"No!" he admitted defeat at last. "It's too dark."
Claudia felt a lift of relief that she wouldn't have to witness the slaughter, but Sean said quietly, "All right, we'll just have to sit it out and try and get a crack at him in the dawn."
"All night!" Despite his injunctions to be silent, Claudia was so startled by the prospect of spending the night in the hide that she protested plaintively.
"You signed on to be tough, didn't you?" Sean smiled at her alarm.
"But, but-won't Job bring the truck?" She sounded desperate.
"Not unless he hears a shot." And she subsided miserably into her chair.
The night was interminable and cold, and the mosquitoes came from the stagnant green pool in the river-bed and whined around their heads, ignoring the repellent Claudia had smeared on her exposed skin. Across the river the lion fed at intervals and then rested. A little after midnight he began to roar, crashing bursts of sound that brought Claudia out of an uncomfortable doze and made her heart jump against her ribs. The terrible sound ended in a diminishing series of throaty grunts.
"Why does he do that?" Claudia asked breathlessly.
"To let the world know who's boss around here."
Then the hyenas came, shrieking and hooting like a pack of ghouls, gibbering with excitement at the smell of the kill. The lion drove them off, rushing heavily in the grass, snarling and roaring, but they came edging back as soon as he returned to feed. They tittered and whooped at him, forming a restless circle around the bait tree.
An hour before dawn, Claudia at last fell into a fitful sleep, hunched down in the chair with her neck twisted at an awkward angle, and she awoke with a start to find it was light enough to make out the links of the chain that held the buffalo carcass.
In the forest close by, a pair of ground horn bills grotesque black birds as big as a wild turkey with the same bald red heads, were booming their dawn chorus in a ritual duet. Beside her, Riccardo was stretching and yawning and Sean stood up, rocking the mac han
"What happened?" Claudia mumbled. "Where's the lion?"
"He took off an hour ago," her father told her. "Long before shooting light."
"Only one way you're going to get this cat, Capo, and that's with a jacklight or a hell of a lot of luck."
"I'm a lucky guy." Riccardo grinned and they heard the distant beat of the Toyota's engine growing louder as Job came in to pick them up.
They stayed in camp all that day, catching up on sleep lost the previous night, but when they went into the hide again that evening to wait for the lion, he had disappeared. He did not come to the bait the following night either, and the safari came on a slow period. Sean and his team worked diligently but fruitlessly to find the lion. There was no report from the scouts Sean had placed to watch the elephant crossings on the Chiwewe River, the northern boundary of Sean's concession. Riccardo Monterro was not interested in hunting lesser plains game such as sable antelope, kudu, or eland. These activities would have filled the days of another safari.
Only the two lionesses and their cubs stayed on the banks of the river-bed, taking up permanent domicile.
"Courtney's five-star hotel," Sean complained. "Gourmet meals delivered daily."
The pride became so accustomed to their visits that the lionesses retreated only a hundred yards or so into the forest with a few perfunctory low-key growls while they watched with interest as a fresh carcass was hauled into the tree. They barely contained their impatience until the Toyota pulled away, and it was still in full view when they came loping back to inspect the latest offering.
However, Frederick the Great did not return. They saw no sign of his huge, distinctive paw marks around the bait or on the dirt tracks Sean patrolled each day, searching the area for forty miles around the camp.
"But why would he just vanish like that?" Riccardo protested.
"Because he's a cat-and who knows how a cat thinks?"
Since that brief but torrid episode in the lion hide, the relationship between Sean and Claudia had altered subtly. Their bickering had become more vindictive and bitter, their overt resentment more intense, and their efforts to discomfort each other more spirited.
When she called him a racist, he only smiled. "In America that word is dreaded as the ultimate insult that can end a man's political career, ruin his business, or ostracize him from society. You are all so terrified of it, and the blacks know it and exploit it to the full.
Even the toughest hard-headed businessman or politician rolls over like a puppy dog and whines if you call him that," Sean told her gleefully. "This isn't America, ducky, and here we aren't terrified of that word. Here racism is the same as tribalism, and we are all blatant tribalists, especially the blacks. If you want to experience true dedicated tribalism and racism, then come and live in one of the newly independent African states. If you call your average black politician a racist, he would take it as a compliment. It would be the same as calling him a patriot."
Her wounded protestations were ample reward for his efforts as he looked for new ways to provoke her.
"Did you know I am a South African?" he asked.
She looked appalled. "I thought you were a Brit." He shook his head and smiled in that infuriating way of his.
"I imagine you support your government's sanctions against my country.
"Of course. Every decent person does."
"Even if it means a million blacks starve as a direct consequence?" He did not wait for her to reply. "What about disinvestment of American business from my country, you are all for that too?"
"I campaigned for it on campus," she told him proudly. "I never missed a rally or a march."
"So your plan is to convert a country by withdrawing all your missionaries and burning down the cathedral. That's brilliant!"
"You're twisting it."
"We should be grateful to you for the success of your efforts.
You forced your own citizens to sell our assets back to us at five cents on the dollar. Overnight you created two hundred multimillionaires in South Africa, and every one of them had a white face.
Congratulations and our sincere thanks, ducky."
But while they argued, they were avidly aware of each other, and the physical contact they had shared lay between them like a poisonous serpent, dangerous but intriguing.
Claudia had been celibate for almost two years now, ever since she had split from the physician she had lived with for a short while, until his demands for marriage became intolerable. Celibacy did not suit her affectionate Latin nature, but she was fastidious.
She found herself lying awake in her tent at night listening to Sean's voice from the camp fire as he talked to her father, the soft masculine rumble, just low enough for her to be unable to catch the words. Once she thought she heard her name, and she sat up and strained her ears, disappointed she could not hear what he was saying about her.
When at last he called goodnight to Riccardo and went to his own tent, he had to pass close to hers. She lay rigid in bed, listening to his footsteps and watching the beam of his flashlight through the canvas, preparing an icy dismissal in the most insulting terms and then experiencing the tiniest prick of disappointment as his footsteps passed on without a check.
On the ninth morning of the safari, when they drove out to check the bait on the riverbank, the younger lioness, her eyes now completely healed, was once again violently aggressive, snarling at Sean and mock-charging him from a hundred yards with her tail lashing as soon as he dismounted from the Toyota to inspect the bait. When she backed off and turned to retreat, they saw a pink stain of blood on the soft, pale beige fur beneath her tail.
"Growly Gertie has come into season," Sean exulted. "Now we have the one bait Frederick the Great won't be able to resist. You said you were a lucky guy, Capo. Now let's find out just how lucky.
Sean wanted to -get this lion before this extraordinary opportunity passed. There was no time to track down one of the huge buffalo herds along the Chiwe
we River for a fresh bait, so Riccardo shot a young kudu bull from a herd of bachelors near the camp. They hung the carcass on the bait tree in the glade where they had last seen the big male lion-this time low enough for the lionesses to reach it easily-and they climbed into the mac han in the early afternoon. Within an hour the lionesses had picked up the scent of fresh blood and came trotting down the dry river-bed, followed by the straggling, squabbling bunch of cubs. While the older lioness fed heartily from the fresh kudu carcass, the younger female ate only lightly and sporadically. In between she prowled restlessly around the area of trampled grass beneath the tree, snarling at her cubs, rolling on her back, or sitting up to lick at the blood smear beneath her tail. At intervals she stood staring into the forest, then held her head low to the ground and let out a long, melancholy moan. It was a sound so full of agonized longing that Claudia felt herself empathizing with the sleek, beautiful creature.
"That's right, Gertie," Sean whispered behind Claudia's shoulder. "Call to Big Daddy, tell him what sweets you've got for him here."
"It's not fair," Claudia thought fiercely. "It's not fair to use her like this."
Suddenly both lionesses leaped up to face into the forest, and the older female snarled softly. Alarmed, the cubs ceased their endless play and huddled behind their dams. Then the young lioness went forward through the grass, slinking and undulating her whole body in a blatantly sexual display, emitting a series of low welcoming moans.
"Steady, Capo." Sean's hand was on Riccardo's arm, preventing him from raising the rifle. "Take your time."
Then out of the forest came the lion. At first they saw only the tip of his mane above the grass as he came forward at an eager trot to meet the lioness. She rushed forward shamelessly, and in a trampled clearing they came together.
"Wait, Capo," Sean whispered. He wanted the girl to watch it.
The lioness brushed her body against the male, back and forth she stroked him with the full length of her silken flanks, and the lion fluffed out his mane so that he seemed to double in size, responding to her advances, licking her face as she cuddled into the dense dark bush of his mane.
Then deliberately she turned and presented him with her hindquarters, cocking her tail high and sending a spurt of pink-stained urine out under his nose. The lion groaned and curled his upper lip, exposing his great yellow fangs in a rictus of passion. His back arched reflexively and Claudia wriggled in her seat as the lion stretched out his neck and licked the female under the tail with a long, curling pink tongue.
The lioness submitted to his caress for a minute, then whirled flirtatiously and, from across the river, they heard her low purrs of invitation. Sean placed his hand lightly on Claudia's thigh. The gesture was concealed from her father by the side of the chair. She made no attempt to pull away.
The lioness turned from the male, ran a few light mincing paces, and then flattened her body against the earth, looking back over her shoulder. The lion came to where she lay, moving with a stiff-legged gait, and he covered her body with his own, standing astride her. As he lowered his haunches over hers, his penis unsheathed from its pouch, glistening pinkly, and the lioness laid her tail forward along her back.
Sean ran the tips of his fingers up to the juncture of Claudia's thighs, and he could feel the springing mattress of her pubic hair through the cloth of her breeches. Her thighs opened slightly under his hand.
The lion humped his back over the female in a series of convulsive, regular spasms. Then he threw back his huge, maned head and roared. The lioness roared with him and he reached down and bit her lightly in the back of the neck, a fond, possessive gesture.
For long moments they were frozen together like that. Then the lion leaped off. At the same moment, Claudia reached down and placed her hand over Sean's. She took his little finger and twisted it back against the joint so viciously she almost dislocated it.
Agony shot up his arm to the shoulder.
He almost cried out in protest, but Riccardo was sitting close and though his view of his daughter's lower body was obscured by the canvas side of the chair, he would certainly guess at Sean's advances. With an effort Sean kept silent and drew his hand back, surreptitiously massaging the damaged finger. He could see the corner of Claudia's mouth was curled into a vindictive little smile.
Across the river the lioness stood up and shook herself. Then she walked out with a slow, satisfied air onto the open riverbank.
There she paused and looked back to where the lion was sitting on his haunches, still half hidden in the long grass.
"Get ready, Capo." Sean was still massaging his finger.
It was five in the afternoon, and the sun was at a perfect angle, lighting the far bank as though it were a stage. The range was a measured ninety-six yards from the mac han to the bait tree. Riccardo Monterro was the finest rifleman Sean had ever guided on safari. At that range he could place three bullets through the same hole.
The lioness mewled seductively, and the lion stood up and followed her out onto the open riverbank. He stood behind her, broadside to the mac han across the river, lit by the golden sunlight.
"He's a gift from heaven, Capo," Sean whispered. He tapped Riccardo's shoulder. "Take him!"
Slowly Riccardo lifted the rifle to his shoulder. It was a.300 Weatherby Magnum. The massive cartridge under the firing pin was loaded with eighty grains of powder and a 180-grain Nosier partitioned bullet. It would cross the open river-bed at over three thousand feet per second. When it entered living flesh, it would drive a shock wave ahead of it that would turn the internal organs, lungs, and heart to jelly and suck that jelly out of a massive exit hole, blowing them in a red spray over the grass beyond where the animal stood.
"Take him!" Sean said. Riccardo Monterro looked through the telescopic sight. The lion's body filled most of the magnified field of the lens.
He could see the individual hairs in the dense curling bush of mane and the detail of each sculptured muscle beneath the skin.
One inch behind the lion's shoulder, on the lateral center line of its body, was a tiny scar on the sleek hide. It was shaped like a horseshoe, a lucky horseshoe, and it made a perfect aiming point.
He aligned the cross hairs of the sight on the scar. They bounced slightly to the elevated beat of his own heart. He took up the slack in the trigger, feeling the final resistance under his finger before the sear released and the rifle fired.
Beside her father, Claudia sat rigid with horror. The lion turned his head and looked across the river-bed at her. The mating had touched and moved her deeply.
"He's too glorious to die," she thought. Almost without conscious effort, she opened her mouth and screamed with all the strength of her lungs.
"Run, damn you! Run!"
The result stunned even her. She had not believed a living creature could react so swiftly. From lazy immobility, all three animals exploded into flight. They dissolved into golden blurs of movement.
The oldest lioness disappeared almost instantaneously into the long grass, the cubs rushing after her. The younger lioness raced along the edge of the bank. So swift was her run that she did not seem to touch the earth; like a swallow drinking in flight, she skimmed the surface, and the lion followed her. For all his bulk and the dark mass of his mane, he moved as lightly as she did, reaching out those massively muscled legs in full stride.
Riccardo Monterro swiveled in his chair, the rifle to his shoulder, staring into the brilliant glass lens, swinging with the cat's run.
The lioness swerved into the grass and was gone. The lion followed her, but the instant before he disappeared, the report of the Weatherby rifle drove in on their eardrums, painful and deafening, and even in full sunlight a long tongue of flame flashed out across the river-bed.
The lion stumbled in his run and with a single, loud cough vanished into the grass. In the silence, their ears sang with the memory of gunfire, and they stared out at the empty clearing, subdued and appalled.
"Nice work, ducky!
" Sean said softly.
"I'm not sorry," she said defiantly. Her father reloaded the rifle with a savage movement that sent the empty brass case spinning and sparkling away in the sunlight. He stood up, rocking the flimsy mac han and without a glance at his daughter he climbed down the makeshift ladder.
Sean picked up his.577 double rifle and followed him down.
They stood at the bottom of the tree. Riccardo unbuttoned the flap of his breast pocket and offered Sean a Havana from his pigskin cigar case. Neither of them usually smoked during the day, but now Sean accepted one and bit off the tip.
They lit their cigars and smoked for a while in silence. Then Sean said quietly, "Call your shot, Capo."
Wilbur Smith - C07 A Time To Die Page 6
