moved closer to me, straining to hear something. This time the voice remained as distinct as before, but only to me. Both Luke and Josh heard nothing.
“We’d better get going,” Josh said, throwing a concerned look in my direction.
“Yeah, it’s a couple of hours’ hike to the next cave,” Luke agreed.
I didn’t miss the “she’s losing it” look that passed between them. As much as I wanted to stay and investigate the whispered conversation I was convinced I’d heard, I wasn’t about to do it alone.
We began the climb up the steep sides of the valley soon afterwards, leaving behind the ancient leafy coolness and walking into the baking morning sun.
Frustration and disappointment mingled with relief as two sides of an equal argument wrestled in my mind. It wasn’t just that what we’d found alluded to the continuation of that ancient tribe; I felt as though there was something specific that I was meant to find in that valley, and I’d skirted around it, maybe even touched it very briefly, but there was no resolution. I was leaving as ignorant as I’d arrived and that frustrated me.
And then the memory of the dream would resurface and I couldn’t move fast enough to get away, because whatever had helped those poor terrified women might not have been friendly after all.
We walked for what felt like an age at a ridiculous angle, using the roots of the old trees to pull ourselves up, the effort reducing us to silence.
Quite suddenly the ground evened out onto a softly undulating plain of waving, golden-green, ripe summer grasses, interspersed with spiky aloes and unexpectedly beautiful flowers. The roar of the waterfall was crystal clear after the muffled closeness of the valley floor.
Grunting and using sign language to stop us Josh heaved air into his lungs, hands on his knees. I plopped onto the grass next to him, cheeks pink and hair wet with sweat.
“The cave we’ll spend tonight in is just over that ridge.” Luke pointed to a black scar of cliffs in the distance. As we neared the beautifully formidable heights shaded in grey and black, we discussed how best to tackle them.
The hill crouched in front of us, brooding. It wasn’t nearly as steep as the valley walls we’d climbed earlier, but it was steep enough. About three-quarters of the way up rain had washed the soil away to reveal the earth’s skeleton. Black rock, jagged and angry, framed the horizon, beyond which a bright blue sky formed a contrasting backdrop to the searing unrelenting heat of the African sun.
The boys politely suggested a longer and easier way round.
“Won’t we find more cave paintings on them?” I asked.
“We might, Alex, but they’re really tough to climb and we don’t have the right equipment.”
We carried on walking for what felt like hours, taking a seemingly endless and exhausting well defined trail that took us around the side of the cliffs and eventually along the top of the ridge.
Had I been more alert I’m sure I would have noticed how well worn the path was, but I was tired, and I wasn’t thinking and I was lagging further and further behind the boys.
The first hint of danger came with a strange coughing bark that echoed off the hills. I froze. Fear’s metallic flavour filled my mouth.
Luke and Josh both dropped their packs and started scrabbling for their guns.
A streak of grey through the grass between the boys and me confirmed my greatest fear about this trip.
We had unwittingly walked into a troop of baboons.
Baboons aren’t just another type of monkey. They are huge. They’re the size and have the nature of a pit bull but with four hands, opposable thumbs and canines to rival any leopard’s. They are aggressive and have been known to attack solitary leopards and even lions – and win. They are also smart and notoriously territorial, which, all in all, amounted to bad news for me.
I was isolated from the boys.
I was smaller than the boys.
I was the only one without a gun.
I was a female, and I had food in my backpack and they knew that, and that made me the natural target.
Luke was the first one to stand up with his gun loaded and on his shoulder. He swung around as another baboon darted past him and froze when he saw how far behind them I was and how many baboons were between us.
The look of panic that crossed his face as he assessed the situation frightened me even more.
“Alex, stay very still,” Luke called. “I can’t shoot at anything until we’re together in case they attack you.”
“OK,” I squeaked.
Josh and Luke began edging slowly toward me, each step resulting in agitated chattering and the occasional coughing shout of one of the male baboons.
The boys were about thirty paces from me when an enormous male baboon stalked up to me. His shoulder came up to my mid-thigh and the deference the other baboons showed him, cowering away from him as he passed them, marked him as the troop leader.
He sat down ten paces from me and yawned, displaying all of his yellowed teeth.
I remembered from Dad’s bush education that baboons don’t yawn because they’re tired, baboons yawn to show you their teeth.
“Luke?” I hissed, my voice rising in panic.
“Look at the ground and back away very very slowly.” His voice was tense.
I obeyed, listening to the low conversation between Luke and Josh as they tried to find a way out for me.
“Move to the right, Alex,” Luke directed.
The ground was sloping downward making balancing difficult. As I edged backwards my foot slipped, and I dipped forward suddenly. The baboon reacted to my sudden movement by leaping at me and puffing out his fur making him look even bigger than before.
“Steady, Alex.” Luke’s voice cracked with strain.
I glanced up to see where he and Josh were. They both had their guns trained on the baboon, but my position meant that if they missed him, they would hit me instead.
My stomach lurched. There was a really good chance I wouldn’t be getting out of this unscathed.
I took another step backwards, the slope of the hill making it more and more difficult to hold my footing.
The baboon barked again. A few of the smaller males sprang to his side.
I could hear Josh and Luke whispering again.
“Alex, on my count I want you to take two more slow steps backwards and then fall flat on your stomach,” Luke instructed.
I nodded as fear twisted though me.
“Step one. Step two.”
I wobbled on the sloping ground.
“On the count of three, Alex.”
I sucked in a breath and tensed my muscles to make the fall faster than his bullet.
“One; two; three.”
I threw myself down.
Three things happened at once.
A loud bang as both boys shot at the baboon.
The animal’s angry shout as they missed it.
The horrible sensation of slithering backwards and then falling and falling.
Chapter 8
Introductions
I hit the water at an awkward angle, my head snapping backwards as the air was knocked out of my lungs, the icy water closing over