Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [9]
They moved forward, into a small open area with no grass, no more than ten feet square. The tracker paused, sniffed the air, then pointed left. “Lion,” he whispered.
Pendergast stared ahead, looked left, then shook his head and pointed straight ahead.
The tracker scowled, leaned to Pendergast’s ear. “Lion circle around to left. He very smart.”
Still Pendergast shook his head. He leaned over Helen. “You stay here,” he whispered, his lips brushing her ears.
“But the tracker—”
“The tracker’s wrong. You stay, I’ll go ahead just a few yards. We’re nearing the far end of the vlei. He’ll want to remain in cover; with me moving toward him he’ll feel pressed. He might rush. Be ready and keep a line of fire open to my right.”
Pendergast signaled for his gun. He grasped the metal barrel, warm in the heat, and pulled it forward under his arm. He thumbed off the safety and flipped up the night sight—a bead of ivory—for better sighting in the grassy half-light. Nyala handed Helen her rifle.
Pendergast moved into the dense grass straight ahead, the tracker following in frozen silence, his face a mask of terror.
Pushing through the grass, placing each foot with exceeding caution on the hardpan ground, Pendergast listened intently for the peculiar cough that would signal the beginning of a rush. There would be time for only one shot: a charging lion could cover a hundred yards in as little as four seconds. He felt more secure with Helen behind him; two chances at the kill.
After ten yards, he paused and waited. The tracker came alongside, deep unhappiness written on his face. For a full two minutes, neither man moved. Pendergast listened intently but could hear only insects. The gun was slippery in his sweaty hands, and he could taste the alkali dust on his tongue. A faint breeze, seen but not felt, swayed the grass around them, making a soft clacking sound. The insect drone fell to a murmur, then died. Everything grew utterly still.
Slowly, without moving any other part of his body, Mfuni extended a single finger—again ninety degrees to his left.
Remaining absolutely still, Pendergast followed the gesture with his eyes. He peered into the dim haze of grass, trying to catch a glimpse of tawny fur or the gleam of an amber eye. Nothing.
A low cough—and then a terrible, earthshaking explosion of sound, a massive roar, came blasting at them like a freight train. Not from the left, but from straight ahead.
Pendergast spun around as a blur of ocher muscle and reddish fur exploded out of the grass, pink mouth agape, daggered with teeth; he fired one barrel with a massive ka-whang! but he hadn’t time to compose the shot and the lion was on him, six hundred pounds of enormous stinking cat, knocking him flat, and then he felt the red-hot fangs slice into his shoulder and he cried out, twisting under the suffocating mass, flailing with his free arm, trying to recover the rifle that had been knocked away by the massive blow.
The lion had been so well hidden, and the rush so fast and close, that Helen Pendergast was unable to shoot before it was on top of her husband—and then it was too late; they were too close together to risk a shot. She leapt from her spot ten yards behind and bulled through the tall grass, yelling, trying to draw the monstrous lion’s attention as she raced toward the hideous sound of muffled, wet growling. She burst onto the scene just as Mfuni sank his spear into the lion’s gut; the beast—bigger than any lion should rationally be—leapt off Pendergast and swiped at the tracker, tearing away part of his leg, then bounded into the grass, the spear dragging from its belly.
Helen took careful aim at the lion’s retreating back and fired, the recoil from the massive .500/.416 nitro express cartridge jolting her hard.
The shot missed. The lion was gone.
She rushed to her husband. He was still conscious. “No,” Pendergast gasped. “Him.”
She glanced at Mfuni. He was lying on his back, arterial blood squirting into the dirt from where the calf muscle of his right leg was hanging by a thread of skin.
“Oh,