The Lioness(44)

“Probably.” He pointed the flashlight at his own nose. “But he’ll live.”

This fellow seemed so civilized, so unlike the man who had swatted Billy or the crew that had murdered a pair of rangers and Juma. She wanted to ask him his name, but knew she didn’t dare. That was definitely going too far.

“How long will we be here?” she inquired instead.

He reached into her hair, and she was able to restrain a flinch. He pulled out a leaf and a twig and showed them to her with his flashlight. “Don’t leave the hut,” he told her, his tone at once kind and firm. Clearly, he had no intention of answering her question. “My boys are edgy. Do you know the expression ‘trigger-happy’?”

“I do.”

“Good.” He dropped the leaf and the twig on the ground, and she thought he was going to leave her alone. He turned toward the entry and may even have moved slightly in that direction, and she regretted that she had not mentioned her own wounds, especially the cut on her stomach. He had that flashlight. Perhaps he would allow her to examine it. But then, as if he had read her mind, he paused and turned back toward her.



* * *



.?.?.

This morning she had awoken and put her bare feet down on the canvas groundsheet in their tent. Sunlight had pulled her from sleep before the porters. Each day one had arrived and called, “Jambo!” outside the flaps, and left a pot of steaming coffee, a little pitcher of milk, and two porcelain mugs on the ground before the tent’s wide zipper. She’d felt the uneven earth beneath her toes and placed her hands low on her stomach, her way of saying good morning (and she said it every morning) to her baby. She saw Billy was still sleeping deeply in his cot. He’d awaken when the java arrived. Then she’d stood, a little awed that she was here, so very far from her and Billy’s modest place in L.A., and climbed out from beneath the mosquito netting. Outside a bird sang, but she knew almost nothing of birds and had no idea what kind it was. Then she heard some snuffling behind the tent, the side where the porters had set up the bathtub, and went there. She had brought a nightgown to sleep in, but the first night she had opened her eyes around two thirty, sweating as if she were in a sauna, and since then had slept in only a T-shirt and underwear. Still, however, inside this tent she felt strangely invulnerable.

She carried the camp chair from the tent over to the tub and stood upon it. She peered through the strip of mesh that separated the roof from the wall, and there they were: easily two dozen wildebeest, walking and grazing, a procession no more than nine or ten feet from where she was standing on a chair. They were either oblivious to her or they didn’t care. They looked, she decided, rather like thin cows with beards. There were no calves or babies in this group, and once more she touched the small of her belly. She had felt a special affinity on this safari for animals when they were spotted with their young. Juma had told her that wildebeest calves were precocious: running (and running fast) within weeks of their birth. They had to be quick learners if they wanted to live. Her kid? Lord, it would be months before he or she would be crawling. A year or so before walking. And running? She had no idea when toddlers began running.

She jumped when she felt something on her hips before realizing that it was but Billy’s hands.

“You scared me,” she told him. He lifted her down from the chair to the canvas.

“I’m sorry. But your bottom was irresistible. I hope you never return to nightgowns when we’re back in L.A.”

“There are wildebeest just outside the tent. They’re within feet of us. Stand on the chair and peek.”

“I thought I heard them,” he said. He was sleeping in underwear and a T-shirt too, and she held the chair while he climbed onto it and glanced at them through the mesh. Then he hopped down.

“That’s it? You just needed a peek?” she asked.

“You sound disappointed in me.”

“Weren’t you amazed?”

He shrugged. “They were wildebeest, that’s all.”

“That’s all,” she said, mimicking him. She poked him in the side with two fingers.

“I guess I’ve become a junkie. A wildebeest doesn’t fly me to the moon anymore. I need lions.”

“And elephants.”

“Exactly.”

She shook her head. “How will you ever again bear the boredom of L.A.?”

“Oh, I have a feeling the kid will bring plenty of excitement into my world. I remember when Marc was a baby.”

“Babies aren’t exciting for men. I’m not sure they’re all that exciting for women. They’re messy and chaotic, but—”

“It will be fine. It will be wonderful.”

“Are you”—and she emphasized the word—“excited for today?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“Even if you don’t get your lion fix?”

“Even if.”

“Don’t take this for granted, Billy. This is special.”

“I know.”

She couldn’t quite read his tone. If anyone understood the strange dynamics of a brother so thoroughly diminished by a younger sibling, it was Billy. He probably had patients in which he saw himself. Katie made more money than him (God, she made more money than everyone), and she was certainly more famous than him (because he wasn’t famous at all), and…