Child of Africa

by T. M. Clark

  The other guards put their cups down and immediately went for their rifles. She knew these men. Sixpence, the oldest of the anti-poaching guards and leader of their team, had been in the ZimParks employment since he was a boy. She remembered a time she had camped in the Chizarira with her father and Uncle Stephen when she was only about eight years old. Even then, Sixpence had been there, watching ‘his’ park, looking after ‘his’ animals. Back then he had been proud to be a park ranger, welcoming visitors and working in the office; now he was proud to carry a gun to protect ‘his’ animals from the poachers, and use his phenomenal tracking skills to outsmart them.

  Simon was a younger guard, and had come into the team most recently, but his passion for the bush and the wildlife was no less than anyone else’s. Zambian by birth, he was related to Sixpence through his mother’s side, and was always eager to learn as much as he could from the old man.

  Moses, Muzi and Valentine were long-term employees, and all carried ugly scars on their faces. Moses had had a run-in with a barbed-wire fence, and Muzi spoke with a slight lisp having recovered from a broken jaw and other injuries from a malicious beating when he was a teenager. Although she couldn’t remember when they had started in Chizarira, she remembered well when Valentine had almost died after being ambushed by a poacher, and had his face half hacked off. The deep scar that ran from his hairline across his nose to his jawline was a constant reminder that they were at war with those who sought to take the wildlife for bush meat trade, ivory and rhino horn syndicates, or even for the live exotic animal trade.

  They were a motley team, but if there were poachers around, she wouldn’t want to go into battle with anyone else at her side. Perhaps she would have liked Joss with her, but only because of his marine training, not because she was still thinking about him two weeks after she’d left him in the hotel in Beit Bridge. She walked out, leaving the young camp gardener behind.

  ‘So many, so fast. We have only been drinking tea for about ten minutes, and already the sky’s colour is changed by those vultures,’ Simon said.

  ‘We heard nothing last night, so we can hope it is only a lion kill. Because these poachers, some of them are getting clever now; they use darts like you do when you heal an animal, and we do not always hear anything any more,’ Sixpence said.

  The men climbed into the bakkie, while Amos got into the scout’s seat on the front, and tapped the bonnet when he saw everyone was in. Peta eased her foot off the clutch and began the drive towards the vulture column. She drove on the rough dirt track until Amos pointed into the bushes, then she turned, trusting his scouting ability. It was strange how their partnership in the bush worked. He was a farmhand, but had been taught by his father to track for meat as a child. He was one of the best trackers she had ever encountered, other than Sixpence. Even her father called on Amos when Tsessebe was having trouble, and that was a huge compliment.

  She remembered a time when they had been driving through the back roads near Jedson’s camp in Chizarira, when Amos had told her to stop. To go back. She had argued that she thought there was a way through, but he had shown her tracks on the road, and explained the footprints to her. The tracks were fresh, and belonged to King Gogo wa de Patswa, and while he wasn’t usually in the bush, the significance of his footprint, with his left foot larger than his right, was clear: if they continued on, she would be killed or raped – the suspected mastermind behind many of the rhino and elephant attacks was a known killer. Peta had quickly turned her Land Rover around and headed back to Mujima Camp. Although she had radioed in the tracks and the position, she knew that by the time the anti-poaching unit got there, it would be too late; he would have gone.

  She hit a bump and was wrenched back to the present. She focused on Amos, following his every signal as he navigated them through the brush and scrub.

  Finally, she saw his hand in a stop position, and she applied the brakes. She could see a craggy cliff, the vultures soaring above it. They surfed the hot thermals, and then back down as they gathered. Waiting.

  ‘Whatever it is, it’s up there,’ Amos said to Peta as she got out of the bakkie.

  ‘Time to climb. Anyone know of a path up?’ she asked.

  Sixpence nodded. ‘If we drive around to the end, there is a game path that goes up. It has been many years since I climbed this koppie. The top is flat, and used to have a clump of marula trees. Many baboons barked at me the day I climbed with Baas Stephen, but now it is silent. There is sadness here today.’

  Peta nodded. ‘Right, back in the bakkie then. We’ll take the easiest path, and hope that sadness doesn’t touch us.’ After years of working with her people, she knew better than to pooh-pooh any of their superstitions.

  They drove around the bottom of the rocks until Sixpence called the halt. True to his words, a well-used game path led upwards.

  ‘Sixpence, take the front, since you have travelled this path before. Amos, you next, then me. You three come up the rear. Everyone have your weapons ready, in case there’s poachers or a predator up here. Keep your eyes peeled for leopard. I don’t want anyone attacked by a cornered cat who thinks the way out is through you.’ Peta took her rifle from the rack in the 4x4. She put her veterinary backpack on. She went nowhere without it, especially not into situations like this. This was the part of her job she hated the most. It was never the animals she was scared of, but that one day she would come face to face with poachers – and their behaviour was always unpredictable.

  She took a deep breath as she checked her rifle and made sure her safety was on. Last thing she wanted was to shoot Amos in the back in an accidental discharge. Pointing her rifle up and to the side, she followed his sweaty back up the path.

  ‘Step right,’ Amos said, warning of a loose rock in the ascent.

  She did as instructed as they continued, the sun merciless on her head, the sweat dripping down her neck and into her bra, then once that was saturated, continuing its journey down her back, and pooling at the base of her spine. Ignoring the damp clamminess of wet socks in boots gripping uneasy terrain, she pulled herself up the last giant step and onto the plateau with Amos’s help.

  ‘Your legs are too short,’ he joked.

  Peta smiled. At five-foot-seven no way was she ever called short, except by Amos, who seemed to have Shaka Zulu’s blood in his veins, because he stood six-foot-three.

  The top of the koppie was flat, just as Sixpence had said. There were a few marula trees clustered together and a purple bougainvillea, which wasn’t native to the area, rambled up a mopani tree and spilled over onto the flat rock. The vine was old, as if it had been there many years. Weaver birds had nested in it, and their beautiful nests swung gently in the breeze as the bright yellow birds chattered happily. What was unexpected was that the bougainvillea had been trimmed away from a single white cross at the base of the tree. The pile of rocks under the cross made her uneasy – they looked too new, not yet weathered enough to be there like the older graves she had found.

  ‘Sixpence, did you know there was a white cross here?’ she asked.

  ‘No, Miss Peta, this was not here before. This is new.’ He began to walk over to it, then stopped.

  Beyond the circle of trees was the reason for the column of vultures: a buffalo lay on its side. She looked closer. It was trapped in a wire snare that ran from its hind legs back to a tree stump that it had obviously been dragging around for a while before it became stuck. The wire had cut deep into its fetlock, and was buried into the skin. The log had finally wedged into a rock crevice, and although the animal had walked in circles attempting to free itself, it had been unable to. Eventually it had collapsed from exhaustion and lay panting, its eyes white with fear, yet the animal was not defeated. It lifted its head and snorted at them.

  If nature was allowed to take its course, the vultures soaring on the thermals above would come down and devour it, and the hyenas in the park would feast on the magnificent beast, and so it would provide food for many predators and
scavengers alike. But man, the people who had set that snare originally, wouldn’t know that this animal had suffered so much, right to its last breath, and they would get none of its flesh to eat, nor its skin to make into leather.

  It snorted at them again.

  ‘You can save it, Miss Peta? Or do you want me to shoot it? Put it out of its misery?’ Sixpence said.

  ‘Let’s see if we can save it first.’

  Sixpence looked at his guards. ‘Moses, Valentine, Muzi, perimeter check; make sure there are no other surprises lying in wait before Miss Peta starts working.’

  The men dispersed into the scrub.

  She smiled at Sixpence’s use of ‘Miss Peta’. He’d always called her that as a child when she visited with her father, or if he happened to come to Matusadona, but after independence, and even after she’d grown up, the old man continued to use it, as if ‘Miss Peta’ were her name. Despite her asking him to simply call her Peta, he’d shaken his head and told her that to him, in his heart, she was always his ‘little Miss Peta’, the special child of the bush, and she’d stopped minding at all. Many of the other guards had picked it up, and while it raised a few eyebrows when people first heard it, they soon learnt that it was a term of endearment.

  Peta handed her weapon to Amos, then removed her backpack and laid out her darting kit, measuring out some opioid or, as Amos like to call it, the lights-out medicine.

  They waited, listening to the birds chatter in the trees and the loud chorus that was the African bush. Somewhere in the distance a baboon barked. The heat on the top of the hill pressed down on them, and more sweat trickled down Peta’s back. Amos adjusted his weapon, looking everywhere, while Simon walked around their smaller perimeter, ensuring there was no immediate danger.

  Valentine came back first, followed by Muzi and Moses. Each man shook his head, indicating that the bush was clear.

  Sixpence nodded to her. Peta aimed the rifle at the buffalo’s rump and watched the dart glide easily into his thick skin.

  It snorted, but didn’t attempt to get up.

  ‘I’ve only given it a light sedative; in its condition anything more could kill it,’ she said, looking at the watch on her wrist. ‘Give it a moment, then, Sixpence, if you would put a rope around its horns and back legs, make sure it doesn’t gore me while I’m working, it would be appreciated.’ She removed a large pair of wire-cutters from her kit, and some Terramycin wound powder. She also measured a healthy dose of antibiotic from a brown bottle into a new syringe.

  She watched as the buffalo’s head drooped and then jerked back up as it fought the anaesthetic. It rested its head again. Finally, it flopped over at an angle to one side.

  ‘Now?’ Sixpence asked, as he took the rope from the pile in front of her.

  ‘Yes, but go carefully; make sure before you get close.’

  Sixpence nodded. He removed his hat and threw it at the buffalo. The wind under the brim made it fly at a strange angle and it landed short of the buffalo’s nose.

  It didn’t move.

  He moved closer, took his shirt off, and threw it at the buffalo’s head. It hung from the horn on the right side, covering its eyes, and remained there. The buffalo still didn’t move.

  ‘It’s out,’ Peta said.

  Sixpence moved quickly. He gently shook the buffalo by its horns, but the duggaboy didn’t react. ‘It is sleeping,’ he said as he moved his shirt to fully cover its eyes, then tied the rope around its horns, and passed the end to Simon, who took it and threaded it around his waist. Holding tight to the rope and adjusting his feet securely in a rock crevice near him, he sat down, a human anchor. Sixpence tied a second rope around the buffalo’s back legs.

  ‘Muzi and Valentine, stay close to Simon in case he needs you. Moses, keep watch on the perimeter, look sharp,’ Sixpence instructed.

  Peta put a sheet underneath the injured leg and then looked at the wound. The cut was deep, almost to the bone. Flesh and hair had grown over the wire as it got deeper – the snare had been this buffalo’s partner for a long time.

  ‘Dammit,’ she swore. ‘Even if we get this out, it probably won’t live long before a lion gets it.’

  ‘Eish, Miss Peta, it is a strong one; it might surprise you yet,’ Sixpence said.

  The game guards were always so optimistic. They claimed their jobs were a calling in life, and that she could believe, because half the time they didn’t get paid by the government, and they would get shot at by poachers and often killed while trying to protect the animals in their reserves.

  ‘I’ll give it the option to fight another day. Amos, bring the cutters, and snip here.’

  She watched as Amos placed the wire-cutters close, and she guided them where she needed his strength to cut the wire. There was the dull ting of the wire releasing and, holding the knot where the wire had been wound back on itself, she tugged. The wire slid through the wound, and it was free.

  She injected the antibiotic and cleaned the wound with the bottle of water from her kit. Then she splashed the area liberally with antiseptic wash to help the infection. Drying it with a few paper towels, she sprinkled wound powder on it, and sprayed liberally with gentian violet.

  ‘That’s about all we can do for you, my boy,’ she said, patting the buffalo’s rump as she got up. ‘Right, guys, release so I can give the antidote, and then run for the path and the safety of the bakkie, because when this bull wakes up we are not going to be its best friend.’

  Simon let the rope slacken while Sixpence took it off the horns and swapped his shirt for his hat covering its eyes. He rolled up the rope, slinging it over his shoulder and across his chest, then grabbed his weapon from near Simon, and they made to head down the path.

  ‘Sixpence, look,’ Amos said, gesturing to the vultures. They no longer soared but were dropping behind the koppie.

  Sixpence whistled. ‘Something else definitely dead down that way.’

  ‘You go on foot, check it out,’ Peta said. ‘Take Simon with you for extra protection on the ground. Step carefully. The rest of the men and I will exit on the opposite side, and drive around. We’ll join you as soon as we can.’

  Sixpence nodded. ‘Give your antidote quickly, Miss Peta, and hope that this buffalo is kind to all of us.’

  Peta nodded. ‘Go now, run, everyone.’

  The game guards scattered.

  She had her pack on her back, and Amos held her weapon. Muzi was already at the entrance to the path that would lead them downwards. She walked back to the buffalo and injected the antidote. Putting the cap on her needle, she returned to Amos and together they ran to the ledge. Peering over, they waited while the buffalo heaved its bulk up and staggered to its feet. It looked around, searching for a target to take its revenge on, but seeing nothing, it tested its foot. It wasn’t ready to bear weight yet, but it managed to put it on the ground. It stood for a while before attempting to move forward, still expecting to be anchored to the spot, but when its body moved freely, it stumbled a few steps, then limped into the shade of the bougainvillea, where it waited. A bit later it walked back to the game path and made its way sedately down the koppie, in a different direction, thank goodness, from where her men had gone to check on the vultures. The buffalo was a true survivor.

  Peta smiled. This was the part of her job that she loved.

  ‘Hang on, Amos,’ she said and climbed back to the top of the koppie. ‘I want to check out that cross.’

  It looked no more than a few years old and was made to withstand the elements of Africa. Whoever had put it here had taken the time to move the stones aside, bury the end of the cross deep in the earth, then return the stones to their place. Burnt deep into the wood was CASPER AUSTIN – 1945.

  She wondered who Casper was that someone had returned to this place after so long to take the time to re-mark his grave. She took a photo with her phone and walked back to where her men waited for her.

  * * *

  In front of her was not the first dead human body
Peta had seen. However, it was the first dead body she had seen that looked like it had been a lion’s lunch.

  The bateleur eagle had got the eyes and the vultures had had a little nibble on it too, so there wasn’t that much left of the full-grown man at all. A white man. Probably about her height. From the amount of broken and trodden grass, he had been living in the camp a while. The body was half eaten, and by the tracks in the sand, the lion had begun feasting before the man was completely dead – the depth of his pain showed in his attempt to dig into the ground with his fingernails, trying hard to find something to fight the lion with.

  The camp around them was small and well concealed. If it hadn’t been for the vultures, they might never have found it. A hunters’ tarpaulin was strung between the trees, its camouflage pieces blending perfectly into the environment. Underneath was a very new and flash-looking Land Rover, with Zimbabwe importation papers bearing the name Kenneth Hunt in the cubbyhole, and a spacious two-room tent. The ground was covered by a second tarpaulin to keep the site as sand free as possible. In front of the tent was a small fold-up table and chair.

  ‘This is no amateur,’ Sixpence said.

  But it was the laptop that drew Peta. The computer was attached to a small solar panel. She pushed the trackpad and the screen came to life. She began to read a spreadsheet with details of a game count.

  Rhino. There were no comments in the column near that.

  Elephant. In the columns were different estimates of tusk sizes. All categorised, with dates and GPS coordinates of the sightings.

  Buffalo, leopard, lions and various other animals followed. She scrolled down. Pangolins were listed, as were Angola pitta, African broadbill and crocodiles, with their estimated weight and length.

  ‘Looks like a professional game spotter,’ Amos said.

  ‘It does. My question would be, what made that lion kill someone who was obviously so comfortable in the bush? How did it get to him?’