"We are crossing bact into Mozambique now." Sean was scribbling notes on the map.
"That way. Matatu leaned over the back of the seat and pointed out a more northerly track. Sean knew better than to argue with him and turned a few degrees left.
Minutes later Matatu demanded he turn slightly south again.
"Little bugger is actually sensing the old bull's trail, he is thinking like the elephant," Sean marveled. At that moment Matatu gave a squeak of triumph and pointed urgently out of the side window.
As they flashed across another dry river-bed, Sean glimpsed the tracks trodden in the soft sand. They were so deep that they were filled with shadow, a string of dark beads on the white background. Even Sean, who for twenty years had watched Matatu work, was amazed. On instinct alone, Matatu had followed the bull to this river crossing.
It was a supernatural feat.
Sean circled the tracks, his port wingtip pointing directly at them, so steep was his turn.
"Which way now?" he called to the back seat. Matatu tapped his shoulder and pointed downstream. Without demur, Sean followed the gnarled black finger.
there he is!" Job shouted suddenly. Matatu shrieked with laughter and clapped his hands, bouncing in his seat like a child at a pantomime.
A mile ahead the river ran into a wide vlei that still held water from the last rains. The elephant's humped back showed above the tops of the tall reeds that surrounded the pool, like a gray whale in a sea of green.
As they raced low toward him, the elephant heard the Beechcraft's engine. He lifted his head and spread his ears wide, turning to face them, and they saw his tusks, those legendary shafts of black ivory raised to the sky. The beauty of their curved symmetry struck Sean all over again.
There was just a glimpse of them as they flashed overhead, but the image was printed vividly on his mind's eye. Half a million dollars and those tusks-he had risked his LIFE a hundred times for much lesser prizes.
"Going back for another look?" Job asked, twisting his head to try and see back over the tailplane.
"No." Sean shook his head. "We don't want to disturb him more than necessary. We know where to find him. Let's go home."
"It's MY half-million dollars you're so gaily throwing around," Claudia told her father.
"How do you work that out?" Riccardo asked. He was lying on his camp bed dressed in a pair of silk pajama bottoms, his chest and feet bare. Claudia noticed that most of his body hair was still crisp, curly and black, with only a patch of fuzzy gray in the center of his chest.
"My inheritance," she explained sweetly. "You're blowing my inheritance, Papa."
Riccardo chuckled. She had the sass of a divorce lawyer, coming bursting into his tent to renew the argument he thought he had finalized in the mess tent over breakfast.
"If I'm not going to get it in your will, the very least you can do is let me enjoy it with you now."
"According to the last audit, young lady, you will have a little over thirty-six million coming to you after taxes, after I've allowed myself this small extravagance. I hasten to add that every cent is tied up in a trust fund that not even the most crafty lawyers will ever break. I don't want you handing out my hard -earned loot to one of your bleeding-heart charities." "Papa, you know the money has never interested me. What interests me is coming with you on this crazy jaunt after the elephant.
I came to Africa with you on the understanding that I was to be included in everything. That was our bargain."
"I'll say it one more time, tesoro, my treasure." He only called her by that baby name when he was feeling very affectionate or very exasperated. "You're not coming into Mozambique with us."
"You'd go back on your solemn promise?" she accused.
"Without a qualm," he assured her. "if your safety or happiness was involved."
She jumped up from the canvas camp chair and began to prowl around the tent. He watched her with secret pleasure. Her arms were folded over those pert little breasts, and she was frowning heavily, but the frown left no lines on her smooth plastic skin. In looks she reminded him of the young Sophia Loren, his favorite actress.
Now she stopped beside the camp bed and glared down at him.
"You know I always get my way," she said. "Why don't you make it easier for both of us, and just say I can come."
"I'm sorry, tesoro. You aren't coming."
"all right." She drew a deep breath. "I don't want to do this, Papa, but you leave me no choice. I've begun to understand what this means to you, why you're prepared to pay such a vast sum for a chance to do it, but if I can't go with you, as is my right and my duty, then I'll prevent you from going."
He chuckled again, easily and unconcernedly.
"I'm serious, deadly serious, Papa. Please don't make me do it."
"How can you stop me, little girl?" he asked.
"I can tell Sean Courtney what Dr. Andrews told me."
Riccardo Monterro came to his feet in one lithe swift movement and seized her arms. "What did Andrews tell you?" he asked in a voice as thin and cutting as a razor blade.
"He told me that last November you had a little black spot on your right arm," she said. Instinctively he put his right arm behind his back, but she went on. "It had a pretty name, melanoma, like a girl's name, but it wasn't pretty at all, and you left it too late. He cut it out, but the pathologist graded it Clarke five-that's six months to a year, Papa. That's what he told me."
Riccardo Monterro sat down on the bed and his voice was suddenly very weary.
"When did he tell you?"
"Six weeks ago." She sat down beside him. "That's why I agreed to come to Africa with you. I didn't want to be apart from you for one day of the time we have left. That's why I am coming with you into Mozambique."
"No." He shook his head. "I can't let you."
"Then I'll tell Sean that at any moment it may reach your brain."
She did not have to elaborate. Dr. Andrews had been most graphic as he described the many possible directions the disease could take. If it went to the lungs, it would be death by suffocation, but if it affected the brain or nervous system, it would be either general paralysis or total derangement.
"You wouldn't," he said, shaking his head. "The last thing in my life that I really want. You wouldn't deny it to me?"
"Without a qualm," she said, repeating his own words. "If you refuse me my right to be with you for every one of these last days, and to be with you at the end as is the duty of a loving daughter."
"I can't let you." He let his face sink into the cup of his hands, a gesture of defeat that hurt her. It required all her resolve to keep her tone firm.
"And I can't let you die alone," she replied.
"You don't understand how much I want this thing. It's the last thing in my LIFE. The old bull and I will go together. You don't understand. If you did you wouldn't prevent me."