Rhinoceros Summer

by Jamie Thornton

  The two left the next week for the Selous reserve, ready to help a village terrorized by two Cape buffalo.

  The boy hadn’t stopped chattering on the drive, showing off how much he knew about all the animals. “That’s a family of giraffes there, with a couple males, half a dozen females, and a baby too,” Caleb said.

  “How old you guess the calf is?” Paul asked.

  Caleb studied the animal as they drove by. The dust kicked up by the Land Cruiser sent the giraffe family into a rambling walk away from the disturbance.

  “Three months?” Caleb sounded unsure.

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, it’s walking strong,” Caleb started. “It looks less than ten feet tall, its spots are still on the light side.” Caleb turned to face Paul. “Okay, maybe six to nine months old.”

  “Better.” Paul smiled at his boy. “That’s what I’d guess too. Lots of variation in animals. Always better to give a range, instead of making an exact guess when there’s no such thing.”

  They had set up outside the village. Paul had handed Caleb his .400 and took out his own .600. Caleb was a good shot. He’d been on plenty of hunts before as a backup gun, but the bullet of a .400 needed to hit precisely or the animal might not go down in time. He would play back up this time and cover Caleb with a heftier load.

  Paul pulled out two bullet belts. Caleb took one as if performing a sacred ceremony. Paul liked to think they were.

  They hiked to the last known whereabouts of the rebellious buffalo. The two bulls had enjoyed tearing apart a year’s worth of crop work and muddied up irrigation ditches. They were living on borrowed time.

  He saw spore right away but didn’t say a word.

  “Tracks, Dad,” Caleb said within seconds. “Crushed up leaves and looks like some hair.” Caleb took a few steps to the left. “A pile of shit over here.”

  Paul hid his pride and just said, “All right, let’s get started.”

  He had big plans for Caleb, for both of them. It was all Paul could do to hold them back, but he didn’t want to rush the boy. Of course Caleb would grow up, lead his own life, take on a woman and all that, but being partners with his son was just about the biggest dream Paul had. Too much of his life had been spent disappointing people who didn’t mean anything anyways. It’d be different with Caleb.

  The wind blew into Paul’s face. The buffalo were about 300 yards away, feeding as they walked. There wasn’t much cover. A recent burn had mowed down the vegetation a few weeks before. Only a few inches of green had managed to grow up in the meantime.

  Paul rested a hand on Caleb’s shoulder and felt how thin his boy was through the shirt. The body was a weak thing—skin easily torn by horns or hooves. Paul held his rifle steady. He’d protect his son until his very last breath.

  “We’ll get within 150 yards, then take’em down.” Paul wanted this hunt to be a total success. He wouldn’t risk making the bulls charge, not on Caleb’s first time out with the rifle.

  They walked forward. The wind still blew in their favor. The bulls kept feeding, unaware of the death coming their way. Caleb raised his .400 and pressed the stock against his shoulder. The rifle looked huge against his short body, but Caleb held it steady, like he’d held a rifle all his life and planned to keep it that way.

  Caleb blasted his rifle and the larger Cape buffalo dropped in his tracks. The second buffalo shuddered and made a dash to the side. Paul kept his eyes on all three: the downed buffalo, to make sure it stayed down, the live buffalo, ready to plug it with his own bullet if Caleb didn’t, and his son, bringing his rifle right back up and getting a bead on the bull still running.

  Another shot from Caleb and the second one went down.

  “Two brain shots!” Caleb shouted. “What do you think, Dad? I just know it!”

  “Let’s take a look.” But he didn’t need to look. He knew Caleb had done it.

  The familiar tang of blood filled the air. Slick puddles of it pooled under each buffalo head. Villagers were already driving across the burned-up field. They’d heard the shots and wanted to parcel out the meat. Paul and Caleb checked the entrance wounds, checked to make sure the animals were no longer breathing, and then measured the horn bosses.

  Paul had imagined years’ worth of hunts like that—with clients, without clients, growing the business, going home to Abiba after.

  The power of that memory almost made Paul crumple the drawing in his hand. Instead, he folded and placed it in his pocket. He scooped up the rest of the papers from Caleb’s bedspread and returned them to the drawer. Hope rose wild in him. Paul would find that ten year old and bring him back, full grown—a man to take pride in, a son to share the burden of this world with. A partnership that would not break again.

  He left Caleb’s room and went in search of a stack of photos he’d long stored away. Old photos taken with a rinky-dink camera. He found them in a rotting cardboard box in a long unused closet. Just where Paul had left them years before, photos of Caleb lifting up a 160-pound leopard. Caleb standing over the 40-inch spread of a buffalo boss. Paul and Caleb in matching hats and bullet belts, smiling the same Besly smile at the camera, crouching behind the mane of a downed lion. Caleb not smiling, trying for that tough man-of-the-wilderness look while peeling back hippo lips to show off the teeth.

  Paul stared at those photos and thought long and hard about the upcoming hunting season. He didn’t believe most of what his college years had taught him about God, but he did buy into God moving heaven and hell for His son, letting the devil test His son’s loyalty, teaching Him a lesson that ultimately sent His son to His death.

  God had let things get out of control. Once Jesus’ death was inevitable, God had to claim He’d planned it that way all along. That didn’t mean God loved His son any less. That didn’t mean Paul didn’t love his son with everything in him.

  There were principles here, pride, that couldn’t be laid aside just because life did something unexpected.

  Paul had hurt Caleb out of love. Neela too. He’d wanted to save them both, but ended up sacrificing his only son instead. That had been his mistake, trying to save his real son and his fake daughter. Caleb and Abiba didn’t believe it, but it was true all the same.

  God understood. He had tried to save both Jesus and the whole entire world. It had almost worked. Then He’d needed to make amends by raising His son back to life.

  Paul took that example to heart.

  This was the summer to relive those grainy, over-exposed photos. He’d bring it all back from the dead. He’d find a way to conjure back his boy and keep the rhino too.

  CHAPTER 6

  Caleb

  Caleb and Abiba finished dinner under the flickering light of the kitchen bulb with about an hour to spare before the generator shut off. He’d brought the Haeckel book to see if Abiba could remember who had given it to him but she couldn’t.

  Caleb pulled out the charcoal drawing and placed it on the counter in front of Abiba. “I want you to have this.”

  “I remember this day,” Abiba said. “You do good work.”

  Paul walked into the kitchen from the dining room. His glance immediately went to the drawing and book.

  Caleb forced himself not to snatch them up.

  “So,” Paul said. “Where you been all day?”

  “Around,” Caleb said.

  Paul flicked his hand at the Haeckel book. “Where’d that come out from?”

  “You remember it?”

  “Course I remember it. I also remember you yelling and screaming that one time I took it away. I thought you’d come out and hunt with me if you weren’t so distracted with your drawings. I gave Fritz a good hard time about him giving you that piece of junk.”

  “Babu Fritz gave this to me?” All he could remember was that the book showed up on his bedspread when he turned eight, about two years before an elephant had skewered Walter Fritz right through the chest.

  “You know Haeckel was a Nazi sympathizer.”
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  Caleb laughed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Paul shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe you can’t handle knowing it’s true.”

  “Haeckel died before WWII even started.”

  Paul lifted his hands as if in surrender. “I came to say you will eat dinner with me and the clients when they arrive. Believe whatever you need to about Haeckel. And for the record, you might think you got away with something by using your mother’s name, but you start picking on my clients, or my outfit, or act like you don’t know who raised and fed you and taught you how to use that gun—I’ll get you shipped out of here before you can blink.”

  Abiba set down the knife and fork she held. “Hasidi hana sababu.” An envious person requires no reason to practice envy.

  “God, woman! Can you do anything besides talk to me in proverbs?”

  Caleb stood up from the countertop so fast he knocked the stool over. “Don’t talk to her like that.”

  Abiba placed a calming hand on Caleb’s shoulder.

  “Just make sure you show up for the client dinners,” Paul said.

  Caleb thought he’d likely feel more relieved than disappointed if Paul followed through his threat to kick him off the resort. Still, he nodded his head in agreement. The best way to do his job was to investigate all parts of the safari, including the clients.

  Paul pushed the doors hard enough to strain the hinges as he left. As soon as they swung closed Abiba covered her mouth and laughed.

  “Mama?”

  “I much like to make him angry. I speak Kiswahili proverbs and he thinks all day and all night to understand.” She laughed again.

  “Why do you still stay?”

  She collected the dirty plates. Not until she had her back to him and the water on did she answer. “I will leave once Neela finish school. Until then, I stay. I work up this place. Blue Nile mine too, no matter what name on government paper. I stay and keep place until he done pay for school. Then I not look back.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Lydia

  Lydia lifted her one carry-on over her shoulder, having checked in her other luggage. Everything except her camera. People of various ages streamed up the escalator toward the security checkpoint. Women’s high-heeled shoes clicked against the floor tiles and echoed across the vast foyer. Windows lined the entire front entrance overlooking people loading and unloading from the curb. The smell of coffee and pastries filled the area.

  She moved toward this Paul Besly, unsure of her skills, unsure if missionary work was how she wanted to fulfill her dreams, but knowing she could not wait for a different opportunity. Could not wait.

  “When you get off at Washington, D.C., you want the flight to Amsterdam.” Mom straightened Lydia’s shoulder strap. “Amsterdam will take you to Kilimanjaro. Paul said he’d be waiting there. Here’s a phone card.” She pressed it into Lydia’s hand. “Call us if you have any problems. Call us when you get to Amsterdam, then again in Arusha.”

  “I will.”

  “Do you have the phone list I made? The American Embassy, the number for Paul’s resort? Your health insurance papers?” Mom asked.

  “She’ll be fine, Gloria,” Dad said.

  Mom didn’t respond except to readjust Lydia’s strap again.

  “All the important stuff is in my carry-on.” Including a packet ready for submission to whoever might consider hiring her after this trip—the portfolio of images the only missing section.

  After the summer, her parents wanted her to attend the local community college and then transfer to a Christian college, maybe even Biola. Lydia hadn’t told them she hoped to do an online photography school instead.

  Mr. Besly had wanted her to bring equipment for both still photos and videos. The church had given generously, and she hoped some of her still pictures would be good enough to land her another assignment somewhere else in the world, or get her accepted to the Oregon College of Art and Craft, or to an internship with National Geographic.

  “When you’re out in the villages,” Mom said, “maybe you should lock up your toothpaste and deodorant. Like we do to keep the bears away in Yosemite. Just to be safe.”

  “Wish I could go with you,” Dad said. “Here, I have something.” He pulled out a small box from his pocket and pushed it into Lydia’s hands. “Open it.”

  “Dad, I need to go.”

  “It’ll be fast.”

  Lydia pulled off the top and found a stack of plain white business cards with her name printed on them.

  “You’re going to make such an impact,” Dad said. “I wanted you to be able to give people something so they’ll remember who you are. See,” Dad pointed to the title beneath Lydia’s name, “Photographic Missionary.”

  Lydia thanked him in a quiet voice. There was something both very right and very wrong with her new title, but she didn’t know what. She did know she was willing to travel down a wrong path, just as long as she traveled some sort of path at all. Just as long as she no longer remained PK-Lydia, her identity wrapped up in her father’s accomplishments. A satellite drifting in orbit around his success. Not even a satellite as bright as the moon but an old transponder the news talked about sometimes—shot into orbit to relay signals and information more than a decade ago.

  “Love you,” her parents said, almost in unison.

  Lydia breathed in the new vinyl smell that permeated her camera bag and all the equipment inside. “Love you too,” she murmured while hugging both her parents.

  She moved away from them toward the escalator, waving as she reached the top, then stepped out of their sight and into the security line.

  The flight was long and tiresome and uneventful. She watched several movies and then battled a headache for the rest of the trip. Both layovers allowed her time to catch the next leg but no time to explore.

  When she arrived in Tanzania she held her camera bag close, like a security blanket, and walked past flight attendants welcoming her in four different languages.

  The Tanzanian airport advertised burgers and fries in English. Signs suggested staying at the nearby four-star hotel. TVs showing scheduled arrivals and departures dotted her way to the luggage counter, much like they had in the Sacramento airport.

  It wasn’t until Lydia lugged her two big suitcases and carry-on into the landscaped courtyard outside the airport, the click-click of wheels against the smooth concrete timed to her soft-shoed steps, that she looked around. This was East Africa?

  All the modern conveniences seemed present in abundance. People drove familiar cars. A woman with a pretty scarf laughed at something the man next to her said. Lydia felt a small moment of dismay—would she get the pictures she needed?

  Two hours later, Lydia still sat on the airport curb, hugging her luggage and wondering where Mr. Besly could be. A man with blue eyes, drenched in cologne, and dressed in a nice suit, asked if she needed help.

  She said, “No, thank you.”

  He walked away, then returned a few minutes later and politely offered to carry her bags to the hotel. She told him she was waiting for someone.

  The man returned a third time.

  “Please. I’m fine,” she said. “I’m sure my friend will be here soon.”

  “But, Miss, staying here by yourself is dangerous. You probably have expensive things in these bags.” He fingered the name tag on one of her suitcases, his dirty caterpillar fingers out of place against the clean-pressed lines of his navy suit.

  A security guard approached. “What’s going on here?”

  “Nothing,” Lydia said quickly, wondering how both the man and the guard knew to speak English to her. She jumped up from the curb and grabbed the handles of her luggage. “I was just leaving to make a phone call.” She almost said something about the man trying to steal her stuff, but she was stricken with guilt. What if he really wanted to help and she got him in trouble over nothing?

  She backed away, making the three bags flounder on the concrete. She barely held onto the
urge to run.

  Finding the phone, Lydia set her bags together to form a small chair and dialed the resort number from her mother’s phone list.

  “Jambo,” A woman’s voice answered.

  “Um. Do you speak English?”

  The woman replied in accented English. “How may Blue Nile Safari serve you?”

  A wave of relief washed over Lydia. She’d called the right place. She wasn’t completely lost. “This is Lydia Gibb, I’m at the airport and Mr. Besly doesn’t seem to be here.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Besly?”

  “No Besly here.”

  Sweat broke out on Lydia’s body. She saw the guard and the caterpillar-finger man in conversation. The man’s cologne still filled her nostrils, as if he’d sprayed the stuff all over her bags. “I…Paul Besly? Is there a Paul Besly there?”

  “Hold please.”

  Silence.

  “Hello? Who is this?”

  “It’s Lydia Gibb, sir. From Sacramento? I brought my cameras and I’m at the airport—” She paused. She didn’t want to sound rude about being forgotten. “Was I supposed to meet you somewhere else?”

  Silence.

  “Um,” Lydia started, “I’m—”

  “No.”

  The air seemed too thick to breathe. “This is Aaron’s daughter, you went to college with him at Biola and we talked a few days ago—”

  “I never went to Biola. That was my father.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Caleb Morrell.”

  “Oh, there must be a mistake. I’m looking for Paul Besly.” Lydia bit her lip. What was going on?

  “Paul Besly is now Paul Hunter. He changed it after I was born.”

  “Mr…” Lydia had always been taught to call an adult by his last name, but couldn’t stomach saying out loud ‘Mr. Hunter,’ not until she sorted through what must be a misunderstanding. “He never mentioned that.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t.”

  “Maybe he did and I forgot,” Lydia said, trying to stay congenial while her hand clenched the phone tighter, trying to hold onto something, anything. “Are you his son?”