Page 33 of Sheltering Instinct

“All right.”

Gwen reached around her mom’s waist, and they walked arm in arm. This was a bittersweet scene for Tess. At mundane mother-daughter moments like this, Tess felt the loss of the little things.

“How’s the food supply, Mom?”

“For the animals? Dire. Here? Fine. We have gardens for vegetables and such. But we’re shipping in a lot of our supplies to keep up the standards of the winery. I can’t say that’s not expensive. But you know, one bad review changes a business's capacity to attract future visitors. Folks traveling to Namibia to see Etosha wouldn’t understand our drought situation or take it into consideration as they’re typing up their thoughts.”

Gwen nodded.

“We’re leaning into wild meats. Most of our visitors find that adventurous. But I must say, it’s a very bad situation.” She turned to Tess. “There are natural springs in the area. The government uses them to make watering holes for the wildlife in the park. That serves two purposes: the guides know where to take the visitors to get their vacation pictures, and they can make sure that the animals aren’t dying from lack.” Iris lifted her free hand to point over to a concrete building. “That’s our solar-powered pump. Sunlight is one thing we have in profusion. We have a spring on the property. That’s how we’re able to keep the vegetables watered and the grape vines from turning into raisin vines. When we got started, Craig and I laid out a drip system that waters at night. We try not to waste even a drop. But the grape harvest this year is going to be hit or miss. We’re not holding out a lot of hope.”

“Could you lose your vines?” Gwen’s voice was painted with concern. “Or are you talking about the harvest?”

“Yes.” Iris stopped and let her gaze sweep over the hillside, striped with vines. “Either or both.”

“Then what would happen?” Gwen asked.

“We’ve been grafting Marula trees from the oldest trees we can find, hoping that since those trees have been through it all, they know how to self-sustain. But they also attract elephants. And elephants know how to do some damage.”

“Marula?” Tess asked, opening the pickup door and putting her hiking pack on the seat.

“The fruit makes a Namibian specialty liquor,” Gwen said, making her way around to the right-hand driver’s side. “It’s a delicious, kind of nutty citrussy taste.”

“We have some that we produced this year, Iris said. “We’ll have it after dinner so you can taste it yourself. All right, girls. I’ll see you back in a couple of hours. Have fun!”

The dirt road that took them to the trail Gwen’s dad had made for the vineyard guests was a quick drive.

Gwen left the keys in the ignition, and with their packs slung over their shoulders and a check on their water situation, the women began the climb.

The heat of the sun wasn’t nearly the scorching fist that beat on her head at Big Daddy. But it was still hot, and Tess knew she’d be exerting hard to get up the craggy trail.

Dressed in boots and hiking shorts, Tess’s long-sleeved sun-blocking shirt protected her from the sun’s burning rays without needing to apply sunscreen, which she loathed.

Her skin was closer in color to her mother’s Austrian ancestry than her father’s Ghanaian skin tone. But her dad’s genes meant Tess rarely got a sunburn.

Tess remembered—or thought she remembered—her mom complaining about cooking like a lobster under the sun. Tess even had a distant memory of standing behind her mom, slathering on some plant potion to pull the heat out of her mom’sbright pink skin, and her mom saying, “You’re such a kind helper girl, honey pot.”

With their hiking packs on their backs, the women wended onto the trail. The stones were loose and rolled under the thick soles of her boots. The rest of their forty-five-minute trek was silent as the women focused on their foot placement.

They dropped their bags on the observation deck and stood to bask in the swath of land at their feet. Arms held wide to take it all in, Tess tipped back her head and closed her eyes. The breeze whipped away the heat, and the air felt fresh. “It smells like an adventure,” she said as she came up right.

Gwen stood at the far corner of the platform, filming a video to describe where she was for her friends who followed her on social media.

When she tapped the camera off, Tess pointed into the distance. “That’s the Etosha gate, isn’t it? I can’t wait to go tomorrow.”

“Let’s see.” She moved over to Tess and squinted in the direction Tess’s arm was indicating. “Yes, that’s Etosha.”

Gwen found a different angle on the platform where the wind whipped her long black hair in a way that looked dynamic but didn’t float tendrils into her mouth. With the grape vines in the far distance, Gwen was describing her parents’ vineyard.

As Tess reached for her water bottle in the side pocket of her pack, her phone slipped out of her pocket and clattered down the rocks.

Tess went after it.

Bending to pick it up and dust it off, her foot slipped off the boulder and down between the two rocks. Something bright and painful happened to her calf.

It was a sensation that Tess couldn’t place.

It was so painful and unexpected that she screamed as she leaped back toward the breadth of the boulder, discoveringthrough that movement that her boot was caught between two rocks.

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