“I’m not going to move,” the poacher declared. “I’m going to lay right here.” His accent sounded German or Dutch. Simon’s ear hadn’t developed enough to tell the difference.
Without a word, Simon walked to the captives. He cut Saundra free with the katar, then gave her his boot knife to free the others.
Simon found the stream only a short distance from the campsite the poachers had chosen. He’d left Saundra in charge of the clients. He could have gotten them organized, but none of them wanted to be around him much.
Last night he’d been the life of the impromptu party. Tonight he’d killed four people.
Be fair, Simon chided himself. They saw two of their own get killed today, too. It might not all be you.
While on safari, Simon had seen three people get killed. Thankfully none of those instances had been through any fault of his. One had been gored by a Cape buffalo. Another had been taken by a crocodile when he waded too far out into a river. And the third had been killed in a knife fight with another man.
Each of those incidents had left their marks on him. He knew their clients wouldn’t soon forget their own experiences.
He knelt at the water’s edge, feeling the wet mud soak into the khaki pants. Across the stream, a four-foot long crocodile lay half-buried in the mud and in the water. It watched Simon with cold eyes that looked bluish in the moonlight.
Other nocturnal birds and rodents drank from the water or went hunting. Some of them preyed on each other.
Leaning forward, Simon scooped up water in both hands and splashed his face. Cuts and scratches he’d collected while scrambling under and over the Land Rover stung. Before he knew it, he was sick, throwing up into the water. It lasted for only a short time and he tried to keep it quiet, but it left him drained and shaking.
“Are you all right?”
The voice belonged to Saundra. She stood somewhere behind him.
The slow current floated the sickness away. Simon leaned forward and splashed water in his face again. He hated the taste of bile trapped at the back of his throat.
“I’m fine.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“No.” Simon wished she’d go away. He’d come out here to be alone.
“What you did, Simon—”
He turned to look at her then. “What I did was kill four men. That’s pretty horrible, don’t you think?” He realized he was speaking louder than he’d intended.
Saundra didn’t back away from him. Instead, to his surprise, she came to him and dropped to her knees. She looked him in the eyes.
“Yes,” she said softly. “It was pretty horrible. And if there’d been another way, I wouldn’t have wanted you to kill them. But there wasn’t another way. I know that. Our clients know that.” She paused. “And you know that.”
Simon didn’t say anything.
She leaned into him and took him into her arms, holding him tightly. “I was afraid for you. I thought they were going to kill you. I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Honestly, neither did I.” I was trained to fight monsters, not men. But he couldn’t tell her that, of course. He remained quiet, leaning into her, feeling her heat against the cooling night and the loneliness around him.
Back in the camp, Simon got out one of the tarps they used to set the tents up on. He placed it on the front of one of the Land Rovers, then grabbed the dead poacher lying in the fire by the feet and dragged him out of the coals.
The fire had burned away the man’s hair and his face. Only a grinning blackened skull remained. The stench was stomach-churning and seemed to hang in the air all around the campsite.
Simon used water from the stream to put out the smoldering clothing that had melted to the dead man’s upper torso. When he was certain the fire was finished, he dragged the dead man to the tarp. Then he went back for the next one, grabbing him by the boot heels and depositing him with the other.
At first, no one else moved. They only watched in silence. Then Saundra helped him with the third while two of the male clients dragged the fourth over to the tarp.
“What are you going to do with them?” Blaisdell asked. He was an American, working on a book, he’d said.
“Take them back to Cape Town.” Simon grabbed one end of the tarp and folded it over the corpses. Saundra took the other end and helped him.
“Why? So they can have a burial?” Anger edged Blaisdell’s words. “They don’t deserve that. They should be left out here. Let the animals get them.”
Simon started to reply, but knew he was going to be heated about it.
“Then those animals might develop a taste for human flesh,” Saundra interrupted calmly. “Furthermore, seeing these men come back in this condition might give pause to anyone else who might try something like this. We’re not doing them any favors. They’re dead. They don’t care anymore.”
Blaisdell dropped his head and backed away. “I’m sorry. But I liked Dalton. He didn’t deserve what happened to him. Neither did Carey.”
Simon silently agreed.
When he and Saundra had finished wrapping the dead men, they wrapped them in ropes and secured the grisly bundle to the Land Rover. It was too much like a big-game hunter’s trophy kill to suit Simon, but there was nothing to be done about it.
Picking up the remains of Dalton and Carey was worse. Simon and Saundra fired shots into the air to scare off the larger predators that didn’t give way to the lights from the Land Rovers. The smaller carnivores ran and hid at once.
Simon took another tarp and a large flashlight. He also wore one of the pistols he’d taken from the poachers. Then he went after the remains.
Carey’s body was mostly intact, but Dalton’s was scattered. They had to pick it up in pieces. Saundra
