The river itself was a wide, murky green piece of glass. I could barely tell it was moving. I took a step toward the water and sank up to my ankle mud.

When I pulled back, the mud sucked the shoe right off my foot. Shit. I'd wanted to clean myself up, not get filthier.

I looked up and down the bank, wondering where Moses had gone to wash.

First, I needed my shoe back, though. I reached down into the guck and felt around. It was actually nice and cool down there.

Suddenly the water in front of me boiled up. Some thing rough, like a huge log, came to the surface very, very quickly.

And then I saw that it was a full-blown, honest-to-God crocodile. Its black eyes were set on me. Breakfast was on the table.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Good-bye shoe. Good-bye leg or arm?

I stepped back ever so slowly. So far, the croc showed just a layer of tiled skin at the water's surface. I could see the bulge of its snout. The great beast's eyes didn't leave me for a second.

Never taking a breath, I kept inching backward.

On the next step though, my foot turned in the mud. I fell! Like it had received a cue, the crocodile sprang forward.

Nine, ten, maybe as much as twelve feet long, it surged out of the water, slashing in and out of an S-shape as it leapt straight at me.

I tried to pull in my legs, if only to postpone the inevitable savage bite. How could this have happened? Everyone had been right- I shouldn't have come to Africa.

Suddenly a shot exploded behind me!

Then a second shot!

The huge croc let out a strange, high-pitched noise that was part scream, part gasp. It reared up off its front legs, then smacked back down into the mud. I could see a red ooze on the side of its head. It thrashed once more, then rapidly backed away into the river and disappeared.

I turned to see Moses standing behind me. He was holding the Beretta.

“I am so sorry, sah. I meant to say that you should take this with you. Just in case.”

Chapter 69

AFRICA! WAS THERE anywhere in the world like it? I didn't think so.

We reached Porto Novo the next day and decided it would be best if I took the bus from there to Lagos. A man stood outside the public toilet at the bus station. He tried to get me to pay to enter, until I told him I would pee on his shoes first. He laughed and stepped away.

Then Moses and I parted, and he drove off proudly in his truck. I never found out whether he was a good Samaritan or an opportunist, though my nature favored the former. I will always think of Moses as my first friend in Africa.