Back in camp, the food truck was turning out steaming pans of lasagna, with or without meat, and huge vats of tossed salad. Michael, Natalie, and the boys were still on their way back, and Dad was still off attending to his poisoned patient. I filled my plate and managed to find a seat at Grandfather’s table—along with the eight or ten volunteers who were currently watching over him. Several were hovering behind him, standing to attention like meerkats on guard, swiveling in unison at every nearby sound or motion. Others were perched on either side of him, sniffing his food and drink and combing through both salad and lasagna attempting to spot foreign objects. Grandfather was having an uphill battle getting enough to eat. So far he was only reacting with mild annoyance, swatting at their hands or snarling orders at them—a clear sign that his brush with death had rattled him. But I could tell he was rapidly approaching the point at which he’d explode and insist that they all get the devil away from him. We needed Grandfather cooperating with his bodyguards, not defying and evading them. Clearly someone was going to need to crack down on the bodyguards. Caroline was still out with the boys. And Sherry the Valkyrie was sitting at the other end of the table, looking on approvingly. She probably didn’t know Grandfather well enough to realize the danger.
“Damn it all!” Grandfather exploded. “Are you trying to save my life or starve me out!”
“Makes you understand why all those Renaissance kings and potentates were so quick to shout ‘off with his head,’ doesn’t it?” I asked. “Of course they had food tasters. Anyone want to volunteer for that?”
Everyone fell silent. But a couple of them were frowning as if they might be actually considering the idea.
They probably were. Grandfather might be one of the most difficult, exasperating people on the planet, but he managed to inspire an almost fanatical loyalty in the members of Blake’s Brigade. Probably because they knew that beneath his sometimes bombastic exterior was a man who genuinely loved animals and had spent his life trying to protect them.
“Look, I know everyone in camp wants to protect Grandfather—” I began.
“Almost everybody,” someone put in. “Don’t forget the poisoner.”
“But the more the merrier doesn’t apply in this case,” I went on. “Grandfather, how many guards do you think would be reasonable?”
“Am I allowed to suggest none?” he growled.
After a few minutes of debate, we settled on two. I took down the names of the volunteers on hand, chose two of them to continue the current shift, and got the rest signed up for four-hour shifts that would last throughout the night. And put out the word that anyone who wanted to take a shift tomorrow should see me in the morning.
Almost all of the off-duty guards either settled down to eat their own dinners or went back to their tents to nap before coming on duty. One or two kept up the meerkat imitation, but they did so less annoyingly, from a distance. Grandfather seemed to be in a much better mood. Sherry did not. I suspected from her surly glances at me that she felt I’d usurped one of her responsibilities. Well, tough luck.
I was hoping to get some clue about how Grandfather planned to locate the emus in the morning, but all he said was that he had scouts out working on it. So instead I ended up listening to him and some of his stalwarts swapping stories about past expeditions. Sherry the Valkyrie drank in every word, but didn’t contribute anything to the conversation. I felt a little sorry for her. However essential it was to achieve total compliance on the photo release front, it didn’t give you any bragging rights afterward. Then again, I suspected from what Caroline had said that Sherry’s motive for joining the brigade wasn’t so much a love of wildlife as a desire for revenge on rapacious mining corporations. Maybe she was just as happy in camp organizing things as the rest of the volunteers were out in the woods communing with nature.
In the middle of dinner, Dad arrived with the good news that Fred was expected to survive, and the less cheerful news that he was expecting the toxicology results to show that Fred had ingested aconite.
“A good thing he was sipping that Scotch in his coffee rather than drinking it neat,” he said. “Or it could have turned out much worse.”
After dinner, Grandfather announced that he was going to work on writing up his report on the expedition, and retired into his trailer. I suspected he was actually tired out and in need of an early night. About the time the catering trucks had finished packing up and were driving away, promising to return in time for breakfast, Chief Heedles arrived.
“Mind coming with me over to Miss Annabel’s?” she said.