Zambezi Seduction (7 page)

FIVE

Chad explained that the rubber timing belt had slipped off the cam wheels. With the synchronisation gone, the pistons would have damaged the valves.

Kerry tried to remain calm, as her training in emergency situations had taught her. It was all a bit technical for her. But she knew the damage was serious, a garage job – a fact confirmed by Chad.

“We’re going to need a tow out of here.”

“The bump?”

He looked at her and nodded. “I feel such a bloody idiot.” Wasting no time, he checked his mobile phone and let out a curse. “No signal! Of all the places . . .  we picked a beauty – a river valley.”

It was no time for recriminations. They had to put their heads together and work something out.

“These things happen,” Kerry said. “What now?”

“There isn’t a big choice. Either we sit and wait for someone to find us or I walk back to the main road and get help.”

“Chad, the
lions!
”

“Hell, I’d quite forgotten
. My mind is full of engine parts.”

“So we wait,” Kerry said calmly. “How long before they find us?”

Chad stared ahead thoughtfully. “We’re due at the second camp – Main Camp – this evening. At six o’clock, when camp gates are closed for the night, staff get in radio contact with each other. So they will know we failed to arrive and haven’t pitched up at the wrong camp. Someone will check the roads between the two camps. They may work through the night – but I wouldn’t count on it. Tomorrow, when we still haven’t shown up, someone will have the bright idea that we might be on an unauthorised road. That’s the way I see it. I’d be lying if I said they’ll be here in a few hours – they won’t.”

“No lies, Chad. The good thing is that neither of us is hurt. I’ve done a mental check of our food and drink supplies: various tinned stuff, biscuits, two warm beers, an almost full bottle of Scotch, and three oranges.
That should see us through.”

“I
’d still like to walk to the road. After their feast, the lions will probably be sleeping.”

“Too risky.
Always best to stay by the ship in an emergency.”

***

They settled into an uneasy truce. Chad was quiet, brooding. Kerry was sure she could read his mind. A long drawn out wait for rescue would make such a drama out of the whole unfortunate incident. She had won a small victory in their battle of wills. Her training and logical no-risks approach had won over his superior bushcraft. She wasn’t even sure she was right, but hers was the safer option.

An hour passed. Chad sat with his back against a tree looking up the valley to where they had spooked
the zebra. He had walked away from the car, leaving her there – the act of distancing himself, she guessed, a show of defiance against her will. He was frustrated, but under the circumstances he had every right to be. She was less upset. Already she had seen so much. Chad’s pride had been dented; he needed time to come to terms with her growing influence. Up until now he had run the show. He was on home ground and she had been happy to play second fiddle and learn from him. His mistake had weakened him in both their eyes, not fatally, but it had created the opportunity for her to bring more balance to their relationship.

“The
no entry sign,” she said through the open window. “Will they punish us for ignoring it?”

“What sign?” Chad smiled for the first time since the breakdown. “I saw nothing – did you?”

“I’m writing it down,” Kerry said. “Describing our breakdown in the bundu.”

Later the heat forced her out of the car. She joined him in the patch of shade under the tree.

“October – they call it the suicide month,” Chad said tersely, wiping the perspiration from his brow. “Heat builds before the summer rains break. Right now it must be around the hundred mark. Feel the humidity: clouds are forming – rain’s not far off.”

Kerry had a sudden thought. “Can
’t we build a fire? Make smoke.”

“You don
’t start fires in national parks.”

“Not even on the sand of the river bed?”

“It only takes a spark and the grazing in half the park is destroyed.”

***

Chad Lindsay was a worried man. They were immobilized on a disused road at the hottest time of the year. They needed help – fast. The heat was making them drowsy. If Kerry fell asleep, he would scribble a note and head out for the road, lions or no lions.

Meanwhile, he had much to think about. Once the car was towed to Main Camp, what then? This was not
motortown, Johannesburg. Where do you find spares, get repairs done in this wilderness? He watched a Bateleur eagle riding the wind high above. Step at a time, he told himself. First get to Camp, see what the mechanic advises. No point in worrying about it now.

Three hours had passed since the breakdown.
Kerry had returned to the car and fallen asleep, a victim of nervous exhaustion and the heat.

He walked past the car and out across the concrete spanning the dry river bed. The sand was pockmarked with the tracks of many animals. A mound of sand appeared to have been left by a man digging with a spade. He knew it had been made by an elephant searching for water. Ordinarily, he would have taken pleasure in investigating the spoor in the river bed, but he kept on walking up the sun-baked track. He wore a pair of
veldskoen
light boots. Their tough leather protected his feet and ankles from the needle-sharp thorns – useful too should he find himself in danger and have to run or climb a tree.

The wind ruffled his clothing and the air suddenly felt cooler. His plan was to reach the road and get help before Kerry knew he was gone. His
veldskoen
covered the ground silently but he worried about the lions and kept his head up, watching the ground ahead.

The sound of distant thunder caused him to look back. The sky to the west was full of angry clouds, and the shadow of rain fell from their base. Momentarily,
the blue-grey core of the thickest cloud was lit by a jagged flash of lightning. The count until the rumble of thunder reached his ears was ten.

On the riverbank below, the white car stood out, looking alien amid the yellows and browns of dry-season Africa. To continue on to the road with the storm almost upon them – leaving Kerry alone and worried – seemed the height of irresponsibility. Even if he pressed on to the main road, would any cars be travelling through the storm? Most visitors, wary of the lightning, would have scurried back to camp.

Chad turned and trudged back down the hill, his plan abandoned.

SIX

The storm hit with a blinding fury.
Gale force winds were followed by thick sheets of rain which hammered loudly on the car’s bodywork. Visibility dropped to near zero. Lightning flashed and the accompanying thunder claps rolled.

Kerry poured warm beer into paper cups.

“Dinner will be chunks of corned beef and biscuits,” she announced cheerfully, having to shout to make herself heard. “How long is this likely to last?”

“An hour or two.”

Chad was distracted. The storm had fired his imagination. He had never painted weather like this. Here was strength and mystery, a terrible beauty – the long-awaited life force rolling unstoppably over a threatened land. He was glad he had abandoned his trek to the road. There would have been no shelter from a storm of this magnitude.

By the time natural darkness fell the eye of the storm had passed. Rain continued to fall, but of a much reduced intensity. The sky to the east – the direction the storm had taken – lit up every few seconds with flickering lightning. Heavy rolls of thunder drowned out all other noises.

“The flashes and noise remind me of old newsreel film of the guns opening up on Rommel’s men at El Alemain,” Chad said. “A great-uncle of mine was there and later in Italy as a war artist attached to the South African army. Some of his stuff hangs in the Military Museum in Jo’burg.”

“So he supplied the spark that got you going?” Kerry ventured.

“Right. Once I realized I could combine art with my real love – wildlife – there was no stopping me.”

“I’ve heard you’re good.”

Chad laughed. “I’d planned to show you some of my work. But we got off to a bad start – with Clarence.”

“Clarence!
God, how long ago that seems. Will he be all right?”

“He’ll be fine. He eats once a month – rest of the time he does his own thing.”

Kerry brought the talk back to Chad’s work.

“Surely all the interesting animals have been done already – often?”

“Yes, but –”

“Then isn’t there a danger of flooding the market?”

“No way! Quality canvasses sell. Then you have limited edition signed prints. Shepherd could sell his a hundred times over.”

“Shepherd?”

“David Shepherd. English artist – the top man. He’ll probably never be beaten on elephants – gets the size right, the wrinkles and scars in the skin. But he can be matched on other animals.” Chad paused to reflect for a moment. “We met once – here in Zimbabwe. He gave a talk and slide show at Kariba. I was a small boy and my parents took me along. I found it boring: he talked overlong of his other passion – steam trains.”

Kerry wanted their talk to go on and on. One rarely got the chance to converse with someone like Chad – in control of his own life and happy and good at his work. Some of his positive attitude had rubbed off on her. Simply by listening, she felt stronger and more eager about a career switch.

“You’ve made me jealous,” she admitted. “My job is all false joviality, fixed smiles, regimentation. I’m not free like you.”

She could feel his eyes on her in the dark.

He said, “We’ll talk about it another day.”

Kerry knew they were entering a testing period. She was determined to keep their spirits up, stop him brooding about his car worries and withdrawing into himself. No easy matter with the prospect of an uncomfortable night together in the car looming.

“Wildlife story time,” she said. “You’ll laugh at this.”

Chad turned to her. “Go on then.”

“I once put an ad in the newspaper. To find a kindred spirit, someone who shared my love of wildlife and wild places. I paid the charge and looked forward to receiving heaps of replies.”

Chad was all ears. “Good response?”

“Don’t jump the gun,” she scolded. “The first shock came when I saw my ad. It was barely recognizable. “Wild” had been cut, substituted by a word I didn’t like. I shot round to the newspaper building, demanded to see the classified supervisor. She told me the word had been changed because it had a different connotation these days . . .” Kerry paused to look at the South African who was doubled over laughing. “Well, I gave the silly cow a piece of my mind there in front of her staff. I followed up with a red-hot letter to the editor telling him that his paper and the country had reached a sorry state when ads from women interested in wildlife were assumed to be from prostitutes advertising for clients.”

“Good for you.” Chad
patted her arm. “What was the reply count?”

The unexpected contact sent shockwaves running through her. It was their first touch since she had rebuffed his advances the first night in the lodge.

“The grand total came to two,” she said and laughed. “One old guy tried hard to interest me in his weekend hobby.”

“Don’
t tell me
he
thought you were a tart?”

“No. His thing was climbing church towers to observe and photograph bats.”

“Yuk!”

“My thought too
. The other hunted rare butterflies.”

Chad was still chuckling. “I take it you tol
d batman and the lepidopterist, ‘thanks, but no thanks’?”

“Right.
With the mutilation of my ad, the whole thing had gone flat.”

***

When the rain stopped they got out of the car and walked around to ease their cramped limbs. The storm had brought one major change: the river was reborn. In the dark they stood on the bank listening to the wet swirling noises as the flood passed.

“Things could be worse,” Chad quipped. “The car might have stopped in the river bed.”

Kerry saw the water as yet another obstacle to overcome.

“Now I feel even more cut off.”

“It’ll be down to a trickle by morning,” Chad reassured her.

For several minutes he paced back and forth along the bank.

“Tomorrow, if they haven’t found us by mid-morning, I’ll walk up to the road,” he announced. “I am
not
spending another day playing Crusoe while you test your survival training.”

Cruel.
He could be the most annoying of men. It was almost as if he blamed her for their predicament. He seemed to have forgotten she had urged him to slow down during the silly chase of the zebra that had led to the breakdown. She didn’t argue. He was quite right in one sense: they had to get out of here.

They lowered the seat-backs, making
themselves as comfortable as possible. The storm had cooled the air and they put on woollen jerseys against the night’s chill and ate their meagre supper, finishing with half an orange each.

“Try to sleep,” Chad said. “It
’s going to be a long night.”

***

Kerry lay thinking of the highlights. Camp – the squirrels, glossy starlings, small lizards and hopping hornbills. The solitary giraffe walking down to water, alert, wary of the crocs along the shore. The awkward movement that spread the front legs before the head could be lowered to drink. Best of all was the evening when they heard the trumpeting squeals and the elephant herd came out of the trees in a long dusty line to the lake – backlit through the Mopanis by the sun sinking like a huge blood-red fireball.

Sunsets were one of Africa
’s wonders. Nowhere else Kerry had been did they come close.

Their pleasure in these sights had been marred by only one thing – their failure to see a leopard. That very morning they had left camp early in determined mood and travelled along a road through perfect leopard country. There was good cover, a patchwork of light and shady ground, and a mostly dry river bed with the occasional stagnant pool.

She had her orders. Search every tree on her side of the road – in particular, big shady trees with a fork close to the ground. There were false alarms when Chad stopped the car and used the binoculars. Kerry’s neck was still stiff from the constant turning to look from tree to river bed to tree to road. They glimpsed shy bushbuck and enjoyed good, sometimes excellent, sightings of elephant, buffalo, kudu, waterbuck, reedbuck and giraffe moving out to their daytime feeding grounds. Scenes to live in the memory. Yet somehow they failed to compensate for not seeing a leopard in that perfect leopard country.

Then in mid-morning, well out from camp, they had spotted the wheeling vultures.

***

Distant hyena noises roused Kerry. Beside her Chad slept on. She could smell the rain – or the river – on the breeze, cold now against her face. She looked forward to morning when the sun would burn off the dampness, leaving everything smelling fresh and clean.

Over the next hour hyena sounds continued to reach the valley. From up by the lion kill, Kerry guessed. She had stopped taking notice; then suddenly the night reverberated with a wild savage roaring – so powerful it seemed to engulf them in rolling waves. Kerry was thrilled and more than a little frightened. It was unmistakable. Lions . . . a fight – almost certainly. Something – the zebra carcass, a territorial dispute, mating rights – had led to a titanic struggle. It continued, varying in intensity, for fifteen minutes, then abruptly stopped. There was quiet; even the hyenas were silenced.

“Thought I heard lions,” Chad said, surfacing from his slumber.

“You did. I thought of waking you.”

“
The pride males warning others to keep their distance. Could have been a fight, a scrap over territory.” After a moment he sighed sleepily. “Comfortable?”

“No, but I’
d rather be inside the car than out there.”

He laughed softly
. Kerry listened to his breathing become regular once again and wished she could find sleep so easily. She tried to relax and it seemed to work. Just as she felt herself drifting away she heard a jackal call. It was close – the other side of the river. As it ended there came another sound which brought her fully alert. She adjusted the seat-back to the upright position.

What she had heard was the guttural cough of a lion – she would have bet money on it.

And the sound had come from close quarters.

Had the loser of the fight come down the track to the river to drink and sooth his wounds? And had a passing jackal chanced on his blood spoor?

Kerry realized something: the breeze from the west would carry their scent to the lion. She was frightened – she shook Chad awake and told him what she had heard. He sat up and made a token show of listening and looking around before settling back.

“It’
s nothing . . . river sounds or a hyena up at the kill,” he mumbled dismissively. “Go to sleep.”

Despite his opinion, Kerry had enough confidence in her own judgement to remain wary. Chad had been sleeping at the time of the noises and waking him had been a mistake. It was impossible for her to sleep now. She looked out on the darkness, searching for she knew not what, her body tense.

Although it was dark she knew the lay of the land. She’d had nothing else to look at all afternoon. On Chad’s side lay the track and some Mopani trees. In front and on her side, open ground. Behind was the river, shrouded by a ghostly mist. A cloud layer, remnant of the storm, hid the moon.

She wondered if her ears had deceived her for now there was only the monotonous chorus of night insects and frogs noisily celebrating the coming of rain. Little by little she began to discern other noises: tree branches rubbing together, the purr of a nightjar.

Then the noises were forgotten. There was movement off to the side . . . blurred and eerie. Slow, silent movement.

Kerry rubbed her eyes and looked again.
Nothing. Fatigue and tension were getting to her.

S
he saw it again.

In spite of the cool night, her skin felt clammy. Hardly daring to breathe she watched the pale form move f
urther up the track from the river. Distance and darkness made definition impossible.

She put off waking Chad. He would not be amused to be wakened a second time
, especially if what she saw turned out to be shifting moonlight or a passing antelope. Such an outcome would leave her feeling small and foolish.

A buck?
She tried to convince herself, but deep down she could not accept it. Instinct told her predator: lion, leopard or hyena. Had she witnessed the stealthy approach of a hunting cat?

If so, what prey was it stalking?

Chad slept on. The jackal yelped again. Kerry waited for a roaring riposte to confirm her suspicions. She watched the open ground in front of the car. Whatever she had seen was heading that way. She felt like the man-on-watch on a cruiser trying to locate an enemy battleship that radar tells you is there but which lies hidden in a fog. She sensed something in front of the car . . . or was it her imagination?

Head thrust forward touching the windscreen, she watched the spot like a gundog working in heather. There was only one thing to do.

Reaching in front of her sleeping companion she found the headlights switch and flicked it on.