Kalahari (8 page)

“Go back to the truck,” I whispered. “I’ll meet you there soon.”

For once, no one argued or complained. They nodded and turned, making their way back much more slowly and quietly than they’d arrived. I watched them go, then turned, drew a deep breath, and set off to my right. It took a solid ten minutes to circumvent the camp without attracting attention. I stayed just outside the bare sand of the firebreak and kept low, feeling like a rabbit sneaking past a sleeping lion.

When I found the row of Land Rovers parked on the firebreak, my heart sped up. Was Dad in one of them? The windows were damnably tinted, so there was no way of telling. A half-dozen more men were clustered around the vehicles, talking and smoking. I couldn’t get close without being seen.

On a sudden whim, I crept away and then darted across the firebreak as soon as I was out of their view. I went as close to the burned camp as I dared, then turned and stepped deliberately back toward the bush, leaving enough prints to account for five or six people. Keeping a careful eye out for the poachers, I worked my way outward from the camp, leaving a trail that pointed in the opposite direction of the one I and the others would take. Once I reached the bush on the other side of the firebreak, I continued for about a quarter mile into the foliage before deciding it was as good a false trail as I had time to lay. Then, taking care to hide where I stepped, I returned to spy again on the men at the trucks, hoping for one last chance to find out what had happened to Dad.

“Hey, boss!” called one of the men, emerging from the camp, “I found their trail!”

My heartbeat suspended.
Which trail?
I couldn’t breathe again until I saw the man point toward my fake tracks. Dizzily relieved, I allowed myself a small smile of triumph.

The leader—I figured him to be the Abramo the Afrikaners had spoken of—waved everyone into the vehicles. About six men, including the blond and the redhead I’d first seen, stayed behind—to ambush us, I supposed, if we returned.

I strained to see inside the Land Rovers as the men opened the doors and climbed inside. Dad could have easily been inside one and still escaped my view. It was maddening, to think he could be so close and yet so unreachable.

The Rovers took off eastward, following my false trail. When they lost the tracks, as they inevitably would, I hoped they’d continue in that direction, anticipating us to have headed for Maun or one of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve guard stations.

I lay flat as the Rovers rumbled past me, then began painstakingly creeping back the way I’d come. I was moving so quietly that I practically tripped over a mother warthog and her piglets who were napping in the shade. They squealed and darted away, their tails vertical, and when they crossed the firebreak the men who’d been left behind began shooting wildly. I dropped, hands over my head, as the bullets pinged the sand, but none of them came near me. The shots didn’t last long, and by the disappointed murmuring, I took it they had failed in dropping one of the warthogs. Thankfully, they hadn’t seen me—but it had been close.

When I reached the Land Cruiser, the others were frantic with worry, having heard the gunshots. After calming them down, I told them what I’d seen, then bent down and traced a circle in the sand. “This is us. And this is Ghansi.” I traced another circle northwest of the camp, then a line leading south from Ghansi. “This is the nearest road. If we drive west, then we can take the road north to town. It’s opposite the direction the poachers went, so we’ll have a head start.”

“How long will it take?” asked Kase.

“Depends on the conditions. There’s not a road from here to there, so we’ll be driving through total wilderness, and the trip will be over a hundred and twenty miles. We can make it in one or two days.” I didn’t tell them that that would require an inordinate amount of luck. It was inevitable that the Cruiser would get stuck multiple times, and there could very well be damage to the car I didn’t know about as a result of the crash. In the likely event that something happened to Hank, we’d have to walk to Ghansi—which could take a week or more. The poachers could hunt for us at their leisure.

I had to keep them optimistic. So I forced a smile onto my face and assured them everything would be fine. None of them looked very convinced, Sam least of all. His face was grave and his eyes constantly searched the horizon. Miranda looked dazed, as if she’d mentally checked out of the situation, and I wondered how she’d hold up. If she slipped back into a state of shock, I wasn’t sure I could keep her moving, and the others might follow her. They all looked as traumatized as I felt.

“We’ll starve to death out there,” Kase intoned, his gaze wide and distant. “We’ll die of dehydration. Or we’ll—”

“Stop it,” I said sharply. “We’ll make it.”

He blinked, his eyes refocusing on me. “We’re in the middle of a
desert
.”

“Semidesert,” Avani and I said simultaneously. Joey groaned.

“Look,” I sighed. “I know it sounds bad. It
is
bad. But if we stick together and be smart about this, we can
make it. Will you trust me?”

I looked at each of them, hoping none of them would see that I barely trusted myself. But they nodded reluctantly.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s load up.”

Everyone climbed into Hank and we set off. It was almost sunset by then, and we drove deep into the bush before stopping in a nondescript thicket far from the ruined camp. We decided the girls would sleep in the Cruiser tonight, and we’d switch with the guys the following night. The day after that—if we were lucky—we would reach Ghansi.

We were starving. I searched in vain for
tsama
melons, tubers, anything edible, but darkness fell quickly, and my efforts turned up nothing more than a handful of shriveled berries.

“Great,” said Joey tonelessly, staring at his meager share.

“You’re alive, aren’t you?” Sam said.

“For
now
.”

“Shut up, man,” snapped Kase. “We’re doing the best we can. We don’t need your whining to make things worse.”

“My whining? It’s your girlfriend who’s complained nonstop since the airport.”

Kase, who’d been relaxing against a tree, stood up then. “Watch it, dude.”

“What?” Joey shrugged. “Everyone’s thinking it.”

“Leave him alone,” said Miranda. “He just wants attention.”

“
I
just want attention?” He gave her an exaggerated look of offense. “Oh, the irony! This coming from our own Kim Kardashian. Here’s an idea—why didn’t someone bring a satellite phone with them? Huh? Geez, what I’d give for one right now. Why didn’t your Daddy Warbucks send one with you, huh?”

Kase swore at him, but it was Miranda who jumped to her feet and slapped Joey full across the face. He staggered back, eyes wide in surprise, but then he blinked at her and laughed.

“You slap like a
girl
.”

“Dude, you need to take a walk,” said Sam softly.

“Oh, yeah, here comes Mr. Strong and Silent. Did you stop to think we might not be in this mess if it weren’t for
your
girlfriend?”

“What?”

Joey threw out an accusing finger at me. “Your dad left us in this mess. Honestly, who runs off to God knows where and leaves a bunch of kids on their own in the wilderness with fricking lions
and homicidal maniacs for company?”

In the distance, a chorus of jackals began their nightly howling. The sound was so natural that I usually didn’t even notice it, but tonight, it made the hair on my neck stand on end. The others stared with shocked round eyes from Joey to me.

“You don’t know anything about it!” I said. “If it weren’t for you, I could have found my dad by now! But no, I have to babysit a bunch of incompetent city kids while my
dad
is hunted by a bunch of murderers and my only friend lies buried in the sand!”

I regretted the words even before I said them, but Joey had touched too many nerves tonight and I was burning with anger. How dare he blame my dad? I wanted to slap him myself.

“Guys,
stop
!” Sam said, standing up and holding out his hands. “This is ridiculous. We need to sleep so we can get started early in the morning. Look, I’ll take first watch, okay?”

I said nothing, but turned my back and walked away, trembling with anger. It would make more sense for me to take first watch; I knew I wasn’t going to sleep. My stomach was too empty and my brain was too full. We were all ticking time bombs, like kettles growing hotter and hotter with stress and fear.

I went back to the camp and told Sam to sleep, that I’d take the first watch. He didn’t argue, but I didn’t think he was sleeping either. None of them did, for a while.

It didn’t help at all that about an hour into the night, somewhere in the darkness a lion began to roar.

W
e set out early the next morning but made it only a mile or two before the truck came to a full stop in the sand. Holding back curses, I climbed out and took stock of the situation.

The tires were half buried, all four of them sunk. It would take a while to dig the truck out, and from the look of the land ahead, it was just going to get worse. We were in an old dry stream bed; thousands of years ago, this area would have been a paradise of rivers and lakes and grass. All that remained of those golden days of the Kalahari were these dry depressions, like the skeletons of a lost world. The stream bed was a sort of natural road, leading us in the right direction with fewer bushes and trees to navigate around—but with the unfortunate side effect that it was composed of deep, soft sand that sucked at the wheels like mud.

I sighed and suggested that we begin scouting around for pieces of wood to lever the wheels out. Then I would have to drive out of the bed and follow it from above if possible.

A pair of stately giraffes watched me with disinterest as I beat through the bushes. The rest of the group spread out in all directions, halfheartedly searching, probably as distracted by hunger as I was.

When I returned to the truck a half hour later with an armload of logs and branches, everyone was sitting in the shade, close to Hank. Sam looked up apologetically. “We heard lions.”

I sighed and dropped my armload of wood.

“Where?”

The chances of them attacking us were about one in a thousand—if we were in the Cruiser. But if a pride got curious about us and decided to settle within sight, then we would be trapped in the vehicle.

Sam pointed in the direction they’d heard the pride, and I nodded.

“We have to be quick,” I said.

But it seemed the more we tried to dig Hank out of the sand, the deeper he sank. The wood we wedged under the tires simply snapped or was buried, and it wasn’t long before I heard the roar. One lion, from the sound of it. I thought of the mystery male who’d been following Dad and Theo, and I wondered if it could be the same one. Was it the white lion? The one who’d started all this mess?

We worked feverishly while Avani and Miranda took turns watching for the lion. I wasn’t too worried about it; if it was indeed a loner, it would almost certainly make a wide berth around us. I was familiar with three different prides in the area, and there was one male who roamed between each of them. He was skittish and shy, never giving us trouble, but if this loner was one of the younger males that had been pushed out by its mother, it might be desperate for a meal.

Still, I was more focused on getting the Cruiser unstuck, seeing it as our bigger problem.

That was my mistake.

“I think I saw it!” I heard Miranda call. Immediately Joey, Avani, and Miranda jumped into the Cruiser, and Kase whipped out his camera. Sam looked excited, and I didn’t blame him. This would be their first real wild African lion.

I stood on the top of the tailgate, held a hand up, shielding my eyes from the sun, and scanned the bush. The lion’s tawny hide was perfect camouflage in the yellow grass, so it could have been anywhere.

“Binoculars,” I gasped, holding out a hand. “Somebody give me binoculars!”

“I have this,” said Kase, offering his camera.

I took it and climbed back onto the Cruiser, bracing myself better this time. Pressing my eye to the viewfinder, I roved the bush. Then, my hand shaking slightly, I twisted the heavy lens and zoomed in.

My breath stuck in my lungs. I couldn’t understand it. It was like my mind rejected what I saw, telling me it was too impossible, too strange. It had to be a trick of the light, or some kind of prank.

“Sarah?” Sam asked again. “What do you see?”

What do I see?
I had no idea. I could have seen a ghost, and it would have made more sense than the creature hovering in the lens of the camera.

It was a lion. Or at least, it was something
shaped
like a lion.

But it wasn’t tawny or golden or even white, like the one the poachers were rumored to be hunting. It was like no lion I had ever seen.

This lion was
silver
.

Not silver as in silver gray or silver white. It was
silver
, from nose to tail, as metallic and gleaming as mercury. It moved slowly through the bush, twitching its silver tail and shaking its silver mane.

I stared, but couldn’t comprehend anything about it.

“Sarah!”

I jerked my eye away from the camera and looked down at Sam. He gave me an exasperated look.

“It’s a lion,” I said. “I think.”

“You
think
? We heard it roar.”

I nodded. I had heard it too. I looked through the camera again, but the lion was gone. Frantically, I zoomed out and searched the bushes—there it was. It was moving faster now, its nose lifted. Had it caught our scent?

“Sam,” I said slowly. “Kase. Get in the truck.
Now
.”

“What—”

“Get in the truck.”

They climbed up, using the wheels and roof supports to haul themselves into the back of the Cruiser. Everyone crowded behind me, straining to see. Still shaking, I focused on the lion and snapped three photos.

“Holy cow,” said Joey. “Is that . . . is that it?”

So they could see it now.

“What
is
it?” Avani asked, looking doubly shaken that here was something she didn’t know the genus and species of.

“It’s a silver lion,” said Miranda.

“No,
duh,”
said Joey.

“It’s impossible,” I said.

“Is it covered in paint?” asked Sam.

It was the most reasonable explanation I’d heard yet—except that no paint I’d ever seen looked that much like metal. No paint could cover a full-grown lion without flaking or wearing off.

I turned the camera to display mode and zoomed in on the picture I’d snapped. Kase’s camera was extremely expensive, taking higher quality photos than even my dad’s professional gear.

Everyone leaned around me to look.

“That’s not paint,” said Kase, taking the camera and squinting at the display.

I knew he was right. The silver was too perfect, showing no bare spots, not so much as a single tawny hair. The individual hairs of the lion, caught in crisp clarity by the camera, seemed to each be made of silver strands.

All silver, like the moon.
Theo’s dying words. I had taken them for delirium, never imagining. . .
Keep watch, Tu!um-sa. Watch for silver eyes. The lion is hunting
. I had been right: The lion—
this
lion—had been following the vehicles, and Theo must have seen it sometime after he’d been shot, thinking it was a vision, a spirit come to escort his dying soul into the sky.

“It’s like . . . it’s like . . .” Joey started, but he stopped and shrugged. “I don’t even know. What the hell is it?”

“The silver lion,” I said softly. “This is what the poachers are after. I thought—the rumors Henrico told Dad about—they mentioned a white lion, an albino, we thought, but this . . . This isn’t natural.”

“I think that’s obvious,” said Avani. “So what is it? Some kind of robot?”

We all stared at the creature as it made its way toward us. The hairs on my arms stood vertically, and I felt cold despite the mideighties temperature.

“It moves too naturally,” I said. “Like a real lion. No robot could be so lifelike.”

“Is it some kind of projection?” asked Sam.

I looked around, making a wide sweep with my hand. “From where? Outer space?”

Everyone looked up, as if the idea weren’t so far-fetched after all.

“This is too weird,” said Miranda, shaking her head. “I don’t like it. Let’s get out of here.”

“No!” said Sam. “We have to get a closer look. This is incredible!” He looked around at our stricken faces, his eyes alight. “Don’t you want to know what it is? This could be like, some sort of breakthrough! Some kind of huge discovery!”

“It’s coming straight toward us,” said Avani.

I nodded. “Stay in the truck and it won’t bother us.”

“How do you know? Maybe a real lion wouldn’t, but this is obviously not a real lion! Let’s go!”

“I want to see it closer,” Sam insisted.

“Then be my guest. Jump on out and go make friends with the freaky silver robot lion.” Avani glared at him.

“Settle down, everyone. Nobody’s going out there. Just stay quiet,” I said.

The lion was a stone’s throw away now. It stopped, lifted its head, and stared straight at us. The sunlight played in gleaming patterns over it, the way it would play off a knife; I could see spots of light dancing over the grass where it reflected off the metallic hide of the animal. It looked like something animated for film, like a 3-D model that hadn’t been painted yet. It prowled closer and stopped again, sniffing, watching, twitching its tail.

Its eyes were silver like the rest of it. They looked like the blank, staring eyes of a statue, but I sensed this lion was far from blind. It stared too keenly, its gaze resting directly on us.

“Please,” Miranda begged, “let’s just go. What if it attacks us?”

I almost repeated that it wouldn’t, but suddenly I wasn’t sure. I had no idea what it would do because I had no idea what it
was
.

“They’re not poachers,” Sam said, his voice low. “This is something else entirely. This is way bigger.”

I nodded, having come to the same conclusion myself. This was no ordinary prey, so I doubted its hunters were ordinary poachers. Whatever this . . .
thing
was, the men who were hunting it would obviously stop at nothing to find it and . . . what? Capture it? Kill it? All of my certainty deserted me. I felt as if I knew nothing, as if all my years in the wilderness and in research had done me zero good. It certainly hadn’t prepared me for
this
. Whatever it was.

The lion drew closer to the Cruiser, and when it was about ten yards away, it went into a crouch. My skin turned to gooseflesh. Was it about to spring? Would it really attack?

Lions perceive people in cars as a unified entity. They don’t see us as prey and will go out of their way to avoid us—particularly ones in the wild where people are uncommon. But would this lion see us the same way? If I made the wrong call, it could cost us our lives.

“Stay still,” I said, my eyes fixed on the creature. Despite the danger and impossibility of it all, I was overwhelmed with fascination. I wanted to get closer, like Sam. If I’d had my dad’s tranquilizer gun I could have knocked it out long enough to get samples of its hair and skin and saliva. Unfortunately, the gun had been at the campsite, to either end up burned or stolen. I had the shotgun, but I wouldn’t use it—not unless I had to choose between a human’s life and the lion’s. But who knew if it would even react to tranquilizers? Or bullets, for that matter? It looked as if it had been
made
of melted bullets.

Still crouched, its eyes on mine, the lion crept forward, step by slow step. We all held our breaths. Only the wind in the grass made any noise at all—I realized with a chill that the birds, a constant source of song in the Kalahari, had fallen silent. They knew something was awry here, that some unnatural thing had interrupted their ancient cycle.

I could feel the others tensing around me. Without moving a muscle, my gaze shifted to Sam. Sweat beaded his forehead, and the silver lion reflected in the dark discs of his eyes. He looked more entranced than afraid, and I thought of something my mom had said to me once, when I’d encountered a wild tiger in the jungles of India. I was six years old, and to me, all animals had been friends. When I strayed too close and the tiger went into an aggressive crouch, my mom had snatched me up in her arms and whispered into my ear, “The most beautiful things are often the most dangerous.” She carried me away, walking backward in order to keep the tiger in her sight.

That tiger, in all its magisterial wildness, hadn’t been nearly as beautiful as this extraordinary silver creature in front of me. And so, with my mother’s voice hovering like a ghost by my ear, I knew it could very well be the most dangerous thing I had ever encountered.

“Steady,” I whispered, as the lion drew within five yards of the truck and Miranda let out a soft cry.

The lion stopped so close to the back of the truck that I could have leaned down and stroked its silvery hide. This close, I could see each silver hair on its mane. The blank, burnished eyes stared at me unblinkingly.

“
Steady
,” I said again, sensing the others beginning to shrink away.

The lion settled down, seeming to rest, but I could see the muscles bunching, rippling like mercury. The grass and sky reflected off the creature; if you weren’t looking right at it, it would disappear as if made of living mirrors.

I held my breath. I couldn’t exhale, couldn’t look away, couldn’t blink, because I knew, I knew it would happen but I didn’t know what to do about it, couldn’t stop it, couldn’t
think
—

The silver lion sprang in an explosion of refracted light.