hyenas. One of these foul creatures could gobble down the pelt in a few
seconds. He made certain the door was wired shut before he carried the
lantern up to the dining hut. The others had all eaten and gone to bed
hours earlier, but Tessay had left his dinner in the charge of the
Ethiopian chef. He had not realized how hungry he was until he smelt it.
The next morning Nicholas was so stiff that he hobbled down to the
skinning hut like an old man. First he checked the pelt and poured
fresh salt over it, then he ordered Kif and Satin to bury the skull of
the dik-dik in an ant heap to allow the insects to remove the surplus
flesh and scour the brain pan. He preferred this method to boiling the
skull.
Satisfied that the trophy was in good condition, he went on down to the
dining hut, where Boris greeted him jovially.
'And so, English. We leave for Addis now, da? 'thing more to do here.'
'We will stay to photograph the ceremony of Timkat at the
monastery,'Nicholas told him. 'And after that I may want to hunt a
Menelik's bushbuck. Who knows? I've told you before. We go when I say
so.'
Boris looked disgruntled. 'You are crazy, English. Why do you want to
stay in this heat to watch these people and their mumbo'jumbo?'
'Today I will go fishing, and tomorrow we will watch Timkat.'
'You do not have a fishing rod,' Boris protested, but pened the small
canvas roll no larger than a Nicholas woman's handbag and showed him
the four-piece Hardy Smuggler rod nestling in it.
He looked across the table at Royan, 'Are you coming along to ghillie
for me?' he asked.
They went upstream to the suspension bridge where Nicholas set up the
rodand tied a fly on to his leader.
'Royal Coachm ' He held it up for her appraisal.
an.
'Fish love them anywhere in the world, from Patagonia to Alaska. We
shall soon find out if they are as popular here in Ethiopia, as well.'
She watched from the top of the bank as he shot out line, rolling it
upon itself in flight, sailing the weightless fly out to midstream, and
then laying it gently on the surface of the water so that it floated
lightly on the ripples. On his second cast there was a swirl under the
fly. The rod tip arced over sharply, the reel whined and Nicholas let
out a whoop.
'Gotcha, my beauty!'
watched him indulgently from the top of the bank.
Sh In his excitement and enthusiasm he was like a small boy.
She smiled when she noticed how his injuries had miraculously healed
themselves, and how he no longer limped as he ran back and forth along
the water's edge, playing the fish. Ten minutes later he slid it,
gleaming like a bar of freshly minted gold as long as his arm, sopping
and flapping up on to the beach.
'Yellow fish,' he told her triumphantly. 'Scrumptious.
Breakfast for tomorrow morning.'
He came up the bank and dropped down in the grass beside her. 'The
