WHISPERS IN THE KALAHARI ~ WINGS OVER AFRICA (BOOK 1) (EBOOK)

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1974 Central Kalahari
Mike Jensen shifted in the tall grass, his Mauser 98 trained on the grazing springbok as he lay on his stomach in a copse of camel thorn trees. The acrid scent of sun-baked earth filled his nostrils, mingling with the faint musk of nearby game.
It wasn’t the lion Starky had boasted he could fell with a single shot, but it would provide dinner for their hungry hunting party. Last night’s francolin had been slim pickings, and he’d promised Philemon and Moses, the two Tswana camp hands, more than mealie pap tonight, though he wished he hadn’t done so in front of his sister.
A dry leaf crackled as he shifted to brush a damp lock of hair from his forehead and sweat made his vision blurry as he squinted through the sight, his hands trembling. He was used to the gun but not to such pressure, though he shouldn’t have let Susan’s parting jibe get to him. “Show us what you’re made of, Mike! I want to see who’s the better hunter: You or Starky!”
Susan’s words highlighted the competitive tension between the boys, which seemed only to have reared its ugly head with the inclusion of a female.
“Ach, man!” Just as Mike had been about to pull the trigger, an ostrich stepped into his peripheral vision, spooking the springbok, which sprung into alertness, skittering towards the rest of its group grazing nearby.
Shifting into a slightly more comfortable position, though the Kalahari sand grass tickled his upper lip and several ants found their way up his khaki shorts, he levelled his gun once more at another prospect for their intended dinner.
A young impala had separated itself from its herd and was grazing quietly just a few yards away.
This was more like it. He’d have a better chance of getting a clean shot, too.
But the buck seemed to sense danger. The nearby Grey Lourie perched in the branches of an umbrella thorn tree wasn’t helping. The melodic but monotonous warning of the ‘go-away’ bird’, as it was colloquially known, was likely to soon warn off the impala.
Mike tensed as the buck raised its head and sniffed the air, but he was upwind. It could not smell him or his fellow hunters, Starky and Phil, who were somewhere out in the nearby bush, competing against each other to bag the first major kill.
Not just to feed everyone in camp, but to impress his sister.
This hunting trip with his varsity friends should have been blokes-only but his kid sister, four years younger, knew just how to twist him round her little finger.
And their parents.
They’d even pushed Susan’s argument that she could ‘help out’ in camp and ‘cook’ for her big brother and his two mates rather than be a burden to her ageing grandparents into whose care Susan would otherwise be placed while Ernest and Marjorie Jensen headed off to Plettenberg Bay to celebrate their twenty-third wedding anniversary that same week.
The camping trip, they said, would also be an opportunity for Mike and Susan to reacquaint themselves with their cousin, James, who flying in from Australia with his girlfriend, Verity.
Verity was only two years older than Susan, and they’d doubled down on their argument, saying the girls could keep each other company while the boys went hunting. What trouble could Susan be?
Plenty.
Because Susan was not just a kid straight out of school, though she had been when Mike had last seen her eight months earlier at Easter.
When Susan had stepped out of the vehicle, Starky, in his usual inappropriate larrikin manner, had wondered aloud if his sister’s boarding school had put something in the water.
It was only then had Mike had seen her through the eyes of the others. Susan had transformed, literally, from a flat-chested kid to a willowy young woman with dark, sexy eyes.
The ‘sexy eyes’ was Starky’s description, which he’d used, to Susan’s clear delight, as they’d sat around the campfire the first night and Mike’s feelings had revolted.
No bloke had the right to describe in such overtly sexual terms the cheeky little sister he’d grown up with before they’d both been sent to boarding schools in different cities—Susan to a posh ladies’ college in Durban and Mike to Hilton Boys College and then Cape Town University.
The go-away bird was not letting up. Swallowing, Mike increased the tension in his right forefinger. He was ready. The impala was well positioned in bright sunlight beneath a cloudless sky. His stomach clenched both from hunger and anticipation.
He’d shot three guinea fowl this morning, but he had to provide something more substantial. Preferably something better than Starky could manage. Though they were the best of mates, times of tension always upped the rivalry between him and his old school chum. 
As for Phil, who’d only joined the expedition at the last minute after James and Verity had disappointingly pulled the plug on visiting Botswana, he’d be lucky to bag a stationary target at point-blank range.
But regardless of what any of them managed to shoot, Susan wouldn’t lift a finger to turn it into something they could put in their mouths. She’d been too busy making eyes at Starky.
And Starky had encouraged her.
The atmosphere was poisoned by having a girl—no, a woman—hanging around, he thought as the barrel of his rifle trembled.
He had a clear shot. It was now or never.
Boom!
Mike jumped, dropping his rifle as he leapt up, enraged, to see who had fired the shot.
He’d had that impala lined up beautifully, until one of the others had popped off their gun, sending the entire herd fleeing in terror.
Furious, he scanned the area for the culprit. There was no other large game in the area. If Phil had fired off at a piddly francolin for dinner just as Mike was about to bag the impala, he’d be beyond furious.
He wouldn’t put it past him. Quiet, weedy, Phil wasn’t a born hunter like Mike or Starky.
Now, as Mike scanned the plain, narrowing his focus onto a prone dark heap about fifty yards west, a familiar figure in khakis, rifle upon his shoulder, sauntered through the long grass towards the dead animal.
Not an impala they could eat. Not even a pathetic francolin or guinea fowl that would at least feed a couple of them.
Shouldering his weapon, Mike tore across the uneven veldt, clapping his hand upon Starky’s shoulder to swing him round.
“You shot an ostrich, you bloody idiot!” He was more angry about this than the fact Starky had ruined his shot. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You know it’s against the law!”
Although the likelihood of rangers patrolling the area was remote, violating the Fauna Conservation Act in this part of the Kalahari carried hefty fines.
“Rich pickings from a lucky misstep. It stumbled into my path as I was taking aim at a warthog.”
Starky’s propensity to make light of everything had been getting on Mike’s nerves, lately, but this was the last straw.
“That’s no excuse if you get caught.”
Starky shrugged. “Why don’t you worry about feeding the womenfolk like you promised? We’re not here for much else now that your cousin can’t make it,” he grumbled.
“That’s not my fault—”
“No, but now what do we do with that lump of rock in your pocket?” He huffed out a breath and stared at the cloud-filled sky.
“It’s probably worth nothing, anyway,” Mike muttered, feeling the familiar rough stone, a bit smaller than an egg, that he carried with him everywhere.
“I’ll give you a share of this,” Starky said, indicating the dead ostrich. “It’s worth a bit and I’m a generous bloke.” He crouched beside his kill, grinning. “These stupid birds have such tiny heads, but I got it through the brain from two hundred yards.”
Mike didn’t respond to Starky’s self-congratulation with anything more than a grunt.
Let Starky lug the bird back to camp on his own, he thought, turning away. It was an idiotic thing to do. But Starky had always been like that; behaved with complete disregard to everyone around him when he was in one of his moods. Yet the girls loved him! There seemed to be a different one hanging off his arm at every varsity lecture or event they attended.
Stomping back to camp, Mike tried not to begrudge Starky his charisma or his success with the ladies.
But just let him try it on with his sister, and Mike would tear him limb from limb with his own bare hands.

CHAPTER TWO

“Do you think Suze would like some pretty ostrich feathers to dress up in? Lady’s bounty. The rest will fetch a good price.”
“Ooh, nice!” Susan flashed a look at Starky that he returned with another of his knowing glances, sending a shiver down her spine. “You shot it for me?” She smiled and pushed out her chest just a little, not caring that Mike had told her to do up at least one more button on her khaki shirt, and that he looked like the devil right now.
Mike gave a disgusted grunt as he dropped into a canvas chair. “Starky muscled in as I was about to take my shot. An ostrich! There are regulations against killing ostriches here and now he’s brought it back to camp, ready to have us all charged if we’re visited by rangers.”
“Come on, Mike. What are the chances?” Susan hated it when Mike was in a bad mood. He was usually such a fun big brother but this trip he’d been dark about something, and she was sure it wasn’t just her.
She also didn’t want bad blood between Starky and Mike. I mean, who knew where things might lead before the end of their four days in the bush? What with the way Starky kept looking at her, she was pretty sure she’d be kissing him before midnight.
And that was something Mike could not know about, she thought as she unconsciously ran her fingers through her dark curls, aware of Starky’s covert glance as he sipped on a Castle Lager around the campfire.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she added for good measure. As the only female, she guessed her role was to play peace-keeper and wondered if that was just the way of the world.
Women were needed to keep the peace.
Certainly amongst this lot of ill-matched blokes. Now Phil was slinking into the group, lowering himself into a camp chair to stare morosely into the fire. It didn’t look like anyone was enjoying themselves right now.
The acrid smell of smoke mingled with the earthy scent of the Kalahari, while in the distance, a jackal’s haunting cry pierced the evening air.
“Isn’t anyone going to offer a lady a drink?” she asked brightly, breaking the silence.
Starky rose and, with a smile and a flourish, went to the cooler box. “Coke or...” He winked at her. “Perhaps a Castle Lager?”
“Ooh, that sounds perfect,” she said, pushing up her nose at Mike’s look and saying defensively, “One beer is hardly going to go to my head.”
“It’s everything else,” Mike said, with his uncharacteristic dour look.
Really, Susan couldn’t think what had got into him, but then there was no point in wondering what he’d never tell her because Starky was opening a beer and pouring it into a glass, which he handed to her. And the way he looked at her meant nothing else mattered.
“Not much to cook over the fire tonight since your brother missed his shot at the impala.” Starky grinned as he rested one foot on the rocks that encircled their merrily blazing camp fire.
“Shut up,” Mike said quietly, tapping his fingernails on the side of his can, then tensing suddenly at the sound of a vehicle. “Someone’s here! Christ, Starky, what have you done with the ostrich? You’ve got it bloody draped over the bakkie for all the world to see.”
Now Starky did look concerned. Susan knew that rangers patrolled the area and although it wasn’t likely they’d stumble upon them, it wasn’t out of the realms of possibility. And now someone was here.
The three of them lurched to their feet, Starky running towards the ostrich to dislodge it from the back of the vehicle before flinging it as best he could into the bush just as a land rover roared into camp.
Guiltily, the four of them stood, waiting for the ranger to leap out and charge them for poaching or whatever it was Starky was guilty of, Susan thought with a lurch of fear.
But it wasn’t the ranger.
“Jeremy!” she cried, too shocked to say anything else.
And then Mike, stepping forward with a half-smile, said, “What are you doing here, man? I thought you and Susan had broken up.”
Jeremy, good natured—too good-natured, which was part of the reason Susan had ended things—shrugged with that same bland smile that had begun to get on her nerves after two weeks of doing nothing more than holding hands and kissing. “We’re still old friends, aren’t we?”
“Sure!” said Susan, going towards him to give him a sisterly hug, hoping it might make Starky jealous. There were lots of blokes who thought she was all right. He wasn’t the only one. “But what are you doing here?”
“Your pa told me where you were going. It’s one of our favourite camping spots, too, so I thought I’d drop in and say hi.”
“Want a beer?” asked Mike, looking a bit more relaxed now as he opened the lid of the cooler box. “We thought you were the rangers come to check on us.”
“Nah.” Jeremy gave a short laugh as he took the beer handed to him. “They did stop me on the road a little way away and checked my vehicle, though.”
Susan glanced up at the three boys. All had a slightly panicked look they were trying hard to hide.
“Were they travelling this way?” Mike asked, as Starky slunk away, not in the direction of the ostrich, she realised, but to get his gun, which, for one ghastly moment, she thought he might use if they were confronted by the authorities.
But he just shouldered the weapon before disappearing into the bush. Susan realised that Starky was the only one with a Krieghoff Double Rifle. Obviously, if the ostrich were discovered, he didn’t want the shot identifying it to be traced back to him.
By the time the rest of them were all sitting by the fire, which Phil had stoked up, the mood had improved. Starky had got rid of the evidence—the ostrich and his gun—and the rangers hadn’t stopped by to ask questions.
By the time Susan was on her third beer, the sun had dipped and she was feeling happily light-headed.
“What about a photo before the light goes?” she asked, suddenly reaching for her polaroid camera sitting on a camp table. She’d been snapping a few shots over the past few days, but there wasn’t one of her with the three boys.
And that would be a prize shot to show the girls at varsity: Susan, on safari, alone with three blokes. No, four, now that Jeremy was here.
“Oh, come on!” she cajoled them, pushing the camera into Jeremy’s hands and pulling Mike to his feet before grabbing Starky’s strong, warm hands to do the same.
Longing rippled through her as she smiled into his face and he winked as he squeezed her hand.
She knew she should be similarly encouraging to Phil, but the thought of holding Phil’s cold, girlish hands for even a moment made her shudder. He was such a poor specimen of a fellow: thin and weedy, his dark hair lank and oily, his chest hairless, as far as she could tell, and just completely lacking self-confidence.
“Be a good sport, Jem,” she said, smiling at him as she offered him her camera. Since someone had to take the shot of Susan with her band of admirers, it might as well be easygoing Jeremy whom she could cajole into anything. “No hard feelings?”
“Not really,” he said. “I did hope—”
“Ok, everyone, get close together,” Susan directed them, standing in the middle and putting her arms around Mike and Starky’s waists on either side of her. She felt Starky’s muscles tense under her touch, and her heart raced. “Take a few, Jem. Ma will like them. She’ll want to send them to Australia to Auntie Pam, who can show James what he’s missing out on.”
Jeremy took a step back and put the camera to his eye. “James? Your cousin? I remember him. You were great mates in Serowe. Was he supposed to come on this hunt? All the way from Australia?”
“James and his girlfriend, Verity, booked tickets to see his dad who’s gone back to work at the diamond mine in Orapa, and to go hunting with Mike and me, but then they bailed out at the last minute,” Susan said cheerfully. “That’s why Phil’s here, isn’t it, Phil?”
“Right. Shall I take one more?” Jeremy asked, interrupting whatever Phil might have said in response, which probably wasn’t much, thought Susan, since Phil was hardly the brightest spark though James said he was brainy.
Which meant nothing if a man wasn’t brawny. Like Starky.
Jeremy clicked another shot and offered her the camera, but she waved it away, saying, “Just one more, please. But this time, everyone...” She paused as they broke apart. “Fetch your guns. You, too, Starky. Aunty Pam’ll want to see you all looking the part. This is a proper hunting expedition, isn’t it?”

CHAPTER THREE

By the time the sun had dropped below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of crimson and purple, Susan was feeling woozy. It didn’t stop her accepting another beer from Starky, their fingers brushing in a way that sent electric shivers up her arm.
To her surprise, Mike didn’t seem to notice. He’d been distracted this whole weekend, his eyes constantly scanning the horizon as if expecting trouble. She wondered what he was thinking about.
It had served her interests, though. She shifted her camp chair a little closer to Starky, who glanced at her with raised eyebrows, a hint of desire flickering in his eyes. The campfire seemed to be the focus of everyone else’s attention. It fizzled and crackled when Phil put another acacia branch onto the dying embers, the scent of burning wood mingling with the earthy aroma of the Kalahari night. At least Phil was earning his keep by making sure they didn’t all freeze. He’d also made a passable camp stew from the tinned bully beef Mike had said they wouldn’t need. She sighed, wanting to snuggle into Starky but knowing it was premature with weird, weedy Phil watching them out of the corner of his eye, and Mike and Jeremy having a tense conversation nearby.
To her surprise, she heard their voices suddenly raised. Susan had never heard Jeremy anything but calm, but he was certainly laying into Mike about something, their words carried away by the hot desert wind.
Concerned, she straightened to look at them.
“Mike—?” she began.
But before she could say anything else, a high beam raked the campsite, and a vehicle bearing the unmistakable insignia of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks came to a halt, its engine growling in the stillness of the night.
Two rangers in khaki stepped out, the taller introducing himself and apologising for disturbing them. “Won’t take a minute, but just need you to answer some questions.” His tone was casual, but there was an undercurrent of suspicion that made Susan’s skin prickle.
She turned to look at Starky, her heart pounding, as guilt needled her. She’d told him to fetch his rifle for a photograph, but if the rangers found the dead ostrich and linked the bullet to Starky’s Krieghoff, it would all be her fault.
Starky, however, looked unruffled, as if he had nothing to hide, though she noticed a slight tightening around his eyes.
Just a routine check on the campers in the area, the rangers explained. An elephant had been poached not far away and, although the kill was a few days old, they were still recording the names and gun registrations of all those in the area.
Susan tightened her grip on the arms of her camp chair, the metal digging into her palms. She recognised the gleam of fear in Mike and Phil’s eyes, but Starky looked completely unconcerned as he offered the rangers a beer, his charm on full display.
“Why not?” said the stocky one with a shrug. “We’re on our way home and it’s been a long day. First need to record your names and rifles, though.”
He picked one up from the line-up against the side of the vehicle and turned to Susan, saying with a wink, “I don’t suppose this belongs to the young lady?” He stroked the weapon admiringly. “A Krieghoff double rifle .470 Nitro Express. Very nice. Not your run-of-the-mill Mauser 98 like the rest of them there.”
Susan swallowed and tried to hide her fear. Starky’s Kriefhoff? So, he hadn’t hidden it and yet he looked so nonchalant.
Picking up a Fair Lady magazine, she tried to focus on the pictures, her frightened gaze encompassing Starky, who just grinned at her, then put his forefinger to his lips.
Well, she wasn’t going to say anything, but the rangers had better not look at her. Oh, why couldn’t she hide her feelings better? She felt terrible. If Starky was charged, it would be because of her.
“That one’s mine. A beauty, isn’t it?”
She turned towards Jeremy, who, unaware of what Starky had done, smilingly acknowledged ownership of the gun, stroking it just like Susan had wished he’d stroked her during their two months together. Maybe if he’d been as interested in Susan as he was in that rifle of his, they’d still be together, she thought, studying his softly curling light brown hair, and open smile while relief surged through her.
Though of course she should have picked it. Jeremy’s Kriefhoff was so polished one could see one’s reflection in it. Starky’s was old and scratched. 
“No more guns?” asked the other ranger as they noted the registrations of the three German Mausers before taking a seat and accepting beers.
“No,” said Starky, shaking his head. “Though I’d kill to own a Krieghoff.” His words hung in the air, laden with intended irony.
Liar! Susan stared, amazed at how nonchalant he appeared. Even Mike looked jittery.
Starky was the only one who’d committed a crime with a Krieghoff that he had conveniently hidden, yet he looked the least guilty.
And a liar is what she called him to his face when the rangers had gone, and Mike and Phil and Jeremy had disappeared into the bush to relieve themselves, the darkness swallowing them whole.
But she said it in a teasing, admiring way, and was rewarded when Starky put his hand on her shoulders and lowered his face to hers, pressing her gently against the trunk of the old baobab tree whose massive girth would hide them from an army advancing from the direction the other three had disappeared.
“Would you call me a liar if I said you were the cutest chick I’ve ever met?” His breath tickled her cheek, and she arched into him, the rough bark of the baobab digging into her back.
“Where did you hide your Krieghoff?” she asked coyly, wriggling against him in invitation because he hadn’t quite kissed her, and she was determined that he would. She slipped her hands inside his shirt and began to gently rub his shoulders. They were broad and strong. So unlike Jeremy’s.
So unlike Phil’s.
Starky was a real man.
“I hid it in the bush after the photographs were taken. Couldn’t be too sure, could I?” His hands went to her face, and he cupped her cheeks, gently contouring her cheekbones as he brought his lips down to hers. “You’re not going to dob me in, are you?”
Susan shook her head as the world seemed to fall away, leaving only the two of them under the vast, star-studded Kalahari sky.
She groaned softly as she kissed him back, allowing him to breach the seam of her lips so his tongue could explore her mouth, just as his hands were exploring her body. For now he’d slipped one hand inside her shirt.
The sound of Mike and the others approaching made them jerk apart. Susan felt she might weep, she was so not ready to end this. In the distance, a hyena’s eerie laugh seemed to mock their secrecy.
So, when Starky stepped back, carefully buttoning up her shirt as he said, “Maybe I could slip into your tent when the others are asleep,” she had no hesitation in giving him a very big green light via her emphatic nod.
* * *
It seemed like an hour passed, during which time Susan lay on her camp bed, tense and waiting. After the rangers had gone and they’d continued to sit around the fire, dipping their buttermilk rusks into their steaming enamel mugs of sweet tea, she’d swapped sly smiles with Starky as Philemon had washed the dishes a little distance away. When Mike had yawned, she’d yawned too, turning slightly towards Starky as she stretched, announcing she was going to bed.
But then the guys had talked for ages after she’d gone.
She’d heard them droning on and on as she tossed and turned, listening for some sign they were going to finally go to bed. The night sounds of the Kalahari—the rustle of small nocturnal animals, the distant roar of a lion—only heightened her anticipation.
She’d heard Mike having a go at Starky for shooting the ostrich. Mike really did seem uptight this weekend. His voice carried an edge she’d never heard before.
Starky, by contrast, was his usual laconic self. His confident, unruffled response made her shiver with admiration.
And want and need.
The words ‘diamond’ and ‘liar’ had punctuated the air a few times. Those were the words said the loudest. Susan wondered what that was all about before she drifted off, a vague sense of unease settling over her like a heavy blanket.
And then she was woken by the sound of the tent zipper slowly going up, a soft whisper, and while she was still trying to regulate her breathing, Starky was climbing into her sleeping bag. It was a squeeze, but he laughed softly as he ran his hands the length of her, demanding to know what ‘these’ were.
These were her pyjamas, of course, and it was a shock to discover that Starky was … stark naked.
“Pyjamas?” he repeated, sounding disgusted. “Haven’t you ever done this before?”
Susan shook her head and then wriggled accommodatingly as he removed them for her, saying, “Well, my celestial being, I’ll have to make sure your first time is the best fun you’ve ever had. You’re quite sure about this, hey?”
Susan clung to him, her body on fire as she assured him she’d never been more sure.
And then they were off.
And Starky really was true to his word as he stroked and caressed her, making her body do things she didn’t know it could, stoking up cravings she’d not known were possible until they were immediately satisfied.
Finally, when the fever inside her seemed it had nowhere to go, Susan felt the great pressure that had built inside her suddenly explode, just as a different kind of pressure breached her insides.
So, this was what it was all about? She’d heard whispers, and she’d very briefly seen a picture of what men and women did. But this was the real thing. And she was doing it with Starky.
With his weight on top of her, she thought she was going to suffocate for a brief moment before he rolled off her and cradled her against his side, stroking her cheek as he whispered, “Was that good?”
Susan nodded, smiling happily, even though she felt very tender.
“It was so good.”
“Now, don’t you go telling the world that, will you?” Starky put a finger lightly against Susan’s lips and she shuddered with gentle, happy laughter.
“It’ll be our secret to the grave,” she whispered. “No one will ever know.”