by Greg Dragon
Bud savored each morsel of beef chow mein, sweet and sour chicken, and pork fried rice. He laughed as he cracked open his fortune cookie and read the slender slip of paper.
“What does it say?”
“It says, ‘you will soon find the answer you have been seeking.’ What does yours say? That you will meet a nice stranger from a distant land?”
“I don’t believe in luck, good or bad.” Tor shoved his tray far enough forward so that he could place his elbows on the edge of the table and rest his head in his hands. “Your showing up here is not merely good luck, it was divine providence. When I received your e-mail that you wanted to visit me, I checked you out online at People Discloser. For a small fee it told me that your father is Chan Lee, President and CEO of Lee Imports and Exports. So I must ask a favor from you, if you don’t mind.”
“What?” Bud finished his fourth glass of iced tea. He envisioned a sale of his father’s services without even having to make a pitch. Perhaps Tor’s camps could add plants to turn recyclables imported from America via his father’s ships into useful objects. If this was divine providence in action, so be it, Bud thought.
“When you return home, please ask your father to make a donation to our camps. We have thirty-eight of them spread throughout Africa, and five more planned for construction. According to People Search, your father’s income is so great he will be able to write off seventy percent of anything he donates.”
* * *
When an elephant tries to incite others in its herd to violence, preventative measures must be launched, Karen Beheard told her father. Its hunter must be fierce and brave, unflinching, despite risks of being gored by tusks or trampled underneath hooves large enough to crush any creature of the African jungles, mountains, or plains. Karen decided such a task could best be accomplished by the father who loved her enough to spend time with her. She now called him bwana.
Tim remained uncertain.
“You sure we should be doing this?” He scanned the plains for elephants while Karen steered her Range Rover to the locale of the elephant’s last sighting by an overhead satellite. “I mean, I’ve never even fired a gun since California outlawed them when I was a teenager.”
“You’ll do great, Dad. Don’t worry. Think about what a great first person story you’re going to get to write. Oh, Mom called last night and asked me to tell you that you can keep the money you make on any more stories you write during the rest of your trip around the world. When she saw how gaunt you looked in the photo I sent her of you and me with the lions and giraffes, she said that you aren’t eating enough.”
“It doesn’t matter how much I try to eat. Ever since we left from Long Beach, food has been coming out of both ends.” He patted his rump and poked his finger in his mouth as if he were vomiting. “Besides, the way I sweated in Vietnam, India, and here, I’ve probably lost at least twenty pounds just from water loss.”
“It’s all the salt, Dad. You use way too much. When are you going to cut down so you can lower your blood pressure?”
The jeep’s computerized radar system beeped out its findings as it pinged off of eleven large objects in the stand of trees to the left of the road. Karen studied the temperature readings of the blips blinking on the screen in the dashboard.
“That’s them all right. Get ready, bwana. It’s almost show time for you. You have a date with a herd of pachyderms.”
“I thought it was only one elephant. And you wonder why my blood pressure is so high.”
She stopped the jeep 300 yards from the stand of trees. Rifle in hand, Tim dragged his feet and followed her to the shady grove.
Anything to slow down all this foolishness. Why did I ever let her talk me into all this craziness?
His stay had been enjoyable. But hunting big game? “No thank you, very much,” Tim had said before asking if his daughter thought her request fell under his, “other duties as required.” He removed his helmet and tried using it to fan away some of the heat clinging to him.
“They like to rest in the shade during the heat of the day,” Karen said as she lowered the hands-free binoculars from her jungle helmet’s visor to a position in front of her eyes. She ordered the binocular’s computer to focus on any objects that matched elephants’ body heat signatures. “We’re getting pretty close now. Is the safety off on your gun?”
Tim’s hand shook as he flicked the safety to its off position. He started to count his steps to try and calm his trembling arms. Step number sixty-three ended in a croak.
Ninety yards in front of them, the largest living thing Tim had yet seen crashed through the trees. The smaller trees snapped in two. The bull elephant raised his trunk and tusks and sounded a roar that seemed to flush the last of Tim’s moisture through his skin’s pores.
“Here, you shoot him. I can’t do it.” He shoved the weapon at Karen.
“No, Dad. If I shoot him, your story won’t be exciting enough. Do like we practiced. Get down on one knee; brace the rifle up against your shoulder, aim, and fire.”
As the elephant began stomping in their direction, Tim obeyed his daughter’s orders. Through the rifle’s scope, the raging beast appeared to be five feet away.
“Fire, Dad, fire.”
Tim squeezed the trigger. A second later, the elephant stopped and howled when the projectile penetrated its thick hide. Then he continued his charge at those who dared to trespass on his herd’s territory.
“Fire again, Dad!” Karen’s calm voice faded, replaced by a wavering yell.
Tim obeyed.
Once again, his prey bellowed at the pain the two-legged interloper had shot into him. The elephant’s pace slowed. Twenty feet from the hunters, his knees buckled and he tumbled to the ground, which sent clouds of dust at the hunters. He tried to trumpet a farewell to his herd.
“Good shooting, Dad. Not bad for an amateur.” Karen hugged Tim after he rose from his firing position and handed her the gun.
“It’s a good thing I’m so dehydrated or I probably would have wet my pants.” Tim pinched the white trousers Karen had outfitted him in.
After taking pictures of Tim kneeling, his hands on one of the elephant’s tusks, Karen scanned the beast. “Looks like he has an abscess next to one of his teeth. No wonder Ulysses has been in such a foul mood.” She activated the tiny two-way radio she had sewn into her shirt’s lapel. “Ranger Karen Beheard to base.”
“Base here.” The response seemed to originate from her collar bone.
“Tell Dr. Lippinchild to fly out to us to operate on the elephant who’s been a bad boy. He’s fully sedated and sleeping like a baby.”
Then she pulled the half-inch long, empty tranquilizer darts out of Ulysses’ hide.
25
After meeting him at the bus station in Nairobi, Kenya, Bud listened impassively to Tim’s tale of, “going on a safari with my daughter Karen.” This miffed the hunter who had brought down a charging bull elephant, not as a trophy, but a hurting animal in need of a veterinarian.
“What’s wrong with you? You aren’t even listening to me.”
“I’m out of credits.”
“How much do we need? Where does this last Club member live?”
“She’s in Switzerland. To fly from here to Geneva is 658 credits for each of us. And that’s the cheap seats.”
Tim remembered that Bethany had said he could keep the money from any future stories during the trip. He asked his smart watch for his current bank balance.
“Fifty-one credits.”
“Looks like payment for my safari story hasn’t hit my bank account yet. I’m afraid we’re stuck here unless you call your dad to bail us out. In the meantime, we can go back and stay with Karen until he sends you the money.”
“Perhaps I may be of help?” Tor Baruti said as he stepped closer. “Instead of dropping you off at the airport like originally planned, you can fly with me to South Sudan. I have a friend there who is going by boat to Egypt. If you fly out of Cairo it would cost muc
h less than leaving from here.”
* * *
Tor’s single engine plane was forty-six years old. Bud wondered how it stayed aloft at a speed producing an illusion of hovering over Africa. The pilot’s constant yawning instead of focusing on the plane’s instruments also worried Bud.
“The Nile has its origins in the mountains to the south of here,” Tor said. “We call the river that flows from there the Bahr al-Jabal, which means the Mountain River in English.”
As the plane descended to a small landing strip at Bor, South Sudan, the sun glistened off the shallow waters of a swamp stretching for hundreds of square miles.
“That is the Sudd, one of the largest marsh areas in the world,” Tor said. “It will be the hardest part of your journey.”
* * *
Tim blinked when they boarded the thirty-four foot long boat. He had expected a modern craft with comfortable sleeping quarters and a galley stocked with plenty of food. Instead, two thin mattresses lay on the cabin’s dirty damp floor. Boxes of canned food sat, piled between the mattresses, to ensure privacy, Tim thought. No stove, refrigerator, or TV. A porta-potty foretold a “roughing it” experience.
Maybe it’ll make for a colorful story. I can title it Traveling the Nile in Style.
“Welcome aboard, I’m Monday. This is my cousin Patience. Tor said that you two need to get to Egypt?”
“Yes, how much?” Bud asked.
“Since you two are friends of Tor, you get a discount. It will cost you only 200 American credits each for lodging and all of your meals.” Monday pointed at their accommodations.
Tim checked his bank account and smiled. He ordered his smart watch to transfer 400 credits to Monday’s bank account in Lagos, Nigeria. While Monday piloted the craft toward the 300 mile long stretch of swampland, Patience explained the two passengers’ duties, including use of a laser rifle, if necessary.
“But if we’re out on the water, elephants and lions can’t get to us, right?” Tim asked.
Patience smiled. “The water holds beasts of death also. We have to cover each other while we jump into the water for a quick bath. Otherwise, crocodiles or hippos might grow angry at our invasion of their waters.”
Her skin glowed as it reflected the midday sun. She wore a blue bandana over her black hair, cut short to give insects of the Sudd fewer places to hide.
After they entered the swamp, swarms of huge mosquitos attacked them. Patience gave Bud and Tim a homemade pungent lotion to repel the blood suckers. Her poise reminded Tim of his daughter. Karen’s image now smiled at him each time he turned on his smart watch.
Monday wore a tattered hat a merchant marine captain had given him when Monday worked the docks that jutted from Nigeria into the South Atlantic. Dark glasses protected his eyes from the constant glare of the sun. His smile punctuated most of his comments.
“We work with Tor. He receives strange donations at times, like this boat. We are delivering it to the lake behind Aswan Dam to sell it. The buyers want it for their tourist business. I will tell them how it will make an excellent fishing boat.”
To save time, Monday turned from the shallow waters of the Sudd into the deep water channel bisecting the 200-mile wide swamp. The first passing vessel was a crude oil tanker bound for the refineries south of the wetlands.
“Underneath the Sudd, they have found enough oil reserves for most of Africa’s petrol needs,” Monday said as he waved at one of the tanker’s deckhands. When the deckhand shouted something to Monday in his native tongue. Monday’s smile faded.
“What’s wrong? What did he tell you?” Bud cracked his knuckles, a habit he displayed if he believed a situation might be going bad.
“They spotted pirates about an hour ago. Patience, get the laser rifle out.”
“Pirates?” Tim’s head rotated in a 360-degree arc. “Tor didn’t say anything about pirates being out here.”
“If he had, you wouldn’t have come along and we would not have enough money for petrol to get us to Egypt. Patience is a crack shot. Have faith.”
“You sound like my wife.”
“Oh, she is a Christian like Patience and me? Do you listen to your wife whenever she tells you to have faith?”
Scenes of their increasing arguments before their separation replayed in Tim’s mind. “Sometimes.” Oh, I listen all right, Tim thought. But that doesn’t mean I end up doing what she says I need to do.
* * *
As the sun neared the horizon, dinner consisted of cans of pork and beans washed down by lukewarm sodas. Bud objected when Patience threw the empty cans, paper plates, soiled napkins, and plastic silverware overboard.
“You’re polluting the swamp because of your litter.”
“We need to lighten our load to save fuel,” Patience said. “The lighter our load is, the better chance we have to outrun any pirates up ahead. Every little bit helps.” She reached for dessert, a package of cookies.
Her simple bow saved her life. The laser burst meant for her head burned a sixteenth-inch wide hole into Monday’s upper leg instead of Patience. Monday lost his grip on the wheel and collapsed to the deck. As they bent over him, blood squirted onto Tim and Bud.
Patience grabbed the pilotless wheel and spun it toward the channel’s deepest waters. Her quick action kept the boat from beaching on the thick patches of decaying vegetation next to the muddy bank. She gunned the engines to their maximum rpms while laser bursts flew past her head. Monday shook his head when Tim unlatched the first aid kit.
“There is no doctor out here in the Sudd. Without one I am finished. The laser went all the way through my leg.” He rolled up his pants enough to reveal the exit wound. “Is the pirates’ boat gaining on us?”
Bud poked his head above the rail. “Yeah, they’re closing in pretty fast.”
“They will kill Patience and me and hold you two for ransom if they catch us.” Monday turned to Patience. “Give me the grenade.”
Bud and Tim backed away when a grenade rolled to his side. “Help me up to the back rail.”
The two passengers each grabbed an arm and pulled Monday to the stern. They shouted as he did a half flip into the wash from the boat’s propeller. His body bobbed as he waved to the pirates’ vessel.
Slowing enough not to run over him, the pirates’ craft pulled alongside Monday as two laser rifles threatened the water-bound target. One of the three pirates noticed the grenade after it bounced onto the wooden deck. She was halfway over the rail when the boat exploded in a ball of yellowish orange flame.
Hoping to hide the tears streaming down her cheeks, Patience did not turn around to see the burning wreck. But the sound of the explosion caused her to throttle back to normal cruising speed. Bud stood transfixed, his hands clutching the boat’s rear metal rail.
Tim stumbled forward. “Aren’t you going back to pick up Monday?” He clutched her shoulders from behind. “We have to help him.”
“There is very little chance he survived the explosion.” Her exaggerated shrugs freed her shoulders from his grip. “Even if he did, you heard what he said. After the laser hit him, he was a dead man because there is no doctor out here in the Sudd. Anyway, the explosion might draw more pirates from the swamp, where they live like rats, and out into the channel. Monday would want us to get away. Surely you understand?”
Tim turned and cursed at the funeral pyre, which seemed ironic because it contained both Monday and the pirates who had killed him. “Then why did you slow back down?”
“To conserve fuel. We burned a lot of petrol during our run to get away from the pirates. Now I’m not sure if we will have enough to make it to the next place with petrol for sale.”
“What happens if we run out of fuel?”
“Please pray we do not.” Irritated by the questions, she gave Tim an assignment. “Use your smart watch to calculate our new rate of fuel consumption.”
As she read off the new weight of the boat and its contents and the number of gallons of gas remaining i
n its tanks and the minimum speed needed to keep it from drifting onto one of the channel’s muddy banks, Tim punched the numbers into the watch. He frowned at the results.
“According to this, we can go another 239 miles before we run out of gas. Will that get us to the place that has petrol?”
Patience pointed at the GPS unit on top of the console that stretched to either side of the wheel she held. “Put in Lake No Refueling Center for the destination and current position for the starting point.”
He obeyed. “It says 255 miles.”
“Throw the mattresses overboard and then everything that belonged to Monday. It’s there.” She pointed at a pile of belongings.
Tim tossed the one comfort for he and Bud during “our cruise from hell,” the name they had given their journey an hour after stepping aboard. He hesitated before he reached for Monday’s sea bag.
“Don’t you think we should go through Monday’s things to see if there’s anything to return to his family?”
“The sooner you get rid of it, the sooner we begin to save petrol. Then, start bailing any water we took on during our run at full speed.” She barked out her orders, keeping her back turned.
Her tears did not cease until daylight replaced darkness.
* * *
Lake No’s slow moving currents helped little after the boat’s fuel tank ran dry. So captain and passengers rotated between paddling with makeshift oars fashioned from the planking inside the cabin and steering the boat during the last seven miles to the refueling station. From there, the lake gradually narrowed into the beginning of the White Nile.
As they floated northward, Patience pointed out where the Blue Nile joined the White Nile, turning it into the Nile. Khartoum’s alternating mosques and churches seemed to challenge one another. Patience told the story of English General Charles Gordon’s doomed attempt to rescue those trying to flee from Khartoum and the Mahdi attempting to conquer the world in the name of Allah, who had slaughtered the city’s men, women, and children two centuries earlier.
