Zambezi by Tony Park Page B

shoot almost as well as a professional hunter. The rifle was as familiar a tool to her as the pen or word processor.
    She didn’t think twice about picking up the ranger’s AK-47 assault rifle when she heard the woman scream. She pulled back on the cocking handle with her right hand, chambering a round, flicked the selector to semi-automatic, and raised the scarred wooden butt to her shoulder.
    The running woman suddenly burst into view and Chris followed her flight through the open sights.
    Chris shifted the aiming mark a little to the left, looking for the real target. This was not how it should be, damn it. Killing an animal went against the grain, against everything Chris stood for and had worked towards. But the woman’s life was clearly in danger.
    Lloyd, the uniformed park ranger, burst from the bushes, hastily pulling up his green trousers.
    ‘What are you doing, Professor?’ he asked in alarm. ‘Put down the rifle, please!’
    ‘ Shumba.’
    ‘I heard the scream too,’ Lloyd said, fumbling with his fly buttons. ‘Where?’
    ‘God, I don’t want to do this,’ Chris said. She aimed just in front of the lion’s big head, leading him a little.
    ‘I see him! Shoot, Professor. Shoot now! It’s her only chance. He is nearly on her.’
    Chris pulled the trigger.
    Precious screamed as she felt him grab her. In the same instant she heard the shot. She fell, face first into the sand, his huge weight on her.
    Mashumba had her, just as he knew he would. But as he grabbed her he felt something slam into his right flank, knocking him sideways. He took the woman with him as he landed and rolled in the sand.
    He yelled in pain and the valley heard his bellow.
    She wriggled and writhed in his grip and he thrashed in the sand to make the pain go away, but he did not want to lose her. It was all wrong. It had never ended like this before. He shook his big head, but still the pain was there.
    Precious beat at him with her fists and screamed again when she saw her blood on the sand. She had never known such pain and he would not let go of her. He had her legs pinned, but she was able to twist her body to one side to stay away from the big shaggy head and the long yellow teeth.
    Chris jumped down onto the sandy riverbank and ran towards the struggling woman and her attacker.
    ‘Finish the job, or give me the rifle – now, Professor!’ Lloyd barked. He liked the American woman, remembered her from her previous stays in the park, but by snatching up his rifle and firing it she had broken too many rules to count. The only way either of them would get out of this without a fine or worse was if Precious Mpofu escaped with her life.
    Chris walked closer, stopped, took a deep breath, and aimed carefully. She did not want to hit the woman by mistake. Chris pulled the trigger and the copper-jacketed lead projectile smashed a path through the lion’s brain.
    Mashumba lost sight of his valley forever.
    Chris shrugged off her daypack and unzipped it. She pulled out the bulky first-aid kit and found a plastic bottle of iodine. As she squirted the antiseptic into the crying woman’s wounds, tears welled in her own eyes. She had come to Africa to save, not to kill, and she would have given anything not to have destroyed the beautiful creature lying beside her.
    ‘You had to do it, Professor,’ Lloyd said, reading her thoughts.
    Chris nodded. ‘It’s OK, you’re going to be fine,’ she said to the woman as she bandaged her leg.
    ‘I have radioed for the Land-i Rover, Professor. Help will be here soon.’
    ‘We’ll have to take her to Kariba.’
    ‘What about the lion? We have to -’
    ‘I know what we have to do,’ Chris snapped. She was sorry as soon as she saw the look on Lloyd’s face. He was a good man. She softened her tone. ‘Lloyd, I know what we have to do, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me.’
    ‘If he is the one, then you do not need to feel sorry for him, Professor,’ the ranger said as he helped