Wash (17 page)

“
It’s okay,” our tour guide
said. “We’re crossing the river to get to the other side. She’s
very familiar with carrying passengers across. You shouldn’t have
any problems.”

Drops of water splashed on my face,
arms, and legs. I wiped the moisture across my burning skin,
enjoying the cooling sensation.

Weee-ah, hyo-hyo, heee-ah,
heeah-heeah. 

I gazed up at the large raptor making
the loud, evocative, and haunting cry. It was perched on branches
overlooking the water. The majestic bird had a brown body with
large, powerful, black wings. The head, breast, and tail were snow
white. I snapped a few glorious shots with my
camera.

“
That’s an African
Fish-Eagle. It’s the spirit or essence of Africa. Its distinctive
call has earned it the name ‘the voice of
Africa’
.”

I smiled as the magnificent bird
swooped down to catch a fish.

Suddenly, the elephant
stopped.

I laughed. “I think she’s taking a
break.”

Slurping filled the air, as the
elephant sucked up water through her trunk like a straw. She lifted
her long gray protrusion high in the air, and a huge plume of spray
shot skyward, only to stream down on us like rain.

I couldn’t help but giggle. “I know
she’s hot, but has she forgotten we’re up here, too?” I blinked and
wiped my soaking-wet hair out of my eyes.

We all laughed.

Jake’s wet hair hung just over his
collar, and I admired his hairstyle all over again. It was longer
than it was when we had dated, but I loved it. It made him look so
sexy that I was half-tempted to run my hand through those gorgeous
locks.

The elephant took a few
more steps and slowly submerged below the surface of the water.
From the shore, the river had seemed wide and shallow, and now I
wondered how deep the river was, since the elephant seemed to
barely reach the bottom. A log swept past and grazed my legs. When
I glanced down, I saw more logs, as well as debris and branches,
floating past us. Water seeped into my socks and tennis shoes.
First my knees sank in, then my stomach. A shiver ran down my
spine. With a
splash
, the elephant’s entire head plopped just a few inches under
the surface of the water. I was sure we were sinking like a big,
giant rock, and I clung to the saddle as water swirled past my
hips.

“
No worries. Elephants are
excellent swimmers,” Anto said. “We’ll be across the river in no
time.”

In India, I’d seen elephants swim in
deep water with trainers on their backs, so I wasn’t too nervous
about it, but my soaked clothes clung to my body, dragging me down.
I shivered as the cold water bit into my skin, and I clasped my
arms around Jake to hold him close, resting my chin on his
shoulder; he was emanating heat like an oven. I noticed hundreds of
bubbles rising to the surface, and a second later, the elephant’s
trunk popped up. Using it as a snorkel, she swam, dog-paddling
underwater, submerged like a big, gray submarine, raising her trunk
up like a periscope.

A sudden flash of light caught my eye.
I squeezed my eyes against the blinding sun, trying to get a better
look, because something seemed odd about the long, bumpy piece of
driftwood that was coming our way. Not only was it covered in
scales, but it also opened big, yellow eyes, and I found myself
staring intently at golden irises around slit pupils. The cold eyes
just stared right back at me.

My mouth gaped open, and the breath
caught in my throat. “That’s definitely not a log,” I whispered
nervously in Jake’s ear. It looked like a cold-blooded creature I’d
once seen in Florida, with long, tapering jaws and yellow reptilian
eyes peeking out of the river. Two teeth jutted out of the
reptile’s bottom jaw. “It’s an alligator! Right there, blending in
with all those logs.” With shaking, fingers I gripped the saddle so
hard my knuckles turned white.

“
That’s no alligator.
That’s a croc,” Anto said calmly.

As far as I was concerned, the
specifics didn’t matter. Either species would happily make a meal
out of us, and flashbacks of all the movies and nature shows I’d
seen about death rolls and giant reptilians terrorizing people
bombarded my mind. I peered at the water and gulped. The marine
predator emerged, exposing its entire armored body. I wondered how
many buffalos, zebras, hippos, and even humans it had been snacking
on, because it was huge. The rigid, brown, horn-like scales on its
back and along its tail glistened under the sun.

I wiped the sweat off my brow, and my
heart began to pound fiercely. “Let’s swim to shore!”

“
No, that would not be
wise,” Anto advised from his place atop the other elephant. “It’s
only curious right now. If you swim off in a hurry, you’ll be
inviting it to have a taste. It’d snap you in two before you could
even set one foot on land. Just stay calm. We’ll be out of the
water any minute, and a croc can’t outrun one of these big
beauties.” He patted his elephant’s side, trying to downplay the
situation so I wouldn’t do anything stupid, like make a mad dash to
shore.

He had a point. There was no need to
panic, at least not yet. I took a deep breath to calm my racing
heart. The croc swam a little further away, then stopped, as if to
watch us from a distance, but I still didn’t feel much safer
knowing that we were sharing the river with that thing and probably
several of its terrifying and hungry relatives.

Jake pointed, his voice calm, as if he
was trying to put my mind at ease. “We can’t let our guard down,
but look! It’s over there, minding its own business.”

“
Or it’s stalking us!” I
retorted.

Of course Jake was smart enough to
know that; he just didn’t want to freak me out.

“
Doesn’t matter. We’ll be
out of the water any minute,” he said.

A
splash
and a blur of brown caught my
attention. Ripples shot across the slow current as the croc
slithered through in the water, slowly swimming past us until it
was only about fifteen feet away. My stomach clenched when the
creature’s long snout and eyes barely broke the surface of the
river. It was so close to us that I could see the thin membrane
slide over its eyes as it blinked. When the thing slowly
disappeared into the river again, it was beyond creepy.

A few moments later, Jake pointed at
more huge ripples in the river, and I gulped as the croc’s body
slightly rose out of the water. “It’s getting closer!”

Finally, the ground began to level
out, and I felt a glimmer of hope. With each step the elephant
took, we rose higher out of the treacherous water. I scanned the
surface as the water receded to my waist, then my knees, and
finally my ankles. Relief swept through me. I’d come face to face
with a croc and lived to tell about it.

I scanned the water one last time.
“It’s gone.”

We all seemed calmer as we moved
closer to the riverbank, assuming that if the croc had really
wanted to make a meal out of us, he’d already be picking what was
left of us out of his nasty old teeth.

As my elephant walked, the
water behind her began to churn. A crashing
splash
erupted, and streams of water
rose into the air and slapped against us. The croc leapt out,
snapping its bone-crushing jaws together and missing Anto’s
elephant by mere inches.

Too frightened to even
scream, I held on tightly as the elephant reared up. Digging my
feet into the animal’s sides, my hair swayed around me, whipping
into my face, while I clung to the saddle like a cowboy atop a wild
bull in a rodeo. My hands slipped around Jake again, and I held on
to him tightly as the creature bucked again. Everything seemed to
happen in slow motion, and we were all catapulted into the air,
finally landing with a giant
splash
.

Groaning, I scrambled up, spitting out
dirty water as my heartbeat spiked. I was in the river up to my
waist—the same river where the crocodile was swimming around. The
elephant continued to buck like a spooked horse, and I moved back,
knowing that getting turned into a pancake by an elephant wasn’t
going to help me one bit.

I looked for our guide. When I saw
him, I hurried over and found him dazed but alive, and I started
pulling him toward the shore. “C’mon, Anto!” I said. I glanced over
my shoulder. I pushed my wet hair out of my eyes and blinked as I
wiped the water from my lashes. “Get to the riverbank, Jake!” I
yelled. I knew if we could just get out of the water, it would
increase our odds of survival; in the water, the croc had
home-field advantage. I craned my neck to peer behind me, just in
time to see the croc gliding in the water next to my elephant, its
eyes open wide and fixing on me, its cruel jaws snapping in my
direction. I gasped and yelled, “RUN!”

“
It’s coming! We can’t all
make it to shore in time!” Jake yelled. “Get outta here. I’ll hold
it off.”

I yanked his arm. “No, Jake! Get your
butt on land!”

“
Just get him out of the
water!” he yelled, pointing at the barely conscious
Anto.

“
I’m not going without
you!” I demanded. “Now come on!”

“
Get to safety!” Jake
glanced over his shoulder, and his lips pressed into grim lines. “I
promise I’ll be right behind you. Now go!”

“
No! I’m not leaving you.”
As much as I despised what Jake had done for me, I couldn’t just
let him get eaten alive. He had always been there for me—well,
except when he’d deserted me at the altar—and I couldn’t just
abandon him to die in an African river.

The croc lunged at Jake, snapping its
hungry jaws. Its dinosaur-like powerful tail whipped around in the
air, sending thousands of droplets spraying everywhere. For a
second, all I could do was hold my breath and watch in horror. Jake
grunted and lurched backward. Sure, he resembled Superman with that
dark hair and blue eyes of his, but there was no way he could take
on thousands of pounds of pure muscle and bad attitude.

“
Jake, get outta there!” I
desperately yelled.

He took a step back, but in
the process, he accidentally lodged his foot on something. I
couldn’t see whether it was a rock or a fallen tree in the river
bottom. I only hoped another animal hadn’t grabbed his foot under
the water. Whatever it was, it caused him to lose his footing and
fall backward with a
splash
. As if the dinner bell had
been rung, the croc powered toward him with its mouth slightly
open, practically smiling, ready to move in to kill its
prey.

Think fast,
I told myself.
What can I
do? Hit it with a branch? Right. It’ll probably feel like a feather
on that thing’s thick skin. Maybe I can hit it with a rock. Nope.
That’ll feel like nothing more than a pesky fly.
And then I saw it.
Mud!
Maybe I can blind it somehow!

Before I could change my mind, I
grabbed a giant handful of muddy sand and flicked it at the croc’s
eyes. My heart pounded as I watched the creature’s reaction. Water
splashed everywhere as it threw a tantrum, blinking its yellow eyes
over and over again. The croc went for Jake’s throat and missed
only by inches as he twisted to the left like lightning. Then,
rearing up, the elephant smashed its feet like a hammer right down
on the croc’s head.

The reptile lay motionless, seeming
disoriented from the heavy blow. I flinched as the armored beast
suddenly moved, gliding slowly toward the deeper part of the river.
It slipped silently into the glittering water and sank like a
submarine. Bubbles rose to the surface, and then all was
still.

I clutched my chest while I caught my
breath. Tears welled, threatening to spill down my cheeks. Jake was
safe, and I was glad for that. Still holding my breath, I quickly
scoped out the area. I waited a moment before I dared to start
breathing again. Then I grabbed Jake’s and Anto’s hands and pulled
them eagerly to shore. I sloshed through the water, mud, and sand
until my feet reached dry land, and a wave of relief swept through
me. Water dripped from my hair and poured from my
clothes.

I glanced over at Jake. There was no
way I was going to let him off scot-free after he’d tried to play
action hero. Hugging and punching him at the same time, I cried,
“What were you thinking?”

He leaned forward and rested his hands
on his knees as he breathed heavily in and out. “I only planned on
stalling it for a second to give you two a head start. Trust me, I
woulda been right behind you, but if worse came to worst, I had a
trick up my sleeve.”

“
Don’t tell me you’re
carrying around some croc repellant in that bag of yours,” I
snapped.

“
No, but there’s a pouch in
the croc’s throat that keeps it from drowning. I knew if I stuck my
arm down there and punched it, the thing would have no other choice
but to let go or drown.”

“
Yeah, if its teeth didn’t
tear you to shreds first.” I touched his face. Tears were sliding
down my cheeks, but I almost hoped he’d just think it was river
water. “Thanks for saving my life, but please, no more stunts like
that.”