Proud Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 2) (9 page)

So Dee’s stubborn mind
could
be changed. Maybe not willingly and maybe not for reasons I could fully understand, but it
was
changeable. I allowed myself a full minute of satisfaction as we jounced along to the
dambo
after circling around to the camp to pick up an empty cooler.

Yeah, I was developing an affinity for that not-so-little lion cub, in those awkward teenage years of his. No longer the cute baby with the big eyes whose every antic was doted on by the proud family, but a gangly youngster not yet maned trying to discover his place in the pride.

I bet it would surprise Dee, but I empathized with Caesar a lot more than I did with Brutus. Not that the older male wasn’t a handsome guy, but he was establishment—boring in his way, even with his harem. In fact,
because
of his harem, since they were the ones who saw to his comforts and satisfied his needs.

It wasn’t Brutus who’d gone after the leopard who’d almost killed his son, after all. Maybe he was king enough to fight for his title once or twice a year and mate just often enough to ensure a legacy; otherwise, his seemed to be a life of disinterested sameness.

The same kind of life Caesar was no doubt headed for. Right now, though, there still seemed to be so much possibility with him, so much potential. A stab of pride warmed me knowing that I had a part in allowing that potential to continue on. I now felt as responsible for his future as the lionesses who loved and catered to him. A Big Brother, of sorts.

It had become personally important to me that this particular cub survive.

Likewise, it was important to Dee as well, although for different reasons. She could cite rules and ethics and high moral ground till she was blue in the face, but those words were nothing more than a script to her. She might spout them beautifully and believably. If method acting, she might even immerse herself in them and in her part so fully as to believe them herself at some level. But losing yourself in a role that wasn’t the core person that you were could tear you apart if you immersed too long in it.

If I could get her to put down her script and improvise her life more, allow her to experience life beyond the small stage she was on now, maybe she’d discover the same possibility and potential for her future as I could imagine for Caesar.

I grinned. Here I was orchestrating lives. Maybe I had a future as a movie director.

Stepping out of the Range Rover at the water’s edge, only a few dozen yards from a herd of grazing springboks, we were hit full in the nose by the strong, deep smell of smoke. No hint this, but an enveloping blanket that swaddled us in the pungent burn of the air.

It had been insidious, rolling in on us like a leopard on it prey, with changes so subtle they were like trying to discover a spotted fur coat stalking through the spotted shadows.

Dee’s wide eyes met mine, then we were grabbing our binoculars and swinging them across the horizons.

“There!” She pointed to the east, toward the low hills that had sung beneath the lightning. Only what she pointed to wasn’t nearly so far as those distant hills, and I didn’t need her finger guide to see the black smoke billowing over the thorn bushes and tall acacias.

Something must have shifted in the wind, for suddenly the springboks’ delicate heads lifted simultaneously, as though they were all controlled by a single muscle. As a herd, they stared east, from the horned adults to the spindle-legged fawns, alerted in a way the growl of our 4X4 and the sound of the doors clicking open hadn’t alarmed them in the least.

That chilled me.

Beside me, Dee had already exchanged her binoculars for the handheld and was filming the springboks. The camera was still trained on them when they bounded away—maybe not in panic but certainly in a hurry—those amazing legs of theirs propelling them across the veldt in great leaps that ate the ground with surprising speed.

Behind them, a long, low streak skirted the pond like a golden ribbon, following them from east to west.

“A mongoose!”

The sudden screech from a handful of vervet monkeys in a nearby date palm apparently arguing about whether they should leave or not nearly drowned Dee’s voice.

The scamper of six little silver bodies down the trunk and across the veldt told me the argument had been settled.

I looked back to the east. Atop a rise at the lip of the
dambo
’s swale maybe only a mile away, my binoculars picked out an orange flicker among the low grasses. The fire’s vanguard. A herd of zebra arrowed directly across its path, heading north.

Suddenly, the distant fire, which had been a curiosity only, became very real.

And it was headed our way.

I jumped into the Range Rover. Dee, however, stood, transfixed, behind her camera.

“Get in!” I yelled. “Let’s go!”

Her addiction to that camera ran deep.

“We have to save the camp.” I shouted at her. “We have to—”
Oh damn.
“Caesar!”

That broke through to her even as I was processing it myself.

She slid into the driver’s seat. For a moment I had no idea which way she’d take us first.

It was the camp.

For what little we had, it seemed to take forever to strike it all.

“Use the backseat only, nothing in the cargo bay,” Dee instructed as she piled her tents and the camp stove in. I stuffed in Gary’s tent and mine on top of the generator, with the satellite array on top of it all. Not even a week old, Reena’s tent and the supply tent would be our sacrifices to the Fire Gods.

A hurried glance over my shoulder saw the nearby swell of the veldt to the east now limned in flames. A sharp
crack
echoed down to us as the fire split one of the dry tambotie trees.

We threw the last of the equipment and supplies into the backseat and raced to the escarpment. Dee dared the SUV in a few more yards than usual, but we both knew those tires might be our only lifeline out and risking them and the chassis any closer to the rocked terrain would be a fool’s move.

She tossed a heavy ground cloth into my hands before grabbing the air rifle and the black case.

That quarter of a mile up to the lions’ escarpment seemed a helluva lot farther when I thought about the return trip.

As we crept closer to where we’d left Reena’s camera on its tripod, it became clear the lions were already restless. Portia paced the ridge shading Caesar from above. Cleo was circling her brother while their aunt stood at the top of the ridge sniffing the smoke-laden wind. At the base of the ledge, Nana and Brutus stood shoulder to tawny shoulder, Brutus
whuffing
his displeasure over the interference to his day’s agenda of napping followed by more napping.

Caesar’s head was up, alert to the agitation around him.

“That’s a good sign, yes?”

Dee nodded. “Maybe he’s not hurt as badly as we thought.”

When I looked back to the east, smoke blanketed the entire berm now and was curling across the savanna toward us, riding close to the low flames that blackened the grass and climbed the thorn bushes and acacia trees in its way. The wind had picked up, which was why there was no stately column of smoke to mark the fire’s progress. Flames and smoke both were being blown our way.

Ground squirrels raced past us and a flock of hornbills squawked their way overhead.

Sheba leapt down from rock to rock, and the cub’s mom joined her, the two lionesses and Cleo pacing around Caesar, spurring him up. With effort, he gained his feet.

The lionesses trotted off, stopping a few yards away, waiting for Nana and Brutus and the cub to join them. The older lioness and lion ambled along, their gaits only hurrying when another distant
crack
shivered the air as a half-dead acacia tree exploded from the heat.

Portia trotted half-way back to her cub,
whuffing
encouragement.

I reached for Dee’s hand, not even realizing I’d done so until I’d felt her fingers squeeze mine.

Caesar took one faltering step, then two.

His mom
whuffed
again.

Gamely, Caesar took a third step, breaking out of the brush where we could better see him. Could better see the deep punctures to his neck and shoulder and see how his right paw curled high between his third step and the fourth. He didn’t even try to put his injured leg down, reluctant to endure the pain from his mauled forequarter.

That he wanted to obey his mom and follow wherever she and others led was evident in his heartbreakingly expressive eyes.

Portia padded the last couple of yards between them and rolled her big head under his chin. She licked his neck, his ears and muzzle before
whuffing
a soft goodbye.

Then she turned, gathered the others with nothing more than a look, and they were gone, without another parting glance.

I stood, frozen, as stunned as Caesar seemed to be.

“They left him.”

Five tawny tails disappeared into the tall grass to the north.

My shoulders slumped.

“They left him.”

“Which is what we’ll have to do, too, if you don’t get your butt in gear.” I looped my thin belt through the camera strap to turn the handheld into as much of a bodycam as I could.

Another glance to the east where the Range Rover sat between us and the racing fire told me we might already be too late. How was it possible the fire could have moved so fast?

Kneeling quickly, I lifted the rifle to my shoulder to sight it. Beside me, Chris knelt and opened the black case I’d carried in.

“Blue dart,” I told him. They were half-dose of the tranquilizer cocktail the red ones carried.

I fitted the dart Chris passed into my hand into the rifle chamber while the cub stood, still stunned, watching his family leave.

As I aimed, he limped forward another step before accepting the futility of his efforts.

Through the sight, I saw the moment he gave up. The moment he knew his pride wasn’t coming back for him. Knew he couldn’t catch up with them. He’d never seen fire before or smelled its smoke. But he seemed to know its danger and understand the finality of his plight.

I knew all that and could empathize with the cub because I’d known him practically all his life.

It was a heartbreaking moment. Had I only been a little faster, a little surer in the handling of the rifle, he would not have had to experience that moment of utter mortality and despair. I aimed carefully, not willing to cause the poor guy any more stress than necessary. When I squeezed the trigger, it was only when I was sure the dart would travel true.

The same winds speeding the flames our way flirted with the dart. On my side, I had long hours spent on a practice range learning to handle the rifle before I ever came out into the bush. I figured fortune favored the skilled, the ready, and the ones who acted decisively no matter how insecure and terrified they felt inside.

The dart buried itself in Caesar’s well-muscled flank, precisely where I wanted it to be. Chris’ low whistle of admiration stirred that moment of satisfaction into a warmth that spread into my blushing cheeks. More so when I saw he had his phone out, recording the bits I couldn’t.

As the cub crumpled, we ran in, rolling him onto the groundsheet. The lacerations from the leopard looked ugly and painful. However, except for a deep puncture in his shoulder that had likely torn through the muscle and was the reason he couldn’t bear weight on that leg, the wounds, from my frantic and cursory inspection, looked mostly superficial.

“As long as infection doesn’t set in,” I cautioned. “I don’t know about leopards, but hook a domestic cat’s claws into another cat or a dog and they’ll almost always leave behind a lot of nasty bacteria.”

“Let’s just worry about the fire now,” Chris suggested.

Nodding, I wrapped two corners of the groundcloth around my hands to ensure my grip didn’t slip, then together we heaved the cub up.

Panic clutched my chest.

Cub
and
half-grown
didn’t fully express the reality that Caesar weighed a good 200 pounds. Almost twice my own weight. All dead weight to carry half a mile over rocky terrain. As fit as I thought I was, I could only raise my side of the groundcloth a few inches. High enough to swing over the ground now, but after a few dozen feet… Could I keep it up for a half mile?

The flames bearing down on the Range Rover said I had no choice. Gritting my teeth, I willed myself to lug the cub along.

After what seemed an interminable amount of time I had to call a halt to regrip and regroup. Shoulders aching impossibly, I risked a look back only to see how distressingly small a distance we’d come.

The loud
crack
of another acacia tree exploding in the flames below was a scream of failure in my ears.

“Don’t firemen do this all the time?” I cried in frustration. “He’s going to wake up. Or the fire… Damn it!” With a deep breath, I grabbed up my corners again, trusting to that same adrenaline rush that let mothers lift cars off their babies to kick in.

Nothing.

Chris’ hands, strong and steady, covered my trembling ones. Swiftly he squatted down, leaning forward till he could half-lift the limp body and duck his head under it, draping the cub across his broad shoulders. I helped balance Caesar there, but after that it was all on Chris.

I exhaled with him, once, twice, three times as he prepared to push himself up out of the squat. He broke from the attempt long enough to scowl at me. “If you miss getting this on camera, you know I’m never going to forgive you,” he threatened.

Hurriedly, I trained it on him.

The camera’s unwinking eye leant him strength. We exhaled together again, and he rose cleanly, the cub requiring only a minor shift once Chris was standing.

The distance still looked daunting. More so as smoke thickened the air. Breathing was already becoming uncomfortable, and would likely be strangling if we managed to get to the SUV before the fire did.

Right now, it was still a close race.

A herd of kudu wheeled out of the smoke just to our south. A flock of colorful lovebirds winged off to the west. Those were the ones who could outrun or outfly the wind and flames. The ground squirrels and badgers, hyraxes and aardvarks would head for their burrows to put inches and feet of dirt between them and the scorching ground.

The smoke, though… At least it had a tendency to rise. If the winds kept the fire moving quickly and the smoke stirred, the burrowed beasts had a chance of surviving. If smoke were trapped inside unventilated dens, the occupants would suffocate.

For the very young, the very old, the sick and injured, Nature had no mercy. This was no roaring forest fire that could burn high across the same ground for days, feeding off plentiful long-burning wood. This was a swift-moving ground fire, the flames only running grass-high save for the thorn bush thickets and the scattered trees it leapt into. With the fickle wind behind it, any of the thousands of animals caught in its path who were not fit or fleet enough would perish. Either from the flames, the smoke or the scorched earth left behind, hot enough to melt the soles off tennis shoes.

Possibly hot enough to melt tires.

Hundreds would die in Nature’s cull, but Chris and I were determined our cub wouldn’t be one of them.

Halfway to the Rover we got a reprieve as a shift in the wind sent the worst of the smoke billowing to the north. We gasped in great mouthfuls of the less-tainted air before another shift curled it right back toward us.

The toe of Chris’ boot caught on an outcrop of rock and he stumbled forward, desperately trying to balance the cat across his shoulders as well as himself. I was beside him instantly, one hand high on Caesar’s back to steady him and the other looped around the rock-hard bulge of Chris’ bicep, providing an anchor. For a split second he leaned his weight into me as he found equilibrium. For that one split second I held them both, a vital part of them. A vital part of
this
.

As we neared the Rover, I ran ahead to open the cargo hatch. The crackle of the flames was close now, and there were intermittent but frequent
pop pop pops
as deadwood and seedpods imploded with the heat.

Chris held to the bumper when he reached the Rover, twisting around as he squatted so I could safely guide the cub from his shoulders and into the bay. Together we shoved the mass of cat, legs and tail out of the hatchway and slammed it shut.

I threw the handheld at Chris, tossed the rifle and dart case on top of the tents and supplies in the backseat, then slid behind the wheel. In the navigator’s seat, Chris was already shouting directions.

“Back up 20 feet, then a take a sharp right. Go, go, go!”

Dips and rises in the terrain made it hard to judge where the low-burning flames were or where they’d already been. Three minutes out we ran up on a huge peninsula of blackened grass, the fire chasing behind us, rock ledges to our right and the shifting winds threatening to swing the fire to our left.

I beat my palm on the steering wheel.

“We’ll have to go across,” Chris said.

“It could burn the tires up. We only have the one spare.” Every lecture I’d ever sat through about living life on the veldt stressed one thing: that safety, travel and convenience all depended on the condition of your tires. “If we get stranded in that, we can’t get out till it cools or it’ll melt the boots right off our feet. I’ll remind you we have a cargo net and a stack of supplies between us and what’s likely to be one very mad lion once he wakes up. I’m going left.”

Already I was swinging the SUV around that way. A ribbon of flame snaked across our path. Gunning the engine, I charged us through and didn’t let off the gas till a mile later when Chris shouted, “Rock ahead! Go left!”

That put us back to heading toward the flames, but the veldtland on the other side of the outcropping was level, clear but for dodging thickets of thorn trees and, most importantly, flame free. With a sigh of relief that did nothing to relax my death grip on the steering wheel, I looped the Rover around the rocks.

Unhappy grumbling from the cargo area told us Caesar was waking up.

“Damn it! Where’s the pride?”

Thinking I’d be able to follow the lions to safety had been nothing more than ambitious fantasy. They’d headed north and we were now turned south. And still fleeing from the smoke and flames.

We couldn’t just abandon the cub in the middle of the veldt even if we did outrun the fire, but the grumblings from the back were growing louder.

This was certainly putting the reality into reality TV, I thought bitterly.