Safari

by Tony Park

  Shane pictured the poachers now, perhaps hurriedly throwing a tarpaulin over the carcasses in the tray of their pick-up, smiling at their luck. If they had already worked out the spare tyre was also flat, they would have thanked God for the appearance of the lodge’s Land Rover. Shane allowed himself another mental taste of toast and pork breakfast sausage, and of the cool, cleansing rinse of the first cold beer down his throat. Life was looking up.

  Then the gunfire started.

  Michelle took her time driving through the national park, stopping for a light breakfast of cereal and coffee at the Guvalala viewing platform, sharing her morning ritual with a family of giraffe at the waterhole, then taking a long break and a siesta in the shade of the towering marula tree at the Shumba picnic site halfway through her journey.

  She was on her way to see Fletcher, and to spend a couple of days in the north of the park following up a wild dog sighting reported to her by a ranger. She hoped it would be Picasso and the rest of Rembrandt’s old pack. She was grateful for the time the long, slow drive gave her to think about things. Perhaps, she thought as she packed away her hammock and readied for the last leg of the trip through the hot, slanting afternoon sun, she thought about things too much.

  They hadn’t had their coffee in his hotel suite at the Safari Lodge – at least, not until the next morning.

  As a scientist she knew it was a simple biological act, which she understood, brought on by some chemical reactions – ably abetted by a reasonable dose of alcohol – which she didn’t really understand. It was hard to remember which of them had kissed the other first, but it hadn’t been frenetic. There was no tearing of each other’s clothes, hiking of skirt or popping of trouser buttons. One minute she was suggesting coffee or a raid on the mini-bar, the next minute they were sitting on the lounge making out. Their clothes had come off slowly, sensuously, teasingly. Piece by piece. It was orderly, but no less erotic than some of the fumbling nocturnal encounters she’d endured in the past.

  Fletcher was attentive, even precise, as a lover. He knew women and when he found her with the tip of his tongue her first orgasm had taken her by surprise with its speed and ferocity. Too long without, she mused now. She’d been content to lie there, on the deliciously cool, crisp hotel sheets, spread-eagled while he’d explored her and played her. The only break in his choreographed journey from lips to breasts to cleft had been a pause when he’d noticed her tattoo. It was a tiny fairy – Tinker Bell – hovering in the well of her hip, to the left of her pubic mound. He’d looked up at her, but she’d been unable to read the fleeting expression in his eyes. She sensed he disapproved of the permanent marking, though he’d said nothing about it – not then or since. Well, no one was perfect.

  She’d been more curious about the puckered bullet wound in his left thigh, but he didn’t seem inclined to talk about it. She’d licked and kissed it before going down on him.

  Afterwards they had showered together and he had insisted on washing her, from shampooing to feet scrubbing. That was a first for her – a little weird, but lots of fun. Everything with Fletcher seemed meticulously planned and executed, though she couldn’t fault him for that. She’d known men who couldn’t have found a clitoris with a map.

  She was looking forward to seeing him again, if not the company he wanted to introduce her to. She opened her eyes, put the Landcruiser in gear and left the picnic site. Fletcher’s latest crop of Americans would be brimming over with tales of the bush and the animals whose lives they had snuffed out. She had heard all the macho bullshit before, about hunting being part of man’s makeup, a primal rite, blah, blah, blah. Also, Fletcher could keep his argument that controlled hunting was a benefit for animal conservation. She might give ground on organised culling – though she was not a subscriber to the conventional wisdom that it was the only way to manage the elephant population in Hwange – but killing for sport turned her stomach. Still, she was a realist, and Fletcher had said this group were interested in learning about her work and, probably, in contributing to his conservation fund. For his sake she would be polite, listen to their crap and, hopefully, take some of their money.

  And then there would be later – time to talk, hopefully, and maybe make love again. As she drove, she didn’t know if it were the lowering sun, the heat of the big engine coming through the firewall into the cab, or just her, but it was getting hot in her truck this afternoon. Her mind was not made up. Part of her said just enjoy what might be a casual fling with a rich guy who was paying her to stay in Africa. The Canadian prairie farm girl side of her said she wasn’t made that way. Deep down, she wanted a life partner, a soul mate. She had enough nieces and nephews and friends back home with babies not to be overly hung-up on having a kid, but it might be nice one day. With the right man. Was that man Fletcher, a hunter who was close to twenty years older than she was? God, but she overanalysed everything.

  At Robins Camp she found there was no one booked into the satellite lodges at Nantwich, the place where Rembrandt was killed. Despite her still tender memories of that terrible day, she took up the desk ranger’s offer of accommodation there for a night and signed the register. She also intended staying at Fletcher’s luxury lodge for at least two nights. The comfort-factor aside, she wanted to confront him, to get him to state his feelings for her up front. He’d had to leave the Safari Lodge early the next day and there had been little time to talk over breakfast. Despite his physical attractiveness, his charm, his wealth and his position as the only eligible bachelor within a hundred miles, she still had to deal with the fact that he made his living killing animals. So she had decided to spend the first night in the rather more down-market national parks cottage at Nantwich, to buy herself some time. Besides, she wanted to stop somewhere and change and freshen up before arriving at Isilwane Lodge.

  Michelle arrived at Nantwich just after four-thirty. The view, as she crested the hill on which the three cottages were set, made her sigh at the beauty of Africa. The sun was heading for the horizon and the grass out on the vlei surrounding the pan where Rembrandt had died was tinged red-gold. Africa’s tragedy was part of her beauty – the everyday wonder of the struggle of life and death. As simple and as complicated as that. She wasn’t an overly religious person, but the sight of a line of zebra and a small family of kudu queuing patiently for a drink at the trough while a mother elephant used her trunk to lift her tiny baby up out of the waterhole, touched her soul and made her believe there must be a God.

  The attendant, a wiry man in shorts and a khaki uniform shirt faded to near white, greeted her like a long-lost friend. She guessed he was probably just happy to see someone. As the attendant busied himself making a wood fire under the donkey boiler – a two hundred litre drum of water set in a brick fireplace and chimney to heat water for the house – she gazed over a picture-postcard image of the African bush, and there was not a tourist in sight.

  She had been allocated the centre building of the trio, where the tourists had watched Rembrandt’s death from their veranda. She hauled her backpack inside. The building was simple, yet spotlessly clean.

  The sun entered the hazy zone above the treetops on the horizon and mellowed to orange-red through the dust that would hang over Africa until the rains came. She reckoned she had about half an hour. She stripped, wrapped a towel around herself, grabbed her soap and shampoo, an aluminium saucepan, and a cold can of Zambezi Lager from her cool box and slapped outside in her half-fastened rafter sandals.

  Beside the donkey boiler was a chipped enamelled bathtub, fed direct from a cold tap plumbed to a tank resting precariously above her on some timber scaffolding, and a hot tap protruding from the brick fire structure next to the bath. While there was a perfectly useful bathtub inside the cottage, there was nothing like an outdoor bath while watching the sun set over Africa.

  The hot water was already close to boiling, the fire roaring like a distant freight train in the furnace next to her, the bricks giving off a pleasant warmth to counteract the
mildly cooling effect of the breeze as she hooked her towel over some plumbing and lowered herself into the water. A kudu raised its big ears at the pop of her beer can, even though she was a good two hundred metres from the waterhole where it drank. The animal settled back to drinking the muddied water.

  ‘Bliss,’ she said aloud, taking a long swig then sliding down to wet her hair. As she closed her eyes and lathered, her only regret was that there was no one there with her to share this magical experience.

  When Michelle sat up and opened her eyes again she glanced across at the pan and saw the kudu and zebra had vanished and the elephant herd was tramping purposefully through grass so long that it obscured the babies and juveniles. A matriarch let out a long trumpet blast and two lionesses skulked guiltily into view, skirting the approaching herd. Elephant hated lion, and Michelle, naked in an outdoor bathtub, suddenly felt very vulnerable.

  Shane, Charles, Caesar and Wise sat around a Formica-topped dining table in the kitchen of the manager’s house where Shane lived. A bottle of beer was in front of each of them, a bowl of chutney-flavoured chips in the centre. Real food at last, Shane mused.

  Shane wore a Billabong surf T-shirt and a pair of British Army desert camouflage trousers, hemmed to shorts at the knee. He and Wise were sharing from a pack of Zimbabwean Madison cigarettes. Charles wore his off-duty uniform of dark slacks and pressed white shirt, while the two younger men were dressed casually, similar to Shane.

  ‘Right, thanks for coming over, guys. I’ll keep it brief, as I know some of you need to get your heads down for the night. First of all, well done to all of you for today,’ he began.

  He had held off debriefing his team until after the police had left Isilwane. It had taken a long time for the detectives to interview Fletcher and each of the four American hunters about the morning’s action. Shane had given his employer space as he knew he had his hands full, not only with the police, but with his guests, who had literally been whooping with joy when they arrived back at the ranch. Shane had followed Fletcher’s intent to the letter and had kept the team away from the police and the guests. The Africans had gone to their quarters, a long building with five single rooms and a communal kitchen, and, under Shane’s orders, had stayed there all day.

  Shane recapped the mission, starting with their preparation, orders and with the insertion of Caesar and himself into the bush four days earlier. That had all gone like clockwork, with Charles taking out his own vehicle, a beat-up old Nissan Sunny, in the pre-dawn darkness and dropping Shane and Caesar a kilometre from their eventual observation post atop the hill, barely stopping on the side of the road to let them leap out of the still-running car. If there had been poachers in the area, Shane did not want to give away the presence of an anti-poaching patrol by arriving in broad daylight in the back of an Isilwane Land Rover.

  The reconnaissance had been uneventful until the final morning, but Shane summed up the first phase with some well-deserved words of praise. Caesar had proven he had the patience to endure long, boring days in the OP, and Charles and Wise had never missed a radio call, no matter the time of day.

  Wise broke in, ‘But why didn’t Mister Reynolds wait for Charles and me to help him drill those poachers?’

  Ever the loudest of the small band, Wise was running true to form. ‘We’ll get to that soon, Wise,’ Shane said, and went back to his rundown of events from the time he and Caesar had spotted the poachers until they had heard the shots fired. For Caesar’s benefit, Shane recapped what Charles had told him, namely that he and Wise had arrived just after Reynolds, and seen the bodies of two African men lying on the side of the road next to the disabled pick-up. Reynolds had waved them on, telling them to proceed to the pick-up point.

  Shane had spoken to Fletcher late in the afternoon, though not for as long as he would have liked. ‘Mister Reynolds decided that he could handle the poachers on his own. When you look at it from his point of view, he probably made the best decision.’

  Charles looked across the table at Shane, who nodded it was all right for him to comment at this point. ‘Shane, I thought the plan was for Mister Reynolds to keep his clients away from any poachers we found, for their safety.’

  Shane nodded. It was the element that concerned him most. ‘Yes, that was the plan. The information we passed to him was that there were two men, with one rifle, and four dogs. He probably thought he could handle that sort of opposition on his own.’

  Caesar said, ‘It is true, there was only one man with a rifle, and he had it over his shoulder most of the time.’

  Shane was reluctant to add the new piece of information Fletcher had given him to the mix, but that was what the debrief was for – reviewing the events of the day from every perspective and, hopefully, learning from them. ‘The problem,’ he said, looking at each of their faces, ‘was that there was a second weapon.’

  ‘No!’ Caesar said.

  ‘Relax, mate, it’s not a drama,’ Shane said, lapsing into Australian vernacular. Like his accent, his vocabulary was half-Aussie, half-African. ‘Mister Reynolds said the second man pulled an SKS from the back of the bakkie when he showed up.’

  Caesar looked puzzled, so Charles explained. ‘It’s an old Chinese or Russian semi-automatic rifle. They were common amongst the freedom fighters during the bush war. It’s longer than an AK 47, but with a smaller magazine and not able to fire on full auto.’

  Shane did not want the debrief to turn into a witch hunt. ‘I told Mister Reynolds that I, personally, had watched the men all the way from their vehicle to where they were hunting and that definitely,’ he repeated the word again, ‘only one of them was armed. I told him at no time did we see any sign of a second rifle.

  Caesar fidgeted with the label on his beer bottle. Without looking up, he said, ‘I checked the back of the bakkie.’

  ‘I know you did – and for the rest of you, I want to say, on the record, that I neglected to tell Caesar to check the tray of the truck. He did that on his own initiative when he went to flatten the tyres. That was good thinking.’ The others nodded in support.

  Caesar still plainly felt guilty of some mistake. He looked directly at Shane, eyes wide and beseeching. ‘There was a dead leopard in the truck, but no other gun.’

  ‘Perhaps it was under the carcass?’ Wise said. ‘Hey, just a suggestion,’ he added hurriedly when Caesar shot him a malevolent glance.

  ‘Enough,’ Shane said. ‘We’ll never know where the man had his weapon hidden – or why he chose not to take it out on the hunt with him. Rest assured, all of you, that no one – not Caesar, nor myself – has to take any blame for what went on. Mister Reynolds is an ex-soldier. He knows things don’t always go according to plan, and he was pleased with the work of all of you today.’ He went around the table, asking if anyone had any questions. They had none, but Charles, as the second-in-command of the team, echoed Shane’s earlier praise, telling each of the younger men in turn that they had done well.

  ‘One more surprise,’ Shane said, stilling them before they rose from the table. ‘Two days’ extra leave from tomorrow. I’m taking the Land Rover to Victoria Falls and you’re all welcome to come along. Mister Reynolds has donated the first crate of beer and a bonsella for each of you to spend.’ Wise whooped and did a little victory dance in his seat. Charles smiled, but Caesar still looked worried. Shane excused himself, saying he had to dress for dinner with Reynolds and his guests. The men got up to leave.

  Seeing them out, he put a hand on Caesar’s shoulder. ‘It’s nothing. Don’t dwell on it. It was my patrol and I made the report. Everything worked out well in the end.’ Except for the dead poachers, of course.

  Shane battled through another rugged cigarette as he changed into trousers and hiking boots and a long-sleeved cotton shirt. It was the closest he could get to smart casual. In truth, he felt bad about the day – much worse than Caesar, who had youthful inexperience to fall back on. He hated to think of the consequences of Reynolds and his hunters facing a man
armed and ready with a semi-automatic rifle.

  Reynolds had been magnanimous about the mistake, and only gently reproving of Shane and Caesar’s failure to identify the other weapon. ‘They probably had it behind the back of the seat in the cab. Not even a poacher would be silly enough to leave an illegal weapon lying in the back of a bakkie,’ Reynolds had said. But that simple statement had carried an implied accusation – Shane and Caesar had failed to search the interior of the vehicle as well as its open tray.

  Shane didn’t tell his men his view why Fletcher had ignored the plan and gone after the poachers himself. It was, he reckoned, the man’s ego running his mind. The safest, easiest thing would have been to call the cops – or to keep trying them until he made contact, given that his earlier attempt had failed. The second-best course of action, in Shane’s view, would have been for him and Caesar to disable the vehicle – and search the bloody thing properly this time – so that at least the poachers and their dogs would have been hampered. He would have then maintained surveillance on the two criminals until the authorities could arrive. However, Fletcher had wanted to grandstand in front of his rich overseas clients. As a newly sworn-in honorary ranger he had the power to arrest the men. It was a risky action – perhaps foolish – but five armed men against one old Second World War bolt-action rifle could be seen as reasonable odds.

  Lessons had been learned, though, and that was important. After their leave, he would take the men through vehicle search techniques, and show them tricks he had learned in the SAS about rendering enemy weapons inoperable. He recalled that Fletcher had an SKS in the gun collection in his safe, so he would ask Charles to borrow the rifle and show the patrol how to strip and assemble it. It would be good training, and a reminder for them to be always thinking a step ahead of the poachers.