Blood Trail

by Tony Park

  ‘OK.’ He ran a hand down his face then stood and went to the chair where he had dropped his muddied camouflage trousers. He pulled them on and zipped them up, then reached for his shirt.

  ‘OK, what?’ she said, ready for a fight. She had grown up tough, fighting off racial slurs from white kids who thought she was too friendly with black kids, and black kids who felt no need to be friends with the child of a white soldier.

  Graham pulled on his cap and opened the door. ‘Bye, Mia.’

  He closed the door and she sank back into the bed. She felt bad – he had wanted to make love to her and part of her still craved the release of sex, the need for touch after the traumatic events of the long morning.

  Mia punched her pillow. This afternoon the lodge was welcoming its first guests since the last lockdown had begun. She should have been excited and raring to go, but instead she had lost two poachers, seen another rhino shot, and had failed, yet again, at the one thing in life she had thought she was good at. On top of all that her boyfriend, if that’s what he was, had just walked out on her.

  *

  Jeff Beaton stopped his Toyota HiLux outside the neat row of staff accommodation units, got out and avoided as many puddles as he could. He found unit eight and knocked on the door.

  He checked his watch, confirming he had the right time, but there was no answer. He knocked again and waited.

  ‘Who is it?’ called a woman from inside.

  ‘Jeff Beaton. Mia Greenaway? We’ve got an appointment.’

  ‘Oh.’ It sounded more like a groan. ‘Hang on. I’m coming now-now.’

  He waited on the porch, nodding to a tall African man in khaki who walked past.

  The door was opened by an attractive woman, short with dark hair, sleepy, but with a fast-recovering sense of perpetual energy about her. She wore only a long, stretched T-shirt; her bare legs were muscled and tanned.

  ‘Is now not a good time?’

  She checked her watch. ‘Good as any. I needed to get up. I’ve got sixty minutes, less shower time.’

  ‘That should be plenty,’ he said. ‘I did make an appointment.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I remember the email now. You’re the Canadian?’

  He smiled. ‘Most people say American.’

  She motioned for him to take a seat at the small writing desk in the corner of her unit and went to a washbasin and squeezed toothpaste onto a brush. ‘I deal with people from around the world every day – at least, I did before the virus. I know the perils of addressing a Canadian as a Yank, and vice versa.’

  ‘So,’ he said, as she wiped her mouth, ‘I’m here to interview people about –’

  ‘Traditional beliefs, umuthi, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I remember now, though to tell you the truth I forgot you were coming today. We had quite an eventful morning.’

  ‘So I heard. I was with Graham and Oscar – I believe you know them – when they were called out, after finishing their shift on the Vulture system.’

  Mia dried her hands. ‘I really need a shower.’

  ‘I’ll wait outside,’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘No, it’s OK. You don’t look like the serial killer kind. I’ll just go next door. You can ask your questions if you like. Safari guides are used to multitasking and when you usually start work at four in the morning you learn to shower and dress and eat quickly.’

  ‘OK.’

  She opened a door to a small en-suite bathroom, went in and closed it. Jeff stood and indulged in a quick snoop around the room, the woman’s home. It was not much bigger than a small suite in a hotel, and Mia was the head guide. How long had she been living this life? he wondered.

  There was a wardrobe made of canvas and wood and he saw a small collection of clothes: khaki shorts, shirts and trousers on one side, and on the other a pair of jeans, some blouses in earthy tones and a token sundress with flowers on it. The shoes beneath were two pairs of boots, a pair of sneakers and a couple of pairs of sandals.

  On the bedside table of cheap unfinished pine was a faded colour portrait of a woman with long straight hair wearing a crocheted top, maybe from the seventies. In a similar plastic frame was another shot, this one of a man in military uniform sitting atop an armoured vehicle, a rifle across his lap. He had a drooping moustache and cold dark eyes fixed on some distant horizon.

  The books piled beside Mia’s bed were field guides, mostly, to birds, reptiles, mammals, trees and even grasses. There were a couple of novels set in Africa he thought he recognised.

  ‘Are you still there?’ she called from the bathroom over the noise of a shower.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then stop snooping and start asking questions. You’re on the clock!’

  He smiled to himself. ‘You’ve heard about my research?’

  ‘Sure have.’

  ‘OK.’ He took out his laptop, thinking that this was the oddest interview he had conducted in his time as an academic. There was also something mildly arousing about knowing his subject was naked on the other side of the door.

  ‘So, you interviewed Graham and Oscar last?’

  ‘Yes. The odd couple.’

  She laughed. ‘Let me guess, Graham ridiculed everything about traditional beliefs and medicine and Oscar was quietly reasoned.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Those two are not what they seem,’ she said. Her voice was clearer now that she had finished her shower and turned off the water.

  ‘So,’ Jeff said, ‘I’ll just launch into it. Do you support the premise that traditional beliefs in Shangaan culture influence not only poachers but the rangers and other indigenous members of the security forces arrayed against them?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said without hesitation.

  ‘Can you explain how, and why, you think this is so?’

  ‘Because it affects me.’

  Jeff pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. That surprised him. ‘How so?’

  ‘I was brought up to believe many of the – superstitions is the wrong word – traditions of African people. For example, if you look at my bed, you’ll see something weird about it.’

  He glanced down and noticed, for the first time, that the legs of the bed stood on old tin cans. ‘What’s that for, to protect the wood from insects?’

  She laughed on the other side of the door. ‘No, to protect me from tokoloshes.’

  ‘Spirit men. Little guys?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mia opened the door. She had put on a khaki button-up shirt with a Lion Plains logo above her left breast pocket, and a pair of green shorts. She towel-dried her hair as she took a seat on the bed. She patted the duvet. ‘The tins raise the bed up so that I can see under it, and therefore the tokoloshe can’t hide underneath it. Silly, right?’

  He smiled. ‘I’m certainly not here to judge. The opposite – I’m here to learn.’

  ‘Graham thinks it’s crazy. It’s not even a Shangaan belief – my nanny had lived in Johannesburg and she picked up her fear of the tokoloshe from some Xhosa women she knew, and it stuck with her. She figured I needed to be safe from everything. That’s how I grew up, learning about tokoloshes instead of bogeymen, or whatever it is kids in Canada call that thing that scares them.’

  ‘Clowns.’

  She laughed and put the towel down.

  He carried on: ‘Tell me about your childhood.’

  She looked at him, her smile dropping. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s not one of the questions on your list.’

  He scrolled down his fresh document and turned the screen towards her.

  ‘Tell me how, if at all, your formative years have influenced your belief or otherwise in traditional cultural beliefs or medication,’ Mia recited. ‘I’m impressed.’

  He nodded. ‘So?’

  ‘Have you g
ot a week?’

  He checked his watch, theatrically. ‘Couple of days. I’ve been looking forward to interviewing you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because more than one person told me that you are probably the most culturally aware white person they know, when it comes to the local people. I’ve been told you speak Shangaan –’

  ‘Xitsonga, there’s a difference.’

  ‘My bad, Xitsonga – as well as or even better than most local native speakers.’

  She gave a small shrug. ‘That could be true, especially of the local kids. They grow up in households where some of their family speak the local language, but at school they’re also expected to learn English. Their teachers sometimes struggle with both languages, so kids end up graduating – or not – with a lack of fluency in both their mother tongue and English.’

  ‘I hear you’re doing something about that,’ Jeff said.

  ‘I volunteer at an after-school English language program when my shifts allow, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘It is.’ He was impressed by her already. ‘I think that’s great.’

  ‘I’m no Mother Teresa. Ask anyone who knows me.’

  She was being modest. ‘I also hear you’re one of the best – if not the best – trackers in the Sabi Sand, and that you’ll soon be awarded the master tracker qualification – and be the first female to ever reach that position.’

  Mia frowned. ‘If you saw my last assessment you wouldn’t be so sure.’

  ‘Well, I wish you luck,’ he said.

  Mia fetched a pair of hiking boots, retrieved a sock stuffed in one of the boots and put it on.

  ‘So, my formative years?’

  He nodded and prepared to type.

  ‘The short version is that my mom died and my dad was away for much of my childhood. My white aunts weren’t interested in me so I was more or less raised by my nanny. Lots of white kids say they have a close connection to the domestic person or staff in their house, but for me it’s actually true. My nanny, Prudence, was the closest thing I had to a mother.’

  ‘So you would say you share the cultural beliefs of the Shangaan people and their attitudes to traditional healing.’

  ‘I don’t share them, they’re mine, simple as that.’

  ‘May I ask, and you don’t have to answer this,’ he looked up from his screen, ‘are you a Christian or do you follow any other religion?’

  Mia smiled. ‘Like most of my Shangaan friends I am a Christian and I go to church every Sunday at the all-denominations service at Skukuza unless I’m working.’

  He made a note. ‘Have you ever visited a traditional healer for medical and/or other issues?’

  ‘I have.’ She laced one boot and put on her other sock.

  ‘Do you believe in the efficacy of traditional healers?’

  ‘I’d be silly to go to them if I didn’t. Many are women, wise and experienced. If I can get the makings of a tea made from local plants to fix an upset stomach or relieve the symptoms of a cold for the fraction of the price of western medicine from the Hazyview pharmacy, then I’d be mad not to, wouldn’t I?’

  He smiled and entered the answer. ‘I’ve been to that pharmacy.’

  She nodded as she did up her other lace. ‘Then I guess you’ve seen all the love potions and spells and whatnot.’

  ‘I have. It was quite an eye opener.’

  ‘That’s just people making money, and, from the point of view of the patients, wishful thinking, but there’s nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘No?’

  Mia got up, picked up a brush from her bedside table and ran it through her hair. ‘If someone wants another person to fall in love with them and they buy a harmless potion that does nothing, then at least they maybe feel better about themselves and come across more confident and relaxed.’

  ‘So, a placebo, you mean?’

  She nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And you don’t have a problem with people making money out of that?’

  ‘People waste money on stuff they don’t need every day. What’s wrong with buying a little confidence?’

  He smiled. She was kind and genuine and it seemed like she wouldn’t find fault with anyone in the world. ‘How do you feel about the traditional healers who charge poachers for umuthi to make them bulletproof?’

  Mia placed her hands in her lap and gave him a beatific look. ‘I want to kill them.’

  Jeff swallowed. ‘OK. Why?’

  ‘Talk about using your powers for evil. The whole point, I believe, of a lot of traditional healing, even practices better known in the western world, like reiki, is that you capitalise on – or in this case, prey on – people’s belief systems. These men, the poachers, they trust their traditional healers to care for them, to look after them when they’re physically and mentally unwell. They believe in their powers, and here we have izangoma exploiting that trust to tell these men that because of what they’ve paid for, they will turn to water, literally, when a bullet is fired at them, and the round will pass straight through them.’

  ‘And to be perfectly clear,’ Jeff looked up from his frantic typing, ‘you don’t actually believe that a sangoma can help a man disappear, or turn to water?’

  ‘I believe that some people fervently believe that, and that’s what’s important.’

  ‘Why is it important?’

  ‘Because that belief is not just confined to the poachers who pay for umuthi, it’s shared by many of our own anti-poaching rangers, and most likely our soldiers and police involved in the war on poaching. That’s a problem for us, because every time we catch a poacher and he’s carrying umuthi with him, our guys are thinking that someone is maybe casting a spell against them, and that freaks them out.’

  ‘But, to play devil’s advocate, if your guys catch or kill a poacher, then that means, doesn’t it, that the sangoma’s medicine was weak, that it didn’t work and the poacher was exposed. Doesn’t it undermine the whole thing?’

  ‘Yes and no. Even the ones who get captured believe that when they go to court the magistrate will be confused or the police will lose their evidence – they pay for that as well. The courts are so overburdened here that prosecutions don’t always proceed smoothly or quickly, so there’s a good chance the poachers will think they’re getting value for money. If a guy is killed then the belief is that, well, he didn’t believe enough, or pay enough, or take his medicine correctly. Enough poachers get through for the rest to believe that umuthi will help them.’

  Jeff typed some more notes, then looked her in the eye again. ‘With respect, Mia, you didn’t answer my question. For the record, do you believe umuthi can make a man disappear?’

  She held his gaze.

  ‘I don’t mean to push you,’ he said.

  Mia closed her eyes and shook her head.

  He could see she was troubled by something.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s just that . . . we lost a poacher, two in fact, this morning, and a young woman was shot, as was another rhino.’

  ‘How’s the volunteer doing?’ Jeff said.

  ‘She’ll be OK, according to the doctors. She’s as tough as a honey badger.’

  ‘That must have been terrible for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mia said, ‘and worst of all, we couldn’t catch the guy who did it. In fact, we lost his trail completely.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Does that happen often?’

  She shrugged. ‘The weather was bad, as you know. That doesn’t make tracking easy, but . . .’

  ‘But?’

  ‘It was weird that neither Bongani nor I, not even the dog, could catch the guy. We lost his trail – all of us.’

  Jeff looked over the top of his laptop screen at her. ‘So, what? He really disappeared?’

  Mia stood and wa
lked to the door and opened it. ‘I have to go to work now, to collect some real-life clients, my first in months.’

  He closed his laptop and stood. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

  She gave him a weary smile. ‘I know.’

  Chapter 9

  Mia walked briskly towards her Land Rover in the parking area, nodding greetings to several of the lodge staff on her way. For a change they were dressed in freshly pressed uniforms instead of their casual clothes, which had become dress of the day during the lockdown.

  One of the maids, Adella, stopped her. ‘I want a selfie with you, now that you’re properly famous.’ Mia forced a smile as Adella snapped a picture of both of them. ‘Stayhome Safari is going crazy with comments!’

  Mia excused herself. There had been something of a buzz about Kaya Nghala the last couple of days, in anticipation of the return of guests. Hospitality staff had been cleaning and making up a guest room and the chef, Pretty, seemed to have been cooking nonstop for twenty-four hours. Mia smelled fresh bread that made her stomach growl, as she passed by the kitchen.

  Pretty spied her, picked up two paper bags and came out. ‘For you and Bongani. A little snack to prepare you for your first guests in some time.’

  Mia smiled. ‘Thank you.’

  Bongani was waiting for her, leaning against the green open-top Defender. ‘You look worried.’ Mia handed him his food packet.

  She opened the door and got into the driver’s seat. Bongani climbed up onto the tracker’s seat on the fender.

  ‘Don’t you want to sit next to me until we get to the airport?’ Mia started the engine then opened her bag. She found a smoked salmon bagel and took a big bite out of it.

  He shook his head as he started on his snack. ‘No. I want to look for tracks, of humans.’

  ‘You think the second poacher’s still on the reserve somewhere?’

  ‘He must be. Don’t you think? He went to ground somewhere, I’m sure of it.’

  Mia drove out of the staff area, past the workshops and onto one of the game-viewing roads. Julianne’s property, Lion Plains, was in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve. In addition to the luxurious Kaya Nghala Lodge, where Mia and Bongani worked and lived, there were two other camps on Lion Plains: the Manor House, a small lodge with four bungalows set around an old but renovated farmhouse, suitable for a single group; and Leopard Lodge, which consisted of twelve double rooms pitched at a level more affordable than Kaya Nghala. Both the other camps had been mothballed due to COVID, with only Kaya Nghala remaining open to house a caretaker contingent, the anti-poaching rangers and canine unit, and Mia and a couple of other guides and trackers who provided the daily Stayhome Safari webcast game drives.