I sat upright and gasped for breath, heaving off the nightmarish leopard that had climbed through the window and had just pounced on my face. I scrutinized the gap in the open window to be sure that a leopard indeed couldn’t fit through, before daring to get out of Jon’s bed.
Outside on the street, a barking dog had reached a crescendo. It was still dark, but I could tell I’d slept longer than intended. I was afraid to look at my watch to confirm.
Jon’s leg surgery was expected to last five hours, and the rangers had insisted that I get some rest. I wanted to stay close by, so Jon had given me the key to his house. I was so tired I could barely get my blood-soaked clothes off before collapsing into bed, intending to take a short nap. I couldn’t even remember the flight back, as if someone else had been piloting the plane. I remember wishing I had taken a shower before sleeping, but my soiled hands and blood-matted hair made it clear that that hadn’t happened.
Shooting someone at point-blank range is terrible enough, but it was all the more so, as after I shot Geldenhuis, I had stumbled over the strut of the airplane. I twisted my ankle and fell hard on my back, hitting my head on the edge of a small rock. It was a tiny gash, but the bleeding was unstoppable.
When we landed at Mpacha and I stepped out of the pilot’s side with a blood-covered face, the rangers were more worried about me than they were about Jon. And his wound was life-threatening; mine just needed a stitch.
As I waited for the shower to warm up, I almost did a double take in the mirror. When the nurse put the stitch in my head, I wasn’t really paying attention, but in retrospect, surely someone could have done me the favor of wiping the blood off my face? I looked like I had just come off the set of a cheap horror movie. It was too scary to look myself in the eye, so I looked down as I waited for the water to heat up.
I ran the tap all the way opened, and splashed water several times before the blood turned from a thick crust of brown on my face to a river of red in the sink. I kept flushing and flushing, until the smell of steam from the shower invited me in. In a few hours, the thought of a hot shower would be unthinkable, but for now, the cool morning allowed me to boil the devil off my skin.
By the time I got to the hospital, the rangers were sitting with Jon in the recovery room. His leg was elevated and wrapped as thick as a tree trunk. The rangers got up when I entered and Jon laughed at the sight of me. “My bed was that uncomfortable?”
I smiled and put a small vase next to his bed. “I see you don’t need cheering up.” I touched his hand as I passed, bringing him the only two flowers that had been growing in his garden.
“We’ve got news.” Gidean beamed.
“Did you figure out who was in the boat?” I sat down.
Gidean shook his head.
“Any word on Ernest?”
Eli shook his head. “Nothing. He’s probably deep within the Lower Luangwe Valley by now.”
“What’s the news?”
“We caught Alvares at the border of Botswana with a hundred more tusks,” Gidean replied.
“Where was he keeping them?”
“Hippo Lodge, near the bank of the river. The police found the hole where they had been dug up.”
“Did he say anything?”
Jon piped in. “Couldn’t get much out of him except that they were trying to fill the Dollar Store container destined for Hong Kong. The Botswana deal was the last of it. But after last night, they were trying to dispense with the rest in smaller lots.”
I thought back to the poor view that I had had of the two men in the boat while they tied the boat to the dock the previous night. The other man couldn’t have been Alvares. Alvares was short and stout. This other man was tall and slim. “So, who could have been in the boat with Geldenhuis?”
Jon shook his head. “Don’t know yet.”
“Alvares could be a key witness in this whole thing, right?”
Eli shook his head. “He says he’ll take his chances in prison. If he talks, he’ll be dead as soon as the door to his cell is opened.”
“We found Lin floating in the river this morning,” Gidean agreed.
“Mr. Lin is dead?” Geldenhuis’s words rung in my head. Mr. Lin is just a triad puppet. I had been shocked at his mention that someone much bigger than him was involved in the ivory smuggling ring, even bigger than Mr. Lin.
Jon nodded. “Alvares knows what’s in store for him.” He reached over and played with the limp petals on the flowers I had brought him.
“But Lin hadn’t said anything yet.” I thought back to the last time I saw Lin. Nigel was in his office complaining about the quality of his game guard uniforms.
I watched Jon’s fingers caressing orange flowers and laughed. “Sorry, they look pretty tired.” To me they looked like dead stalks of weeds with a few sprigs of wilted orange here and there, but Jon loved them because they were native. He kept complaining that the few native flowers that there were in the region were being choked out by invasive aliens such as bougainvillea. I had hesitated to cut them, but decided to when I saw a few more were about to bloom.
He smiled. “They look about how I feel right now.”
I suddenly remembered the surgery. “Oh my gosh, I didn’t even ask. How did it go?”
Gidean winced. “Doc says to expect a long bed rest.”
“I refuse to convalesce amongst the hounds of the Baskervilles,” Jon announced.
I laughed. “What did you have in mind?”
Jon smiled devilishly. “I’ve decided that your porch would make a stunning recovery room.” He clasped his hands over his bandage. “I will get a head start on recipes for the Sated Rabbit. But we’ll need that refrigerator.”
“I think that could be arranged.” I tried to keep an even tone, while thrilled at the thought of a long, uninterrupted stay at Susuwe together.
“Too late.” Jon waved his hand. “It’s already been arranged.” His eyes beamed with boyish excitement. “The guys are going to drive me out later this morning.”
“That’s a pretty fast discharge, isn’t it?”
“Eli has it all sorted.” He looked at Eli. “Haven’t you, Eli?”
Eli nodded.
Jon tried to sit up, but instead winced and grabbed his leg.
I rushed to his side. “Are you sure you’re going to be able to move so soon?”
“If I don’t fly out of this place, I promise you, a coffin will leap from behind the door and gobble me up. One of those Invasion of the Body Snatchers deals.”
We all laughed as Natembo covered his face and shook his head.
“I promise you. Can’t you hear that banging in the background?” He knocked his knuckles on the edge of his dinner tray, slow and methodically, like the hammering of a nail.
I refocused my attention on the ambient noise and looked out the louvered window at the gray sand littered with garbage and goats. There was indeed the banging of a hammer emanating from the back of the hardware store.
“It’s Caprivi’s Tell-Tale Heart, banging out fresh coffins every morning.” He knocked, knocked, knocked, and then used both hands to knock just out of sync. “Somebody had their thinking cap on, placing the hardware store so close to the customer. This place is a death trap and the only way out is to claw your own exit plan.” Jon clawed at the air and burst out laughing. “In fact, you’d better hide that stitch of yours, or they’ll try to admit you for observation,” he teased. “The white ward is a boon for the doctoring business around here.”
“You’re going to sneak out, aren’t you?” I whispered.
Jon smiled.
I laughed as I looked beyond the hardware store to the bank and remembered the sign COFFINS WITH WREATHS posted at the ATM machine when I was getting money just before the elephant census. It seemed like so long ago when Jon had been joking to Nigel and me about some of the misconceptions about HIV. I remembered Nigel laughing and readjusting his cap. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen him at Sianga’s funeral. Why hadn’t he gone? Something else started surfacing in my subconscious. That cap. Not too many people in the region wore a cap like that.
“You look kilometers away.” Jon touched my arm. “Do you not want me at your place?”
I snapped out of my fog. “Gidean, would you mind accompanying me on an errand?”
Gidean got up.
“I hope you’re not going out to Susuwe to make your place livable.” Jon smiled. “Please, no curtains on my account.”
My mind was racing. Why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? It might already have been too late. “Not to worry, Jon, we’ll be back in the afternoon.” I nodded a good-bye.
“And no curtains, right?” Jon called out after me.
“Right,” I called back, my mind halfway to Singalamwe, wondering what I was going to say when I got there.