Chapter 5
Follow-Up Questions
NICK
Guests usually panicked when an elephant walked straight toward the vehicle. Juliette Wilder had follow-up questions.
Because panic would make too much damn sense.
The bull held there another few seconds, trunk lifted, ears slack now instead of spread. Dust shifted around its feet. The herd behind it stayed still, broad gray bodies half lost in the brush.
I turned the ignition key one notch. Not enough to start the engine. Enough that it would answer if I needed it.
Beside me, Juliette didn’t move.
Fear usually gave itself away. Hand to the mouth. Breath catching. Knees shifting under the seat like there was somewhere to go.
She sat with her notebook closed against her thigh, both hands resting on top of it, fingers flat. Spine straight. Eyes on the elephant. Eye to eye.
The bull lowered its trunk.
It lowered. Its fucking. Trunk.
One step to the side. Then another. The head turned. The shoulder followed. Six tons of old muscle and dry hide drifted back toward the herd like we’d bored it. It didn’t even give us the dignity of a parting glance.
Just… dismissed us.
I’d spent years learning how to command a clearing. In two seconds that bull had demoted me to stationary scenery.
The clearing loosened around us.
I started the jeep.
What the hell just happened there?
Beside me, the notebook stayed shut. Ten minutes ago Juliette had been a stenographer of the bush, writing down every damn bird call and blade of grass. But the second the bull turned on us, the pen disappeared.
She didn’t need notes for that.
She’d gone still the same way the bull had.
The engine came alive low under my hand. I eased us backward along the track we’d taken in. Slow enough not to challenge. Steady enough not to hesitate.
The herd stayed where it was. One calf shifted closer to the cow beside it. Dust settled.
Only when the ridge cut them from view did the air inside the vehicle change.
Juliette drew a breath through her nose and let it out slowly. “Well. That settles a few things.”
I kept my eyes on the track. “You’re welcome.”
The jeep rolled over a washboard patch of dirt. Thorn scrub brushed the side panel with a dry hiss. Heat was already building under the late-morning sun, lifting the smell of dust and warmed scrub into the open frame.
For a minute neither of us said anything.
That was unusual too.
Juliette watched the ground ahead like she was reviewing evidence. She snapped her notebook back open.
“You waited,” I said.
Her pen hovered above the page. “For what?”
“To write.”
“I prefer complete information.”
The pen moved.
Small strokes. Fast. Controlled.
“What did the complete information tell you?”
“That elephants don’t bluff for the sake of drama.”
“No.”
“They also don’t appreciate being questioned during active operations.”
A corner of my mouth moved before I stopped it. “That would be the first useful thing you’ve written all morning.”
She kept her eyes on the page. “You wound me, Nick.”
I let the jeep idle at the top of the basin and took the notebook out of her hands before she could pull it back.
Her head turned.
“That’s mine.”
“Temporarily.”
The paper was high-grade, the kind that didn’t bleed when the humidity spiked. The leather cover was warm from the sun. A ribbon marker hung from the spine. The first page held giraffe notes.
Technically.
In practice, she’d conducted a performance review on wildlife.
Only Juliette would look at a giraffe and see a leadership failure.
She’d written something about bad engineering, too much neck, questionable balance, and a species that had clearly coasted for generations on eyelashes and altitude. Then she’d assigned the nearest two animals corporate roles. One upper management. One unpaid intern with panic in his eyes.
Neither appeared aware their careers were in jeopardy.
It should have been absurd.
It was absurd.
I still remembered it.
I snorted and turned the page. A sketch of a dung beetle. Damn good sketch, actually.
Of course she audited the insects.
Logistics: Superior.
Waste management: 100% recycling rate.
Strategy: Keep pushing.
Juliette watched me with the kind of cool expression lawyers wore before they asked the question they already knew the answer to.
“You laughed.”
“Incorrect.”
“You snorted.”
“Dust.”
“You’ve got lines at the corners of your eyes.”
“That’s sun damage.”
“Mm.”
I handed the notebook back. My grip tightened once around the wheel before I shifted into gear.
We moved down into the basin.
Impala lifted from the buffel grass ahead in clean arcs, white tails flashing. A kori bustard stalked near a termite mound, seemingly offended by our existence. Juliette tracked both without writing anything down.
That was new.
“You’ve gone quiet.”
“I’m conserving my questions.”
“For later?”
“For when the answers matter.”
Her gaze stayed forward, but the pulse in her throat was still running a little high from the elephant. Not panic. Residual current. Adrenaline burning itself down.
Most guests came out rattled.
She came out sharper.
The lodge appeared above the trees ten minutes later, low stone and dark timber against a pale line of sky.
Staff moved across the service yard carrying crates from the supply truck.
The smell of baking bread drifted from the kitchen vents and caught under the metallic tang of the service yard and engine heat.
It was a jarring shift—from the raw scent of survival to the smell of five-star hospitality.
Juliette looked at the buildings, then at the perimeter fencing beyond them, then at the service road running down toward the western gate.
The jeep rolled to a stop in front of the dining terrace.
I cut the engine.
Neither of us moved immediately.
Juliette stepped down first. Red dirt marked the hem of her trousers. A strand of hair had pulled loose from whatever arrangement had held it in place that morning and sat against her cheek in the wind.
She turned back toward me. “Do they always do that?”
“Elephants?”
“Decide whether you’re worth the effort.”
“Often.”
“And people?”
I held her eyes a second too long, looking for the punchline. There wasn't one. She was just waiting for the data.
The driver’s door shut harder than necessary when I climbed out. “Less predictably.”
She watched me a beat longer than she needed to, then nodded once and turned toward the terrace.
Lunch service hadn’t started for the rest of the guests yet. Juliette took the chair with the clearest line of sight to the valley.
I remained standing.
“You don’t have to sit,” she said, unscrewing the water bottle. “But if you hover through lunch, people will assume I’m under investigation.”
“They’d be wrong.”
“Then save your reputation.”
I sat opposite her.
Juliette drank half the bottle in one go, set it down, then opened the notebook again.
“You never switch off, do you?” I said.
She wrote one line before answering. “Do you?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought.”
The waiter returned with coffee for her and tea for me without asking. Efficient staff. Good memory. Better instincts than most city hotels.
Juliette wrapped both hands around the mug, inhaled once, then looked out over the valley. “What’s the ROI on a place like this?”
That was the kind of question people asked when they intended to change things.
“The what?”
“ROI. Return on Investment.” She said it slowly, like I might need a translator for the language of the C-suite.
“I know what it means. I just don't usually hear it applied to dirt.”
The mug came down on the table. I looked at her.
“You’re the head of security for a patch of dirt that tries to kill you every Tuesday. I want to know what the 'win' looks like for you. Is it a day without a shot fired? Or is it just seeing that calf survive another night?”
My jaw shifted once.
“A win is quieter than that. No cut fences. No injured animals. No ranger’s family getting a phone call because someone decided horn was worth more than a human life.”
She wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were on the valley like she was trying to decide if the place was worth the cost.
“No,” I said. “That wasn't a question. That was you testing the load-bearing walls.”
Her eyes snapped back to mine. No flinch. “If I wanted weak points, Nick, I’d have started with your perimeter. I'm just trying to understand the foundation.”
The answer landed clean.
A muscle in my jaw shifted.
She lifted the mug and drank. “Relax. I’m not here to buy your bush.”
I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck. “You might want to workshop that sentence,” I said. “I’ve arrested people for less.”
That got a flash from her mouth. Brief. Gone.
“I’m asking because people pay obscene money to stare at animals while claiming they’re seeking clarity. I’m curious whether the math is honest or just expensive branding.”
The tea had gone just warm enough to drink. I took a sip. Strong. Bitter. Better than coffee after heat.
“The math’s honest if the management is.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“Then you get lodges built too close to migration paths, waste pits where they shouldn’t be, staff underpaid, fences patched instead of repaired, and tourists who think conservation means posting a photo with a caption about gratitude.”
Juliette rested her forearms on the table. “There you are.”
“What?”
“The real answer.”
I said nothing.
Wind moved across the deck, carrying the smell of warm canvas from the awning and the distant, mineral scent of the dam. Her hair shifted again. She ignored it.
“Wilder’s looking at experiential travel,” she said. “High-end, low-volume. Places that still have a soul left.”
“Congratulations.”
“That wasn’t a pitch.”
“It sounded like one.”
“No. A pitch would have included numbers.”
“And have the numbers behaved today?”
She looked down into her coffee as if consulting it. “Mixed.”
“Devastating.”
She looked up again. “You don’t trust me.”
“Should I?”
“No.”
The word came out flat and clean. Not defensive. Not flirtatious. Just true.