"Mike Resnick - Between the Sunlight and Thunder (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

of red lewche, and some bushbuck -- and then we walked around a heavy stand of trees and
damned near bumped into a lone elephant. It's difficult to say who was more surprised; it is not
difficult to say who retreated more rapidly. A German couple showed up in late afternoon. It turns
out that this was their 25th wedding anniversary, and they had brought along champagne for the
whole camp. It's amazing what you can have in the bush if your timing is right.

September 5: We took a morning game run, then got picked up by our social lion pilot and flown to
the Linyanti Channel, where we were met and driven to Linyanti Camp, another primitive bush camp
with tents and outdoor bathrooms. This one was run by Ron, a devoted birder, and his wife,
Hillary.
They had a 6-month-old baby who was so quiet we didn't know he was there until bedtime, when
Ron picked up his rifle and led the way to his rather distant cabin, while Hillary followed him,
pushing
a baby carriage. Not quite your everyday African sight. We arrived just as a large party (well, as
large a party as a seven-tent camp can handle, anyway) was leaving, and had the camp all to
ourselves for a day. In the afternoon we went out on the channel in a double-decker pontoon,
drifted
into Namibia for an hour, and saw a bunch of birds and a handful of elephants. Still, the Linyanti
area
was a disappointment: the camp backs up to the river, and is surrounded on three sides by a
hunting
concession, and the place is pretty much shot out. The top of the food chain, both in mammals and
birds, was gone; there was just nothing left for them to eat. At dinnertime we were joined by
Derek
Joubert, a National Geographic filmmaker who had a permanent camp a few miles away. I have a
couple of his documentaries on videotape, which pleased him no end, and I remarked on the
similarity of his name to that of Keith Joubert, a renowned wildlife artist whose prints of the
"Big
Five" Carol had bought me for my birthday last March. It turned out that they were brothers, and
that
Keith, the only man ever to paint a portrait of the Kilimanjaro Elephant (which he did from the
figures
in Rowland Ward's record book, the elephant itself having died almost a century ago) had read and
enjoyed Ivory, which is based on the elephant.

September 6: We had a very disappointing game run in the morning -- not much is still alive and
moving in Linyanti -- but I made up for it by coming up with a couple of short story ideas that
I'll be
writing in the next few months. In the afternoon some more guests showed up, including a rather
adventuresome American girl who works for a bank with international connections, and has spent
time representing them in Peru, Chile, Poland, and Hong Kong. (How adventuresome? Well, this
spring she flew to Antarctica for a week as a guest of the Chilean Air Force.) We also met the
ultimate Ugly American, a New York lady who didn't stop talking for the next six hours, had
nothing
good to say about anyone or anything, and made us realize why so many people intensely dislike
Americans. Fortunately, she came down with a sore throat at dinnertime, and we didn't have to
listen
to her the rest of the night.