The Hunter
Chapter I
Lugar
“Tell me, Mr. Ames, have you ever actually heard a lion roar?” the hunter asked, eyeing his client from beneath the three-inch-wide brim of his tan Filson bush hat. He leaned back in his leather camp chair with his hands behind his head, waiting for the answer.
“Please, Mr. Lugar, call me David,” the man answered. He sat in an identical chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. A Churchill stuck out from his left cheek, and a thin plume of smoke rose unmolested into the calm twilight air. “I suppose I may have heard a lion roar at some time in my life, but I really can’t recall,” he added.
“Well, David, I am certain that when you do hear that roar—up close, in the wild—and the sound penetrates your flesh and squeezes your balls so tight you piss yourself, it will be something you’ll recall. And I trust that when you do, I’ll have you ready to face whatever comes next.” He hoped he wasn’t overdoing his British accent and kept his eyes fixed on the man’s, fighting the urge to glance at Mrs. Ames.
A smile worked its way around his client’s cigar, and the man’s excitement showed as awe in his eyes. Guess not, the hunter thought. For a moment, an awkward silence filled the void, bringing the sounds of chirping red bishops and cooing vervet monkeys from the background into sharper focus.
The camp was a grouping of nine large canvas tents on raised wooden platforms, scattered around a central fireplace where they now sat. A small outdoor kitchen was situated just beyond the tents, but still within the clearing defined by a ring of acacia trees. A single msasa tree towered above the camp; its brilliant red leaves caught the sun, throwing it back in a thousand shimmering rays. There was quiet but purposeful business going on in the kitchen area, but the group of three around the fire was set apart from the rest of the encampment, spaced at the three points of an equilateral triangle. It was as if a king were holding court while all around him, his kingdom bustled.
“Have you killed many animals, Mr. Lugar?” the trophy wife finally chipped into the conversation.
Ah, how predictable; ignore them long enough and they’ll clamor for attention with some stupid, fucking question. At last, he turned his gaze to take in the wife. “I’m a hunter, Mrs. Ames; killing animals is what I do.” He held her eyes but then briefly, allowed her to see him drop his gaze to the cleavage that overflowed the top of her khaki tank top. Her forest-green shorts likewise exposed a great deal of her smooth, muscular, tanned legs, down to her sensible, if expensive, Zamberlan trail shoes. He turned and stared into the unlit pile of baobab wood awaiting a match in the fireplace, leaning forward before continuing his conversation with David Ames.
He stared as though mesmerized by the flames, although as yet, the wood was unmolested by any fire. A large beetle, perhaps three inches long, crawled out from inside one of the logs, having consumed all the sap in that area. Its prominent vertical black stripe identified it as a Goliath beetle to Lugar, and he watched as it made its way down the log pile using the sharp claws at the end of its legs. Lucky bug—in another hour, those logs would be a conflagration.
“You are aware that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has banned the import of lion trophies from Zimbabwe since that unfortunate Clarence incident, correct David?”
“Yeah, not to worry. The lion’s head will be a gift to a client of mine in Zurich. He’s a collector of sorts, Ames answered.”
“And the rest? You’ve paid for buffalo and zebra as well,” the hunter said. He stood then, and his six-foot-four, lean frame was silhouetted by the sun, setting slowly behind him and burning the sky with orange flames. His was a calculated move designed to add still more stature and allure to his aura—always the actor playing a role.
“Those will be ours,” he said, indicating himself and his wife, “for our Bedford house.”
Lugar began a slow walk around the outside of the chairs; he looked the part in his khaki button-down twill shirt and tight-fitting, olive cotton slacks. A pistol was holstered at his side. He noted internally the use of the word house instead of home. Details like that drove him. He stood tall, and his strides, though slow, covered ground quickly; within seconds, he stood behind Mrs. Ames’ chair.
Her long blond curls were draped over her shoulders, tumbling halfway down her bare back. He watched her squirm uncomfortably as she decided whether she should turn to face him or stay as she was, with her back to him. Looking down her shirt from behind stirred a sense of anticipation and longing in him. At last, the woman turned her head and angled it up to meet his. She wore minimal makeup, and he took her to be somewhere around thirty—far younger than the fifty-something Mr. Ames. She smiled at him—he almost expected her to wink—but he did not smile in return. Ever the stoic: hunting in the Zimbabwe bushveld was serious business.
“No elephant, David? That’s an unusual omission. Was it the cost?” His intonation on the last word connoted a vile, unclean, unmentionable. He considered touching the naked shoulder of the Mrs. but withheld his attention.
“No, no,” Ames laughed dismissively. “Angela has an almost…” he searched for the word, “fetish-like love of them. She wouldn’t hear of us killing one.”
Now, he could not resist the touch, gently laying his fingertips on her naked shoulder. “Really? How quaint,” he said. A shudder in her body vibrated at his touch. She pulled her eyes back and, he assumed, returned them guiltily to her husband. Or, perhaps there was no guilt there; what a waste of energy that emotion was. He squeezed—no, massaged her shoulder—before withdrawing his hand and stepping in front of the chair. His body blocked her husband’s view, his penis—growing from the tease—a foot from Angela’s face. He watched her eyes go from her husband to his face and then drop to his crotch. He stepped aside, and she quickly looked away, a little flush painting her face. Child’s play, he thought.
“Well, as much as I’m enjoying our introduction, I really must get ready for dinner. I need to scrub the bush from my body. Seven o’clock, then—dinner? Work for you?” He addressed the question to David.
“Perfect! I could use a scrub myself. Where are the showers, exactly?”
Lugar nodded in the general direction behind Mrs. Ames. “The tent just before the tree line—you can’t miss it.” He looked down at Mrs. Ames. “Till tonight, then…” He turned and walked into the sun as it lazily continued its descent to the horizon. As he passed the woodpile, the Goliath was steadily making its way back toward the forest. He stomped his right boot down and crushed the beetle before walking on.
Chapter II
Angela
Angela Ames, naked but for a towel wrapped around her waist, sat at the dressing table in her tent, a fixed gaze contemplating the image in the mirror. Her right hand deftly manipulated a pair of tweezers onto a tiny remnant of eyebrow.
“I think that Lugar is a bit full of himself,” she said. There was no response.
She shifted her gaze so that the reflection she now saw was her husband lying on the bed behind her. He appeared to be sleeping. As she grabbed and pulled that last wayward protein filament, a gentle snore at her back confirmed it. After a glance at her Apple Watch, she looked back at her image and smiled at what she saw: her body, still youthful, with tight, smooth skin, and breasts perched high on her chest, nipples glistening with beads of sweat. The afternoon was hot, and she decided to let her husband sleep a little, while she went for a shower.
She emerged from their tent wearing the provided white terry robe with a pair of white Cole Hahn flip-flops that she had brought. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and a small white leather shower bag she carried swung back and forth as she walked. When she neared the shower tent, the hunter stood off to the side, wearing a pair of black gym shorts that barely came mid-thigh, furiously whipping a jump rope over his head with such speed that it was barely visible. Angela slowed her gait to watch him.
He hopped from foot to foot as the rope passed soundlessly beneath them. His sculpted abs flexed beneath his hairless, muscular chest, which glistened with sweat. His shorts were cut low, and a small line of fine hair stretched from his belly button to where his pelvic bone disappeared beneath the waistband. Her eyes lingered there, then dropped to his huge quads before settling on the bulge between them. When she raised her gaze up to meet his, their eyes caught, and the smile on his face brought a flush of red to her cheeks. She smiled back—just a whisper of one—but a smile. She absently pulled her robe tighter around her body and quickened her pace into the tent, her flip-flops click-clacking inordinately loud on the gravel path.
The green canvas shower tent was large enough to house four separate shower stalls surrounding a central dressing area, where wooden shelves held two dozen white cotton towels, neatly folded and stacked. In the dressing area, four wooden benches sat on grass mats that covered the earthen floor in front of each shower. A central chandelier of sorts was attached to the center tent pole, casting light over the tops of the dividers that separated the stalls from the dressing area.
When Angela stepped inside, she was still feeling flustered and quickly grabbed a towel, slipped off her flip-flops, and headed into the first stall on the left. She took her robe off and hung it on one of the two hooks fastened inside; she had already hung her towel on the other. Each stall looked to be about the same size as a typical home bath/shower—even a bit larger. From her vantage point, she could stand on her tiptoes to look over the divider into the dressing area.
She turned the knobs until she had the right temperature—she liked it nearly scalding—and stepped beneath the surprisingly strong stream of water cascading from overhead. After a few moments of the pulsating heat, she began to relax and enjoy the experience. Here she was: Angela Ames from the wrong side of Twenty-First Avenue in Astoria, New York, taking a hot shower on a goddamn safari in fucking Africa. She pumped some of the shower gel from its holder and began to spread it over her body—her shoulders, breasts, and stomach—while a Cheshire grin slowly crept onto her face.
“Fuck you, Bobby Cuccia,” she said aloud to the boy who had dumped her the day after their high school senior prom—the boy she had let take her virginity.
“What’s that?” a male voice with a strong English accent called out. At first startled and then mortified, she realized the hunter had entered the tent. “Who’s this Bobby, chap?”
“Oh, sorry, didn’t realize anyone had come in,” she called, perhaps a bit too loud considering the man was no more than ten feet away. She stretched up on her toes to peer over the divider but could not see him. He must be sitting on the bench just outside my stall, she thought.
“No worries,” he said. “Just exercising some demons, eh?” he added luckily or perceptively.
“Something like that,” she answered, feeling slightly awkward being naked and sharing this space with a stranger. She stretched up again, peering over the top. His back was to her now as he stood outside the shower stall on the other side. She watched him as he adjusted something on his watch or Fitbit or whatever was on his left wrist. The water splashed hard off the top of her head now that she was closer to it, so she took a step forward to free her eyes from the veiling downpour. The hunter turned slightly in her direction, toward the main door, and then back toward the shower door. For a moment, she thought he was going to catch her watching and it sent a thrill through her; she kept looking.
He reached for a towel but stopped, deciding instead to remove his shorts first. He pulled them down quickly—along with his underwear, if he was wearing any—revealing a flawless male ass: smooth tan skin stretched taut over visible muscles. Then, he grabbed a towel. Her eyes were frozen on him, willing him to turn around, part of her wanted to get caught, but he walked into the shower, and the water began to flow.
“Are you gonna be long love,” he called over. “Pressure’s a bit light when there’s two of us,” he explained. She felt immediately rejected for some reason. We’ll see who’s dismissed, who’s wanted.
Chapter III
Ames
David Ames awoke with a start—hot, sweaty, and disoriented. He sat up in the tent, which was much darker than it had been when he lay down. How long had he been asleep, he wondered, as he reached for his iPhone to check. Less than an hour and yet it seemed much longer.
“Darling?” he called out, thinking she may be just outside the tent, but there was no answer. He took his S’well bottle from the nightstand and chugged down its entire cold, wet contents, soothing his dry throat, dehydrated from the heat and too many glasses of afternoon wine.
He stood and called her name again, a little louder this time but with the same result. He had thought they might make love when they went into the tent, but she seemed to have things to do, so he had lain on the bed waiting for her to finish and, well, best-laid plans and all that, he silently opined.
When he stepped through the canvas flap, he was barefoot and shirtless, wearing only navy-blue silk lounge pants. He shielded his eyes with his left hand; a granite kopje in the distance flamed as it disappeared into the setting sun. Darkness made its debut across the landscape. He began to walk to look for Angela, but three barefoot steps on the gravel sent him back inside for his sandals. Noticing her robe no longer lay across the bed, he headed in the direction of the showers.
The daytime sounds of the jungle—the birds, the monkeys, happy sounds—were just beginning to give way to the nighttime sounds, not quite so optimistic. Dark fell fast and hard there, and he used the flashlight from his phone to light his way. Torches stood scattered around the camp, but the dark between them was already black and impenetrable. As he approached the large tent, a man had just lit two torches at its entrance and walked off into the night. David turned off the light on his phone as he neared; the sound of running water coming from within was a welcome call—the laughter accompanying it, not so much.
He walked through the open flap, greeted by the sight of his naked wife toweling her body. She stood on a grass mat next to a bench, her robe a white terry pile on it. The hunter stood beneath a showerhead with water cascading down on him. He was watching David’s wife over the top of his shower wall, and they were both giggling. When Angela saw David walk in, she quickly grabbed her robe off the bench; the devilish grin he had seen on her face was gone, replaced by a look of horror, or guilt, or both. When David looked back at Luger, the hunter had already turned away and was massaging shampoo into his hair, white bubbles tumbling all around.
“Oh, David, how was your nap,” Angela asked, as she hurried to pull her robe onto her still-wet body.
David marveled at the irony: His wife had seemed perfectly content when she was undressed in front of the stranger, but guiltily naked in front of him, her husband. Before he could say a word, the shower went silent, and Lugar stepped into the common area, dripping water, with a towel wrapped around his waist. David looked at his wife, then back at the hunter. What did he see there? At fifty-five, David was in reasonably good shape; he could run five miles anytime he wanted and went to the gym at least four times a week. And yet, in front of this man, he was suddenly very self-conscious about the two inches of flab hanging over the waistband of his lounge pants.
“Hey old boy,” Lugar said. “Nap huh? I suppose the bush can take a toll out of someone who…”—he seemed to search for the right word—”isn’t used to it,” he settled on.
“Wine in the afternoon is not my thing,” David answered. His wife looked at him with adoring eyes, guilty adoring eyes. “You two seem to be hitting it off,” he said, thinking that was the understatement of the day.
“Your wife is lovely, a ray of sunshine. You’re a lucky man.” Luger turned away.
David looked at Angela and she continued looking back with that silly smile, never even glancing at the hunter, as if to say, “I’ve only got eyes for you.”
“Well, gotta go. I have two very important guests for dinner, must run,” Luger said, full of wit. He glanced down at his wrist, “See you in an hour?”
“Yes,” Angela finally found her words. “See you in an hour,” although she still had not taken her eyes from David. “Alone at last,” she said once the hunter had left. “Want me to wash your back?” She let her robe fall open.
Surprisingly, David felt a tingle and then a swelling begin. “Just my back?” he asked.
Angela looked down at the obvious stiffening in his pants. “I think I’ve got just the place for that,” she said, indicating his protrusion. She took his hand and he followed her into the shower stall.
Chapter IV
Lugar
The morning sun glowed on the distant hills in alternating shades of copper and gold. Sweat dripped from the soaked hatband of the hunter. Not a hint of breeze blew as they made their way across the plains, and shelter from the early burning rays was nowhere in sight. The tall grass stood still, and the red sand beneath their feet radiated the heat back up through the soles of their boots. Richard Lugar walked second in his group—behind the tracker and ahead of the other four members, including Mr. and Mrs. Ames—six of them in all. The rifle slung over his right shoulder was a Winchester Model 70, no longer manufactured by the legendary Connecticut company but made now by Fabrique Nationale, a Belgian arms manufacturer. Its walnut stock was smooth and sturdy, and the blue matte metal of the barrel caught the sun, seeming to glow in anticipation of its coming use like Frodo’s Sting when the Orcs were near.
They all carried the same gun, chosen for its .375-caliber power as well as its three-position safety. It was a gun that could not be fired by mistake. The small lever that stuck out from the rifle’s right side was as ergonomically perfect as could be; when pushed all the way back, as it was now, the rifle could not be fired, nor could the bolt be lifted to load. The firing pin remained safely away from the sear. In the middle position, the safety allowed the bolt to be lifted for safe unloading, but the firing pin remained aloft. Not until the safety was pushed all the way forward was the Winchester ready to fire.
The group was silent now but for their footfalls. After four days of tracking and hunting, they moved in unison with stealth and symmetry. Their second day out, they had bagged a water buffalo—two shots, one from Ames and one from Angela. They had caught it unaware and brought it down without a charge or a run: a clean well-executed kill with no danger.
The zebra on day three had been even easier. A dazzle of zebras had been spotted by Moses Nkomo, the lead tracker; from a safe distance, through the Aimpoint Hunter sight, the animals never saw them coming. They could have easily dropped six of them, but the hunter had given Angela the first shot and she did not disappoint—a natural killer as he had suspected. The trigger mechanism on the Winchester is designed with a lever system that reduces the feel of the pressure on the trigger, making a four-pound trigger feel like a two-pounder. He thought Ames might have been a little pissed that he gave Angela the shot, but the bill was paid—too fucking bad.
This day, however, would be very different. The hunter had spoken to everyone at breakfast, emphasizing the need for them to follow the lead of Moses, remain quiet, and above all else, fire in the predetermined order. That order was Ames, then his wife, and then himself, if need be. Today’s prey was the lion, and all the inherent danger that came with finding and killing a five-hundred-pound predator could not be overstated. The “King of the Jungle” could be four feet high at the shoulder, ten feet long, and all but invisible in the tall beige grass. The lion would surely smell them long before they saw him, even without the hint of a breeze. After spending four days with him, the hunter had little faith in his client, and thought the wife the far more capable of the couple.
Ames was spoiled, lazy, spineless, and scared of life—or was it death? His wife, however, was full of it: strong, curious, enticing. She possessed a lust that he craved, yet he was unable to pull her in. His covert signals weren’t working; he knew that she was watching him—wanting him even—but he could not seem to get her to take that last step. Two days left.
Up ahead, Nkomo raised his left arm just above his shoulder, signaling for the party to stop. Ames, who had apparently been daydreaming or something, stumbled right into Lugar’s back, knocking him forward and off balance, but they both remained standing. Lugar turned and glowered at Ames, who showed him a chastised schoolboy’s face in response. Angela looked at Lugar and rolled her eyes behind her husband’s back—another silent betrayal. Lugar watched his old roommate, looking for a signal that would jumpstart his adrenaline.
Nkomo and Lugar had met ten years ago, roommates at Northwestern University in Evanston Illinois. Lugar, who had been raised by his aunt and uncle, two lawyers from New York City and Nkomo, whose family owned three very successful restaurants in Chicago, had hit it off immediately. They had jokingly played a game where Lugar was a British Colonialist and Nkomo the local African Magistrate and from that start, they began to hatch their plan. Lugar’s uncle was a hunter and frequently paid huge sums to book big game safaris. He would occasionally bring his young nephew along, after it had all gone bad for the boy, after the cancer, after his father lost his mind. Moses Nkomo was a first-generation American of Tanzanian descent, raised in a strict and very traditional Shona/Christian family on the South Side of Chicago.
Both boys were only-children and loners, and each came to college craving the intimacy of a sibling relationship; they fulfilled that need in each other. Lugar wanted the life of an adventurer—a devotee of Indiana Jones and King Solomon’s Mines—but he didn’t have the patience or the drive for archaeology. Nkomo wanted to return to his roots and do some good for the native people of his homeland. So far, their partnership seemed to be leading them both closer to their dreams, but today was all about the lion.
Bait had been set the night before—the stomach and guts of the zebra in one location and the buffalo in another—placed too high for any hyena, and just high enough for a lion to reach. There were good odds that at this early hour, they would have success at either trap. Ahead, Nkomo had just given the all clear, as three more zebras passed in the distance. The group had picked up their pace for less than a minute, when it happened, the first of the big scares.
The lion’s roar echoed and reverberated across the plains, settling in the pit of Lugar’s stomach. He looked at Angela, who was smiling, and then Ames, who resembled one of the fat kids he used to corner in the schoolyard for their lunch money. Then he looked at his friend, who held up first one finger, then two, indicating that the roar had come from somewhere between one and two miles away. Lugar nodded in agreement. They were less than a mile from the trap.
Another hundred yards and Moses put his hand up again. This time, everyone’s senses had been acutely entuned to every move, so the hunting party halted immediately. Lugar had drifted to the rear, so he had to pass the group on the way up to Moses, who crouched up ahead. He winked at Angela as he passed her and she winked back; a big, fearless grin lit her eyes. David had watched the winks but Lugar no longer cared. As he neared Moses, the tracks on the ground switched him into overdrive—adrenaline spiked his heartbeat and flooded his arteries with sugar and fat, nourishment for the fight. The little hairs on the back of his neck stood up and his senses were acutely heightened.
He used two fingers to touch his eyes and then pointed them to the perimeter as he warned everyone to be on high alert. Then he pulled the Winchester off his shoulder and pushed the safety to the forward position. He took his hat off to wipe the sweat from his brow, then put it back on. He looked at Angela and decided she looked like she was about to be photographed for the cover of African Hunter Magazine. Her safari hat was cocked a bit off kilter, blond hair flowing freely down from it, and three buttons open on her khaki shirt with hints of lace showing. Her makeup was flawlessly applied and holding up despite the heat and humidity. She must have researched that capacity for days, he thought. He hoped the distraction would not be a problem, but it reinforced what he already knew: he had to have her.
Lugar pointed to Ames and put up one finger: he would get to fire first. Then he showed two fingers to Angela. He put up three fingers and tapped his own chest with them and then put up four fingers and pointed them at everyone left. If the first three shots didn’t bring the lion down, it was anyone’s shot, but if the first three didn’t bring it down, someone was getting hurt—hurt or dead. Nkomo started walking, and the party followed in order of their shoot position.
A half mile later, Moses stopped and raised his two hands, open palmed, on either side of his head; the critical symbol—a lion was spotted. Lugar brought his eyes up to the tops of the grass; the huge animal, a male with a rather unimpressive mane, was two hundred yards ahead, alone, and pulling meat down from the trap. His golden fur glimmered in the sun and he had a majesty about him, even as he scavenged. The Winchester had deadly accuracy, even at eight-hundred yards, so their position was ideal. The way the great beast was stretched out increased his target size, so that too was perfect. The lack of breeze and the fury of his attention on the meat meant that there was a chance the lion had not yet even noticed their arrival, unlikely, but possible.
Lugar took a half-dozen slow, metered steps forward until he was side by side with Moses. The two friends exchanged a smile. Lugar brought his rifle up and buried the stock in his shoulder. He removed his hat and passed it to his friend and then rested his cheek briefly on the stock, closed his left eye and peered through the sight. The animal was suddenly as big as life, and the shot would have been one and done had he squeezed the trigger. He lowered his gun and motioned for Ames to come next to him with a finger on his lips to indicate silence. When Ames arrived, the hunter pointed to his own heart to remind his client what the target was and then with an exaggerated example showed him again how to move the safety two steps forward.
Lugar looked at Angela and once again held up the number two, to indicate that she was welcome to shoot if, for some reason, the lion didn’t fall. He gave a thumbs up to Ames and watched as the man brought his rifle up to firing position. He was shaking ever so slightly, just a small tremor but it would be enough to throw off his shot. With two hands the hunter reminded his client to calm down. Angela would have been a far better choice.
Knowing that the lion could close the distance between them in twenty seconds and end the charge in a twelve-foot leap mandated that he remain vigilant, disciplined, and ready to fire at any moment. To make it worse the area between them was covered in tall grass so the charge could only be gauged by watching the grass’s movement, not the lion’s. Just then, the animal stopped eating and turned his massive head in their direction, its ears rotating side to side like great antennae dishes. The shot must come now. He quickly jerked two thumbs up at Ames and the rifle boomed. It pushed Ames a step back and echoed in return from the distant hills as Lugar watched the great animal fall stone-like from the trap. He raised his gun, waiting for movement, watching the grass, scanning the plains from side to side.
“Clean?” he asked Moses, meaning, was it a heart shot?
“Rib shot, I think,” he answered, also with his gun raised, searching the distance through his sight.
“What do you think Ames? Where did you get him?” Lugar asked.
“I think in the chest, awfully close to the chest, I think,” Ames answered. He was the only member of the party whose gun was not raised.
“Safeties are off everyone,” Lugar commanded. “Follow the leader. Angela, gun right, Ames gun left.” He and Nkomo kept their guns trained straight ahead as they began to walk slowly forward. The two other members of the party walked backward, rifles aimed to the rear.
Sweat soaked through his shirt as they neared the trap. Salt stung his eyes. His hands remained cool and steady, finger on the trigger, ready to fire. Surely, they should have seen some sign of the animal by now and as they closed to fifty yards he could see there was no carcass below the trap. He raised his left hand to stay the group, never taking his eyes off the spot ahead, or his finger off the trigger. “Fan out, just a little,” he said, and they all took two steps away from each other as they had trained.
A wounded lion was unstable, extremely dangerous, and would set its sights on one member of their party, and wait to pounce. One swipe of his paw would knock a zebra off its feet, it could kill a human. There was movement in the grass to his left, just a whisper, but there was no breeze, it had to be the lion. “Still, steady everyone. Ames, looking your way. Are you ready.” There was no reply…more movement in the grass to the left… “Ames?”
The roar shook the ground and entered Lugar’s body as if a great wind was blowing on the inside of him, it vibrated from his feet to his jaw. He watched the gun fall from Ames’ hands as the lion came sprinting through the grass, right where he had suspected. Its mane flew back as it approached at breakneck speed and his huge mouth was open, saliva flying and teeth bared. “I GO!” the hunter yelled. Even though it would ruin the trophy, he aimed between the animal’s angry rushing eyes and squeezed the trigger. Its sound echoed across the plains and Ames dropped to his knees. The animal came skidding and rolling across the red sand, finally coming to rest a few feet from his kneeling client. Blood leaked from the hole in the lion’s lifeless head.
“Stand up, man,” Lugar said, a quiet demand. When Ames stood, piss stained the front of his pants. “Fucking little pussy,” he whispered, so that only Ames could hear as he walked past him to the fallen beast.
.
Chapter V
Ames
Lying in bed, Ames stared up at the top of the tent and watched some moth dart in and out of the lamp that hung above their bed. He had his iPhone in his hand and he zoomed the camera in and snapped a picture of the moth before switching back to Words With Friends. He had been laying like this for about an hour now, a dim light illuminating the tent, he above the sheet in pajama pants and a white tee shirt and Angela next to him, naked, but concealed beneath the sheets. She had come to their bed tonight in her sexiest negligee, wanting him to make love, hoping to make him feel more like a man. But he had been unable to rise to the occasion, pun intended, he thought.
If he had just pulled the goddam trigger. Just pulled it, even if he missed, that’s all he had to do. But the roar, the roar sucked something out of him and he had frozen, paralyzed, like a goddam paraplegic. If he had just pulled the goddam trigger, then he could have eaten his dinner, could have joined in the celebration of the kill, drank the champagne. If he had just pulled the goddam trigger, then he could have fucked his wife. Then he could have slept. They were leaving in the morning; his $50,000 little adventure had come to an end. They were heading for California, connecting in Australia. He’d be traveling for twenty-four hours and he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t sleep because he couldn’t fuck his wife, and he couldn’t fuck his wife because he couldn’t pull the goddam trigger.
It all just continued going around in his head like a merry-go-round. Get on at the lion and off at no sleep, passing by his naked wife in the middle. Then, back on again at the lion. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as bad if he hadn’t pissed his pants, if Lugar hadn’t told him in advance that he would piss his pants. That fucking arrogant Lugar. Oh great, now he’ll be on the goddam merry-go-round too. Lugar…Lion…naked wife…No sleep…repeat for all eternity. Now that would really be hell, wouldn’t it? He stared unseeing at the game on his phone, the light turned low, the letters meaningless.
And the way Lugar looked at Angela, touched her, goddam winked at her. The way they had laughed together at dinner. She had clearly drunk too much champagne, an extra button or two open on her fancy shirt with the lace cuffs. He knew who that was for. She had even sat on his lap for a goddam selfie, what the fuck? Just then a buzzing sound disturbed the silence of the room and he thought for a moment it might be the moth, but moths don’t buzz. Then he saw the light coming from Angela’s watch, a message. He watched as she lifted her head ever so slightly to check it. Then, she reached for her phone on the trunk next to the bed and typed her reply. He feigned sleep when she rose and walked to her dressing table.
She spent a moment or two adjusting her hair in the mirror and then slipped her negligee over her head. She glanced over at him and must have thought he was asleep. Locating her flip-flops at the base of the bed and putting them on, she wrapped her terry robe over her shoulders and headed for the door.
“Don’t go,” he said. It stopped her dead in her tracks. He wished he could see the expression on her face and wondered if it would betray guilt or disappointment.
“I’ll, umm, I’m just, I’ll be right back,” she said, although she remained standing still.
“Please,” he begged. She left the tent.
Chapter VI
Angela
She must have dozed off for a moment, she thought, jerking awake from some unexplained stimuli. It was still dark out—good. She was nestled in the arms of Richard, and her hand cradled his erect penis. They were both on top of the sheets, on their backs and naked in the dark tent. A motorized fan above the bed hummed as it made its slow but steady ride in place. A snore growled from Richard, then another. She had no illusions about whether or not her husband knew where she was, but she would still lie. She wished they had at least made love earlier; then she would not feel so guilty. She could have made them both happy—that had been her plan.
She continued to play with the toy in her hand, wondering if he would wake, maybe they could do it one more time. She found out tonight that Richard would be joining them on their plane tomorrow. He was going to Australia, which was their connecting point to California. She hoped it would not be one of those awkwardly silent things, where the tension in the air was so thick that no one could even crack a joke. She took her other hand and put it between her legs, testing whether a little stimulation would create the right desire; if it did, she would wake the sleeping giant.
God, what if David made a scene in the morning? What would she do? She would stand by her man, and tell him that Richard was the problem; he would so easily believe that. After all, she did love David and he knew that. She had pledged her whole life to him, married him, Richard was a momentary lapse of judgment, a speed bump as he liked to say.
She rolled over and straddled his thighs, rubbing both her hands up and down him. His snore evolved into a groan or a moan. She inched forward and placed herself where she could rub against him. She wondered if David was still awake, would he be up when she returned to the tent. Just as Richard opened his eyes with a smile that told her he was ready, she realized it wasn’t going to happen for her again. Damn that David.
“Sorry, big boy,” she said. “I was premature in my initiative.” He frowned. “But, I won’t leave you like that,” she said and lowered her head, her eyes on his, the whole time.
Chapter VII
Lugar
A lightning flash exploded through the tiny windows of the dark G150, and Richard Lugar braced for the thunder. When it came, it seemed to emanate from inside the small plane, and the hunter jumped from the boom despite his preparation. The rain drove hard against the Gulfstream’s metal fuselage, echoing inside the cabin like it was a popcorn maker. He was strapped into his seat on the six-passenger jet, and Angela, across from him, was sound asleep. Her Dr. Dre headphones and eye patches were working in concert with three Xanax she had washed down with a vodka chaser. Their seats were plush tan leather, better than any first-class seat he had ever sat in, and a wooden table folded up from the side of the cabin rose between them. A navy-blue cotton blanket was pulled up to her neck.
“Why the fuck would the idiot fly through the middle of a fucking thunderstorm?” Richard bellowed into the dark.
The only other person on the plane besides them and the pilot was his other client, David Ames. He was likewise awake, sitting next to his wife, and staring out the window into the nothingness.
Lugar looked at the yellow light flashing on the tip of the wing and contemplated getting up to give the pilot a piece of his mind, but decided the turbulence was just too crazy, and he could be thrown around the cabin at any moment.
They were over the Indian Ocean, flying at less than 15,000 feet. The pilot had cut his altitude in half to try to escape the storm, but it hadn’t worked. He was still cruising at 350 mph, and hurrying to get past the Indonesian islands, where it appeared the storm had stalled. Worse-case scenario, they would land there and wait it out. The pilot came on the intercom: “Richard, just letting you know I tried reaching out to Jakarta with a mayday for emergency landing clearance, but it seems the radio is out. We’re still a good four thousand miles from Sydney and this baby is really struggling here, so I’ve begun a northern heading towards Indonesia anyway. As soon as I can raise a response I’ll let you know. For now, stay seated, seatbelts on and we’ll ride this out, not to worry.” As soon as the pilot finished, the bottom dropped out beneath them and the Gulfstream plummeted as though falling from the top of a roller coaster.
Lugar looked at Angela, who was still out cold; how he envied her. He glanced at Ames who had not said a word to him the whole day and still stared out the window as if he was contemplating jumping. Ames turned and faced Lugar for a moment, smiled, and then returned his gaze out the window.
Another bright flash lit up the inside of the cabin and then a second flash, this time accompanied by a crashing sound that took the lights out—they’d been struck. In the lightning flashes, he had seen the white-capped ocean below but no land. The drop had centered in his stomach and his head and the loss of equilibrium made him want to vomit. The plane stabilized for a moment before plunging headlong towards the sea.
They were not getting out of this one. Lugar looked over at Angela, still asleep, and Ames.
“Sorry about all the shit Ames,” he said, no longer using the pretense of an English accent.
“You’re American?” Ames asked, stunned.
Just then, the plane seemed to straighten out, flying again, no longer falling. A lightning flash showed Lugar that they were barely airborne just as the plane crashed into the sea. It seemed to skim across the top of the waves a little and then abruptly hit something and everything went black.
Chapter VII
Lugar
When he woke, before he even opened his eyes, his first sensation was pain. It was hard to locate the source; it seemed to come from everywhere, as if every nerve in his body was being pinched, pulled, or burned. Burned—that was it, wasn’t it? Where was he? His thoughts were incomplete: heat…smoke…pain. He slowly opened his eyes despite the jackhammer blasting away inside his head, and it brought him immediate, full comprehension of his circumstance. He was still strapped into the airplane seat. The right front side of the airplane was gone, and through the driving rain, he could see trees in the distance and flames in the foreground. It was dark, but it wasn’t night.
Directly across from him Angela was strapped to her chair with the wooden table that had been between them, halfway inserted in her chest. Ames leaned over her. He removed her headphones and then her sleep mask. Her unseeing eyes stared at Lugar without expression until Ames closed them.
A cough was forced from Lugar’s throat by the smoke, and Ames turned to face him. He had to move now. He found the clasp of his seatbelt and pulled it up freeing his body, or so he thought. Ames continued staring at him. When he tried to stand, he realized a metal pole had come up from beneath the plane, through his seat and through his leg. Three inches of the grooved red metal protruded from the top of his thigh. His pants were wet with blood and he couldn’t move.
“Ames,” he wheezed, “help me.”
Ames walked over and kneeled to look at the leg. “I see the problem, ol’ boy,” he said in his rendition of a British accent that actually sounded more Indian. “You’ve got a goddam spike in your leg.”
“Can you help me get up?”
“Afraid I can’t do that ol’ boy. You see, that spike is the only thing keeping you from bleeding to death. If I lift you up, well, I’d be responsible for murder. I couldn’t live with myself.”
“Ames, please, that’s my only shot.”
“Well, that could be true. The flames are heading this way, and then there’s the gangrene. Have you had a tetanus shot recently? You know, I believe I need to get out myself, those flames are getting too close. Don’t piss yourself.”
Ames turned and walked toward the front of the plane, took one look back and jumped. Between licks of flame and the density of the smoke, were glimpses of Ames crossing the beach and heading for the trees in the distance. Then, he disappeared.
Lugar had little time to act. He braced his hands on either side of his legs, pushed down on the chair, and raised his body. As the pipe began sliding back through his leg, a searing burn rose up through his spine, into his thalamus, and exploded inside his cerebral cortex. He was so close to passing out, but he pushed through—finally freeing his left leg and collapsing onto the floor of the fuselage. He crawled forward under the rising smoke, dragging his left leg behind until he reached the point where Ames had jumped. He rolled out, landed hard on his back and faded into oblivion.
The sun on his face was hot, but a chill ran through him nonetheless. A throbbing ache in his leg slowly came into focus with the trees in the distance once he opened his eyes. His clothes were soaking wet, and a breeze coming off the water was cool in contrast to the hot sand that was his bed. The cool shade trees were the first thing he saw; it was the second. It just stood there watching him, not moving except for the occasional flicking of its long, forked, yellow tongue. Grey-brown scales, muscular legs, and razor-claws—who says dinosaurs are extinct? He knew a little something about these Komodo dragons: they could smell blood from five miles away, they could run like the wind, and they had a deadly, venomous bite. He checked his back pocket for his phone but knew he had put in in the seat pocket on the plane. He had a gun on there as well, but the only way in was back up through the hole he had tumbled out of. He couldn’t get back there.
He watched the dragon taste the air and then take a step away—two steps, three steps. Lugar pushed up with his arms and managed to get to his knees. He was lightheaded, probably due in part to the puddle of blood beneath him. He wobbled a moment, never taking his eyes off the dragon. Well, that also told him something about his location; Komodo dragons were only found on three or four small Indonesian islands. He needed to get to the shade so he tested his legs; if he kept the weight on his right one, he could stand. A few hops away from the dragon and he foolishly felt safer, the Komodo could close that distance in a second. Each landing of a hop sent tremors of torment vibrating through his core.
After twenty minutes that included several falls and a constant eye on the dragon, he made it to the edge of the tree line and managed to sit beneath the exposed roots in the shade of a mangrove tree. He could see out to the beach, and the dragon was gone. He felt just a little better. Lugar took off his button-down khaki shirt and used his teeth to rip a bandage, which he tied around his thigh, covering the wound. Then, he took off his belt and made a tourniquet just below his pelvic bone. He checked his pockets again: no phone, no knife—no nothing.
Lugar didn’t think any of the Indonesian islands where Komodo dragons lived were uninhabited; his only plan was to get to people—hopefully people with doctors—as quickly as possible. He sat fashioning a makeshift crutch from a tree branch, its curved top would fit neatly beneath his arm, and he used some of his shirt to wrap it. Halfway down the limb, he tied a cross-piece as a handle, using more torn rags from his shirt. Just as he finished the last knot, he found a pair of eyes staring at him through the tall grass ten or twelve feet away—then two pairs. Their forked tongues flicked out trying to taste whether their prey was dying or vulnerable, in which case they could sit and wait for hours, days even, or would they need to attack at some point to hasten its demise.
Lugar lifted his body onto the crutch determined to find a village, a city, people. He prayed to God as though his god were a genie willing to grant him one wish—just one; please let that fucking Ames be there when he found them. A noise to his left and his eyes darted there, then a noise to the right. Invisible predators, he wondered. He hobbled deeper into the brush, slowly traversing the rocky volcanic landscape. It was hot, but cooler than it had been on the beach, and he would have given every dollar he owned for a bottle of water. He did not want to spend the night in that jungle.
As the mangrove coast transitioned to savannah, red rocky hilltops jutted up in the distance, and unfamiliar trees interspersed tall grassy plains. It reminded him of the African landscape where he hunted. He entered one of the clearings—a grassy, dry, sun-scorched place—heading towards the nearest hill. The bleeding had stopped, so he decided to release the tourniquet. A blur raced behind him, and then another. He turned quickly, just as a tail disappeared into the grass. When he turned back around, an eight-foot-long Komodo dragon stood in his path. Smart motherfuckers, he thought, finally realizing he was being tracked.
He held the crutch out in front and shook it violently at the beast while trying to roar, but his dry vocal cords would have none of it. The creature backed away slowly. Lugar focused all his energy on scaring it away and never saw or heard the other one, sprinting at him from behind.
It crashed into him, knocking him from his feet and sinking scissor-sharp, serrated teeth into his calf. The hard, dry earth broke a bone in his arm when he landed. He tried pulling his leg out of the dragon’s mouth, but the backward-facing teeth only sank deeper. Its eyes were emotionless—all business. He managed to bring the tree limb down hard on top of its head with a thud, and it released its grip. The dragon stayed still, a frothy white spume, laced with red blood, hung in drools from its mouth. It flicked its tongue.
Three more of them closed in on him now. He whacked the one closest on the head again and it retreated. The retreat also stemmed the advance of the others. Blood flowed from the calf wound, and the pain was enough to make him forget about his thigh. Thankfully it was the same leg, so he still had one good one. He didn’t even realize he had broken his left ulna. He got up on his good leg, the struggle exhausting him, and all he could do was stand there and catch his breath. When they did not advance, he started walking toward the hills again.
Ten minutes and no attack—then twenty, then forty. They were patient fuckers. Six of them had gathered now, slowly following him as he reached the base of the hill. He looked up at its steepness: there was no way he could climb it, no way, he was so tired. He sat on a huge volcanic rock and pulled the leg of his pants up. The wound from the bite was still trickling blood and the area around it was red and inflamed. The bacteria from the beast’s mouth were feasting on his flesh, swimming in his blood.
He no longer thought of Ames, or Africa, he was thinking of his gun and how he wished he could put it in his mouth and pull the trigger like his father had. He thought of his father and his sweet, sweet mother. His mother who exhaustively protected him from the father that loved to call him that weak little pussy. The father who would beat her when the little pussy did anything wrong and finally shot her to death before killing himself. It was always his fault; everything had always been his fault.
He drifted off to sleep and was awakened briefly by the sound of a helicopter overhead. He squinted through the bright, blinding sun; was that the chopper? It was green, no, black. Was that Ames inside? He was saved, thank God, they had come to find him—good ol’ Ames. All he had to do was get up and shout. He just had to get up.
The first dragon to test the prey snapped its jaws down on his arm, but he barely felt it. Then, one went for his neck, ripping out a huge chunk of meat and nerves but missing the carotid artery. His brain registered the assault on some level, though he could no longer feel pain. The neck had really been too much, he thought, realizing he would not survive this. He lived a moment longer, numbly conscious; his eyes still worked. He watched a third dragon amble over and settle down at his side. They made eye contact. The hunter looked at him a moment before it burrowed its snout in his gut and ripped out his intestines.