Unicorn Tracks (5 page)

Even though the Harvings’ idea about the unicorn gestation period was wrong, something else in their notes struck me. Again and again, they mentioned the full moon or moonstones when they wrote about the breeding process. Apparently people from all over Nazwimbe had observed that unicorns gathered at the full moon or around moonstones to breed. Sometimes in pairs, other times in groups of up to twenty. Nobody could control the moon and its light graced all of Nazwimbe once a month, so it would be impossible for anyone to pinpoint a location.

But moonstones were small, easily portable. If someone created a collection of them, maybe they could draw a whole herd of unicorns together….

Grudgingly, I disentangled my hand so that I could push the document over to Kara. I pointed to the paragraph. “I think there is something to this. About the moonstones.”

She smirked, eyes lighting up. “So, you’re saying our research isn’t entirely useless?”

I held up my hands in mock surrender. “I never said it was useless. Just that one little, itty bit of it might be wrong.”

Kara scanned the document again, ignoring my comment. “So if they have these moonstones, they’re probably putting them in the tree or near it, to draw the unicorns out?”

I nodded. Parts of this were starting to make sense, but we still had no idea why anyone would want to lure a herd of wild unicorns. Much less try to take them alive and leave their horns behind.

A slow grin spread over Kara’s face. “We need a stakeout,” she said. “Like they do in the military. Twenty-four-hour surveillance on the site.”

I raised my eyebrows. None of my clients had ever requested to spend a night in the savanna before. Most of them thought sleeping in our huts was rough camping, never mind spending the night in a tent on the ground. I’d done it a handful of times with Tumelo, when Bi Trembla’s snoring kept the entire camp awake. “Will your father let you do that?”

Kara shrugged, shuffling a few of the papers into a neat pile and folding them away in her pocket. “He’s bedbound for another few days. We don’t have to tell him, right?”

BI TREMBLA
chased after me, her ostrich feather duster raised like a weapon. “You can’t bring that white girl into the wilderness for the night! Are you crazy? She can’t stay in a tent with the wild animals around! Does her father know?”

“Of course he knows,” I lied, but Bi Trembla sniffed out my deception as keenly as a hydra smells fresh blood in the water.

She put her hands on her wide hips and smirked. “What if I tell him?”

“By the time you tell him, we’ll be away. So you’ll just make your patient all nervous,” I said as we entered the stable block. “Do you want a nervous patient? Ringing his bell for you every five minutes, asking if his daughter has returned yet? Besides, Tumelo’s okay with it.”

“You think I care what Tumelo will allow? That boy is even less responsible than you are!”

“Well, technically he is in charge of this camp. Technically.”

Bi Trembla scowled, frown lines thickening above her brow. We glared at each other, waiting to see who would back down first. “Fine,” she said, jabbing her finger at my chest. “I will not tell him. But no harm better come to that girl. One night. And no sleep for you. You stay awake. And watch to make sure nothing tries to get into her tent. There are wild creatures out there… and wild men.”

I waved her off, rolling my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll be careful.”

Tumelo had already packed the things we’d need overnight, as neither of us had planned to tell Bi Trembla at all. The woman had eyes all over the camp. Sometimes I suspected one of her parents was a troglodyte. I gathered the gear and began strapping the bags to the placid mules. As I finished, Kara tiptoed into the stable block, dressed from head to toe in black, as if trying to blend in to the dawn. She even wore a black-net covering over her hair.

I giggled. “You know camouflage won’t help us escape, right? Bi Trembla is already on to us.”

She put her hand to her mouth. “My father doesn’t know, right? I thought if I wore black, he might not recognize me so easily when we ride off because he couldn’t see my hair. His eyesight isn’t what it used to be. He’ll worry and I don’t want him to be concerned when he’s so sick.” She pulled the net off her hair. “Stupid, right?”

“Bi Trembla’s agreed to keep our secret for the time being. She doesn’t want the extra work of caring for a nervous patient.”

I finished saddling the horses, allocating her the black gelding again, as she seemed to enjoy a feistier ride. As I worked, I glanced over to the stall next to me to talk to her, and then hurriedly turned back to the horse, feeling heat rise to my face. Kara had stripped off her black shirt. Her face was hidden by the fresh tunic she tugged over her head, but her back was bare and her hair hung down, kissing the places beneath her shoulder blades.

I fished an apple I’d stolen from Tumelo’s fruit basket out of my pocket, biting into its succulent sweetness. That way if she said something to me now, I’d have an excuse for mumbling back. Juice squirted down my chin and across my cheeks. Why couldn’t I ever keep clean while eating?

From the next stall, Kara reached out and brushed it away with her fingertip, chuckling. Was she flirting? “You reminded me of my grandmother, so I had to wipe it away fast. She always drools when she eats.”

“Thanks,” I said, passing the gelding’s reins to her and frowning. Couldn’t be flirting if she was making comparisons like that. “I’m happy I remind you of your drooling grandmother.”

She blushed and led her horse outside.

I tied the pack mules’ leads to a ring on my saddle and mounted up. Kara climbed aboard and settled into the saddle with expert gentleness. I nudged Elikia, and we snuck out around the paddocks, careful not to ride past the hut where Kara’s father slept.

The phoenixes always sang at dawn. As we rode along the path, their ephemeral voices rang out in harmony, almost like a greeting. Today we had a breeze and the humidity wasn’t as stifling. For once, my skin felt dry. Kara closed her eyes to absorb the sound, smiling as the early morning sun bathed her face. She released the reins and let the gelding follow me. I noticed that Bi Trembla had given her a paste made of flour and baking soda to put on the bug bites to stop the itching. They looked less swollen today, and on her pale skin, the paste helped conceal the redness. After we pitched the tents, I’d search for some citronella roots to keep the bugs off her for good.

Instead of taking us straight to the cliffside where I’d planned to make camp, I led Kara through the woods to a little clearing along the river. Tumelo always thought we should feed each guest and ourselves for two, so the mules carted breakfast for four. Although I’d had the apple, my stomach rumbled. I was looking forward to digging out whatever my cousin had decided to pack. I held up my hand and pointed to the riverside, pulling Elikia to a halt.

We dismounted, hobbling the horses to let them graze. Kara took a seat on a rock by the river, dangling her fingers in the current and looking across the narrow body to the jagged cliffs that lined the other side. A waterfall slithered down between the rocks. I’d always loved this spot.

I pulled the packs off the nearest mule and searched through them. The first thing I found was a jar labeled “
Maziwa
—Kara, tea.” I rolled my eyes. Tumelo had teased me about my appetite since I was a child and here he was, a decade later, still making sure I’d remember not to drink all the milk so Kara could have tea.

Before I had time to get all the breakfast things out of the pack, Kara had started unlacing her boots. She grinned wickedly at me over her shoulder as she pulled off her socks and tossed them onto the ground. “The water looks clean. You don’t have leeches in Nazwimbe, do you?”

No, just
morgawrs
, hippos, and crocodiles…. The thought died as she unbuttoned her trousers. The stiff khaki slipped lightly to the ground. Her linen shirt fell to midthigh. Unwillingly, my gaze traveled down her legs, to the alabaster thighs with just a trace of dimpling above her knees.

“I need to check the area,” I said too late, as she waded into the river.

“I’m all sweaty from the ride. I want to cool down before we eat,” she called back, floating on her belly.

I scrambled to the shore. The river was clear and quiet. I couldn’t see any trace of crocodiles basking in the sun. Sighing, I undid my boots and pulled off my own pants, following her knee-deep into the cold water, wondering how she could stand to swim when it was so cold. My teeth chattered and goose bumps prickled my arms. She edged her way over to the waterfall and leaned up against the cliff behind it, letting the water run down through her hair. White fabric melded to her ample curves like a second skin.

“Come on!” Kara said, leaning down to splash a fistful of water at me. “This is way better than the baths at the camp. I think the water is fresher here too. Farther upstream.”

I stared at the pebbles rolling under my toes, too afraid to look back up. Warmth rose up my neck. Try as I might to focus on the brown and gray stones, I couldn’t get the image of her form beneath the wet, clinging fabric out of my mind.

“Come out,” I said, beckoning and chancing a glance up. “It’s not really safe here to go in the water.”

“I’m keeping my eyes peeled,” she said and winked. Her teasing eyes looked into mine.

Something slippery brushed my ankle. I looked down but couldn’t see the cause. A river fish, probably, or an eel. Maybe I’d try to catch a few for dinner later. A few feet away, something rippled in the water. From her position under the waterfall, Kara suddenly pointed. “Look, over there, a mermaid.”

I whirled around. Sitting placidly halfway up the bank, a brunette mermaid sunned her hominoid half in the open air. She hummed a soft tune, something imitated from one of the birds.

Banishing all thoughts of Kara’s magnificent body, I raced forward and grabbed her by the arm. I pointed to the nearest part of the shore. “Go, run! Now!”

She blinked at me in confusion, struggling as I pulled her toward the bank. “It’s a mermaid. They’re harmless. I know they can’t actually converse like people, but they’re still pretty to look at.”

I’d heard people say that before. Foreigners and their ridiculous myths. Some of them believed mermaids were actually part human, with whole societies built under the oceans. Ocean mermaids were more solitary. Alone, no mermaid could submerge a human. But the river mermaids of Nazwimbe were amphibians that roamed in schools like fish. Where there was one, there would be more. A school of piranha had nothing on a group of mermaids. I’d seen them strip a water buffalo down to the skeleton in under a minute.

“Stop, Mnemba. You’re hurting me,” Kara protested, trying to yank her arm out of my grip. “It’s all the way over there. You’re being dramatic. Stop it.”

“They’re dangerous. We have to get out. There will be more around here somewhere.” Strong as she was, fear helped me win. I tugged her up onto the riverbank.

“Look, I appreciate you’re being a good guide and all, but the sailors up by us have seen mermaids as well. You think I don’t know anything and that all the research we did is worthless, so you’re trying to show me up. Do you think that I’m some vapid idiot from the North who can’t defend herself? You can’t just manhandle me out of the river with no explanation.” Her hands went to her wet hips and she glared.

Annoyance and fear made me turn mean. “All you do is study things in books from a thousand miles away, so whatever you think you know—forget it. In Nazwimbe things you can’t see can kill you. And sometimes we don’t have the luxury of sitting around at a table batting questions back and forth.”

“Thanks for reminding me that I’ll never get a chance like this again. I already know that. Books from a thousand miles away are all I’m going to get,” she snapped back, sitting down on the river’s bank.

Angrily, I squelched, still sopping, across the grass to the mules and took my rifle down. A wild hare sniffed at the grass in the clearing. Without thinking further, I shot it. The shot was clean and the hare dropped. I stalked over, seized the dead animal, and tossed it into the river. Kara’s face drained as its blood spread through the crystal water.

A tiny ripple appeared, and the hare’s foot twitched as if nibbled by a small fish. Then, in a flurry of aquamarine tails, the mermaids pounced. Their slippery bodies twisted around each other as they snapped flesh from bone with razor sharp teeth. With a toss of her hair, the brunette from the banks dove into the blood-crazed fray.

NEEDLESS TO
say, we skipped breakfast on the riverbank. Kara dried herself and changed into a fresh shirt. She mounted without speaking to me. I couldn’t decide if she was angrier I’d shot the hare to make a point or that I’d been right about the mermaids. Whatever her reasons, the silence hurt.

We rode on without speaking to each other—all the way to my planned campsite behind a ridge overlooking the Olafrango Lake and the fields below. From the higher vantage point, we’d be able to see everything that happened at the baobab tree without getting in the way of a frenzied unicorn orgy or risk being surprised by their hunters. I pitched the tents while Kara made a show of petting and speaking to the horses, ignoring me. She cooed over them, feeding them bits of grass and handfuls of dried fruit from one of the packs.