Rhinoceros Summer

by Jamie Thornton

  “Maybe he’s in the bathroom,” Dad offered.

  “Can you check, Dad?”

  He didn’t move.

  “Please?”

  Dad sighed and went to the bathrooms located behind the escalator. She checked her pocket for the instructions, but they were missing.

  Dad returned. “No Caleb.” Then he asked about her bandaged hand. The doctors had wrapped it so well there was no way for her parents to know she lost two fingers. She didn’t want to lie anymore, but if they blamed Caleb—

  “Bad sprain,” she said.

  He let the matter drop, at least for now.

  Her parents guided her to the automatic doors and Lydia let them. Maybe she should go home with them. Forget all about Paul, about Caleb, about being a photographer. Wouldn’t it be better to just let Mom take care of her and pretend these last three months never happened? But if she went home the leopard would have almost killed her for nothing. She would have put up with Jack Hellerman’s abuse for nothing. She would be rewarding Paul for lying to her. She would be telling Caleb she didn’t care.

  What could she possibly say to her parents that wouldn’t sound like a teenage girl’s exaggerations? She’d never get them to believe half the stuff that had happened, not without proof. Not without her pictures.

  “I need to use the restroom before we leave.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Mom said.

  “No, please. I’ll be fine.”

  Her parents looked at each other, and then nodded their heads. “All right,” Dad said. “We’ll wait here for you.”

  Without Caleb’s support, she limped unsteadily to the bathrooms. She knew her parents watched every step of that limp.

  After entering the bathroom, she counted to ten and then cracked open the door. Her parents sat on a bench together in close conversation. Mom started crying again and Dad kissed her on the forehead. She made sure they weren’t looking her way and dragged herself around the corner. Her mind raced through her options. Maybe she could rent a car, or pay for a taxi, or take a bus part of the way. She headed for the outdoor curb, trying to remember the directions Caleb had stolen.

  She left the air condition airport and stepped into the sunshine. A flash of sunlight bounced off an opened trunk door. She stared for almost five seconds before giving a shout.

  “Wait! Caleb, wait!”

  CHAPTER 27

  Caleb

  Caleb left the airport lobby while Lydia and her parents huddled together. They didn’t see him go and Caleb didn’t know if he should feel bitter or glad over such an easy escape.

  He approached the information desk and figured out how to book a rental car—they needed proof he had a Tanzanian driver’s license, a return ticket home, his passport, and extra insurance for being a foreign driver under 25. When he was done, Lydia still cried and hugged her parents, not yet noticing his absence.

  Whatever Lydia felt for him wasn’t going to matter in the face of her parents’ disapproval. How could he expect it to? If he had experienced even a portion of what Lydia must have had growing up—if they had been his parents, if Paul hadn’t been his father—

  He couldn’t blame them for wanting to keep their daughter away. Who was he except the son of a liar? The son of a man who betrayed the people he was supposed to love.

  He felt a metallic taste on his tongue, as if his mouth bled. He concentrated on this physical sensation, willing his mind to lose itself in other thoughts. There was a mystery to still figure out. He’d deal with Paul and then return to Tanzania. He’d find out where the rhino had come from and if there were more. He’d use the papers Paul had handed over as his starting point. Maybe one of the subleasers was involved.

  The rental car was a pale green four-door. It wouldn’t last a day on Tanzanian roads, but the asphalt here looked smooth enough. Everyone had a cell phone. They were present in the cities back home but nothing like this.

  Caleb climbed into the driver’s seat. The passenger door opened. Lydia sat down. “Let’s go.”

  She looked at him with her dark brown eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Come on. Before they start looking for me.”

  He shifted the car into drive, pulled out, and quickly felt like he was drowning. Yeah, he’d driven in the wilderness. He’d driven in Arusha on paved streets, and in what East Africa counted as traffic, but never with this many cars, never on the left side of the car, never on the right side of the street.

  Lydia began talking him through it.

  They entered the on-ramp for the freeway. Caleb tried not to show how the cars speeding past on the four-lane highway unsettled him. There was no room to run off the shoulder if someone swerved. His hands sweated. He concentrated on staying between the dotted white lines and confirmed that the cars on either side of him were doing the same.

  A field of sunflowers bloomed on the east side of the road. For a split second Caleb wanted to drive into those colors and forget what waited for him. Flat, all the land flat, with old barns disintegrating next to newly constructed homes. He was used to dirt roads you couldn’t drive on without inviting a blown tire or cracked engine. He was used to people walking everywhere. He was used to beaten-down pick-ups and dust-covered Land Cruisers, not these shiny VW bugs and SUVs that charged down the road like a herd of buffalo.

  Hours later, the highway had crossed a river three times like it was nothing of consequence. Open fields had turned into groves of oak trees, though most looked dead or dying. Lydia pointed to several open bed trucks with volcanic-like mounds of tomatoes almost flowing over their metal containers. “Tomato season.”

  He shook his head. This place was crazy. “Are we close yet?”

  She scanned the map and consulted the directions Caleb had returned to her. She looked up and pointed through the glass. “That’s Mount Shasta and there’s Mount Lassen. We’re close.”

  A strange sense of familiarity came over him. The vegetation was different, but something about the foothills and rocks reminded him of home. “Is this a volcanic ridge?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  He wondered if Paul had known how similar this place was to the Ngorongoro crater.

  CHAPTER 28

  Paul

  Paul shook Jack Jr.’s hand while taking his measure. He didn’t see anything to differentiate him from his father except for the younger look to his face and body. Jack Jr. carried the same shiftiness that made Paul wish he had his own son by his side. A person he could trust with a gun to watch his back and not run at the first sign of trouble. Billy Compton would do too, but Billy had turned it down, though man enough to admit he’d leaked Paul’s plans to Lydia. Well, Paul had taken care of that the best he could.

  “And Russ. This is his ranch,” Jack said.

  Paul shook the man’s hand and tried to keep a look of disgust from showing. The man was portly and balding, with a salt and pepper ring of hair cut close to the head. He wore a cap so at first Paul hadn’t noticed but then removed it to scratch his head with withered fingers. Sure there were gray streaks in Paul’s own hair, but he still had a full head of it and no extra weight hung around his belly.

  “Pleased to meet ya,” Russ said.

  “Same,” Paul said. “So what’s the situation?”

  “Well, the ranch has plenty of wooded acreage to bring the lion into. We’re far enough out that there shouldn’t be anyone to cause problems. Especially since this is a regular, bonafide, boar-hunting ranch. Everybody carries guns and knows how to use them.”

  Maybe this guy knew how to hunt pigs from a truck bed, but Paul doubted he knew anything else.

  “You do the big game hunts in Africa, right?” Russ asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You ever read Ernest Hemingway? You probably have, right?” Russ gave a low whistle. “That man really knew what he was talking about, huh?”

  Paul acted his part while mentally flipping Russ off. “Yep. He sure told it like it was. You’ve never really
experienced life unless you’ve hunted to the death in Africa.”

  “Ha!” Russ slapped him hard on the back. “You’re all right.”

  “Yeah.” He’d bet a good stack of money Russ wouldn’t dare give him that good-ole-boys slap on the back again after all this was done.

  “So yeah. Acreage, forest, a nice setup for a hunt.” Russ waved at the only building in sight. “This is the lodge. We’ll fill up on chow, rest for the next two or three days until the lion gets good and hungry, and then we’ll get the whole thing started.” He looked between Paul and the other two men. “You really going to hunt this thing down with only a spear?”

  “That’s the plan,” Paul said, then began the trek back to the lodge. If he had to make nice with Russ the pig ranch hunter for another minute he was liable to punch someone. He knew that kind of man. The same man who waited in a blind calling for the ducks for hours on end, the same man who waded out into the river and cast out a fishing line for hours on end. Somehow that gave them the right to call themselves hunters. “I’m gonna show you something you ain’t never seen. Think you can handle what’s coming?” Paul tossed the challenge over his shoulder, not bothering to look back. The Maasai, the Barabaig, the Nandi, so many people hunted lions alone, with only a buffalo shield and spear to do the job. There was nothing new about what Paul planned to accomplish. An age-old rite that men used to remind their el-ders and wives and sisters and mothers that they were strong, fearless, and capable of great feats of strength that deserved respect, admiration, glory, more wives.

  Russ, Jack, and Jack Jr. might not understand what he was about to do, but there were some who would. In two days, he would hunt a lion with a spear. He would stand in for all men. He would hunt it to prove a brave man could find glory without dropping to his knees.

  Russ issued a nervous laugh that sounded more like a strangled cough.

  “We’re ready, Paul,” Jack said.

  2

  “Leave all the guns behind. We’re doing this the right way or not at all.” Paul surveyed the group of five men before him.

  Jack stood to the side with his son. Jack Jr. had brought a camera operator, a man who looked not much older than Caleb. A friend looking for an ‘in’ in Hollywood, Jack Jr. had said. He seemed tough enough, the kind of guy who might stand his ground in the face of a charging lion. The other two men had handled the transport of the lion. Then of course there was Russ.

  “Leave them in the lodge,” Paul said again. He watched everyone except Russ walk back into the lodge and leave their rifles inside.

  “I’ll take it along, I think,” Russ said.

  Paul was about to push the issue, but let it drop. This was Russ’s ranch. Paul guessed Russ would just become angry and even more determined. He didn’t need no paunch-bellied, gun-happy cowboy covering his back, but he sure as hell didn’t need him carrying a gun in anger either.

  “All right,” Paul said.

  He hefted the spear, testing its point of balance. In the last two days, he’d spent time decorating it with marks of his own design. They were a mixture of Maasai and Nandi geometric shapes, but he’d put some of his own ideas in as well. This wasn’t just a reenactment of a tribe’s hunting rites. He would record it all on film and prove once and for all to Abiba, to Caleb, to the entire world, that he was a man to be envied.

  He was fusing old and new Africa today, didn’t matter that it had to take place in California. To all the men who would watch this on their TVs someday from the comfort of a couch and a beer in hand, Paul would be a hero. He would shame them into remembering there was such a thing as glory to be won in the world. Shame Caleb and Abiba for ever thinking so little of him.

  The two transport men loaded up an ATV and drove into the pine tree forest, to the spot where the lion waited in its cage. Paul waited until they were out of sight before signaling to the rest of the group that it was time to head out.

  “You really gonna go through with this? Without any guns?” A gleam of sweat stood out on Jack Jr.’s forehead.

  “You have to be willing to pay the ultimate price or else it means nothing.”

  Jack Jr. nodded in agreement, though Paul knew he didn’t believe it. Jack Jr. was there to film some great hunting footage and make a buck, not risk his life. He may not have had the stomach paunch of his father yet, but in every other way, he was Jack Hellerman’s true son.

  Paul bummed a cigarette off the cameraman and sucked down its smoke. This was the waiting game of any hunter, any killer, any soldier. He’d done it for over twenty years now.

  “You ready, old man?” Jack Hellerman laughed at his own joke.

  Paul spit on the ground and leaned the spear against his shoulder as he’d done thousands of times before with a rifle. Too bad these cowards would share in what was coming next instead of his own son. “Damn straight I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Lydia

  Lydia and Caleb exited the freeway. The ranch entrance was set back more than ten miles from the freeway. They traveled on a long road that passed open fields dotted with a few oak trees and then rose into foothills heavily covered with pine and underbrush. Stonework pillars stood on either side of the dirt road as they drove onto ranch property. A two-story lodge came into view another mile down, nestled in more pine trees. The land directly surrounding the ranch was mostly flat.

  “What should we do?” Lydia asked as they drove up to the lodge steps.

  “You go find your pictures. I’m going out to find Paul.”

  Lydia shook her head. “We should stay together.”

  “Lydia, I want you with me, but you’re only going to slow me down.”

  She raised her bandaged hand. “You mean this? The doctor said it was no big deal. Same day procedure.” She gave a hollow laugh.

  “Mostly I mean your leg. You’ll bust the stitches.”

  He was right, but that didn’t mean she liked the idea. “You’re not walking. You have to take a vehicle part of the way. I’ll be your driver.”

  He shook his head and exited the car. Lydia hobbled after him as he tried the front door knob. Locked. Lydia peered into one of the windows but saw only darkness.

  “Hold on.” He pushed against the door as if testing its strength.

  “We could try around back,” she said.

  “Hollow core. I’ll kick it in or we’ll go through the window.”

  “Are you sure, maybe they left the back—”

  Caleb kicked the door near the lock area. A second kick almost cracked the door in half.

  Lydia knew this was not the time for suburban politeness, but she still stared wide-eyed at the damage.

  “Cheap.” Caleb pushed out the pieces of particleboard. They slapped onto the floor inside. “Guess they’re not worried about burglars.”

  Caleb entered the lodge first. Lydia followed, almost timid in her steps. She’d never broken into a building before.

  Caleb switched on lights as he made his way to the back of the lodge. Lydia followed. The entrance opened to the main common area. On one side, stairs rose to the second story. Mounted pig and deer heads hung on the sidewalls. They entered a large room with an entire wall of windows that looked out over the ranch. A couple of couches surrounded a fireplace in the wall opposite the windows. In the dimming sunlight the hills of pine trees bled into a big, green darkness.

  “Here we go.” Caleb inspected the back entrance to the lodge. A small foyer broke up the expanse of windows against one corner. Muddy boot prints covered the wood paneled floor near the door. Several rifles leaned barrel up underneath some coat hooks. “Find your pictures, Lydia. Find them so I can face your parents.”

  She limped over to where he studied the rifles. “It doesn’t matter to me what they believe. I know it’s not true, you know it’s not true. That’s what matters.” The anguished look on Caleb’s face touched off alarm in Lydia. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not perfect, but that doesn’t mean I want people to b
elieve I’m capable…Lydia.” He cupped her head in his hands and kissed her forehead, but she wished it had been her lips. “Don’t let your parents think so badly of me, of you. It’s important. There’s enough crap that happens in this world. I couldn’t stand it if they thought I had done all those horrible things.”

  Of course she gave in. She nodded.

  “Thank you.” He picked up one of the rifles and left. His shadow could barely be seen through the windows as he leaned over some kind of all-terrain vehicle.

  She limped out the back door after him and crossed her arms against the breeze that brushed past.

  Maybe a second after the engine noise disappeared into that foggy green darkness, she heard the scraping of shoes behind her. A woman’s voice: “I think someone broke this door down.”

  She turned and saw her parents framed in the common room doorway, their silhouettes backlit by the inside lights Caleb had turned on. Anger and concern showed in every shadowed line of their bodies. She wished she had her camera.

  “Unless you tell us what exactly is going on, I’m going to call the police and tell them Caleb kidnapped you.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Caleb

  It wasn’t that Caleb hated his father.

  It was that he’d hated his father for so long, he couldn’t remember what it had felt like not to hate. Abiba tried to teach him differently, but she had her own anger to work out. He’d used his job at the government to punish Paul. It had been a reaction, a way to make his hate reasonable. Noble.

  His father lived with only his skewed sense of pride as a compass. Caleb had fallen into the same trap.

  If he wasn’t going to lose Lydia to her parents, if he was going to stop Paul, if he was going to help protect Africa’s wild places—if he was going to be anything other than a traumatized animal lashing out in pain and violence, he had to let it all go.