They had left Makwele Stream just before dawn, making the twelve-mile trek through the bush without guides, carrying nothing but their weapons, water, a hard salami, and chapati bread. They reached their car around noon. For several hours now they had been passing through sporadic, hardscrabble villages: circular buildings of lashed sticks with conical roofs of thatch, dirt streets clogged with loose cattle and sheep. The sky was a cloudless, pale, almost watery blue.
Helen Pendergast fiddled with her scarf, pulling it more tightly around her hair in a losing battle with the omnipresent dust. It stuck to every exposed inch of their sweaty skin, giving them a scrofulous appearance.
"It's strange," she said as they crawled through yet another village, avoiding chickens and small children. "I mean, that there isn't a hunter closer by to take care of this lion problem. After all, you're not exactly a crack shot." She smiled wryly; this was a frequent tease.
"That's why I'm counting on you."
"You know I don't like killing animals I can't eat."
"How about killing animals that can eat us?"
"Perhaps I can make an exception there." She angled the sun visor into a new position, then turned toward Pendergast, her eyes--blue with flecks of violet--narrowed by the bright light. "So. What was that business about the red mane?"
"A lot of nonsense. There's an old legend knocking about this part of Africa concerning a red-maned, man-eating lion."
"Tell me about it." Her eyes sparkled with interest; the local stories fascinated her.
"Very well. About forty years ago--the story goes--a drought struck the southern Luangwa Valley. Game grew very scarce. A pride of lions that hunted in the valley starved to death, one by one, until only a single survivor remained--a pregnant lioness. She survived by digging up and eating the corpses at a local Nyimba cemetery."
"How horrible," Helen said with relish.
"They say she gave birth to a cub with a flaming red mane."
"Go on."
"The villagers were angry with this continuing desecration of their burial grounds. Eventually they tracked down the lioness, killed her, skinned her, and nailed her hide to a frame in the village square. Then they held a dance to celebrate her demise. At dawn, while the villagers were sleeping off the effects of all the maize beer they'd downed, a red-maned lion snuck into the village, killed three of the sleeping men, then carried off a boy. They found his gnawed bones a couple of days later in a stand of long grass a few miles off."
"Good Lord."
"Over the years, the Red Lion, or the Dabu Goras it was called in the Bemba language, killed and ate a large number of locals. It was very clever, they said: as clever as a man. It shifted ranges frequently and sometimes crossed borders to evade capture. The local Nyimba claimed the Red Lion could not survive without the nourishment of human flesh--but with it, he would live forever."
Pendergast paused to circumnavigate a pothole almost lunar in its depth and extent.
"And?"
"That's the story."
"But what happened to the lion? Was he ever killed?"
"A number of professional hunters tried to track him, without success. He just kept killing until he died of old age--if he diddie, that is." Pendergast rolled his eyes toward her dramatically.
"Really, Aloysius! You know it can't be the same lion."
"It might be a descendant, carrying the same genetic mutation."
"And perhaps the same tastes," said Helen, with a ghoulish smile.
As the afternoon turned to evening, they passed through two more deserted villages, the usual cries of children and lowing of cattle replaced by the drone of insects. They arrived at Kingazu Camp after sunset, as a blue twilight was settling over the bush. The camp stood on the Luangwa River, a cluster of rondevaalsarranged along the banks, with an open-air bar and a dining shelter.
"What a delightful setting," Helen said as she looked around.
"Kingazu is one of the oldest safari camps in the country," Pendergast replied. "It was founded in the 1950s, when Zambia was still part of Northern Rhodesia, by a hunter who realized that taking people out to photograph animals could be just as exciting as killing them--and a lot more remunerative."
"Thank you, Professor. Will there be a quiz after the lecture?"
When they pulled into the dusty parking area, the bar and dining shelter were empty, the camp staff having taken refuge in the surrounding huts. All the lights were on, the generator chugging full blast.
"Nervous bunch," said Helen, flinging open the door and climbing out into the hot evening, the air shrill with cicadas.
The door of the closest rondevaalopened, striping yellow light across the beaten earth, and a man in pressed khakis with knife-edge creases, leather bush-boots, and high socks stepped out.
"The district commissioner, Alistair Woking," Pendergast whispered to his wife.
"I'd never have guessed."
"And the fellow with him in the Australian cowboy hat is Gordon Wisley, the camp concessionaire."
"Come inside," said the district commissioner, shaking their hands. "We can talk more comfortably in the hut."
"Heavens, no!" said Helen. "We've been cooped up in a car all day--let's have a drink at the bar."
"Well...," the commissioner said dubiously.
"If the lion comes into camp, so much the better. Then we won't have the bother of stalking him in the bush. Right, Aloysius?"
"Flawlessly argued."
She lifted the soft-canvas bag that held her gun out of the back of the Land Rover. Pendergast did the same, hefting a heavy metal canister of ammunition over his shoulder.
"Gentlemen?" he said. "To the bar?"
"Very well." The DC eyed their heavy-bore safari guns with a certain look of reassurance. "Misumu!"
An African in a felt fez and red sash ducked his head out a door of the staff camp.
"We'd like a drink at the bar," said Woking. "If you don't mind."
They retired to the thatched bar, the barman taking his place behind the polished wood counter. He was sweating, and not because of the heat.
"Maker's Mark," said Helen. "On the rocks."
"Two," said her husband. "And muddle in some mint, if you have it."
"Make it the same all 'round," said the DC. "Is that all right with you, Wisley?"
"Just so long as it's strong," said Wisley with a nervous laugh. "What a day."
The barman poured the drinks, and Pendergast washed the dust from his throat with a good slug. "Tell us what happened, Mr. Wisley."
Wisley was a tall redhead with a New Zealand accent. "It was after lunch," he began. "We had twelve guests in camp--a full house."
As he spoke, Pendergast unzipped the canvas carrying case and removed his gun, a Holland & Holland .465 "Royal" double rifle. He broke the action and began cleaning the weapon, wiping off dust from the long drive. "What was lunch?"
"Sandwiches. Roast kudu, ham, turkey, cucumber. Iced tea. We always serve a light lunch during the heat of the day."
Pendergast nodded, polishing the walnut stock.
"A lion had been roaring most of the night off in the bush, but during the day it settled down. We often hear roaring lions--it's one of the attractions of the camp, actually."
"Charming."
"But they've never bothered us before. I just can't understand it."
Pendergast glanced at him, then returned his attention to the gun. "This lion, I take it, was not local?"