But abruptly she stopped, pulling up short. Her ears were flat; then they pricked. She and the foal seemed to be studying each other. Adamson was shocked, bordering on indignant, but he remained in the copse. Possibly Girl sensed something wrong with the giraffe, he thought; or possibly there were other predators behind it, competition in the form of a clan of hyenas he could not see.
As he waited Girl stood unmoving, crouched a few feet from her quarry. Then the giraffe reached up slowly and mouthed a branch with its mobile, rubbery lips. It chewed.
Adamson was flabbergasted. Possibly the animal recognized his lion as a neophyte hunter: But how could it? Giraffes were not insightful; they had the dullness of most placid grazers. Either way, the animal should be bolting. Girl would be on him in a second, fast as light.
He could see Girl only from the rear; her tail twitched, her shoulders hunched. He could not see her face, which frustrated him, he told the German, for a lion’s face is extraordinary in its capacity for expression. What was she waiting for?
Then again, he thought, as he watched the stillness between them and held his own breath, the foal was going nowhere. Maybe Girl was hypnotized by the future: Maybe she saw the arc of her own leap, was already feeling the exhilaration of flight and the impact, the smell and weight of the foal as it crumpled beneath her, as she dragged and wrestled and tore it down, worried the tough hide and sweet flesh. Possibly she was waiting, pent up and ready.
But no. Girl straightened; she relaxed. She sniffed around the foal’s long legs. She jumped onto a dry log. She yawned.
And the giraffe kept eating, munching and grunting softly. It shifted on its feet; it stooped down, head dipping toward Girl and up again to the branches, where it tore and chewed, tore and chewed, with a complacent singularity of purpose.
There was sun on the log, glancing across the nape of the lion’s neck so that her face was illuminated, the rest of her in shadow. She licked a paw and lay down.
Adamson, squatting in the bushes, stayed put. His body was still but his mind worked hard, puzzling. He considered giraffes. Terence had a weakness for elephants; himself, he was strictly a lion man. But giraffes, though morphological freaks, had never interested either of them. Artiodactyla, for one thing: the order of camel, swine and bovids. Not suited for long-term relationships. Strictly for riding, eating or milking, really. He pitied them, but not much. There were no refrigerators in nature, after all; meat and milk had to keep themselves fresh.
After years in the bush he saw all animals as predators or prey. The tourists that came through his camp wanting to pet the lions? Now those were strictly prey, he mused.
Then, recalled to the present after a pause: No offense.
None taken, said the German heartily.
In fact the German had felt a prickle of annoyance. The flight in, on a single-engine Cessna in jolting turbulence, had made him squeeze his eyes shut and pray silently to a God in whom he did not believe. For this?
An old alcoholic, he thought angrily, with poor hygiene—that was all. He had been eight years of age when he saw Born Free, living in a claustrophobic bourgeois household in Stuttgart. His father was fat as blood sausage and his mother used a bottle of hairspray a week. He thought Adamson and his beautiful wife were like Tarzan and Jane.
But Kirsten had disapproved of this trip, and she was probably right: nothing more than a midlife crisis.
The smoke from Adamson’s pipe was spicy. The German was disgusted by smoking—frankly, any man fool enough to do it deserved what he got—but he had to admit the pipe smelled far better than cigarettes.
You were saying, the German reminded him. Girl and giraffe?
Yes, said Adamson softly.
The old man was frail, thought the German, with the ranginess of a hungry dog; his muscles had no flesh between them. He had nothing to spare.
So Girl had lain there on the log in the sun, dozing while the giraffe moved from tree to tree. The sun crossed the sky and clouds massed, casting a leaden grayness over the low hills. Adamson stayed seated in the scrub, drank from a flask and puffed on his pipe. There was a silver elegance to the day, which was unusually mild and breezy; he listened to the wind rattle the branches and whisper the dry grass. Birds alit in the trees and moved off—he noticed mostly black-headed weavers and mourning doves—and Girl and the giraffe ignored them. The shadows grew longer; the sun was sinking. Adamson began to feel impatient, pulled back to camp. He had things he should do before dark.
It was almost dusk when the giraffe moved. It ambled over and bent its head to Girl again, who stirred.
While it is not true, said Adamson solemnly to the German, that giraffes never lie down, as legend has it, it is true that they do so rarely and for a very short time. And never, he said, in his experience, did they lie down at the feet of their predators.
And yet this was what the foal did.
It had been a good day, said Adamson, and raised his glass.
As he talked, the German had built up the fire again, and now he saw the flames reflecting off amber. He was regretting his choice. The choice had been between Africa or Mallorca, where his wife was now suntanning.
The foal lay down deliberately, said Adamson, right beside the dry log. It was deliberate.
And Girl stretched her legs, as a cat will do, luxurious and long, all four straight out at their fullest reach like table legs. She stretched and rose, jumped languidly off the log and paused. Then she leaned down over the foal
