Far In The Wilds

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “How silly you are!” he said coolly.

  Mademoiselle pressed a handkerchief to her lips. “I am sorry, Freddie. I have never been good with rushing water, but the thought of those crocodiles made it quite impossible.”

  The prince turned to Ryder. “You must be stronger than you look to have carried her so easily.” He turned and followed Jude into the bush.

  Mademoiselle came close to Ryder. “I no longer bother to apologize for him,” she said softly. “He thinks it is quite alright to offend if he is paying. At least, he will make it up to you in your tip.”

  Ryder’s eyes glinted. “Yes, but will he make it up to you?”

  Her gaze was cool. “That is none of your concern.”

  “No, it isn’t. I just wonder how you stand it. He humiliates you and you deserve better.”

  She gave a short laugh. “I must congratulate you, Ryder White. Most people don’t surprise me. You do.”

  “How so?”

  “I never thought to meet a true romantic in the wilds of Africa of all places.”

  Ryder gestured expansively. “Why not? Africa is the most romantic place on earth. Look around you, Mademoiselle,” he said, sweeping the savannah with his arms. “Africa is a land of dreams and memories. It is rifts of remembrance stitched together with the sighs of time. Every morning Africa wakes and says, ‘This I have done before, and this, and this.’ And it’s done so for millions of years and it will do so a million more, every day just the same because this land is older than God himself. It calls all the dreamers and vagabonds.”

  “Yes, I can see that now. You describe it all so wonderfully, I wish I could be one of those dreamers or vagabonds. But I am neither.”

  He took a fractional step closer to her. “Then what are you?”

  She lowered her veil and pinned it firmly in place. “I am a businesswoman. And not all transactions are pleasant ones.”

  * * *

  After they returned to camp and dinner had been served and eaten, the prince’s good humor seemed restored. He confined himself to a single glass of whisky before turning in. Jude yawned and stretched and took herself off as well. The men were stuffed with roasted kudu and greens and lazed by their fires a little distance away. Only Gideon stood at attention, watching over the long plain beyond.

  “Your friend is subdued tonight,” Ryder remarked to Mademoiselle. She had taken off her hat and veil when she bathed and her hair was unpinned. Unlike most women of his acquaintance, she had not cut hers short in the latest fashion. It rippled long and dark as a sliver of the African night sky, and Ryder’s eyes lingered on it.

  “As I explained earlier, he is not my friend,” she said quietly. “He is my job.”

  Ryder sipped at his whisky. “That’s a hell of a job for a lady.”

  “This is where I should say I am no lady. But I was once. I was born to a good family, you know. But when the money is gone and the prospects are poor, there are few options to a woman.”

  “You could get a real job.”

  She laughed, the first time Ryder had heard her make such a sound. “Can you imagine me in a shop? ‘Good day, madame, may I help you find something in your size?’ ‘No, monsieur, I’m afraid we are all out of fresh bread this afternoon.’” Her voice was cruel in its mimicry. “No, I was not made for such things.”

  “You could marry.”

  Her smile was pitying. “How is that different from what I already do? Because it would be with one man? Because it would have the sanction of the church? You are not young, nor are you naïve.”

  “No, but it seems less demanding than what you are doing now.”

  She laughed again. “Spoken like a man who has never been married.” Ryder thought of Eliza and said nothing. Some things weren’t worth correcting. Mademoiselle went on. “No, you see, if I had a husband, I would be subject to his little tyrannies. Whatever he wished to do with me, under the law, he could. He could restrict my freedoms, deny me money, demand of me whatever I do not wish to give. He might even make me sit by the fire and darn his shirts while he wears slippers and reads improving novels.” She gave a delicate shudder. “This is not the life for me. As it is, I may be the mistress of men, but I am my own mistress first. I choose, I decide. Even when I am wrong, I decide. Even when I have regrets, at least they are my own regrets, and not the regrets of someone else. And when I am finished with a man, I move on. The job is over.” She paused, her fingers brushing his. “And when I want a man, there is nothing to prevent me from being with him.”

  It was not the first time she had made a move towards him, but it was the first time he responded. He could not have said why. It was not the perfume of Africa or the still warmth of the night. It was not cricketsong or moonlight, or any of the silly clichés that made a man do stupid things. It might have been the whisper of that touch on his hand, so light and so fleeting. Or it might have been the fact that there was something fine in her he hadn’t seen before, some gallantry she kept hidden, a sort of masculine courage to face her life as it was rather than as she wished it to be. She had stripped away her own illusions for him, and that was as seductive a thing as any woman could do.

  He rose and took her hand and walked her to his tent. It wasn’t as comfortable as hers, but it was further away, and when the little cot creaked and moaned and she put her hands over her mouth to smother her own cries, there was no one to hear. And when she rose and gathered up her clothes and he walked her to her tent, there was no one to see but a lone owl sitting in a tree keeping watch.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning was hotter than the one before, and under the watchful gaze of the sun the red earth cracked a little more where the long grasses had been worn away under the hooves of the antelope and zebra and wildebeest that moved slowly over the plain. Mademoiselle sponged her neck and carried on, and even Jude was subdued. Sweat rolled down the prince’s neck, wetting his collar as he walked, gun broken in the crook of his arm. One of the Masai from the village had come to their camp early in the morning to tell them the leopard had taken a goat, a nanny whose belly was full and rounded with an unborn kid. He had watched the leopard closely and realized it was a female. He had tracked her to a lugga far to the west from where the hunters had searched the day before. He had left her to enjoy her kill and trotted directly to their camp. Ryder had ordered him fed and they had set off at once. Ryder and Gideon strode ahead, eyes shifting from the horizon to the ground before them. They pointed out the tracks of hares and snakes and small antelope, but it was not until after they had stopped for luncheon and started out again that they came to the edge of the lugga, the dry riverbed thick with foliage still green after the short rains.

  Ryder paused, holding up his hand. “This is the place. She made a large kill last night and she’s dragged it in here to enjoy. She’s safe up a tree somewhere sleeping right now. Make sure your weapons are loaded and ready to fire. The kill belongs to the prince. Freddie, Gideon and I will find her and flush her out, then step to the side so you can take the shot. Everybody understand?”

  He turned to look at Mademoiselle. “You’re unarmed and this leopard is going to be dangerous. Get behind Jude and stay out of her way. Stand with your back to her.”

  “But why?” she asked as she did as she was told.

  “So it can’t circle around behind us,” Jude told her. She lifted her rifle to her shoulder and waited for Ryder’s signal.

  He and Gideon crept forward, moving in wide arcs until Gideon signaled him.

  “It’s just in front of Gideon. He’s going to flush her and drive her this way.” He turned to the prince. “Whatever you do, shoot fast and shoot clean. She’ll come at you like a bolt of lightning and you won’t have time to think so just do. And whatever you do, don’t hit Gideon.”

  The prince said nothing, but hefted his rifle and took his stance. Ryder did the same and signaled back to Gideon.

  There was stillness, a long moment that stretched out to the end o
f time and back again—a moment of such quiet it seemed as if nothing would ever move again. And then, with a scream of rage, the black leopard bounded down from the tree and towards the hunters. Behind it, Gideon stepped sharply around a rock, shielding himself from the bullets.

  Ryder held his fire and waited, but the prince did not shoot. He waited longer, and still the prince did not shoot until finally Ryder’s hand twitched upon the trigger. Just as he would have fired, a shot rang out and Ryder knew from the moment it left the prince’s gun it would miss. It grazed the leopard on its flank, enraging her as it opened a trail of blood and muscle in its wake. She thrashed against the pain and turned to run at them again.

  Ryder glanced at the prince and realized there would be no second shot. There was a puddle of urine at his feet, and his khaki trousers were wet. And the leopard was coming for him.

  Ryder stepped in front of the prince, but it was too late for a proper shot. A single bullet exploded from his gun just as the prince shouted and the cat veered, hurling itself into the air. Whether it was the prince’s scream or the bleeding wound in her flank that turned her, Ryder never knew. But the cat launched herself and landed on Ryder, knocking him to the ground just as his bullet lodged in her leg. She was bleeding freely from both wounds now, but she fixed herself on Ryder, and just as she opened her mouth, he lashed out from blind instinct, shoving his fist down her throat.

  He wrapped his other hand around her neck, but without a second hand to throttle her, they were evenly matched. Too evenly. The leopard crouched on his chest, holding fast, and Ryder dared not let her go. Dimly he was aware of Mademoiselle shrieking and the prince making useless noises while Gideon and Jude tried to subdue them. The leopard wrapped its front claws around the arm that was down her throat, raking it over and again in an attempt to free herself. Then, as suddenly as she had lunged, she calmed, her claws still lodged in his arm, her glassy eyes fixed upon Ryder’s. Gideon crept near with a knife, but as soon as the leopard caught the scent of him she thrashed, digging her claws in deeper. Ryder groaned and tightened his grip.

  “Keep back,” Jude ordered. “If you go near you’ll just put him in more danger.”

  “It’s getting loose!” Mademoiselle screamed as the leopard shifted its weight.

  But Ryder held her, and time passed, and they waited. Every time the leopard dug in her claws, Ryder tightened his grip on her throat. They were both breathing hard and fast, determined to live. They stared into each other’s eyes and waited for death to choose. Their blood ran together, mingling into the red earth beneath them, and when the end came, it came quietly. One moment the leopard was there, staring into Ryder’s eyes, and the next moment the wide green eyes closed and the last breath went and another did not come. It was over. Ryder relaxed the hand upon the leopard’s throat and laid it on the animal’s head as if to bless her. And that was the last he remembered before darkness overcame them both.

  * * *

  He awoke days later in a hospital in Nairobi. His arm was bandaged from fingertip to shoulder and strapped down to his chest, and he was bruised black and blue over most of his body.

  “It’s about time you woke up.” Sybil was sitting in the corner reading the newspaper.

  “Hey, Tusker,” he said sleepily. “Did someone run me over with a train?”

  “Leopard got you.”

  “Succinct as ever,” he murmured. He closed his eyes again. It was coming back to him now. “I remember the blood. And the pain.”

  “You would still have that if the doctors hadn’t shot you up with morphine. You might think of sharing a little. I hear it’s delightfully effective.”

  “Feel as if my head was stuffed with cotton wool,” he complained.

  “Yes, well, that’s the drug. Sleep now, boy.”

  His eyes closed, then, just as he was sliding under, he thought of something. “There wasn’t any fear.”

  Tusker leaned close. “What’s that?”

  “There should have been fear.”

  She put a hand to his head, stroking his unkempt hair. “Sleep now,” she said again, and this time he did.

  * * *

  When he woke up again Sybil had gone but Jude had taken her place. He saw now that the room was full of flowers and plants and baskets of fruit and bottles of whisky. Jude had opened one and helped herself.

  “I could do with one of those,” he murmured.

  She grinned. “Not with the drugs you’re on. Just keep flying and I will take care of your get-well presents.” She looked around. “You’ve got tributes from half the colony here. And a tremendous article in the Standard.” She held up the front page of the newspaper and he groaned. He looked like hell in the picture. Some photographer had managed to snap a shot just as they were unloading him at the hospital. The bandages Jude had applied in the bush were soaked with blood, and gore still streaked his clothes and face. He looked like something straight out of a horror film. But it wasn’t the picture that annoyed him. It was the headline. LOCAL HERO SAVES SWEDISH PRINCE.

  “Freddie won’t like that,” he said sleepily. “He’s a Dane.”

  “Yes, well wherever he’s from, he’s gone back there. He made arrangements to pay your hospital bills and fled as fast as his fat little feet could carry him before the story got out.”

  “I suppose you told?”

  “That a minor European royal stood there and quietly pissed himself while you wrestled a leopard to death? It might have come up,” she said gleefully.

  “How many times did you tell it?”

  “Are you joking? I’ve dined out on that story every evening for the last fortnight. I am the belle of every ball.”

  “That must make you popular with the fellows,” Ryder remarked.

  She sobered then. “I should tell you now. I’m getting married. It’s fixed up and everything. Anthony Wickenden and I are tying the knot.”

  He thought of Tusker’s insistence that Stephen was still alive, her blind faith that he had somehow survived. “What does Tusker think about that?”

  “Oh, she’s not actually speaking to me just now,” she said. Her voice was light, but her expression was stony and he knew this feud could go on for years. “I had to put through the proper papers and have Stephen officially declared dead. Tusker didn’t take it very well.”

  “Give it time,” he urged.

  She laughed. “Surely you jest, dear boy. Tusker is entirely capable of holding a grudge until the next ice age. But I mean to do whatever I can to be happy. I’m so tired of being angry with Stephen for not coming home. And Anthony actually loves me. At least he thinks he does, and that’s good enough.”

  It didn’t sound good enough by half, but Ryder had learned long ago to tread carefully when it came to giving Jude advice. The most he could do was let her have her way and keep a close eye on her in case she ever needed him to pick up the pieces again.

  “So when’s the big day?”

  Her smile was touched with relief, no doubt because he had decided not to fight her. “Just as soon as you’re bright-eyed enough to give me away.”

  Ryder smiled. “Give you away? With pleasure.”

  She stepped to the bed and touched his right hand. It was still swollen and painful from his struggle with the leopard, but at least it was whole, he thought. God only knew what was lurking under the bandages. He pushed the thought away.

  “You’re going to be alright, you know. The doctors said it didn’t bite through anything important. You’ll still be able to feel with it and use it and all. You’ll just have some very impressive battle scars.”

  “All the better to enchant the ladies,” he said lightly.

  Jude paused. “She’s gone too, Ryder. She left with him. She was pretty hysterical for a while, but he was worse. She took care of him and when the time came, she just went with him. Didn’t even leave a note.”

  Ryder tried to shrug, but the searing shaft of pain stopped him. “It wasn’t a great love affair, Jude. It was
just something to do to pass the time.” He would never know if Mademoiselle had slept with him to prick the prince’s jealousy or to amuse herself or because she wanted something real with him, however briefly. Whichever it was, it did not matter. She had chosen her old life, the comfortable groove she had worn with Freddie. But then, Ryder reflected, he had not asked her to stay. He did not regret it.

  Jude paused again, groping her way toward her words. “I’ve had a lot of time to think it over. And I’ve wondered...do you think he did it on purpose? Do you think he missed the first shot because of her? Because of the two of you?”

  Ryder opened his mouth to deny it then snapped it shut. He saw it over and again in his mind, the leopard turning as the poor shot grazed her flank, the prince seized with emotion and unmoving.

  “I don’t know,” he said finally. “If he did do it on purpose, he’s a fool. There was no guarantee the thing would have come after me instead of him if he only winged it.”

  “But there was a guarantee,” she corrected. “You.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Think back to the night you met them, Ryder. The Christmas party at the club. A lion walked right down the middle of the street in Nairobi, and in a club full of hunters and big brave men, you were the only one who stepped forward to take it down. Freddie knew exactly what sort of man you are. He would have known that there was no way you would stand aside and let a leopard attack a paying client. You would step in and let it attack you instead.”

  Ryder swallowed hard. “Give me some of that whisky.”

  She poured a small measure into a tooth glass and he drained it.

  “Don’t think about it anymore, Jude,” he ordered her. “I don’t want to think that anybody could be that evil.”

  “I don’t think he is,” she told him. “Not really. I think it was an impulse, something that took hold of him that he wasn’t strong enough to shake off. I think that’s why he got so upset, why he pissed himself. He’s been on safari before. He would have seen an animal taken down close. But if he gave in to the temptation to do the worst thing a human being can do to another and then realized too late what he was doing—”