The Lioness(76)

He didn’t say anything. She was sure he would tease her for knowing the species of vulture that was waiting for them to die. But it really wasn’t all that difficult: the Ruppell’s had a long white, almost swan-like neck and a white head. Muema had taught her that. He had taught the whole group that. Finally, after she had put the binoculars away, he murmured, “Mbili.”

She worried that he was speaking nonsense. “What was that?” she asked.

“Mbili. It’s the Swahili word for two. I was thinking of those two critters who’ve landed. The pair that is already sidling up to the lunch counter.”

She was relieved. He wasn’t delirious. Just morbid.

When she’d been returning the binoculars to the knapsack, she noticed the aspirin and now she was torn. A part of her wanted to offer him some more, but another part of her feared overdosing him. He’d been popping them like M&M’s, it seemed. Still, maybe that was a better way to end this. She just didn’t know what it was like to die from an aspirin overdose. That might be even worse than what he was enduring now.

She’d managed to stop the bleeding in the night, but the bones in his forearm were gravel, and there was nothing to be done but douse the mangled flesh with eyewash, empty the tube of Germolene on it, and then wrap it in gauze and tape. Still, he’d lost so much blood. And a hyena bite? God, there was clearly going to be an infection, despite the antiseptic she had slathered on the wound like toothpaste.

It might very well be the infection that killed him before they both were eaten. She supposed that could happen before they died of hunger or thirst. She just didn’t know.

Something spooked the vultures that had been sitting on the ground, and like two ballerinas they rose up and into the air. The birds flew across the sun, and when they were past it and she could watch them again, for a brief second one reminded her of a plane. An airplane.

God, imagine if an airplane spotted them and came to their rescue. Right now. Swooped down from that magnificent azure sky and scattered the zebras and wildebeest and those fucking vultures as it landed. And a pilot and a ranger raced over to them and carted them off to a hospital, where a doctor might not be able to repair Reggie’s arm but could at least save his life.

Yes, that’s what they needed. A goddamn airplane.

Which wasn’t coming. Oh, they were out looking for them by now—someone was—but two little people beneath a baobab? They were as obvious as a pair of dung beetles.

And that’s when it dawned on her. She wasn’t Margot in “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” She had the wrong Hemingway story and the wrong woman. She was Helen from “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” watching as Harry went in and out of consciousness before dying, and she waited for the airplane that was never going to come.



* * *



.?.?.

Carmen watched Felix study the itinerary that Katie Barstow’s travel agent had put together in consultation with some guide and outfitter—a hunter, really—named Charlie Patton. His eyes narrowed, and he ran his fingers over the map of the Serengeti she had placed on the kitchen table. Finally, he looked up at her and said, “God, we’re going to be living in a Frankie Avalon movie.”

“What?”

“Guns of Africa. Last year. That—”

“Drums of Africa,” she said, correcting him. She was still in her nightgown, her hips against the kitchen counter. She reached for the percolator and poured herself a second cup of coffee. “And, no, I don’t think this will be anything like that. I don’t expect there will be slave traders.”

“Is that what that movie was about? When I saw the preview with Avalon and the chimp, I just—”

“I told you: you’d like Frankie if you met him. He’s a good sort.”

“I just don’t see why so many singers think they can act. I mean, I don’t suppose I could write a history of the Civil War because I can write a screenplay. Totally different skill sets.”

“Be nice. The world needs B movies. They keep a lot of people working.” At the very last moment, she had said the word people instead of the word us. Thank God, she had caught herself. Felix would have heard us to mean you. Him. Quickly she continued, “I mean, did they even film that in Africa? I heard they used mostly stock footage of animals. This safari is a Katie Barstow production. I promise you, it will be nothing like that movie. A-plus fare all the way. Every facet.”

He rolled his eyes and mimicked the line from the coming attraction that had been a running joke between them in the days after they’d seen the trailer. “?‘When he kissed me, my whole world came alive.’ Remember? I nearly spit my soda when Mariette Hartley had to say that. You know, don’t you, that the writer behind that drivel also gave us Reefer Madness and—”

“The safari will be fun,” she said.

“When I kiss you in Africa, will your whole world come alive?”

“Yes. I promise. My whole world will come alive.”

“Seriously, do we have sex in tents?” He tried to look rakish, but the very fact that he had phrased it as a question made it sound only puerile.

“If we have sex, yes, it will be in a tent.”

“If? We’ll be gone a long time.”

“Look at the itinerary. That hotel in Nairobi is pretty darn swank. We have a night there at the beginning and another one at the end.”