VIERUNDZWANZIG
Das Wandern II: aus das Brachland entkommen
Hermann, Vitani and Adila were walking quickly back to where they had left the car. Behind them, the storm clouds had intensified, and regular thunderclaps shook the hard ground they walked on. At one point, Hermann considered asking Adila if he could ride on her back the rest of the way— walking while holding a rifle in one hand and a cane in the other was no easy task for someone with only one working leg, and on top of that, he had walked more in the past two hours than he normally would in two weeks—but he quickly decided to keep going on his own two feet. The car wasn't far away, and he would have whole the trip back to sit down and take the weight off his leg, followed by a few stolen ibuprofen if things still hadn't improved by then.
"Know what I'm looking forward to when we get back?" Vitani asked Hermann as she stopped for him to catch up.
"I don't know…more drinking?" he answered.
"You're so weird. How do you even drink that stuff to begin with? I took a taste of it last night, and it reminded me of the water in Roberto's pond."
"It's definitely an acquired taste, I'll give you that. I have to ask, though, how did you get your hands—I mean paws—on my Scotch?"
"You kept following me around with the bottle and saying 'have a drink' with this ridiculous goofy grin on your face, so I figured I'd just go ahead and taste some if it got you to go bug someone else," Vitani replied. "You don't remember that?"
"No, I don't…was that the only thing I did?"
"Yes, but Markos got stuck in a tree a few minutes later. For the second time."
"How did you know about the first time? He certainly wouldn't have told you, and I'm the only other one who knows."
"Only if you don't count Kopa."
Oh no …my friend is going to kill me, Hermann thought, suddenly remembering how he had told Kopa the entire story of the first drunken tree-climbing incident back in medical school, including the details about how Markos had been wearing only the top half of a Santa Claus costume at the time. "Don't ever tell him you know, or he'll go berserk."
"Why not? It's funny, and he wouldn't understand anyway."
"Oh, I beg to differ. If you put the words 'tree' and 'drunk' in the same sentence, he knows exactly what you're talking about. I found out the hard way at an international conference in Berlin. Hold on…what are those?"
"What are what? Vitani asked, seeing nothing but barren ground on all sides.
"Those." Hermann pointed in front of him with his cane. "They're moving, and it looks like they're coming towards us. What are they?"
"I don't know, probably gazelles or something."
"But nothing like that lives here, just your pride and the resident vultures."
"So maybe it's a lost gazelle. Quit worrying; my family could use the food, and…I take that back, those aren't gazelles at all."
"So what are they then?"
"The only other thing with four legs you'll find out here: it's a bunch of hyenas. Wait! Don't shoot, maybe they haven't seen us. They might just walk right by." Both Vitani and Hermann knew, however, that such a thing wouldn't come to pass: they had already been spotted, and had absolutely nowhere to hide. They kept walking towards the creek, but before long, Hermann found himself staring into six of the ugliest faces he had ever seen.
"Remember how I said we'd try and talk our way out if things turned bad?" Hermann said. "Consider the talking part already done with and failed. Verschwinde! Go on, beat it!"
"Maybe they'll let us through without a fight," Adila offered meekly.
"If that's the case," Hermann replied, "then I'll be keeping an eye out for flying pigs on the way home. Last warning! Get out of the way!" The only response to Hermann's threat was sinister laughing.
"Where are you three headed in such a hurry?" one of the hyenas asked with a grin. "You, with the accent and the walking stick, why don't you stick around for a while?" Hermann didn't respond.
"He looks tasty. Let's tenderize him!"
Everything happened in a what seemed to be the blink of an eye: a hyena lunged towards Hermann with a growl, jaws wide open, only to crash to the ground in a lifeless heap fractions of a second later: he would never know it, but as soon as his feet left the ground, there was a bullet in the air going the other way. There was no time for him to even hear the bang; the faster rifle round outpaced the sound waves, if only by a few hundredths of a second. When the echoes died away only moments afterwards, all eyes were fixed on the expired hyena on the ground, the unfortunate creature who had just become Hermann Wolfgang Sterlitz's first live target.
"Get…out…of the way," Hermann said for the third time, not knowing whether he had just convinced the hyenas to let him through, or unavoidably thrown himself into a three-on-six, now five. "I'll do that to every last one of you if I—
Another hyena was jumping for Hermann's throat before the sentence could ever reach completion, but he too was met in midair by a flying piece of metal, fired by a man who now knew that there was absolutely no option but to quite literally blast his way out. Before the next hyena in line could even think about trying the same thing for a third time, Hermann had loaded and fired once more, and he now saw a clear lane between his group of three and the Mercedes on the far side of the creek. "Lauft, was ihr könnt!" he shouted. "Run for it!"
For the first time in almost twelve years, Hermann Wolfgang Sterlitz moved faster than a walk, even faster than a jog. He dropped his cane and ran as if both legs worked perfectly, making as fast as he could for the creek and the waiting car on the other side. He only turned his head back only once, hearing telltale footsteps closing in from behind him and subsequently firing off a rearward shot, after which he could no longer hear anything giving chase. At last, with one final burst of energy, he threw himself over the creek and landed in a heap on the grass. His relief lasted all of two seconds.
"Hermann! Help! Hermann!"
"Vitani's trapped! Do something!"
Hermann picked himself up and tried to see where the first voice had come from, only to see Vitani still stuck across the creek, pinned down by the two hyenas he had yet to finish off—one in front of her, one behind, both circling and waiting for the right moment to strike. Hermann's rifle was lying too far from him to waste time retrieving; he had lost his grip and allowed it to cartwheel away upon reconnecting with the ground, leaving himself with no options but to use Markos's old revolver. It would be nowhere near as accurate as the rifle, but it was nevertheless far superior to having no weapon at all.
"Vitani, get down!" he shouted, bracing his right hand across his left forearm. His first shot found its intended resting place; the second shot, however, was not only misdirected, but reminiscent of something Markos might have done, with the slug flying well high and wide. Hermann, whose expression had gone from triumph to horror in the span of a second, was about to shoot again when the one survivor looked at him, then at Vitani (who had already started sprinting the other way), and finally at the body on the ground, and decided to turn and run.
"You're all dead when Zira finds out!" the remaining hyena shouted as he took off. "Dead meat!"
"That's right, keep moving in a dead straight line, you parasite, make it easier for me," Hermann mumbled in German as he hurried over to his rifle and loaded his last round. Come on, Hermann Wolfgang, don't miss this one…
Vitani heard the last shell go off as she jumped across the water.
"Erwischt! Got him! I can't believe I missed that second shot…Vitani, did they get you anywhere?"
"It's just a few scratches, nothing serious."
"This is a scratch," Hermann said, pointing to where he had scuffed his hand up on some hidden stones following his rather ungraceful reconnection with the ground. "That, on the other hand, isn't. One of them must have bitten your leg…how did you not ever notice that?"
"Probably the same way you didn't notice your leg," Vitani said, surprisingly unconcerned. "Was I going crazy a few minutes ago, or did I actually see you running?"
"No, you saw correctly: I ran, but it cost me my cane. Still, I suppose that's a fairly small price to pay for just making it out alive. Go ahead and get in the car with Adila; it doesn't look bad at all, but I'll definitely take a better look at you once we get back to…what did they say our home was called again?"
"Wait, wait, what kind of 'better look'? One that involves you and your sharp poky things? Forget it!"
"I can't promise that it will or it won't, but if it's any consolation," he said, pointing to a ripped-out hole in his left pants leg, "look what I did to myself on that crash landing. I look like I've been through a paper shredder." Hermann started to shake the sand and dirt out of his shoes, an undertaking that would have been next to impossible without a cane had he not had the car to rest himself on.
"Nice claws, Sterlitz," Vitani snickered, looking at Hermann's bare right foot. "The girls must be all over you."
"Don't you call me 'Sterlitz'; only Markos gets to call me by my last name! Act civilized and put the word 'Herr' in front if you really want to use my surname."
"OK, Sterlitz."
Don't go down to her level, Hermann thought as the car started up and a steady rain began to come down. The adrenalin rush had undeniably saved both him and the younger of his two companions; he only hoped the effects would last until he made it back. "Auf Wiedersehen, Auslander!" he shouted as he threw the car into gear and sped homeward into the fading light.
Nightfall
Hermann told Simba what had happened with the hyenas only after explaining the much more positive details of his secret meeting in the Outlands. To Hermann's surprise, Simba did not seem angry in the least, despite Vitani's close call and the shooting match that preceded it. "You're not blaming yourself for any of this, are you?" Simba asked.
"Shouldn't I be?"
"No, you shouldn't, and I thought you especially would have known better than to do that. As you told me not so long ago, 'Sometimes, ve are at fault, und ozer times, ve are ze victims of circumstances beyond our control'."
"Really? With that much of a German accent?"
"More than that, actually…I just can't replicate it. You still say und instead of and, even after all this time here. So how's Vitani doing?"
"Oh, she's perfectly fine; I think I've seen rabbit bites that were worse than hers. Still, a bite's a bite, and since hyenas aren't much more than a sewer system on four legs, I couldn't take the chance of anything getting infected…"
"Oh, good luck getting her to co-operate with that. Even I know that's just Hermann-speak for pulling out the sharp stuff."
"So does Vitani, for that matter. But you can both relax, as I've already taken care of it."
"You have? How?"
"I had the 'sharp stuff' hidden in my back pocket the whole time, and she never so much as saw me reach for it, that's how. You learn how to do these kinds of things after spending a few months in pediatrics…maybe Doctor Friedlander sticking me there in my second year was a blessing in disguise."
"Wait a second, how could you have done anything at all without her seeing? Vitani doesn't ever turn her back on anyone, not even on Kopa, and he's her best friend. Must be from all that time she spent in the Outlands."
"I never said her back was turned. Her head, on the other hand, was. Markos had a bit of a mishap as he was putting more logs on the fire, and by the time Vitani—all of us, I should say—was done laughing herself hoarse, I could have performed a heart transplant."
"Please tell me he wasn't drunk. Was he drunk?"
"No, and that's the scary part. He was stone cold sober, and he still managed to get a red-hot ember straight down the front of his pants. Sometimes, I'm convinced that the only difference between sober Markos and drunk Markos is that he sings even worse when he's been drinking, if that's even possible to begin with."
"You forgot his odd affinity for getting hung up in trees."
"How is it that everyone now knows about that? I'm the only one who's supposed to know!"
"Well, you told Kopa, and he told Vitani, at which point there was no way it was going to stay a secret. Let's both of us head in; I don't think Nala can keep Kopa busy any longer. He's been dying to see you all day." Simba started to walk back into the cave, but Hermann wasn't following him. "Are you coming?" he asked. "There's no point in staying out here in the cold."
"Of course I'd like to come," Hermann replied, "if you wouldn't mind filling in as my cane for a few moments. I'll try and find a stick to use tomorrow, but for the time being, I'm essentially stuck where I stand unless someone helps me. It could be worse, though…at least I haven't set myself of fire. Yet." Together, Simba and Hermann walked inside, the latter leaning against the former and stepping even more carefully than usual. Neither of them had expected the day to unfold exactly as it had—in fact, until two days ago, the mere idea of going to the Outlands would have seemed entirely preposterous to both— but with the prospect of food, fire, and friends beckoning, an unspoken consensus arose that for a few hours at least, discussing the trip and all its particulars could wait.