Luana Page 9

  “You heard me, brother. Killer of rats. Destroyer of snails. Slayer of . . .”

  It was already too much for Jukakhan. The lion took another step forward and leaped. Chaugh rose to meet him, and the two cats went head over heels into the brush.

  “Chaugh! Jukakhan! Stop this insanity! Do you understand me, stop it!”

  She followed quickly, trying to get between them as they tumbled over and over through the undergrowth. It was impossible, like trying to separate a hurricane from its eye.

  Something wet and slimy hit her on the back of the neck. She reached back and her hand came away with a mass of sticky pulp. Just above and behind, Ohoh danced and chattered on a high branch.

  “Hah, sister, how do you like my arguments, hmmm?” He threw another of the overripe fruits and she just managed to dodge it. There were plenty of the fruit trees around. But there was also a goodly supply of the sweetish, rotting fruit lying on the ground.

  As the two cats spun through the brush, a tornado of black and brown, she and Ohoh exchanged pot shots. Luana could throw harder and with more accuracy than the chimp. However, Ohoh made a small target and was incredibly agile besides. Before long both were liberally dosed with sticky green syrup and tiny seeds.

  Luana feinted and the chimp darted behind the trunk of one of the trees. She dashed quickly underneath. Ohoh leaned out, looking for her. When he saw nothing, he leaned further, trying cautiously to see around the bole of the next tree. As he did so, a not so rotten fruit hit him square behind one ear and knocked him clean off the branch. He got up slowly from the fall, holding his head with both hands.

  “Oooo,” he moaned. “Ohoh is killed. Ohoh is dead!”

  “Ohoh is covered with rotten fruit!” laughed Luana, rushing past him.

  Now to do something about those two obstreperous brothers of hers! A vine, another, and she was on a limb just above them. She measured the drop and distance carefully, then stepped off the branch. The biggest fruit she could find she held high over her head, a fat green specimen nearly as large as a pumpkin.

  As she landed on Chaugh’s back she brought the fruit down with both hands and hit Jukakhan right between the eyes. Sap and pulp and seeds flew in all directions. The lion roared in surprise and backed free, shaking its head and blinking. Then he lay down and began to rub at the sticky mess with his paws.

  Chaugh pranced and darted and threw himself every which way in the bushes. Luana clamped her thighs tight to the panther’s muscular sides and buried her hands in his neck, refusing to let go. River monster hadn’t been able to break that grip. Neither could Chaugh. He finally ran out of steam and sank exhausted to the ground, crunching leaves and twigs with his belly.

  She leaned over and whispered in one pointed ear, flicking it with a finger.

  “Had enough?”

  Panting heavily, Chaugh turned and stared back at her. He closed his eyes, reopened them.

  “Enough. Very well, I shall go with you. But I still think you are a fool, sister.”

  “Now that,” she admitted, leaning lower and licking his ear, “was never in question.”

  The panther twisted its head back and lapped at her cheek with a broad red rasp of a tongue.

  Chapter VI

  Barrett’s guess about the big river was off in time but not substance. It was slow moving, but deep and wide. It also housed an unhealthily large population of hungry crocs. While there were plenty of sturdy trees about, their slingbridge was not long enough. Barrett couldn’t have thrown it halfway across anyway, and the torpid current stayed in the center of the stream. They couldn’t drift a line across.

  Barrett scratched his neck and examined the scene unhappily. He’d been expecting this, but that made the reality no less pleasant.

  “We’ll have to build a raft,” he finally confessed. “I don’t like the delay it’ll cost us, but there’s no other way. At least decent wood is plentiful.”

  “Surely,” said Albright, “you don’t expect us to cross this barrier on anything so fragile as a temporary, unpowered craft?” He indicated a large crocodile swimming lazily past. It must have been a good five meters long.

  “I sure as hell don’t intend to swim it, Albright.” Barrett started to walk away—he had work to do—but the chemist wasn’t finished.

  “Mr. Barrett, I must protest. Seriously protest!”

  Murin and Isabel looked over. Barrett turned and put hands on hips, eyed the scientist squarely.

  “Well now, you just go ahead and protest, Albright,” he invited the other. “I tell you what. I’m a reasonable man. I certainly don’t want to force anyone into something against his will.”

  “It’s not myself I’m thinking of, you understand. It’s Miss Hardi.”

  “Oh, I never doubted that for a moment, Norman.” He looked thoughtful. “Tell you what. If you want to turn around now and go back, I’ll give you enough food and ammunition and basics to get you safely back to Nairobi. How’s that? I’ll even send a couple of the fellas back with you to help you cross the gorge.”

  Frustrated, Albright turned and made one last plea to Isabel.

  “My dear, I think we’ve done all that can reasonably be expected of us, and more. To chance a crossing like this, well, I just don’t like to think of what might happen to you.”

  She smiled back at him. “That’s sweet of you, Norman. I appreciate your concern, I really do. But I feel more certain now than ever that Mr. Barrett and Mr. Murin would not let me attempt anything they felt unsafe for themselves.”

  “Oh no?” said Albright, laughing too loudly. “That’s priceless! Didn’t you know that he’d been in this country just a few weeks before you hired him. That everyone in his party was killed except him?”

  Isabel turned, stared at Barrett in disbelief. He didn’t turn away. There was no reason to.

  “That’s right, Izzy. I thought you knew.”

  “No,” she said softly. “That’s one piece of information no one volunteered when I asked about you.”

  There was an awkward silence. Neither moved. But when he spoke he looked at her evenly.

  “This is your ball game, Izzy. If you want to turn back, we’ll go back.”

  She chewed her lower lip, stared back at him. Albright and Kobenene watched anxiously. When she finally spoke it was not to demand or curse, but to question.

  “Do . . . do you think it’s going to get dangerous?”

  Barrett blinked, stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then he began to chuckle. The chuckle turned into a belly laugh, the laugh into a roar. Soon he was holding his sides. He had to sit down to keep from falling there.

  “What’s so funny, Mr. Barrett sir!” she demanded. “Just what’s so funny?”

  “ ‘Going to get dangerous,’ oh boy! Whee-oooo!” He coughed, wiped at his eyes. “Listen, Izzy, what do you think it’s been since we left Mpanda? Any day since then, any minute, we might have encountered the wrong bug, the wrong snake, the wrong quadruped—worse, the wrong men, and somebody could have gotten hurt. Or gotten dead. We’ve been damn lucky so far, and I hope like hell it holds. But ‘get dangerous’? My God, we haven’t been out of danger since we left the land rovers!”

  Still laughing, he walked away to help unbind their set of axes. Murin ambled over to her, smiling.

  “He thinks very highly of you, Miss Hardi. Do we continue on?”

  “What?” She finally noticed him. She looked over at Albright, considered what he’d said. He was watching her.

  “We go on, Murin.” She patted his shoulder. The Breeded smiled; the chemist cursed, but no one heard him.

  It took most of the day to build the raft. Several trees had to be felled, sectioned, and roughly trimmed. Then suitable vines had to be found and cut while the logs were being moved to the water’s edge. Each log had to be tied tightly at top and bottom, and then five cross-logs bound to these across the top. It was unbeautiful and utilitarian and slippery. But it floated.

  It had plen
ty of room and four long, tough limbs for poling. The first shipment was piled on, stacked neatly in the center. Barrett, Isabel, Albright, and two of the bearers would take it across on this first trip. Albright refused to handle a pole, so Barrett and the two bearers had to do all the work. The others gave the raft a healthy shove, and then they were out in the river.

  “It’s magnificent,” breathed Isabel softly. She’d forgotten, at least temporarily, her last river experience. She turned and observed that Barrett was watching the water worriedly.

  “You’re not really worried about the crocodiles, are you? I don’t know much about them, but I wouldn’t imagine they’d try to come up onto the raft.”

  “No, they wouldn’t,” he replied, and she was startled at the tightness in his voice. “That’s what I’m worried about.” He pointed downstream.

  A colony of nostrils, ears, and eyes floated nearby, much too near for Barrett’s liking. Then nostrils and ears and eyes rose in concert, framing a colossal mouth. It opened to reveal a dark cavern not quite as big as Carlsbad. The monstrous yawn concluded, it slowly closed and sank back into the water.

  The colony moved closer, effortlessly. Small brown islands became visible behind deceptively comical faces.

  “Hippo,” noted Barrett unnecessarily.

  Nothing happened until they were two-thirds of the way across the river. And to Isabel’s eyes, nothing happened even then. But Barrett had lived with wildlife long enough to, if not converse with them, at least to recognize signs, interpret gestures, evaluate movement.

  One hippo had been drifting parallel to them for the last twenty meters, edging closer and closer all the while. He might only be curious. You couldn’t tell what a river horse thought, or even if a river horse thought. Sure, he was only curious, mildly interested in this strange flat intruder of its realm.

  On the other hand, if this were the rutting season . . .

  Barrett quietly pulled his pole from the water and laid it gently on the raft. He spoke to the two men still poling, advising them to move easily and without sudden flurries. They didn’t have to be told. They’d spotted the convoying hippo also.

  “Something the matter, Mr. Barrett?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all,” he said soothingly. Keeping his eyes on the hippo, he reached for the top case and brought out the Express. Cradling it under an arm, he sat down on a crate full of canned food. The men doing the poling glanced over their shoulders now and then. The raft continued to move smoothly across the water, but a little faster now. An occasional glance at the crocodilian shoreline ahead inspired their muscles if not their confidence.

  There was no warning. No flashing sign of animosity, no bellow of anger, no indications of murderous intent. The hippo simply turned and charged, enormous jaws agape, for the flimsy raft. It would find out when the logs went to separate pieces that this was no intruding male hippo. That would do its passengers no good. The crocodiles would not respect remorse.

  The Express thundered once, twice. Down hippo. At the booming the sky grew freckled with frightened birds. Every croc on the shore dashed into the river. They too were scared. Soon they would discover the gigantic corpse and then the quiet water would boil to the carnage of a reptilian witchs’ sabbath.

  Provided Barrett’s shots had struck home. He didn’t bother to reload. A second chance wouldn’t come. He simply watched the wood under his feet, waiting, waiting. If the shots had gone true, he’d continue to wait. If they’d missed, or only wounded, then his feet would rise rapidly towards his face.

  The raft continued on its way unmolested. Isabel moaned and pointed. A bleeding, ruined carcass, the hippo had come up on the other side of the raft. Then the crocs found it. Isabel stood it well. She didn’t throw up until they’d made the farther shore. At least the dead hippo had one benign effect: it had cleared the beach of any lingering reptiles.

  “Funny, isn’t it?” murmured Barrett, holding her. She was softer and fitted his arms better than the Express. “How it’s not the big cats or great apes or obvious carnivores who’re the really dangerous ones, but the supposedly harmless vegetarians.” He felt odd motion, looked down at her in surprise.

  “Hey Izzy, you’re shivering.”

  She jerked away, wrapping both arms tightly across her chest.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay.” She paused, looked back almost shyly. “It’s been hard for me, you know. Father never took me with him on his trips here. I always lived with relatives or friends. The only wild country I’ve seen until now is Central Park. And because of Dad’s reputation, everyone always expected me to know all about jungles and rain forests and such.”

  He climbed back on the raft and she spoke nervously.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  “Not to Central Park. I’ve got to go back to the other side.” He patted the Express. “This is the only thing we’ve got that’ll stop a hippo. I don’t think we’ll have any more trouble.” He was squinting at the shining water.

  “Shots seemed to have scared ’em away. But hippos are completely unpredictable.” He smiled comfortingly. “Don’t worry, Izzy, I’ll be back.”

  He required two more trips to transfer the rest of the expedition and their considerable supplies. Then Murin, Barrett, and the entire complement of bearers got together and dragged the soggy craft up on shore. They’d need it for the return trip.

  In contrast to the nervous river crossing, the peaceful camp was an island of tranquillity. The clearing was perfect, high enough to provide good runoff in case of a sudden shower, practically devoid of big ants and other crawling intruders.

  Nearby was even a fresh-water spring, bubbling merrily out of a crack between two small boulders. While their stored water was perfectly acceptable, it always lacked something in the taste department. So did boiled river water.

  Albright attempted to establish some claim to usefulness by making a “chemical analysis” of the spring’s content—just in case. For once, Barrett smiled instead of heckling him. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for the scientist. So far the man had been utterly useless and was obviously feeling the strains of inadequacy. If fooling around with a few samples of undeniably pure spring water made him happy, well, it was harmless enough. And it would keep him out of everyone else’s hair.

  Barrett was cleaning out the Express in the last caressing light of late evening when Isabel strolled over. The girl seemed to have something on her mind.

  “Can I talk to you, George?”

  Barrett tapped the small can and put some cleaning oil on a crumpled piece of cloth. He put the cloth on the end of a metal rod and rammed it down the barrel.

  “I can’t stop you,” he replied. When nothing was forthcoming, he paused and looked up from his work.

  “Well?”

  “In private.”

  “Private? Well, well . . . if you’d like to step into my personal office, here.” He indicated the tent, which was anything but a confidential hideaway.

  She stamped her foot. The woman was full of odd habits, he reflected.

  “Can’t you be serious for once?”

  He hoped he looked understanding, because he was going to try and make her the same. Carefully he stood the rifle stock first against a sturdy case, then put both hands on her shoulders and looked down at her.

  “I know you think I’m, well, flip at the strangest times, Izzy. But if you get serious all the time about this country you find yourself getting nervous all the time, and then worried all the time, and then frightened. This isn’t a good place to be always nervous and frightened. It causes serious accidents.

  “So you’ll pardon me if I don’t get serious. The boys are through with the household work. Let’s go to the spring.”

  His arm went around her waist as though it were the most natural thing in the world. It rested there with the comforting weight of an old blanket as they started down the short path cut through the brush.

  She stared up at him curiously,
mulling over his little speech in her mind.

  “You? Frightened? I can’t imagine you frightened, certainly not of this country.”

  His laughter was more eloquent than talk.

  “This ‘country’ has nearly killed me three times now. Fear is worse, you know, because it’s so pointless. It overrides everything else and then you can’t think. Fright is much milder, and combined with nervousness it can make an awkward moment into a fatal one. But it’s safer. Yes, I’ve been frightened. It’s a healthier out.”

  “I’m still not sure I believe you,” she said, stepping over a cut vine. “You seem a part of the land.”

  “Barrett, the landmark?” he smiled. Then he turned thoughtful. “No, no. We’re polite enemies at best, I think. Now, that girl,” and he looked into the quiet forest, “wherever the hell she came from, she is a part of the land. Wish I knew how she controlled those cats. Either one of ’em would bring a small fortune from a major zoo. And what one of the game hunters would pay—but I couldn’t do it.”

  “I didn’t think you were that much of a conservationist,” she murmured.

  “Conservationist, hell!” Then, more quietly, “I’m for animal management, of course. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. So you can go ahead and weed out a few elephants here, a couple of big cats there. That way everybody’s happy, and guys like me stay in business. But not those two cats. Not those two.”

  “And why not those two?” she countered curiously. “Because of her?”

  “Partly,” he confessed. “And also because I think they saved my life, once.”

  Conversation lapsed until they reached the spring. The ground nearby was dry and covered with thick, short grass. It was an ideal spot not because of the spring, not because of the grass, but because in this kind of country you rarely found water without finding mosquitoes. But they weren’t here, and both Barrett and Isabel were grateful.

  He sat down and smiled encouragingly. This kind of talking things out, mental catharsis, was new to him.

  “What was it you wanted to talk to me about—in private?”