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THERE EXISTED NO FURTHER doubt: the rhino was giving her the stink eye. Alexandra stood on the safari wagon’s hood—a Holland & Holland two-barrel rifle in hand—unsure what to do.
The big bull thumped closer while Jean-Luc De Pauw busied himself with filling the gas tank. He said, “It’s scenting the grass. If he thinks we’re female, he’ll try to mount you from behind.”
“Mount me?” screeched Alexandra. “I don’t look remotely like a rhinoceros!”
“I meant the wagon. They have poor vision. If he thinks it’s a rival male, he’ll knock us to pieces.”
“I have some perfume,” Alexandra said. “Should I sprinkle it about to make the vehicle smell feminine?”
De Pauw sighed. “They have a courting process. Once he figures it out, he may just move along.” The rhino settled next to the wagon and scraped its head against the bumper. “What’s happening now?”
“Its giant apparatus is extending. It’s a good three feet in length and as limber as an elephant’s trunk. It keeps sniffing me.”
Alexandra tried to keep her balance during the amorous interlude between monster and machine. The rocking stopped, and the rhinoceros headed off. She sighed relief—it sprayed—and from twelve feet away it covered her with musk-scented urine.
De Pauw emerged from hiding. “He took a liking to you.”
Secretion dripped off her clothes. “I’m grotesque to the extreme!”
“Don’t flirt with the animals. Mount up!”
They were closing on Lake Mburo in the Sanga district of Ankole. After a train ride through the Rift Valley, they had taken the SS Usoga from Kisumu to Port Bell. Alexandra had passed the ferry cruise attending to De Pauw’s unruly eyebrows, finding revenge in his winces upon each timber plucked. At least he would not be mistaken for a forlorn gorilla down from the highlands.
After a night at the Speke Hotel, they had started a 150-mile jaunt west; the wagon weighed down with supplies. It had been near the lake that the safari party had been attacked. The Uganda Railway was extending the line from Jinja to Kampala to increase tourism. These ghosts of Tsavo could not stir further headlines.
“We’re close,” De Pauw said as the wagon’s suspension squeaked along the trail. He waved to three Buganda men walking enormously horned cattle. “They’re friendly enough, but one wonders.”
Alexandra knew by the Bugandas’ sparse dress and hard inspections that she was no longer in biddable Kampala. On the horizon stood a village. The mud and straw dwellings held thatched roofs and were circled by clay walls to fortify against raiders or carnivorous animals.
She inquired, “What should I expect?”
“Big Jim will ask you to a footrace,” De Pauw said. “He likes having someone slower at his side. Prickly sort, but an excellent shot and one who very much enjoys killing things.”
“Lovely,” responded Alexandra.
The campsite stood under a cluster of trees. A safari wagon and a lorry were parked next to five weathered tents a short distance from the lake. Hundreds of bohor reedbuck roamed close. A bare-chested man was doing pushups to an audience of uniformed askaris. He sprang to his feet and walked over. “Big Jim Gustin. No man or beast is my equal.”
“Alexandra Bathenbrook.” She hopped out of the wagon. Her hand disappeared in their shake. “Quite middling in everything at this juncture in life, I’m afraid.”
Big Jim earned his nickname at six and a half feet tall. Alexandra had never seen a more hulking man. He was a dark-haired Kiwi with trapezoids up to his ears, biceps larger than coconuts, and pecs more pronounced than her breasts. Along with the long beard, it all gave him the appearance of a yet specified hominid.
He placed on an Akubra hat and looked her over. “You sweat a lot for a woman and stink like rhino piss.”
“One scented me. We have a date to mate come Thursday.”
Big Jim did not suffer smartasses well. “No man or beast is my equal! Do you run swiftly?”
“Like a gazelle,” Alexandra said, shrinking from his presence.
Any thoughts of racing ended there. Big Jim pointed out the old cook and mentioned he had a tracker seeking the whereabouts of the man-eaters. He led her to meet the native askari colonial soldiers of the King’s African Rifles, which policed the territories.
Alexandra thought they cut a striking image in their khaki uniforms and red fezzes. She said, impressed, “It all appears a formidable military machine. We should mount invasion of Congo and teach those no-good Belgians some proper manners!”
De Pauw placed down a box. “I’m Belgian.”
She cringed. “Rightly so, Jean-Luc, with fullest apologies!”
Big Jim donned a khaki shirt. “I’ve heard of you. Have you menstruated since leaving Jerusalem?”
“Why do you ask?” she quizzed suspiciously. “Who have you been speaking to?”
“I am merely asking because—”
“Was it you lurking near the Jaffa Gate? Did you see me naked on the balcony?”
“Whatever are you talking about?” he defended. “I’ve never even been to Jerusalem!”
“Then who has informed you I engaged in sexual relations at the Hotel Fast?” Alexandra was hearing nothing in her alarm. “Do you know Liam? Did he say he was satisfied?”
“Listen here, woman,” Big Jim demanded, “I’ve heard none of these things. I ask because lions can smell blood miles off if you were in a female way. Mates wrote to me about you in Papua!”
“Woo!” Alexandra smiled. “I am relieved to hear that. To answer your inquiry, I am neither menstruating nor pregnant, and thankful for the latter after the working over I received at the Fast.”
The four soldiers looked on, bewildered.
She noticed. “Do any of the others speak English, Jean-Luc?”
“Everyone but the cook and his goat,” he informed.
Big Jim gave orders to the askaris. Three departed to download supplies while the youngest one came to attention. “This is Kizza. He will protect you.”
“A pleasure.” Alexandra extended a hand.
Kizza did not shake it. “I am good protector.”
“You have a Holland,” said Big Jim. “Can you shoot?”
She had yet to fire the powerful gun. “I’d like to get a feel for it.”
He escorted her beyond camp for a clearer view of the grazing reedbucks. Kizza followed with her suitcase. The sun hung low in the sky and the herd was migrating away from the lake. Big Jim asked, “What madness gripped you to poke about the Fly River?”
“I had little else to do that week,” was Alexandra’s evasive reply.
They stopped and took up position. Big Jim whispered, “I have a hearty appetite. Find a meaty one and fetch us dinner.”
Alexandra slid free her gun. It was a short-range weapon, more akin to a shotgun than a long rifle. She walked into the grasslands and sighted a reedbuck yet eyeing her intrusion. The gun would have a potent kick. She planted her feet in a good firing stance: weight forward, elbows tucked, the stock pressed hard into her shoulder. She steadied her aim, took in a deep breath, and then lowered the rifle.
“One should pick out his own cut at the butcher shop.”
Big Jim laughed, raised his scoped rifle, and fired. The reedbuck toppled as the rest of the herd fled. He left to claim his bounty. “These lions won’t hesitate. What is the count, Kizza?”
“Eighty-four,” the young askari voiced.
Alexandra stopped walking. “Eighty-four what?”
“People,” Big Jim clarified. “Three lions, eighty-two natives, and one order of Italian takeout. The average Banyankole is a bony meal, but lions have acquired a taste for them.”
Alexandra knew he was speaking of the slave trade. The trail from interior Africa to the coast was a death march. She had learned that only one in five taken in chains survived it. “When will we face them?”
“Soon.” He stopped at the kill and held out his rifle. “Take this. Sight something and shoot it.”
Alexandra took hold of the weapon. She had never used a scoped rifle. Once lining up a zebra, it seemed iniquitous that man had introduced such lethal technology into the hunting equation. There was no longer any sport to it. She lowered the rifle.
“Killing for pleasure is repugnant.”
“Aren’t you precious?” Big Jim lifted the reedbuck onto his shoulders and reclaimed his rifle. “Go wash up. If you don’t get out of those clothes soon, you’ll smell like elephant fart.”
Alexandra scowled as he left for camp. She knew it often required rugged men to get dastardly tasks completed but cared little for gloating. She noticed Kizza walking with a limp as they headed for the lake. A poorly wrapped wound dripped below his khaki field shorts.
“Your bandage needs changing.”
“Thornbush. Kizza is well.” The lake was enormous and the prime gathering spot for the entire region. He set down Alexandra’s suitcase and pointed to a muddy pool of water apart from the shoreline. “I stand guard and look to camp.”
Alexandra caught a twitchy reflection of the setting sun glinting off binoculars. While washing would reduce the chances she’d find a rhinoceros sharing her cot, stripping down would increase the odds she might wake to the Kiwi canoodling her. With only two sets of clothing, it was easy to select her next wardrobe, and she went about disrobing. It had felt liberating wearing pants, but it was back to a skirt. Once a fresh linen shirt was buttoned, she started cleaning her soiled clothes in the murky puddle.
“Do you like the army, Kizza?”
“Army is good for Kizza. It has taught me many things.”
The sun was taking its toll, despite her slouch hat. Alexandra entered the shallows of the pristine lake and doused her neck before getting back to work on her clothing.
“Hey-hey-hey!” Kizza raced over. “Finish promptly.”
Not thirty seconds passed before the head of a hippopotamus popped up twenty yards out like the deck of a submarine breaching the ocean surface.
Alexandra rose from her crouch and retreated to dry footing. They headed for camp.
“I’ve been told Big Jim likes to keep close slow runners.”
“It used to be Odezza,” Kizza said. “Big Jim bother herd of buffalo. Poor Odezza trampled.”
“Your leg will heal faster, re-wrapped,” she said. “Until it does, I will not abandon you if you’re in peril.”
Kizza stopped in his tracks. “You do so for me?”
“Of course. Soon enough, if Big Jim stirs trouble, we’ll be able to outrun him together.”
—‡—
THE LANDSCAPE OF UGANDA was beautiful, perilous, and telling. Situated between the yellow savannahs of Kenya and the lush green jungles of remote Congo, it shared features of both, as if their olive-shaded offspring. Over her three days of walking the grasslands and forested inclines, Alexandra could see how a more foliaged terrain hindered tracking anything down. However exhausting these treks were, constants had filled her every step: the brutal sun beating down, wildlife mingling mere feet away, potential hazards lurking in nature’s camouflage.
She paused under an olea tree and checked its branches for any leopards or green mambas. After a sip from her canteen, she doused a handkerchief to cool her skin. Her camera hung around her neck, and she had bagged excellent photographs of wildlife.
What pleased her most, however, was the birding. Along the lake’s vibrant wetlands, she had scored an African finfoot, cormorant, and a papyrus yellow warbler. Only a shoebill stork remained on her must-see list. Such experiences would be all-satisfying if she were not here to photograph dead lions.
Alexandra pressed her hands to her knees and threw up.
Kizza circled slowly, knowing threats most often came from the flanks. “Miss okay?”
She wiped her mouth, feeling dizzy. “As fit as a sunburnt fiddle.”
Each morning they had broken camp, driven into the hinterlands, and tracked for footprints. These daylong walkabouts had given Alexandra time to share small talk with Big Jim, who, however uncouth, was serious in his work. He joined her in the shade, frustrated. Somewhere drudging to their left were Jean-Luc and two askaris, hoping to flush out the lions in a pincer movement. They were all becoming worn down.
“Are these the most menacing killers you’ve tracked?” Alexandra asked, trying to catch her wind.
“Nah... I once bounced a dozen shots off a saltwater croc named Matilda,” Big Jim related. “She still slipped away.”
“How do you know if a crocodile is male or female? Do they have pronounced genitalia?”
He scratched his head, finding no answer. “It ate forty men in Queensland. Only a woman has such wrath. These lions are young males, but have nothing on a sixteen-foot, thousand-pound croc.”
“Your tracker...” She threw up again. “I’ve yet to meet him.”
“He’s ahead of us. Might spear all three if we don’t pick up our pace.” Big Jim gulped from his canteen. “He is of the Kavirondo tribe. You’ll know him when you see him.”
A shot echoed, followed by multiple volleys.
Alexandra confirmed she was good to go.
They headed in a measured gallop through the grasslands, rifles loose and at the ready. They slowed their approach.
Big Jim shouted, “Jean-Luc! Which way?”
“We got one! The others have fled out of range.”
They walked in close formation to the kill. The lion was breathing its last—two well-placed holes gushing red across its broadside. The beast’s fledgling mane pegged it at three years old. Despite its youth, it was a large specimen: stocky, muscular, and eight feet in length.
The panting stopped, and it lay still; its snout covered in dried blood. Flies gathered.
Big Jim gruffly said, “It’s getting late. Get the wagon so we can bring it back to camp.”
“Well done, Jean-Luc!” Alexandra cheered. The sprint had left her wobbly. She motioned for him and Big Jim to kneel next to the dead lion. It was just what the Uganda Railway had ordered.
“One down and two to go,” Jean-Luc bellowed.
Big Jim lifted his rifle, took aim, and shot a monkey out of a distant tree. “Bugger you all!”
“Shhh!”
It was Kizza who called for silence. They all joined in, scouring the terrain with their ears and eyes. The disgruntled roars again sounded. “These are bad lions,” he warned. “Lions do not act this way.”
Alexandra photographed her askari; his dark silhouette well-defined in the waning African sun. Everything turned blurry.
She placed her camera away and worried that the wrong mosquito had found her, and she was feeling the onset of something dreadful, such as “sleeping sickness” or Yellow fever.
Kizza turned and stepped toward her, alarm filling his eyes.
Upon hearing the safari wagon’s rattling shocks, Alexandra flashed a relieved smile and passed out into his awaiting arms.