by Tony Park
Mia slowed and turned right, leaving the Lion Plains concession and joining one of the main roads through the reserve that, eventually, led to the adjoining Kruger National Park. Guests arriving at Lion Plains, like several other lodges in the south of the Sabi Sand reserve, often flew into Skukuza Airport, inside the national park.
‘It’s possible.’ The thought had crossed her mind. ‘Maybe he hid somewhere from us, waited for the rain to stop, and then set off. But which way did he go?’
Bongani glanced back at her. ‘I’m thinking that this guy might be Mozambican and that maybe he’s travelling east, back to the border of where he came from.’
Mia nodded to herself. That could also be correct. The Shangaan people had historically straddled both modern-day South Africa and Mozambique, and Mia knew it was not unusual for people in one country to have family in the other. There was a good deal of cross-border movement, legal and illegal, between members of the local community.
‘The quickest and easiest thing for him to do would have been to make for the western perimeter,’ Mia called over the engine noise. It was turning into a pleasant afternoon, the clouds having cleared, and the rain had left the air fresh and clean.
‘I think this is a man who does not do the quick or the easy thing,’ Bongani said.
Mia thought about the boy, Sipho. It was possible that if he truly was a decoy, and not just some hapless unarmed lone poacher checking his snares, he could have been working with the older guy and deliberately set off in the opposite direction to the senior man, blazing a clear trail for them to follow.
As if reading her mind, Bongani said, ‘We need to go find that boy and talk to him.’
Mia voiced her agreement, but for now they had work to do. They drove on in silence, each mulling over their own thoughts on the recent events. At the airport there were half a dozen other game-viewing vehicles parked, which meant an encouraging number of lodges had guests to collect. Bongani waved to another tracker he knew well and sauntered over to him and bumped elbows.
Mia left them to chat and headed to the terminal. Skukuza Airport was unlike any other that Mia had been to, although to be fair she had not travelled widely outside of Africa. The airport was small and tasteful, and walking past the life-size statue of a white rhinoceros into the thatch-roofed arrivals and check-in area was more like entering the reception of a well-designed luxury safari lodge than a terminal.
The other rangers and trackers from the Land Cruisers and Land Rovers outside were already there, all waiting with sign boards for the guests to be disgorged from the first South African Airlink flight from Johannesburg in months.
‘I never thought I’d be so excited to see a bunch of tourists.’
Mia turned and saw the speaker was Jake, one of the rangers from a neighbouring game lodge.
‘Howzit, superstar.’
‘Fine,’ she lied, ‘and you?’ Jake was older than her by about fifteen years, but it could have been fifty given the patronising way he treated women. She’d been told by a friend that he had boasted that a woman would never be appointed head guide at any lodge he worked at, if he had anything to do with it.
‘Fine. Hey, I heard on the radio what happened this morning. Sorry,’ Jake said. ‘How’s the blonde?’
‘Sara. She’s in hospital, but Julianne called just now and the word is she’s fine.’
‘What about you? I’m surprised to see you here ready to pick up guests.’
Why, because I’m a woman? ‘I’m fine, like I said.’
‘Ja, but you couldn’t find the poachers, right? I thought maybe you’d still be out there looking for them. Or doing a re-enactment for your internet fans.’ He snorted. ‘You can be a proper influencer now – our very own Kim Kardashian in khaki.’
His barb about not finding the poachers hurt even more than this ridiculous comparison. ‘Sean and his guys will keep up the search.’ Mia busied herself in the folder she had brought from the vehicle, checking the names of the guests she was to collect. The family name was Barker, mother Sue, and a thirteen-year-old daughter, Laura.
‘Well, after losing those poachers you better brush up on your tracking skills before you sit your master tracker’s assessment again, my girl.’ Jake walked off to talk to one of the other male guides, but paused to look back over his shoulder. ‘Let me know if you want a little one-on-one tuition.’
Bongani came into the terminal and walked towards her. Mia tried to ignore the laughter of the other guides Jake had just joined. Seeing her face, Bongani said, ‘Pay no attention to that fool of a “great white male”.’
‘I’m not, or at least I’m trying not to.’ She managed a smile for Bongani, who had just parroted one of her favourite sayings back at her.
Mia heard the whine of a jet engine as the Airlink Embraer touched down. She and the other guides readied themselves, Mia turning her folder inside out so the surname, Barker, was clearly visible.
It wasn’t long before the passengers, almost all dressed in uniform green and khaki designer safari wear, were walking across the tarmac from the small aircraft and into the terminal. A woman with a blonde bob and a girl with long fair hair waved to them. Mia went to them and introduced herself and Bongani.
‘We will go and collect the luggage now,’ Bongani said to the girl, Laura.
‘What does “Bongani” mean?’ Laura asked as they walked.
‘Laura,’ her mother said from behind them, ‘don’t be so forward.’
Bongani smiled. ‘It is no problem. My name means to be grateful, or thankful.’
‘And are you?’ Laura asked. Her mother mouthed ‘sorry’ to Mia.
‘I am.’ Bongani laughed. ‘I live in a beautiful country, I have a wonderful family and I have the best job in the world.’
‘Will we see rhinos?’ Laura asked Bongani as she pointed out their luggage from the collection two porters were bringing out from the terminal onto a small deck for identification.
‘I hope so, and if that is what you would like to see I will make it my business to find one for you.’
‘Find one, how?’
Bongani lifted a second wheelie bag down and Mia walked past him, leading them to the Land Rover.
‘By finding and following its tracks,’ Bongani said. ‘Do you have a phone, Laura?’
‘I do.’
‘Then it is very important, if we do see a rhino and you take its picture, that you do not tag the location with any information that might show where it is, and share it on social media. The poachers are clever and they monitor various Facebook pages where people post their sightings of animals.’
Laura nodded emphatically. ‘Understood.’
Mia helped Bongani load the bags as Sue and Laura climbed up onto the Land Rover and selected the row of seats behind the driver’s position.
‘I don’t want us to be too far from you, Bongani,’ Sue said.
‘In case a lion jumps in the truck?’ Laura said in mock horror.
Mia opened the driver’s side door.
‘Oh, will you be driving us to the lodge?’ Sue asked.
Mia looked back and smiled. ‘I’m your ranger, I’ll be driving you on all your game drives, and taking you for a walk, if you wish.’
‘Sorry,’ Sue said, ‘I thought Bongani . . .’
Having secured the bags in the back, Bongani came around to the front of the vehicle. ‘Mia is a very good guide, Sue,’ Bongani glanced at Mia, ‘for a woman.’
Sue’s cheeks had coloured and it took her a fraction of a second to get the joke, but then she burst out laughing. Mia hoped the mirth and relief were genuine. It wasn’t unusual for her to be mistaken for one of the hospitality staff or lodge management.
Mia climbed aboard and sat on the steering wheel, facing Sue and Laura. ‘It’s just a short drive to the lodge, but we’ll be going through the r
eserve, and we will start seeing animals, so I need to give you a quick briefing. Most importantly, please stay seated while we’re driving, and at sightings.’ Sue and Laura both nodded. Mia gave them a thumbs up and carried on.
‘The animals in the reserve are used to the sight and presence of our vehicles, but, importantly, they’re used to seeing us all sitting down. If one of you stands up when we’re looking, say, at some lions, you’ll break the familiar silhouette of the Land Rover with people sitting on board and the lions will most likely get up and run away.’
When they were ready, Bongani climbed up onto his tracker seat and Mia took her seat and started the engine. They drove off, through the airport security gate that marked the border with the Kruger Park, and into the Sabi Sand Game Reserve.
‘Bongani will watch the road ahead, for tracks,’ Mia explained over the rumble of the Land Rover’s engine, ‘and if we see something he might go and investigate on foot.’
‘With a gun?’ Sue asked.
Mia shook her head. ‘No, he’s so experienced that he doesn’t need one when he’s by himself, especially if he’s not tracking a lion or leopard. We might all go for a walk at some point, and if we do I’ll be carrying a rifle.’
‘That makes me feel slightly more at ease,’ Sue said, ‘ever so slightly.’
Mia smiled to herself. Within a day or so their nerves would be gone and they would be complaining about not getting close enough to lions for better photos.
Bongani held up a hand and Mia slowed to a stop. He flicked his head to his left and Mia saw the giraffe in the distance.
‘What is it?’ Sue asked.
‘Off to the left,’ Mia said.
‘Giraffe!’
‘You’ve got good eyes, Laura,’ Mia said.
‘How on earth did any of you spot that?’ Sue said.
Laura and her mother scrambled for their phone and a camera respectively. Mia took out her binoculars and handed them to Sue. ‘It’s a female.’
‘How can you tell, at this distance?’ Sue asked, working to focus the binoculars.
‘Look at the two horns on her head, which are actually bony protrusions. You can see tufts of black hair at their tops. The females have hair up there, but the male is bald, with the white caps of bone showing.’
‘Amazing.’
‘They’re so beautiful,’ Laura said.
Mia reeled off her standard spiel about giraffes – including the fact that they only have seven vertebrae, the same as a human, and that their young are nearly two metres tall at birth. As if on cue, a baby giraffe emerged from a thicket to nurse from the mother, to the delight of the two guests.
Ordinarily Mia would have relaxed into and enjoyed the sighting, but there was too much on her mind. She felt guilty about Sara being injured and desperately wanted to visit her in hospital. Mia knew full well that she should not have caved in to Sara’s demands to join them in tracking the poacher, even if the Norwegian woman had military experience. Mia was expecting to be disciplined over that lapse in judgement, and as Jake had made painfully but accurately clear, her inability to track the man with the gun had not gone unnoticed either.
Not only that, things had gone badly with Graham when he had visited her. He had probably only wanted to comfort her, and she should have let him, instead of rebuking him. Added to all that, Jeff, the researcher, had unsettled her by forcing her to examine her own beliefs.
She didn’t really believe someone could make themselves vanish by taking umuthi, but the poacher had, for all intents and purposes, clearly done that, somehow.
Mia looked at her guests and was able to judge, by the way they glanced to her and relaxed into their seats, that they were ready to go on. She took the main road through the reserve back to the lodge. Although it was longer, distance-wise, than the short cut they could have taken, Mia could stick to the fifty kilometre per hour speed limit and make just as good time. The shorter route was very bumpy and while the bucking and bouncing of the Land Rover was something she and Bongani were accustomed to, she didn’t think this mother and daughter were quite ready for a rocky ride. Besides, they had more chance of encountering interesting game on a slow drive through the bush than on the slightly busier main road and Mia did not want them ticking off the Big Five – lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhino – on their first road transfer. The Barkers would be with her for three days and she wanted to do a slow reveal of Africa’s wildlife, managing their expectations along the way.
A little further on they came to the place where Sara had been shot. It seemed the police, thankfully, had been and gone. There were tyre tracks and footprints everywhere, but neither she nor Bongani drew this to the Barkers’ attention.
A few hundred metres on, however, Bongani raised his hand and Mia stopped.
‘What is it?’ Sue whispered behind her.
‘Wanuna,’ Bongani answered.
‘Rin’we?’
Bongani nodded. He was looking at the tracks of a man.
‘Is it an animal?’ Sue asked.
‘Yes,’ Mia lied, ‘a hyena, he thinks.’
Bongani slid down from his tracker’s seat and bent at the waist, inspecting the tracks.
‘Nkari muni?’ Mia asked.
He rocked his hand from side to side. ‘Tiawara timbhiri.’
Shit, Mia thought. She had asked Bongani how long ago the tracks had been made and he had answered: two hours. ‘Is it him?’ she let slip in English.
Bongani nodded.
Mia felt a mix of dread and excitement. They needed to report this, but she did not want to alarm her guests, or, as she had with Sara, lead them on some wild goose chase after a poacher.
‘I am going to follow him,’ Bongani said, sticking to their shared language.
‘No!’ Mia opened the driver’s side door, got out and joined him.
‘Keep your voice down or you will alarm our guests.’
‘Don’t talk to me like a child, old man.’
‘Call me “old man” and I will treat you like a child, Mia.’
‘Get back in the vehicle.’
He returned to the Land Rover, but instead of getting back on his seat he reached into the front of the vehicle and retrieved one of the two handheld radios they took with them, in case one or both of them left the vehicle tracking an animal or escorting guests on a walk.
‘I’ll radio Sean. He’ll have someone here in twenty minutes,’ Mia said.
Bongani looked at the track again. ‘This poacher is practising counter-tracking, using a branch to sweep behind him, and he missed this one. He will be moving slowly. I’ll stay on his trail until I work out exactly where he is headed and how long since he passed through here.’
‘No,’ she tried again, though with less conviction. Mia glanced back at the guests.
‘What is it?’ Sue called.
‘Just checking some tracks,’ Mia said. She lowered her voice and reverted to Xitsonga. ‘This is crazy – you are crazy.’
‘We lost him, Mia.’
That stung her, but she now realised Bongani had been just as hurt as she had by their inability to do the one thing in the world that both of them prided themselves on most.
She sighed. In Xitsonga she said, ‘I will take the clients to the lodge and come back for you.’
He nodded. ‘Hi ta vonana at Impala Road.’
‘All right.’ Mia got back behind the wheel and started the engine. Bongani was only going to traverse one block of bushland and he would see her at Impala Road, which ran parallel to the route they were following. The network of roads on the reserve, laid out in a grid pattern like city blocks, made the tracking of animals relatively easy. If the spoor of, say, a leopard, was picked up crossing a road, then by driving the roads around the grid square in the direction the cat was headed the ranger and guide could, theoretically, w
ork out if their quarry was still in the block by the presence or otherwise of exit tracks on the roads, where prints were easier to detect. ‘I’ll drive the square as soon as I get back.’
‘What about Bongani?’ Laura asked in alarm as Mia drove off and the tracker disappeared into the bush with a casual wave.
‘He’s just following up on some hyena spoor,’ Mia lied.
‘Oh, OK. He’ll be safe, though, right?’ Sue asked.
‘Bongani’s been walking in the bush alone since he was a little boy,’ Mia reassured her, and was tempted to add and so have I. ‘He’ll be fine.’
The mother and daughter’s interest was soon diverted by a small herd of zebra and Mia stopped to let them quickly take some pictures. Much of the Sabi Sand, and Lion Plains in particular, was covered in thick bush along the banks of the Sabie River, so plains game, such as zebra and wildebeest, were less common than in other, more open, parts of the reserve and the adjoining Kruger Park.
Mia didn’t dally, however, and radioed the lodge to let them know she was two minutes out. ‘Lunch is waiting, I’m afraid,’ she said to Sue and Laura.
As soon as she had handed her guests over to the manager, Alison, Mia got back in the Land Rover and drove as fast as she dared back to the block where she had left Bongani.
She slowed the vehicle as she circled the spot where Bongani had last been seen, and tried him on the radio.
‘Bongani, Bongani, this is Mia,’ she said. After a few seconds, she tried again. There was no reply.
He might, she reasoned, be in a dip crossing a dry creek bed, or he might have turned down the volume on his handheld, if there was dangerous game nearby.