Rhinoceros Summer

by Jamie Thornton

  He remembered how he came awake with the moonlight slanting through the window, lighting up one side of her nightgown and face. Her silvery hair draped over him and the prick of the knife pressed against his jugular. For those first few seconds, he thought it was only a nightmare. “She called me an intruder. She didn’t know me, her own son! She said she’d slit my throat before she’d let me steal anything from her house. I told her I’d gotten lost, ended up in the wrong house. She opened my window and said ‘Kid, I don’t know who your momma is, but if you don’t run back to her right now, I will cut your throat open.’ That’s what she said.”

  And he had jumped out that window. Jumped out and ran down the driveway, then circled back much later and slept behind the garage for the rest of the night.

  “Thought you were locking your door these days,” his father said.

  “I am,” Paul said. “She picked the lock with her knife.”

  His father shuffled to the refrigerator. Paul saw the old man his father would soon become. The hunched shoulders, the stooped back, how the weight of his mother would crush whatever was left of him. He pulled out a fresh beer. “All right,” he said. He popped off the cap with his teeth and drained half the bottle in one gulp. “All right.” He finished the beer in a second gulp, wiped his sleeve across his mouth, took another beer from the fridge, left the kitchen.

  At the last moment, he placed a hand on Paul’s shoulder. He looked like a man drowning who just realized nobody was going to save him. “I’ll fix this.”

  Paul found the two of them three days later. She must have had one of her good days, or more likely a couple of hours, otherwise she never let his father touch her like that anymore—entwined like young lovers. Spooned together on the living room sofa. That’s how he found them. His mother’s face like that of an angel. His father had refilled one of the prescription bottles and sent them both into an eternal sleep.

  Even as he sobbed on the threadbare rug next to them, he repeated, “Thank you, Daddy,” with every breath. When Paul was calm enough, he called the police. He let people make up whatever they set their minds to make up. They labeled his father a murderer. They didn’t know. His father was a hero. He signed up for the army the day after the funeral and pretended to never look back.

  “Paul, you all right?”

  Billy’s voice broke through. All he could see was blue sky. At least he was facing the right way again.

  He groaned as he tried to shift. “How long?” Every muscle seemed bruised and battered. Every movement shifted the pressure of thorns that punctured his clothing, creating new agony—but it was better than remembering.

  “Maybe ten minutes,” Lydia said to his left.

  “Where’s the rhino?”

  “Down near your feet,” Billy said. “I got off a second dart just in time.”

  Paul twisted his neck. The rhino’s head almost did touch his shoes. At least the goddamn beast collapsed onto its stomach. If it had gone down on its side, they’d need to roll it over to avoid suffocation.

  “I thought you said not to run,” Lydia said.

  Paul laid his head back down and looked into the infinite blue sky. “I ran to save your two goddamn worthless lives.”

  “Come on.” Billy’s hand seemed to float into Paul’s vision out of nowhere. “Don’t get all full of yourself now that you’ve managed to save my life for about the sixth time. Stop acting like a pussy and let’s see if you’re bleeding.”

  “I’m not, though I’ll have one hell of a bruise on my leg where it hooked me.” Paul grasped Billy’s hand and pulled himself up. “Did you get the pictures?”

  “I think I did,” Lydia said in breathless excitement. “I got a whole bunch. Even one of her flipping…one of her and you.”

  He looked over her shoulder as she scanned through a few of them. She’d captured exactly what he hoped for. Close-up details of the rhino in a full charge. The picture of the rhino throwing Paul in the air was fireplace mantle material, like a tall tale in real life, sure to capture the imagination of dozens of potential clients.

  Instead of filling Paul with exhilaration, the pictures only left him exhausted. He didn’t know when he’d begun to waver. Maybe it had started during that first phone call from the government, maybe not until just now.

  “Give me a minute to catch my breath.” He walked off and bent over. Emptiness gnawed at him. He tried to chalk it up to almost dying but knew it for a lie. This had little to do with the rhino and everything to do with his son.

  CHAPTER 21

  Caleb

  Caleb acted as a night guard for the village for almost four weeks. During the day he worked with two game officers, Mark and Gary, to locate the elephants. They had tracked down four of the young bulls so far.

  The other two, including the one with the broken tusk, could not be found. Either they were already dead, injured and dying somewhere, or had broken off to pursue some other kind of trouble.

  Caleb continued his drawings in the evenings and worked on a report of all the information he’d gathered so far from Paul and the villagers. He drafted a plan on how to reorganize the hunting bloc, and then spoke with David using the village’s radio to hammer out the details. He did everything he could to make restitution for the problems the elephants had caused the village.

  Paul had subleased part of his bloc to a foreign prince who liked grenades. Over the last season, villagers had heard several explosions in the area. Caleb investigated and found evidence of small craters.

  He pursued any and all rumors regarding a rhino but came up empty. He thought about what to say once he saw Lydia again.

  Out of the four tuskers they’d tracked down, they’d accidently killed one. The tranquilizer did not prevent the bull from charging the vehicle, breaking the windshield glass and smashing in the front hood. Caleb and Mark shot the bull to keep it from killing Gary. Even still, Gary suffered a broken toe and lacerations on his face and arms.

  They kept the three surviving tuskers sedated. Caleb took blood and tissue samples, which he packed in the Styrofoam and dry ice Gary had arrived with. Gary would mail the samples to the lab when he delivered the elephants to their new home. An elephant rehabilitation center wanted the young tuskers for a new program. They hoped to develop an effective method for treating traumatized or violent elephants and releasing them back into the wild once they were safe.

  A few villagers helped load the elephants while the vet checked stats and sedation levels.

  “Everything all right here?” Caleb asked the bespectacled man. He showed some balding around his forehead and though he couldn’t have been more than in his thirties, the vet looked frail with brittle sticks for arms. “Think you’ll have any problems with these elephants?”

  The vet looked up from his clipboard. “I have plenty of help.” He nodded to a group of about a half dozen men working with ropes and pulleys to get the elephants situated. “Continued sedation will of course be the most important factor in the success of our journey.”

  They talked for a few more minutes until Caleb was satisfied that for all the vet’s look of fragility, he knew what he was doing.

  The trucks, overflowing with sedated elephants, departed. Dust plumed into the air and covered the village before settling.

  Mark stayed behind. He tipped back his hat and watched the trucks drive out of sight. “This isn’t my usual area. I don’t know your father very well.” Mark waited a long time before continue. “It seems to me there’s enough stuff happening with the subleasing that we should bring him in and let the government figure it out.”

  A part of Caleb knew Mark was right, but he couldn’t shake the rhino. “I need to see if I can piece this rhino puzzle together. If we take him in, he won’t speak a word more.” He tried not to think about everything else that could go wrong if Paul sniffed out a plan to arrest him.

  “Put him on a long leash then,” Mark said.

  “I’ll get out what I can from him,” Caleb
said. “Maybe we’ll take him in immediately. Maybe we’ll give it a few days. If you stay in the area, you can be the leash but don’t let Paul know he’s being watched. We can’t just let the concession fall apart.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Mark said. “This might cost us both our jobs if he gets away with any of this.”

  “It’ll work.” Caleb tried to sound confident.

  He helped Mark gather enough gear, food, and water to make fly camp alone for the next couple weeks, and then Mark took off to hide somewhere near Owl Camp.

  Feeling exhausted by the day’s events and plans and unknowns, Caleb retreated to his thatched hut and took refuge in his cot.

  He woke to the sound of Muna’s voice. He tossed the bed net aside, doused his face with cold water and dressed in a not so clean shirt and jeans. He hurried out of the thatched hut and waved at where both M’soko and Muna waited for him.

  “How are you, my friend?” M’soko gave Caleb a wide grin.

  He wanted to rush an answer out of M’soko about Lydia but forced himself to hold back. If something had gone wrong, M’soko would not be smiling. “It has been an interesting four weeks,” Caleb said.

  “Yes, you were missed on the safari. I had gotten used to you watching my back,” M’soko said.

  Caleb raised his eyebrow. “And why are you so happy this morning?”

  Muna smiled. “I tell him what you do these few weeks. I tell him about my brilliant bee idea too.”

  “Yes, and she explained how you almost let an elephant trample you and kill my future wife.”

  Caleb raised an eyebrow. “Future wife?”

  Muna gave M’soko a shy smile. “We set date now to…what is it?” She spoke to M’soko in their native dialect, another language Caleb had not learned. She said in English, “Tie the knot?”

  Caleb laughed, shook M’soko’s hand, and hugged Muna in congratulations. Finally, he asked the question that had been burning in him since setting eyes on M’soko. “Did every-one come back with you?”

  M’soko looked grave and explained about the abandoned car and how he walked to another village to report it.

  “So she’s been alone with Paul and Billy for the last week?”

  M’soko nodded.

  “She is safe,” Muna said quickly. “They are back now and she is fine.”

  M’soko laughed. “Come, we’re here to take you back and watch and laugh at the way you turn red when you are in the same place as Lydia.”

  “Did anything happen?”

  M’soko sobered. Caleb’s stomach flipped.

  “There is nothing wrong, that I know of. But there are secrets. Now secrets that Lydia is keeping.”

  “She will not tell me,” Muna interrupted. “I am sure she is not hurt. I would see such things right away. It is something else.”

  2

  Caleb paused before entering the dining tent at Owl Camp. How could he dare approach Lydia? He retreated from the canvas entrance. He was the arrogant bastard, working on his drawings these last weeks like nothing had happened, thinking he would just show up and talk his way out of this mess.

  Lydia was right—he had used her as a way to make Paul angry. He had used her and ruined his chances with a girl who stood calm while a hippo charged, who took pictures as a Cape buffalo almost pulverized her, who listened when he spoke about orphaned elephants and bad childhood memories.

  “Jambo. Come to breakfast?” Abiba pressed his arm softly with her hand.

  He shook his head. His hands felt clammy. Where did all his courage go?

  “Come.” She pressed harder on his arm. “You need to see her.” Abiba shook her head. “She well. But you far from. You should be proud. You done good work these weeks.”

  “She must hate me.”

  “Maybe,” Abiba said. “Only one way to know.”

  She pushed him inside. A full spread of jams, eggs, bacon, waffles, and hash browns covered the table. The smell of fresh coffee hung over the room. To his relief and disappointment, Lydia was not in the dining room.

  Billy took a big swipe of eggs off his plate. While eating he said, “Ah, Caleb. We could have used you these last three weeks. You missed a lot of great hunts—”

  “Billy,” Paul interrupted.

  Billy pushed more eggs into his mouth.

  “Good morning, son,” Paul said.

  “Damn good hunting,” Billy said. “Buffalo, lion, leopard, the whole deal. And some damn fine pictures. You’ll be floored at how many close calls we had. I thought for sure one of us was going to end up with a horn or hoof through the head.”

  “Anybody hurt?”

  “Nothing more than the usual. Scratches and bruises.” Paul took a sip of coffee. “Where you been?”

  “Around,” Caleb said.

  “We could have used another gun out there.”

  Caleb shrugged his shoulders.

  “Yeah,” Paul said. “You’re the Wildlife Division’s man now.”

  “Didn’t matter,” Billy said. “We taught Lydia how to shoot.”

  “She could use more practice,” Paul said.

  Caleb looked between Billy and Paul. What weren’t they telling him?

  Lydia pushed back the canvas flap.

  “Ah. There’s Annie Oakley herself!” Billy said.

  Her cheeks flushed and she smiled, then when she noticed Caleb, her smile disappeared.

  Caleb sighed silently.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  Caleb pointed to the camera around her neck, trying to tease her back into a smile. “Have you managed to put that down at all?”

  “You never know when you’ll get an opportunity.” She walked stiffly to the table and avoided his gaze.

  “Sorry to see this safari end,” Billy said. “One of the best yet.”

  Paul nodded. “Let your friends know about this one. Send them my way if they’re interested.”

  Caleb sat next to Lydia. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  He stared at her rigid back. Was that his fault, because he’d left, and she’d left before finding out he’d come back for her?

  “Do I get some of those pictures?” Billy asked.

  “Course, Billy, you’ll get a CD of all the best ones. Blow’em up real big and get them hung in your trophy room.” Paul smiled.

  “Perfect,” Billy said.

  “Who else are you going to give my pictures to?” Lydia asked.

  Paul leaned back in his chair and took another gulp of coffee. “Anyone I see fit.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Anything I want. Standard stuff of course, websites, brochures. Maybe send some to Hellerman’s Hollywood son.”

  “What’s Mr. Hellerman got to do with Lydia’s pictures?” Caleb asked.

  “He liked his safari so much,” Paul said, “he called yesterday on the satellite phone and said I should get a movie guy to come out and film us on a real hunt.”

  “Ha!” Billy said, “Wouldn’t that be a kick?”

  “No deal yet. I gotta show them it’s worth coming out with all the equipment. Gotta show them I’m a personality worth putting on screen.”

  “No,” Lydia said. She shook her head, moving brown tendrils of hair across her face.

  “No reason to rush into a decision now,” Paul said.

  “Hellerman isn’t getting my pictures.”

  “Technically, it’s his son,” Paul said.

  “They’re her pictures,” Caleb said.

  Billy looked back and forth between Caleb and Paul, then Caleb and Lydia.

  Lydia gave Paul a look Caleb didn’t understand. “Hellerman isn’t getting my pictures.”

  “What happened out there?” Caleb asked.

  “None of your business,” she said.

  Her coldness hit him unexpectedly. He lapsed into silence.

  “All right, Lydia,” Paul said in a capitulating voice. “They’re your pictures. You have a say in how they’re u
sed.”

  This set Caleb back in his chair, but his unease grew. No one was acting right.

  Paul finished his coffee. “I’ll make sure your trophies arrive in the States in good condition, Billy. I’ll see you off, and then I gotta prepare for my next client. Lydia, the next clients are coming to Owl Camp, no return trip to the resort, in case you were wondering. Be ready to go out again day after tomorrow. We can talk more about your pictures after that.”

  Paul left the dining room. Billy finished his plate and left as well.

  “Are you all right?” Caleb asked after almost ten minutes of watching Lydia not take a bite of food.

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

  “Call your parents,” he said, trying to put urgency in his voice. “The phone is here, I’ll get it for you. If you call them, they’ll make sure you go home. Get away from all this.” Caleb held his breath, hoping she agreed, and dreading it if she did.

  She gave a small shake of her head. “I want this too much.”

  3

  As it happened with most hunting clients, Billy left with less fanfare than when he arrived.

  Caleb helped Paul do the ‘dip, pack, and crating’ aspect of temporary preservation, to make sure the animals’ carcasses didn’t fall apart before the client taxidermied them. The head of the Cape buffalo Billy took as a trophy was boxed along with the skins of a black-maned lion, two impala, a greater kudu, several zebra with unique stripe patterns, and half a dozen other animals Paul had prepped without him.

  Billy shouted from the passenger window that he’d be back next year for another hippo charge.

  No one paid attention because the new clients had arrived at Owl Camp, and everyone wanted a first look, but the man and woman with their canvas luggage retired to their tent for the evening with instructions not to be disturbed.

  Lunch the next day proceeded without interruption, unless Lydia taking a few pictures could be called that. It seemed normal now, the camera always around her neck, her daypack not far away. Caleb had noticed how on safari strands of her hair always came loose in the wind. Now she tightly tied her hair back.