Killed in Kruger

by Denise M. Hartman

“I understand you had a tumble from a car tonight,” the pretty blond nurse said.

  “Will he be okay?” Tabitha had mixed feelings about Vandenblok and a potential recovery. He ought to face justice, but the rhino had administered a harsh punishment too.

  “Oh, dear, is he your friend?” the nurse asked.

  “No.” Tabitha stared at the speckled linoleum squares on the floor. “No. In fact, he scares me. He tried to kill me.”

  Medical personnel worked her over at intervals. Tabitha’s numbness and shivering was due to shock, a white-coated voice explained. Someone scrubbed her shoulder again. It hurt as much the second time and involuntary tears streamed down her cheeks. The pretty nurse brought her a warm blanket. A doctor ordered x-rays. She was wheeled around and found that she had a hairline fracture in her shoulder. A man came and fit her with a sling and a list of instructions. Tabitha nodded but was sure she couldn’t recall what he said.

  Someone gave her a painkiller, and she slept like the dead what remained of that night. No tossing and turning, no dreams. Just blessed unconscious release.

  Chapter 71

  A nurse knocked on the door and cheerfully called out to Tabitha. She brought a breakfast tray to set beside the bed. Tabitha struggled to sit up and shake off the drugs of the night before. She got situated and the nurse placed the food before her. “You eat up now, so you have strength to leave today.” The black African woman threw open the green curtains and left with a light step.

  Tabitha welcomed the vigorousness of the sun and found she was hungry. Before she was done eating, a man in a severe business suit entered and introduced himself as the official from the embassy. Good grief, Tabitha thought.

  She answered questions about this “incident” as succinctly as she could.

  “Since we had a complaint, and then you were hospitalized, we just needed to make sure there was nothing we failed to warn you of.” Tabitha almost laughed. Mr. Suit asked her for a signature on a form. She paused with the pen in her hand. “You’re not going to send any information about this back to my mother, are you?”

  “Your mother?” He looked confused behind his beaky nose.

  “I think she’s the one who called the senator. It’s just that I’m fine and I’m going home in a couple of days, and I don’t want to upset her unnecessarily.”

  “We do have policies to follow. I’ll have to fax this to the senator’s office today.”

  Tabitha sighed. “Of course you do. Fine.” Mr. Suit scooped up the papers and turned to go.

  Rian Minnaar barreled through the door, carrying some flowers.

  “Rian.”

  The embassy man looked at Tabitha and she waved him away. “I’m fine.”

  “I heard you had a tumble last night.” Rian scrutinized her.

  “It was quite a night,” Tabitha agreed. She adjusted her sling and pushed away her food tray with her good right arm.

  “I’ve actually been sent to interview you about what happened. Officially.”

  Tabitha nodded.

  “The flowers are unofficial,” he added, and blushed. His blond hair shone brighter against his reddened skin. He wore his official police department gray uniform.

  “They’re a lovely gesture. Thank you.” Tabitha pointed to her water jug and he poked them down into it. “Let’s do the official part first.”

  He took a seat and got out a pad of paper. “What happened last night?”

  Tabitha smiled. “This is the official line of questioning?”

  He nodded. “It is all so convoluted right now in official channels. No one can truly say what information we are trying to discover.”

  “It actually started yesterday afternoon.” Tabitha told him about wanting to shoot at Lower Sabie dam and deciding to just go by and look at Vandenblok’s camp, and the protesters that made her move to spying from the nearby hill. “I guess I wasn’t as inconspicuous as I thought, because apparently one of Vandenblok’s minions followed me and told him where I was.”

  “So there were two men down in the camp?”

  “Yes. One was Vandenblok for sure. The other I didn’t know. A bulky blond man.” She said she’d tried to call both Rian and Mpande to tell them what she’d seen. “It was possible it was legitimate, I suppose, but after everything I knew it just wasn’t right. It was too secretive.”

  “Did they confront you when you got back to camp?”

  “No. I stopped to shoot pictures on my way.” She shook her head, thinking of Vandenblok’s destruction of her film. “I stopped to make calls to you and Mpande. And I went to eat before I went to my cabin.”

  “How’d they find you, then? You didn’t open the door to them, did you?”

  Tabitha groaned. “It was my own fault. I had no idea they might have followed me. I was so caught up in wanting to talk to you or Mpande that I left a note at the pay phones with my rondavel number and my name, in case you called.” She rubbed her good hand across her forehead. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Until Vandenblok showed up at the door.” She told Rian all the details of the kidnapping. “I think he meant to hold me until he got out of the country, but he’d become so obsessed with getting away, I knew he’d kill me at some point.” Tabitha closed her eyes.

  “Are you all right?”

  Tabitha nodded. She told the rest of the night’s events with her eyes closed. Reliving it in detail. It didn’t seem real with her eyes open, except for the ache in her arm. She finally got to the end of the tale. She opened her eyes and blinked at the bright sunlight pouring into the room. The darkness truly had passed.

  “What about Vandenblok?” she asked.

  “Last I heard, he’s in a coma induced by the physicians.”

  “So he’s survived?”

  “So far. I’m going to go see about checking you out and taking you back to Kruger for your things.”

  Nurses bustled around and found some scrubs for her to put on. The pajama pants and t-shirt from the night before were filthy with dirt and blood. Tabitha didn’t want to see them again.

  Rian got her to the car and the highway, and the residual drugs in her system soon lulled her to sleep.

  The car stopped and she stirred. They were at the Malelane gate back into Kruger.

  She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Rian got back in the car after processing them at the gate shop.

  “I wish I had the camera gear. I could use some more photos. Vandenblok stomped mine to bits in my cabin… yesterday. Wow, was that only yesterday? It feels like forever.”

  They started the four hour drive to Lower Sabie, and saw a family of hyenas with a pup skittering alongside the road. They saw a tiny klipspringer antelope in a rocky ravine, and a bachelor herd of the huge Kudu antelope with their white stripes and curvy horns. Tabitha thought again of the contrasts of Africa.

  Rian dropped her at her rondavel, which seemed to have been left intact for her despite the fact she’d planned to check out today. Rian was in a hurry to go attend to official duties. Tabitha wanted to tag along, but besides not being invited, her body seemed to hurt all over. She decided to get a meat pie at the snack shop and pack before bed. Tomorrow she would leave Kruger.

  Chapter 72

  In the morning, she quickly packed her few remaining things and left for Skukuza as the gates opened at 6:00 six am. Her body felt better and her arm, other than being sore, seemed fine. The sling seemed unnecessary, but she wore it anyway.

  This morning the air was crisp, but warming with the touch of the sun. Her hair was pulled up in a clip off her neck and the fresh air felt good. She let the wind blow in the windows of the bakkie to clear the ghastly visions and thoughts from her mind. She fought the sling to shift the bakkie with her left arm. Sometimes she did feel pain in the shoulder and tried when possible to shift with her right arm, a little tricky in the driver’s seat on the right. She laughed to herself. Look at me, driving a stick shift.

  The kilometers ticked by beneath the tires, asking her the questio
ns in her mind. The golden sunrise was beautiful on the scrubby landscape. She passed a family of giraffe feeding on a tall acacia tree. She paused long enough to shoot a roll, but the ache in her shoulder made holding the camera steady difficult.

  She came around a bend to a beautiful hill of gold beginning to turn green, with lovely morning sun bathing it. Tabitha pulled off the tar road to the grass shoulder. She strummed her fingers for a moment on the wheel, trying to make her mind up. The bush had already shown her its worst. This morning in the glorious beauty she did not feel afraid at all. She stepped from the truck and rummaged in back until she found the urn of Phillip’s ashes.

  Tabitha hiked up the hill, which was steeper than she had first imagined. She huffed and puffed a little and had to be careful to keep her balance, between the sling and the urn. She reached the top and looked down on a valley beginning to fill with spring green grasses. A bird burst from the brush below and shot into the sky above her with a flash of bright aqua and purple plumes. Tabitha smiled. This was a place Phillip would have liked. A moment he would have enjoyed.

  Tabitha bit her lip. She opened the urn and slowly let the ashes fall and blow. The wind carried some along the hill. Phillip had lived well and followed his heart.

  Tabitha knelt and picked some of the bush grasses to put into the urn. Tears slipped from her eyes.

  Chapter 73

  Forty minutes later she found herself outside the deserted offices at Skukuza. She stuck the truck in reverse, rolled around to the snack bar and ran in to purchase a breakfast sandwich. Her hunger surprised her. She held her bacon sandwich in one hand and maneuvered the gearshift and steering wheel with her sore arm. Maybe not the best combo. She headed over to the employee compound. A tall African man with broad shoulders walked down the road wearing a loose-fitting green park shirt, arms held out from his body slightly. Tabitha recognized Daniel and swerved the truck to the side.

  “Oh, oh. Good morning.”

  “Daniel! I hope they have you on light duty still.”

  “Yes, yes. I’m just headed to the offices. To tell the truth, light duty is not interesting.” His deep laugh rolled out, filling the cab as Tabitha gestured him inside.

  “What has happened to your arm?” he asked.

  She told him about the kidnapping and seeing the rhino gore Vandenblok.

  “God be praised you are safe. It is a miracle.”

  Tabitha suddenly remembered Daniel’s mother’s vision of her running in shadows with something pursuing her. It had been real, but she had survived.

  “Your mother’s vision…it was true.”

  “Yes. It was not for me to be the one to keep you from danger. The prayers of the believers protected you.”

  Tabitha nodded. It had been true. It was so foreign to her, but she felt the truth of what she had experienced. She knew she had survived a menace, and not by her own doing. She told Daniel about sprinkling Phillip’s ashes in the bush, but it made her cry.

  Daniel patted her shoulder. “God is the one of all comfort in our losses. He wants us to live heartily and to live for him with a glad heart. Then our days are done. If we have loved him well and other people well, it is good. I can tell your uncle loved you well.”

  They pulled into a parking space in front of the offices. Tabitha dried her eyes on a tissue and tried to understand the stability of Daniel, to absorb his words. She wanted to live well.

  They went and waited in Mpande’s office. It was another half hour before he appeared.

  “Ms. Cranz, there you are. I am so relieved to see it. We have been out to the camping site of Pieter Vandenblok, investigating. Your friend Rian Minnaar was there.” Mpande raised a black eyebrow. “He was very helpful to us, as we were all looking for the smuggled materials. He found a compartment under the transport container for the giraffe.”

  Tabitha nodded. “We had speculated about that, but I went out and got pictures of them loading it. I couldn’t reach you or Rian that night.” She waved a roll of film and set it on his desk.

  “We found rhino horns, panther skins, elephant tusks that had been stolen from our stockpiles. With the loosening of trade on ivory, we are able to sell the park’s stock of ivory from the animals that have died here. Vandenblok had to have the help of someone in high places to assist him in this level of smuggling,” Mpande said.

  “Mhlongo?” Daniel asked.

  “Yes, Mhlongo. I think he probably did the killing of the animals too. He was a very good tracker. I’ve offered Rian Minnaar a job with our security team. I think he may take it.”

  Tabitha smiled. Rian would get a promotion one way or another, and she was glad for him.

  The phone rang on Mpande’s desk and he picked it up. Tabitha looked out the windows along one end of the office. It seemed that they were getting more green every day from the rain. Soon spring would be in full force, but she would not be here. She would be home in the autumn of the northern hemisphere. An earnest longing to return home stirred in her. Mpande’s end of the phone conversation wasn’t revealing much.

  “I see…all right…yes, thank you.” He set the handset down with a grim face.

  “Vandenblok?” Tabitha asked.

  He nodded. “Yes, that was the hospital. He didn’t make it.”

  They were all quiet a moment. Then Tabitha, looking at her hands, said, “He told me that he didn’t kill my uncle—that Mhlongo did.”

  Mpande nodded. “Pieter had been smuggling for years, apparently. He had probably put a few others out to be attacked by the predators. I guess that’s where Mhlongo took his cue and thought he would help.”

  “So they both met an end by wildlife. I suppose that’s appropriate,” Tabitha said.

  Daniel shook his head.

  Mpande shrugged. “The carriage of goods from the camp site will go back into our storage and may eventually be sold for the benefit of South Africa National Parks.”

  They shook hands and exchanged regret over meeting under such negative circumstances, then said farewell.

  Daniel walked with her out to the bakkie.

  “What will you do now?” he asked.

  “I think I’ll spend the night in Pretoria. Then I fly out tomorrow. I’m ready to go.” They were silent for a moment. Tabitha said, “It’s too bad Vandenblok didn’t live to face justice. It feels unfinished.”

  “Ah, but he has met God’s justice. No one gets away from that.”

  Tabitha chuckled. “You’ve got a point. I’ll miss you, Daniel. You’ve been a terrific help.” She scrounged in the truck and came up with an envelope with his name on it. “This is a small tip for all your help, and my address. I hope you’ll let me know how you are from time to time.” She swallowed hard.

  She was rewarded with a Daniel-sized smile. When she drove off, Daniel was waving to her in the rear view mirror, and she thought she’d really miss him. He’d helped her see life from a different perspective. See what was truly important.

  Later, Tabitha found public telephones and called Jeffrey.

  “Hey, love of my life,” she said.

  “Mm, nice greeting for a lonely guy like me.”

  “I’ve got all kinds of things to tell you when I get back, but I wanted you to know I do want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “So does that mean the wedding is on?”

  “Do you want it to be?” Tabitha twisted the cord.

  “I do, but do you? Is it what you really want?”

  “It is. It truly is.” Tabitha wiped away a happy tear.

  The line was silent. Finally Jeffrey said, his voice thick, “I’m glad, Tab, I’m glad.”

  “I’m coming home, Jeffrey.”

  She could feel his smile all the way across the world, and it was good.

 

 

 
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