Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [7]
“Good-bye, old moon,” said Pendergast lightly.
Helen squeezed his hand, then stood up as the DC and Wisley materialized on the path from the kitchen hut. With them was a third man, hollow-faced, very tall and lanky. His eyes were yellow.
“This is Wilson Nyala,” said Wisley. “Your gun bearer.”
Handshakes. The bartender from the previous night came from the kitchen with a large pot of lapsang souchong tea, and steaming cups of the strong brew were poured all around.
They drank quickly in silence. Pendergast set his cup down. “It’s light enough to take a look at the scene of the attack.”
Nyala slung one gun over each shoulder, and they walked down a dirt path that ran along the river. Where it passed a dense stand of miombo brush, an area had been marked out with rope and wooden stakes. Pendergast knelt, examining the spoor. He could see a pair of enormous pug marks in the dust, next to a puddled mass of black blood, now dry and cracking. As he looked about, he reconstructed the attack in his mind. What had happened was clear enough: the man had been jumped from the brush, knocked down, bitten. The initial reports were accurate. The dust showed where the lion had dragged his thrashing victim back into the brush, leaving a trail of blood.
Pendergast rose. “Here’s how it’ll work. I’ll stay eight feet behind Jason, slightly to his left. Helen will be behind me another eight feet, to the right. Wilson, you float just behind us.” He glanced over at his wife, who gave a subtle nod of approval.
“When the time comes,” he continued, “we’ll gesture for the guns—bring them up with safeties on. For my rifle, detach the strap—I would rather not hitch it up on brush.”
“I prefer my strap on,” said Helen curtly.
Wilson Nyala nodded his bony head.
Pendergast extended an arm. “My rifle, please?”
Wilson handed him his rifle. Pendergast broke the action, examined the barrel, dunked in two soft-point .465 nitro express cartridges—big as Macanudos—closed it, locked it, made sure the safety was on, and handed it back. Helen did the same with her rifle, loading it with .500/.416 flanged soft points.
“That’s a rather big gun for such a slender woman,” said Woking.
“I think a big-bore weapon is rather fetching,” replied Helen.
“All I can say,” Woking continued, “is I’m glad I’m not going into the bush after that brute, big rifle or no.”
“Keep the long-triangle formation as closely as possible as we advance,” said Pendergast, glancing from Mfuni to Nyala and back again. “The wind’s in our favor. No talking unless absolutely necessary. Use hand signals. Leave the flashlights here.”
Everyone nodded. The atmosphere of false jollity quickly evaporated as they waited in silence for the sun to come up enough to fill the underbrush with dim blue twilight. Then Pendergast motioned for Mfuni to proceed.
The tracker moved into the bush, carrying his spear in one hand, following the blood spoor. The trail moved away from the river, through the dense thorn scrub and second-growth mopane brush along a small tributary of the Luangwa called Chitele Stream. They moved slowly, following the spoor that coated the grass and leaves. The tracker paused to point with his spear at a brake of flattened grass. There was a large stained area, still damp, the leaves around splattered with arterial blood. This was where the lion had first put down his victim and begun eating, even while the victim still lived, before being shot at.
Jason Mfuni bent down and silently held up an object: half of a lower jawbone with teeth, gnawed around the edges and licked clean. Pendergast looked at it without speaking. Mfuni laid it down again and pointed to a hole in the wall of vegetation.
They proceeded through the hole into heavy green bush. Mfuni paused every twenty yards to listen and smell the air, or to examine a smear of blood on a leaf. The corpse had bled out