by T. M. Clark
They drove up to the carcass. Douglas looked at the dead impala: it had a clean shot through the head. For only his second female client ever, Nicole was proving to be quite an interesting hunter.
Virgil loaded the impala into the back of the bakkie before seating himself on the front bonnet seat. He pointed left, and Douglas followed his instruction away from the waterhole and back towards camp.
Once there, Virgil helped Simon, the skinner, take the impala to the skinning tree.
‘We can have a drink while we wait if you don’t want to watch,’ Douglas suggested.
‘I’m interested to see how they do it. The last hunt I did for a leopard, I wasn’t involved in the baiting at all, so it’s fascinating to be here from the start.’
‘Okay,’ Douglas said. ‘I’ll just go get us some drinks; we can stay here. Coke or alcohol?’
‘Coke,’ she said.
He returned with two bottles of Coke and a bottle opener. ‘To the start of a successful hunt,’ he said, clinking his bottle with hers.
She took a sip. ‘Why did they catch the guts in the buckets?’
‘To use for drag lines,’ Douglas explained. ‘To attract that leopard.’
‘Drag lines?’
‘To get the leopard’s attention and show him where the meat is hanging in the tree.’
She nodded.
Virgil and Simon dumped the headless carcass into the bakkie and loaded the buckets onto the back. Virgil sat in his seat and pointed forwards to Douglas as they left the camp. They made their way to where his team had previously baited the leopard. Once they were sure that the leopard eating was a big tomcat, they had constructed a rough hide, just for this client.
They parked near a big tree, and Virgil came to the bakkie tray and took the back part of the carcass on his shoulders.
Simon was ready with two large buckets.
‘Bring your weapons, and be vigilant. The leopard is active in this area, and we don’t want to walk into a snarling animal before we’re ready to shoot it,’ Douglas said, taking the lead. Nicole followed, with Simon and Virgil coming up the rear.
‘Here,’ Douglas said. ‘Look, this is his spoor.’
Nicole took a bullet and put it into the imprint in the sand, an easy way to measure a decent-sized print and know that if the print was bigger than the bullet, then the animal was at least a shootable size. It was 3.5 inches, so big enough. Now they just needed to make sure it was not a female.
The light was starting to fade a little as Virgil climbed the tree and hung the whole ribs to tail and hind legs of the impala in the tree. He positioned it close enough that the leopard would be able to stretch out its claws and grab it, pulling it onto the branch.
They began to set the drag lines.
‘Can I do one of those? There are five or so to do, aren’t there?’ she asked.
‘You know you’ve paid for us to do that,’ Douglas said.
‘I know, I want to be part of the hunt from beginning to end, not just shoot the leopard and have nothing to do with the preparation.’
‘Your choice. Get one of the buckets that Simon has carried from the bakkie, and copy what Virgil’s doing. You’re not like some of the other hunters who come through to shoot their big five trophies at all,’ he said.
‘Why be stereotypical?’ she said as she followed Virgil’s example. Walking about one hundred to one hundred and fifty metres away from the trees, they began spilling the blood and internal organs of the impala as they walked towards the tree again, so that the leopard would follow the scent to the main meal waiting for it.
‘It’s all set,’ Douglas said. ‘Your tree is baited, and your leopard should come again. Now it’s just a matter of wait in the hide and see.’
* * *
On day three, the tracker told him that the bait had been hit, and they moved into the hide for the day and night, with Douglas explaining to Nicole that she had to be as quiet as she could.
Virgil woke him from his dozing at five-fifteen am the next morning. Douglas reached over and shook Nicole awake. ‘He’s here.’
She startled when she heard the baboons barking a warning to all in the bush that there was a predator around, then pulled the blanket she was wrapped in around herself to keep warm. She had slept fully clothed, with her boots on.
She sat up straight in her deck chair. For a moment she looked disorientated, then she was once again a cold killer as she reached for her .404 Jeffery and stood up.
‘Leave that,’ Douglas whispered. ‘At this time of the morning you’ve time to watch him. He’ll be here for a while. Enjoy the show. Wait for the sun to get a little brighter, and there’ll be no shadows dancing over your scope. The bush is dense, so he thinks he’s safe to eat in daylight hours. He’s used to eating here and not being disturbed.’
She nodded and looked out of the hide. The leopard playing with the impala carcass was huge.
For over an hour they watched him as he manoeuvred his meat to the tree, and then began to dine.
‘What keeps falling from that carcass?’ she asked.
‘Maggots,’ Douglas said. ‘If we were downwind, you’d be smelling a very ripe bait now.’
‘Thanks for making sure we were upwind, then,’ she said.
He smiled. Despite bait checking twice a day from four till ten in the morning, and again from three to seven each evening, she was still in good spirits.
Sometimes, this part of the hunt was when the true nature of the hunter would begin to show itself, the part that the client usually tried to keep hidden. The impatient, oh-God-I-hate-that-rank-smell-and-just-hurry-up-this-is-boring part.
The light improved and slowly the sunshine filtered in through the tree tops. The leopard’s coat sparkled in the morning light, a deep yellowish-orange tinge along his back.
‘Now is a good time, when you’re ready,’ Douglas said. ‘We’ve checked, he’s a tom, and all yours.’
She lifted her rifle and positioned herself for the kill. At her feet she had her trusty shotgun loaded with SSG, a high-energy-hitting power buckshot, just in case. She placed her Jeffery’s barrel on the makeshift rest they’d fashioned from sticks. Douglas stood next to her, his own rifle ready, too. Virgil stood with his shotgun in position.
Her breathing was ragged.
‘Relax, there’s no hurry, he’ll be here for a while. Get your breathing under control. Remember, this cat is at an angle up a tree, not directly on, so you need to adjust how you shoot it.’
She answered him with a flat stare.
‘Head shot or heart?’ he asked.
‘Heart. I don’t want to damage a rosette on his head, even if a good taxidermist can repair the damage. He’s too beautiful.’
‘Good choice. Remember, the cat’s internal organs are further back than an antelope’s. You can’t use the front leg as a judgement. Count backwards three to four ribs, about one-third of the way into the body as it’s slightly quartering.’
He heard the shot, followed by the deadened sound of a large cat falling from the tree, and then running.
‘Jislaaik, I missed? I heard him run. Really?’
‘You got him. About twenty feet out there is a dead cat. Wait here, whatever happens, don’t move. If I’m wrong and he’s only hurt, he’ll certainly charge Virgil and me.’
He took the safety off, and walked out behind Virgil with his shotgun.
There was silence, and all he could hear was the blood pumping through his own veins as he held his weapon ready, in case the leopard was alive. It could rip him apart. He didn’t know a single hunting story where the wounded leopard had not come out fighting for its life. They were notorious for it.
At almost twenty feet, he released his breath. The leopard lay still.
Virgil poked it with his shotgun. It didn’t move.
‘She can shoot well,’ Douglas said. ‘He’s a massive tom.’
Virgil grinned.
‘All clear,’ Douglas called. ‘Come out t
he front, under the tree and keep walking, you can’t miss us.’
She joined them a few minutes later.
‘Looks like you shot him straight through the lungs and the heart. He was dead before his muscles knew he was dead. He didn’t suffer,’ Douglas said. ‘Congratulations.’
She grinned as she looked at her first trophy for this hunting trip.
CHAPTER
15
Just before six o’clock on Sunday, as the sun was setting and the gates were about to close, Nick slowed the truck down a little and waved at the ranger on duty at Crocodile Gate, Kruger Park. The ranger, seeing who was driving, lifted the boom. ‘Hamba kahle, Ranger Nick,’ he said as they drove through.
Nick heard Chloe release the breath she’d been holding and smiled.
Enoch, Xo, Ethel and Mike were in the back, trying hard to keep the horses quiet as they passed. He kept the truck going at an even pace so that the weight of the horses wouldn’t shift and there would be as little noise as possible.
The trucks had been a problem at first. Nick had wanted to use an actual Parks Board truck, but with a new axle, Khululani said he wouldn’t get that truck going for at least a week, and having to wait at Nigel’s was not going to work—Chloe stood out like a red tomato on the citrus farm.
Usually, there were only two white faces on the farm, Nigel and Colette. Now there were four, and that would cause lots of excitement and whispering by the staff. Even with the bruising on her face, Chloe’s features were distinctive enough that if anyone saw the bulletin, they’d recognise her. Colette had suggested that Chloe needed to change identities for a while.
They didn’t have a wig, so they cut her hair short. It was no longer the black veil of beauty it had been. Then they bleached it, causing it to turn carrot orange. Wearing men’s clothes, and with her hair cropped against her head like a pixie, she could easily pass for a young male. Except to him; he would recognise her anywhere.
It was the ideal disguise to get her through the bush. It made Nick a little happier about the trip. Protecting a white female in a war zone was never going to be easy. If things went south, the chance of her being raped was high, but if she looked just like another ranger, it would make it all a lot less stressful if they came across any enemy out there. Having a damaged old man and his maid along for the ride was not going to be a picnic in the park either. There was no way that he could disguise Ethel, but he hoped that perhaps she would be protected by her age, and the attitude of respecting one’s elders of a tribe would still be in play in Mozambique.
He wondered if he’d taken on more than he was capable of delivering. All their lives were now in his hands. His responsibility.
‘I knew that my acting in plays would be of help to me someday,’ Colette had said, laughing when Nick had commented how good the disguise was.
So, problem number one was solved, leaving them with problem two. But the solution turned out to be a simple one—disguise Chloe’s truck.
Nick drove her truck into the workshop at Crocodile Bridge, and Khululani and his boys repainted it to look like it belonged to the Parks Board, giving it a distinctive logo on the doors, sides and tailgate. Once it was ready, Nick and Khululani switched the plates with one of the broken Parks Board vehicles. He also added a much-needed slatted rooftop storage area. They filled four 44-gallon drums with diesel and hoisted them up top, and made sure that a decent syphon hose also was put into the truck, so that they didn’t need to bring the drums down. They would be able to top them up as they passed through any sites that had diesel. He’d also added a hitching rail along both sides, so they could easily tie the horses up if needed. Finally, Nick’s last addition had been the upgrade on the two-way radio installed into the back to talk easily between cab and those travelling with the horses. The one that Chloe had been using was not as good as the ones they had in the workshop.
When they were ready, Nick had fetched his precious cargo and driven back into the park, all within two days. There were some perks to being in charge of the maintenance garage of the Parks Board fleet. The two days had given him the time needed to organise leave for himself and Khululani. They had a month, though he hoped to be back well before then.
Khululani sat next to Chloe, who wore old overalls he’d scavenged from somewhere that just about fitted her, a cap pulled low over her forehead and sunglasses.
Nick had tried unsuccessfully to tell Khululani that what he was doing might get them fired, but the older man had grinned and said, ‘I am your tracker. When you go into the bush I come with you.’
Nick smiled, thinking how lucky he was that Khululani had decided to stick with him, and not kick his sorry butt to the kerb from the day he had arrived at Kruger.
‘Last chance to change your mind, Khululani. I can drop you here at the camp, and you can pretend you had nothing to do with me and this trip. You can tell Gladys in the office that she can tear up your leave request,’ Nick said.
‘I have not been on a journey in a long time. If you tell me to get out, I will. But I would rather stay and see these old friends of yours and their smelly horses safe. And know that if you throw me out I will follow you—you are going to need me on this adventure.’
‘Don’t say I never gave you a way out,’ Nick said. Now they were off, about to start one of his most dangerous journeys.
He’d had to drive over the Crocodile River bridge in full view of anyone watching, and that was just the start. He would continue to break the park’s night-driving curfew throughout their journey. All he could hope was that when people saw it was a Parks Board truck, most wouldn’t give it another thought.
‘Turn the radio up, we need to try to monitor where everyone is,’ he said.
Chloe turned up the sound and got the map and her pencil ready.
The temperature dropped only a few degrees as the sun disappeared, and they crawled along. A ranger called in to his station that his walk on the Wolhuter Trail was late getting to its rest camp; he suspected it would take another half an hour. Apparently, one of the tourists had fallen and hurt his leg, causing a delay.
Chloe put a cross on the trail that Nick had marked on the map.
Another ranger reported into Skukuza Rest Camp about a water pump they were experiencing trouble with, and that they would be getting back later than expected.
‘As long as we drive steadily through the camp here, and take the service road to bypass Lower Sabie Rest Camp, we should be okay. We’re meeting an old friend on the Mozambique border, opposite Tshokwane. Once we have the uniforms of the ROMANO and FRELIMO with us, then we press on to the Nwanetsi Viewpoint. There we can stop at the picnic site to get the horses out and rest them before pushing on again to get to the Sabie River. The bush there is thick enough for us to wait out daylight hours without being seen by the public. Driving in the heat of the day, unloading and loading horses, even in a Parks Board vehicle, will attract attention. It’ll be slow, but we will get where we want to go.’
‘As long as this truck holds out on the road—that place is near where John broke the axle of his truck,’ Khululani said.
‘No reason it shouldn’t. It’s a solid old thing. Besides, I’m a better driver than he is,’ Nick said.
Khululani laughed, and Nick filled Chloe in on how many vehicles John had crashed, and how Khululani was always fixing them up so that he didn’t get into too much trouble with management.
They lumbered up a small incline, the gears grinding as Nick changed down. ‘Shit, the rangers all across the park must have heard that.’
Chloe looked out the front windscreen. ‘I’ve never been to the Kruger National Park,’ she said. ‘But I’ve heard other students talk about their holidays driving around and looking at the game, and the elephants of Kruger. Do you think we’ll see any of the Magnificent Seven?’
‘The story of those elephants comes from a really smart marketing department. They elevated elephants to celebrity status to try to save their lives. We’ve a big
problem with poachers in the park. Many come in from Mozambique, but some from South Africa, too. It’s one of the reasons I chose to travel with you. Extra protection. They come armed with AK-47s, and they mow down our elephants and chop out the ivory. The campaign hopes that when a poacher sees one of these big tuskers, whether he’s in or out of the park, they’ll know that the wrath of the people will come down on them, so that they don’t kill the bull.’
‘Does it work?’ Chloe asked.
‘We’d like to think so. Not too many have been killed by poachers recently. Most have died from natural causes.’
‘What’s the difference if the poachers do it or you guys kill them? You cull the elephants anyway—they’re all dead in the end,’ Chloe said.
‘When we do it, the money is put back into the park—to make it better, improve the park and the camps, make new much-needed camps, pay the wages of the rangers, build new fences. When the poachers do it, it’s for personal gain.’
Nick slowed as about forty zebras and wildebeest crossed the road in front of them, then he waited for a lone giraffe as it ambled down the road. He followed at a safe distance, at the same speed as the magnificent animal, until it eventually swished its tail and veered right off the road.
‘We’ll see elephants—don’t know if they’ll be the giant tuskers though,’ he said.
‘Have you seen the hall where all the Magnificent Seven pictures are? Is it true that they have the tusks of the elephants who were in the pictures? Are they all dead?’ Chloe asked.
‘I have, and no, not yet, but they are old, that’s why they’re so magnificent. There are younger bulls coming up, taking their own places in their greats list, but nothing will stop people marvelling at the Magnificent Seven.’
‘Have you seen them all?’
Nick nodded. ‘I was lucky enough to see them all alive. Khululani and I went looking for each and every one, and we have photographs of them. They are not the best pictures, but they will do to prove we saw them during our lifetime. I made copies for Khululani; I think that was the first time that he ever possessed a photograph of his own. Now he has multiple albums, and we both take the photos. He likes to share his albums with the staff who work in the lodge and don’t get to go out into the bush much.