”
“My arm...”
Ally could see the splintered bone sticking out the skin of Dayo’s arm.
Dr. Tomie had also seen Dayo’s severe injury. “You must straighten out her arm. Then tie it with a splint.”
“I don’t think...”
“It is all right, Ally,” Dayo said, groggily. “You can do it.”
“Ally, it must be done,” Dr. Tomie said.
Rather than waste time self-doubting herself, Ally found an old t-shirt that had been left in the Jeep and began tearing it into long strips. She found a piece of broken door panel and bent it in half to use as a splint. Scooting around on her side, Ally pressed the toe of her boot into Dayo’s armpit and grabbed the woman’s wrist with both hands. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Dayo said bravely.
“On the count of three,” Ally said. “One...” Ally yanked as hard as she could.
Dayo screamed, the noise so loud that it startled the buffalos and even caused some of them to back away from the Jeep, and then she passed out.
“She’s out cold,” Dr. Tomie said. “Fix her up before she wakes up.”
Ally inspected the fracture, praying that she had properly aligned the bone. She hated the thought of Dayo never gaining full control of the arm and that she would be to blame. She put the crumpled door panel around the break and fastened the splint tight with the torn strips. Once she was done, she let out a sigh of relief.
“Nice work, Ally,” Dr. Tomie said.
“What about you?”
“I’m afraid there isn’t much you can do. We’re just going to have to wait until help arrives.�
�
“But no one knows where we are.” Ally gazed out from under the Jeep, hoping for a way to sneak out, but all she could see were the many hooves of the buffalo as they milled around the Jeep.
Then something caught her eye…
Just beyond the herd, a white speck in the grass.
It was Sasha’s cub.
32
“I think we need to go look for them,” Wanda said, finishing her coffee and setting her cup on the drain board. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“Agreed,” Frank said. “But you’re in no shape to go.” He placed his empty mug in the kitchen sink.
“I know. We better go talk with Isoba. He must have some idea where they might have gone.”
They left the kitchen and went out through the rear of the building. As they crossed the compound, they saw Ryan and Celeste standing inside Lucy’s pen, helping Dillon care for the baby rhino.
Frank and Wanda gave them a wave and continued on to Duna’s improvised jailhouse. Isoba and Adanna were sitting on the ground outside the animal enclosure under a narrow strip of shade, having a late supper of semolina pasta.
Isoba put his bowl down on the dirt when he saw Frank and Wanda approach.
“We’re concerned that Dr. Tomie hasn’t returned yet,” Frank said.
“My husband was wondering if you might help him look for them.”
“I have to stay here. With our prisoner,” Isoba said.
Duna approached the bars to look out, but when he went to touch the steel, he immediately jerked his hands back. Wanda could only imagine how hot it must be in the adobe enclosure. Even though the man’s face and scalp glistened with sweat, he didn’t seem distressed by the extreme heat.
It was as though he knew it wouldn’t be long before he would be freed.
“Give me a gun and I’ll stand watch. I’m sure Adanna could use a break.”
“But your arm,” Isoba said.
“Don’t worry about that,” Wanda said. “I still have one good hand.”
“Wanda’s pretty good with a gun,” Frank said. “I’ve seen her in action.”
“All right. I, too, am worried about Dr. Tomie and the others,” Isoba finally admitted. “I think I know where they may have gone.”
“Thank you, Isoba,” Wanda said.
“First, let me get you that gun,” Isoba said, then turned to his daughter. “If he gives you any trouble—”
“Shoot him?” Adanna said eagerly.
“No! Ignore him!”
Adanna gave her father a sheepish grin that said she was only kidding. But there was a dark look in her eyes that spoke differently.
Frank and Wanda followed Isoba inside the building. He took them down the main corridor then turned down a hallway. He stopped at a door, took a ring of keys out of his trouser pocket, found the correct key, and unlocked the door. He pushed open the door and they stepped into a small room partitioned in half by a wire mesh fence stretching from the floor to the ceiling.
Isoba unlocked the gate and stepped inside the caged area. Frank and Wanda joined him in the modest gunroom. Ten shotguns stood upright on their stocks in one gun cabinet. Seven hunting rifles hung horizontally on the wall. A large red metal cabinet that a mechanic might stow hand tools took up one end of the cage.
Isoba went over and opened the top drawer. It was sectioned in three parts. Each one contained a revolver and half a dozen boxes of ammunition.
He opened the next drawer. It contained semi-automatic pistols with full clips already loaded with bullets. “There are more guns in the other drawers.”
“This should do fine,” Wanda said. She picked a nine-millimeter Beretta and placed three clips inside her sling.
“Looks like you’re set,” Frank said.
“Now go find Ally.”
33
“I see Sasha’s cub,” Ally said excitedly.
“Where?” Dr. Tomie asked, straining her neck to look out from under the Jeep.
“It’s hiding in the short grass just by that grove of trees. Can you see it?”
“No, but I’ll take your word for it. I wonder where Sasha is? It’s not like her to abandon her cub.”
“I don’t see her,” Ally said. She turned to the doctor. “Should I go get it?”
“It would be too dangerous,” Dayo said, having just come to after passing out when Ally set her broken arm. “The buffalo would kill you.”
“I can outrun them.”
“Don’t be silly, you’re not going,” Dr. Tomie said.
“But I could grab the cub and be back before you know it.”
“Absolutely not.”
Ally stuck her head out to get a better look at the terrain. She ducked back suddenly when a buffalo stepped up to the side of the Jeep and stomped the ground.
“What if you were to distract them?”
“No, you’re not going.”
“Does the horn work?”
Dr. Tomie glanced at the pad in the center of the steering wheel.
Ally reached over and pressed down on the pad, blasting the horn.
Some of the buffalo backed off, frightened by the sound.
“See how they moved away,” Ally said.
“I can’t let you do this,” Dr. Tomie protested.
“If the buffalo see the cub, they’ll kill it. You said so yourself. Let me do this. Once I grab the cub, I can hide in those trees. The buffalo won’t be able to get to me. I can wait there until help comes.”
“Frank and Wanda would be very upset with me if they knew I let you do this.”
“On the contrary, they would be proud. You know how they are.”
“It’s almost dark.” Dr. Tomie reached over to the glove compartment and popped it open. She reached inside and handed Ally a small flashlight. “Here, you might need this.”
“Okay,” Ally said. She realized the doctor had resigned to the fact that if she didn’t let Ally go save the cub, it would only be a matter of time before the whelp became hungry and began crying, drawing the buffalo to its hiding place.
“Let me know when you’re ready,” Dr. Tomie said, placing her hand above the horn pad in the center of the steering wheel.
Ally got flat on her stomach and looked out. She saw thick, black legs and the buffalos’ mighty hooves, pawing at the ground and kicking up dust. She could also see the white cub hunkered down in the grass.
“Now!” she yelled.
Dr. Tomie pressed down the pad and the horn blared.
Ally crawled out from under the Jeep and scrambled to her feet. A few of the buffalo had trotted away, leaving a small gap in the herd. She took advantage of the situation and ran between two bulls. She slapped one on the rump and the animal spun around. Ally ducked between the massive heads as they butted horns. The larger buffalo slammed into the other bull and sent it reeling back a few feet.
Ally snuck a glance over her shoulder and saw the big bull charge after her. She ran has hard as she could, lengthening her stride, pouring it on like she did every time when she was in high school, racing down the track for the finish line. Only this time it wasn’t for a ribbon or medal—it was to save an innocent creature from certain doom. Not to mention her own.
When the cub saw Ally running toward it, the cat let out an “Eeeyap” and bared its teeth. Ally stopped long enough to snatch the cub up by the scruff and tucked it under her arm, pinning the legs so that she wouldn’t be scratched. She could hear the thundering hooves behind her.
Instead of running straight and getting trampled by the buffalo, Ally dodged to the right and headed for the nearest tree, thinking she would be safe. But she soon realized her mistake as the trunks were spaced several feet apart and would not offer any barrier of protection. She kept running, veering in and out of the trees to throw off the buffalo, but it was relentless and continued the pursuit.
It was difficult making out the contour of the ground in the dark. If there were a rock or an exposed root in her path, she might trip.
The cub yelped and squirmed, but Ally held it tight like a linebacker clutching a football.
She kept running and had no idea how far she’d gone or where she was. When she could run no more, she stopped and leaned up against the backside of a tree trunk to catch her breath. She took a moment to listen but heard nothing except a few birdcalls up in the overhead branches.
Ally thought if she yelled, Dr. Tomie and Dayo might hear her and honk the horn, give her a direction in which she could return. But that would mean facing the buffalos again.
She had to find a place to hold up until help came. She took the flashlight from her pocket and turned it on. The beam shone on the cub’s face. The amber-colored eyes twinkled in the light. The cub glared at Ally and hissed.
“Easy there, little one. Just cool your jets. Don’t forget I just saved your life.”
The cub looked at Ally, still not sure of what to make of her.
“Don’t worry, I won’t bite you.”
Ally watched as the cub’s upper lip curled and it showed off its tiny fangs. “And I expect you to give me the same courtesy.”
34
As Isoba gunned the Jeep transport across the savanna, the bright high beams paved the way through the pitch dark. The halogen lights on the cab roof disrupted many animals on their nocturnal hunts. Some froze in their tracks, others bolted into the bleak night.
Frank could feel the panting breath of the Anatolian shepherd on his neck as Samson tried to stay planted on the rear seat but was bounced about in the cab.
“There they are,” Isoba said. “I was right. Dr. Tomie came to check on Sasha,”
“Jesus, what happened,” Frank said when he saw the safari Jeep flipped over in a ditch. He counted a dozen or more Cape buffalos surrounding the wrecked vehicle.
The Next World Page 7