Guardian

by Dan Gleed

  Chapter 10

  Dawn. Roz stirred and let the pale light of early morning draw her slowly into consciousness. The house was still and not even Ben would be awake at this hour, but it was a magic time, cool, quiet, beckoning. Quickly, she slipped out from under the covers, the sudden cold stiffening her nipples and causing an involuntary shudder as the morning air pressed in through the open window, flowing over her slim, naked body. Drawing on an old towelling robe, she swung long, sun-browned legs out over the windowsill onto the veranda and on bare feet pattered across the coarse marram grass(1) surrounding the farmhouse, heading for the paddock rail corralling her surprise birthday present.

  The stocky palomino mare, a contrition offering from her dad, looked up briefly before returning to the rather more pressing matter of tearing at the long dry grass; gloomy disapproval registered in every heavy snort. Roz didn’t mind. It was early days and they hadn’t bonded yet. Outside the paddock, the veldt stretched away in undulating waves to the far horizon speckled with distant herds of deer and the occasional clutch of zebra. Close in to the settlement no sound rode the gentle morning breeze and to the east the new day glowed with fresh tints of pink and gold, shading slowly to indigo above her head, awaiting only the promised sun to turn it all to deepest blue. But for now that star lay well below the sharp division of earth and sky, the very contrast heralding the approach of another perfect day. Except no day could be perfect now. Not the way she was feeling, her heart aching over her harsh dismissal.

  Shivering, Roz drew her robe tighter, ignoring the tantalising fragrance of frangipani blossom spicing the air, all mixed with an indefinable but unmistakeable aroma of wood smoke and native village life. She was still perplexed. “Why, Paul, why are you being like this?” The question formed in her mind and her cheeks flamed suddenly with remembered guilt at the way she had struck back. “Oh, Paul.” Her throat ached as she bit back the tears. She didn’t, couldn’t, believe we were finished. Mere days before, I had clearly been only too happy to stand next to her, hands linked, hearts dancing to the delicious thrill of a shared but undeclared love, while we gazed with rapt attention at the buzzards wheeling and soaring overhead.

  Watching, she had suddenly understood with mysterious and inexplicable intensity, deep in the secret recesses of her soul, that a powerful bond was being forged. As though something or someone was revealing the future, briefly drawing aside a curtain veiling the womb of time. For better or worse, she had apparently felt bound to me from that moment. In her eyes I had become a strangely exciting young man whose presence, unexpectedly, had generated neither fear nor surprise, only elation that rose in smooth, fulfilling waves to anchor her heart in a certainty she could not deny. So intense had been the experience, she had been sure I must have sensed it too. But of course, I’d said nothing and the mystifying encounter with Love (she could only describe the experience with a capital ‘L’) had burned itself indelibly into her mind. Though she had failed to appreciate it at the time, that moment had forged a lifeline into her soul, a certainty to which she would return again and again in the dark days ahead.

  * * *

  Her father’s voice calling from the veranda cut through her musing.

  “Roz, it’s the phone; Paul’s Mum for you.” She could tell by the puzzlement in his voice he was as perplexed as she was by this early-morning call. What on earth could be so pressing?

  “Roz, it’s me, Lynn Moncton. I’m sorry to bother you, but have you seen Paul? He’s not here and I’m worried about him.” It hardly seemed worth pointing out that it was barely sun-up and, in any case, Roz had caught the suppressed edge of panic in Lynn’s voice.

  “Haven’t seen him since I left you yesterday, Mrs Moncton.”

  “Well, he’s gone and oh, Roz, he’s left a note saying we mustn’t try to look for him.” Lynn couldn’t quite bring herself to spell out the details, but even she realised the rising note in her voice was betraying any hope of keeping a lid on the real truth.

  “Why wouldn’t Paul want you to find him?”

  The question hung in the air and the silence drew out until it was impossible for Lynn to deny her fears. It came out with a rush. “Paul left a note saying he was going to end it all and join Matt and the van’s gone and I – ”. Her voice dropped to a sobbing whisper as Roz stood utterly still, the phone slipping from her suddenly lifeless fingers and her mind screaming dissent. “No! No! No!” – over and over again.

  Ted, curious, had not gone far and, hearing the thud as the phone hit the table, stepped around the door, just in time to see his daughter crumple forwards to the floor, hands clasped on either side of her head, body rocking backwards and forwards on her knees as she retreated into some overwhelming private grief.

  “Roz, what is it? Tell me;” he demanded in alarm. Reaching out quickly, he wrapped his arms around her but let her weep, holding her while the storm of tears slowly abated.

  “Dad,” she eventually whispered. “Dad, Lynn says Paul’s gone, that he left a suicide note and oh, Dad –.” Her voice broke and the tears began to flow as Ted scooped up the phone and held it to his ear.

  “Lynn, are you there? Is this true, is Paul, er, dead?” He listened as Lynn haltingly told him what she knew, before slowly placing the phone back in its cradle. Still holding Roz, his mind racing, Ted brooded over how to get her through the agony tearing at her heart, knowing she had already experienced so much disappointment over the past few months. He knew Roz was a fighter, but this could well be a step too far. He had already guessed something of her true feelings towards Paul. And now this. Carefully, he picked her up, letting her cling to him while he carried her through to the bedroom, where Vera was just beginning to wish she hadn’t woken up.

  Chapter 11

  But I was very much alive, or at least, up to that precise moment I was. Whether that was going to last I wasn’t sure. The world had contracted down to a thudding pain between my eyes, where cold metal dug into the thin flesh of my forehead and a dark, hard face loomed menacingly at the other end of a long arm. A simple question hung in the air, but the quiet, disinterested menace with which it had been asked left me in no doubt the speaker meant what he said. Which, I have to confess, at any other time would have plunged me into total bewilderment but, right now and for some unfathomable reason, failed to make even the slightest impression.

  “Is there any reason I shouldn’t kill you?”

  I remember I really couldn’t think of a suitable answer. The trauma of the last few hours had taxed the very depths of reason and, like all nightmares, the situation seemed almost surreal. All I could do was stare at the pistol and the face, knowing that it wouldn’t take much to tip me over the edge. Which led to a calculating, if nascent resentment beginning to build somewhere deep inside. A capability I never knew I had and one that made me realise, for the first time, not everything might be lost. Recovery was possible. Somehow, I might get past this. I could, after all, hope somehow to repair my bruised and battered self-esteem. At which point, the menace intensified.

  “You’ve got five seconds to convince me, or you’re dead.” “One”. “Two – .” I felt rather than heard the shadowy figure take up the first pressure on the trigger and suddenly I knew it needed only the lightest touch to blow me away. “Three”. “Four.” From somewhere out of sight I heard a faint stirring.

  “Boss. Hold up. I know who this kid is. I saw his picture in the paper. He’s the one who left his friend to die. You remember, the one who got eaten by a lion?” There was a heavy silence. Then the pressure from the silencer eased slightly. I could see the gunman, whoever he was, was interested, despite himself.

  “So. We have ourselves a real, live coward.”

  I watched the gunman’s eyes travel slowly down to my feet and then back up. And by the time they returned to meet my gaze, there was speculation in them. “Now, that might be quite handy. Tie him and gag him while I have a think about it.”

  Rough hands pulled me abruptly to
the side and a knee sent me flat on my face, the tip of a tusk digging painfully into my exposed throat. There was swift efficiency in the hands that bound me and tightly fastened I stayed, with bodge tape slapped carelessly across my mouth to keep me quiet. Then with little regard for the niceties, I was dragged face down across the freight car floor to the far corner. Silence. Uncomfortable to say the least, I remember trying to ease the various aches induced by the restraints whilst, at the same time, straining to listen to the terse whispering passing back and forth between my captors. With a total lack of success. In the dark I couldn’t even work out how many there were. Thoroughly disorientated and with my hands hauled painfully tight behind my back, I was reduced to little more than turning my head and looking towards the wagon’s entrance, where a thin line of light forced its way around the edge of the sliding door and provided the one and only point of reference.

  To be honest, by that juncture the sheer shock of what was happening had once again leached away any genuine willingness to fight back. But lying there, abandoned, anger slowly began to overtake the debilitating sense of futility I’d been living with since the encounter with my father the previous evening. Physically, I was completely helpless and knew it, but hidden within me something akin to resolve finally began to take a certain shape.

  Because my ear was pressed against the floorboards, I was the first to catch the sound of footsteps crunching through the ballast stones scattered alongside the track. A tuneless whistle, magnified by the wooden floor, floated out of the silence. The sound of a man at ease with his world. Around me I sensed more than saw that the poachers, as I thought of them (for want of a better description), had reacted swiftly to the sound. It stopped right outside the cab and now there was some sort of long-distance, shouted exchange going on. Silently, I willed the man to check the flatbed, trying to alert him by the power of thought alone, but even I knew it was a pretty forlorn hope. Until I heard the guard shouting to someone in the language as familiar to me as my own.

  “Haraka, haraka. Watu mpega kifungua.”(1) It only took a few seconds before I heard the sound of running feet and, with a screeching shudder, the door was dragged abruptly open, allowing the early morning light to flood into the crowded wagon.

  Two disembodied faces, each topped off by the traditional and instantly recognisable tasselled red fez, appeared at floor level, the operational ends of their casually shouldered guns sticking uselessly skywards behind them. The look of consternation and surprise at the sight of two large ivory tusks lying across the entrance with several armed men standing behind them would have been comical in any other circumstances, but I already knew there was nothing funny about this lot. Probably the last thing the taller of the two Askaris(2) remembered was the sharp detonation of a rifle being fired straight at him. To his left, the shorter one watched in horror as his companion acquired a third eye in the centre of his forehead before collapsing gracefully backwards like a swimmer pushing gently away from the pool wall. With a startled grunt and acutely aware of the wind generated by the incoming round, the remaining policeman stumbled frantically backwards, snatching wildly at the too tight rifle sling, trying to extricate himself in time to swing the long rifle into action. With one smooth movement, the man I already recognised as the boss stepped forward, crouched and casually sighted along my rifle at the retreating guard. And still hopelessly pinned to the floor, my ears were battered by the pressure of a second shot let loose in the confined area. So I almost, but not quite, missed the final thud of a falling body as it skidded to its end.

  “You, Stephano, Mick, get them in here, quick. See if there’s anyone else around.” Two athletic, tanned young men swung quickly out through the door and disappeared. Seconds later, a body landed on the flatbed with a sodden thump and two others stepped forward from the shadows to drag the dead man by his khaki webbing strap to where I lay forgotten in the melee. The sound of hurried footsteps crunching through the ballast preceded the airborne arrival of a second body and shortly thereafter, I found myself almost buried beneath two heavy, reeking corpses, blood slowly leaking over me and staining the floor beneath us. Within seconds Stephano and Mick had vaulted back over the sill, sliding the door closed behind them with a solid thump. For long moments there was no movement in the cab until the continuing silence assured them all that no one had reacted to the rifle shots.

  Chapter 12

  Unusually, the long freight train pulled out more or less on time and with its gathering momentum, the wagons began to snub and sway to a familiar and oddly soothing pattern. Around me, the men relaxed visibly. There wouldn’t be another halt until the driver needed to take on water – probably at the depot just before the long haul up from the floor of the Rift Valley – a part of the journey that would take us at least six hours. However, with a growing brightness now streaming through the many holes in the wooden walls, I was beginning to see more clearly and what I saw gave little cause for comfort. There were eight of them in all, dressed more or less the same in stained khaki bush shirts and shorts. Several had wide-brimmed leather hats hanging from long, sweat-blackened cords, a style favoured by cattle ranchers the world over. Every one of them sported a deep tan from long periods in the African sun and wind, but their almost mahogany colouring and swarthy skin probably had more to do with their ethnic background. I recall thinking they probably originated from the Mediterranean and occasional lapses into a half-recognisable language convinced me they were Italian.

  Whenever anyone did glance in my direction, it was to regard my half-buried body with complete indifference. And now that the fierce sun was starting to warm the early morning air, all attention seemed to focus on settling into the rough and ready ‘shake-downs’ already rolled out between the surrounding boxes. Only the incessant movement of jaws around the ubiquitous chewing gum betrayed any hint of vigilance as, one by one, they settled down for the duration. The impassive coldness etching the harsh planes of their closed faces left me completely unable to work out the gang’s hierarchy, who was who, or how they would respond to any appeal I might make. Eventually I gave up trying, concentrating instead on struggling, as surreptitiously as possible, to squirm out from under the heavy press of Askari bodies.

  Vaguely, I became aware of an urgent discussion going on in a far corner between the boss and another of the men. Every so often, glances were thrown in my direction and after a while it became obvious that some agreement had been reached. Standing up and stretching himself, the boss picked his way over to me, body swaying easily to the roll of the slow-moving train, before bending to check my bonds. Satisfied, he wiped his fingerprints thoroughly and carefully from my rifle with the edge of the shorter Askari’s dark blue uniform pullover. When it was cleaned to his satisfaction, he cradled the gun carefully in his shirt before pressing it against my bound hands, wrapping them around the butt and right along the barrel, making sure my fingers came in contact with all the working parts. A small, cynical smile playing on his lips, he turned and called two of the men over to him.

  Quickly, they lifted the first of the Askaris, dragged him to the door and pitched him out. The second followed with as little ceremony. Watching carefully, I saw the boss step over to the still open door and drawing back his arm, pitch my precious rifle out, to fall somewhere clear of the track. Once again the doors closed and an edgy calm reasserted itself. I already knew full well I was in deep trouble, but strangely, the pantomime with the rifle gave me some hope, even though I bitterly resented its casual loss. It was hardly rocket science to deduce why the gun had been wiped clean before ensuring my fingerprints were once again all over it. Nevertheless, I preferred to assume – for the time being at least – that there was little point in playing out such a charade if they didn’t intend to hang on to me as some sort of bargaining chip. It was a pretty thin straw, but any straw was welcome. Being used as a scapegoat cum insurance seemed feasible and it was just as well I still had no inkling of the real purpose behind their actions.


  So, for the first time in a traumatic twenty-four hours, I began to think in terms somewhat longer than my immediate future, or lack of it. Somewhere between my introduction to the wrong end of a short-barrelled, silenced weapon and being part buried under two log-heavy bodies, I had managed to get a grip on my natural nausea and, though I didn’t know it, had begun to mature. Not much, but enough for the time being. Life had suddenly become worth living again and with that realisation had come hope. And with hope came determination that this time I was not going to disgrace myself, whatever the cost. Thus for many hours I lay on the swaying, shuddering floor, with sweat occasionally dripping onto the stain-darkened planks only to dilute the thick, rapidly congealing pool of blood beneath me, as it turned from vibrant red to ugly black. I will never forget the cloying smell of that blood penetrating my protesting nostrils, or the malignant buzz of the ubiquitous bush flies, which not only offended my ears but made my skin crawl as I watched them bloating themselves on the unexpected feast. The scene haunts me to this day.