Card Sharks

just declared open season.

My lungs were laboring, and my legs felt like four pillars of jelly by the time I reached the ridgeback. I thought about heading north along the ridge toward Nairboi, then realized that my hunters had probably thought of that. Machakos, Konza, Kajiado — all were too distant for a tired centaur to reach. I stared down into the shadow well of the Rift Valley. The game preserve was below. I'd take my chances among the flora and fauna of Africa. Hide out until the heat was off, make my way cautiously north, then climb back over the Ngong to Nairobi. I again reassured myself of the safety of my precious pipette.

I stood dithering on the edge of eternity — literally in my case — and wished for a flashlight. My pursuers threw some light on matters. If you've never seen a high powered rifle fired at night it is a sight designed to stand your hair on end. A tongue of flame several feet long gouts from the barrel of the rifle. Macho military types are always telling you how great this is because it pinpoints the bad guys for you. Well, that's swell if you're a macho military type, and you also have a gun, but I was a terrified doctor who'd never fired a gun in his life, and I fucking knew where the bad guys were — they were chasing me!

I dove off the crest of the hill, and in a shower of pebbles and dirt began my skittering descent into the Great Rift Valley.

***

By ten o'clock I was a wreck. The sun looked like a polished bronze disk in the sky. Heat and dust hazed the horizon. I had no water. No sun screen. No lip balm. My face and scalp were cooked, my lips blistering. The burned dock of my tail was agony, and without a tail I was tormented by flies.

Occasionally I had passed a watering hole, but the film-encrusted, muddy water looked awful. I'm also a doctor. I knew it was the little gollywogs swimming around in that ugly water that were going to tap dance in my bowels. But sooner or later I was going to have to drink, and then the real fun would start.

My grand plan about hiding wasn't working out so great. The Rift Valley is pretty sparse. Expanses of grassland are occasionally dotted with spreading, flat-topped trees which sprout like desiccated mushrooms. Despite the Long Rain season there was a lot of dust, and that was what kept me running. My hunters were in vehicles, and the dust rose like a peacock's plume from the spinning wheels, pinpointing their location and warning me that despite my best hopes they were not giving up. The pursuit continued.

I was nearing the end of my strength, so I sank down in the sparse shade of a Jacaranda tree, tried to regulate my breathing. I closed my eyes trying to relieve their burning, and wished for dark glasses. A Snickers bar. A Coke. A miracle.

Like a half-remembered song I could now faintly hear the drone of the jeep engines. Wearily I unfolded my legs, and lurched to my feet. I had to grab for support from a low hanging branch as a wave of dizziness took me. The agonizing run continued.

Thankfully God looks out for fools, little children, the United States of America, and jokers. My miracle occurred. As I trotted through a stand of thorn trees I struck gold. The grasslands on the other side were dotted with impala. I hesitated just under the branches of the final tree. Compared. Our hides were an almost perfect match. I gave an experimental sniff to my armpits. Very much a human scent. Rubbed a hand across my side. Sniffed again. Not human. Not animal. Something different — joker scent. Would the impala accept me?

Bending at the waist, I dropped my head as close to the ground as possible, attempting to present the profile of a grazing impala, and edged toward the herd. A big buck lifted his head, snorted, and shook those lyrate horns. The entire herd tensed for a moment. The buck and I regarded each other. With the highlight of white over his liquid brown eyes he had the quality of a lovely and frightened girl. I tried to appear non-threatening. It worked better on the impala then it's worked on most women I've tried to date. The buck snorted a final time, and resumed grazing.

I slipped into the center of the herd, and cast about for any shed or broken horns. Yes, I know, it was a dumb idea, but I wasn't thinking too clearly at that point. Needless to say I didn't find any.

The droning of jeep engines began to break up the quiet of the afternoon. The impala herd came to quivering alertness, and then I saw the inherent flaw in my plan. The hunters would come. Spook the impala. The impala would run. If I couldn't keep pace with them Finn would die.

The great stampede began. Within minutes my lungs were close to bursting, each exhalation like fire across my throat. I was falling farther and farther back in the herd — back where the sick and the young were running.

I started to cry. Decided I wouldn't be shot in the back. I plunged to a halt, and whirled to face them. There were two jeeps bouncing and jouncing across the veldt. In one a man stood upright, one foot balanced on the dashboard, the other in the seat, and his knee locked against the back of the car seat for support. There was a rifle at his shoulder. He called out something, and the jeep began to slow. My skin was crawling, looking for cover. Tears and snot gouged slimy trails through my dust encrusted face.

There was the ear-splitting crack of gun fire. The shooter in the jeep flung away his rifle, his arms wind-milled, and he collapsed backwards off the jeep. I looked around wildly. It was a silly reaction, but I suddenly realized that I was patting myself all over my chest as if to ascertain I really wasn't shot.

My pursuers spun their jeeps in tight U-turns, and began to haul ass out of there. There were two more shots, and another guy in the first jeep and one in the second jerked from the impact. There was the gnashing and grinding of gears, the squeak from too old brakes, and a mud and dust covered Mercedes truck pulled up next to me.

'He's not on the endangered list, Mosi, guess we should have let 'em shoot him,' said J.D. 'And now you've gone and killed that guy.' J.D. shook his head piously, and tisked.

There was a flash of ivory in ebony as Mosi grinned at me, tossed up his rifle, and caught it by the barrel. He slid the rifle into the truck, and then maneuvered himself back through the window. When he thrust his arm back out he was holding a wad of Kleenex.

I blew my nose, wiped the moisture from my face. The kleenex was mud-caked trash in my hands. 'How … how….' I stammered.

'One of our scout planes spotted the vehicles. We figured poachers, and came out to check,' Mosi said.

It suddenly all struck me as hilarious, and I began to whoop with laughter. They were staring at me, J.D. with some consternation, and Mosi with fatherly understanding.

'No, no poachers,' I finally managed to gasp out. ''Cause somebody just declared open season on jokers.'

***

The tie up of this sordid little story took only a day. Mosi and J.D. got me back to Nairobi. The solution in the pipette proved to be AIDS-infected human serum. The posse saddled up, and headed out to Kilango, only to find Faneuil and Margaret had already split.

Of the three gunmen who were shot, two were dead, and all the survivor could tell us was that he had been hired by Faneuil to torch the clinic and kill me.

Two men had been assigned to head the medical investigation; Pan Rudo, a doctor with the World Health Organization, and Philip Baron von Herzenhagen of the Red Cross. Rudo was an elderly, elegant man with an almost terrifying brilliance. Herzenhagen was a fat, blond white guy who looked like a stuffed tomato after a few hours in the African sun. It was Herzenhagen who had the bad taste to ask me how I felt — after all, I'd been 'administering vaccinations to the children of Kilango for months. Infecting them with AIDS. Inadvertently … of course.' As if that little addendum made it all okay. He ended the interrogation with the solicitous suggestion that I might want to seek counseling, but the show of concern didn't fool me. He had wanted to make me fed bad. I eyed him, and said in a level voice, 'I bet you wet the bed, set fires, and tortured animals when you were a kid.' I then turned my back on him, and walked out. I remember there was a little choke of sound from Rudo. Whether laughter or outrage I never knew. As for Herzenhagen, I never saw him again until he waltzed across my television screen as a special advisor to the Vice-President in charge of eradicating jokers on the Rox. It seemed a perfect role for him.

The Kenyan authorities and I searched through Faneuil's and Margaret's personal effects seeking some explanation for the horror they had perpetrated. We found none. I really hadn't expected to.

The cops tried to see if I could shed any light on the motive. After all, this man was a doctor. All I could tell them is that doctors are people too with the same hates and fears