In the Company of Killers by Bryan Christy (ebook reader for pc and android .txt) 📕

mythology. He’d been there for Krieger’s first lion. Krieger’s father and grandfather had painted Krieger’s cheek with the lion’s blood, but Botha had cut out the big cat’s testicles and handed him one for him to swallow. Botha was a little younger than Krieger, but only in years. In the bush Botha was an ancient, a true Boer. Unfortunately, a true Boer in more ways than just hunting: Botha couldn’t avoid trouble in an empty room. For as long as Krieger could remember, Botha had been on his way into, or out of, prison. “Recruiting trips, Tots,” Botha called his frequent incarcerations. The man was indomitable.

It had been a criminal trial that had inspired Botha to sell him the Kimber. “Tots, my bru,” Botha’s phone call had begun. “Lekker investment opportunity for you . . .”

Krieger had laughed when he heard Botha’s scheme. Botha proposed to sell him the Kimber, quietly and off book, in order to plead poverty to his judge. “If I’m so poor, how can I be the head of a fokken international crime syndicate? Right, Terry?”

Krieger would have paid whatever Botha asked for the property. He had been sending Botha money to support the Kimber for years. The Krieger family had hunted the Kimber for generations. The black rhino above the mantel in Krieger’s Missoula ranch had been shot by his great-grandfather on the Kimber, mounted by taxidermist Carl Akeley himself. If Botha wanted to turn over the extraordinary property, Krieger was more than happy to oblige. “I’m South African,” Botha had said, always overselling. “What do I want with Zimbabwe?”

Krieger brought in the House of Saud as a minority partner in the purchase. He didn’t need their money; he gave them a piece of the Kimber to cement a business relationship. The Saudis loved to hunt. They built a new main lodge and upgraded the airstrip, extending it and paving it in order to handle their larger aircraft. They erected mini luxe villas in various spots across the property. They added a warehouse-sized refrigerator with butchering tables large enough to handle multiple elephant carcasses. They built facilities for caping and salting skins, installed a freezer, and added a taxidermy studio with an apartment for their preferred artist. All the usual and appropriates throughout. But Krieger forbade them from touching the lodge and huts where he stayed. The old stone-and-wood structures had been used by his grandfather. He liked the camp as it was.

Along with its animals, what Krieger treasured most about the Kimber was its guaranteed privacy. According to the Kimber’s partnership agreement, there would never be more than two hunting parties on the property at a time. When Krieger was visiting, no one else was permitted. He and his family would be completely alone.

Still, he missed Botha. The plan had been to keep him around, use him as the lead PH, maybe even find him some investments, but Botha could not keep his scheming in check. By the time he got out of prison he had acquired land on either side of the Kimber, intending to turn the conservancy into a smuggling route. When Krieger asked him what he thought he was doing, Botha said, “I opened the Kruger park fence. It’s trophy-quality Big Five all the time now, Tots!” Botha pretending the expansion was to make the Kimber a better hunting property.

But Krieger could read a map, too. Through his acquisitions, Botha had created a banana-shaped corridor stretching from Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond mines south to the port at Maputo.

“That’s diamonds like my fist, Tots,” Botha had exclaimed when Krieger confronted him. “Russians right there to take it out. Or the Chinese if I want. Dig it up on Tuesday, I’ll have it under a jeweler’s loupe on the weekend.”

Krieger had laughed out loud. He’d caught Botha leveraging the Kimber to traffic diamonds and God knows what else, and Botha’s defense had been to pitch him an even bigger deal.

Krieger sighed. When it came to business, Botha was just too African. He’d trusted Krieger to sell the Kimber back to him when the time was right. Big mistake, “Never hold another man’s dick” being one of Krieger’s rules. A rule he’d now have to modify for Blaze.

•   •   •

The trackers returned with a zebra, already parted. Isaac shouldered the zebra’s legs while his father, Njovu, lugged buckets of offal. They carried the carcass to a tree at the edge of the clearing, upwind of the lion’s promontory. Krieger watched them hook a chain into the zebra’s Achilles and haul its flanks into the tree. The African boy looked to be about Blaze’s age, but Njovu could easily have been a grandfather. The old man was having difficulty doing his job.

Krieger got out of the truck. He looked at his daughter. “Come on, Blaze,” he said. “Let’s help them.” He started toward the tree, and she followed him.

He reached into the gut bucket and scooped a handful of intestines. “Think of it as mucking the stables for Nefertiti and Marigold.”

“Yeah,” Blaze said, “like I would know.”

She reached into the bucket.

The old man was struggling to secure the free end of the chain. His son did it for him quickly, then turned to Blaze. “Let me,” he said. He put his hands into the gut bucket with Blaze’s. “You’re too pretty for this. I will do it.”

Blaze smiled, grateful. “It’s not that bad once you get started. But you don’t—”

“Boy!” Krieger barked.

Isaac jumped, nearly spilling the bucket.

But Krieger wasn’t addressing Isaac. He was talking to Njovu. The old man turned, saw his son, and leapt forward. He seized Isaac by the shoulders and jerked him backwards so hard they both fell into the dirt.

“Jesus, Dad,” Blaze said. “It’s okay.”

As if nothing had happened, Krieger reached into his bucket of zebra guts and tossed a length of intestine underhand into the tree. The gut wrapped a low branch and dangled like sausage.

Blaze glanced across the clearing. Njovu and Isaac had moved off to the blind, the father instructing the son