the earliest.'
'He could have slipped through.' Riccardo ignored his explanation. 'It's just possible it is him down there.'
'We'll go down and take a look, of course.' Sean nodded in agreement. Riccardo's passion did not amaze him as it had his daughter. He understood it totally, had seen it in fifty other men like Riccardo-the powerful, aggressive, successful men who made up his clientele, men who did not try to conceal or check their instincts. The hunting imperative was part of every man's soul; some denied or suppressed it, others diverted it into less blatantly violent avenues of expression like wielding clubs on the golf course or racquets on the court, substituting a little white ball for the prey of flesh and blood, but men like Riccardo Monterro gave their passions full rein and would settle for nothing less than the ultimate thrill of the chase and the kill.
'Shadrach, bring the Bwana's.416 banduki,' Sean called. 'Job, don't forget the water bottles. Matatu, akwendi, let's go!'
They went directly down the steep front slope of the kopje, leaping lightly from boulder to boulder, and at the bottom they dropped naturally into their running formation with Matatu leading to pick up the spoor, followed by Job and Sean with their almost supernatural eyesight to sweep the forest ahead, the clients in the middle, and Shadrach at the end to hand Riccardo the Rigby when he needed it. They went swiftly, but it was almost an hour through the forest before Matatu picked up the huge dished spoor in the soft earth and the litter of stripped twigs and branches that the elephant had strewed behind him as he fed. Matatu stopped on it, turning back to roll his eyes, and give shrill piping cries of disgust.
'It's not Tukutela. It's the old one-tusk bull,' Sean told them.
'The same one whose spoor we saw on the road this morning. He has circled back this way.'
Claudia watched her father's face and saw the intensity of his disappointment. Her heart squeezed for him.
Nobody spoke on the march back to the Toyota, but when they reached it, Sean said softly, 'You knew it wasn't going to be that easy, didn't you, Capo.' And they grinned at each other.
'You're right, of course. The chase is everything. Once you kill, it's only dead meat.'
'Tukutela will come,' Sean promised him. 'This is his regular beat. He'll be here before the new moon, that's my promise to you, but in the meantime there's the lion. We'll go check bait to see if Frederick the Great is going to oblige us.'
It was only another twenty minutes' driving to the dry river-bed below the hide and the buffalo bait. They left the Toyota parked on the white sand, and Claudia felt a tremor of last night's terror as they climbed the path up the far bank and saw the pad marks of the lioness in the earth behind the hide. Then Sean and his gun bearers were talking excitedly and Matatu was chattering like an agitated guinea fowl.
'What is it?' Claudia demanded. But nobody answered her and she had to trot to keep up with them as they hurried down the open tunnel through the bush to where the remains of the carcass hung in the wild fig.
'Somebody tell me what's happening,' Claudia begged them, but she stayed well back from the bait. The stench was just too much for her to bear. The men showed no distaste at all as they prodded and peered at the reeking remains, and even Claudia could see the difference from the previous evening.
Yesterday the carcass had been virtually untouched; now more than half of it had been devoured. Only the head and forequarters remained, and Sean had to stretch up above his head to reach it.
The bones of spine and ribs had been chewed to splinters and the thick black skin ripped by claw and fang, so that it hung in tatters like a funeral flag.
While Sean and the gun bearers examined the carcass, Matatu searched the earth around the base of the fig tree, giving excited little yaps like a hound questing for the scent. Sean picked something off the jagged white ribs of the carcass and showed it to Riccardo. Both of them laughed excitedly, passing whatever it was from hand to hand.
'Won't somebody talk to me, please?' Claudia insisted, so Sean called to her.
'Come on, then, don't stand so far away.'
Reluctantly, holding her nose theatrically, she approached. Sean held out his right hand to her, palm up. On it lay a single hair, almost as long and black as one from her own head.
'What is it?'
Riccardo took the hair from Sean's hand, holding it between thumb and forefinger, and Claudia saw that the back of her farther's arms were goose-bumped with excitement. His dark Italia eyes glowed as he replied, 'Mane hair.' Then he seized her hand and pulled her across to the base of the fig tree. 'Take a look at that. Look what Matatu has found for us.'
The little tracker was grinning with proprietorial pride as he indicated the churned earth. Five cubs and two lionesses had trampled the soft footing into powder, but one perfect print stood out in the confusion. It was double the size of the other smudged prints, as big as a soup plate, and, looking at it, Claudia felt again the stirring of terror. Whatever animal had left that pad mark must be monstrous.
'Last night, after the lionesses had seen us off, he came. He waited until the moon had set and he came in the darkest hours of the night,' Sean explained. 'And he left again before dawn. He ate damned nigh half a buffalo, and then he took off again before first light. I told you he's a cunning old devil.'
'A lion?' Claudia asked.
'Not just any old lion.' Riccardo shook his head. 'Frederick the Great has come at last.'
Sean turned away and beckoned his men to come to him. The three of them, Job, Shadrach, and Matatu, squatted around him in a circle and Claudia and Riccardo were forgotten as they planned the hunt, working out their tactics, discussing in detail every aspect, every eventuality. Their concentration was absolute, and it was an hour before Sean stood up and came to where Riccardo and Claudia sat in the shade.
'The trick is going to be getting him to come in before nightfall,' he told them. 'We all agree that the only way to do that is to set up a fresh bait for him and build a new hide. The lionesses have rumbled this one, and old Fred is going to be as suspicious as all hell. He's going to lurk out there until well after dark or until we can entice him in somehow.'
Sean sat down between them and was silent for a moment.
'You know, Capo, sometimes for a good friend, someone I can trust, I'm prepared to bend the rules a little.' He spoke deliberately, drawing with a twig in the dirt between his feet, not looking at Riccardo.
'I'm listening.' Riccardo nodded.
'There may be only one way we will get this lion,' Sean said softly. 'Jacklight him.'
They were silent for a long time, and though Claudia did not know what 'jacklight' meant, she realized Sean was suggesting something beyond law or decency, and she knew her father was tempted. She was angry with Sean for putting temptation in her father's way, but she knew better than to intervene. She kept silent and willed her father to refuse to give in to temptation.
Riccardo shook his head. 'No, let's do it right.'
'We can try.' Sean shrugged. 'But he has been shot at over a bait and wounded once. It won't be easy.'
They were silent again for almost a full minute. Then Sean went on. 'The lion is a nocturnal animal. The night is his time. If you truly want this lion, I think you'll have to take him in darkness.'
Riccardo sighed, and shook his head. 'I want him very badly, but not badly enough to kill him without respect.' Sean stood up. 'It's your safari, Capo,' he agreed quietly. 'I just want you to know that there are not many men I'd make that offer to. As a matter of fact, offhand I can't think of anyone else I'd do it for.'
'I know,' Riccardo said. 'Thank you, Sean.' Sean walked back to the fig tree to help his men to lower the remains of the carcass so the pride could reach it.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Claudia asked her father, 'Jacklight?
What's that?'
'Putting a spotlight on an animal after dark and shooting it in the beam. It's illegal, highly illegal.'
'The bastard,' she said bitterly.
Riccardo did not react to her denunciation but went on softly, 'He was prepared to put his career on the line for me. That's one of the best things anyone has ever done for me.'
'I'm proud you refused him, Papa, but he's a bastard.'
'You don't understand,' he said. 'You can't possibly understand.'
He stood up and walked away, and immediately she felt a throb of guilt. She did understand. She understood that this was his last lion and that she was spoiling the pleasure of it for him. She was torn between her love for him and her protective instinct for that marvelous animal and her sense of right and justice.
'It should be easy to do the right thing,' she thought. 'But it so seldom is.'
So over the days that followed, they hunted the old lion with ethical tactics, providing fresh bait for him and the lionesses. Riccardo shot the buffalo Sean pointed out to him, another barren cow, and then, two days later, a decrepit bull with horns worn down to stumps and his ribs showing through his bald, mud-caked hide.
Each day Sean moved the bait or repositioned the thatched hide, to find a location the black-maned male would feel sufficiently confident to approach
