A Rock and a Hard Place

by George Zelt PhD

  The gravel beds of the last fifty-mile stretch were comparatively rich with diamonds picked up and rolled forward by the ever-moving river. At the mouth was an alluvial (relating to unconsolidated sediments) diamond mine. Who would guess diamonds, dropped there by the river, were tucked away among bottom stones and mud?

  Staring at the river, I remembered my boyhood cabin where I sat on the porch, dreaming of rivers because they often formed boundaries. Crossing a boundary meant you were going somewhere.

  “Why is it called the Orange River?” I asked Patrick as we got out at Vioolsdrif, a very small border dorpie (town).

  “Here at Vioolsdrif,” Patrick replied, “the river goes through a narrow valley lined by high walls of rock. Temperatures reach over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The rocks appear orange, brown, and other colors, depending on the sun. But it was named in honor of William of Orange by one of the military people who first passed through this way.”

  “What about Vioolsdrif? That doesn’t sound British.”

  “Someone with the name Viool lived here. He guided travelers through the river at the shallowest places, which, in Afrikaans, are called drifs. Therefore it became Vioolsdrif. Look, there’s the bridge across the river.” He pointed out the window. “It was built maybe twenty years ago. Before that, people swam or rode horses across with Mr. Viool.”

  It seemed a simple place; no statues or squares to mark an occurrence. I said as much to Patrick.

  “Yeah, it’s the ‘bush.’ It has a thousand million years of undisturbed plant and animal growth, which is probably of more value than anything man could leave.”

  We pulled up to the customs office on the South African side and were passed through with minimal concern. On the other side of the bridge was the settlement of Noordoewer, with rows of old green-leafed grapevines.

  I was amazed. “Wine—out here.” The border guards were waiting for us and curious. “We are students, collecting rocks.”

  The guards looked at the inside of our Rover filed with camping gear. “Pull it all out,” they said, looking for weapons. They warned us about going too far north, where the anti-apartheid South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) rebel army was active.

  “It’s not safe,” one of the guards told us. “SWAPO is ruthless.”

  “From time to time they come south on raids,” the other added, “and if you are in their path, you will be killed.”

  “Oh shit, Patrick,” I said quietly as we loaded our gear back in under the guards’ watchful eyes. “I didn’t realize the rebels were raging this far south.”

  “They have no borders. Like disease.”

  Across the Orange River, the Namaqualand I knew became Great Namaqualand, the far western part of the Kalahari Desert. Parallel to the western coast was a seventy- to one-hundred-mile-wide belt called the Namib Desert. It was one of the driest deserts in the world, with red and orange sand dunes approaching one thousand feet in height, among the tallest in the world. That was where we were going.

  Patrick reminded me the Namib is a desert because the Benguela Current, which runs north from Antarctica along the coast, captures and condenses humid air and thereby prevents it from being blown inland. It also carries diamonds discharged from the Orange River at its mouth and deposits them in the forbidding Namib. We hoped to find a few. The desert’s southern border is formed by the north bank of the Orange River. Its huge, windblown sand dunes can’t march across the river, so the sand grains are washed to sea. There is very little vegetation, but when rain does fall, grass seeds that have lain dormant for years briefly come alive.

  We carried on, driving along the poorly defined national highway, named the C13 highway, which led north-northwest parallel to the coastal Namib Desert. It was not well traveled in the 1970s for a number of reasons, including the rebels we were warned of plus migrating sand. Then we reached the spectacular Fish River Canyon, fifteen-hundred feet deep, a rugged wound in sedimentary rocks that twisted like a partially unraveled intestine, cutting across the body of South West Africa.

  With packs on, we climbed down its steep sides a mile or so into radiant red sunsets and the beautiful dappled colors they produced on the calcareous canyon walls. With quiver trees more than three hundred years old and plants that survived years of drought, it seemed prehistoric. We stopped late in the day at the hot sulfur springs of Ai-Ais for a long, wonderful, skin-tingling pool bath, where we gazed up at the looming cathedral-like walls of the canyon. There must be spirits in this world, I thought. There must be a purpose that man was not allowed to know, that he could only wonder about. I don’t think humans can survive without such hope-inducing thoughts. The canyon seemed a forgotten place, a magical place, a place to forget problems. So we stayed.

  A few days later we returned to our Land Rover and continued on over jarring washboard roads. It was a relief to reach Aus and the tarred B4 road that went west into Luderitz. Aus was just a village, a former prisoner-of-war camp for German soldiers after their defeat by the South African forces in 1915. There were rare wild desert-living horses roaming nearby, not indigenous. Some believed they were descendants of German cavalry horses or of horses who had survived a shipwreck. They had knots and scars on their noses and bodies from rubbing them on rocks.

  We drove into Luderitz that evening. The next morning Patrick and I, wearing jeans and T-shirts, drove back toward Aus, watching the desert to our right. We were anxious to enter it, as it was the northern boundary of the Prohibited Area, or Diamond Area 1. If we wanted to find the gemstones that lay hidden under the sand, we would have to trespass in an area patrolled by men and dogs. We knew that trespassers were dealt with roughly.

  “Look for a place we can break away from the road and not leave tracks in the sand walls,” Patrick told me. His right hand rested on essentially featureless maps in between us.

  “You have your compass and a spare?”

  “Sure. You know not many people have explored the Namib Desert,” he added a few miles farther on, where we eased the Land Rover onto a rocky patch next to the road and into the desert. We expected the wind to sweep away what few tracks we left.

  “The Prohibited Area, Patrick,” I said unnecessarily while looking at the empty road behind us.

  It was still morning; the sand was cool and the air spaces hadn’t yet expanded between the grains, increasing the chances of getting stuck. We had reduced the air pressure in our tires for more control.

  We continued to drive south into the Prohibited Area for about fifty miles and then we planned to turn west, relying on our compasses, toward the coast where we would spend a week or so.

  We went slowly, looking for evidence of prospectors or security guards. The Rover reached the top of a gentle sand swell. Below us a small herd of more than a dozen gemsbok grazed fewer than four hundred yards away. Their rare presence and magnificence startled us, just as we, no doubt, startled these creatures of the desert.

  Each horse-size body was a reddish gray, and their head and legs were brilliantly scored in black and white. Most distinctive, even from a distance, were the elegant backward-slanting horns, a yard long, tapering symmetrically from the stout ribbed base to lance-shaped points. If I were to toss a pebble into the air in front of a gemsbok, the animal could deflect it with a single flick of the horns. These beautiful creatures existed in the same torrid environment as the scaly cold-blooded reptiles that basked in the sun and required little to eat and drink.

  Dropping over the sand swell, we picked up speed on the level plain until we were racing across the open desert next to the fleeing herd. The windshield of the Rover was levered open at the bottom; the forward air ducts were extended outward and the side windows slid open. Hot air streamed through the apertures, and our camping equipment bounced on the metal floor. Patrick gripped the wheel firmly and depressed the accelerator while I braced myself against the dashboard as we enjoyed a close-up view of the timeless beauty of the herd’s instinctive flight for survival, panicked bu
t precisely orderly.

  Patrick had observed small herds such as this during the course of his fieldwork and other activities. He kept track of their habits and locations. Any change in a herd’s behavior might indicate the presence of some element alien to desert life—a guerrilla SWAPO band from the north, for example, or a stray lion or leopard, or a patrol of diamond company police. If it got too quiet, if there were too few animals, Patrick would know something unusual was taking place.

  I noticed that one of the females stood out from the rest. She had a small bare patch on her side, as if she had rubbed it on a rock until the fur had worn off, and one of her horns was slightly longer than the other. Her long-legged calf ran gallantly by her side, somehow managing to keep up. But then The Lady, as we called her, began to fall slightly off the pace and lag behind the herd. Her calf also slowed down and seemed confused. Instinct must have told it to stay with its mother but also to survive. Just old enough to run, it could make a distinction if she fell too far behind.

  Not wanting to tire the animals further or deplete their water stores unnecessarily, Patrick veered away, and we headed for a depression where we could drop out of sight.

  “They have a special adaptation in their nose to help them cool the blood that flows to their brain,” Patrick said. “They have adapted to the desert, but even so they will exhaust themselves after such a burst of speed.”

  We stopped the vehicle, got out, and, carrying binoculars, walked to a slightly elevated ridge where we lay on our stomachs and watched the herd. Sweat evaporated instantly in the dry heat, while my pulse rate showed my heart was beating faster as the temperature increased. I could be burning up calories proportionally faster than the gemsbok. There were no fat men living in the desert.

  The air was crystal clear, and from our vantage point we could observe the herd for miles. They soon stopped their run and gathered. We saw one squat in a graceless manner, staking the herd’s territory. It was characteristically depositing its droppings in a single mound that would retain wetness and scent for as long as possible.

  Intrigued, we saw The Lady, on shaky legs, and her calf catch up. She was obviously sick, probably from one of the common parasite or tick infections. Nothing else could have slowed her in the flight, especially with a calf to protect.

  A few days later, our explorations took us to the vicinity of a watering hole about ten miles from where we had seen the gemsbok. It was a pool of muddy water not more than fifteen feet wide; but if the desert had a heart that pumped its lifeblood, this was it. We planned to stop, first to look for tracks, lion or human, and then fill a couple of jerry cans—gasoline cans—with the muddy water for cooling ourselves and washing. Before we approached, we paused to view the hole from a distance with binoculars to see if there was anything or anyone around we didn’t want to encounter. In the daytime it should have been deserted. Animals mostly visited at night. This time we noticed something strange—an animal lying in the mud next to the still water.

  “It looks like a gemsbok,” Patrick said.

  “Is it dead, do you think?”

  “No, it’s weakly trying to stand up.”

  We approached on foot. As soon as the animal sensed our presence it scrambled frantically to get up but couldn’t. Of course, it was The Lady.

  Just as a sick human needs water, so does an animal. She must have been burning with fever. Desperate strength and determination, the kind that come just before the end of life, had brought her to the watering hole. Using that same resolve, she had probably shooed her calf away from her and into the herd, teaching it one final lesson.

  I stayed back a short distance, dropped to one knee, and watched without moving while Patrick got a shovel from the Land Rover. He scooped it full of muddy water and carefully slid it next to her snout. He talked to her gently for a few moments before slowly backing away. He intended it to be her last meal, so to speak, but she wouldn’t drink.

  “Do you want to do it, George, or shall I?” Patrick asked.

  “We’re in your territory.”

  “Damn.”

  He went to the Land Rover again for his geology pick—neither of us ever carried a gun. With several deft movements, he twisted her head and stood on her rapier horns. As sick and weak as she was, a false move and she could have skewered him. Beneath long and curved eyelashes, her huge eyes, glistening with tears, watched him as he placed the blunt end of the pick against her windpipe.

  “I can’t do it,” he said. “Not with her staring at me.”

  That evening we camped about a half mile from the watering hole. The desert can be so black at night that if it weren’t for the stars in the sky, one might think the world had ended. But that evening the stillness was disturbed by a hungry wail. Something was coming. A jackal? How do they always know when another creature is helpless?

  At about midnight, as Patrick and I sat talking in the dark, a high-pitched, hysterical shrieking of mirthless laughter started up, rising and falling, sniveling and howling. It was like the haunting laughter of a lunatic, the hellish chorus sound of the spotted hyena pack. It made me go cold inside. Their calls inspired local people to think of them as knowing and sly, imitating human voices as they did. It meant the jackals weren’t finished yet. The hyena, a coward scavenger, waits and eats what is left, but as it waits, it sulks and shrieks. If all the meat has been eaten, the hyena will crack open the bones with its massive premolars to get the marrow. The creature is designed to eat everything.

  We were silent for a long while before I asked Patrick how he was doing.

  “Okay, I guess. But I should have tried harder.”

  “She went in the ways of the bush,” I said, trying to comfort us both. We had another drink, not enjoying it.

  Finally, we fell into a light doze, hearing the last of the series of grunts and moans before the hyenas went loping away with their odd high shoulders rising and falling. We couldn’t allow ourselves to sleep deeply. The desert was too active that night.

  At first light, circling vultures appeared and disappeared in the sky. This meant the packs had indeed eaten their fill and moved on. The birds would then land like giant black flies and rip at the kill.

  When we went back to the watering hole later that morning, The Lady was less than a carcass. Three-quarters of her had been removed overnight. Her back was broken and bent upward. A few jagged and bitten-off ribs protruded at odd angles.

  The packs normally devour the hindquarters first, the tender parts, and then the rest of the flesh. The birds had taken whatever soft portions were left—the eyes, nose, and entrails. Now the ants were marching in for any remnants. The space around was trampled flat and strewn with bits of bone and flesh and loose vulture feathers. The sun had already sucked up any fluids the beasts and birds had missed. About the only thing left were the horns.

  Patrick and I took them.

  Chapter 12

  Black Wall of Fear

  In Africa incidents manipulate life, if not actually threaten it. They often happen frequently and are of an unusual nature. One hot day Patrick and I faced one.

  We spent another week in the Prohibited Area, turning over sand in our search for prehistoric streambeds containing diamonds. We dug up an old Bushman’s grave, thinking the owner might have collected precious stones and found the remains of several others. We endured a ferocious sandstorm that could have completely obliterated us.

  Late one afternoon the thump-thump sound of a helicopter shattered the desert’s silence. Fortunately, we were parked between massive boulders at the base of a small Proterozoic ridge and were quickly able to cover the Rover with our sand-colored tarp. The blazing sun merged our presence into the rocks as we squatted under the tarp picking through the pieces of glass-like pebbles we’d collected along the way. “Time to go, Patrick?”

  He didn’t answer immediately; he seemed to be calculating. “Yeah,” he said shaking his head. “They might have found our tracks entering the area from the tar road. Bu
t that sandstorm we encountered would have obliterated all others. We can come back another time as long as we keep silent about what we found.”

  Once out of the Prohibited Area and driving toward Luderitz, I thought again about my problem. “I’ll go back to Cape Town and face what will probably be a most uncomfortable showdown with Afrikaner Joost,” I said out loud and more to myself.

  “He’s probably just as concerned about your results,” Patrick answered.

  “Naw, he sees no threat from me. I’m a nothing. The possibility of his being wrong isn’t a consideration for him. He’s shrugging me off.”

  “Maybe he’s gone funny in the head. Since he’s come to the university, he thinks he’s one of the boys.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You know, it’s not as though I’m trying to find the Northwest Passage. I just want to finish my dissertation. My fear is they will stop my funding before I can use the electron microprobe to analyze my mineral assemblages. I suppose selling a few diamonds will help.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anyway,” I said, “I’m playing for time while I’m subsidized by an organization associated with the Afrikaner government. That means I’m on an academic and political tightrope. If I lose my funding, I’ll have to leave.” I glanced at Patrick, thinking how much I would miss our friendship and adventures.

  “Let’s spend some time sightseeing around here, try to clear your mind of all this,” he replied. “Then we can move on to my area. As we discussed in Cape Town, the rocks there strike north-south, as yours do in your coastal area. Maybe they are linked by the same later deformational event?”

  As we pulled into Luderitz and drove around a bit, I saw it had stayed an isolated throwback to the days when Germany colonized South West Africa. Now, in the 1970s, the town remained much as it had always been. Churches, gathering places with German beer, and bakeries offering German pastries lined its tidy streets, and German architecture stood out: a train station, several hotels, and homes. Another oddity was that the official first language of the country is English rather than a local dialect, German, or Afrikaans. It seemed the local native people didn’t have any problem peacefully accepting the influence of their Western past while moving boldly into the future. According to my friends, it was the opposite in Rhodesia and Mozambique.