Fever Dream

'And then?'

'Surely you can imagine 'and then'! The wife was hysterical, the whole camp went into an uproar, they had to bring in a helicopter to airlift out the tourists. The camp staff left behind are scared shiteless. This fellow was a well-known photographer in Germany--bloody bad for business!'

'Did you track the lion?'

'We have trackers and guns, but nobody who'll go into the bush after this lion. Nobody with the experience--or the ballocks. That's why we need you, Pendergast. We need you down here to track that bugger and... well... recover the remains of the poor German before there's nothing left to bury.'

'You haven't even recovered the body?'

'Nobody will go out there after the bloody thing! You know what Kingazu Camp is like, all the dense brush that's come up because of the elephant poaching. We need a damned experienced hunter. And I needn't remind you that terms of your professional hunting license require you to deal with rogue man-eaters as, and if, it becomes necessary.'

'I see.'

'Where'd you leave your Rover?'

'At the Fala Pans.'

'Get cracking as fast as you can. Don't bother breaking camp, just grab your guns and get down here.'

'It'll take a day, at least. Are you sure there isn't anyone closer who can help you?'

'Nobody. At least, nobody I'd trust.'

Pendergast glanced at his wife. She smiled, winked, mimed the shooting of a pistol with one bronzed hand. 'All right. We'll get moving right away.'

'One other thing.' The DC's voice hesitated and there was a silence over the radio, filled with hissing and crackling.

'What?'

'Probably not very important. The wife who witnessed the attack. She said...' Another pause.

'Yes?'

'She said the lion was peculiar.'

'How so?'

'It had a red mane.'

'You mean, a little darker than usual? That's not so uncommon.'

'Not darker than usual. This lion's mane was deep red. Almost blood red.'

There was a very long silence. And then the DC spoke again. 'But of course it can't be the same lion. That was forty years ago in northern Botswana. I've never heard of a lion living more than twenty-five years. Have you?'

Pendergast said nothing as he switched off the radio, his silvery eyes glittering in the dying twilight of the African bush.

2

Kingazu Camp, Luangwa River

THE LAND ROVER BANGED AND LURCHED ALONG the Banta Road, a bad track in a country legendary for them. Pendergast turned the wheel violently left and right to avoid the yawning potholes, some almost half as deep as the bashed-up Rover. The windows were wide open--the air-conditioning was broken--and the interior of the car was awash in dust blown in by the occasional vehicle passing in the other direction.

They had left Makwele Stream just before dawn, making the twelve-mile trek through the bush without guides, carrying nothing but their weapons, water, a hard salami, and chapati bread. They reached their car around noon. For several hours now they had been passing through sporadic, hardscrabble villages: circular buildings of lashed sticks with conical roofs of thatch, dirt streets clogged with loose cattle and sheep. The sky was a cloudless, pale, almost watery blue.

Helen Pendergast fiddled with her scarf, pulling it more tightly around her hair in a losing battle with the omnipresent dust. It stuck to every exposed inch of their sweaty skin, giving them a scrofulous appearance.

'It's strange,' she said as they crawled through yet another village, avoiding chickens and small children. 'I mean, that there isn't a hunter closer by to take care of this lion problem. After all, you're not exactly a crack shot.' She smiled wryly; this was a frequent tease.

'That's why I'm counting on you.'

'You know I don't like killing animals I can't eat.'

'How about killing animals that can eat us?'

'Perhaps I can make an exception there.' She angled the sun visor into a new position, then turned toward Pendergast, her eyes--blue with flecks of violet--narrowed by the bright light. 'So. What was that business about the red mane?'

'A lot of nonsense. There's an old legend knocking about this part of Africa concerning a red-maned, man- eating lion.'

'Tell me about it.' Her eyes sparkled with interest; the local stories fascinated her.

'Very well. About forty years ago--the story goes--a drought struck the southern Luangwa Valley. Game grew very scarce. A pride of lions that hunted in the valley starved to death, one by one, until only a single survivor remained--a pregnant lioness. She survived by digging up and eating the corpses at a local Nyimba cemetery.'