A Time to Die

"Take him!" Sean said. Riccardo Monterro looked through the telescopic sight. The lion's body filled most of the magnified field of the lens.

He could see the individual hairs in the dense curling bush of mane and the detail of each sculptured muscle beneath the skin.

One inch behind the lion's shoulder, on the lateral center line of its body, was a tiny scar on the sleek hide. It was shaped like a horseshoe, a lucky horseshoe, and it made a perfect aiming point.

He aligned the cross hairs of the sight on the scar. They bounced slightly to the elevated beat of his own heart. He took up the slack in the trigger, feeling the final resistance under his finger before the sear released and the rifle fired.

Beside her father, Claudia sat rigid with horror. The lion turned his head and looked across the river-bed at her. The mating had touched and moved her deeply.

"He's too glorious to die," she thought. Almost without conscious effort, she opened her mouth and screamed with all the strength of her lungs.

"Run, damn you! Run!"

The result stu

The oldest lioness disappeared almost instantaneously into the long grass, the cubs rushing after her. The younger lioness raced along the edge of the bank. So swift was her run that she did not seem to touch the earth; like a swallow drinking in flight, she skimmed the surface, and the lion followed her. For all his bulk and the dark mass of his mane, he moved as lightly as she did, reaching out those massively muscled legs in full stride.

Riccardo Monterro swiveled in his chair, the rifle to his shoulder, staring into the brilliant glass lens, swinging with the cat's run.

The lioness swerved into the grass and was gone. The lion followed her, but the instant before he disappeared, the report of the Weatherby rifle drove in on their eardrums, painful and deafening, and even in full sunlight a long tongue of flame flashed out across the river-bed.

The lion stumbled in his run and with a single, loud cough vanished into the grass. In the silence, their ears sang with the memory of gunfire, and they stared out at the empty clearing, subdued and appalled.

"Nice work, ducky!" Sean said softly.

"I'm not sorry," she said defiantly. Her father reloaded the rifle with a savage movement that sent the empty brass case spi

Sean picked up his.577 double rifle and followed him down.

They stood at the bottom of the tree. Riccardo unbuttoned the flap of his breast pocket and offered Sean a Havana from his pigskin cigar case. Neither of them usually smoked during the day, but now Sean accepted one and bit off the tip.

They lit their cigars and smoked for a while in silence. Then Sean said quietly, "Call your shot, Capo."

Riccardo was a marksman of such expertise that he could tell precisely where his bullet had gone the moment after he fired it.

Now he hesitated, then said grudgingly, "That cat was motoring.

I was too quick. I didn't lead him enough."

"Gutshot?" Sean asked.

"Yeah." Riccardo nodded. "Gutshot."

"Shit," said Sean. "Shit, and shit again."

They looked across at the dense stand of long grass and tangled thorny patches of undergrowth on the far bank.

It was ten minutes before the Toyota arrived, summoned by that single gunshot. Job, Shadrach, and Matatu were gri

The three of them went back to the Toyota and began to prepare for the follow-up In silence.

Sean squinted up at the sun. "Dark in an hour," he said. "We haven't got time to let the wound stiffen."

"We could leave him until the morning," Riccardo suggested.

"He'll be sick by then."

Sean shook his head. "If he dies in there, the hyena will get him.

No trophy. Besides which, we can't leave the poor beggar to suffer all night."

They fell silent as Claudia climbed down the ladder from the mac han When she reached ground level, she would not look at them but tossed the plait of dark hair over her shoulder defiantly and marched across to the Toyota. She climbed into the front seat and folded her arms across her small breasts, staring ahead grimly.

"I'm sorry," Riccardo said. "I've known her for twenty-six years.

I should have guessed she'd pull one like that."

"You don't have to come, Capo." Sean did not answer him directly.

"Stay with Claudia. I'll go across and get the job done.

That's what you pay me for."

It was Riccardo's turn to ignore the remark. "I'll carry the Rigby," he said. i "Make sure you're loaded with soft-nosed bullets," Sean advised.