Using a remote, Zoeller switched on the machine, and the quiet low of a calf rumbled from across the clearing. Zoeller slowly increased the volume. Sitting on a folding stool beside Blaze, Krieger listened to the recording and tried to imagine the animal. He pictured the calf with one hind leg staked to the ground standing beside its mother. He heard curiosity in the calf’s calls, no doubt confused to have its neck free but one leg anchored. Then he heard the long question it asked as it realized its mother was being led away. The calf issued a higher note to alert her it was trapped and unable to follow. It cried louder, after she’d probably gone out of view, eager to help her locate it. Then the calf grew quiet.

Krieger watched Blaze.

The calf found its voice again as it saw two men approaching. Clearly the calf recognized the men. I’m safe now, its quiet tone said. Why did you leave me? Krieger knew this moment. It was the same with men and animals. Everyone wanted to believe they were home.

He heard the calf cry out in surprise, then terror, as it experienced pain beyond its understanding, pain that would not end. Krieger had been with men as they made this same journey. He’d designed and manufactured tools to help them get there in a predictable way. In the end he’d discovered it cost almost nothing to transport a man to the same place as this calf, twenty dollars at a CVS.

Krieger looked at his daughter. She was breathing rapidly. Her cheeks were flushed red. “Relax, Blaze. It’s just a recording.”

“What are they doing to that animal?” She was filming him.

“Turn that fucking thing off.”

She blanched and stuffed the phone in her pocket just as a young male lion emerged from the bush sniffing the air, and slowly circled the clearing. More adolescent lions appeared, followed by adult females. Krieger was surprised there were so many. Finally, the big male lion arrived. Cyril did not look at the bait tree. He ignored the female lions, too. Cyril focused on the humans in the blind. Their blind was little more than a sheet of canvas and some tree branches. Zoeller flicked off his safety.

Blaze raised her dart gun.

Krieger placed his hand on the barrel and pressed it toward the ground.

“What are you doing?” Blaze whispered.

He held his rifle out to her.

“No.”

“You are a Krieger, Blaze. Hard decisions are what we make. You kill that lion or I will.”

•   •   •

That evening, Krieger relaxed in a camp chair facing the firepit, his rifle across his lap, a scotch and a cleaning kit on the ground beside him. He’d showered and changed, exchanged his khaki hunting clothes for olive green trousers and a sharply pressed white shirt. He wore his elephant-hide slippers.