Kalahari

by Jessica Khoury

I shrugged. “This is my life. I’ve woken up to chimpanzees staring me in the face, or to elephants ripping up my tent. When I was three months old, we spent a few months in the Congo, and one of the gorillas my parents were studying picked me up in the middle of the night and carried me off.”

  “No way. Really?”

  “It’s true.” Granted, it got only a few yards before my parents woke up and stopped it. I’d always loved to hear my mom tell that story, about the time the gorillas kidnapped me. I hadn’t thought of it once since she’d died. I felt a small, genuine smile on my lips and, surprised to find it there, I pressed my fingers to it.

  “So why are you here?” I asked him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why did you come on this trip?”

  He crossed his arms and frowned at the fire. “My brother—”

  “Adam?”

  “Yeah. He always wanted to come out here, you know. It was his big dream. He used to read National Geographic to me every night when I was little, tell me stories about Africa, India, Australia. He always promised me we’d travel all over the world.”

  I noted his use of the past tense, and my heart clenched. Sam’s eyes had gone distant, his tone flat—the same way mine did when I talked about my mom.

  “What happened to him?” I asked softly.

  “He did go overseas, but not to explore.” He sat down on one of the logs and leaned over to toss another stick into the flames. As he did, a chain slid out of his collar, and the metal tags on it flashed in the firelight. He caught them and dropped them inside his shirt with practiced ease. It was then that I realized I’d seen the star tattooed on the inside of his arm before: It was the star used in the U.S. Army logo. It all fell into place then. His brother had been a soldier.

  “Sam—”

  The radio on my hip suddenly crackled to life. Instantly I unclipped it and held it to my ear, my heart skipping a beat. Sam lifted his head, his eyes widening.

  “Dad?” I said into the radio. “Dad, I can’t hear you. Hello? Is that you?”

  Crackling white noise, then “Sarah.”

  “Yes! Dad, I’m here!” Dizzy with relief, I clenched the radio as if I could squeeze his voice out of it.

  “Sarah . . .” More fizzling and crackling.

  “Dad? Hello?”

  “. . . fifteen miles southwest of camp . . . are you there?”

  “I’m here! Dad?”

  It was nearly impossible to make out his words between blasts of static. “. . . ambushed us . . . trying to lose them . . . if I don’t make it back—”

  The relief I’d felt began to turn icy. “Dad. What’s going on? Hello!?”

  “. . . can’t reach anyone, bad reception . . . I’m sorry, sweetie. I am so sorry. I—”

  I’d turned up the volume all the way in order to hear him better, so the sudden round of pops that cut him off hit my ear with almost physical force.

  “Dad?” I turned up the volume, which only resulted in louder fizzling bangs. Is that . . . gunshots? No, it couldn’t be—it’s just static. “Dad!”

  Then the noise cut off and the channel went dead.

  FOUR

  I immediately tried every channel on the radio, in case he’d somehow switched. I got nothing. I tried Henrico. Nothing. As a game warden, he often went on weeklong trips to survey the land. Chances were he was out of range.

  I met Sam’s eyes speechlessly, beseeching him to make sense of what we’d heard. He returned my look grimly.

  “What do you think happened?” he asked.

  I didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t think. My mind was transfixed, as if the static had invaded my brain and pushed out all other thought.

  It took Sam’s repeated question to pull me out of my stupor.

  “He must have caught up to the poachers,” I said. “Or they caught up to him. He said he was trying to lose them. They must have seen him and Theo.” I ran my hand agitatedly over my hair, tangling my fingers in the ends. “We need to call someone. The military, the emergency center, someone. But the satellite radio is in the Cruiser with Dad. The nearest road is thirty miles away, but since most of the villages around here are abandoned, vehicles are rare as rhinos in these parts. You could stand on that road for days and not see a single one. Sam. What if . . .” I squeezed my eyes shut and inhaled sharply. “What if those were gunshots? What if he—What will I do?”

  “Whoa. Don’t jump to the worst conclusions. Not yet.” He was rattled too. I could tell by the way he knit his fingers together, his knuckles white with tension. I gazed at him in a silent plea for answers. “Let’s think this through, okay? What do we know?”

  I nodded shakily. My nerves crackled like electric wires, making my entire body buzz with anxiety, and I clung to his question as if it were the only thing keeping me grounded. “He’s fifteen or so miles southwest of here. The poachers know he’s onto them. He’s being chased and . . . and it sounded like he was being shot at.” Those last words stuck in my throat. Don’t panic, I told myself. That was the first rule for dealing with trouble in the wild: Don’t panic. I almost laughed aloud. It made as much sense as telling an antelope don’t run when faced with a hungry cheetah.

  Sam nodded, encouraging this line of reasoning. “So what are we going to do?”

  I shut my eyes, striking off the first dozen ideas that spasmed through my thoughts, ranging from Find the bastards and shoot their faces to Run screaming into the bush. “We either stay here and wait,” I said, “or . . . don’t.”

  Sam nodded thoughtfully. How did he stay so composed? “Can you track him?”

  My heart was beginning to pound at the thought. “Yes. Theo’s been teaching me bushcraft for years.”

  Sam’s green eyes burned into mine. “I trust you, Sarah.”

  Well, that made one of us. I tried not to think about the fact that the Kalahari is larger than the state of Texas, that if I got us lost, we could walk for weeks out here without finding another person. Sure, I knew the general direction of civilization, but even our most thorough emergency evacuation plans always included some form of transportation, either by land or air, and I never expected to be out here on my own, with five people depending on me.

  I forced a lid on the hysteria before it could boil over. This wasn’t like me. I was underestimating myself, wasn’t I? I’d spent my entire life in the woods, in the jungle, in the desert. This was my element.

  “I can’t sit here and wait,” I confessed. “I just can’t. He and Theo could be out there injured”—or worse—“with no one to help them. It’s too dark to track now, but if I leave first thing in the morning, I could go see what happened and make it back here tomorrow night or the next morning. Would you look after the others while I’m gone?”

  “I’d rather go with you. I’m not the sit-and-wait kind either.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But only you and me. As a group, we’d be too slow.”

  Sam nodded. “We’d better tell them.”

  I called to the others, and they poked their heads out of their tents with irritation on their faces—most of them had been nearly asleep, I guessed. They threw on some clothes and came to the fire, shivering in the cold and demanding an explanation. When I told them what had happened, the fatigue in their eyes turned to horror.

  “What?” Miranda screeched. “You mean we’re alone out here?” Immediately she whipped out a smartphone. “I’m calling nine one one. There’s got to be some kind of coverage out here.” She stood up and began pacing around the camp, holding up her phone in what I already knew was a completely futile search for a signal.

  “I want a straight answer,” said Kase. “Are we in danger?”

  I paused, weighing my words. “There’s always danger in the wild. So . . . yes. But if we stay calm and—”

  “Why am I even talking to you?” he
said. “You’re not an authority here. Let me talk to your dad.”

  “I can’t even reach him!” I said. “Look, I don’t want to be in this position any more than you, and believe me, I wish my dad were here to call the shots. But right now, I’m all you’ve got.”

  “How do you know your dad will be there when you go looking for him?” asked Avani. “What if he was taken hostage?”

  “I don’t know,” I confessed. Secretly, I hoped he was a hostage—it was better than the alternative. “All I know is that I need to find out what happened. He and Theo could be hurt.”

  “You said yourself that you could barely hear what he was saying. Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe everything is fine.” Avani said it as if she were trying to convince herself more than me.

  I didn’t tell her that that was exactly what I was counting on, that somehow the situation wasn’t as dire as it seemed and that any moment, Dad would radio again to explain it was all a mistake.

  “I was there when her dad called,” said Sam. “She’s right. He’s in trouble.”

  “Look,” I said, “I can go and be back the day after tomorrow at the latest. I’ll go after my dad and find out what happened.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” asked Avani.

  “I know the bush,” I replied, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. “Anyway, I can’t sit here waiting without knowing what happened. You don’t understand. I just—I can’t.” Because the last time this had happened, the last time someone went missing out there, I did wait. I told myself everything was fine, that she’d be back, that it was all just a misunderstanding. Only she didn’t come back, and if I hadn’t waited, if only I had gone looking, maybe she’d still be alive.

  I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Dad would understand. Dad would have to understand. He had been the one to assure me Mom would be fine, that she could handle herself out there, when I began to get nervous about her prolonged absence. I knew that deep down, I still blamed Dad for her death. If he had let us go looking for her earlier . . . Well. He’d been wrong then, and maybe he’d been wrong to go after these poachers. Once I’d have believed unwaveringly in my dad’s judgment. But after Mom, he seemed to shrink in my eyes. Maybe I didn’t trust him like I used to, but I still loved him. He was all I had, and I wouldn’t sit idle while he was in trouble.

  “I have to look for him,” I said. “Sam’s coming with me. Avani, you can be in charge till I get back.”

  “Uh-uh,” said Avani. “You are not leaving me in charge of the prom queen or that one.” She tossed a sour look at both Miranda and Joey. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Me too,” said Joey.

  “We should all go,” said Avani. “Separating now will just be worse. We’re safer together.”

  “Babes, no!” said Miranda, pressing herself against Kase. “Tell her I want to go home!”

  “This is ridiculous!” said Kase, his face reddening. “We can’t just hike off into God knows where! You are responsible for our safety, so you need to arrange transportation for us to go home! Not all of us came here on scholarship”—at this he threw a derisive look at Sam—“and my parents paid a hell of a lot of money for this trip. Miranda and I will not be treated like hired grunts, hauling junk all over Africa!” He kicked at a sleeping bag.

  I shut my eyes and tried very hard to keep my breathing steady.

  “There’s nothing she can do,” said Sam. “We’re all in this boat together.”

  “No one asked you,” Kase snapped.

  “It’s not like there’s a bus stop nearby!” Sam replied.

  Kase turned to me and I winced under the heat of his glare. “My parents can sue you for all you own. Not,” he sneered, “that that’s much.” He gave our camp a contemptuous look that set my blood boiling.

  “I’m trying my best,” I said hotly. “I don’t know what else to do. Look, just give it one night. Like Avani said, it could be a mistake. Things might be back to normal in the morning.”

  Kase exhaled loudly and waved a hand as if dismissing me. “Whatever. But don’t think you’ll get out of this without all kinds of legal hell coming down on you. And you’re not leaving us out here on our own. Wherever you go, we go. I’ll be watching you. This is all your fault—yours and your irresponsible dad’s.”

  “I’ve about had it with you,” Sam growled.

  “Yeah, man?” Kase stepped forward aggressively. “What’re you going to do about it?”

  Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, you want to play that game?”

  “Stop!” I said. “Just—just let me think!” I pressed my hands to my eyes and ground my teeth together.

  They’d slow me down. I’d have to spend twice as much time foraging for things to eat, and I’d waste valuable tracking time watching for snakes and other dangerous creatures that might bite them or sting them when my back was turned. We could very well run into the poachers. On the other hand, leaving them by themselves was no guarantee of safety either. I looked at Sam.

  “We all go together, then. We’ll track my dad and Theo, see what happened, and then decide what to do from there.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a free country.”

  “This is the Kalahari. It’s deadly country.”

  Miranda whimpered.

  “This is what we came out here to do,” Sam pointed out. “‘Wildlife ambassadors’ is the name they put on the website for this thing. Up close and personal with nature, that’s what they promised us.”

  “Fine!” I looked them each in the eye to be sure I had their full attention. “But if we see even a sign of the poachers, we have to hide. Got it?”

  They nodded, except for Kase and Miranda, who seemed intent on ignoring me now.

  “Good, then. We’ll leave at dawn. Pack light. Water is the most essential thing—once we leave, what you carry is what you get, and that’s it. There are no boreholes, no streams, not so much as a puddle.”

  “I can’t,” said Miranda faintly.

  “Babe?” Kase squeezed her arm.

  She shook her head and sagged against him. “I can’t do this. I can’t. I want to go home!”

  “We will, babe, just hang in there,” Kase murmured. “These people are under legal obligation to keep us safe.” He gave me a pointed look, and I wondered at the fine print on the safety waivers they would have signed before coming here. Could he sue us for everything?

  “Why did you bring me here? We’re all doing to die!” Miranda’s voice pitched upward hysterically, and she slammed her fist into Kase’s chest. The rest of us watched, silent and embarrassed, as Kase tried to calm her. Avani was the first to sneak away, and the rest of us followed. I figured it was best to let Kase deal with his panicking girlfriend alone.

  My stomach was in knots as I went to my tent. I felt jittery, as if hyped on caffeine. My hand went to the radio on my belt, but I didn’t dare try reaching Dad. If he was hiding from the poachers, then my voice could give his location away. I’d wait a few hours and maybe try then.

  I didn’t sleep. I sat cross-legged on my bed all through the night, cowering as a thousand different scenarios ran through my thoughts like a herd of stampeding wildebeests. The words I didn’t dare say aloud pounded against my skull: Dad could be dead. Theo could be dead. What if I’ve already lost them? What if it’s already too late? I tried reaching them every hour but got only silence in reply. Never had I felt so alone.

  When the first pale hint of dawn gleamed on the horizon, I was already moving, preparing for the hike into the bush. The first thing I grabbed when I went to pack was my mom’s pump-action shotgun. She’d never used it and had refused to carry it with her. Sometimes I wondered if things would have turned out differently if she’d taken the gun with her on that final day. I hated the thing, but I did know how to use it, and out there in the bush, on foot, there was just no telling what we’d find
—or what would find us. And if we did run into the poachers, I didn’t want to be totally defenseless.

  I tied my hair back into a low ponytail and checked my gear. I had on a beige cargo shirt beneath a dark green jacket, and I grabbed a kaffiyeh to tie around my neck. It would come in handy if the wind picked up and gusted the sand around. I had on a pair of loafers and changed these for my sturdy brown hiking boots, which I laced over my cargo pants. Then I tossed a few muesli bars, some bottled water, and a flashlight into my backpack. After a moment, I added the multipurpose knife my parents had given me on my thirteenth birthday, and a few other survival essentials: parachute cord, a map of central Botswana, a box of matches plus a flint and steel, spare batteries, some glow sticks, and a notebook (this last out of habit; I never went anywhere without some means to record what I saw). As I dug through the food crates in the front of my tent, I realized with a plummeting heart that our supplies were even lower than I’d thought. We had enough muesli bars and kudu jerky to last us a day or two out in the bush, but the rest of what we’d unpacked of the new shipment had to be kept cool in the icebox. It did us little good unless we stayed at the camp. This trek would have to be fast—or we’d be stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat or drink. We wouldn’t last long.

  I roused the others and urged them to pack. Their eyes widened at the sight of the shotgun, but they said nothing. Miranda whined a little, but she seemed more stable. She must have reconciled with Kase, because she was pressed against his chest with her hands gripping his arm so tightly I wondered if his fingers would turn purple.

  After checking to be sure they all had water and food and sleeping bags, I tightened the straps on my backpack and looked them each in the eye, trying to measure their resolve. What we were about to do was no easy thing, and these five were, as Dad would have said, “babes in the wood.” Well, maybe we’d locate Dad quickly. Maybe we’d never have to find their limits, because it could all be over soon. At least I hoped so, because I didn’t think we’d last long as a group. We were already falling apart, and we hadn’t even started.