Fever Dream p-10

by Douglas Preston;Lincoln Child

  While the others remained near the body, the tracker slowly circled the pan, looking for tracks in the alkaline crust. He placed a finger on his mouth and pointed across the dry pan into a vlei, a swampy depression during the wet season that--now the dry season was advanced--had grown up into an extremely dense stand of grass, ten to twelve feet high. Several hundred yards into the vlei rose a large, sinuous grove of fever trees, their umbrella-like crowns spreading against the horizon. The tracker was pointing at a slot bent into the tall grass, made by the lion in its retreat. He came back over, his face serious, and whispered into Pendergast's ear. "In there," he said, pointing with his spear. "Resting."

  Pendergast nodded and glanced at Helen. She was still pale but absolutely steady, the eyes cool and determined.

  Nyala, the gun bearer, was nervous. "What is it?" Pendergast asked in a low tone, turning to him.

  He nodded toward the tall grass. "That lion smart. Too smart. Very bad place."

  Pendergast hesitated, looking from the bearer, to the tracker, to the stand of grass and back again. Then he gestured for the tracker to proceed.

  Slowly, stealthily, they entered the tall grass. The visibility dropped to less than five yards. The hollow stalks rustled and whispered with their movements, the cloying smell of heated grass stifling in the dead air. Green twilight enveloped them as they moved deeper into the stand. The drone of insects merged into a steady whine.

  As they approached the grove of fever trees, the tracker slowed; held up his hand; pointed to his nose. Pendergast inhaled and caught the faint, musky scent of lion, overlaid with the sweetish whiff of carrion.

  The tracker crouched and signaled for the others to do likewise--the visibility in the bunch grass was better closer to the ground, where they had a greater chance of seeing the tawny flash of the lion before he was actually on top of them. They slowly entered the fever grove, inching along at a crouch. The dried, silty mud was baked hard as rock and it retained no spoor, but broken and bent stems told a clear tale of the lion's passage.

  Again the tracker paused, motioning for a talk. Pendergast and Helen came up and the three huddled in the close grass, whispering just loud enough to be heard over the insects.

  "Lion somewhere in front. Twenty, thirty yards. Moving slowly." Mfuni's face was creased with concern. "Maybe we should wait."

  "No," whispered Pendergast. "This is our best chance at bagging him. He's just eaten."

  They moved forward, into a small open area with no grass, no more than ten feet square. The tracker paused, sniffed the air, then pointed left. "Lion," he whispered.

  Pendergast stared ahead, looked left, then shook his head and pointed straight ahead.

  The tracker scowled, leaned to Pendergast's ear. "Lion circle around to left. He very smart."

  Still Pendergast shook his head. He leaned over Helen. "You stay here," he whispered, his lips brushing her ears.

  "But the tracker--"

  "The tracker's wrong. You stay, I'll go ahead just a few yards. We're nearing the far end of the vlei. He'll want to remain in cover; with me moving toward him he'll feel pressed. He might rush. Be ready and keep a line of fire open to my right."

  Pendergast signaled for his gun. He grasped the metal barrel, warm in the heat, and pulled it forward under his arm. He thumbed off the safety and flipped up the night sight--a bead of ivory--for better sighting in the grassy half-light. Nyala handed Helen her rifle.

  Pendergast moved into the dense grass straight ahead, the tracker following in frozen silence, his face a mask of terror.

  Pushing through the grass, placing each foot with exceeding caution on the hardpan ground, Pendergast listened intently for the peculiar cough that would signal the beginning of a rush. There would be time for only one shot: a charging lion could cover a hundred yards in as little as four seconds. He felt more secure with Helen behind him; two chances at the kill.

  After ten yards, he paused and waited. The tracker came alongside, deep unhappiness written on his face. For a full two minutes, neither man moved. Pendergast listened intently but could hear only insects. The gun was slippery in his sweaty hands, and he could taste the alkali dust on his tongue. A faint breeze, seen but not felt, swayed the grass around them, making a soft clacking sound. The insect drone fell to a murmur, then died. Everything grew utterly still.

  Slowly, without moving any other part of his body, Mfuni extended a single finger--again ninety degrees to his left.

  Remaining absolutely still, Pendergast followed the gesture with his eyes. He peered into the dim haze of grass, trying to catch a glimpse of tawny fur or the gleam of an amber eye. Nothing.

  A low cough--and then a terrible, earthshaking explosion of sound, a massive roar, came blasting at them like a freight train. Not from the left, but from straight ahead.

  Pendergast spun around as a blur of ocher muscle and reddish fur exploded out of the grass, pink mouth agape, daggered with teeth; he fired one barrel with a massive ka-whang! but he hadn't time to compose the shot and the lion was on him, six hundred pounds of enormous stinking cat, knocking him flat, and then he felt the red-hot fangs slice into his shoulder and he cried out, twisting under the suffocating mass, flailing with his free arm, trying to recover the rifle that had been knocked away by the massive blow.

  The lion had been so well hidden, and the rush so fast and close, that Helen Pendergast was unable to shoot before it was on top of her husband--and then it was too late; they were too close together to risk a shot. She leapt from her spot ten yards behind and bulled through the tall grass, yelling, trying to draw the monstrous lion's attention as she raced toward the hideous sound of muffled, wet growling. She burst onto the scene just as Mfuni sank his spear into the lion's gut; the beast--bigger than any lion should rationally be--leapt off Pendergast and swiped at the tracker, tearing away part of his leg, then bounded into the grass, the spear dragging from its belly.

  Helen took careful aim at the lion's retreating back and fired, the recoil from the massive .500/.416 nitro express cartridge jolting her hard.

  The shot missed. The lion was gone.

  She rushed to her husband. He was still conscious. "No," Pendergast gasped. "Him."

  She glanced at Mfuni. He was lying on his back, arterial blood squirting into the dirt from where the calf muscle of his right leg was hanging by a thread of skin.

  "Oh, Jesus." She tore off the lower half of her shirt, twisted it tight, and wrapped it above the severed artery. Groping around for a stick, she slid it under the cloth and twisted it tight to form a tourniquet.

  "Jason?" she said urgently. "Stay with me! Jason!"

  His face was slick with sweat, his eyes wide and trembling.

  "Hold that stick. Loosen it if you start going numb."

  The tracker's eyes widened. "Memsahib, the lion is coming back."

  "Just hold that--"

  "It's coming back!" Mfuni's voice broke in terror.

  Ignoring him, she turned her attention to her husband. He lay on his back, his face gray. His shoulder was misshapen and covered with a clotted mass of blood. "Helen," he said hoarsely, struggling to rise. "Get your gun. Now."

  "Aloysius--"

  "For the love of God, get your gun!"

  It was too late. With another earsplitting roar, the lion burst from the cover, sending up a whirlwind of dust and flying grass--and then he was on top of her. Helen screamed once and tried to fight him off as the lion seized her by the arm; there was a sharp crackling of bone as the lion sank his teeth in--and then the last thing Pendergast saw before he passed out was the sight of her struggling, screaming figure being dragged off into the deep grass.

  4

  THE WORLD CAME BACK INTO FOCUS. PENDERGAST was in one of the rondevaals. The distant throb of a chopper sounded through the thatch roof, rapidly increasing in volume.

  He sat up with a cry to see the DC, Woking, leap out of a chair he'd been sitting in at the far side of the hut.

  "Don't exert yourse
lf," Woking said. "The medevac's here, everything'll be taken care of--"

  Pendergast struggled up. "My wife! Where is she?"

  "Be a good lad and--"

  Pendergast swung out of bed and staggered to his feet, driven by pure adrenaline. "My wife, you son of a bitch!"

  "It couldn't be helped, she was dragged off, we had a man unconscious and another bleeding to death--"

  Pendergast staggered to the door of the hut. His rifle was there, set in the rack. He seized it, broke it, saw that it still contained a single round.

  "What in God's name are you doing--?"

  Pendergast closed the action and swung the rifle toward the DC. "Get out of my way."

  Woking scrambled aside and Pendergast lurched out of the hut. The sun was setting. Twelve hours had passed. The DC came rushing out after him, waving his arms. "Help! I need help! The man's gone mad!"

  Crashing into the wall of brush, Pendergast pushed through the long grass until he had picked up the trail. He did not even hear the ragged shouts from the camp behind. He charged along the old spoor trail, thrusting the brush aside, heedless of the pain. Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen--and then he burst into the dry pan. Beyond lay the vlei, the dense grass, the grove of fever trees. With a gasp he lurched forward across the pan and into the grass, swiping his weapon back and forth with his good arm to clear a path, the birds overhead screaming at the disturbance. His lungs burned, his arm was drenched in blood. Still he advanced, bleeding freely from his torn shoulder, vocalizing inarticulately. And then he stopped, the ragged incoherent sounds dying in his throat. There was something in the grass ahead, small, pale, lying on the hard-packed mud. He stared down at it. It was a severed hand--a hand whose ring finger was banded with a star sapphire.

  With an animalistic cry of rage and grief, he staggered forward, bursting from the long grass into an open area where the lion, its mane ablaze with color, was crouching and quietly feeding. He took in the horror all at once: the bones decorated with ribbons of flesh, his wife's hat, the tattered pieces of her khaki outfit, and then suddenly the smell--the faint smell of her perfume mingling with the stench of the cat.

  Last of all he saw the head. It had been severed from her body but--with a cruel irony--was otherwise intact compared with the rest. Her blue-and-violet eyes stared up sightlessly at him.

  Pendergast walked unsteadily up to within ten yards of the lion. It raised its monstrous head, slopped a tongue around its bloody chops, and looked at him calmly. His breath coming in short, sharp gasps, Pendergast raised the Holland & Holland with his good arm, propped it on his bad, sighted along the top of the ivory bead. And pulled the trigger. The massive round, packing five thousand foot-pounds of muzzle energy, struck the lion just between and above the eyes, opening the top of its head like a sardine can, the cranium exploding in a blur of red mist. The great red-maned lion hardly moved; it merely sank down on top of its meal, and then lay still.

  All around, in the sunbaked fever trees, a thousand birds screamed.

  PRESENT DAY

  5

  St. Charles Parish, Louisiana

  THE ROLLS-ROYCE GREY GHOST CREPT AROUND the circular drive, the crisp crunch of gravel under the tires muffled in places by patches of crabgrass. The motorcar was followed by a late-model Mercedes, in silver. Both vehicles came to a stop before a large Greek Revival plantation house, framed by ancient black oaks draped in fingers of Spanish moss. A small bronze plaque screwed into the facade announced that the mansion was known as Penumbra; that it had been built in 1821 by the Pendergast family; and that it was on the National Register of Historic Places.

  A. X. L. Pendergast stepped out of the rear compartment of the Rolls and looked around, taking in the scene. It was the end of an afternoon in late February. Mellow light played through the Greek columns, casting bars of gold into the covered porch. A thin mist drifted across the overgrown lawn and weed-heavy gardens. Beyond, cicadas droned sleepily in the cypress groves and mangrove swamps. The copper trim on the second-floor balconies was covered in a dense patina of verdigris. Small curls of white paint hung from the pillars, and an atmosphere of dampness, desuetude, and neglect hung over the house and grounds.

  A curious gentleman emerged from the Mercedes, short and stocky, wearing a black cutaway with a white carnation in his boutonniere. He looked more like a maitre d' from an Edwardian men's club than a New Orleans lawyer. Despite the limpid sunlight, a tightly rolled umbrella was tucked primly beneath one arm. An alligator-skin briefcase was clutched in one fawn-gloved hand. He placed a bowler hat on his head, gave it a smart tap.

  "Mr. Pendergast. Shall we?" The man extended a hand toward an overgrown arboretum, enclosed by a hedge, that stood to the right of the house.

  "Of course, Mr. Ogilby."

  "Thank you." The man led the way, walking briskly, his wingtips sweeping through the moisture-laden grass. Pendergast followed more slowly, with less sense of purpose. Reaching a gate in the hedge, Mr. Ogilby pushed it open, and together they entered the arboretum. At one point he glanced back with a mischievous smile and said, "Let us keep an eye out for the ghost!"

  "That would be a thrill," said Pendergast, in the same jocular vein.

  Continuing his brisk pace, the lawyer followed a once-graveled path now overgrown with weeds toward a specimen-size weeping hemlock, beyond which could be seen a rusting iron fence enclosing a small plot of ground. Peeking up from the grass within was a scattering of slate and marble headstones, some vertical, some listing.

  The gentleman, his creased black trouser cuffs now soaked, came to a halt before one of the larger tombstones, turned, and then grasped the briefcase in both hands, waiting for his client to catch up. Pendergast took a thoughtful turn around the private graveyard, stroking his pale chin, before ending up next to the dapper little man.

  "Well!" the lawyer said, "here we are again!"

  Pendergast nodded absently. He knelt, pushed aside the grass from the face of the tombstone, and read aloud:

  Hic Iacet Sepultus

  Louis de Frontenac Diogenes Pendergast

  Apr 2, 1899-Mar 15, 1975

  Tempus Edax Rerum

  Mr. Ogilby, standing behind Pendergast, propped his briefcase on the top of the tombstone, undid the latches, raised the cover, and slipped out a document. On the cover of the briefcase, balancing it on the headstone, he laid down the document.

  "Mr. Pendergast?" He proffered a heavy silver fountain pen.

  Pendergast signed the document.

  The lawyer took the pen back, signed it himself with a flourish, impressed it with a notary public seal, dated it, and slipped it back in his briefcase. He shut it with a snap, latched it, and locked it.

  "Done!" he said. "You are now certified to have visited your grandfather's grave. I shall not have to disinherit you from the Pendergast family trust--at least, not for the present!" He gave a short chuckle.

  Pendergast rose, and the little man stuck out a pudgy hand. "Always a pleasure, Mr. Pendergast, and I trust I shall have the favor of your company in another five years?"

  "The pleasure is, and shall be, mine," said Pendergast with a dry smile.

  "Excellent! I'll be heading back to town, then. Will you follow?"

  "I think I'll drop in on Maurice. He'd be crushed if I left without paying him my respects."

  "Quite, quite! To think he's been looking after Penumbra unassisted for--what?--twelve years now. You know, Mr. Pendergast--" Here the little man leaned in and lowered his voice, as if to impart a secret. "--you really should fix this place up. You could get a handsome sum for it--a handsome sum! Antebellum plantation houses are all the rage these days. It would make a charming B and B!"

  "Thank you, Mr. Ogilby, but I think I shall hold on to it a while longer."

  "As you wish, as you wish! Just don't stay out after dark--what with the old family ghost, and all." The little man strode off chuckling to himself, briefcase swinging, and soon vanished, leaving Pendergast alone in the fam
ily plot. He heard the Mercedes start up; heard the crunch of gravel fade quickly back into silence.

  He strolled about for another few minutes, reading the inscriptions on the stones. Each name resurrected memories stranger and more eccentric than the last. Many of the remains were of family members disinterred from the ruins of the basement crypt of the Pendergast mansion on Dauphine Street after the house burned; other ancestors had expressed wishes to be buried in the old country.

  The golden light faded as the sun sank below the trees. Pallid mists began to drift across the lawn from the direction of the mangrove swamp. The air smelled of verdure, moss, and bracken. Pendergast stood in the graveyard for a long time, silent and unmoving, as evening settled over the land. Yellow lights--coming up in the windows of the plantation house--filtered through the trees of the arboretum. The scent of burning oak wood drifted on the air; a smell that brought back irresistible memories of childhood summers. Glancing up, Pendergast could see one of the great brick chimneys of the plantation house issuing a lazy stream of blue smoke. Rousing himself, he left the graveyard, walked through the arboretum, and gained the covered porch, the warped boards protesting under his feet.

  He knocked on the door, then stood back to wait. A creaking from inside; the sound of slow footsteps; an elaborate unlatching and unchaining; and the great door swung open to reveal a stooped old man of indeterminate race, dressed in an ancient butler's uniform, his face grave. "Master Aloysius," he said, with fine reserve, not offering his hand immediately.

  Pendergast extended his and the old man responded, the ribbed old hand getting a friendly shake. "Maurice. How are you?"

  "Middling," the old man replied. "I saw the cars drive up. Glass of sherry in the library, sir?"