The Devil's Horn

by David L. Robbins

  Neels shut the armory door, then muttered, “Fok.” He flung the steel door open and grabbed a third rifle.

  Steelpoort lay a two-hour drive southeast from Skukuza. The chromium operation there was the closest mine to the Kruger; the roads all wound through the backcountry. Neels had never liked driving into this sparse, denuded landscape outside Pretoria, where much of South Africa’s wealth lay deep below the ground. Mining was hard and honest work, but what it made of the land was a disgrace.

  Karskie talked for the entire drive. He interpreted Neels’s silence for attention, but Neels was quietly heartened by the boy’s vivacity. Karskie filled the dark cabin of the Land Cruiser with stories of his upbringing in the Seychelles; wicked tales of excess in university; his family’s landed wealth, something he had little interest in; his opinions about the corruption in African politics; and poaching trends he’d spotted in the park after just a month of harvesting numbers. He asked Neels questions about himself, seeming to be genuinely interested, and when Neels gave those inquiries short shrift, Karskie filled the gaps with more about himself.

  During a lull, with only ten kilometers left to the Assmang chrome mine in Dwarsrivier, Neels caught the boy staring at him.

  “What?”

  “Thank you, Neels.”

  “For what?”

  “Bringing me along. I can tell you why.”

  “You don’t have to. I got it figured.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You and me are pretty much fokken opposites. You talk, you’re educated and rich, you’re fat.”

  “Am I supposed to say thank you?”

  “But we got things in common. The Kruger, poachers. You might wind up having some good ideas.”

  “I might.”

  “That’s not why you’re here. You’ve got things you want to leave behind. I understand that. You want to be a man. So.”

  Karskie faced the road and hushed. A passing car whitened his face briefly and showed him blinking. Neels looked away to let the boy settle himself.

  In the near distance, the night-lights of the Dwarsrivier mine rose above the bare hills. Neels had called the mine’s engineering office in advance; someone would be waiting for them with the dynamite.

  Dwarsrivier’s chief engineer took a look at their SANParks credentials, then sold them a crate holding twenty sticks. Neels asked if the explosives were fresh; old dynamite was more volatile. The engineer, a chap as old and craggy as Neels, assured them everything was up-and-up, but urged them to be careful anyway. He included a reel of thirty-seconds-per-foot fuse, two rolls of duct tape, and two cigarette lighters. With the tape, Neels secured the thirty-pound wooden box in the rear of the Land Cruiser, alongside the rifles, ammo, food, and water. The old miner didn’t ask questions; he kept his business to himself and let them do the same. By the man’s manner, Neels supposed that he’d been in the wars, too. Without being asked to, Karskie paid for the crate and fuse with a credit card, one thousand rand.

  Headed back into the night, east to the Kruger, Karskie rubbed his hands.

  “My father will be very curious when he gets that bill.”

  Neels asked nothing, not curious about the dynamics of a wealthy family. His own father had been military, fighting Mussolini in the East African Campaign, his mother a soldier’s wife. They wound up on a small farm in Southern Rhodesia. Both died long ago from alcohol, hard work, and the poverty that had chased Neels into the army.

  The dynamite strapped in the back gave the return drive to the Kruger a gravity that the ride out to the mine had lacked. The danger seemed to weigh on Karskie. It underscored that he was on an adventure, with his own rifle, requiring him to be a man like Neels had said. Apparently, a man was quiet; Karskie rode along in relative silence. Neels even tried to get him to talk some, but Karskie gave curt answers and nods, as if Neels had become his model.

  They stopped for a cold six-pack. Neels and the boy each drank two quickly. Karskie tried to ease the mood by turning on the radio, but the tunes were nothing but love songs, and Neels cut them off. Karskie gazed straight ahead at the stars and sparse traffic as they motored out of the mining hills into vast, unlit tracts of farmland. He rubbed his hands. Karskie was trying to gird himself, anxious, like a boy going to war.

  “You want to know the first time I ever saw a rhino?”

  Karskie started, surprised; his thoughts had taken him far away.

  “Sure.”

  “In Rhodesia. I was younger than you. On patrol one morning. I was by myself, a stupid thing but I was still proving myself back then.”

  Karskie smiled, and Neels did not have to say, “Like you are.”

  “The big bastard burst out of the bush, straight at me. He rumbled like a train, I can tell you. I tried to climb a tree, but, fok, the thorns cut me up. So I jumped up on a termite mound. Fell right through the top of the damn thing. Standing in termites up to my chin. The rhino stopped right in front of me, eyeing me. So I couldn’t break out of the termites. Had to stand there itching, getting bit and crawled all over, until the great bastard walked off. I heard him laughing.”

  Karskie laughed, and the dark air in the Land Cruiser lightened.

  “I heard you were Special Forces. That true?”

  “Selous Scouts.”

  The boy must have known some history, for he gawped.

  “You were with the Scouts.”

  During the Rhodesian War, the Selous Scouts became legendary counterinsurgents, bush fighters, and relentless man trackers. Famously harsh training gave the Scouts the ability to operate and live in the worst of the bush. The British touted them as the hardiest of men, the Angolans and Cubans thought they were mad—both were close to the truth.

  Karskie curled fingers at Neels, beckoning a story.

  “Give me the worst.”

  “The worst, eh?”

  Was Karskie looking to hear about killing? No. The rich boy wanted a piece of Neels’s wealth, a story of manhood.

  “I’ll tell you about the baboon.”

  Karskie stopped Neels long enough to open the final two beers. Neels tipped his can toward him, and they tapped rims before swallowing.

  “When I was just a recruit, we were taken out in the bush to a cabin. We had to sleep outside, make our own shelters. They didn’t feed us for three days. A dead baboon had been nailed to a fence with a cigarette in his mouth. The carcass started to rot, and he stank to hell. Finally, a sergeant came out of the cabin to ask if we were hungry. He said, ‘Your dinner’s been hanging on that fence for three days.’ We skinned the bastard, cooked him. I have never eaten anything that tasted so terrible. And I have never since been hungry again.”

  Karskie drained the last of his beer.

  “I couldn’t have done that.”

  “Neither could I until I did.”

  “There’s the lesson, yeah?”

  “Ja.”

  Karskie crushed the beer can and tossed it over his shoulder to the rear of the vehicle, back where the crate of dynamite rode. He cringed as soon as he let the can go, realizing what he’d done. Both had a laugh.

  “I didn’t tell you everything the general said to me.”

  “That’s not good, boy. We’re in this together.”

  “I know. He told me to tell you after we got there. Security, he said.”

  “Like I can’t be trusted.”

  “You drink, Neels.”

  This was fair. Karskie had a right to say that. When Neels nodded and let it pass, they were, indeed, in it together.

  “Go on.”

  Karskie described the situation in Shingwedzi. A South African drone had crashed with a live American missile attached.

  “How the hell did a Yank missile get on one of our drones?”

  Karskie tapped the air with one finger, as if dinging a bell.

  “Exactly.”

  Hours ago, the United States had dropped a two-man Spec Ops team into the bush to eliminate the evidence. Obviously, something nefarious
and highly secret was going on, and the Americans had been caught red-handed. The South African government was briefed and agreed to cooperate with the United States to avoid an international incident, despite the fact that this was a major violation of security, sovereignty, and trust between nations trying to find a way to be allies again.

  Karskie snickered.

  “In other words, the Americans wrote a big check.”

  Yet for some reason, the team they’d dropped into the Kruger lacked the supplies to blow the drone. So the general got a call. Then Karskie.

  Neels raised a middle finger.

  “A Spec Ops team without guns, supplies, or explosives. Great. Who are these clumsy bastards?”

  Karskie grew more breathless as the story unfolded. The general had offered no explanations about why a South African drone had been armed with a US missile, where the drone had been, or what it had done. He’d left Karskie to speculate on his own. De Haven had said only that this was deeply classified. Then he’d asked who was the best tracker in the rangers.

  “Why does he need a tracker?”

  “Before the Yanks got there, the drone was found by poachers. Neels, they stole the fucking missile.”

  Neels could do little but shake his head at the plans of big shots.

  “You told the general I was the tracker he wanted.”

  “Of course. Listen, this is big. Americans parachuting in. The general on the phone. Dynamite, poachers, rockets. Secrets, man, everywhere.”

  If Karskie had told Neels all this at the outset, he wouldn’t have let the boy come. This was going to be much more than the adventure Karskie thought he was tagging along on.

  The general had asked for the best tracker in the rangers for one reason.

  They were going after the missile. And the poachers.

  Chapter 17

  Allyn told Juma he would be in Mozambique inside two hours, 250 miles from Pretoria. When he heard this, Juma laughed. He recalled something Allyn had told him long ago, something Eva had said back when they were all young. “You have delusions of grandeur, Allyn. The difference between you and others is you go out and do them.” She had not meant it as a compliment. It was the sort of thing an uppity girl said to a hardscrabble boy.

  “Do not come to me in Macandezulo. Wait at the border directly west of it, inside the park. I’ll come for you.”

  “Alright.”

  “In two hours.” Juma hung up, still chuckling.

  Allyn ran into more expense than trouble chartering a helicopter pilot to take him into the park at night. An honest man could always be bought, he simply had a higher price than a thief. Allyn asked what the fine would be for getting caught flying illicitly into the Kruger. The pilot guessed five thousand rand, roughly five hundred US dollars. Allyn tripled it on top of the exorbitant cost of the flight, another twenty thousand rand, paid in cash. The pilot asked no more questions. Allyn arranged to meet him in twenty minutes at Waterkloof Heliport five miles away.

  The flight northeast from Pretoria crossed over twinkling villages of golden light and white headlamps on the few roads, all set against broad swaths of darkness. The glows did little but pock the black land, reminders of how small a portion of the country was settled, how enormous the emptiness. The helicopter whisked Allyn above it for a smooth hour, muffled by earphones, unbroken by chat because the pilot had sold Allyn his silence as well as his flying.

  When the beaded lights petered out and the horizon ahead showed nothing but night, the pilot eased the stick forward to shed altitude. He uttered his first words since leaving Waterkloof.

  “The Kruger.”

  They flew into the park fifty meters off the ground, enough to clear the dim treetops. The pilot shut down all his lights, and the chopper brought nothing across the border but Allyn and the sound of beating props. Allyn focused on the veld, hoping to spot something taking flight, some dark, running dot. But the bush gave him nothing special for stealing in like this. The Kruger showed no surprise at his arrival.

  The helicopter zoomed low and fast, chasing its own shadow cast by the westward setting moon. Ahead, silver ripples reflected off a stripe of river. Allyn prepared himself to disembark. He’d brought no bag with spare clothes, no water bottle or even a jacket. He’d thought of none of this before phoning the heliport, then rushing out the door. It struck him freshly that Eva was dead, she’d always packed for his trips. His own lack of preparation annoyed him, felt like a missed chore. An urge to scold Eva arose; when it fell away it left him sad and feeling hapless. Allyn resolved again to get a live-in maid.

  Minutes after passing the river, the chopper leaned back on its cushion of air to slow. The pilot touched down in a clear swath not far from a moonlit mound of boulders. The man reached across himself to shake Allyn’s hand, then opened the door for him. Allyn doffed the big headphones and stepped down.

  The pilot did not hesitate to leave him behind. He whipped up dust, bounding into the air before Allyn was out of range. The copter remained blacked out, the fading thrum of its rotors its only evidence in the night sky.

  Allyn took in his surroundings. He’d expected the Kruger to abound with sound, but it stayed quiet after the chopper was gone. The grinding of insects seemed no different from the bugs around the lake at home. The sky shone brilliantly, far from man’s works. His solitude, without luggage or another soul nearby, tilted his chin to the stars. He waited and adjusted to the dark; in minutes he sensed himself dissolving into it just a little. Allyn couldn’t put his finger on the last time he’d been this isolated. A businessman was rarely by himself, too many people made their money by him. Husband, father, miner, boss, every role in his life had been determined by how others viewed him. Allyn never denied them, never thought to do it, and so over the years had become defined by them. But not here, now, not in the bush like this. Bit by bit, he began to believe he could see farther into this void, hear the silence of the Kruger more sharply, smell the earth and the need for rain. He put his hands to his hips and filled his lungs like a man breathing in sea air.

  When a bakkie rumbled up the dirt road nearby, Allyn felt a little torn from the night. The headlamps bouncing on the rutted track seemed indecent against the perfect distances and black openness of the Kruger. The pickup truck stopped, and for the first time Allyn noticed he’d been standing near a downed fence. He walked over it, careless that he crossed the border illegally.

  Juma waited for him in the road beside the pickup. In the small truck’s bed, a silent black man rode with his spine against the cabin, an automatic rifle across his knees. Juma spread his great arms.

  “Shamwari. Under two hours. You are a man of your word.”

  Allyn accepted a quick embrace. He climbed into the passenger side without speaking to Juma or the figure in the back, a bit sorry that they’d shown up as quickly as they did. The Kruger was about to tell him something, and it had been interrupted. Allyn promised to come back by himself some other time and listen.

  Chapter 18

  Promise would not let the Americans light a fire. The squat one, LB, carped as he did over many things. At the same time, he was compassionate, gentle though in a brick-like way, hardened and protective. She moved them away from Wophule and the drone, closer to the broken hedge, where they sat out of the wind and their smell would not travel so far.

  The moon had almost set; the captain’s watch said the time approached midnight. She was not hungry, nor were they, and they had water in their canteen. Promise and Wophule should have reported back at the Shingwedzi ranger station hours ago. Her phone had buzzed several times in the captain’s pocket.

  She could leave them at any minute. Neither of the Yanks was attentive enough, the pistol was not frightening. She could use the bush against them like before and be gone. Gone where? To more lies. To losing her partner, to leaving Wophule unavenged, because despite her oath and anger, she could not ever kill Good Luck. Promise hugged her knees to her chest and stayed with the Americans bec
ause they’d said someone was coming. They might go after the stolen rocket. If they did that, she would go, too, take them to Juma and have Good Luck killed that way. Maybe Juma, as well, though then the house on the hill for Gogo would have to wait.

  The temperature in the Kruger had fallen. The ground leeched out the last of its warmth from the day. Promise was not dressed for midnight in the park; she wore khaki shorts and her short-sleeved tunic had not dried from being soaked. Both Americans were damp also from their swim away from the bees, but they didn’t appear to mind, and their uniforms were long and thick. LB dug into his pack and pulled out part of a parachute. He draped this around Promise’s shoulders. When LB sat again, he believed this allowed him to ask her questions.

  “Where are you from?”

  Promise considered giving him back the parachute and ending this claim on her. Talking about herself would mean more lies, because so much of the truth could not be said. And what she could say honestly would sound ugly to an American. I am an AIDS orphan from a poor township. I am a woman in a man’s job. I am not valued or trusted. But she was warm and wanted to keep the silk, so she asked him instead.

  “Where are you from?”

  LB looked surprised. He chewed on this tactic, hadn’t expected the switch. He’d been trying to be kind, but Promise read this as the arrogance of a man, thinking a woman needed his kindness.

  “Okay. I’m from Las Vegas.”

  “I know Las Vegas. It’s an Elvis song.”

  “No way. You know Elvis?”

  Promise screwed up her features. These Americans, the first Promise had ever met, seemed unaware of what their country gave the world: missiles, drones, and music.

  “I’m from a township near the park. Now, why are you both here?”

  The captain answered. “Like we said. To get rid of the drone. It’s supposed to be a secret.”

  “How do you feel about your country’s secrets?”