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Eric looked back, but his father was talking into his recorder.... When his father had suggested the visit to a game ranch in Zimbabwe, Eric had imagined a chance for them to get to know each other again after the long divorce proceedings. His father seemed like a stranger - he hadn't even asked about Eric's play as linebacker on the state football championship team last season. The open spaces of Africa had sounded like a solution, but ever since they'd arrived his father had been talking into his microcassette recorder with the ranch owner, Ross Wilson.
Eric shouldered his knapsack and defiantly followed Pupho along a twisting game trail into the bush. After about ten minutes they broke into open grassland, and he squinted at the sun from under the brim of his hat. He felt like Indiana Jones wearing it, but he hadn't believed how hot the African sun could be until he burned the top of his head, right through his hair, that first afternoon. Now he wore it always.
"Hey, Pupho," he said. "You sure we're going the right way?"
Pupho pointed straight ahead. "Shortcut."
That made sense. They'd swung around in the Land Rovers. It was probably much shorter by foot. Eric settled into an easy stride. Every fifteen or twenty minutes they passed another rocky outcropping (Ross had called them kopjies). Eric could hear the rasping of the grass in the breeze and the crisp rustling as an occasional scattering of antelope bounded past, veering away as they caught his scent. He jumped once at a sliding whistle sound.
"Reedbuck," Pupho said, and smiled.
Eric smiled back - the kid wasn't laughing at him.
After another half hour they entered a wooded area wilder than any park Eric had ever hiked through in America. A tiny antelope, a duiker no bigger than a dog, came nearly to Eric's boots before bolting. Then a black-and-white bird swooped down, squawking harshly through a curved yellow beak.
Before he could say anything, Eric heard a sound like a popcorn popper gone crazy.
Pupho motioned down.Eric dropped, pressing himself as deep into the earth as he could. The popping was nearly drowned out by squeals and crashing sounds, then the racket stopped and he heard voices he couldn't understand. There was a strange thudding - the sound was vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place it. Finally the thudding ceased, and the voices gradually dwindled away. He lay there thinking Pupho would say when it was safe to get up.
Eric wasn't sure how long it was before he realized he was alone. He lifted his face and saw the little duiker had returned. Feeling foolish, Eric got to unsteady feet and looked around the deserted woods.
"Pupho?" The name was a croak.
He began to walk in the direction the sounds had come from, slowly at first, then faster once he found a trail. By the changing light he guessed there was a clearing ahead.
He heard new sounds - a tittering, whooping noise like the men's laughter, and also a heavy, flapping noise. Go back, he thought. You don't have to look. But he made himself follow the last twist into the clearing.
A hyena, dyed red to the neck, raised its muzzle and shrieked laughter. Other hyenas hooted and danced back and forth, trying to frighten Eric away. A vulture lifted off a branch and flapped lazily around the clearing before landing nearer to the carcass.
Eric ducked back into the trees and pressed his clammy face against rough bark, struggling to control his stomach. He knew now what that thudding had been - an ax, like his father had used cutting firewood when he'd lived at home. And that huge shape in the clearing - nothing but food for vultures and hyenas now - it had been a rhinoceros, like the one he'd admired earlier. The ax blows had hacked off its horns and cut open its body for the scavengers.
Poachers.
He had to get back and radio Ross and his father. But where was the lodge? A weight of betrayal dragged at his shoulders worse than the straps of his knapsack. Pupho had left him, and his father had no idea he was lost. Eric tried to swallow, but felt only a dry click in his throat. How could the kid just walk out on him?
Copyright ©1996 by Elaine Marie Alphin