The Big Safari

Bradley Prescott never saw it coming. He certainly never heard it. He didn't cry out or do any of the things people do in the movies when they get shot. He just fell. He was dead. It was that simple. He was alive before, and now he was dead.

Jennifer Prescott, on the other hand, did all of the things people do in the movies when they see someone get shot. She stared, she pointed, she screamed, she ran, she fell down, she got up and, mercifully, she fainted.

If she had continued running, she probably would have been hit too. But now collapsed in a heap in the tall grass, Jennifer was hidden from view and safe for the moment.

Jeffrey Driscoll watched from the edge of the woods where he had dropped like a ton of bricks as soon as he heard the shot. He wondered what he should do. If he tried to crawl to Mrs. Prescott, the movement of the grass would give him away.

He considered running, but he felt a nagging responsibility for having forgotten his very own personal first rule of guidesmanship: the richer people get, the stupider they get. He knew they couldn't really be that stupid or they wouldn't stay rich; but these wealthy folks sure took a lot for granted. The Prescotts, a loaded couple in their early 60s, were as easily confused and naïve as two little children. He had told them repeatedly never to go anywhere without him ... but as he was breaking camp, the filthy rich idiots had run ahead.

Driscoll silently cursed them now as he lay motionless in the grass. He was positive that Bradley Prescott III's last living thought was, "How dare you kill me! I'll sue!" And he probably would — or at least his estate would. The trouble was they would probably sue Driscoll. This guide business really sucked. Driscoll despised escorting these senseless affluent assholes through the jungles of Africa, and he'd been threatening to quit for some time. And this looked like a real good time.

But Driscoll's sense of duty won out. So he concentrated his gaze on the thicket across the river, where he was fairly certain the shooter was hiding. Driscoll then proceeded to fire an entire box of twelve gauge shotgun shells into the thick underbrush, the gunshots exploding in earsplitting echoes throughout the jungle. He had to stop once to reload and let the gun cool off for a minute. Seeing absolutely no movement in the thicket, he dove across the grass and landed a few feet from where Mrs. Jenny Prescott lay. He dragged her back, half-conscious, to the camp, thinking all the way that he should have just left her there and got the hell out. Now there was one, possibly two, people dead. And if this woman didn't recover, guess who'd be left holding the old bag? He snickered at his clever pun.

By the time Driscoll reached the camp, Jennifer Prescott was awake, sputtering and gasping something about dear old Brad. Driscoll threw her into the back of the Land Rover and proceeded to beat what he was certain must be the all-time speed record between Khartanga and Moombato Bay. He never entertained the slightest notion of going back for Bradley, as Mrs. Prescott seemed to think was so important. "There's no point going back for your husband ... he's dead!" Driscoll shouted toward the backseat. Mrs. Prescott continued her pleas until he reminded her, in graphic detail, of that instant before Brad fell, when a rather large part of his head started off for town ahead of them. Only then did she shut her trap. Actually, Driscoll's cram course in Creative Anatomy did more than shut her up. Now she was in shock, Driscoll realized with a twinge of guilt. But at least she was quiet ... and alive.

Later that night, Driscoll sat alone in a dark corner of a small, dingy bar in Moombato Bay, where he got very drunk as he tried to figure out what had happened. What had he missed about that spot? Why would that place be so damned important to somebody? There's nothing of any value there. Nothing. He took another swig from his beer. Well, that wasn't quite true. The place was a study in natural beauty, and the Prescotts weren't the first to visit that lush area of pristine jungle. He had taken other tourists through there himself, and he knew other guides had as well.

As he continued to wrestle with his thoughts, Driscoll ran his fingers through his ruffled brown hair and turned his sky blue eyes up to the ceiling. Out of habit, he rubbed his face stubble with calloused fingers before he grabbed his beer, downed it in one big gulp, and slammed the mug on the table. He motioned at the bartender for another. Driscoll was only twenty-five years old, but he felt like he'd lived a lifetime since he'd left the States just five years before.

Though most of his friends in Africa would never guess, Jeff Driscoll was a dropout from Princeton's prestigious Astronomy program. In fact, he had been fascinated with the stars since the age of ten. Not coincidentally, that was the same year his dear old alcoholic dad hit rock bottom. Tom Driscoll got off work at the auto parts factory at four o'clock every evening and headed straight to the local pub, where he bellied up to the bar and drank for four hours straight. Each night like clockwork, at eight fifteen on the dot, Tom would stumble into the house reeking of cheap gin just as Jeffrey and his mother were washing the last dishes from dinner. Seeing the crazy look in his father's glazed over eyes, Jeffrey would race upstairs and hide out in his room for the rest of the night. He'd spend countless hours building his own telescopes from scratch, studying constellations and poring over books about the universe ... anything to escape from the grim reality that festered downstairs. As he tinkered with his telescope parts, he'd slip on his...