When they spoke of the animals, however, she could take more interest and even participate, usually to vent her disapproval. They talked mostly of particular individual animals, legendary old males for which Sean had pet names, which annoyed Claudia, just the way it irritated her when he called Papa "Capo," as though he were a Mafia don. One such animal he referred to as "Frederick the Great," or simply "Fred." This was the lion they were hunting now, the lion for which they had hung the buffalo carcass.
"I've seen him twice so far this season. One client even had a shot at him. Mind you, he was shaking so much with nerves that he missed him by a football field."
"Tell me about him." Riccardo leaned forward eagerly.
"Papa, he told you about him last night," Claudia reminded him sweetly.
"And the night before, and the night before that-"
"Little girls should be seen and not heard." Riccardo chuckled.
"Didn't I ever teach you anything? Tell me about Fred again."
"He's got to be well over eleven foot, and not just length. He's got a head on him like a hippo and a mane like a black haystack.
When he walks, it ripples and tosses like the wind in a msasa tree," Sean rhapsodized. "Cunning? Sly? Fred knows it all. He's been shot at at least three times that I know of. Wounded once by a Spanish hunter over in Ian Piercy's concession three seasons ago, but he recovered. He didn't get that big by being stupid."
"How are we going to get him?" Riccardo demanded.
"I think the two of you are disgusting," Claudia cut in before Sean could reply. "After seeing those glorious creatures today, those beautiful little cubs, how can you bring yourself to kill than?"
"I didn't see any cubs shot today," Riccardo remarked as he nodded to the waiter offering him another helping of tripe. "In fact, we went to a great deal of trouble and risk to ensure their survival."
"You're devoting forty-five days of your life to the sole purpose of killing lions and elephants!" Claudia shot back. "So don't get all righteous with me, Riccardo Monterro."
"I'm always fascinated by the confused thought processes of your average shrieking liberal," Sean intervened. Claudia turned on him gleefully, lusting for battle.
"There's no confusion in my mind. You're here to kill animals."
"The same way a farmer kills animals," Sean agreed. "To ensure a healthy, flourishing herd and a place for that herd to survive."
"You're not a farmer."
"Oh, yes, I am," Sean-contradicted. "The only difference is that I slaughter them on A range, not in an abattoir. But like any farmer, my chief concern is the survival of my breeding-stock."
They're not domestic animals," ClaudIa contested. "Those are beautiful wild animals."
"Beautiful? Wild? What the hell has that got to do with it? Like anything else in this modern world, the wild game of Africa has to pay its way if it's going to survive. Capo here is paying tens of thousands of dollars to hunt a lion and an elephant. He is giving those animals a monetary value far above goats and cattle, so that the newly independent government of Zimbabwe is willing to set aside concessions of millions of acres in which the game can persist. I rent one of those concessions, and I have the strongest incentive in the world for protecting it from grazers and poachers and making certain I have plenty of game to offer my hunters. No, ducky, legal safari hunting is one of the most effective arms of conservation in Africa today."
"So you're going to save the animals by shooting them with high-powered rifles?" Claudia demanded scornfully.
"High-powered rifles?" Sean laughed softly. "Another emotive liberal parrot cry. Would you prefer us to use low-powered rifles?
Wouldn't that be rather like demanding that the butcher use only blunt knives to cut throats? You are an intelligent woman; think with your head, not your heart. The individual animal is unimportant. His life-span is limited to a few short years-in the case of this lion we are hunting, probably twelve years at the very most. What is beyond price is the continued existence of the species as a whole.
Not the individual, but his entire kind. Our lion is an old male at the very end of his useful LIFE-span, during which he has protected his females and young and already added his genes to the pool of his race. He will die naturally within the next year or two. Much better that his death produce ten thousand dollars in cash which will be spent on providing a safe place for his cubs to live than having this wilderness encroached upon by swarming black humanity and its scrawny herds of goats."
"My God, listen to you." Claudia shook her head sadly.
"Swarming black humanity" are the words of a racist and a bigot.
It's their land; why can't they be free to live where they choose?"
"And that is the logic of woolly-headed liberalism." Sean laughed. "Make up your mind whose side you are on, the beautiful wild animals or the beautiful wild blacks. You can't have it both ways; when the two come into competition for living space, the wild animals always come off losers-unless we hunters can pay the bill for them."
He wasn't an easy man to argue with, she conceded, and she was relieved when her father cut in and gave her a moment to gather her wits.
"There can be no doubt on which side my darling daughter stands. After all, Sean, you are talking to a senior member of the commission for the reinstatement of the Inuit people to their traditional lands."
She smiled at him sweetly. "Not Inuit, Papa. People will think you're going soft. Not even Eskimos-your usual description is "gooks," isn't it?"
Riccardo smoothed back the thick waves of silver at his temples.
"Shall I tell you how my daughter and her commission go about determining how much of Alaska belongs to the Inuits?" he asked Sean.
"He's going to tell you anyway." Claudia leaned across to stroke her father's hand. "It's one of his party routines. It's very funny; you'll love it."
Riccardo went on as though she had not spoken. "They go down Fourth Street in Anchorage... that's where the bars are, and grab a couple of Eskimos that are still on their feet. They put them in an airplane and fly them down the peninsula, and they say to them, "Now tell us where your people used to live. Show us your traditional tribal hunting grounds. How about that lake over there; did your people fish there once upon a time?"" Riccardo changed his voice; he was an excellent mimic. ""Sure!" says the Eskimo in the back seat, squinting out the window, full of Jack Daniel's to his eyes. "That's where my granpappy fished.", He changed voices, imitating Claudia. "And what about those mountains over there, the ones we wicked white folk who stole it away from you call Brooks Range, did your granpappy ever hunt there?"" He changed to his Eskimo intonation. ""sure did, man.
He shot a whole mess of bears there. I remember my gramnommy telling me about it.""
"Go on, Papa. You've got a marvelous audience tonight. Mr. Courtney is enjoying your wit hugely," Claudia encouraged him.