forward.
“Back to bed with you.”
With the help of two of the boys she managed to get her son back to bed. Michael smiled once more.
“Tomorrow I will finish the engine and we will charge up the battery again and you shall drive your beautiful machine.” Michael closed his eyes and lay very still—too still. Sanderson’s heart was in her throat. Then she saw him draw a breath. He slept. Death had not yet come. There was still hope.
Chapter 11
Sekoa reached the shore of the Chobe at dusk. He approached the river’s edge cautiously. Crocodiles lurked beneath its surface and while he had never witnessed one attack a lion, he had seen a nearly grown zebra pulled in. He studied the water’s surface and satisfied there was no danger, crouched and began lapping. His tongue, like that all of the Felidae ,was not particularly adept at drinking and it took him some time to finish. When he was done he rose up from his crouch and tested the air. In the past he’d relied on his eyesight to search out prey and relied less on his sense of smell. A movement to his left brought him to full alert.
One of the members of the pack of hyenas that had dogged him earlier sidled from the bush and stared at him, its tongue lolling. The lion growled and took a step toward the hyena, who scuttled away back in the direction he’d come. The lion watched him leave. He was downwind, and now he caught the scent of the rest of the pack. They were trailing him. Waiting for him to die; perhaps they might even hurry that process along.
He followed the shoreline, trotting eastward, away from the park and toward a set of vaguely familiar odors. He recognized some of them. He’d caught them before when the large stinking beast with no legs came forward and sat near the pride. It never attacked and they’d become used to it. It made a curious growling noise and when it did so, it emitted a strong smell and made other noises like birds but there were no birds on it like on the buffalo, just dangly things that smelled like what was in his nostrils now—definitely an animal smell. Possibly human, although he could never separate it from the large legless beast. He knew he needed to shake the hyenas off his trail and they, as most of the beasts in the park, always shied away from that beast and its appendages. If he could get close to it or them, perhaps they would leave him to die in peace.
A giraffe and its mate stood motionless, watching him from afar, ready to employ their hooves if he were to change direction and come at them. Those hooves could be deadly. He never hunted healthy giraffe. Impala and kudu scattered from his path as he trotted along the river bank. He ignored them. He would have liked to pull one down but he knew he had neither the endurance for the chase nor the strength to actually drag it to the ground. His earlier lucky kill had provided enough sustenance to last for a few days. In the old days, when the pride would hunt, he could eat fifteen or sixteen kilos and sleep for a week. But that was no longer the case. He would have to steal a smaller predator’s food or find carrion.
***
Bobby Griswold paced the hotel room. He didn’t know what had become of Brenda and he worried. Not about her safety, but about whom she might have met and what she might be doing. Before they’d married she’d confessed the affairs she’d had. He’d accepted them. After all, he wasn’t exactly a saint, and in her line of work, he couldn’t have expected anything else. Hadn’t he been one of them, at least at first? But he still had jealous moments when he thought of the men in her past, the ones she met at parties, and the ones he imagined her meeting but he wasn’t aware of. He couldn’t trust her alone and out of his sight. More than once this constant surveillance and suspicion had brought him to the edge. What if she had hooked up with some guy?
He had doubts, not for the first time, about his decision to marry and in fact often
“Back to bed with you.”
With the help of two of the boys she managed to get her son back to bed. Michael smiled once more.
“Tomorrow I will finish the engine and we will charge up the battery again and you shall drive your beautiful machine.” Michael closed his eyes and lay very still—too still. Sanderson’s heart was in her throat. Then she saw him draw a breath. He slept. Death had not yet come. There was still hope.
Chapter 11
Sekoa reached the shore of the Chobe at dusk. He approached the river’s edge cautiously. Crocodiles lurked beneath its surface and while he had never witnessed one attack a lion, he had seen a nearly grown zebra pulled in. He studied the water’s surface and satisfied there was no danger, crouched and began lapping. His tongue, like that all of the Felidae ,was not particularly adept at drinking and it took him some time to finish. When he was done he rose up from his crouch and tested the air. In the past he’d relied on his eyesight to search out prey and relied less on his sense of smell. A movement to his left brought him to full alert.
One of the members of the pack of hyenas that had dogged him earlier sidled from the bush and stared at him, its tongue lolling. The lion growled and took a step toward the hyena, who scuttled away back in the direction he’d come. The lion watched him leave. He was downwind, and now he caught the scent of the rest of the pack. They were trailing him. Waiting for him to die; perhaps they might even hurry that process along.
He followed the shoreline, trotting eastward, away from the park and toward a set of vaguely familiar odors. He recognized some of them. He’d caught them before when the large stinking beast with no legs came forward and sat near the pride. It never attacked and they’d become used to it. It made a curious growling noise and when it did so, it emitted a strong smell and made other noises like birds but there were no birds on it like on the buffalo, just dangly things that smelled like what was in his nostrils now—definitely an animal smell. Possibly human, although he could never separate it from the large legless beast. He knew he needed to shake the hyenas off his trail and they, as most of the beasts in the park, always shied away from that beast and its appendages. If he could get close to it or them, perhaps they would leave him to die in peace.
A giraffe and its mate stood motionless, watching him from afar, ready to employ their hooves if he were to change direction and come at them. Those hooves could be deadly. He never hunted healthy giraffe. Impala and kudu scattered from his path as he trotted along the river bank. He ignored them. He would have liked to pull one down but he knew he had neither the endurance for the chase nor the strength to actually drag it to the ground. His earlier lucky kill had provided enough sustenance to last for a few days. In the old days, when the pride would hunt, he could eat fifteen or sixteen kilos and sleep for a week. But that was no longer the case. He would have to steal a smaller predator’s food or find carrion.
***
Bobby Griswold paced the hotel room. He didn’t know what had become of Brenda and he worried. Not about her safety, but about whom she might have met and what she might be doing. Before they’d married she’d confessed the affairs she’d had. He’d accepted them. After all, he wasn’t exactly a saint, and in her line of work, he couldn’t have expected anything else. Hadn’t he been one of them, at least at first? But he still had jealous moments when he thought of the men in her past, the ones she met at parties, and the ones he imagined her meeting but he wasn’t aware of. He couldn’t trust her alone and out of his sight. More than once this constant surveillance and suspicion had brought him to the edge. What if she had hooked up with some guy?
He had doubts, not for the first time, about his decision to marry and in fact often
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