The Enchanter Completed

But as I've said, I try to stay out of my clients' politics.

Kilbrew sent two plane tickets, one for me, one for my wife, to come to Dallas and discuss things.

Since I'd told Brenda more than a sufficiency about Kilbrew, she passed on the trip.

The Kilbrew mansion sat on the south side of Dallas, on a half dozen acres of land that probably went for a couple of mil per acre, or more. The house was styled like a mansion out of Gone With the Breeze, or whatever that mawky book is, with columns, a bloody huge drive, outbuildings and such.

Kilbrew's two goons opened the door for me, and then Kilbrew appeared, wearing what he must have imagined old Hemingway wore in his Kenya days.

He introduced me to the Mrs. Kilbrew, who was a blonde, walking monument to silicone. She simpered, pointed her cleavage at me, and said, "Call me Wandi."

I doubted that she was his first wife. Rich ones like Kilbrew generally take a few tries before they hit the proper combination of brainless and rutting ability.

Kilbrew showed me his trophy room, packed with mounted trophies. I noted with some satisfaction «my» allosaur head had pride of place. Oddly, the furnishings in the room were more suitable to a corporate board room than a living room.

"My negotiating room," he said. "I put 'em in here, underneath your boy's fangs, and you've no idea how amenable they get to my offers."

I made an understanding sort of noise, and he poured me a drink.

"Let me show you my latest," Kilbrew said, unlocking one of the gun cabinets, and taking something that looked like a black powder shotgun from its huge bore. But it evidently fired smokeless powder, for it had a curved magazine below the receiver.

"You figuring on doing some serious poaching around here?" I joked. "That ought to land you enough ducks, one blast, to feed the neighborhood."

"It wouldn't be bad for that, now would it?" Kilbrew said, again with his forced smile. "No. I may offer this to the UN Military. Eight gauge, and of course my now-patented buffer group. Twenty rounds, either shot or solid. Cyclic rate of fire about three hundred rounds per minute."

The shell he showed me was as long as the palm of my hand, and I've got a rather large paw. The shell's diameter was about 2 cm or so.

Kilbrew took it back, and held it with a rather unpleasant smile.

"A nice riot agent, don't you think?"

"I don't know," I said. "I try to stay away from riots."

Then we had di

"I want you to take me out again," he said. "To Africa."

"I'm pleased you thought to call," I said. "Might I ask why you haven't consulted any of the local lads?"

"I did." Kilbrew harrumphed. "They were damned amateurs. The main hunter, of course being black, couldn't find any game where he'd said it'd be, and the camp staff were a bunch of numblebums, and most of the equipment was jerry-built. We even had to abandon one of our hovercraft, as a matter of fact."

"About what you'd expect, given who they were," Hendrik put in.

I ignored him.

"I'd gone in after one thing, and didn't get it," Kilbrew said. "Of course, when we got back, the billing was twice the estimate, which I'm in litigation about right now.

"I should have gone to you in the first place, but I didn't know until recently you've had experience in Africa."

"What were you after?" I asked.

"I want a giant hippopotamus."

I managed to hide my wince.

I don't like hippos.

I've shot a couple of contempo hippopotami with clients who managed to get permission to hunt on one of the great African preserves.

A hippo, as one client put it, is a mean piece of work.

The only good things I'll have to say about them is their steaks are among the tastiest meat in the world, and their hides make extraordinarily tough and, properly cured, pliable leather.

Beyond that, nothing.

With the exception of the black mamba and the crocodile, I doubt if any animal, including those few remaining lions and buffalo, kills more Africans every year.

And no one, yet, has hired me to hunt either the mamba or crocs.

Hippos, which in this time get to be about 4–6 meters long and 1.5 meters tall, weighing in at about 3–4 metric tons, are a long ways from the fu

In the water, if they yawn at you, that's not sleepiness, but a threat, most generally a precursor to biting your boat?and you, if they can get away with it?in half.

But that's not where they're most dangerous.

Hippos graze on land at night.

God help you if you get between them and the water. Because they can move almost as fast as an antelope. And if you're in their way, you'll be lucky if you're only trampled. The hippo's fangs are jagged, misshapen, and the length of your forearm.

They won't eat you, but once they get a good hold or three you might wish they had.

I rate the hippo's temper as being only just shorter than that of the cape buffalo, and his intelligence is quite a bit higher.

As I said, I don't like them, from the day one sent me into the Pafuri River, to watch all my gear, including a beautiful Purdy double that had cost me a year's wages, to the bottom, as a phalanx of crocodile slithered into the water from the opposite bank.

A hippopotamus of the Pleistocene (Hippopotamusgigans, to use the new and rather obnoxious taxonomy) gets at least twice as big as one of today's brutes.

I'll underline that at least, since all these eras are being explored, and no one really knows how big any prehistoric creature actually grew.

Remember that Pleistocene riverine croc they found about six klicks north of here five or six years back? Twenty feet long, when nobody thought those monsters had ever gotten over 15 or so.

"That might be an interesting hunt," I managed.

"Sure as hell will be, especially because, with Nairobi's chamber, we'll be able to bring the whole damned thing back," Kilbrew said.

"Won't that jolt 'em, standing in my foyer?"

I nodded. "Whereabouts do you want to hunt?"

"There's a lake, a great big one, in Ethiopia, near where a little town named Abomsa is."

I didn't know the location. Nicholas got an atlas.

I whistled.

"Damned close to Awash," I said. "I'm surprised they're willing to let any hunting go on there."

"The… blacks," Nicholas said, and I noted the pause, "will let anybody do anything over there, so long as you've got the dollars to pay for it."

I looked at Kilbrew, his two bodyguards. A smile went between them, as if they were sharing a secret.

I smelt something strange.

But stronger, I smelt money.

And so, for the filthy lucre, I took the contract.

Before we left St. Louis, Beauregard Black took me aside.

"You owe me for this one, Reggie."

"Come on, Beau," I protested. "You'd think I was throwing you in a den of murderers."

"Nary a den, boss," Black said. "Three of 'em's enough."

"Look, I'm giving you a chance to see the land we all came from."

"Only land I come from is right here in Saint Louis," he said. "Men who go lookin' for their past likely to find out some skeletons or worse.

"Besides, I hear Ethiopia these days is about as attractive as a good plague of locusts. You best be thinking of just how huge a Christmas bonus I'll be getting."

And so everyone assembled at Kilbrew's house, and packed for the expedition.

It was hot in the Texas sun, and we worked stripped to the waist.

I noticed with some amusement that Wandi Kilbrew was particularly fascinated with Beauregard Black's rather rugged build. Beauregard, happily married with four children, never noticed.