been extremely rational but now was given to fantasies. His friendship with Nadia had changed him. Alex had such confidence in that fossil that he had finely ground a few grams to powder, dissolved that in rice liquor, and insisted that his mother drink the potion to fight her cancer. Lisa, his mother, also had worn what was left of the fossil around her neck for months, and now it was around Alexanderâs, who didnât take it off even to shower.
âIt can cure broken bones and lots of other things, Kate, and it wards off arrows, knives, and bullets,â her grandson had assured her.
âIn your place I wouldnât have put it to the test,â she replied dryly, but she had allowed him to rub her chest and back with the artifact, growling all the time that they were both losing their minds.
That last night around the campfire, Kate and the others of her party felt sad that it was time to say goodbye to their new friends and to the paradise where they had spent an unforgettable week.
âItâs just as well weâre leaving; Iâm eager to see Timothy,â Joel said to console himself.
âWe leave at about nine tomorrow,â Angie instructed, tossing down half a can of beer and inhaling a cigarette.
âYou look tired, Angie,â Mushaha remarked.
âThese last days have been hairy. I had to fly some food supplies across the border. People are desperate there; itâs horrible to see hunger right in front of your eyes,â she said.
âThat tribe comes from a very noble race. They used to live a dignified life; they fished and hunted and planted a few crops, but colonization and war and disease have reduced them to misery. They live off charity now. If it werenât for those food packages they receive, theyâd all be dead by now. Half the people of Africa live below the subsistence level,â Michael explained.
âWhat does that mean?â asked Nadia.
âThat they donât have enough to live on.â
With that statement the guide put an end to the after-dinner conversation, which had already lasted well past midnight, and announced that it was time to go to the tents. An hour later peace reigned over thecamp.
During the night only one guard was assigned to keep watch and feed the bonfires, but soon he, too, drifted off to sleep. As the camp rested, life seethed around them: Beneath the magnificent starry sky roamed hundreds of animal species that came out by night to hunt for food and water. The African night was a true concert of voices: the occasional trumpeting of elephants, hyenas barking in the distance, the screams of mandrills frightened by a leopard, croaking frogs, and the incessant song of the cicadas.
Shortly before dawn Kate suddenly woke with alarm; she thought she had heard some noise very close by. âI must have dreamed it,â she murmured, turning over on her cot. She tried to calculate how long she had slept. Her bones creaked, her muscles ached, and her legs were cramping. She felt every one of her sixty-seven hard-lived years; her frame was battered from her adventures. âIâm too old for this kind of life,â the writer mused, but almost immediately retracted that thought, convinced that any other life was not worth living. She suffered more lying in bed than from the fatigue of the day. The hours in the tent passed at a paralyzing pace. Then again she heard the sound that had waked her. She couldnât identify it, but it sounded like a scraping or scratching.
The last mists of sleep dissipated completely and Kate sat straight up on her cot, her throat dry and her heart pounding. No doubt about it; something was out there, just on the other side of the cloth tent. Very carefully, trying not to make any noise, she felt in the darkness for her flashlight, which she always kept nearby. When she held it in her hand, she realized she was sweating with fear; her fingers were too moist to switch it on. She kept