by T. M. Clark
‘Fine, be like that,’ Chloe said. ‘I bet you Diablo will come in, and he’ll be safe from those big elephants, while you’ll be outside.’
Chloe gave Pampero to Xo, who stood watching her, a silly grin on his face.
‘Don’t you dare laugh, Xo.’ She took Diablo from him. ‘Come on, old man, just show these others how it’s done. Please.’
Diablo walked into the cave without hesitation. Xo followed with Pampero, and because he was so close behind Diablo, she walked in without any more fussing.
‘We should have tried it this way the first time,’ Chloe admitted. ‘I should have known better.’
‘Give yourself a break,’ Xo said, ‘it’s been a full-on day.’
They went out and brought in Kimberlite, with Marin close behind him, and Sirocco really close behind Marin. The stallion baulked once.
Chloe brought out the horse cubes and bribed him. ‘Come on, boy, you have to get in there.’
But it was Sirocco right behind as he pushed on Marin, trying to get to a few cubes, too, which manhandled and shamed the stallion into entering more than anything else. Chloe’s nerves were frayed, and the horses could sense it.
‘Stay with them. I’ll bring in the food,’ Xo said.
Chloe went to the back of the cave where Diablo stood as if he’d been housed in a cave all his life. Calm and still, he waited for her. She scratched his ears. ‘Thank you,’ she said, laying her head against his. The familiar earthy scent of Diablo washed over her and her shoulders relaxed. The pain she felt inside abated for a moment.
‘I know you have seen lots of death before, and smelled it, but today was a first for me,’ she said quietly. ‘I have to learn to live with knowing that I shot a man, and nothing in all my training prepared me for this feeling of guilt.’
Diablo whinnied and tossed his head.
‘I know it’s stupid, there shouldn’t be any because he’s a cold-blooded killer, but still. How can I be a decent human being if I don’t feel bad for hurting someone else?’ She stroked his face, drinking in the calmness.
Xo came back into the cave. ‘I’ll put their feed boxes out.’
‘Thanks. I think we should give them an extra big helping of lucerne to keep them distracted.’ She smiled, despite the feeling inside of her.
‘Your wish is my command,’ Xo said.
She laughed.
Taking the horse cubes from Xo so he could fetch the lucerne, she dished out the food, stroking each horse and talking to them as she went.
‘You guys are so lucky you’re at the back here, it’s so nice and cool,’ Chloe said. ‘When you’re done, you can look at all the splendour that surrounds you. I bet the men who painted those never expected a horse to shelter in this cave near their pictures. I doubt they ever got to even see a horse, they were here so long ago.’
Once the horses were settled, Chloe finally had the opportunity to study the cave. She’d seen a few caves on Delaware that’d had a bit of rock art, but nothing like this one. A hunter, painted in hues of brown, stood amidst a herd of impala, their brown bodies and white underbellies clearly visible. In another, a group of people ran together, their large bottoms and bellies showing as they chased a herd of elephants with huge tusks. Higher up on the cave wall the bushmen had painted a scene of a large leopard, its head shape and spots clearly indicating it was not a cheetah. Around that were clumps of animals—giraffe, zebra, wildebeest—and then layered on top again were even more impala, kudu with their large spiral horns, and more elephants with fat stomachs and long trunks. A rhino, with two long horns, completed the collection. Her gaze lingered on a group of people running towards a pride of lions.
There were so many paintings, and layers of paint, one on top of another, as if this cave had housed many artists over the years. In one, there was a change in colour to a blacker and more solid image, and a picture of a man on a horse with a hat on.
Chloe paused.
It looked out of place alongside the warthog, eagles and stylised figures of people with small bows and arrows, and lines of people dancing together, clapping.
The cave had been home to so many people, so much life, until the art had stopped in an era where modern men had taken over in Mozambique. With African exploration by the Europeans, then colonisation, their presence had led to the near disappearance of the San people. She reached out and traced a picture of a porcupine, its quills all pointing backwards. She remembered seeing many porcupines when she was growing up. Her dad had believed that you didn’t mess with them, and just left them to their own business in their burrows on Delaware, but she’d spent hours around their den, collecting quills and putting them in a vase in her room. She wondered if the quills were still there, waiting at Delaware for her to come home, or if Aunty Grace had tossed them out and used her bedroom for something else.
‘Chloe, we’re going to climb up top to watch the elephants,’ Nick said from the entrance. ‘Are you coming?’
She turned, a refusal on the tip of her tongue, but Enoch had Mike on a makeshift bed, and Ethel was helping to settle him down for an afternoon rest.
‘Go, I will watch the horses,’ Enoch said. ‘You will be close enough to slip inside if they smell the elephants and get restless.’
‘Call me if they show any signs of distress,’ Chloe insisted.
Enoch nodded.
Chloe, Xo, Nick and Khululani sat on top of the kopje that hid the cave and could hear the elephants before they saw them, the rumblings of members of the herd communicating across the bushveld. Then the deserted bush suddenly exploded into life. Long grey trunks ripped trees apart as they went, eating the leaves and stripping the bark, almost like a large forest bulldozer. Chloe watched as one mischievous little elephant took a branch and attempted to break it from the tree, but the branch wouldn’t come loose. It tried again, still to no avail. The little one eventually got the branch to break, and as testament to the fact he was stronger than it, he threw it on the ground and began stomping on it, as if to teach it a lesson.
Chloe chuckled, then put her hand over her mouth to stop the sound as the young calf looked in her direction before it ran back to its mother, leaving the now destroyed branch on the ground. The mother carried on eating, slowly plodding northwards.
‘You know, your horses will get used to them pretty fast. To them, they are just another animal, and to the elephant, your horse is just missing its pyjamas,’ Nick said.
Chloe grinned. ‘It’s not the horses I worry about, it’s me. These guys are huge.’
‘We’re not going to purposely try to ride in their herd, we’ll go around them—assuming we know they’re there of course,’ Nick said.
‘I don’t remember them being so large.’
‘You just haven’t been around them for such a long time,’ Xo said.
‘When you did the trip south through the bush, did you come across elephants?’ Chloe asked.
Xo smiled. ‘Lots of them, and the horses didn’t mind. I think old Diablo and Kimberlite might even remember them.’
‘I hope so, I’m counting on them to keep the others calm if we encounter them in the bush,’ Chloe said.
They were still sitting up there watching the sky darken when they heard the gunfire, far off in the distance. It was so far away that they couldn’t even identify the weapon, just that there were multiple shots, and an explosion. Then silence. The whole bush stopped and listened. Cicadas didn’t scream, the crickets quietened, even the birds in their ritual calls of worship to life were silent.
After a moment, everything started up its chorus again, and other than a baboon barking in the distance, warning of some danger, the night sounds were natural.
A flash of orange fire leaped into the sky, then darkness and a grey smoky haze of a fuel-induced fire in the distance. But nothing else.
‘You think that was our truck and they hit a landmine?’ Chloe asked.
Nick shook his head. ‘It’s not the right way for where we saw
the truck heading, it’s more to the west. Quite far. They couldn’t have got there already, even if they know where the road is mined and isn’t.’
‘It is back where we were this morning,’ Khululani said. ‘On the road that the Caçador Escuro sped away on.’
‘You sure?’ Xo asked.
Khululani nodded.
‘Probably just the Mozambicans fighting each other. We’ve been really lucky to have seen nothing of the war in person,’ Nick said.
‘Enough about stupid wars and killings. I’m beat, and I need sleep. Let’s go sort out some dinner then hit the sack,’ Chloe said.
‘Me too; I’m starving,’ said Xo.
‘You are always hungry,’ Chloe said and Xo gave her a playful punch in the arm.
‘Surely not.’
She laughed and nodded. ‘Always.’
Nick put his hand out and helped her as she slid off the granite dome and then began the climb down again. She smiled her thanks, and he seemed to hold onto her hand for a little longer than expected, before letting it go.
Their return had caused everyone outside to admit that it was supper time, and when they walked into the cave, Enoch and Ethel had a small fire going, and something smelled really nice in the cooking pot. A pot of sadza bubbled on the coals that Ethel had pulled away from the main heat of the fire, and Chloe sat down next to her dad in his deck chair.
She patted his leg and watched the fire as Ethel handed her a bowl, not bothering to give her a utensil. It was a stew and she could eat it with her fingers. One less thing for them to have to wash up with their precious water.
Soon she was mopping up the last of the gravy with her sadza. ‘What was in here? It tasted like goat.’
‘Goat,’ Ethel said, nodding. ‘The tinyanga, Cassamo, he gave it to me when we were leaving. He said that he’d sacrificed it for us, to his gods and all his ancestors, because we had made his village a safer place. He has asked them to watch over us and keep us safe from the Caçador Escuro on our journey home.’
Chloe looked at Ethel with a frown.
Filipe shook his head. ‘The meat was fresh, and I do not believe that Ethel would have accepted it if it was at all contaminated by anything he put on it.’
Ethel shook her head. ‘I didn’t trust him either, and I told him that. He gave me the knife and told me to siga the whole leg with the skin on and take it from the gutted goat. The sacrifice was his offering for the gods; he couldn’t contaminate the meat.’
‘What else did he give you?’ Chloe asked.
‘Nothing else, just the meat that was a gift to all of us to say thank you,’ Ethel said.
‘What did he ask for from you?’ Chloe asked.
‘Nothing,’ Ethel said in a defensive tone.
‘As long as that snake didn’t try to give you a vulture’s head or anything gross to wear to ward off evil. Despite everything, I still don’t trust him.’
‘I wouldn’t accept anything like that,’ Ethel said.
‘Did he try to weasel another nice dress from you?’
Ethel smiled. ‘I told him I did not have any smart dresses to give him, and he said that he did not want any of my maid’s uniforms.’
Chloe shook her head. ‘See, that’s what I thought.’
‘I was not giving him my favourite church dress. I want to wear it again when I get to my new home, to my new life,’ Ethel said.
Chloe smiled. ‘Good on you, Ethel. Thank you for an amazing dinner. I for one loved that stew, even if the meat came from that ratbag.’
Everyone else was also complimenting Ethel on the stew, and how nice it was to have eaten fresh meat for a change.
‘You know, if we find anything edible along the way, we could always kill for the pot,’ Nick suggested. ‘We are out of the park area, and while we had the truck and were making decent progress, using the rations carried made sense, but now, we’ll have to change a few things, and eating fresh meat will need to be one of those changes.’
‘Thank you for volunteering. That can be your job from now on, because we cannot carry all the food with us on the horses tomorrow,’ Enoch said as they settled down for the night.
CHAPTER
24
Russian Top 6 Trophies
1.Wolf
2.Tur
3.Ibex
4.Snow leopard
5.Bear
6.Man
CHAPTER
25
Douglas looked at Nicole Schaffer.
‘Nicole, can you hear me? You still with me?’
She was silent.
‘Fuck!’ He pulled to the side of the dirt road with difficulty as the bakkie was barely responding now with two tyres blown. He had driven as far as he could get from the danger. He jumped out and walked around to the passenger side and opened her door.
Nicole flopped out into his arms, unconscious. He had to find where she was bleeding and stop it.
He lay her on the side of the road, turned her over and shimmied her T-shirt upwards. He didn’t have to search for where the entry wound was. Despite all the blood, he could see it at the base of her back. Her kidney. When she had told him she had been hit, she hadn’t said where. The blood coming out of the wound was dark red.
He turned her over to check if there was an exit wound and saw the bullet had pulled part of her intestines along with it on the way out, and they were slowly beginning to protrude outwards.
He saw another exit hole on her shirt. He turned her again and, pulling her T-shirt over her arms, used that to wipe the whole of her back. About fifteen centimetres above the first wound, a second bullet had sliced into her liver, and probably her lungs, too. There was a third entry hole but no exit wound. One of the bullets was still inside.
He was losing her. There was no way they would make it to a hospital or a clinic.
He turned her back over and realised that he hadn’t noticed the blood coming from her mouth as she was drowning. Her body gave a last sigh, and then was still in his arms.
Not only had he lost his client, but he’d felt her last heartbeat. Been there to share her very last breath. He had never experienced this feeling of loss before. Not even when Tommy had died did he feel that he had let him down. Nicole was his client, and he hadn’t been able to protect her. He had failed at his job.
He had failed the 6th.
A bakkie went past, going towards Mozambique, then it stopped and reversed. A young black man got out and came to him. He was almost as tall as Douglas, but he hadn’t had the years to fill out into his frame yet. ‘Ag shame, man! Some skebengas got your bakkie? Are you okay?’
Douglas looked up from where he still held Nicole. ‘She’s dead.’
‘Haw! I’m so sorry, so sorry, man.’ The driver took off his hat and put it on his chest as a sign of respect. ‘Do you want me to go call anyone for help?’
Douglas began to shake his head. Right now, all he wanted was for the driver to leave him alone so he could turn his bakkie around and go back and kill the son-of-a-bitch Parks Board guys who’d done this to him. His life was over, but he was not leaving without their lives as payback for Nicole.
In the back of his mind he remembered Kupua’s promise to help the hunters if they asked, but he knew it was more a veiled threat than an offer of help.
The man was waiting. He needed more time to think. ‘Do you have a pen and paper?’
The driver fetched a small school book and a pencil that had been sharpened with a knife. Douglas lay Nicole down, and made sure to drape her T-shirt over her chest, covering up her breasts.
He stood up and the driver passed the notebook to Douglas.
If he wrote this note and sent the fax to Bern, he was signing his own death warrant. He wouldn’t get a chance to get even with the bastard game ranger before someone from the 6th came and ended his life.
He’d lost a client.
His life was already over.
But if he didn’t send the fax, Kupua would eventually come after h
im anyway when he didn’t check in, making sure everything was still in order. Since losing #5, they had tightened their control over the hunters. She would track him down, and he would be silenced because he had lost a client. It was the rule of the 6th.
Either way his life was over.
Except, maybe if they thought he was dead already …
‘Baas?’ the man asked. ‘Do you need me to write for you?’
No, I need you to die for me.
Douglas looked up and down the road to ensure there was no traffic, then he grabbed the man, quickly overpowering him and breaking his neck. He put the body into the driver’s seat and did up his seatbelt.
He picked up Nicole from the side of the road and put her back into the passenger’s seat. He pulled on her seatbelt and clicked it in place to hold her. There was nothing he could do for her now, she was dead anyway, but, he could still avenge her killers.
He knew at least one was a game ranger from the Kruger. But he couldn’t fathom how he’d followed him. Too much time had passed between when he had been with Heinz Koch, his German client in the Kruger when he happened upon those two rangers a second time. He had been back to Zimbabwe and into South Africa again before crossing in the Coutada 16 area for his 6th hunt with Nicole.
There was no way they could have followed him.
How had they found him?
The rangers were good, but there was no way they could have accomplished that feat. And the others? Why had they all attacked, and on horseback? None of it added up.
All he had to do was follow their trail and he’d find them. Clean up that loose end. Now that he had a chance to throw anyone off his trail, they would all think it was just him and Nicole in the burnt-out bakkie. Only when the cops looked closer would they discover that it was not his body. Or not, depending on how closely they looked at bodies that had obviously been in a war zone.
This would buy him the time to act.
Nobody hurt him or someone he was charged with protecting without consequences.
But the game rangers, and now those they rode with, must know he was the Inthunzi Zingela as they called him in the Kruger. There was no other explanation for their aggressiveness towards him.