“This was out in the bush in Tanzania a few years ago. I was the guide for a posse of boffins studying the effects of drought on sub-Saharan wildlife. I had killed the occasional stalking lion before, not thinking much of it. It was the work, you know? But this one! I had never seen a male lion nearly so big, so sure of itself and its territory, so confidently coming at us – or as likely, desperate, because the worsening drought had  deprived its pride of game. I was sure it intended to kill all of us if I did not fire. I raised the gun – it was an elephant gun, mind you, and at a distance of twenty yards, it would have made quick and bloody work of even a very big lion like that one. As I was about to shoot – I didn’t want to, such a magnificent creature, but I had human lives to protect – she was suddenly there, the middle of her back in my gunsight.

“I was thinking, ‘What the bloody hell?’ I yelled, ‘It’s going to kill you! Get out of the way!’ It kept coming. But then, she stamped her walking stick on the ground. I’d swear that I saw faint blue, pink, and green sparks come out of it, the colors of the dawn, the dusk, and the forest, barely visible in the mid-afternoon sun.

“And the lion just stopped. Very suddenly, right in its tracks. It stood there, staring at her. She picked up the camera around her neck and took its picture. Three pictures, in fact, from twenty feet! Click! Click! Click! And then it just turned and walked away.”

Strangely, these speakers, all scientists, sometimes quietly disputed dates with each other. It seemed as if, at times, she was on two or three expeditions at once in widely-disconnected parts of the world.

And why was she there, in all those places? None seemed to know — or, out of some spiritual reverence, they were keeping her secrets.

The short, stout man with the reddish-blond beard and hair seemed to know a good number of these explorers and scientists. I saw him mingle with and exchange greetings with a few.

Another strange thing: They seemed to be in awe of him; even the older man with the look of a longtime field scientist, whom I’d figured must be the leader or mentor of this bunch, if they had one, looked as if he deferred to this short, stout man.

This man stepped up and spoke last. He couldn’t have been five-feet-three, but his bare arms were so brawny, powerful, and weathered, and his presence so impressive that he looked far bigger, as big as anyone present. And he said the least, but his words were indelibly memorable. And they were the least comprehensible to me at the time:

“A spirit of Mother Earth, she was. A soul more pure and magical than any. I wish only that her quest, whatever it was, is fulfilled.”

Tears filled his eyes.

All the others who had spoken nodded as if they understood his words perfectly.

Then he turned and stared intensely at me again. This time, it seemed like a glare, an accusation, as if her death were my fault and that a lifelong debt or penance was now due.

I recoiled, scared at first, but I made myself stare back. The thought, “Damn it, I loved her as much and I grieve as much as any of you!” was going through my head.

And, as if he could read my mind, this short but huge man nodded ever so slightly — a half-inch nod.

Then he turned and walked off, and the crowd closed in on him. Moments later, I looked for him, but he was gone.

By the end, I was exhausted, stuck deep in my grief, and even more wholly swept up in a teenage boy’s version of “in love” with her than I’d been before – and in my feeling of guilt because I did not save her.

I would remain stuck in that pitiable emotional state nearly all summer.