The Last Leopard

by Lauren St. John

  Ngwenya made no move to hand it to him, but he took one anyway and helped himself to a large portion of everything. He was sucking the marrow out of a chicken bone when his dark eyes alighted on the young strangers.

  He flashed Martine and Ben a sinister smile. Thrusting out his hand so they had no choice but to take it, he said, “My name is Griffin. How do you do?”

  “What are you doing here, Griffin?” Ngwenya demanded. “You are not welcome.”

  Griffin did not seem in the least offended by this comment. He bit the top off another chicken drumstick, drained it of marrow, and said placidly, “Ah, my cousin, you will be singing a different song when I come home with Lobengula’s treasure. I will be welcome then, I am sure. Any day now I will be returning with sacks full of diamonds and gold sovereigns, and then all of you will want to be my friend.”

  “Griffin, my son, you are talking nonsense,” Odilo said in his quiet way, and Martine started at the revelation that shy, mournful Odilo was father to this sharp-dressing vagabond.

  Mercy’s face was expressionless. She heaved herself to her feet and went to her hut to be with her child. Odilo soon followed.

  The atmosphere around the fire was strained. For a while there was no sound but the crackling of the smoldering wood. Then, to Martine’s astonishment, Ben asked, “What will you do with the treasure if you find it, Griffin?”

  Griffin seemed pleased to be asked. He said grandly, “I will buy a Mercedes-Benz and a house with many bathrooms and a flat-screen television in Bulawayo. I will fly to England first-class and buy some suits for myself. Some cigarettes. Some whisky.”

  Ngwenya said, “Lobengula’s treasure belongs to the tribe, to the Ndebele people. If you find it, you will have to give it to the chiefs. The elders will come together and will have to make a decision whether or not to keep it.”

  Griffin gave a scathing laugh. “Are you mad, Ngwenya? Do you think that if I find gold and diamonds I will share it with those doddering old men? They know nothing. Chief Nyoni will probably put it back in the ground. Or maybe he will use it to buy false teeth. No, if I find the treasure I will keep it for me and my friends. If you want to share it, you must look for it yourself.”

  “I don’t want to find the treasure,” Ngwenya told him. “All over Africa, men have gone crazy with greed trying to follow this false promise. We do not want this to happen in our tribe. If the treasure is never found, it may be for the best.”

  The conversation was getting heated and Martine was afraid that a fight would break out, but it was interrupted by a swirl of black, white, and yellow. Before Martine could register what was happening, the hornbill had swooped out of the night and landed on her knee, using the creases in her jeans as brakes.

  “Magnus!” she cried, inexplicably cheered by the reappearance of the odd, serious bird, her last connection with her grandmother and Sadie. “How did you find us?”

  “We think his nest is in the place we call Rock Rabbit Hill in our language,” said Ngwenya. “It is very close to here, so perhaps he spotted you when he was on his way home to roost for the evening. Rock Rabbit Hill is riddled with holes and tunnels. If you fall into one, you might never come out. Some guests at the retreat who have lost their jewelry have tried to locate this nest, but it is very unsafe to climb up this hill and no one has ever managed. I myself think that when the nest is found it will be full of bottle caps and other rubbish.”

  Martine rubbed the top of the hornbill’s head and his eyelashes fluttered up and down in ecstasy.

  Griffin wiped chicken grease from his mouth and scrutinized her as if she were a specimen under a microscope. “I have just come from visiting the witch doctor, who will be here shortly. He told me that there were some children staying in my uncle’s village tonight, and that he has been hearing some stories that one of these children, a white girl, rides a giraffe back home in South Africa. He threw the bones and they helped him to remember the Zulu legend about the child who rides the white giraffe having power over all the animals.”

  He nodded at Magnus. “You are obviously a friend to the wild birds. Does this mean you are the girl in the ancestors’ story? Is your giraffe in South Africa white?”

  Martine didn’t respond. She didn’t want him, of all people, knowing anything about her or Jemmy. She hoped that if she ignored him he’d get the message and leave her alone, but Ngwenya innocently put her on the spot.

  “A white giraffe?” he exclaimed. “An albino one? Is this true, Martine? Now I understand. Now it becomes clear. When Gogo said you rode a giraffe, I wasn’t too sure whether to believe her. Then I saw how the horses loved you and what a good rider you are, and I thought that maybe some people had helped you to train a giraffe from when it was very young. Nobody told me it was a white one. Is this correct? Are you the child in the Zulu legend?”

  Forced to respond, Martine said, “Trust me, I don’t have power over any animals. Sometimes I help them a little, that’s all.”

  “Which way do you help them?” Griffin wanted to know.

  Martine had no intention of answering him. “Would you like me to wash the dishes?” she asked Mercy’s sister.

  “Maybe we can help each other, Martine,” Griffin persisted. “There is an animal I would like to have power over. If you assist me, maybe I can let you have a little piece of treasure. A gold sovereign, perhaps, or a diamond.”

  There. It was out in the open. That’s what he was here for. That’s why he had just happened to come by the village on the exact night Martine and Ben were staying.

  Martine was so taken aback by his audacity, and so enraged that this arrogant stranger thought that her gift and the life of the leopard—for she was quite certain that the animal he wanted power over was Khan—could be traded for a few dusty trinkets that were probably nothing more than a myth, that for a moment she didn’t trust herself to speak or move.

  In the event, she didn’t have to, because Ngwenya leaped to his feet and shouted, “That is enough, Griffin. I told you that you are not welcome here, and now it is time for you to leave.”

  Martine expected Griffin to protest, but he jumped up in one lithe, easy movement, took off his hat, and bowed. “Good-bye, friends,” he said. “Next time you see me I shall be a rich man.”

  Turning on his heel, he flashed another sinister smile. Martine had a bad feeling it was intended for her.

  Not surprisingly, she and Ben found it nearly impossible to sleep. They were still awake, discussing the events of the day and how best to tackle the problem of getting into the Lazy J, an hour after saying good night to Ngwenya. The horse wrangler had gone to check on the retreat, some twenty minutes’ ride away. He was planning to spend the night there and return at the crack of dawn. Martine had been afraid he’d try to stop them, that he’d tell them they were insane to imagine they could sneak into the hunter’s ranch to attempt to find evidence that the Rat was blackmailing Sadie and behind the arrests at Black Eagle. But all he said was, “Martine and Ben, I think you are both penga. This is the word we have in Zimbabwe for people who are mad. But if you are penga, then so am I. We will leave before sunrise.”

  Martine and Ben were making another attempt to close their eyes when they heard a commotion outside.

  Ben bounded up and pushed back the Hessian cloth that covered the doorway. “Martine, there are a lot of people milling around the fire and waving their hands in the air as if they’re angry or upset. Either the police are on their way or baby Emelia is really ill. I think we should see what’s going on.”

  They put on their sweatshirts and went out into the cold night air. As they neared the fire, they saw the witch doctor. He had his back to them and was sitting opposite Mercy and Odilo, whose faces were tense with anxiety. The villagers were gathered in a circle behind them, buzzing with anticipation. Baby Emelia lay between Mercy and Odilo, wrapped in a sheepskin rug.

  Nobody noticed Ben and Martine approaching through the darkness—nobody, that is, except the witch d
octor. After holding up his hand for silence, he slowly and very deliberately turned to face the young outsiders. There was something very ancient and tribal about his necklace of horns, belt of ostrich feathers, and leopard-skin kilt. It was as if the modern world had never touched him. It was impossible to say how old he was. He could have been ninety or thirty.

  Martine found herself looking at his leopard-skin kilt and thinking about something Ngwenya had told her. He’d explained that the kilts were handed down from one generation to the next. The hide of leopards was specially chosen because the leopard was regarded by the Ndebele as the politest and most respectful of all the animals, and the witch doctors wished to show the same politeness and respect to the ancestral spirits. Martine’s own opinion was that it might have been more polite and respectful not to rob the leopard of its skin, but she’d known better than to say that.

  The witch doctor fixed her with a fierce glare, as if he’d known her in a past life and she’d done him a great wrong. “There is no work for you here,” he said.

  The villagers murmured in alarm, and one or two motioned her and Ben away. The witch doctor held up his hand for silence again. He turned his back on Martine, took a swig from a brown bottle at his side, removed his ceremonial pouch, scattered some bones on the ground, and began to chant.

  Martine and Ben retreated to the shadows, feeling like unwanted guests intruding on a sacred ritual. Which, in effect, they were. But after half an hour of chanting they were so cold they dared to creep back to the fireside. Nobody chased them away. They were too absorbed in another spectacle. In between chants, the witch doctor had continued to take long swallows from his brown bottle, and two other empty bottles of what Ben suspected was “some powerful home-brewed moonshine” lay on the earth beside him. His eyes were red and streaming. He was swaying over his bones and his chanting sounded slurred.

  “It’s her ssshhtumach,” he mumbled at last. “Sh-sh-she has shtumach flu. She needs . . .” and he reeled off a plant name Martine recognized. His glazed eyes singled out Martine in the crowd. He lifted a forefinger and waggled it at her, as if to say “I’m warning you.” Then he keeled over and began snoring loudly.

  Mercy recovered first. “That drunken idiot!” she shouted. “My baby is dying and he can’t control his thirst for this poison for even one night.”

  She aimed several kicks at the sprawling figure before a couple of villagers restrained her. Tears began to stream down her face. Odilo put his arms around her and looked as though he might weep too. In the sheepskin rug, the baby whimpered feebly.

  “I might be able to help,” Martine offered in a small voice.

  She spoke so softly that nobody heard her above the babble of voices. Martine was too shy to repeat what she’d said, but Ben went over to the sad couple. “Mercy and Odilo, Martine might be able to help,” he told them.

  This time Odilo and some of the villagers turned, although most seemed displeased at the interruption.

  “You have a power with babies?” Odilo asked doubtfully.

  Martine shook her head. “No, I don’t. But in my survival kit I have medicine made from the plant the witch doctor mentioned. My friend Grace, a South African sangoma, gave it to me.”

  Odilo was unsure, but between sobs Mercy urged her to fetch it quickly. Martine raced to get it from the hut and unzipped it in the firelight. There were gasps as she removed her pink Maglite, Swiss Army knife, silver whistle, compass, magnifying glass, tube of superglue, and three small brown bottles: one for headaches and pain, one to treat Bilharzia, a disease found in Zimbabwean rivers, and one for stomach ailments.

  Mercy read the label on the stomach one, removed the cork from the top of it, and sniffed. Evidently it met with her approval.

  “Odilo and I will take Emelia to our hut and talk about whether we should take a chance and give it to her,” she told Martine. “It must be our decision.”

  Martine sank down beside Ben to wait, warming her hands on the fire. One of the villagers handed her a mug of tea, and its fragrant sweetness temporarily revived her. But not for long. She checked her watch and realized that she and Ben had been up for twenty hours. So many things had happened. It felt like the longest day on earth. It was hard to believe that nineteen hours ago she’d come face-to-face with the largest leopard ever recorded.

  By the time Odilo returned, she could no longer see straight she was so tired, and Ben was so sleepy he was nodding like one of those bobblehead dogs in cars.

  “Mercy says to thank you very much,” Odilo told Martine. But her heart sank when he added ominously, “Whatever happens . . .”

  She opened her mouth to say that she wasn’t a doctor or even a sangoma and maybe it had been a bad idea to hand over Grace’s stomach muti without a medical practitioner’s diagnosis, but Odilo guessed what was troubling her and said, “Go to sleep, my friend. Have faith in the gift the witch doctor saw in you. There is nothing more we can do. We must wait for the muti to do its work.”

  As the moon crept higher in a sky that was more white than blue-black it had so many stars in it, the whole village slumbered. The only creature still awake was Magnus. Frustrated that Martine had disappeared into a hut and seemed not to be coming out again, the hornbill was strolling about in search of entertainment. He found nothing to interest him until he reached the cooking area, where the contents of Martine’s survival pouch still winked in the dying embers of the fire.

  Unnoticed, the hornbill hopped nearer.

  14

  Martine tossed and turned for the remainder of the night on the hard, unfamiliar bed, agonizing over her grandmother and whether or not she’d done the right thing giving Grace’s muti to the sick baby. She fell asleep just before dawn and was woken minutes later by Ben. “Emelia is much better and is drinking her breakfast,” he said. “Ngwenya is back and has heard the whole story. He says that Odilo is smiling from one ear to the other for the first time since he lost his job.”

  As glad as Martine was to receive this news, it was torture to be wrenched from her dreams after a mere catnap. She was as keen as anyone to get to the Lazy J and search for answers, but she longed for some proper sleep. The epic drive to Zimbabwe, the strain of keeping her encounter with Khan secret, Gwyn Thomas’s arrest, and the witch doctor’s frightening reaction to her had all been too much.

  She could just imagine what the conversations would be like when she and Ben returned to Caracal School. Luke and Lucy would be going on about surfing and sunbathing in the Mediterranean, Jake would be talking nonstop about rugby camp, and Claudius would be full of tall tales about hiking with his dad in the Drakensberg Mountains.

  Finally they’d get around to asking what she and Ben had done on their vacation and Martine would pipe up: “Well, let me see. First, Ben was nearly smashed to bits falling down a waterfall, then we saw a lion being shot in cold blood, and next day I was nearly mauled by a leopard. Oh, and my grandmother was taken away to jail by two corrupt policemen, and Ben and I had to hide in a remote village, and while we were there a baby developed a raging fever and I had to help save it.

  “Apart from that, we had a very relaxing time.”

  Ngwenya interrupted her thoughts by putting a mug of tea and a bowl of mielie-meal porridge in front of her.

  “Eat quickly,” he said. “We must go to the Lazy J before the sun gets up.”

  Ben joined her. He’d endured a “bird bath” using a bucket of ice-cold water, and he was shivering in the crisp morning air. “How are you feeling?” he asked, rubbing the goose bumps on his arms. “You got even less sleep than I did.”

  “I’m scared,” Martine admitted. “I’m scared for us but mainly I’m frightened for Khan, my grandmother, and Sadie. What if we can’t help them? We’re up against corrupt policemen, blackmailing hunters, and all this wilderness. There seems to be a different set of rules in Zimbabwe. The law doesn’t seem to mean anything here.”

  She swallowed a few spoonfuls of porridge. “How ’bout you? H
ow do you feel about today?”

  “I don’t think Rex Ratcliffe should be allowed to get away with making so many people and animals suffer,” Ben said. “Somebody has to try to stop him and it may as well be us. I know it seems impossible, but I think we’re a pretty good team when it comes to doing the impossible. Let’s visualize the outcome we want and try to make it happen. We want your grandmother and Sadie to come home safely. That’s number one. But we also want to save Khan and find him a place where he can live in freedom, away from any hunters. Try it, Martine. Try to picture it.”

  Martine closed her eyes and conjured up an image of Sawubona. She visualized herself and the white giraffe standing beside Gwyn Thomas watching the sun come up over the lake. Jemmy was resting his head on her shoulder. Her grandmother was pointing at the hippos and saying something that made Martine laugh.

  Next she tried to picture Khan in a place of safety. In Martine’s opinion, Sawubona was the best game sanctuary in the world, so that’s where she saw him. He was lying on a boulder high up on the mountain that overlooked the lake, his forelegs stretched out like a sphinx, watching her, Gwyn Thomas, and the white giraffe. In Martine’s vision, he got up and began to make his way down the slope, dislodging a rock as he did so.

  Then the picture went fuzzy. Martine squinted at the image in her head, trying to conjure it up again, but it was gone.

  She went back to the hut to collect her survival kit and only remembered when she got there that she’d left it by the fireside the previous night. She was on her way out again when she noticed a baby tortoise heading toward her. Martine gave a cry of delight. “You’re so sweet,” she said. “Where did you come from?”

  She picked it up and saw the tortoise had something strapped to its back. It was too dark inside the hut to see it, so she carried it over to the light. Ngwenya had hung a lantern from a hook on the wall. She lifted the tortoise to the flickering glow and had to bite back a scream. Strapped to its back was a perfectly crafted miniature coffin.