A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 15
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Behind her she felt Sean shake with soft and silent laughter. For an incredulous moment, she thought he was laughing at her, then he whispered, "He's lain down. Can you believe it, he's taking a rest right under the bait. The cocky son of a bitch."
Sean was thinking about the girl as much as about the lion. The unconcealed antipathy she bore him he returned in full measure, which made it more amusing to tease and plague her. Of course, the lion hide was always a good place to catch a woman off balance. He had begun many a memorable affair here. While they were in the hide they were psychologically under his control, like children in a classroom. He was the master and they were conditioned to obey his will, and the tension and nervous excitement made them receptive and compliant, the promise of danger and bloodshed heightened their awareness, physical and sexual. It had been fun to find out that this bumptious, spoiled, self-righteous American bitch was no different from any of the others.
She was probably hating herself and him at this moment for that momentary lapse. He smiled thinly as he sat up close behind her.
He had judged it with the fine instinct of the gifted philanderer, for it was, of course, a gift. He had read with attention Casanova's memoirs, and there the old rogue had described it precisely. When she is receptive, every woman gives out subtle little signs--breathing, flush of skin, change of pose, tiny body movements, even odor-that very few men can even recognize, let alone interpret. It was a gift only the great lovers possessed. Knowing when to act and how far to push each stage, that was the trick, he told himself.
From where he sat he could see her right cheek and the long dark lashes of the eye. above, even though she was deliberately keeping her head turned away from him now.
She had bound her jet hair into a thick braid that hung down between her shoulder blades. So her neck was exposed, an elegant column that supported the small neat head. Her neck and cheek still flushed with angry arousal beneath skin that was already were darkened by the African sun to a color where she could have modeled for an expensive sun cream in one of the glossy women's magazines.
As he studied her, the flush abated and she regained her composure, but under her thin cotton T-shirt, the nipple on the one pert, almost girlish, breast that he could see was in silhouette. It was still standing out, the size and color of a ripe mulberry, a dark wine color through the thin material. Then it began to shrink and subside; the phenomenon intrigued him, and he laughed again, soundlessly.
"You've given yourself a blinding hard-on," he chuckled. "And you can't even stand the little witch." He switched his attention from her back to the unseen cat in the grass across the river.
It was almost fully dark before they saw the lion again. There was only a fading memory of the sunset on the western horizon, but Sean had positioned the bait and blind so it backlit the scene for them. They heard the grass rustle and stir as the lion stood up, and they leaned forward eagerly. Riccardo lifted the butt stock of the rifle to his shoulder and peered into the long tube of the telescopic sight.
Abruptly the lion reared out of the grass, a great dark, shapeless mass just visible against the pale sky, and they heard the creak of the chain that held the bait as he swung upon it with all his weight, tearing at the carcass as he began to feed.
"Can you see your sights?" Sean asked Riccardo. The lion was making so much noise that he raised his voice to an almost conversational pitch, but Riccardo did not reply. He was moving the long barrel of the rifle in slow circles, trying desperately to pick up the cross hairs of the sight against the last fading glimmer of the sunset.
"No!" he admitted defeat at last. "It's too dark."
Claudia felt a lift of relief that she wouldn't have to witness the slaughter, but Sean said quietly, "All right, we'll just have to sit it out and try and get a crack at him in the dawn."
"All night!" Despite his injunctions to be silent, Claudia was so startled by the prospect of spending the night in the hide that she protested plaintively.
"You signed on to be tough, didn't you?" Sean smiled at her alarm.
"But, but-won't Job bring the truck?" She sounded desperate.
"Not unless he hears a shot." And she subsided miserably into her chair.
The night was interminable and cold, and the mosquitoes came from the stagnant green pool in the river-bed and whined around their heads, ignoring the repellent Claudia had smeared on her exposed skin. Across the river the lion fed at intervals and then rested. A little after midnight he began to roar, crashing bursts of sound that brought Claudia out of an uncomfortable doze and made her heart jump against her ribs. The terrible sound ended in a diminishing series of throaty grunts.
"Why does he do that?" Claudia asked breathlessly.
"To let the world know who's boss around here."
Then the hyenas came, shrieking and hooting like a pack of ghouls, gibbering with excitement at the smell of the kill. The lion drove them off, rushing heavily in the grass, snarling and roaring, but they came edging back as soon as he returned to feed. They tittered and whooped at him, forming a restless circle around the bait tree.
An hour before dawn, Claudia at last fell into a fitful sleep, hunched down in the chair with her neck twisted at an awkward angle, and she awoke with a start to find it was light enough to make out the links of the chain that held the buffalo carcass.
In the forest close by, a pair of ground horn bills grotesque black birds as big as a wild turkey with the same bald red heads, were booming their dawn chorus in a ritual duet. Beside her, Riccardo was stretching and yawning and Sean stood up, rocking the mac han
"What happened?" Claudia mumbled. "Where's the lion?"
"He took off an hour ago," her father told her. "Long before shooting light."
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