The Last Leopard

by Lauren St. John

  Martine was on the edge of her seat. “Go on,” she encouraged as Sadie stoked the fire with the tip of one of her crutches.

  “Khan was only ever seen in two areas—Black Eagle and the Matobo National Park. Since the wildlife in the national park is protected, Ratcliffe focused his efforts on Black Eagle. He began to threaten me. He did it in ways so subtle that I could never prove he was behind it, but it was obvious. Tour operators started calling me to say they’d heard rats had been found in Black Eagle kitchens. Rumors circulated of thieving staff and dirty rooms. Within weeks, my business had all but dried up at the retreat. To add to our problems, five of our cattle died mysteriously, probably from poisoning, and one of our main water holes was contaminated. Plus the guards on the national park gate gave me trouble when I traveled to and from Bulawayo. I held out for as long as I could, but last month I was forced to lay off most of my staff. Then, of course, I broke my leg slipping on a greasy substance that had been left on my doorstep, and had to call you.”

  “Did you contact the police?” asked Gwyn Thomas.

  “What could I say? There’s absolutely no evidence to connect Ratcliffe or the Lazy J to what’s going on.”

  “What about the phone call?” Ben suggested. “There’ll be phone records. You could tell the police that he’s been threatening you.”

  Sadie gave a dry laugh. “Rex Ratcliffe’s much too smart for that. He uses an unlisted number, which means that no number appears on the telephone bill. And he’s very careful to be polite and not use threats. He always calls a couple of days after something bad has happened, such as the poisoning of the cattle, and offers me more and more money for Khan. He talks to me as if I’m senile and too simple to know what I’m turning down. He says things like, ‘Think about it. It’s not as if Black Eagle’s doing very well these days, is it now, Sadie?’

  “ ‘The Rat,’ as I call him, partly because he bears a remarkable resemblance to a rodent, believes everyone has a price. He doesn’t understand what it is to love a person or animal so much that you would lay down your life for them.”

  She looked around sheepishly. “You don’t think I’m senile as well, do you?”

  “I don’t,” Martine told her. “I can totally understand what it’s like to love an animal so much you’d do anything for them. That’s how I feel about Jemmy, my white giraffe. He’s—”

  “Let’s have no more talk of laying down lives,” interrupted her grandmother. “Let’s talk about solutions. However, I’m upset with you, Sadie, for not telling me this before we came. I’m responsible for Martine and Ben, and it was unfair of you not to inform me about what was going on so that I could use my judgment about whether or not it was safe to bring them.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sadie mumbled. “I know I did the wrong thing. But I was sure that if you knew the truth you wouldn’t come.”

  “Having said that,” Gwyn Thomas went on, “I can appreciate what an ordeal this must have been for you, and since we are here, I think I speak for Martine and Ben when I say that we’ll do everything we can to help you keep Black Eagle Lodge and protect Khan. We just have to figure out how.”

  Martine and Ben voiced their enthusiastic agreement, and Martine was very proud of her grandmother for caring so much about helping her friend and saving the leopard that she was willing to overlook Sadie’s deception. Still, she couldn’t help thinking back to Ngwenya’s words about the treasure seekers’ quest: “Before the treasure can be found, the leopard first has to be dead.”

  That meant they were up against two groups of potential leopard assassins: Ngwenya’s cousin and his gold-digging shamwaris, whom she and Ben had promised Ngwenya they wouldn’t speak about, and Rex Ratcliffe and goodness knows how many hunters from the Lazy J.

  “Thank you all for your kindness,” Sadie said, her eyes shiny in the firelight. “You’ve no idea how much it means to me. But I have to be honest with you. We have a fight on our hands and I want you to be under no illusions about how difficult that fight will be. The Rat and his hunters want the leopard. They want Khan. And they won’t stop until they get him.”

  10

  Martine was being buried alive. Moist, cool earth—earth that smelled of worms and rotting leaves—was filling her mouth and eyes and ears, and as fast as she tried to spit it out or push it away from her, more came in. She tried to scream, but no sound came out of her mouth. She tried to run, but her legs wouldn’t work.

  “Martine. Martine, wake up.”

  Martine sat up in bed, gulping for oxygen, relieved when no sand or worms came with it. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Ben was standing in front of the window, his small, strong frame backlit by a sky of glittering stars. He was fully dressed.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he whispered. “Were you having a nightmare or something? Are you all right?”

  Martine rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What time is it?”

  “It’s a little after four a.m. I know it’s awfully early, but I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about Khan. I feel like we need to find him. How can we protect him when we don’t even know where he is?”

  Instantly Martine was alert. “You’re right. We have to find him so we can figure out a way to save him. But what are we going to tell Sadie and my grandmother? Somehow I don’t think they’ll agree to us going in search of one of the world’s biggest leopards in pitch darkness, even if we are trying to help him.”

  “We’ll leave a note telling them we’ve gone on an early-morning ride,” said Ben. “Which is true. We are going on an early-morning ride. It’s just that it’ll be a few hours earlier than usual, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for a leopard at the same time.”

  Put like that the plan sounded perfectly reasonable, so Martine hopped out of bed and put on her jeans, boots, and a sweatshirt while Ben went to write a note for Sadie and Gwyn Thomas. On the way out of the cottage, they filled their pockets with hard buttermilk cookies, called rusks, the only treat that hadn’t disappeared into Sadie’s locked pantry. As they hadn’t touched their dinner the previous night, they were ravenously hungry.

  The hornbill was the only one to see them go. He followed them to the stables and watched with his head cocked as they saddled the horses by torchlight.

  “Don’t you ever get any sleep, Magnus?” Martine asked the bird, jumping to intercept him as he hopped slyly toward her shimmering pink Maglite on the stable floor. “And I’ve told you before, keep your claws off my stuff.”

  They took the path around Elephant Rock, keeping to the grassy edges so that the horses’ hooves were muffled. “Shhh, Sirocco,” said Martine as the Arab gave a series of loud sneezes and jingled her bit in the process. Ben was riding Cassidy and Martine was leading Jack.

  They were at the gates of Ngwenya’s village in under ten minutes. The silhouettes of the hut roofs looked like pyramids under the night sky. They tied up the horses and entered through the main gate. The smell of sadza—the maize meal porridge that is the staple food of Zimbabweans—hung in the air, mingled with the smoky smell of old fires. A sleeping dog roused itself and gave a few feeble barks, but Ben stroked it and it quieted.

  Ngwenya had pointed out his home when they’d been out riding one day, so they had no trouble locating it. They knocked on his door and he stumbled out blinking.

  “What are you doing here?” he said in alarm. “Do Gogo and Mrs. Thomas know you are here? Is there trouble at the house?”

  Ben assured him that everything was fine and briefly filled him in on the events of the previous afternoon and evening, which he hadn’t heard because he’d been tending to the horses.

  “So you see, we have to find the leopard,” Martine said eagerly. “We can’t protect him if we don’t know where he is. Only we need your help because we wouldn’t even know where to start. Especially in the dark.”

  Ngwenya gave a snort of laughter. “Do you know how difficult it is to find this leopard? I myself have never seen him. There are many, many caves an
d tunnels and hiding places in these hills. It is impossible. Go back to sleep and at breakfast you can speak to Gogo.”

  Martine tried not to let her irritation show. “But you must have some idea where he is,” she persisted. “From time to time people must have mentioned to you that they’ve glimpsed him on this hill or that one. We could start by going to the last place anyone saw him. He might not be there anymore, but maybe Ben could track him to his new den.”

  “Hayikona,” Ngwenya said stubbornly. “No. Gogo and Mrs. Thomas will be too angry with me. First you must speak with them. This is not a cat from your house you are looking for. This is a leopard that can kill you with one paw.”

  “This is also a leopard that the hunters can kill with one bullet if we don’t stop them,” Martine pointed out.

  Ngwenya went back into his hut without another word and slammed the door.

  “We’re wasting our time,” said Ben. “He’s not going to change his mind.”

  Martine put her mouth close to the clay wall of the hut. “What about your cousin?” she said loudly. “I thought it was your clan oath to protect the leopard. Does anyone else in the clan know that your cousin and his friends want the leopard dead so they can get their hands on Lobengula’s treasure?”

  The hut door flew open. “Please,” implored Ngwenya. “You must not speak of these things. There are people in this village who are not of our clan.”

  “Then will you help us?”

  He stared at her in exasperation. “I don’t know where to find him,” he said. “There are only rumors, stories. Nobody knows for sure.”

  Martine’s gaze was unflinching. “You know in your heart where he is.”

  Ngwenya dropped his eyes. It was plain that he was wrestling with his conscience. Finally he came to a decision. “Wait,” he said. “I will get my shoes and my rifle.”

  The sheer rock was rough and warm beneath Martine’s fingertips. Thanks to the long hours spent on horseback, she was much fitter than she had been when she first arrived at Black Eagle. But it was still a stiff climb up a seemingly endless granite mountain.

  At the very top was a cave. Unlike the Memory Room in the Secret Valley, this one was open to the air and formed of a rock so pale it was almost white. In the fading blue of the departing night, it was visible from quite a distance. A pillar-shaped boulder stood like a sentinel at its entrance, which was perfectly round. As they approached, they could see the cave was decorated with vivid Bushmen paintings and that there was a narrow tunnel tucked away in the back.

  “This is the last place that the leopard was seen,” Ngwenya said, gesturing with the rifle he’d brought in case of an emergency. “But it is many weeks since I heard this.”

  “Martine, Ngwenya and I will go down the tunnel to see if we can find any trace of him,” Ben said. “It’s too dangerous for all three of us to go at once. You keep a lookout.”

  “No!” Martine cried in panic. “We can’t be separated. Remember Grace’s warning.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ben said. “We won’t be gone long and we won’t be far away. If you need us, yell and we’ll come running.”

  Ngwenya agreed. “It’s much safer for you here. If the leopard is in his den, we will be exiting as fast as cheetahs. Two will be quicker than three.”

  “And we need someone on guard,” Ben added. “If the leopard is out hunting and comes back when we’re inside the cave, it’ll be a disaster.”

  Martine wasn’t at all happy about being left alone, but she didn’t want them to think she was a coward either. And it was important that someone kept watch.

  After they’d gone, she tried to keep her mind off her fears by being a good security guard and keeping a very close eye on the valley below. In the few minutes since their arrival, a blush of orange had crept above the horizon. Dawn was on its way.

  As the sun rose in a fiery ball, Martine started to feel better and was able to push her nightmare to the back of her mind. She took off her sweatshirt and tossed it onto a nearby rock, and a cool breeze brushed her skin. All around her the hills of the Matopos unfurled in lumpy folds of green and brown. Boulders like domes and spires and beasts and birds perched, reared, or leaned precariously. As far as Martine could tell, the only things moving in the shadowed valley below were the horses tethered at the bottom of the mountain. A lone dassie, a favorite food of leopards, sniffed along the base of the cave until it saw it had company and darted away.

  When it grew lighter, Martine went over to examine the paintings. She never tired of looking at cave pictures, finding them endlessly fascinating, and the sketches here were especially well preserved. Their dusky pink, gray, and ochre colors had survived thousands of years with barely a blemish. There were the usual scenes of hunts, feasts, and ceremonies, but she was surprised to find that there were quite a lot of similarities between these pictures and those in the Memory Room cave at Sawubona, almost as if they were the work of the same artist. She supposed that the painting techniques of the San had been handed down through the generations.

  There was a rustle of leaves and Martine glanced around nervously, suddenly reminded of her duties as lookout. But nothing stirred. She supposed it was the breeze or the little rock rabbit dassie, venturing out for more food. As the sun climbed steadily, Martine began to get impatient. What on earth was taking Ben and Ngwenya so long? She crossed the rock to the round mouth of the cave and peered in.

  It was while she was standing there, with her back to the ancient landscape of the Matopos and any danger that might emerge from it, that she realized what an idiot she’d been. She’d broken the first and most crucial rule of the bush—to always be alert and on guard.

  She smelled him before she saw him. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell—if anything, there was something wonderful about it. It was the scent of a wild, free thing. But it was also the smell of a killer.

  At Sawubona, Martine had rehearsed this moment a hundred times in case she was ever confronted by a predator when out riding Jemmy. But in her imagination she’d always been able to gallop away on the white giraffe. Now she was alone.

  She turned from the cave mouth and dragged her eyes upward. The leopard was on the ledge above her, regal both in stature and in size. His creamy gold coat had the rich sheen of the finest silk, his black spots gleamed, and his yellow eyes blazed like topaz fires. She had always admired leopards in photographs, always yearned to see an adult one in real life. Her glimpse of the rescued leopard cubs at Sawubona had been brief because Tendai had been anxious to return them to their mother. But nothing could have prepared her for the unquenchable spirit of Khan in the flesh. Power and wildness radiated from him.

  With one bound, he smashed her to the earth. His great paws thudded against her chest and his claws pierced her skin. She was winded and in pain. She could feel blood trickling down her armpit.

  Khan stood over her, his huge paws on either side of her body. The look in his eyes was one of undiluted fury and hatred. She knew he’d kill her without a care. He gave a savage snarl and his whiskered lips curled back over pink gums. His teeth were so close to her throat that Martine could feel his hot breath on her face.

  “Yell and we’ll come running,” Ben had promised, but she’d be dead long before he could get to her, and Khan would probably die too, because in spite of his clan oath Ngwenya wouldn’t hesitate to shoot the leopard to try to save her.

  Twice in the past, Martine’s gift had allowed her to halt a deadly attack: once when a rottweiler dog had tried to stop her from rescuing Jemmy, and another time when a great white shark was on the verge of eating an American tourist. But that had required concentration and a supreme effort of will, and now she was so frightened she was incapable of summoning either of those things. She lay on the ground like a blob of jelly. And yet she couldn’t hate the leopard for what he was about to do to her. There were very good reasons for his loathing of humans. She understood that he was afraid himself.

  But there was something else i
n his yellow eyes, something besides hatred and fear. There was a sadness and tiredness that seemed bone-deep, as if he was exhausted by the endless struggle to survive. And it was those things that made Martine realize that, even without knowing him, she cared for him. She felt the same pure love for the leopard she’d felt for Jemmy on the night they’d first met.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” she said to Khan. “All I want to do is help you.”

  The leopard roared. She recognized it as the defiant, rage-filled sound she’d heard on the first night at Black Eagle. At close quarters, it was bloodcurdling.

  There was a drumbeat echo of footsteps as Ben and Ngwenya returned at speed. Martine wasn’t sure which she feared most—that Khan would maul her before they could reach her, or that they’d reach her in time but shoot him to save her. She was about to close her eyes and pray that the end, whether it was the leopard’s or her own, was quick, when some of the wildness seemed to leave Khan. He gave her a last, unfathomable look before melting away into the bush. Martine scrambled to her feet and dusted herself off.

  Ben burst out of the tunnel mouth first. “Martine! Martine! Oh, thank God you’re okay. Did you hear that roar? It nearly frightened the life out of us. We should never have left you. I don’t know what I was thinking. It just seemed the safest thing to do.”

  He suddenly became aware that Martine wasn’t saying anything. Then he noticed the red specks on her T-shirt. “Is that blood?”

  It was on the tip of Martine’s tongue to tell him about Khan, but then Ngwenya came rushing over and wanted them to leave right away in case Khan was still in the vicinity, and Martine realized that there was no way of putting into words what had just taken place.

  How could she say that the leopard that had eluded rangers who’d worked in the Matopos for twenty years had knocked her to the ground and stood over her with the clear intention of killing her, but that something had passed between them—an understanding—and at the last conceivable second he’d changed his mind?