the sign as Tusker and I kept a watchful eye out for leopards. The headman directed the porters to rest and Gideon took the other half of the lugga. After a lengthy consultation, they pointed us west, toward Lake Victoria and Uganda in the far distance.
We set off, Tusker driving the safari car and Ryder and Gideon walking. Some of the staff, including the cook whose duties exempted him from carrying anything, clung to the outside of the car as Tusker bounced them around the long plains. The others stretched out in a long line, singing songs in their various tongues as we wended our way westward.
I walked between Ryder and Gideon carrying my .22. The Rigby was far too much gun to carry for any length of time, but the .22 was manageable, although I noticed Ryder sending me sidelong glances to make sure I was holding up.
We came to the first river, a narrow crossing, but deep and tricky for the Ford. The porters came forward with sticks and rocks and began to hurl them into the water. The green water received them then suddenly began to heave like a pot coming to the boil. I saw a flash of teeth and tails as crocodiles thrashed their way out of the water and onto the sandy bank. They were hideous, like something prehistoric with their flat, dead eyes and their broad bodies. They ought to have been slow, but they weren’t. They hurled themselves awkwardly onto one another, fighting for space as they fled the water.
The headman kept a watchful eye on them as he waved Tusker forward. The car crossed, stately as a dowager, and behind her the porters hurried, each treading hard on the heels of the man in front. Gideon followed, and suddenly only Ryder and I were left. One of those scaly monsters opened his mouth and a small white bird hopped inside, pecking delicately at the morsels lodged between the monstrous teeth.
“Come on, princess. Before the crocs go back in and decide you look tasty.”
He took my hand and waded forward. I put one foot in front of the other, but my body moved of its own accord. My mind had pushed everything aside except those eyes, those hungry, waiting eyes that never blinked. If I had been alone, I would have stood there in the rushing green water and let them take me. But Ryder never let go, pulling me forward and keeping me so close to him that both of my hands were tucked under his and resting on his hips. We climbed out the other side and I pried my cold fingers from his.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
He smiled. “They’re just crocs. Not dangerous if you know what to do.”
“But I don’t know what to do,” I pointed out.
“That’s why you have me.”
He set a brisk pace after that, and I was glad. The speed and the golden light that spilled around us warmed me up. A small herd of zebra stopped grazing at our approach and lifted their noses. The porters began to sing again, and the miles unwound slowly behind as we walked. Ryder’s eyes kept to the middle distance, softly focused to show him where the ground might have been disturbed. He stopped from time to time to consult with Gideon and between them they kept the lion’s tracks before us. Sometimes the marks disappeared into the tall grass and we veered in a different direction, but always the lion had corrected back almost due west, taking us into the lengthening sun.
We stopped for a cold luncheon and began to walk again after the porters had rested. As we walked, Gideon raised his voice. “This is a thing that I know—Ryder knows the poems of Mr. Whitman.”
For a moment I thought Ryder was ignoring him, but then he spoke. “‘Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, you must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, it comes to me as of a dream, I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you...’”
He went on, reciting the rest. I had read Whitman. Mossy had bought me a copy that my Granny Miette had promptly confiscated and burned upon my arrival in Louisiana on the grounds that it was indecent. But I hadn’t thought it indecent. Whitman was real; Whitman was passion. Whitman was aching and bruising and wanting and having. Reading him was like a long drink of cool