Poacher

by Leon Mare

  Joao was grinning inwardly as he left the tent. This was one time he doubted if the colonel was going to get his share. With some rhino horn, the tusks and his cache of arms, he was seriously considering retirement. A man with enough money could disappear in Maputo and never be bothered by anybody.

  On their way back to camp that morning they had buried the arms safely. Only Rui and himself knew about the haul, so it was as good as money in the bank.

  ‘Come, little brother,’ he said putting his huge arm around Rui’s shoulder. ‘Let’s prepare ourselves to venture forth and collect the balance of our fortune.’

  ‘As long as we don’t collect a bullet up the backside. I still say you are now becoming reckless. Shouldn’t we leave it for a while?’

  ‘And wait for life to pass us by? No way, sonny. We are going in tomorrow just before first light. Tonight we will sleep right next to the fence. Let us pack and go.’

  First light found them well into the Kruger Park, heading towards a low ridge about a kilometre from Sam’s house. Joao strolled along jauntily as if he was taking a walk on his own farm.

  ‘Slow down, Joao,’ Rui cautioned. ‘Even if you are not scared of the rangers you’re forgetting we are in lion country.’

  Joao flashed a grin over his shoulder. ‘Maybe I should have brought along the old mama that does the washing, to help me carry your share.’

  These delusions of always being in control were a common danger all rangers had to guard against constantly. When a man spends the best part of his life in the bush amongst dangerous animals without the occasional close shave, he tends to start underestimating his environment. And Joao hadn’t had one for too long.

  On reaching the ridge they climbed it carefully. Lying flat on the summit, Joao peered over. In the compound there was some smoke from a cooking fire, but in Sam’s yard there was no sign of life.

  Sam’s house, being fairly close to the border, was amply guarded by fences. The outermost fence was a standard three-metre electrified game fence. Inside that was a broad band of the poisonous sisal-like shrub as well as three rolls of blade wire coils. The inner fence was diamond mesh topped with an electrified strand. This could keep out anything except elephant, which Sam kept out himself.

  Scanning the yard with his binoculars Joao was pleased to note the absence of the Toyota. His spirits were lifted further when he noticed three black rangers in the shade in the compound. They had been instructed by Sam not to go out on patrol, in case they scared off the poachers.

  Joao reckoned on the three black rangers out at the moment, which meant about one man per 150 square kilometres. This was going to be easier than he had anticipated. He slid back a couple of yards and got up. ‘Let’s go get us a couple of horns,’ he said and strolled off.

  They gave the house a wide berth, circling west towards the rhino camp. Rui was also feeling a lot more confident in the absence of the Toyota. He patted the fine-toothed hacksaw he was carrying. At least this was going to be a lot quicker than hacking the tusks out of the skull of an elephant.

  They scaled the fence of the quarantine camp and sat down in the shade, checking their AKs. While drinking from their canteens, Joao instructed Rui to set the rifle to semi-automatic. Letting rip at full automatic would give the rangers a much more accurate idea of direction, in the unlikely event of the shooting being heard in the compound. They then proceeded into the camp. It was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.

  They had hardly gone a hundred metres when they came across the rhinos. Carefully judging the direction of the wind, Joao indicated that they should bear left. The rhino having extremely poor eyesight, Joao confidently approached to within twenty yards. The big bull was there, with a horn that made Joao’s eyes water. With him were three cows and two calves. Joao motioned to the cow on the left and indicated that Rui should shoot just after him.

  The big bull went down in a cloud of dust. A moment later Rui’s gun roared while Joao was getting the other big cow in his sights. Their second shots coincided. Rui’s’s cow was also down, but trying to get up. He let her have two more, and she subsided.

  The other cow was running away at a tangent, accompanied by the rest of the family. Joao shot again, and again his luck held. The cow’s hindquarters sagged as her spine was severed. Joao charged in and killed her. For a moment there was absolute silence in the dust as if nature was stunned. Then Joao whooped, and Rui followed suit.

  Within ten minutes the horns were in their knapsacks.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Joao said, sweat beading his forehead.

  ‘Shouldn’t we skip the tusks and get to the wire?’ Rui asked.

  ‘No,’ Joao said and headed north at a trot. ‘This is our last trip, and we are going to make it worthwhile.’

  Rui was more inclined to take their winnings and pack it in. He tried to convince Joao that this would be that safer thing to do. He was still awed by the magnitude of what they had done.

  ‘Stop whining, dammit,’ Joao said, panting with exertion. ‘Keep running. We will have those tusks and be over the fence before nightfall. It will take those dimwits at the compound ages to figure out what’s happened, and they haven’t got their white god with them to tell them what to do. Nothing will be done until tomorrow, and by then we will be long gone.’

  They kept up their pace for another ten minutes and then sat down under a camel thorn for a drink of water, panting heavily and sweating profusely in the heat.

  ‘Man, did you see that?’ Joao panted. ‘Did you see the big man go down, one shot, kapow! In the brain! You didn’t do so badly yourself. Only two shots. And those horns! Brother, we are in the big time. Let’s go. Another three hours and we have the tusks as well.’

  Joao’s enthusiasm was contagious, and when they set off once again at a stiff trot, Rui’s spirits were lifted with every yard they put between them and the scene of the slaughter. It was really beginning to look as if they were going to get away with something nobody had ever considered possible.

  It was Tuesday, 11:20 a.m., and they were inexorably approaching the area of the elephant carcass from a completely unexpected direction.

  Sam and Louis had relieved the sentries on the summit before first light. They had each had a big mug of coffee and some rusks, lit their pipes below the skyline, then climbed onto the big boulder at the top and watched the day being born. The horizon was still grey in the east but already the high cirrus clouds were being painted a light pink by the approaching sun. To the north, a lion greeted the dawn with a mighty roar, followed by diminishing ‘uuuhmph, uuhmph, uhmphs,’ to be answered far off by another pride.

  The birds were working themselves into a frenzy, announcing their joy at having survived yet another long night. Competing with this cacophony was the troop of baboons whose sleeping place had been annexed by the rangers. The reverberating ‘whaugh, whaugh!’ of the males was interspersed by the joyous squeals of the young ones at play, carrying on as if this whole place belonged to them.

  The two men on the hill savoured every moment contentedly. This is what motivates a man to spend his life in the Park, earning a paltry salary that would be scoffed at anywhere else. This was a quality of life that money cannot but. In fact, it made the acquisition of money fade into the obscure realm of banality. This is what life was about.

  Sam found himself thinking about Linda again. She had sneaked into his mind with the stealth of a leopard. The thought of her tanned limbs writhing on the white sheets sent his hormones soaring. She reminded him of his favourite spot on the banks of the Sweni. Her red hair and her green eyes were the bronze of an autumn sunset through the green of a fever tree. She was the tense anticipation of a hunting cat awaiting full darkness, her supple limbs were those of a languid leopard, preening himself in a high fork, aloof and out of reach.

  He found himself drawing parallels between the women dominating his thoughts. Estelle was the same spot on the Sweni, but she was morning, fresh and invigorating, eyes and
hair the colour of wild honey, her skin a high, white cirrus cloud. She was the proud innocence of a bushbuck ewe daintily emerging from dew-laden foliage to greet a new day. She was the quiet strength of the slow current in a deep pool, giving life to the arid country that blossomed abundantly with her presence.

  With an effort he pushed the women from his thoughts. ‘Time to get off the skyline,’ he said, getting up and dusting the seat of his pants.

  They moved back into the camouflaging embrace of a stunted Transvaal milkplum and started scanning the veld to the east in the growing light.

  At eight, the temperature in the shade was already in the high thirties. ‘Time for breakfast,’ Louis said, lowering himself off the boulder.

  The past four hours had strained their eyes, and their stomachs rumbled at the thought of last night’s hunter’s stew still simmering on the coals of the smokeless hardwood fire they had decided to chance.

  ‘Aaron, get some men up here,’ Sam said triggering the broadcast button on his radio.

  Halfway down he handed the radio over to Shadrick and James. ‘Remember to keep the sun off those lenses,’ Sam reminded them.

  ‘Yebo, nkosi,’ in unison.

  After a hearty breakfast they lay down in the shade for a nap. Sam tried to dream about Estelle, but to no avail. Once again those tanned limbs won the battle.

  At noon they shouldered their rifles once more and started climbing.

  The tawny lioness was in a bad condition. Although she was still young, her coat was straggly and her ribs and spine protruded through her loose-fitting skin. She was lying in the shade, licking her front paw, which was swollen to twice its normal size and continuously dripping bloody pus where the wire snare was embedded deep in the bone. The pain was excruciating, and the fact that she hadn’t been able to make a kill in the past six days contributed to her vile mood.

  When she had broken the wire, the slipknot had tightened, severing the blood supply to her right front leg and cracking the bone. Four days later gangrene had set in, driving her wild with pain.

  What was driving her even more berserk, was the fact that, from the shade of the next tree, barely ten yards away, four hyenas were gleefully eyeing her. They had picked up the stench of her spoor in the course of the night, and were getting bolder by the minute.

  Every now and again they would run out of patience, and work themselves into a frenzy, circling her and making short dashes in her direction. On her violent reaction they would retreat a short distance, just out of reach, and continue regarding her with lolling tongues, dripping strings of saliva.

  This had been going on all morning, and her thirst was driving her towards the spruit. As she started limping down the sandy incline, her tormenters were hard on her heels, egging each other on with excited yelps.

  She was lying flat on her stomach, licking cool water with great laps, when one of the hyenas could no longer resist the smell of imminent death, and decided to speed up the process. Charging the last few yards he took a nip at the lioness’s hindquarters, totally underestimating her lightning reflexes. In a yellow blur she swung around with an explosive roar, her healthy front paw flashing out like a bolt of lightning. The hyena barely had time to start pulling back before her long nails slashed half his face off his skull, breaking his nose and flattening him. With an ear-splitting roar she was on him, pinning him down and closing her powerful jaws on his skull with a loud crack. She would have mutilated him further in her fury, but the blinding pain stopped her, and she lay panting. The other hyenas had added another five yards to their estimated safety zone and were watching the action dispassionately.

  With pain searing through her whole being, the lioness started limping away aimlessly, her escort following her once again at a discreet distance.

  Joao was in the lead, his AK over one shoulder and his knapsack over the other. Some time ago they had slowed down to a walk, but even so they were sweating with the Lowveld sun beating down on their backs.

  ‘How are we going to get past the colonel?’ Rui asked, sucking the last few drops from his canteen.

  ‘I think we should put the stuff with the rest of our cache and then swipe an army truck. Once we have sold everything we just abandon the truck in Maputo and disappear. Easy as pie. With the amount of money we are going to make, nobody will ever find us.’

  ‘You reckon the colonel will give up on us that easily, knowing that we’ve taken him for a ride?’

  ‘Stuff the colonel, man. He’s got an army to run. I suppose he will come chasing after us initially, his pride and his pocket aching, but if he spends too much time and effort on it his superiors are going to come down on him like a ton of bricks. We charter ourselves a boat and pop over to Inhaca island and spend a week relaxing. By then the heat will be off.’

  The thought appealed to Rui. He could imagine himself on the island with a nubile young body or two to while away the idle hours. ‘I suppose we will be taking some young maidens along, eh?’

  ‘As many as we can accommodate. We’ll initiate our retirement with a week that will not be soon forgotten.’

  They slogged on for another fifteen minutes, each thinking about the future and dreaming their private dreams.

  ‘We had better fill our canteens,’ Joao said. ‘We’re nearly there, and then we will have to be leaving the spruit.’

  They followed a game trail down to the water, and put down their loads. Having drunk their fill and topped up their canteens they paused for a while, having a smoke.

  ‘Never mind the colonel’s hurt pride – can you imagine Jenkins when he finds out about his precious rhinos! Hey, maybe he will jump the wire and wipe out the colonel.’ They both had a laugh at the idea.

  ‘Let’s go finish our work.’ Rui shouldered his kit. The mention of the ranger evoked a queasy feeling in him. He wanted as much distance between himself and this notorious man as soon as possible.

  Following game trails, they were in sight of the hill, approaching from the south west, when the silence was shattered by the roar of the crippled lioness. She came in low from about thirty metres off. The fact she was badly hampered by the leg saved Joao. He just had time to drop his kit and bring the AK to bear before she tensed her haunches for the final leap. He flipped the gun to full automatic and heaved on the trigger at point blank range. The third bullet killed her instantly, and as the recoil lifted the barrel the next eight shots went wild. He released the trigger, aimed again and gave her two more shots in the brain.

  The silence was overwhelming, and the dust was thick amongst the thorn trees.

  Sam and Louis had been scanning the horizon when the shots exploded a couple of hundred yards behind them. They had heard the roar and immediately grasped what had happened. The distinctive flat crack of an AK47 was like a signature. They scrambled down the hill and motioned the black rangers to fan out wide. Aaron had already shoveled sand onto the remains of the fire. They advanced quietly in the direction from which the shots had been fired.

  The poachers’ luck still held to the extent that they saw the rangers at the same time they themselves were seen. Everybody dived for cover and both Joao and Rui opened up with full magazines. Automatic fire raked the bush and took chunks out of the tree behind which Sam was hiding. He sneaked this Winchester around the trunk and scanned the area through the scope. All was deathly quiet and at first he could see nothing. Then a slight movement caught his eye. Concentrating hard, he could distinguish the outline of a boot-clad foot sticking out from behind an anthill. Carefully placing the crosshairs on the ankle, he squeezed the trigger. The soft-nosed bullet, still travelling in excess of 3000 feet per second, expanded as it hit Rui’s leg just above the ankle, nearly severing it completely. With a high-pitched scream Rui reared from behind the anthill and passed out. Joao, Lying close to him, saw it happen, and his nerve cracked. ‘We give up!’ he screamed, tossing this gun away in a high arc. Feverishly he got the pistol from his holster, and chucker it after the gun.

&
nbsp; ‘Come out with your hands on your head,’ Sam shouted. ‘And no tricks. You’ve got six guns pointed at you. How many of you are there?’

  Joao got up, clapping the back of his head. ‘Just the two of us, I swear. Get this man to a doctor, he bleeding to death,’ he said moving towards Rui.

  ‘Stand still, shithouse,’ Sam said, approaching with his gun at the ready.

  ‘Louis, cover him. Aaron, spread out the men and backtrack for a while. Make sure they were alone.’ Sam put his rifle on the ground next to him as he knelt to examine the wounded man. The severed artery was pumping away the man’s life at an alarming rate. He took off Rui’s belt and fashioned a tourniquet from it. Winding it tight with a stick, Sam managed to stop the bleeding almost immediately. Not having moved the wounded man, Sam was unaware of the fact that Rui was lying on the pistol that he had been carrying, tucked into the small of his back. Sam picked up the rifle and looked at Joao. ‘You bastard. You killed one of the biggest elephants in the Park. I thought you worked here because you cared. You’re the lowest form of scum I’ve ever come across. Pity you threw your AK away just now, I would gladly have killed both of you.’

  Joao was relieved to see that the rangers were once again playing according to the rules. ‘Get stuffed. I want a lawyer!’ he said with an insolent smirk.

  Sam fought the urge to smash his face in. ‘Shut up, shithouse. It’s all the fashion to be shouting for a lawyer these days.’

  ‘That’s right. You arrogant bastard, I know my rights. You may now arrest and feed me.’ Joao said grinning.

  ‘Fuck off, asshole. I can have you disappear in this bush as if you had never existed, and nobody will be any the wiser. It won’t be the first time my crocs got rid of wiseass poachers for me. They just love doing me a favour. So be a wise man for once in your life and don’t antagonise me.’

  Louis could hardly hide his smile. Sam’s outburst had the desired effect. Joao’s dark skin and turned a sickly grey as visions of the great saurians crossed his mind.