Sean called a halt an hour before dark for a brew of tea and their frugal evening meal. While Job cooked it over his small smokeless fire, Sean took Matatu aside and talked to him quietly. The tracker watched Sean's face as he spoke, nodding eagerly, and as soon as he finished Matatu slipped away, heading back the way they had come.
Riccardo looked a question as Sean came back to join them and he explained.
"I sent Matatu to backtrack us. Make sure we aren't being followed. I'm worried about that shot. It could have called up those uglies we found near the border."
Riccardo nodded. Then he asked, "Have you got a couple of aspirin, Sean?"
Sean opened the side flap of his pack and shook three tablets from their bottle.
"Headache?" he asked as he passed them to Riccardo, who nodded as he popped them into his mouth and washed them down with a swallow of hot tea.
"The dust and sun glare," he explained. But both Sean and Claudia were studying him and he bridled. "Damn it, don't look at me like that. I'm fine."
"Sure," Sean agreed smoothly. "Let's eat and move on to find a place to sleep." He went across to the cooking fire and squatted beside Job.
They talked softly.
"Papa," Claudia moved a little closer to her father and touched his arm. "How are you feeling, honestly?"
Don't worry about me, tesoro.
"it has started, hasn't it?"
"No," he replied, too swiftly.
Doc Andrews said there might be headaches."
"It's the sun."
"I love you, Papa," she said.
"I know, baby, and I love you too."
"An ocean and a mountain?" she asked.
"The stars and the moon," he confirmed, putting his arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him.
As soon as they had eaten, Job doused the fire and Sean got them up and moving again. Tukutela's spoor was easy to follow in the soft earth, and he and Job had no need of Matatu for this stage.
However, at dark they were forced to stop for the night.
"We'll reach the swamps tomorrow afternoon," Sean promised Riccardo as they stretched out on top of their sleeping bags.
Claudia lay awake worrying about her father long after the others were asleep. Riccardo snored softly, lying on his back with his arms extended like a crucifix. When she raised herself on one elbow to look at him in the starlight, she heard Sean's light breathing alter subtly and sensed he had been awakened by her movement, He slept as lightly as a cat; sometimes he frightened her, But even her concern for her father was at last overcome and she fell into that dark, drugged sleep of exhaustion. Waking was like coming back from a faraway place.
"Wake up, come on, wake up." Sean was slapping her face lightly, and she pushed his hand away and sat up groggily.
"What?" she mumbled. "God, it's still dark."
He had left her and gone to her father. "Come on, Capo, wake UP, man, wake UP. "What the hell, what is it?" Riccardo's voice was slurred and grumpy.
"Matatu has just come into camp," Sean told them quietly. "We are being followed."
Claudia felt the icy wind of dread blow across her skin. "Followed? By whom?"
"We don't know," Sean said.
"The same bunch that was camped at the border?" Riccardo asked. His voice was still slurred.
"Possibly," Sean said.
"What are you going to do?" Claudia asked, annoyed that her tone sounded afraid and confused.
"We are going to give them the slip," Sean said. "Get up on your hind legs."
They had slept with their boots on. They had simply to roll their sleeping bags and they were ready to move out.
"Matatu is going to lead you away and cover your spoor," Sean explained. "Job and I are going to lay a false trail for them in the original direction. As soon as it's light we'll break away and circle back to join you."
"You aren't going to leave us alone?" Claudia blurted out fearfully, then bit it off.
"No, you won't be alone. Matatu and Pumula and Dedan will be with you," Sean told her disdainfully.
"What about the elephant?" Riccardo demanded. His voice had firmed. "Are you breaking off the hunt? You going to let my elephant get away?"
"For a few lousy gooks armed with a couple of lousy AK-47s?"
Sean chuckled. "Don't be ridiculous, Capo. We will shake them off and be after Tukutela again before you know it."
Sean and Job waited while Matatu assembled his group and then shepherded them away. By now Riccardo and Claudia had learned the basics of anti tracking and went swiftly under Matatu's direction while the tracker brushed and covered the signs behind them.
Once they were clear, Sean and Job trampled the area around the camp, back and forth and around in circles, until they had confused any remaining spoor. Then they fell into single file, Sean leading, and went away at a run. They did not make it too apparent that they were laying a false trail but adopted all the usual precautions, which would not fool a good tracker.
It was the old Scout pursuit pace Sean set, seven miles an hour, and gradually he began to veer off in a southerly direction. Matatu was heading northward toward the river, and Sean would lead the pursuit directly away from them.
While he ran, Sean puzzled over the identity of his pursuers government soldiers or rebels, poachers or simply armed bandits looking for plunder, it was impossible to guess. However, Matatu had been worried when he came into camp.
"They are good, Bwana, " he had told Sean. "They have done well to follow the spoor we left, and they are coming on fast. They move in formation like bush fighters, with flankers out."
"Didn't you get a good look?" Sean had asked.
little Ndorobo ha4 shook his head. "It was getting dark and I wanted to get back to, warn you. They were closing in swiftly."
"Even the best tracker won't be able to follow us in darkness.
We've got the rest of the night to get clear of them."
It was a strange reversal of roles, Sean thought grimly as he and Job trotted through the dark bush. They, the hunters, were now being hunted just as remorselessly.
At first he had considered breaking off the chase after the elephant and doubling back for the border. Riccardo Monterro's condition was causing him real concern, and so was Matatu's warning that their pursuers were skilled and appeared dangerous.
However, he had swiftly rejected the idea; they were beyond the point of no return.
"No turning back," Sean said aloud and grinned as he admitted to himself the true reasons for his determination, two ivory tusks and half a million dollars in cash, By now he was honestly not certain which of those was the most compelling. The tusks were beginning to loom large in his imagination. They represented the old Africa, a symbol of a better world that had vanished. He wanted them more than he had ever wanted anything in his life, except perhaps half a million dollars. He grinned again.