‘What about the stuff from my own property?’ Richard was beginning to worry.
‘A reasonable number of skins are permitted. Endangered species, however, will be confiscated.’
‘They weren’t bloody endangered when I shot them.’ The irony of this statement escaped him.
‘It will depend on how many you possess, sir.’
‘Who makes that decision?’
‘Mr Tshuma, sir.’
‘I see.’ Whichever way you looked at it, it appeared that Joseph Tshuma was calling the shots. The bloody man had probably drawn up a comprehensive list when he stayed at Pentland. ‘Follow me,’ he ordered. Might as well get it over with.
The other locked shed contained nothing but spares for the farm, workbenches and a comprehensive range of tools and the men gave it a cursory inspection before nodding they had finished. The house was examined from top to toe, one of the men even opening the hatches to look in the roof. Cupboards were pawed through, chests unlocked and their contents pulled out, beds moved to see what was under them. The house was in some considerable mess by the time the men had finished. Wellington hovered anxiously, aware his master was in a towering rage and that he should not have yielded to the pressure put on him to hand the keys over.
Steve looked quizzically at what was going on and returned to the study, rattling out her words on the computer. She obligingly moved when the men wanted to inspect the room and returned immediately they finished. She seemed to sense Richard’s mood and asked no questions.
Greg sat outside on the verandah, drinking a beer. Maxwell was making good progress with his other boot so Greg left him to it. One boot wasn’t much good to anyone other than a one-legged man anyway. Steve joined him just as the Game Department men were driving away. Wellington brought her a beer. Richard found the three of them together. He opened his mouth to give Wellington a blast then thought better of it. ‘Excuse me,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll be back in a while.’
Wellington left them to tidy the mess in the house.
‘What was that all about?’ Steve asked Greg, after Richard left.
‘Seems Game Department suspect him of harbouring illegal trophies.’
‘That’s nonsense. Richard wouldn’t do a thing like that.’
‘Of course not,’ Greg agreed, wondering what this girl would think if she knew half as much about Richard as he did. ‘But someone tipped off Game Department and they had to check it out.’
‘Well it’s good to think they’re so concerned. I mean, there is a real problem with poaching in this country isn’t there?’
‘Probably no more than any other African country. Where there’s profit to be made, men will think of a way to make it.’
‘Richard said the same thing.’
‘Well, there you are,’ Greg said comfortingly. ‘Richard is far too sensible to get involved with anything as tacky as poaching.’ Oh, Yeomans, you’ll go to hell for sure.
‘I had an interesting talk with Joseph Tshuma of Game Department yesterday. He’s really on the ball. Do you know him?’
‘Name rings a bell,’ Greg murmured.
‘I believe he’s going out with Richard’s daughter.’
‘Really! How do you know?’
‘He told me.’ She frowned. ‘Richard never mentioned it?’
‘I suppose he forgot.’
Richard was upstairs in his bedroom calling his daughter. He was so cranky when the receptionist told him, ‘Miss Dunn is with a client, sir. Would you like me to give her a message?’ that he said, ‘You can tell Miss Dunn from me that her boyfriend is a pain in the arse,’ which startled the poor girl so much she forgot to ask his name.
He mooched around his bedroom for twenty minutes. He did not want Steve to see him in this mood. When he finally joined her and Greg on the verandah they were laughing over the photograph of the clumsy buffalo. He found it easy to slip into the lighter mood, wondering at this girl’s ability to fill him with such calm and delight.
Greg stayed at Pentland Park another day before departing, saying he had things to do and people to see. They arranged that he would return the day before the hunt started. Richard spent three days convincing Steve to join the hunt, talking to her about the necessity of keeping the animal numbers down for the sake of the animals themselves, as much as for the benefit of people. In the end she agreed to go only if she didn’t have to watch the kill.
Joseph Tshuma telephoned him a week after his men had visited the farm and apologised for the inconvenience of the search. He promised it would not happen again. ‘We have to follow up all information,’ he lied, ‘and we had been informed that you had a store of poached ivory. We wanted to ensure you were not being taken advantage of. We did not for one minute suspect you.’
Tshuma had in fact been bitterly disappointed that nothing had been found. He had paid someone to break into one of the sheds the day before he was due to stay at Pentland. He had not expected to find anything there, he simply intended to rattle his host and had been gratified when it worked. Despite his hatred of Richard Dunn he did not expect him to be stupid enough to store tusks on his place while one of the department’s top men was a house guest. However, after reading between the lines of Janie Roos’s suicide note, he had ordered an official search. The man had gone to great lengths to take the blame for the elephant massacre and Tshuma wondered why. He believed Janie Roos was shielding someone and, in that the note made no mention of anyone else at all, he suspected that person was Richard.
‘Don’t look for tusks,’ he told his men, ‘you won’t find any. Look for other signs. Look at the floor. If ivory has been stored for long enough it leaves a mark. You know what to do.’ He wanted to be a thorn in Richard’s side. However, he still had Penny as ammunition and he had managed to get a grudging invitation to join the hunt. He knew that just by being there with Richard’s daughter would offend the man.
He had toyed briefly with trying to get Penny involved with his cell in Harare but discarded the idea. Penny would baulk at joining the newly formed United Zimbabwe Independence Party. She was, after all, her father’s daughter and white to boot. She would not accept the doctrines laid down by the movement’s leaders, in fact she would be repelled by them since they spelled the end of white life in Zimbabwe forever.
No, Joseph Tshuma had other plans for Richard Dunn’s daughter. In fact, he had already begun working on them and she was proving an apt and willing accomplice. She did not suspect his motives, had no idea she was being used, thinking he felt the same way about her as she did for him. She could not have known that the only reason he kept seeing her was to take revenge on her father. Joseph Tshuma planned to break the arrogant Richard Dunn’s spirit.
In most small communities, black or white, someone shines. Someone stands intellectually, physically and emotionally taller than the others. So it was with Joseph’s brother, Jacob. From an early age, Jacob had been likened to the great Shona chief, Mutota. Powerfully built, beautifully chiselled features, tall and proud, Jacob devoured and retained information, displayed cunning and intelligence in his reasoning and had the ability to annex the loyalty and trust in all who met him.
Joseph might have resented his younger brother but he did not. Instead, he took pleasure in the knowledge that Jacob was destined for great things. The old witchdoctor had predicted it and no-one doubted it. It was written in all the signs and the people of Joseph’s village even took to whispering that, one day, Jacob would rise up and lead the Shona to a stunning victory over their enemies, Matabele and white alike.
For his part, Jacob remained humble. He was an obedient son to his mother and father and he deferred to the wisdom of his older brother, even though his own wisdom was far greater. Often, through clever manipulation, he was able to convince Joseph that it was his, and not Jacob’s logic which had won an argument or swayed a discussion. Joseph liked, then admired then worshipped his younger brother.
When the war was imminent and the men and boys we
re gathering for the fight, it was natural that Joseph would go with them. He was twenty-seven, motivated by his tribal hatred of the Matabele and his natural hatred of white oppression. When Jacob, then aged twenty-four, said he would go with Joseph, no-one doubted that he would return to fulfil his destiny. After all, had not the witchdoctor predicted a great future.
Joseph and Jacob had received a good education and they were natural selections for positions of authority, despite their youth. Joseph, being the elder, had a more senior position to Jacob and this was as it should be, for protocol demanded adherence to a pecking order dictated by age. But he listened to Jacob, used his younger brother’s power of reason and strategy and grew rapidly in stature and reputation, taking Jacob with him. Joseph felt responsible for Jacob’s safety. He believed that his own destiny was to protect his brother, keep him safe for all his people’s sake, for the future greatness of Zimbabwe.
Richard Dunn’s bullet had shattered more than Jacob’s skull. It turned the wise and unchallenged words of the witchdoctor, the most powerful man in the village, into a lie, undermining the undisputed power believed to be bestowed on such a holy man. It shattered the dreams of his entire village who would have enjoyed the respect of the nation for producing such a leader. It broke his mother’s heart and killed his father. It caused Joseph to be despised for failing in his duty. And it elevated Jacob’s memory to that of a god.
After the war, trying to put it behind him, Joseph went to South Africa to further his education. There he met young idealists, full of dreams for that country. Their fervour only depressed him more. Although he received his degree with one of the highest pass marks in the country, he believed himself a failure. He blamed himself for not protecting his brother. The dreams of South Africa’s radicals could have become a reality in Zimbabwe if only he, Joseph, had fulfilled his own destiny and kept Jacob alive.
And as he learned to despise himself, he learned to hate Richard Dunn more and more. He came to be convinced that the only way to redeem himself was to bring down the man who, with a single casual action, had deprived Zimbabwe of the greatest leader since Mzilikazi. And he swore to get revenge.
When he put the receiver down after taking Tshuma’s call, Richard wondered again why the man never mentioned their encounter during the war. In the new Zimbabwe this sort of thing happened all the time. Old enemies meeting each other, trying to come to terms with the resentment which still burned in most of them. Once again, Richard felt Tshuma was playing some kind of game with the Dunn family.
ELEVEN
Normally, the hunting season opened in May but, due to the long drought, Game Department had brought the season forward and shortened it. Richard preferred to hunt during the early winter months but with David’s schooling timetable he had been forced to book early April, a time when heavy rains could still hamper them. In addition, it might be unpleasantly hot and the game could be scattered over a wide area, rather than grouped close to available water. David’s flight was due in at 10.30 on 27 March. His Easter holiday was not a particularly long break—just over three weeks—so Richard booked the safari to start one week after he arrived.
The plan was that everyone would assemble at Pentland Park on 2 April. Richard had been busy, servicing the vehicles for the trip, checking the camping equipment and buying supplies. He loved the pre-hunt arrangements almost as much as hunting itself. Something about the sight of the vehicles packed full of equipment caused him to feel like one of Africa’s early explorers, full of adventure and ready to face whatever was ahead.
Licences were arranged through Joseph Tshuma’s department, although Richard drew the line at dealing directly with the man. He applied for a licence for most things. To his surprise he was granted everything he asked for. Game Department remained carefully impartial over the matter of issuing licences to locals. They gave preference to the safari companies which brought valuable foreign exchange into the country and, thereafter, worked on a first in, first served basis. As soon as they issued their annual quota on any animal, they closed hunting of that particular animal until the following year. It was unusual to get everything one applied for, even though Richard had booked one of the first hunts of the season. He wondered if Joseph Tshuma had anything to do with it.
The hunting block in the Tuli area, a vast parcel of land some 32,000 hectares in size, was noted for the abundance of game it supported. The surrounding country was, to Richard, typically African and ideal for spotting game. Low bushveld dotted with stone kopjies—small hillocks of stones and boulders making convenient landmarks for navigating in an otherwise flat and featureless place. The Shashi and Limpopo rivers met just south of the old fort at Tuli, providing pleasant river banks for setting up camp.
Steve was enthusiastic about the forthcoming safari, although she remained adamant that she did not want to watch Richard shoot anything. She was looking forward to seeing the south of Zimbabwe and had plans of her own for another article. With this he had to be content, although he did nostalgically remember Kathy’s excitement before a hunt which nearly matched his own. Kathy had always understood the bond between the hunter and the hunted. She had known how much her husband loved the animals he stalked and understood that a hunter actually contributed to the preservation of wildlife. But Kathy had been in Africa a long time. Steve was new and full of idealism, and had yet to understand the ecological sense of hunting. She had been indoctrinated by hysterical reports of extinction, tales of cruelty and the developed world’s revulsion for trophies from dead animals. She could not grasp the complete concept: the thrill of stalking an animal capable of killing you; the pleasure of handling fine weapons; the contentment of being at one with nature. Many hunters, Richard included, did not actually mind if they went an entire day without firing a shot. It was enough to be in the animals’ domain.
Richard had once tracked a large solitary bull buffalo for two days. The animal led him through some of the roughest, thickest bush country he had ever seen, always just ahead, never in sight. He finally came upon the animal at dusk on the second day. The buffalo had found water but had not begun to drink. Instead, it was staring in Richard’s direction, nose raised high, questioning the slight breeze. He was a beautiful specimen, standing at least 170 centimetres at the shoulder, with a massive boss which he shook and tossed every few seconds as his excellent sense of smell found something to make him nervous. Richard had frozen where he stood. After a very long two minutes the buffalo lowered his head and began to drink. Very slowly, Richard raised his rifle. He could see the rippling muscles along the animal’s flank and neck. His dark grey body was in its prime, hugely secure from all enemies other than man. Richard had lowered his rifle and backed slowly away. Killing the buffalo, even though he had a licence, was unnecessary. The tracking, the sighting, the smells and sounds of the bush, the presence of danger, this was enough.
Although there were points of comparison between hunting and poaching, Richard never connected them. His poaching had been a means to an end. Hunting was altogether different.
He drove down to Harare the morning David arrived, leaving Steve at Pentland Park. He wanted to tell his son about her before introducing them. He did not expect Penny to be at the airport, as she hadn’t been in contact with him recently. It worried him greatly that her involvement with Tshuma seemed to be taking hold of her. There had been no opportunity for him to get her on her own and try to make her see sense. In any case, Penny would have resented it and been even more determined to carry on seeing the man.
David’s flight was on time for a change and he swung out of Immigration carrying, as usual, hand baggage and nothing else. Pale from the European winter and the long trip, he nonetheless looked very handsome. He had filled out a bit since Christmas and drew admiring looks from several young women. He appeared relaxed and more confident as well.
‘You look well, son.’
‘Thanks, Dad, so do you.’ David clapped his hand on his father’s shoulder in an unusua
l show of affection.
‘Good trip?’ Richard asked, surprised.
‘Not bad.’
‘How’s school?’
‘Okay.’
Well at least his son’s attitude to conversation had not changed. He was as taciturn as ever.
They walked out of the airport building and over to the car. Richard told him about the arrangements for the hunting trip.
‘Do I have to go?’ David asked, as they got into the car.
‘Of course you have to go,’ Richard said, instantly irritated. ‘I arranged the whole thing around your holiday. Why wouldn’t you want to come? You always loved hunting.’
David shrugged. He had no intention of telling his father he planned to spend his holiday trying to track down a girl called Steve whom he fervently hoped was still in Zimbabwe. Instead he asked, ‘When do we leave?’
‘On the third.’
‘How long is the hunt?’
‘Seven days.’
‘Okay, Dad.’ That gave him a week to try and find her. ‘How’s Maxwell?’ he asked, as Richard wove through the traffic away from the airport. They had to pass through the city to get onto the road to Pentland Park.
‘He’s a bugger. He chews everything in sight.’
‘I’ll bet he’s grown.’
‘You won’t recognise him.’
Once on the road to the farm Richard wrestled with the right words to tell David about Steve. Finally, he blurted out, ‘Son, I’ve met a woman I like.’
‘Oh!’ David sounded surprised.
‘I know how close you and your mother were. I hope you don’t get upset, but this girl is the only one I’ve met since she died that I could get serious about. I’m sure you’ll like her.’
Storms Over Africa Page 17
