Die Again (Rizzoli & Isles, #11)(2)

Clarence has been sipping coffee by the campfire with Mr. and Mrs. Matsunaga. Now he ambles toward us, carrying his tin coffee cup, and crouches down to look at the footprint.

“It’s fresh,” says Richard, the new bush expert. “The lion must have come through just last night.”

“Not a lion,” says Clarence. He squints up at us, his ebony face agleam in the morning sun. “Leopard.”

“How can you be so sure? It’s just one paw print.”

Clarence sketches the air above the print. “You see, this is the front paw. The shape is round, like a leopard’s.” He rises and scans the area. “And it is only one animal, so this one hunts alone. Yes, this is a leopard.”

Mr. Matsunaga snaps photos of the print with his giant Nikon, which has a telephoto lens that looks like something you’d launch into space. He and his wife wear identical safari jackets and khaki pants and cotton scarves with wide-brimmed hats. Down to the last detail, they are sartorially matched. In holiday spots around the world you find couples just like them, dressed in the same outlandish prints. It makes you wonder: Do they wake up one morning and think, Let’s give the world a laugh today?

As the sun lifts higher, washing out the shadows that so clearly defined the paw print, the others snap photos, racing against the brightening glare. Even Elliot pulls out his pocket camera, but I think it’s simply because everyone else is doing it, and he doesn’t like to be the odd man out.

I’m the only one who doesn’t bother to fetch my camera. Richard is taking enough photos for both of us, and he’s using his Canon, the same camera National Geographic photographers use! I move into the shade, but even here, out of the sun, I feel sweat trickle from my armpits. Already the heat is building. Every day in the bush is hot.

“Now you see why I tell you to stay in your tents at night,” Johnny Posthumus says.

Our bush guide has approached so quietly that I didn’t realize he’d returned from the river. I turn to see Johnny standing right behind me. Such a grim-sounding name, Posthumus, but he told us it’s a common enough surname among Afrikaans settlers, from which he’s descended. In his features I see the bloodline of his sturdy Dutch ancestors. He has sun-streaked blond hair, blue eyes, and tree-trunk legs that are deeply tanned in khaki shorts. Mosquitoes don’t seem to bother him, nor does the heat, and he wears no hat, slathers on no repellent. Growing up in Africa has toughened his hide, immunized him against its discomforts.

“She came through here just before dawn,” Johnny says, and points to a thicket on the periphery of our camp. “Stepped out of those bushes, strolled toward the fire, and looked me over. Gorgeous girl, big and healthy.”

I’m astonished by how calm he is. “You actually saw her?”

“I was out here building the fire for breakfast when she showed up.”

“What did you do?”

“I did what I’ve told all of you to do in that situation. I stood tall. Gave her a good view of my face. Prey animals such as zebras and antelope have eyes at the sides of their heads, but a predator’s eyes face forward. Always show the cat your face. Let her see where your eyes are, and she’ll know you’re a predator, too. She’ll think twice before attacking.” Johnny looks around at the seven clients who are paying him to keep them alive in this remote place. “Remember that, hey? We’ll see more big cats as we go deeper into the bush. If you encounter one, stand tall and make yourself look as large as you can. Face them straight-on. And whatever you do, don’t run. You’ll have a better chance of surviving.”

“You were out here, face-to-face with a leopard,” says Elliot. “Why didn’t you use that?” He points to the rifle that’s always slung over Johnny’s shoulder.

Johnny shakes his head. “I won’t shoot a leopard. I won’t kill any big cat.”

“But isn’t that what the gun’s for? To protect yourself?”

“There aren’t enough of them left in the world. They own this land, and we’re the intruders here. If a leopard charged me, I don’t think I could kill it. Not even to save my own life.”

“But that doesn’t apply to us, right?” Elliot gives a nervous laugh and looks around at our traveling party. “You’d shoot a leopard to protect us, wouldn’t you?”

Johnny answers with an ironic smile. “We’ll see.”

BY NOON WE’RE PACKED up and ready to push deeper into the wild. Johnny drives the truck while Clarence rides in the tracker’s seat, which juts out in front of the bumper. It seems a precarious perch to me, out there with his legs swinging in the open, easy meat for any lion who can snag him. But Johnny assures us that as long as we stay attached to the vehicle, we’re safe, because predators think we’re all part of one huge animal. But step out of the truck and you’re dinner. Got that, everyone?

Yes sir. Message received.

There are no roads at all out here, only a faint flattening of the grass where the passage of earlier tires has compacted the poor soil. The damage caused by a single truck can scar the landscape for months, Johnny says, but I cannot imagine many of them make it this far into the Delta. We’re three days’ drive from the bush landing strip where we were dropped off, and we’ve spotted no other vehicles in this wilderness.

Wilderness was not something I actually believed in four months ago, sitting in our London flat, the rain spitting against the windows. When Richard called me over to his computer and showed me the Botswana safari he wanted to book for our holiday, I saw photos of lions and hippos, rhinos and leopards, the same familiar animals you can find in zoos and game parks. That’s what I imagined, a giant game park with comfortable lodges and roads. At a minimum, roads. According to the website, there’d be “bush camping” involved, but I pictured lovely big tents with showers and flush toilets. I didn’t think I’d be paying for the privilege of squatting in the bushes.