by Tony Park
Mia gave a polite smile, grateful that Elizabeth had stood her ground. ‘No problem. We’re good for time and we’re waiting for one more.’
Julianne Clyde-Smith walked into the dining room, a green canvas and brown leather satchel bag over one shoulder. ‘I’m just in time, I see. Hi, everyone. Sorry I’m late. Sue, have you met Liz and Sam?’
‘We did, earlier,’ Sue said. ‘Laura and I are all set and ready.’
Mia forewent her glass of water. She knew from past drives with Julianne that the boss lady never drank anything before she went out. Perhaps, Mia thought, she did not want any of the staff to see her doing something as human as sneaking behind a tree to go to the toilet. Elizabeth finished her drink, slowly. Mia liked her style.
Mia and her guests walked out to the portico and the women and Laura sorted out who was sitting where. Mia reflected that she had probably been unfairly harsh on Julianne. The woman did everything for a reason and was a fair employer. The pay at Kaya Nghala was above the industry average – Julianne prided herself on delivering the best service in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, so she wanted to attract experienced workers.
Mia was sure Samantha and Elizabeth, as locals, had been on game drives before, but quickly reminded them all of the basics, especially about not standing up in the vehicle.
‘Understood.’ Sue looked at her watch again.
Mia was finding herself disliking the woman more and more, but Julianne struck up a conversation with Sue as they drove off, so Mia could concentrate on finding some animals for them.
The other two women joined in, telling Sue a little about themselves.
Bongani scanned the road ahead as Mia drove, searching for tracks. She wondered if he was still suffering from the bout of mild food poisoning they had both gone through. She was feeling better now that she was outdoors, with the breeze on her face and the afternoon sun warming her back as she drove through the reserve.
‘Are you in the tourism business as well, Sue?’ Samantha asked.
‘My husband’s an investment banker,’ Sue said.
‘And no talking work on game drives, Sam.’ Julianne laughed, but Mia had the distinct impression that if anyone was going to be discussing business with the banker’s wife it was going to be Julianne. If her employer, the richest woman Mia had ever encountered, was worried about her investments, it was no wonder economies around the world were on their knees.
‘Shame, Mia,’ Elizabeth said, ‘I saw on Facebook you had quite the morning. Are you all right?’
Mia glanced back at the blonde woman. ‘Fine. Yes, it was quite hectic, but thanks for asking.’
‘What happened?’ Sue asked.
Bongani held up a hand and Mia spotted the elephant he was looking at. Mia was grateful she didn’t have to explain to the prickly woman and her daughter about what had gone on that morning. She guessed Julianne was grateful for the distraction as well.
Mia stopped and switched off the engine. All talk behind her ceased. ‘Over there, on the left.’
‘What are we looking at?’ Sue asked.
Mia swivelled in her seat. Laura was also staring at the bush; Julianne was making the most of the last vestige of mobile phone reception before they got too far from the lodge’s booster tower to check her emails or messages.
‘Elephant,’ Mia said.
‘Where? No way.’ Sue sounded incredulous.
‘You need to look through the bush, not at it. The elephant’s grey skin is actually perfect for camouflage and it’s hard to imagine the biggest land mammal in the world can be so hard to spot in –’
‘I see it!’ Laura was jubilant and she scrambled to find her phone.
Elizabeth and Samantha held up their hands to shield their eyes from the afternoon sun and watched the elephant.
‘It’s like the giraffe earlier,’ Sue said, now sounding impressed as she raised her camera and started clicking away. ‘I still don’t know how you do it.’
‘Part of it’s just practice – it’s my job – but there’s more to it, of course,’ Mia said. ‘You’ll find that in a day or two you’ll be seeing more, Sue. When you live in a city, like you do, your horizons are limited, literally. You can’t and don’t need to see past the next block, but here your eyes are taking in a lot more, at greater distances. A few things give away an animal – its size, its shape, its colouring and, especially, movement.’
‘Thank you, Mia, and well spotted, Bongani,’ Julianne said.
‘We all good?’ Mia asked her guests. ‘That’s a lone bull – we’ll probably see more elephants on our drives, and if we come across a breeding herd I’ll get in closer.’
They all nodded and Mia started the engine and drove off. They saw a bachelor herd of impala and Mia reeled off her standard spiel about the pretty but numerous antelopes as she drove slowly past. Bongani studied the road for tracks and, as part of a never-ceasing routine, swivelled his eyes right through left, looking for movement and other signs of game.
Bongani held up a hand and pointed to the road ahead. ‘Yingwe. I famba.’
Mia slowed, inspecting the tracks for herself as she came alongside them.
‘What is it?’ Sue asked.
Julianne no doubt knew that the Xitsonga word for leopard was yingwe – ingwe in Zulu – but she kept quiet, adding to the suspense.
‘We’re just checking something,’ Mia said, letting the excitement build.
The tracks veered off the road into longish grass at the side and for a moment Mia thought that was it, but Bongani had spotted something further ahead. He swept his hand from left to right. Mia looked where he was indicating and saw the drag mark.
‘Fresh,’ she said.
It was not a question, but Bongani nodded his agreement.
Mia put the Land Rover in gear and, engine still running, crept forward. When she reached the scuff marks that crossed the road, she turned off to the right into the grass on the other side. Bongani held up a hand for her to stop again, drew his machete, then slid down to the ground.
‘Where’s he going?’ Laura whispered. ‘Will he be safe?’
‘Bongani knows what he’s doing,’ Mia assured her. Mia leaned out of the vehicle – she had crossed the leopard’s path and now the trail of flattened grass was on her right. She saw the specks of fresh blood.
Mia switched off the engine and Bongani stood a moment, cocking his ear. He sniffed the breeze which, to further help them, was coming towards them. The cat would not catch their scent before they reached it.
‘Are you all right?’ Mia asked Bongani softly.
He nodded. His eyes still looked a little sleepy to her, but she knew that his body, like hers, would now be infused with a shot of adrenaline. The hunt was on.
Bongani moved away from the vehicle into the bush, following the sign of where the leopard had dragged its kill. Mia noticed some tufts of grey hair, which led her to believe the leopard had just killed a common duiker, a small antelope. She looked to her guests.
‘We’ll just sit here quietly for a bit. Bongani’s following up on something.’
Bongani reached into his pocket, took out a pinch of something and put it in his mouth and started chewing.
Mia knew it was a concoction of herbs that his regular sangoma had given him, to protect him from dangerous game and to heighten his senses. He chewed as he walked out of sight and Mia knew that every few metres he would be spitting out a little saliva mixed with the potion, to keep the leopard from attacking him.
In her western-educated mind she knew that what was keeping Bongani safe on foot were his senses of sight, smell and hearing, and even his sense of touch as he no doubt reached out for a stem of grass and judged the time since the leopard passed from the wetness of the duiker’s blood. But in his mind umuthi gave him the extra edge he needed to stay safe and be successful in his quest.
Mia’s great-grandfather had been a South African Air Force Spitfire pilot, flying for the RAF during the Battle of Britain. She remembered him from when she was a little girl, showing her the lion’s tooth he wore around his neck.
‘This kept me safe through the war,’ he had told her. ‘I never flew without it.’
Talismans and superstitions were part of any culture. And who knew, perhaps there was a pinch of something in Bongani’s concoction of roots and leaves that gave him a physical kick of some sort. Mia had met plenty of creative types and office workers who had claimed, before it became unfashionable, that nicotine made the synapses in their brain fire better.
Mia’s radio hissed. She knew that the single click, breaking static, was Bongani signalling to her.
‘Go, Bongani,’ she said softly into her handset. For all she knew he was face to face with a leopard.
‘Come,’ was all he said.
Mia started the engine and drove off-road, into the bush, navigating her way around larger trees and driving over the top of saplings.
‘Isn’t this bad for the environment?’ Sue asked.
‘Good question,’ Mia said as she concentrated on a tight turn and ducked to dodge a low-hanging bough of a buffalo thorn tree. ‘Don’t touch that branch; it’s covered in tiny thorns. We only go off-road in pursuit of important sightings, like the one we’re looking for now, and we do spend a lot of time out of hours on the reserve doing bush regeneration work. You have to remember that during our wet season, which lasts from October through to around March, there is massive regrowth as well.’
‘I hear you,’ Bongani said into his radio. ‘Come left.’
Mia wondered why Bongani had strayed off the trail the leopard had left, which she had been following.
She glimpsed him through the trees and drove up to him. Bongani climbed up onto his seat and smiled broadly at the guests. He used his machete to point in the direction in which Mia had been heading. Softly, he said: ‘The yingwe is in a big tamboti, about a hundred metres further on. He’s feeding and didn’t notice me.’
Mia raised her eyebrows, wondering why he had moved to where he was.
Bongani read her enquiring look. ‘I will tell you soon, when we get a chance,’ he murmured.
They were, Mia thought, almost like an old married couple who could tell what one another was thinking.
Mia navigated back to the leopard’s path and manoeuvred the Land Rover close to the tamboti tree. Samantha was the first, other than Mia and Bongani, to spot the leopard.
‘There, second branch from the bottom,’ she said.
Mia imagined that Samantha had logged plenty of time on game drives. She had good eyes.
‘Where . . . what . . . wow!’ Sue said. ‘That’s incredible.’ The mother and daughter frantically started taking pictures.
Elizabeth gave Samantha a high-five. ‘Well spotted, hey, Sam.’
Before beginning her talk about leopard behaviour to her guests, Mia said to Bongani in Xitsonga, ‘Tell me.’ She glanced back to see if either Samantha or Elizabeth were suddenly paying attention, but they were both gazing at the leopard, with Elizabeth trying to get a picture of her friend with the big cat in the background.
Bongani hooked an arm over the back of his seat as he turned to face her, and replied in the local language. ‘He is close by.’
The poacher? Mia mouthed.
Bongani nodded. ‘I was on his spoor when you found me. I picked it up by accident, as I was tracking the leopard. He crossed the yingwe’s path.’
‘How long ago?’
He shrugged. ‘One hour, no more.’
‘Shit, I have to radio it in. Which way was he heading?’
Bongani pointed northwest.
‘That would take him to the Manzini Spruit, where we lost him last time.’
‘He could be there already. Gone.’
‘Is it just the one man?’ Mia asked as she reached for the handset of her radio.
Bongani nodded.
‘Eagle, this is Mia, over,’ she said, calling Julianne’s anti-poaching unit.
‘Howzit, babe,’ Graham replied a few seconds later.
‘Um, Eagle, I have guests, remember? Over.’
‘Oh. Roger. Go, Mia.’
‘Fetch Oscar, please.’
‘Affirmative,’ Graham said.
Mia glanced around and saw that Julianne was staring at her. Their guests were still alternating between photographing and staring at the leopard, which was still feeding on the carcass of the duiker.
‘Mia, this is Oscar, over.’
Graham only spoke a few phrases of Xitsonga, but with Oscar Mia could switch to her second language and not alarm her passengers. Quickly, she filled Oscar in on the location where Bongani had picked up the poacher’s tracks.
‘Is it the old man, over?’ Oscar asked.
‘We think so, yes,’ she said.
‘Roger, wait.’ Mia checked the leopard – it was still feeding, so it was relaxed. Oscar came back on the air. ‘I’ve told Sean. We’re bringing the canine team now.’
‘Roger. We’ll pull out of the sighting and meet you near here on the road.’
‘What was that all about?’ Julianne whispered from behind her when she’d replaced the radio handset. But before Mia could reply, Sue called to her from the rear of the vehicle.
‘I’ll explain in a bit,’ Mia murmured to Julianne, then she turned to Sue. ‘Yes, Sue?’
‘I’m really sorry, but Laura has just told me she needs to go to the bathroom.’
‘Mum!’ Laura whined. ‘I said it’s not urgent.’
Mia smiled. ‘Not a problem at all.’ Laura’s need gave her the excuse she needed to pull out of the leopard sighting much sooner than she ordinarily would have. She needed to get these guests and her VIP employer out of this area if there was an armed poacher on the loose, and let the anti-poaching rangers do their work.
Mia started the engine and reversed. ‘We can come back to this leopard later, maybe.’
‘I’m sorry to ruin everyone’s fun,’ Laura said.
Samantha leaned over from her seat and patted Laura on the arm. ‘I have to go as well. No harm.’
Mia executed a tight turn and took a shorter, more direct route to the road. Once there she drove in the opposite direction to that indicated by the poacher’s tracks.
Mia pulled over into a cleared, grassy area where she sometimes stopped for sundowners or morning coffee and rusks on game drives. There was a termite mound about two metres high near the edge of the clearing.
Mia turned off the engine, got out and walked over to the big grey mound, around it, and back to the Land Rover. ‘OK, everyone, let’s have a leg stretch.’ She took a small cylindrical green canvas pouch containing toilet paper out of the front of the vehicle and passed it to Laura. ‘You can go over there behind the termite mound.’
‘You’re sure it’s safe?’ Sue asked her.
‘She’ll be fine,’ Mia said. ‘Laura, just sing out if you have a problem.’
‘OK.’ The girl took the pouch and walked off.
‘I’m off to find a tree of my own,’ Samantha said.
‘Not too far, please,’ Mia called to her.
Samantha gave a wave without looking back as she headed in the same general direction as Laura, but on a slight tangent.
‘We might as well have a drink here now we’ve stopped,’ Julianne said to Mia. Sue and Elizabeth got off on the other side of the Land Rover, chatting about the leopard as they climbed down.
Julianne took Mia aside and lowered her voice. ‘Are we actually safe here?’
‘Yes, it’s fine. Graham, Oscar and the dog team will be deploying on the other side of where the leopard was.’
‘All right,’ Julianne said. ‘In that case I’ll h
ave a G and T, but let’s make it a quick drinks stop, then clear out.’
Bongani went to the rear of the truck, opened the tailgate and dragged out a green cooler box which he brought to the nose of the game viewer. Mia lifted up and secured a hinged folding table made of welded steel mesh which formed part of the bumper bar, in front of the radiator. She had another box with snacks, glasses and a starched white linen tablecloth, which she set up on the impromptu bar. Bongani set about fixing their employer her drink.
‘Sue?’ Mia asked.
‘Dry white wine?’
‘Elizabeth?’ Bongani asked.
‘White wine as well, please, and Sam will have the same. With ice, please.’
‘Coming right up.’ Mia fished a bottle from the cold slurry of ice, unscrewed it and poured. She took out a Coke Lite for herself and a can of soda water for Bongani, knowing his preference off by heart.
‘I feel like brandy,’ he said softly to her as he took his drink.
‘Me too.’ For one thing, it might settle her stomach, she thought.
Bongani walked a little way from the rest of them and, out of habit, scanned the road for tracks. Sue and Elizabeth walked over to him and Sue asked Bongani what he was looking at. Julianne seized the opportunity to beckon Mia to walk with her, a little way in the opposite direction.
‘Do you think this poacher has been somewhere on my reserve all day?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mia said. ‘The guys on the Vulture system should have picked him up if he’d left or come back onto the reserve. These old poachers are skilled at living in the bush. He could survive out here for a long time and the Vulture’s technology might not pick him up, especially if all the gadgets are facing the wrong way. Our camera traps and alarms on the fences are all primarily focused on picking up people coming or going. If we’re looking for one man living out here in the bush it’s literally like looking for a needle in a haystack. The dog team will help, though.’
‘Good. I’m sure Sean and his team will pick him up.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Mia said.
‘Bongani thinks he’s found another drag mark,’ Sue called to them. ‘There’s even a blood trail!’