Some guys could not take a hint.
A screech pierced the background symphony of the Serengeti and an elephant rumble thrummed the air as the blood-orange hues of daybreak embraced the left side of Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance. Such a breathtaking balance of power and serenity. A daily affirmation that she’d made the right decision five years ago. Anna downed the last of her coffee.
Time to face her beloved chaos.
Tightening her fingers around the metal handle of her mug, she braced herself on the edge of the wooden platform she’d helped erect, and hopped down. A mushroom of dust billowed around her boots.
Anna looked up at the sky. Solid, morbid blue. They needed rain—badly—and they were still a month away from the start of the next rainy season. The Busara Research camp had tapped into an underground stream, but animals didn’t have pump wells or deep roots. Even Busara’s well was getting low. If any more riverbeds dried up, the herds would either move beyond Anna’s observation area, or die. As if the poaching numbers this year hadn’t been bad enough. She sighed and trudged toward the bustle and calls of a camp coming to life. Rounds before research had become her game plan over the past few years. Busara included a small nursery, mainly for baby elephants orphaned by poaching, but really for any animal Anna didn’t have the heart to turn away.
Even cheeky little monkeys.
She passed the wooden enclosures and metal-roofed structure that served as her clinic, and headed for the even more rustic multipurpose tent that doubled as their kitchen and mess hall. She needed her morning dose of sweet, little girl kisses before going on her rounds, another daily reassurance that she was doing what was best for everyone. She waved at two keepers leading their patients out of the pens for a morning bath, but dropped her hand at the skin-prickling shriek that came from the far side of camp.
The children.
Anna’s chest tightened and she took off at a run, dodging another keeper on his way to their well with a metal bucket. She rushed into the mess tent, the screen door slamming behind her.
“Usijali, Anna. Don’t worry. She’s fine. Just couldn’t wait for her ugali to cool down,” said Niara, Anna’s friend and nanny, as she held a cup of potable water to Pippa’s mouth. Framed between rampant curls and the rim of the cup, two green eyes widened.
“Mommy!” Burned tongue forgotten, her little girl pushed the cup away and shimmied off the wooden bench. Anna scooped her up. “I got a boo-boo,” Pippa said, pinching the tip of her tongue between two fingers and tugging it as far out of her mouth as she could. Not all the mash had washed down. Lovely.
“I see that,” Anna said, her pulse still racing from the scare. “But how many times have I said don’t scream like that unless there’s danger?”
Crying from pain, Anna could understand. After all, Pippa was only four. But the shrill death call her baby had taken to recently was getting old fast. Anna dreaded what Pippa’s next animal imitation would be. She’d already mastered baboons, hyenas, elephants and a number of birds. This piercing alarm of a guinea fowl defending its nest took crying wolf to a whole new level.
“You told me burns are dangewus,” Pippa insisted.
Yes, she had. Anna wrinkled her nose. At least her daughter hadn’t taken up biting...yet.
“Never mind. Next time, wait until Auntie Niara says the grits are cool.”
“I did.”
“No, she didn’t,” Haki said, sitting up a little straighter.
Only one year older than Pippa, Niara’s son took his responsibility as the older child to heart—insisting on fairness and the following of rules. Ever since he’d overheard the keepers talk of the tragic fate of a curious Masai child who’d wandered away from her village, he’d chosen to stick to the rules and stay close to his mother...and made sure Pippa did, too. Poor Haki had no clue that he was inadvertently challenging his headstrong playmate. Give her a few years and he wouldn’t know what hit him.
He wouldn’t know what hit him.
Anna pressed her lips together, steeling herself against the sadness that came in random spurts, like whenever Pippa’s determined expression mirrored her father’s. A constant reminder of the choice Anna had made. He’s never going to forgive you. No one will. They won’t understand. Anna scratched the back of her neck with both hands. Dwelling on it wouldn’t get her anywhere. She pulled the elastic band out of her hair, combed her hair back with her fingers and reset her ponytail.
“How about you finish your breakfast. I bet it’s ready now, and I need to get to work,” Anna said.
“Come, Pippa,” Niara said, extending her hand. “Let Mama eat something, too.”
“I already had coffee.”
“Coffee isn’t breakfast. You’ll start to look like Ambosi if you don’t eat more.”
The children giggled and Anna couldn’t resist smiling. Niara’s melodic emphasis on her syllables when she spoke English always added to the warmth of her innocent humor. With Niara, everything came from the heart. A resilient heart, despite the trauma the woman had suffered. After they met, Niara had wasted no time in making sure Anna didn’t pity her, or herself.
“No, really. I’ll break for lunch early. I need to check on Bakhari’s bandages.” Anna turned to Haki and Pippa. “Work hard on your books and maybe there’ll be time for a ride to see the herds.”
“Yay!” Both children clapped, spreading sticky fig nectar and ugali on their palms.
“How are we on supplies?” Anna asked, prompted by the food mess. Niara wrinkled her nose and shrugged. Great. So they were getting low. She hoped they had enough funds to cover a restocking trip. Especially for water purification.
Approaching the end of her research grant meant the area’s watering holes and creeks weren’t the only things drying out. Getting her research permit extended a second time wasn’t going to happen if funds weren’t available. As to whether funds were available, Anna still hadn’t gotten any email replies.
It didn’t help that their power had gone out. She rubbed her temples. Going back to the United States was not an option. Anna wasn’t ready to go back. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Facing the past meant explaining the present...and she couldn’t risk losing more than she already had. Her gut turned and she swallowed hard against the coffee’s acidity. She was jumping the gun again. Worrying for nothing. She took a deep breath and forced a carefree smile.
“Okay. I need to run an inventory of necessities at the clinic, too. Let me know what we need beyond that and we’ll make plans.” She rounded the table, kissed Pippa and Haki on top of their heads and left before Niara could read her face.
The funding would come through. It had to.
* * *
ANNA DROPPED THE USED syringe in a plastic container. Her head keeper, Ahron, whisked it away. All supplies had to be kept outside the pens, far from trunk reach. She ran her hands gently around Bakhari’s ankle, checking for any loose wrapping. His bandages were holding nicely. They’d once dealt with a baby elephant who had used his trunk to work off his dressings during the night. Trunks were tricky. Anna stood and scratched the soft spot behind the baby’s ear. He flapped it gratefully. Hopefully, the antibiotics would do their job. Blasted snares.
They’d been lucky in recent months, but they lost an orphan often enough, and it tore her up every time. Painful memories. Bakhari looked at Anna, then wrapped his trunk loosely around her arm, as if to say that he understood she’d been there, too. And maybe he did. There was something to be said for an animal’s sixth sense. Anna had witnessed the phenomenon and believed the stories she’d heard and read about.
“Did he drink any milk?” she asked, as she unwound herself from Bakhari’s hug and forced herself back into clinical mode.
“Demanding one, he is,” Ahron said. “Pulled