African Dawn (21 page)

‘Zoe,’ Tate hissed.

‘What is it?’ Zoe yelled.

‘Shush!’ He beckoned for her to come to him as he rose to his knees. Teacher held his rifle with the butt into his shoulder, ready to fire. He glanced over his shoulder and mouthed the word ‘
Kifaru
’. It was Swahili for black rhino.

‘Shit.’ Now was the time to swear.

Zoe turned. ‘Oh, my G–’

‘Shush!’ Tate said, glaring at Zoe.

‘Sorry, I –’

Tate held up his hand to her. The radio squawked and he turned down the volume knob and held it to his ear. Victoria was coming back out of a wide circuit. ‘Tate, Victoria … you've got trouble, man. There's another
bladdy
rhino trotting towards you from the kopjes. Looks a bull.’ The other rhino must have been sleeping in the bush between the rocks, Tate thought. He clicked the press-to-send switch once to tell Victoria that he understood and that he was not in a position to talk. He was answered with another click.

Teacher backed slowly towards them. Tate heard the rustle of trees and a loud snort.

‘Oh my God!’ Zoe said as she saw the black rhino bull emerge from the thorn bushes at a trot. The stupid girl had ignored everything Tate had told her about keeping quiet once they were on the ground, and staying behind him. She was pointing her camera at the newcomer.

The rhino lowered his head and charged.

‘Trees!’ Teacher raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired a shot into the ground just in front of the animal, but it didn't heed the warning.

Zoe ran towards Tate rather than the nearest tree. He grabbed her by a slender arm and propelled her ahead of him. ‘Run! Find a tree and climb it.’

She turned and stumbled, tripping herself up in her panic. Tate dragged her to her feet and glanced back. Teacher's nerve or his faith in his own shooting abilities had failed him, because he was running as fast as he could for the nearest stand of trees.

Zoe screamed, but Tate shoved her forward, away from the oncoming rhino and its attendant dust cloud. He could feel the vibration of its charging feet running up his own legs and pounding in his chest. ‘Climb!’ he ordered as he thrust her into the trunk of a sapling that barely looked strong enough to carry her weight. She reached up and grabbed a spindly twig that snapped when she pulled down on it. Her red nails scratched at the trunk.

‘For Christ's sake, climb!’

‘I can't!’

Tate wrapped an arm around the back of her thighs and hefted her up into the stouter branches of the tree. She was tiny and he was able to hike her up onto his shoulder; when she finally managed to grab a bough, he gave her another boost up with a palm under her butt.

Tate didn't need to turn to know the rhino was almost on him. He'd be gored or smashed between that huge skull and the trunk before he could get himself up to the lowest branch. Tate dropped to the ground and wriggled so he was lying on the opposite side of the tree trunk to the rhino. He heard the snorted puffs of angry breathing.

Leaves and small twigs rained down on Tate as he clung to the base of the trunk, trying desperately to become part of the bark that he pressed his face to. Above him, Zoe screamed in terror as the rhino rammed his head into the trunk a second time.

Tate risked a peek around the tree and saw the rhino standing there. More debris landed on him, and he looked up to see Zoe slipping from the perch on which she'd managed to sit. She screamed again and was suddenly hanging from the branch above her, her legs pedalling in midair above the rhino.

‘Shit,’ Tate said.

The rhino lowered its head again at the new sound and sniffed.

Tate heard the scream of the helicopter's jet engine and the chop of its rotors in the hot air. He looked up and saw that Victoria was banking around, heading towards them. The animal held its ground, but as Victoria flared the chopper again she sent a tornado of dust their way. Grit and sand shrouded everyone's view, including the rhino's. Blinded and frightened, the animal trotted around the tree. Tate heard a scream and thud as Zoe, her arms nearly pulled from their sockets, let slip her grip and fell.

Tate stumbled forward blindly until he found a part of Zoe, grabbed at it and dragged her away. ‘Run!’ She needed no urging this time and was able to find her feet. She sprinted away.

Tate looked over his shoulder and saw the rhino. It had heard them, and its ears guided it. It turned, seemingly spinning inside its own body length. It was homing in on the sound of Zoe's footsteps and the snapping of twigs in her path.

‘Hah!’ Tate yelled, waving his arms over his head. ‘Hah! Over here!’

The rhino paused and registered Tate as its new target, then charged again. Tate ran for his life, hoping Victoria, who had climbed and begun circling again, could see what he was doing.

Thankfully, it looked as though she had, as Tate turned and saw out of the corner of his eye the helicopter wheel around and set down in front of Zoe. Victoria beckoned to her and pointed to the rear hatch. Zoe jumped onto the skid and dragged herself inside as Victoria started to lift off again.

Tate's arms and legs were pumping, but the rhinoceros quickly gained on him and lowered its head for the kill. Tate saw the shadow of the helicopter sweep over him and suddenly it was in front of him, filling his eyes and ears and mouth with choking grit and dust.

Guessing where the aircraft was and praying he was nowhere near the tail rotor, Tate held his arms out in front of him until his chest slammed into the hovering helicopter's skid. He blinked and yelled ‘
UP!
’ to Victoria, and as soon as she knew he was hanging on she lifted into the air.

Tate registered the rhino passing below him, and if he hadn't bent his knees his feet would have been hooked on its horn. It had been a gutsy move by Victoria to land in the path of a charging rhino, but if she hadn't Tate would have been dead. Victoria flew slowly sideways and then sat the chopper down. Tate scrambled into the back of the helicopter and loaded another dart faster than he'd ever done in his life.

‘Let's go get it,’ he yelled.

*

By the time the road party had arrived, Tate was kneeling beside the male rhino, bare-chested and covered in sweat-streaked dirt and dust. He'd used his bush shirt as a makeshift blindfold. Tate issued his orders rapidly, splitting the ground crew into two teams, one for each rhino.

Teacher arrived on the scene, looking shamefaced. Zoe, meanwhile, had stayed in the helicopter after Victoria landed, sitting in the back with her head in her hands. Eventually, she summoned the courage to climb down from her seat and walk tentatively to Tate's side. Tate looked up when he realised she was there.

‘Oh my God, Tate …’

He saw Zoe's faced was smeared with dirt and streaked with tears. Her chest was rising and falling as she sobbed. ‘Oh my God, Tate, you saved my life.’ She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. ‘I thought I was going to die and –’

‘Get some water.’

‘I can clean up when we get back to camp.’

‘Not for you.’ He glared at her. ‘Get some water and wet the rhino's back. We have to keep it cool. These animals are in danger until the drug is reversed and they're back on their feet. Come on, get to work. You're wasting time.’

Zoe started to cry.

*

That evening, on his way back to his tent from the bush shower enclosure, Tate paused in the shadows cast by the flames of the campfire and hissing gas lantern. ‘He's probably gay,’ Tate heard Zoe whisper from the fireside. A male laughed. Nigel, the British graduate student.

Tate walked into the ring of light and the laughter and conversation stopped.

‘Tate, hi,’ Nigel said. Zoe raised an enamel mug to her lips and took a deep drink. Tate saw the red in her cheeks and knew it was more than sunburn or the firelight. She had a nasty scratch down one cheek. Perhaps he should have shown her more sympathy.

She coughed as her drink went down the wrong way. ‘We were just talking about a professor I knew back at Stanford,’ she said.

Perhaps not, he thought. He didn't care what the girl thought of him. It had been clear, since she'd arrived a week earlier, that Nigel had the hots for her. Nigel had been taciturn all week, which was annoying because, unlike Zoe, Nigel was actually a good worker and took the time to learn how to act in the bush. Unlike the girl, he listened.

There were two other people around the fire, Angela, a volunteer from Australia who had paid a substantial amount of money to a rhino charity to come along on the capture operation, and François, a French vet. François and Angela stood and excused themselves, saying it was past their bedtime. Tate didn't know if they were sleeping together, but it wouldn't have surprised him. François had a habit of doing that sort of thing with the volunteers.

Zoe stood. ‘Yep, me too. I want to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for tomorrow. I'm sorry about today, Tate, if I was a little slow climbing the tree. Thank you, again, for saving me.’

A little slow? Tate would have laughed if it hadn't been so serious. He could take care of himself in the bush, although he'd used another of his lives today, but if one of the graduate students or ecotourism volunteers had been seriously injured or killed, the project would have been suspended indefinitely.

‘We won't be needing you tomorrow, Zoe,’ Tate said.

She set down her mug, next to the near-empty bottle of Captain Morgan Spiced Gold rum, and squared up to him, hands on hips. ‘I don't need a rest, Tate. I'm good to go.’

‘No, you're not, and I'm not talking about a rest, either. You're off the project, effective immediately.’

‘Tate …’ Nigel said.

Tate held up a hand to the boy. ‘I think you should go to bed, Nigel, and give us a moment.’

Nigel shook his head.

‘Very well – Nigel, you can be a witness. Zoe, you endangered yourself and other people today by not following the instructions you were given in the briefing. If it was your first day in the bush I could understand it, but the other day you were more interested in getting pictures of the rhino than monitoring its vital signs. On Monday you started giggling while we were stalking the black rhino on foot. You've had your week's probation, but now I'm afraid you're going to have to pack tomorrow.’

‘No fucking way!’

Tate was taken aback by her language.

‘My father is a major, and I mean
major
, donor to the charity that sponsored this operation, and I have a thesis to research, so you can
not
simply dismiss me out of hand, Tate. I'm not going.’

‘Yes, you are, Zoe.’ Tate wondered if he was the first person in Zoe's life who had ever said no to her. ‘I'll arrange for Teacher to take you to Arusha in the afternoon.’

‘You can't do this.’

‘I can, and I am.’

‘Dr Quilter-Phipps …’ Nigel began, but the look from Tate silenced him.

‘Goodnight to you both,’ Tate said.

Zoe started sobbing, as if that might make him reconsider. Tate looked back and saw that Nigel already had his arm wrapped around the girl's shoulders.

Tate left them and walked back to his safari tent. The semi-permanent research camp on the banks of the Mbalangeti River was luxurious compared to some of the places he'd lived and worked at in the past thirty years. Too much of the money raised or donated by people such as Zoe's father went on creature comforts as far as Tate was concerned.

He unzipped the mosquito-mesh door and kicked off his rafter sandals. He winced as he unbuttoned and took off his dirt- and sweat-stained bush shirt. They'd been lucky to escape with their lives today, and while he felt for Zoe, he knew there was no way she could stay on the rhino capture team. She was a spoilt child, which was not her fault, but she also refused to follow the rules.

Tate lay down on his camping stretcher with one arm under his head. A lion started its low, asthmatic calling nearby. He knew there would be repercussions – Zoe had probably already emailed her father – but he didn't care. He closed his eyes and nodded off.

The noise of the zip woke him and he sat bolt upright. ‘Who's there?’ His rifle was out of reach.

He caught her scent. Shampoo, soap, woman. She zipped the mesh door closed, but there was enough moonlight coming in through the weave for him to recognise her slender silhouette. Tate turned his head slowly to one side. ‘Zoe, I –’

‘Shush, Dr Quilter-Phipps. I understand why you said what you said before and I, like, totally understand,’ she said softly.

‘No.’

‘Yes. I do, and I'm grateful to you for saving me today, and for teaching me so much, and I want to apologise for being such a brat. I want to make it up to you.’ She lifted her green tank top over her head and stepped out of her flipflops. She had no bra on and her young breasts stood firm and high.

Tate swung his legs over the side of the stretcher and ran a hand through his unruly mane of greying hair. ‘Go back to your tent, Zoe,’ he sighed.

She started unbuttoning her khaki shorts. ‘It's all right. I want this.’

‘Yes, well I don't. Red light, or whatever you Americans say, OK?’

‘Uh-uh. Not OK.’

She let her shorts drop and pulled down her g-string and kicked the flimsy piece of lace across the tent floor. Despite himself he couldn't help but stare for a moment at her smooth bare skin. ‘Put your pants on.’

She stood there, naked, with her hands on her slender hips. ‘I'll do whatever you want, you know. Just, like, tell me.’

‘All right. Get dressed and get out of here.’

‘You're serious?’ The surprise was clear in her tone.

‘Yes.’

She scoffed. ‘Oh my God, you
are
gay, aren't you?’

‘No, just discerning.’ He regretted the words even as he said them.

Zoe stared at him for a few long, silent seconds, then opened her mouth wide and screamed.

*

By the time Nigel and Teacher arrived, Zoe had put her shorts and sandals back on, and half-replaced her tank top. She'd pulled one shoulder strap until it stretched, but she couldn't tear it; however, when the young men arrived they found her under a tree outside Tate's tent with one breast all but exposed.