by Leon Mare
‘You get my drift, shithouse!’ Sam screamed into his face, prodding him in the guts with the loaded Winchester.
‘Get lost,’ Joao muttered, lowering his eyes. Maybe the stories about this madman were true. Better to shut up till they got to civilisation.
Unnoticed, Rui had regained consciousness, and during this heated exchange had sneaked his pistol into his hand. He still lay with his eyes closed, fighting the pain that had threatened to overwhelm him. The talk about the crocodile had convinced him that they were very close to a very narrow edge. He prayed that Joao would quit nudging.
‘Let’s see what we have here,’ Sam turned towards the knapsacks.
Beneath the closed lids, Rui’s eyes rolled back in their sockets. In the heat of the moment he had forgotten about the rhino horns.
Joao felt he could actually taste death as a bitter sensation on the back of his tongue. Let this be the one day that the madman sticks to the rules, he prayed. If only the other rangers would come back. With enough witnesses around maybe he won’t feed us to the crocs.
Sam released the buckles on the first knapsack and opened it.
As two big rhino horns fell into the dust, Sam’s jaw dropped and his eyes bulged.
Time stopped.
Far off, near the spruit, a fish eagle let out a forlorn ‘crouuuu, crouk crouk crouk!’
Dropping the knapsack and grabbing his rifle in both hands, Sam swung round. ‘I’ll fucking kill you!’ he screamed.
With a hoarse scream Rui sat up and shot Sam in the stomach with his pistol.
Sam’s knees buckled but he continued are arc along which the muzzle of his gun was swinging, past Joao, to Rui. As Rui’s finger was tightening on the trigger for the second shot, death leapt from the muzzle of the 300 Winchester Magnum in the form of a tongue of fire that seemed to momentarily touch him above the right eye. The front of his skull caved in and exited through the back, taking away the top half in a pink vapour of living tissue and bone chips. ‘Nooo!’ Joao screamed, lowering his hands and storming towards Sam. Louis swung his R1 through a short arc and connected Joao in the face. Joao went over backwards, unconscious and with a broken jaw and cheekbone. Sam worked the bolt of his gun while sagging to his knees and turned towards the unconscious form of Joao. Louis stepped up to him and took the rifle from him as he collapsed. ‘Enough, my friend, let’s have a look at you.’
He laid the semi-conscious Sam on his back and pulled his shirt from his trousers. A purplish hole to the right of Sam’s navel was oozing dark blood. There was no exit hole, so the angle was anybody’s guess. Louis picked up the pistol. Fortunately it was a .32 calibre. Nevertheless, thinking about his limited knowledge of human anatomy he knew Sam could very well be dying. The kidneys, abdominal aorta, spine . . .
The black rangers came stampeding through the bush.
‘Aaron, tie that piece of shit up as tight as you can and keep a gun to his head. Don’t move Sam. Get some shade over him and don’t give him anything to drink. I’ll fetch the truck and radio for the chopper.
Louis had never run a kilometre in such a short time.
He was totally out of breath and there was a sharp pain in his side as he fell into the cab, grabbing the mike and switching on.
‘362 Louis calling Skukuza. Emergency code One, Emergency Code One. Come in, Skukuza!’
The Skukuza Commando had a 24-hour radio watch for emergencies. This was mainly a backup service, as all rangers always left their radios on.
Louis’s call was picked up throughout the park, including the head office of Nature Conservation in Skukuza.
‘We got you, Louis, Skukuza acknowledging. Stand by. Mr van Reenen is on his way.’
Before Louis could trigger his mike again John van Reenen was on the air.
The whole park was galvanised. Emergency Code One meant a life-threatening situation, and this was the first one in years.
‘John here, Louis. Talk.’
‘We need the chopper and the doc for an urgent casevac. Sam has been shot in the stomach, .32 calibre, no exit. Not haemorrhaging badly externally, but I don’t know what’s going on inside. I cannot determine what’s been hit. We got Joao, wounded but not serious. His brother is dead. Where the Nwanetzi firebreak crosses the Shinkekkengan there is a hill to the east. We will organise smoke. Hurry. Over.’
‘Got it all. We’re on our way. Tell Sam to hang in there, we’ll have the chopper there shortly. All personnel, keep this channel open, please.’
Louis started the Toyota and pulled away without removing the camouflage. In a cloud of dust and flying branches he bounced onto the fire break and speeded towards the hill.
He skidded to a stop next to Sam and piled out of the cab. ‘How is he?’ he asked Aaron who was busy planting more branches around the already heavily shaded Sam.
‘What’s the matter, pal, I wasn’t shot in the voice box, you know.’
Louis heaved a sigh of relief and knelt next to Sam. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Not as bad as I thought it would be. I am beginning to think that being gut shot is overrated. My leg is hurting more than my stomach. Must be lodged in the sciatic nerve.’
‘I think it’s too high for that. At least it doesn’t look as if the abdominal aorta or one of the big kidney vessels has been damaged. Looks as if you’ll survive this one, my mate. John says for you to hang in there, they’ll be here shortly. Relax a while, I want to get us a signal going.’
He issued instructions for plenty of wood and leafy branches, and a big fire was built downwind of Sam.
Joao was still out cold, or pretended to be. Louis checked the knots and told Aaron to have him dragged into the shade. The way the rangers handled Joao without him complaining convinced Louis that he was indeed still out cold.
He also had Rui covered with branches, taking a last look at the awesome havoc created by the Winchester.
He sat down next to Sam again, noticing the pallor that was slowly spreading from the corners of his mouth.
‘Build us a pipe, Louis,’ Sam extracted his pipe from his shirt pocket.
‘Lie still, dammit. I’ll do it.’
As they lighted up, the radio in the Toyota crackled to life: ‘Chopper calling 362, Louis come in.’
Louis jumped into the cab and grabbed the mike. ‘What the hell is keeping you, Vick, are you taxiing to Nwanetzi?’
Vick Steyn was one of the nest chopper pilots in the country, and could earn double his salary anywhere else. He was, however, also one of the men that wouldn’t swop his job for anything in the world.
‘Cool it, Kosie,’ (everybody was Kosie to him, much to the chagrin of many of his friends), ‘we had to get organised first. Doc asks how the patient is doing.’
‘Still alive and smoking. The external bleeding has just about stopped. He is losing s bit of colour, though. Whereabouts are you?’
There was a slight pause. ‘ETA about fifteen minutes. What’s the area like for landing?’
‘Like a parking lot. No problem.’
‘A team has been dispatched from Satara to pick up the other two. They should be there in about an hour. You can start smoking us in.’
He instructed Aaron to start the smoke and had another look at Sam. He was looking worse.
‘Hey! Jenkins! Can you hear me?’ Joao had obviously regained consciousness, and was screaming through his broken teeth with great effort.
‘I hear you, shithouse.’
‘You killed my brother. For that I swear I will kill you. Are you listening to me? I am going to kill you! Heal fast and come back, I will be waiting for you. I promise you.’
‘Fuck off, asshole. I will personally see to it that you do a lot of waiting in jail for a very long time. When you get out, come back any time. I will be waiting, too.’
Louis walked over to where Joao was lying in the shade, intending to shut him up. Aaron, however, beat him to it. ‘You don’t talk to my boss that way, scum,’ he said swinging is heavy boot wit
h all his might.
The boot broke what was left of his teeth and gave him Le Fort II fracture of the upper jaw.
‘Easy, Aaron, you’ll kill the man,’ Louis admonished.
‘Sorry, nkosi.’ He didn’t sound sorry at all, but Louis let it pass. He cocked his head to one side, and faintly he could hear the beat of the rotors. ‘More leaves, quickly, Aaron.’
The sleek blue and white Bell Jetranger came streaking straight towards the pall of smoke hanging in the air like a giant paper dragon. It dropped its tail, losing speed rapidly, and turned into the wind. Vick put her down amongst the trees daintily like a butterfly, a short distance away. The rotors kept spinning, and Dr. Du Toit and John van Reenen came running, bent over, carrying an emergency kit and stretcher.
Blood pressure, pulse rate, pupils, a prodding finger here and there and the doc declared Sam fit to survive, provided they got him to surgery chop-chop. An IV line was established and the drip started. ‘Let’s go.’
Louis helped to secure the stretcher in the chopper. He pressed Sam’s shoulder. ‘I’ll just clear things up here and grab some kit. I’ll let your folks know. See you in hospital.’
John was getting into the chopper. ‘It’s OK, Louis, Skukuza has already put the word out. I’ll give them an update as soon as we are in the air. Travel with the ambulance and keep an eye on this other one. He’s going to be made an example of. See you.’
With a clatter of rotors the Jetranger lifted off, kicking up a storm. It turned, lifted its tail and sped off in the direction of Nelspruit, nearly two hundred kilometres away.
Chapter Four
Sam came to with someone twisting a big red-hot gaff in his guts. He opened his eyes groggily to see John sitting next to his hospital bed.
‘Everything is OK. They got the bullet out and cleaned things up inside. You’re going to be here for a while, but you’ll make it.’
‘Jeez, tell them to put the bullet back. It hurt a hell of a lot less then,’ Sam croaked. He was aching all over from the Scoline they had used during the anaesthetic, and his throat was raw from the intubation. He felt miserable.
‘Your folks should be here in a couple of hours’ time. They said they’d pick up Estelle in Pretoria.’
‘Oh shit,’ Sam groaned, thinking about the possible complications.
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah, but it hurts.’
‘Hang on, I’ll see if I can get you something.’
As John left the private ward in search of a sister, Sam groaned again. In his mind’s eye he could see a big pile of crap gathering on the horizon like thunder clouds, and inexorably moving towards a giant fan spinning in the sky. It was merely a matter of time. He would much rather face a wounded leopard than the type of trouble that was heading his way.
John returned, accompanied by Dr. du Toit and a sour-looking sister. Without much ado she proceeded to jab a syringe into his buttocks. ‘Hey! Take it easy down there!’ He had this thing about needles, dating back to his childhood. The sister carried on as if she were injecting the mattress.
‘Bloody old cow,’ he mumbled once she was safely out of the room.
Dr. du Toit was all smiles and good cheer. ‘Well, we had better be going now. You’ll be alright. There’s a bright young houseman that said he knows you, and would definitely be looking after you. A Dr. Smith.’
Sam groaned inwardly once more. One more ominous cloud joined the rest on the horizon. He had clean forgotten Smitty.
The medication was starting to take effect and, as he drifted off to sleep, he could hear the whap-whap of the rotors pulling the chopper up from the helipad and away into the night.
Shortly after 9 pm the ambulance pulled in on the emergency ramp. Louis got out and stretched his cramped muscles.
While the heavily sedated Joao was being wheeled in, he approached the orderly at reception, requesting the use of a telephone. The orderly regarded the man in front of him suspiciously. What he saw was a dirty, unshaven guy in rumpled khakis, carrying an R1 rifle. In a holster on his hip was the biggest revolver the orderly had ever seen, and there was a trail of dusty boot prints leading up to the counter.
Not man to argue with, the orderly decided. He pushed the phone towards Louis. ‘There you are, sir.’
‘The number of the cop shop?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The police, my man. I want to phone the cops.’
‘Oh, sorry. One moment, please. I’ll get them on the line for you.’
Louis organised a 24-hour guard for Joao, who was officially under arrest for murdering a policeman, poaching as well as attempted murder, illegal possession of a firearm and a long list of other offences. Judging by the massive swelling Louis doubted whether Joao could open his eyes far enough to see light, never mind escape. Nevertheless, he wanted this man under constant guard every moment, and he made that very clear to the constable.
‘Right,’ Louis picked up his kit bag and his rifle. ‘Sam Jenkins, which room?’
‘Oh, the guy with the bullet wound. Ward nine, private room B. That’s on the third floor, sir.’ The orderly decided to leave the explanations about visiting hours etc. to the ward sister. It was her ward, after all.
As Louis pressed the button for the elevator, the foyer doors burst open and Estelle came rushing in, followed by Sam’s parents. She saw Louis and ran to him. Even with her swollen eyes and tears streaking through what was left of her make-up, her sheer beauty and her radiating innocence took his breath away. She stopped a yard from him, both hands clenched in front of her. In one hand she clutched a tiny, wet hanky. ‘How is he?’
‘Fine, last I heard.’ He shook hands with Sam’s parents and kissed Estelle lightly on a tear-streaked cheek. ‘Let’s go and see him.’
Upon entering ward nine, they were accosted by the formidable fat sister. After a brief explanation, however, she led them to Sam’s room. ‘He is doing very well. The surgery went well, but we will be keeping him here for quite a while. There is always the very real danger of peritonitis developing in cases where the bowel has been ruptured, you know.’
Estelle didn’t know what peritonitis was, but it sounded bad enough for her to start crying again softly. Louis put his arm around her comfortingly. ‘It’s all right, old girl, your man is as tough as a honey badger. He’ll be walking out of here in a couple of days.
She leant forward and cradled Sam’s head in her arms, kissing him lightly on the forehead. As her warm tears ran down his face, he mumbled restlessly in his sleep.
‘Let him rest, Estelle,’ Sam’s mother said, touching her shoulder.
‘I love you. Heal quickly,’ her breath was in his ear, and his subconscious registered her presence. Her image crowded everything else from his dreams and soothed this troubled mind. Everything was going to be all right, Estelle was here. Deeper down in his subconscious an alarm bell was clanging, but he suppressed it. Sighing contentedly he drifted into a deeper plane of sleep.
With an intuition peculiar to women in love, she straightened, drying her tears. ‘He will be all right,’ she said to everyone in general, smiling for the first time.
Sam’s father put his arm around her. ‘We had better go and find ourselves a place to sleep. Have you got a place to stay, Louis?’
‘Haven’t had time to organise anything yet, Mr Jenkins.’
‘Good, join us. I think we can all do with some rest.’
Reclining in the leather upholstery of the Jenkins’s Mercedes, Louis recounted the story briefly, omitting the threats Joao had made.
‘How seriously is this Joao injured?’ Sam’s father wanted to know.
‘The doctor says both upper and lower jaws as well as some other facial bones are broken. He reckons the maxillofacial surgeon won’t operate before Thursday at the earliest. Apparently they have to wait for the swelling to subside first.’
‘Sounds like you worked the bastard over properly. Maybe it would have been better if he’d gotten himself shot
too.’
‘I think so myself,’ Louis agreed, thinking about the threat. It worried him – he was convinced that it had not been an idle threat made in the heat of the moment. Better keep tabs on Joao when he gets out of jail. If he ever decided to cross the wire for a quick strike it would be very difficult to anticipate and stop him. Lodging a complaint with the Frelimo government would be worse than useless. He would take up the problem with John van Reenen.
Smitty was having a big battle with himself. He didn’t want Linda to come and see Sam but, if he failed to notify her, she was sure to jump on him later when the story hit the media.
He picked the phone up reluctantly.
She answered on the fifth ring, and sounded pleased to hear his voice. At least that was something. ‘Sorry to phone you at this time of night, but I thought you would want to know. We’ve got Sam in the hospital. The surgeons removed a bullet from his stomach earlier this evening. Nothing vital was damaged, and he is doing quite well.’
There was a shocked silence on the other side of the line. ‘Oh no! Which ward is he in?’
‘Linda, you can’t see him now. He’s under sedation. And secondly, there’s no way you will get past the ward sister at this time of night.’
‘You can get in, can’t you? Wait for me at reception, I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
‘No, I told you . . .’ He slammed down the dead instrument in disgust.
Smitty was at reception when Sam’s people left. One look at Louis, armed to the teeth, told him who they were. Estelle’s beauty knocked him for six, and he felt his animosity towards Sam rising again. With a fiancée like that, there was no reason for him to fool around with someone else’s woman.
A few minutes later Linda came breezing in, kissing him fleetingly. ‘Hello, Smitty, so good of you to let me know. How is he?’
‘My girl, you had better tread carefully. Some very important-looking visitors have just left. Among them one extremely beautiful young lady who, I am sure, is the future wife.’ It was not his intention to sound so smug about it.