“Maize,” he said. “I started with maize. Mangoes. Macadamia nuts. Avocados. But then I lost the irrigation from the river.”
“Why?”
“Some elephant destroyed the concrete delivery troughs. She must have enjoyed the feel of sinking her feet through the concrete because she walked along the troughs for kilometers, just punching through the trough. Wrecked the whole system.”
“Like some people enjoy popping Bubble Wrap—will pop until an entire sheet is done.”
“Bubble Wrap?” He stopped, turned around.
She tried to smile, but he could see she was beyond tired now. “You know, like that puffy plastic sheeting used to package delicate things for transport. Some people like the sensation and sound of popping the bubbles.”
Something softened in Brandt, and this time he smiled. “Perhaps it’s futile,” he said quietly, “but my goal with the farm is really just self-sufficiency. I want to hunt only for meat, and pretty much grow everything else that I need. And then trade my produce and meat for labor and other things.”
“Ah, you mean your goal is to interact with as few people as possible.” In spite of her exhaustion, a wicked, teasing light twinkled in her black eyes, and suddenly Brandt saw a glimmer of her older brother in Dalilah. He was reminded of how Omair used to joke with him, how the sheik had used his wry wit to soldier through some of the toughest situations, and Brandt felt a sudden kinship—in some strange way he felt he knew this woman better than she realized. He smiled.
“Yeah,” he said. “But until I am self-sufficient I still need to fly those irritating tourists across Botswana to safari lodges all the way from the Okavango to Tuli and the Makgadikgadi in between.”
“Or take missions like this one.”
“This is different.” He handed her the water pouch as he spoke, and when she was done, he recapped the pouch. “You sure you don’t want that biltong?”
“I’m sure.”
Several more klicks into their trek, Dalilah spoke again.
“That plane that was stripped in Zimbabwe—it was your livelihood, then?”
Brandt grunted in affirmation as he crouched to examine prints he saw in the dust. He touched the soil gently with the pads of his fingers, then glanced up, squinting into the distance. A pack of wild dogs had just come through here. Uneasiness crept over him.
“Omair will pay,” she said, “for your plane.”
“Damn right he’ll pay—I’m billing him for expenses.” He turned in a slow circle, looking for movement in the grass.
“Right,” she said quietly. “I keep forgetting—I’m just a package.”
Brandt told himself not to answer. He led the way, even more watchful now. Wild dogs were not nice killers. At least a lion kill was quick, clean, quiet. But the dogs went for the stomach, ripping out intestines while the quarry was still alive. Noisy. Which tended to draw other predators to the scene fast.
But as they neared the red rift wall of rocks, she said, “When did you come to live in Botswana? How long have you actually been here?”
He blew out a breath of irritation.
“Ten years.”
“The length of your vow not to kill.”
His stomach tightened and a warning buzz started in his brain.
“Whereabouts in South Africa were you born?”
“Nelspruit,” he said crisply. “Small Afrikaans town founded by Boers along the Crocodile River. Or it was then. It was renamed Mbombela after apartheid.”
“So you grew up there?”
He grunted and bent down. More tracks. He looked up, watching the sky, birds. Listening.
“So why did you become a mercenary in the first place?” She was circling back to how he knew Omair, and how, exactly, Omair had saved him ten years ago. His head started to throb and his chest went tight. Carla was not her business. His failed marriage, his son, his farm, his old life in South Africa—not her damn business, either. Brandt had blocked that part of his history right out of his consciousness. He just didn’t go there—no point. He was no longer that man.
“Dalilah, please, do me a favor, just stop talking. Just for a while.”
Her jaw firmed and her cheeks pinked, a flare of hurt darting bright through her eyes. Then those almond eyes narrowed.
“I don’t usually have to work this hard to get people to be civil to me.”
Frustration flared across his chest.
“Then don’t. Save your breath.” And mine.
Her jaw dropped. “Look,” she snapped, “if I’m going to spend the amount of time with you that it takes to get up that cliff—” she jabbed her good arm at the red-rock wall ahead of them “—and over the plateau on top, then across another half of Botswana, we might as well be civil, get to know each other.”