Rhinoceros Summer

  Rhinoceros Summer

  by Jamie Thornton

  Igneous Books

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  Contents

  Cover

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  The Jamie Thornton Starter Library

  About the Author

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  Paul

  Nobody who knew anything about the Tanzanian wilderness drove out in less than four-wheel drive. Paul watched in disgust as the brand-new 1996 Pontiac’s chassis bounced and shuddered its way to him through one dirt rut after another.

  The engine sputtered off and Barry climbed out. Paul didn’t bother standing up. He saw Barry’s Hawaiian print shirt tucked around his fat belly and into a pair of jeans just fine from the driver’s seat of his own Land Cruiser.

  Barry’s boots gave off a painful glare in the morning light. He huffed his way over to Paul’s open car door, camera in hand, and let out a long breath. “I’ve had one helluva morning so far.” He stuck out a pink-fleshed hand.

  “I already guessed.” Paul pointed to the boots. “Those new?”

  Barry dropped his hand and looked down, though Paul wasn’t sure he could actually see shoes over that belly.

  “The boots? Uh, yeah.”

  Paul shook his head. “You know we’re hiking?”

  “I heard there might be a bit.”

  Paul motioned Barry to the Land Cruiser’s passenger seat. “More than a bit,” he said, though not loud enough for Barry to hear. It wasn’t Paul’s problem if this guy’s feet blistered. Paul was here to save Blue Nile Safari from bankruptcy, not babysit an amateur.

  Barry jiggled into the seat and shut the door.

  Paul smelled the stink of the sweat that had been moldering in this guy’s fat rolls all morning, but what worried Paul more was how he gripped the camera like it was a baby with a full diaper. “What exactly have you filmed before?”

  Barry’s face flushed. “It doesn’t take a genius filmmaker to tape some guy shooting down an animal.”

  Paul held back a curse. “Yeah. Sure.” He knew all about people like Barry. He’d be more of a handicap than an asset out in the field, but it was the best Paul could do on short notice. Hell, it was the best he could do, period. He guessed it didn’t matter what Barry was as long as the camera worked and his fat fingers could still find the record button.

  The Land Cruiser began its rumbling journey over kilometers of land, dipping in and out of ruts, though not as smoothly as it should have. Too many years of driving on land that was anything but roads. The windshield still sported a hairline crack from a rock his other Land Cruiser had kicked up on a previous safari. Cosmetic repairs cost money he hadn’t had in years.

  As they passed by a section of woodlands, it looked like a tornado had come through and only touched the trees: exposed heartwood, broken branches, trunks cracked clear off near the base. Large mounds of dung, some more than several feet tall, lay steaming nearby.

  Paul braked and craned his neck around, searching. “Elephants came through here.”

  “How do you know that?” Barry asked.

  “The piles of dung kind of give it away.” Paul maneuvered the Land Cruiser around the piles and stopped to scan the area. No sense in dealing with an elephant today if they could avoid it.

  “How long’s this going to take?” Barry asked.

  “As long as it needs to,” Paul said.

  “Hey man, no need to patronize me. Remember, I’m doing you the favor here.”

  “Favor?” Paul turned from his scanning and focused on Barry’s splotchy face. “You got the deposit, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Paul pictured Barry taking that thousand dollars, the last of the cash Paul expected to see for a while. He gunned the Land Cruiser, sending it into a small fishtail before it straightened into a regular pace. “So then that makes you hired help.”

  Barry wiped his face with a red handkerchief he’d pulled from some hidden fold. “Look, I wanted to talk about that. I’ve had some unforeseen costs come up. You don’t know what that drive out here did to my car. It’s going to need some major repairs, so I’m going to need a bigger payment on this—”

  “No way.”

  “You need me more than I need you,” Barry said.

  Paul gripped the steering wheel hard enough for his knuckles to turn white. He’d gained a reputation over the last few years for being hard to work with. He’d had to get creative about making money and began advertising himself as a showdown hunter—a person who forces the animal to charge before shooting it. The old guard didn’t like it. They said it was too dangerous for the clients. They spread rumors Paul wasn’t reliable anymore. That made Paul need to hire someone like Barry, a city dweller not even from Tanzania, who came out into the wilderness in a wreck of a car, new boots, and a Hawaiian shirt. He had no hat, no water bottles, no food—not unless they were tucked away somewhere in those fat folds—and thought he was Paul’s personal savior.

  Paul increased the pressure on the accelerator and then slammed on the brakes. Barry’s stomach compressed against the dash, forcing a “Whoompf!” from his mouth.

  “You can get out and go home now,” Paul said.

  “What the hell!” Barry coughed. “What the hell you doing!”

  “You don’t like our agreement, so I’m letting you out of the job.”

  Barry peered through the dusty window glass. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Yeah. Not my problem. You want out, now’s your chance.” He had no intention of abandoning Barry, but he also needed to scare him into shutting up. He couldn’t pay, not even the original fee they’d agreed upon through a friend of a friend. The 1,000-American-dollar ‘deposit’ Barry had received was all the money Paul could put together. He figured there was no reason to bring that up until after everything was on tape.

  “Hey man, I didn’t mean it. I wouldn’t be a good businessman if I didn’t try for more money, all right? All right?”

  Paul eased his foot off the brake and they continued in silence.

  Another three hours passed before they reached the crater. As they approached the rim, Barry mopped his blotchy forehead as if to prevent himself from fainting. “We should have waited until it got dark. Someone might see us.”

  Paul would have done almost anything to have his son by his side right then, someone he could trust to watch his back and not ask stupid questions. “You knew this deal was about filming a charging rhino. How you gonna film that in the dark?”

  “Did you say rhino? As in, the endangered species? Also known as the most illegal animal to hunt on this earth?” Barry mopped his face w
ith more vigor. “I knew it was about filming a hunt. I didn’t know anything about a rhino. Jesus! A rhino!”

  Paul raised a fist toward Barry. “You better watch your mouth! We’re not killing a rhino today. We’re doing a green hunt. I’ll make the rhino charge and then dart it with a tranquilizer. You get all that on film. I’ll inject the rhino with the antidote and it’ll just get up and walk away. Unharmed.” He would never kill an endangered rhino, not if he could help it. No long-term sense in poaching something into extinction.

  Still, even green hunting a rhino was illegal in Tanzania but Paul didn’t see the harm in it. If he discreetly sent the video out to the right people, clients would swamp his booking schedule and pay big money to experience a thrill like that.

  “I wasn’t told any of the details,” Barry said in a subdued voice. “Just that I could make ten grand for a day’s worth of video.”

  Paul stopped the Land Cruiser just short of the rim so Barry could take a good look at the 3,000-foot drop to the crater floor. “Unless you want to make us tumble down to the bottom, you need to shut up and let me drive now.”

  Barry shut up, though he continued to huff and puff with displeasure.

  Paul’s sweaty hands slipped along the steering wheel as the Land Cruiser snaked its way down. He kept the speed slow. One wrong move and they’d plummet over the edge of the switchback. The volcano’s sides had collapsed to shape the crater millions of years ago, but he liked to think this bowl of tropical vegetation and wild animals was his personal African snow globe. He would shake it until he found what he was looking for.

  They reached the crater floor and continued past the soda lake ringed by pink flamingoes and tourists with their cameras, then through the lion- and tourist-infested grasslands. Not until they stopped at the edge of a wooded thicket did Paul find what he was looking for.

  Rhino spoor.

  Barry sniffed before opening the passenger door. “I just think I should get a larger cut, with how I’m putting my reputation on the line.”

  Paul sighed. More than ever, he wanted his son by his side.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Look, you get me the video I need and I’ll arrange a bonus.”

  “Yeah. All right.” Barry hugged the camera to his shirt, opened the door, then lifted his belly. He climbed out and adjusted his jeans. “Let’s do this.”

  Paul tucked the Land Cruiser behind some acacia trees, then they began a long walk into the wilderness.

  Biting flies landed on their bare arms and faces, and buzzed in their ears. They marched through thick swamp grass, let mud soak their legs, allowed flies to bite them, wiped sweat from their foreheads, made sure to keep their equipment clean.

  Six gray bulks fed on swamp grass near a small grove of acacias. The bark from the trees glowed in the slanting sunlight. They crept into thicker bush, moving near a rhino sleeping separately from the group.

  Paul repositioned his grip on the rifle, careful to not let the sweat of his hands make the gun slippery. He flicked a glance at Barry and saw his sweat-drenched clothes, his hands and arms so fatigued from hiking that they trembled from trying to hold up the camera. “You keep ready.”

  “Yeah,” Barry said.

  “Just keep the camera rolling.”

  “I said, yeah.”

  Paul turned back to the rhino. He believed a man needed to bend the rules sometimes to survive in a world as harsh as this one. He meant to survive. He meant to laugh in the face of everyone who believed he’d come to no good.

  He yelled, “Hiyaa!”

  The rhino’s ears perked.

  Paul stood his ground. Less than a thousand left in the whole world. It was enough to make a man weep for the glory coming his way.

  This was going to fix everything.

  He heard the chuff-chuff of the rhino’s angry breath as she swung around.

  Paul almost lost his grip on the barrel. “That’s a square-lip!”

  The rhino charged from twenty yards. Paul fired, plugging the animal with a huge tranq dart near the spine. The rhino kept flying through the air, its head lowered, its horn ready to put a softball-sized hole in a man so his intestines had nowhere to go but the ankle-deep dirt.

  Paul jumped out of the way.

  Barry did not.

  CHAPTER 2

  Lydia

  “Hi, Lydia.”

  Lydia turned from her place at the cash register to see who had spoken.

  Margaret—she held the door open for two other girls, Meghan and Mary.

  Lydia forced a smile for her three best friends even as she looked to see if the manager watched.

  The cool air inside the store whooshed past her and through the open door. The girls’ matching sets of red acrylic nails flashed as all three waved small hellos. The store bulbs glinted off the alternating cross and diamond tokens embedded in the polish. Lydia blinked at the light.

  The girls came to her register and she smelled the scented lotion they wore, all the same brand, advertised as some Christian lavender essence the store sold.

  “Hi, M’s,” Lydia said. They’d all finished high school three weeks before, but at graduation they’d told Lydia to still refer to them as ‘the M’s,’ as they’d been known at school and in youth group. She’d said okay as long as they didn’t dare call her by her own nickname anymore.

  “When do you get off?” Meghan asked.

  “Not for another three hours.”

  Margaret giggled and fingered a small box of religious charms placed on the counter to inspire an impulse purchase. “We know something you don’t.”

  Lydia used to jump at a teaser like that. Now she turned away. This summer she was supposed to become a real photographer, take some classes, do something. But the bookstore had called a week before her graduation and her dad promised she would work. She’d managed to audit a photography class one night a week but that was it.

  “Don’t you want to know what we know?” Mary asked.

  Lydia sighed inwardly before turning around. “Oh…what do you know?”

  “Well.” Margaret ran her hands through the necklaces strategically placed near the counter: crosses, dog tag Bible verses, bronzed nails, angels dangling from leather, silver or gold chains. “If PK-Lydia doesn’t really want to know, maybe we’ll find another Lydia who does.”

  “I said, don’t call me that anymore.”

  “Oh, you did?” Margaret shrugged her shoulders. “Forgot.”

  Lydia pressed her lips together to stop from calling Margaret a liar.

  Lydia happened to be one of five girls she knew with the same first name. She hated them. She knew she shouldn’t but couldn’t help wishing manager-Lydia, cheerleader-Lydia, soccer-Lydia, green-eyed-Lydia didn’t exist. And she hated being known as PK-Lydia: pastor’s kid. The M’s were only pigeonholed by one letter, not an entire identity. As if being a pastor’s kid was the only thing worth knowing about her, as if this summed up all that she was and all that she would be.

  “Come on. Let’s be nice,” Meghan said finally.

  Margaret fingered the necklaces. The metal clinked against her nails.

  “The manager doesn’t like it when you all come in like this,” Lydia said. “She says I don’t get any work done when you’re here.”

  Margaret’s fingers froze.

  Meghan leaned over the counter. “Hey, Lydia, did you hear that Brian Jameson asked Darla to marry him—and what do you think she said?”

  Lydia sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “She said, yes, of course! But her parents said no. So what do you think she said?”

  Lydia shook her head.

  “Come on, Margaret. Tell her.”

  Margaret’s back stiffened.

  Meghan crinkled her eyes in frustration. “She told them she turns eighteen in a month and will do whatever…” Meghan lowered her voice. “Whatever the hell she wants.”

  Mary whispered, “She’s coming.”

  The girls backed
away from the counter and went to wander the music section.

  Lydia felt relieved. Margaret was mad but Lydia couldn’t seem to gather the motivation to make it up to her. She didn’t care about who dated who anymore, who rebelled against the church, who was getting married. Every National Geographic article she got her hands on proved how meaningless it all was stacked against the life-and-death dramas displayed in the magazine’s photographs. She wanted to get out of the city, out of the country, away from a place where buying the right brand of jeans and wearing the latest Christian T-shirt were the most important decisions of her day.

  She used her employee discount to devour the shelf of books on overseas missions. Books that made her conduct spiritual warfare against the Germans in WWII, or cry with Elisabeth Elliot when South American Indians killed her first husband, or travel to the land of the Maasai, who missionaries said drank blood and washed their hands in cow urine. It all seemed so passionate and life-threatening and real to travel with a husband to some foreign country and work with women in colorful clothing and babies strapped to their backs.

  Manager-Lydia knocked her knuckles twice on the counter. “You need to ask your friends to buy something or leave.”

  Lydia nodded and fake tidied up as the manager walked away. She gathered up her courage and headed to the video section, where the M’s now browsed through exercise DVDs that helped you be a better Christian while you exercised, and self-help CDs with titles like How to KNOW God is Hearing Your Prayers.

  “You have to leave,” Lydia said as soon as she was within earshot. The words bounced off their backs and seemed to fall to the carpet.

  Mary said, “You should tell her to get in some new stuff, then there might actually be something worth buying. My mom has all this crap already.”

  Lydia tightly contained every movement of muscle, fisted her hands, straightened her posture. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”

  “Of course we wouldn’t want to do that, would we?” Margaret said. “I mean, who knows what might happen to the world if poor PK-Lydia were to actually get in trouble for once and—”