Her lips were trembling and as he stared into them he saw that her honey-colored eyes were swimming. He had not expected tears from her. They took him by surprise. He felt his fury slipping away and he had to make an effort to bolster it.
"It's too late to start blubbering now, ducky. We've got to find a way to get him home. He's a sick man."
"He's not going home," she murmured, so low he barely caught All the words. Her tears were hanging on thick dark lashes and he stared at her in silence. She swallowed hard and then said, "He's not a sick man, Sean. He's dying. Cancer. It was diagnosed by a specialist before we left home. He predicted that it could attack the brain like this."
Sean's fury crumpled. "No," he said. "Not Capo."
"Why do you think I agreed to let him come and insisted on coming with him? I knew that this was his last hunt-and I wanted to be with him."
They were silent, staring at each other, then she said, "You care.
I can see you truly care for him. I didn't expect that."
"He's my friend," Sean said, puzzled himself by the depth of his own sadness.
"I didn't think you were capable of gentleness," she went on softly. "I may have misjudged you."
"Perhaps we misjudged each other," he said.
She nodded. "Perhaps we did," she said. "But thank you anyway. Thank you for caring about my father."
She began to turn away to go back to Riccardo, but Sean stopped her. "We still haven't settled anything," he said. "We haven't decided what we are going to do."
"We go on, of course," she answered. "Right to the bitter end.
That's what I promised him."
"You've got guts," he told her softly.
"If I have, then I got them from him," she replied, and went to her father.
The mug of tea and a half-dozen aspirin tablets revived Riccardo. He was acting and talking completely rationally again, and none of them made any further reference to his wild behavior, although quite naturally it had thrown a pall over all of them.
"We must move on, Capo," Sean told him. "Tukutela is walking away from us every minute we sit here."
They followed the ridge of high ground, and now the odor of the swamps was stronger, brought to them by the fitful, inconstant wind.
"That's one of the many reasons elephants like the swamps," Sean explained to Riccardo. "The wind is always shifting, turning and switching. It makes it much more difficult to get close to them."
There was a gap in the trees ahead. Sean stopped and they gazed out through it. "There they are," he said. "The Zambezi swamplands.
The ridge on which they stood was like the back of a sea serpent, swimming across the open flood plains Now, just ahead of them, it ducked below the surface and disappeared at the point where the open plains gave way to endless expanses of papyrus and reeds.
Sean raised his binoculars and surveyed the swamps ahead. The reed beds seemed limitless, but he had flown over them and he knew they were interspersed with shallow lagoons of open water and narrow winding channels. Farther out, almost on the horizon, he could see the loom of small islets, dark patches of almost impenetrable bush-crowned islands, and he could just make out the curved palm stems with their high fluffy heads.
The past season had been particularly dry and the water level would be low, in most places not more than waist deep, but the mud banks would be black and glutinous and the channels much deeper. The going would be arduous, and apart from the mud and water, reeds and water plants would impede each step they took, winding themselves around their legs as they tried to move.
For them each mile through the swamps would be the equivalent of five on dry land, while the elephant would be in his element. He loved mud and water. It supported his great bulk, and his foot pads were designed by nature to expand as he put his weight upon them, forcing a wide opening, and then to shrink in diameter as he lifted them, freeing themselves readily from the clinging mud.
Tukutela could gorge on reeds, soft water plants, and swamp grass, and the dense bushy islets would afford variety to his diet.
The suck of mud and the splash of water would warn him of an approaching enemy and the fitfully turning wind would protect him, bringing the scent of a pursuer down to him from every quarter. In all of Tukutela's wide range, this was the most difficult place to hunt him.
It's going to be a Sunday school picnic, Capo." Sean lowered the binoculars. "Those tusks are as good as hanging over the fireplace in your den already."
"the old bull's spoor went out to the very end of the land bridge and then down into the papyrus beds, where the undulating sea of green fronds swallowed the trail and left not a sign.
"Nobody can follow a trail in there." Riccardo stood at the line where dry friable earth ended and damp swamp mud began. "Nobody can find Tukutela in there," he repeated, staring at the wall of swamp growth higher than his head. "Surely they can't?"
"You are right, nobody can find him in there," Sean agreed.
"That is, nobody except Matatu."
% They were standing in the remains of a village that had been built on the end of the isthmus. Clearly the previous occupants had been fishermen, members of one of the small tribes who live along the banks of the Zambezi and make their livelihood from her abundant green waters. The racks on which they had dried their catches of tilapia bream and barbeled catfish still stood, but their huts had been burned to the ground.
Job was searching the outskirts of the village, and he whistled for Sean. When Sean went to join him he was standing over an object that lay in the short grass. At first glance Sean thought it was a bundle of rags, and then he saw the bones protruding from it. They were still partially covered by shreds of dried skin and flesh.
"When?" Sean asked.
"Six months ago, perhaps."
"How did he die?"
Job squatted beside the human skeleton. when he turned the skull, it snapped off the vertebrae of the neck like a ripe fruit. Job cupped it in his hands, and it grinned at him with empty eye sockets.
"Bullet through the back of the head," Job said. "Exit hole this side." It was like a third eye in the bone of the forehead.
Job replaced the skull and walked deeper into the grass. "Here's another," he called.
"Renamo has been through here," Sean gave his opinion. "Either looking for recruits or dried fish or both."
else it was Frelimo looking for Renamo rebels, and they decided to question them with an AK. "They get it from both sides. There "Poor buggers," Sean said.
will be plenty more of them lying around. They are the ones who escaped from the huts before they burned." he They started back toward the village and Sean said, ""If they were fishermen-theY would have had their canoes here. They will probably be hidden, but we could certainly use one. Go through the edge of the papyrus beds and then search the bush behind the village."