Blood Trail

by Tony Park

  And she had killed a man.

  Did that not count for anything? Police, even soldiers these days, received counselling from professionals. Was she just expected to suck it up and head back out into the bush and find their man? Maybe, Mia thought, Captain van Rensburg was right, and that she should ask Julianne to organise some counselling for her.

  Their soul searching was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle. They backtracked to the road to find Sean’s Land Rover parked next to theirs.

  ‘Phew,’ Sean said as they emerged. His eyes were red-rimmed and his chin stubbled. ‘I was wondering where you two had got to.’ Benny barked in the back of the vehicle, excited to see them.

  From the front passenger seat, on the other side of the vehicle, a blonde woman emerged.

  ‘Sara!’ Mia said, surprised.

  Chapter 18

  ‘I’m back.’ Sara grinned and held up a bandaged arm. ‘I made them let me out of hospital last night and stayed with a safari guide I know in Nelspruit. He was taking an early game drive into Kruger so he dropped me at the gate, where Sean spotted me. With the whole coronavirus thing I think the hospital was happy to have the bed back, and I was happy to get out.’

  Sean leaned an arm out of the driver’s side window. ‘So here we are. Sara insisted on being taken to the Vulture system so she could help.’

  ‘You sure you’re OK?’ Mia said.

  Sara waved off her concern, though Mia noticed a small wince. ‘I heard what happened,’ Sara said. ‘What are you guys looking for now? The poacher?’

  ‘No, a lioness,’ Bongani said.

  ‘Serious?’ Sean shook his head. ‘I’ve got work to do. Sara?’

  She looked at her watch. ‘My shift on the Vulture starts in an hour – I called ahead.’ She looked at Mia. ‘Can you guys take me?’

  ‘Sure,’ Mia said. ‘We were heading there, eventually.’

  Sean directed his question to Mia: ‘Is this important, tracking a lion now?’

  She gave a nod. ‘You know, I think it is.’ She needed to recalibrate herself, to find again her hunger for tracking. ‘Call us if you need us sooner, Sean.’

  ‘Roger that; there’s nothing you can do right now anyway.’ Sean started the engine again, to the delight of his dog, and drove off.

  ‘This is so cool,’ Sara said.

  ‘What is?’ Mia asked.

  ‘I’m back in the bush five minutes and I’m off on foot with you guys, the best trackers in the country, looking for a lion.’

  Bongani set off, but not before Mia noticed the smile curling at the sides of his mouth.

  Mia closed her eyes and tilted her head upward. She tried to centre herself, her being. Sara’s enthusiasm was infectious, and she could almost feel it penetrating her veins. All that was stopping her was her own doubt, and the spectre of the man she had killed, who lurked at the corners of her consciousness, quietly mocking her weakness.

  I should have killed you, the dead man whispered to her. I wanted to. I will.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  Mia opened her eyes at the touch of Sara’s hand on her forearm. ‘Yes. No. I mean, I think so. I think I understand now.’

  Sara looked puzzled. ‘What?’

  ‘Something Bongani just said to me, about what I’m lacking.’

  ‘You are not lacking anything,’ Sara said. ‘You are a natural.’

  ‘It’s not skill I’m talking about.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘It’s dedication, devotion, whatever, the fanatical desire to track, to seek, to find.’

  ‘Yes, well, I have enough of that for both of us,’ Sara said.

  Mia gave a little laugh. ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘Then let’s find this lion!’

  They caught up with Bongani and he stopped walking, motioning for Mia to take the lead. ‘Give me the rifle. You track.’

  Mia heard the monkeys calling again and looked up, scanning the trees ahead. The morning sun was burnishing the trunks a lustrous red-gold, the air crisp and clear thanks to the early rains the day before. Mia centred herself. ‘The monkeys can see her.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bongani. ‘And now we must go find her.’

  Mia moved off, scanning the ground, but also listening, for the squeak of tiny cubs calling for their mother. She stopped every now and then to sniff the air for the damp fur smell that might give the lioness away.

  The monkeys chattered away. That was good and bad, Mia told herself. The lioness would know that she had been spotted, so she would not be stalking, but it also told Mia that the cat was close, and every step they took brought them all closer to danger. She felt it again, the flutter in her chest, the tingle jolting down to her fingertips.

  Ahead of her, on a hippo trail they had picked up, was the crisply indented, almost perfect track of the lioness. The pathway was like a mini dual carriageway through the bush, where the hippo’s big four-toed feet had pounded furrows either side of a middle-mannetjie, the hump running down the centre of the trail. The lioness was moving with a long, sleek, energetic stride.

  The vervet monkeys ceased their chattering and Mia also stopped, the others closing up behind her. Bongani waited patiently, saying nothing.

  Mia listened. The silence meant the lioness had gone to ground, or left the monkeys’ line of sight. She thought about where they were. ‘There’s a waterhole ahead, to the left. That’s where she’s going.’

  Bongani’s silence now meant that he either agreed with her, or that he wanted her to learn from her mistake. Mia felt a moment’s hesitation. There were no more tracks visible on the hippo trail and she could not, immediately, pick up the lioness’s spoor. The female might just have meandered off the path and Mia might find another perfect print ten metres further down the trail, or it was possible her instinct, that the cat had gone to drink at the closest water, as she might normally do at this time of day, was correct.

  The lioness either had a belly full of babies, or she had given birth, stashed them somewhere and, most likely, had been out hunting all night to rebuild her strength and help her produce milk. Either way, she needed water, and at this time of the dry winter there were no other alternatives within easy reach.

  Mia left the pathway.

  She could sense Bongani move to the next stage of alert behind her and imagined him gripping the rifle stock just that little bit tighter. They were moving into thicker bush now, their own visibility becoming more limited.

  Mia looked down.

  She felt the tiny, rewarding pulse of adrenaline as she saw something, only a partial print, but without a doubt it was fresh and that of the lioness. She had been right. Mia did not allow herself to breathe easier, because the danger was still there – enhanced if anything – but she felt a sense of calm descend over her. It had been a comfort to her, the security of knowledge and experience, and it had been terrifying how quickly it had left her.

  The world had gone through something similar these past months. All that was ordered, everything that had seemed so natural, so effortless, for so long had been turned on its head. People had lost their jobs, their livelihoods, and their lives to this unseen enemy.

  So it had been for her. It was not even the visible threats – the man who had been shooting at her, the one she had killed – that had shaken her most, but rather the vanishing act of the poacher who seemed to mock the combined years of skills and experience that Bongani and she had amassed.

  Mia knew that there was something she and Bongani were missing, and it was not the correct kind of umuthi or magic. There was a clue, somewhere, a track or other piece of physical evidence, like what she was searching for now on the ground or in the bushes, or it was something they had missed about the poacher’s behaviour. Maybe it was something as simple as a criminal helicopter pilot, as she had suggested. There was something that man had done –
or not done – that would eventually give him away.

  She brought her mind back to the task at hand, doing her best to push the phantom poacher and the dead man out of her consciousness and to focus on the lioness. No, to become the lioness, to get into the animal’s head and use her own knowledge and empathy and experience and devotion to decipher where the big cat was going and what it was doing.

  Drinking.

  Mia raised her nose and caught a faint, slightly rank smell.

  Sara, full of excitement at being back in the bush and unable to contain herself, came up beside her, putting her mouth almost uncomfortably close to Mia’s ear.

  ‘What is it you smell?’

  ‘Water. At this time of year the waterhole is stagnant. I can smell it.’

  ‘OK. But I thought the waterhole was fed by a borehole, with a pump? Doesn’t that keep it fresh?’

  Sara’s curiosity about everything that happened in the reserve was mostly endearing, but sometimes, like now, when there was work to be done, it bordered on annoying. ‘The reserve only pumps when we absolutely have to, like in the drought a couple of years ago.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sara nodded. ‘I read that man-made waterholes are going out of fashion in the Kruger Park and reserves that are environmentally conscious, yes?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Mia said. ‘They attract game, but then it affects the vegetation. Too many animals mean the land around an artificial water point becomes unnaturally overgrazed. It means that during a drought there might be water, but not enough food for the animals. It’s hard to get the balance right. The property next to us has put in a big concrete waterhole and hide, just across the border, and Julianne was furious, not only because it will draw game away from Lion Plains, but because it’s environmentally unsound.’

  Bongani put his finger to his lips and nodded for them to continue walking. They did so, but there was no sign of the lioness.

  Tempted to blame Sara for distracting her, Mia kept her excuses to herself and cast about in a circle, looking for signs. She was beginning to doubt herself again. Panic began to bubble inside her.

  She started when she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked around to see Bongani, that self-satisfied half-smile on his face.

  ‘Breathe,’ he reminded her.

  She closed her eyes and did as he said.

  ‘Do not doubt yourself.’

  Mia nodded and resumed walking in the direction of the waterhole. She still could see no sign of a pug mark – there was too much dry leaf litter about here, and there were no hairs or scat or anything else to guide her. She was relying purely on her experience.

  Mia scanned the ground. There it was: a patch of dirt amid the leaves.

  ‘What is it?’ Sara said, unable to contain herself.

  ‘The lioness has lain down here,’ Mia whispered. A sound above them made her heart leap and she looked up.

  Sara followed her gaze and they both saw a blur of pale grey and a shaking branch. ‘Monkeys. This is where they were watching her, just now.’

  It was now Mia’s turn to shush Sara with a finger to her lips. Sara was right, though, they were only minutes behind their quarry. Her heart beat faster.

  Ahead she heard the boisterous honking of a pair of Egyptian geese. As she knew, the waterhole was now very close. Here and there was a clear print, then the lioness’s tracks veered sharply off to the right.

  Mia felt a faint breeze on her face and knew that they were where they needed to be, downwind of the cat, so she would not smell their approach. If she had moved off and begun doubling around behind them, they would be in trouble. Mia called a halt and they doubled back about fifty metres, to where the lioness had been lying. Now, Mia set off to the right as well, trying to outflank her. She moved with patience. She did not want to bump into the animal she was tracking.

  Mia heard something. She stopped and cocked her head, holding up a hand to make sure the other two stayed silent. She picked it up again: a faint squeak.

  Slowly, Mia turned to lock eyes with Bongani, who was nodding and grinning.

  Mia carried on and as she walked, watching each footfall to make sure she did not snap a dried stick, the noise became louder and clearer.

  Ow. Ow. Ow.

  Mia took them to a large jackalberry tree and they stopped there as she craned around the stout black trunk. There she saw a twitch of movement, the dark tuft on the tip of One-eye’s tail, bobbing above a patch of long, dry, golden grass, the perfect place to hide a litter of cubs.

  Slowly, Mia dropped to one knee and the others imitated her, not daring to make a sound. Mia pointed and Sara stared hard then put her hand over her mouth, just managing to stifle a gasp.

  The lioness emerged into full view and Mia tensed, fearing that at any moment that single golden eye would turn on her, signalling that the animal had heard them. Instead, the big cat walked across their front and in her mouth, held delicately between jaws that could dissect a buffalo carcass, was a tiny cub.

  Other cubs squeaked as their mother took the first from one position of safety to another thicket of undergrowth. The lioness returned and collected two more little bundles, their fur carrying the spots that would disappear as they aged.

  When the lioness returned for a fourth time there was more squeaking, and when the new mother stood up, she winced, and not without reason. This cub was not in her mouth but hanging from one of her teats. The cub suckled as long as it could, swinging from its tortured parent, then dropped into the grass. One-eye circled and picked it up in her mouth, then set off to deposit the little one with its siblings.

  Sara shifted next to Mia and her knee must have pressed down on a dry twig because there was an audible snap.

  Mia froze as the lioness set down the cub, then pivoted to face the noise.

  The three of them held their breath and Bongani, slowly, raised the rifle to his shoulder as the lioness took a few steps towards them.

  The cat raised her big head and sniffed the air. Luckily, they were still downwind, so the lioness could not smell them, but she had heard the noise and was curious, alert.

  Sara grabbed hold of Mia’s shirt and Mia could sense she was about to lever herself up. Mia reached around and held Sara down, on her knee. The lioness must have seen the movement, because she lowered her body into a stalking crouch and started moving towards them again.

  The single golden eye, now visible through a narrowed lid, fixed on Mia. The lioness lowered her ears, tail straight out like a tawny lance about to be launched. Mia could sense that Bongani was taking aim. She reached out a hand, slowly, and pushed the barrel down. Bongani challenged her with angry eyes, but she shook her head.

  Bongani started to raise the rifle again as the lioness continued to close the distance between them.

  Sara gave a tiny whimper, but stayed where she was.

  Mia, like all of them, knew that if one of them got up and ran, he or she would be the first to die.

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t run,’ Mia had drilled into Sara the first time they had been out in the bush together. ‘Though that advice is not going to make any sense to you when you’re staring down a lion.’

  Even Mia felt it now, the primal urge to do the wrong thing, ingrained in humanity’s DNA since prehistoric times. Lions, like house cats, hunted by sight and sound. If Sara got up now she would be like the mouse or lizard being toyed with by a moggy – if the prey lay still, the cat lost interest, but as soon as it moved, it was history. This lioness would be counting on one of them making a run for it and giving her the target she craved.

  She came closer and closer, growing in bulk, the piercing stare of her one good eye becoming more focused with every step. The cat blinked.

  Mia was rock-solid still. The predator paused, sank lower on her haunches and twitched her tail. She was getting ready to pounce.

  Mia took a
deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment to summon what inner strength she had, then slowly stood up.

  She was aware of Bongani exhaling, of Sara clutching her ankle, but other than that every sense was focused on the lioness in front of her.

  The cat seemed unsure what to do next, and that was a worry in itself. Mia knew that all animals had what was known as the ‘flight or fight’ zone. This invisible force field varied from creature to creature and depended on a number of factors but, basically, there was a point at which any animal, humans included, made a decision in their best interests, either to run away, or to stand and fight. To be more precise, this apex predator, ten metres to her front, was deciding whether or not to leap at her.

  The lioness, Mia knew, would go for her head, crushing her skull in its jaws as if her skin and bone were made of papier-mâché.

  One-eye growled.

  Mia held her ground, stood straight, and raised her hands over her head, trying to make herself look bigger. ‘Voetsek!’ she yelled, telling the lion to go away in Afrikaans.

  The lioness wriggled her bottom, and ground back on her haunches a little more, as if preparing to gain the maximum amount of propulsion when she released her muscles and sprang onto Mia. She growled again.

  Mia growled back at her. She could sense Bongani, to one side and just behind her, trying to surreptitiously get the cat in the sights of his rifle, but Mia had deliberately stood to block her partner. He would be cursing her now, and that was too bad, because she saw suddenly that they had been wrong to come after this animal.

  Mia knew in her heart that no matter the merits of what Bongani had been trying to achieve in attempting to re-establish her confidence in her ability to track, they had done the wrong thing by deliberately trying to get close to a mother with newly born cubs.

  The irony, Mia registered briefly, was that she had succeeded, and only Sara’s snapping of the twig had given the game away. That couldn’t be helped.

  At that moment the lioness sprang forward.

  Mia steeled herself. Now every single nerve or brain cell or instinct that had told her not to run was screaming at her body and mind to turn and flee. Instead, she stayed rooted to the soil.