Nature of the Lion

by T. M. Clark

  ‘How many people have come through?’ Chloe asked, looking around her at the crowds sitting outside.

  ‘About fifteen hundred in four days, and one more day to go, despite it being a Sunday tomorrow. Between the local guy and the three Australian doctors, they can still only see about three hundred a day, so the hard part for the triage nurses is making the call as to whether the patient sees the nursing sisters or goes through to the doctors. I feel for them; some have camped here for days to see a doctor.’

  ‘And we just drive in and yet they don’t make a fuss.’

  ‘They know medical emergencies come first,’ Lily said. ‘We’ve had more than a few of those this time. It’s quite sad. We knew coming in that we would be collecting important data on the spread of HIV in Africa. When we did this same outreach clinic just two years ago, we were mostly treating everyday ailments, but now it’s mostly HIV and TB related. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, we know that HIV is spreading, but the rate of spread is frightening.’

  ‘That’s scary,’ Chloe said.

  ‘It’s going to destroy Africa’s population at this rate,’ Lily said. ‘This disease is devastating, and I wish things were different for these poor people. I think we’ll see many millions of people die, and perhaps eventually see the birth rate drop, too. Many of the children here today will not ever get to my age, perhaps not even your age. It is a sad reality.’

  Quintin Cornelius, Lily’s husband and world-famous musician, who’d been the first one to come to the cattle truck and see Chloe and the others when they arrived, came up behind Lily and hugged her, landing a loud kiss on her cheek.

  Lily blushed. ‘I’m just glad we were here to help you.’

  Chloe remembered her parents having the same easy relationship, touching whenever they sat near, holding hands and hugging a lot. She hadn’t thought about it for a while, but it all came flooding back, and she understood why her father had wanted to make the slime ball of the mine pay dearly for her mother’s death.

  ‘Thank you again, Lily, and nice to meet you, Quintin. Have a merry Christmas,’ Chloe said.

  ‘You too,’ Quintin said.

  ‘Take your father home,’ Lily said. ‘And good luck.’

  Enoch waved to her from across the yard where he was walking the horses with Xo. She beckoned him over, watching him give the lead reins to Xo, then jog to where she stood.

  In that second, a bakkie drove through the gate and skidded to a stop in front of the school, spraying dust all over them and only missing Enoch by a smidge as he jumped out of the way.

  ‘Hey, Doc, the veterinarians have run into a small problem,’ the driver said, climbing out of the car and leaving the door open.

  ‘What’d they do this time, Walter?’ Lily asked.

  ‘The blond one, Michael, he fell into the dip tank when he was helping the cattle through and broke his leg. After hosing him down, I brought him to you. He’s lying in the back, and all I can hope is that he did not swallow any of the dip. Hope you can set it without him needing to fly to Bulawayo for an X-ray.’

  ‘Oh my God, he still stinks of dip and cow shit,’ Quintin said. ‘I thought you said you hosed him down.’

  ‘I did!’ Walter protested.

  ‘Come on, they have enough on their plate,’ Chloe told Enoch. ‘Lily said we could take Dad home. I’ll fill you in on the way.’

  ‘They are angels in my eyes, coming to our country and helping our people without expecting payment. Everyone always wants a handout somewhere along the line, and yet, they come to help, expecting nothing in return,’ Enoch said.

  ‘There’s a little bit more to their research visit, but yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly,’ Chloe said.

  ‘Right, let us get Mike and that Caçador Escuro out of here, and then next stop, Beitbridge Police Station to drop off our prized cargo,’ Enoch said. ‘If all goes well we will be home before three o’clock.’

  CHAPTER

  34

  Kupua shook her head. Douglas Jones had made a bloody mess of things across southern Africa.

  She tapped into her sources in the South African Police and reviewed their file. Douglas was heading for exposure, even before he had cooked his client. She looked at the pictures of his bakkie and of the body of the woman, Nicole Schaffer. Kupua remembered her clearly. What was left of her body was still at the morgue.

  Kupua read the autopsy report. The police suspected that she’d been burned after being killed as there were bullet wounds in both kidneys and the lungs. One AK-47 round had been recovered from her lungs. Poor woman had had no chance. At least she was dead before Douglas had torched her.

  A second round had been found on her, which looked like it’d been in a pocket or inside her bra. It didn’t match the AK-47 slug that killed her. It was a soft nose, most likely from a hunting rifle. It was an anomaly in the report, and underlined by the examining doctor in their notes.

  Douglas hadn’t made sure that her trophy had been destroyed. That was just sloppy.

  The other body had been identified as belonging to a black person.

  Kupua wrote in purple pen Not dead in the margin and underlined it. Then she wrote, Why pretend?

  She carried on reading the report. Someone had found the bodies after the predators had begun dining on them, wrapped them individually in sections of a small camping tent they had cut apart, and piled thornbushes over them, trying to protect them. WHY and WHO was put in capital letters on the report.

  Kupua underlined those.

  She was relatively certain that Douglas wasn’t the one who had tried to preserve Nicole’s or the black man’s bodies. This was a cruel side of him she didn’t know about, and that was a problem for the 6th.

  If he was still alive, Kupua needed to find him. She needed to know what had actually happened that day, and why he had chosen to not only try to deceive the police, but also the 6th.

  Why had he walked away from his burnt-out, shot-to-shit vehicle?

  Did he really think he could outsmart her, pretending to be dead?

  She needed to understand him better. He lived just outside Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Closing the file, Kupua locked it in her white briefcase with purple trim.

  Time to change countries.

  She suspected that the hour glass on Douglas’s life was running out of sand, if it hadn’t already.

  * * *

  Douglas was sweating.

  The painkillers the doctor had given him had long since worn off, even before he had escaped. Thanks to his temporary cast, the police had been unable to put his hand behind his back. The hard bandages on his hand had made a perfect tool to knock out and then strangle the first cop who had walked him out to the waiting transport. He had been able to arm himself and threaten the second one to show him the placement of the anti-hijack switch on the bakkie, before he’d broken his neck, and thrown both men in the back.

  Time was ticking too fast.

  Kupua would find him and end his life, but he needed to get to those responsible first.

  He needed to finish what he had started.

  They all deserved to die.

  He was grateful that finally after all his goading, and performing and threatening, it had been so simple to manipulate a doctor into helping him find out exactly where they were heading when he was at the clinic.

  The Mazunga area.

  He had hunted the lowveld often, and his tracker Virgil was already in that area, ready for his next hunt in the new year. He had a cache of weapons and other interesting articles he’d managed to accumulate buried on the hunting concession Lindani Conservancy. And he even knew their farm, Delaware. It was not right next door to the conservancy, but close enough that he was aware of its existence. The middle-aged woman who lived there was quite a looker; he’d seen her around. Grace, they had called her.

  The police van he’d stolen was the perfect disguise. He’d stripped one of the two dead policemen in the back; his uniform would be the master key to his
plan. His ticket through their security.

  He listened carefully to the police radio, hearing nothing about his escape or his failure to appear in Bulawayo as a prisoner transfer. He had lived in the country long enough to know that Zimbabwe’s political powers that be would never publicly acknowledge that someone had stolen a police vehicle, so the people on the farm would not know any differently.

  ‘So, your plan is to go into their home territory, shoot them all, and then clear out again?’ he said aloud into the cool night air.

  ‘Correct,’ he answered himself. Then he drummed a little beat on the steering wheel with his good hand in celebration before he turned off the main road, on to the Lindani Conservancy.

  He had work to do tonight. Preparations to make.

  By first light, they would all be dead.

  CHAPTER

  35

  The first thing Nick noticed at Delaware, once they had finished unloading the horses and having a much-needed shower, was the familiar sound of a working farm. It called to him as he walked around. The mooing of the cows, a stockman cracking a whip, men singing in harmony as they brought in a few dairy cows to be milked for the evening. The constant buzz of flies and other insects were all sounds he loved and had grown up with, and lately hadn’t heard enough of as he’d been more involved as a game ranger in Kruger. Sounds that were definitely not of the bush.

  Delaware had changed since he’d last seen it. The paint looked faded and peeling, and there were fences that were not as tight as they should be. While the cattle they had passed as they drove in were numerous, they didn’t seem as fat as they should be at this time of year. Granted, they had arrived during a drought, but they were still surviving off the veld, and there were no signs that they were being supplement-fed.

  He looked across at the slightly raised position of the house, close to the huge horse barn, and peeking out beyond that was the equipment shed. A little further to the left was the workers’ compound. Everything was surrounded by Delaware’s signature eight-foot security fence that had become the norm during the war years, which was even more essential now with the dissident war raging.

  The only place that Nick had ever seen that had the workers’ compound inside its own fence was on Mike’s farm. He remembered asking Mike about it years before and being told that his workers were vital to the running of the place, so they needed the same security as they had at the house. At the time Nick hadn’t thought too much about it, but now he realised that Enoch’s house had been in that compound, and it had been Mike’s way of keeping his best friend safe.

  His eyes came back to the horses they’d brought home, which were out in the paddocks alongside the barn. His eyes followed Chloe’s mare, Pampero, her coat shimmering in the evening light after a good grooming. She stood a little away from the other horses, her pregnant stomach clearly visible. She held herself as if she was proud to be in her new home. He wondered if perhaps she was dressage trained because she moved with such grace and poise. Then he looked at Mike’s horse, Diablo.

  He remembered a time when that horse had been such an essential part of their stick in the Grey’s Scouts, a member of their unit. He had cursed the night he’d had to help Enoch bury Maria and Monsoon. In a way, it was kinder to Mike not to know what’d happened to his beloved Maria, given that he’d broken her in after capturing her as a wild horse in the Matopos.

  He looked further away, into the outer paddock, and the horse there caught his eye. A big bay stallion who sniffed the air and pawed the ground, knowing that Chloe’s stallion, Marin, was now in his territory. He ran up and down the wooden fence, whinnying and challenging his rival from a paddock away.

  ‘You watching Pampero?’ Chloe had walked up to stand beside him.

  ‘I’m watching that bay stallion. He’s something,’ Nick said.

  Chloe frowned.

  ‘You scared of him?’

  ‘Not scared,’ Chloe said. ‘Just cautious. That’s Buran. His father was Zonda, the stallion that we captured wild in the Matopos when I was eight. Buran was one of the last sired from him before he died. Despite the closeness to Diablo, Buran was left with Grace because he was only a tiny foal when Enoch and Xo brought the horses through to South Africa and he might not have survived the long journey. It nearly broke Enoch’s heart to make the decision. I know that Enoch always hoped to get back here one day. The boys told me that Buran is wild, and they don’t ride him like they do the other stock horses. They say he breaks a lot of bones. He throws every rider, and from the sounds of it he’s not even green broke yet.’

  ‘Caution sounds good and wise in your case. He’s stunning.’

  ‘That he is. You’re welcome to take a closer look. He’s gentle to talk to, just not to ride apparently.’ They began walking towards the horses in the corral, but then halfway there Chloe stopped. Nick bumped into her and put his hand out and touched her arm.

  That was a big mistake.

  An electrical current went through his hand, and he pulled it away. He could still feel an echo of her soft skin tingling in his fingertips while she remained suddenly distracted. He needed to keep fighting his attraction to her—he couldn’t let her know how he felt now. Not when he had to go back to Kruger Park. When he had to leave her.

  Chloe stood quietly, then she appeared to straighten up as if she was facing an enemy and needed to show her full height. She looked at him, reminding him that she was as flexible as a lioness. And she was just as feisty—he needed to take care around her. He could see her annoyance wasn’t directed at him, but couldn’t see the source.

  ‘It’s so frustrating that we had to leave here. Seeing the differences when we’ve returned hurts. Delaware is falling apart. There’s so much in disrepair—I look at it and see all the potential.’

  ‘Stop beating yourself up at what was. You need to focus on what’s ahead, not look back. Looking back is a dangerous game; it can keep you trapped in the past.’

  ‘Is that where you still are?’ she asked.

  He stood unmoving and opened his mouth to answer and say no, but it wouldn’t come out. Was he trapped in the past? Was he guilty of letting the past rule his present life?

  No. He was shit scared of the future. Of the depth of his feelings for Chloe, and everything that he knew he was willing to give up, just to be near her.

  Chloe put her head on the top plank of the horse fence and called to Buran. She looked every bit the typical cowgirl, with her jungle hat on her head, her button-up shirt, jeans and boots, but it was her attitude that defined her as the heir apparent to Delaware. A confidence about her now that she was home. He looked towards the horses again to distract himself from dwelling on their parting, which he knew was imminent.

  The bay looked at her, then looked at where his challenge to Marin was going unnoticed, then decided Chloe was the better option and trotted up to the fence, tossing his head.

  She stretched out her hand, and the bay smelled it, and then his breathing changed as if he recognised her.

  Chloe got through the fence and stood next to him, her arms around his neck. She patted him and spoke to him in a constant stream of soothing words. The stallion continued to toss his head but started to rest it occasionally against her for a moment—before going back to the tossing. Eventually, he calmed right down, making little noises and leaning his head against her body.

  Nick stood and watched the pair’s reunion after the years apart until Chloe’s voice sliced into his thoughts.

  ‘I watched Buran being born right in those stables one night. I was home from boarding school, and it was freezing. We stayed with his mother, Flicker, all through the night as she moved constantly, trying to ease her contractions. In the morning that little rubber-legged colt was born. He came out in his sack and Dad let me help pull it off him to make sure that he could breathe okay.’

  ‘Buran, another wind, I get that, but Flicker, you kidding me, right?’

  ‘She came with that name—someone obviou
sly loved books. Buran was such a beautiful foal—he was so tame. I used to spend hours with him,’ she said. ‘They shouldn’t have tried to turn him into a stock horse. He’s so much better than that.’

  Nick smiled as he remembered seeing her with a palomino when he’d visited, and how it had gone everywhere with her, even following her into the house, until Sarah had shut that one down.

  ‘I remember Enoch telling Grace on the phone one day that under no circumstances were they to castrate him. Enoch might have left him behind, but I think he also missed seeing this little one grow up.’

  She patted the horse one last time on his neck, climbed back through the fence, and turned to walk towards the stables.

  Nick looked around inside the huge building.

  Chloe ran her hand along the wall of the barn. ‘These stables were rebuilt when I was five. Not sure if you remember that. The old wooden one was damaged by a fire that burned out more than half our farm. When my dad and Enoch rebuilt it, they made sure that it would stand up to almost anything, and the horses would be safe. I used to have my own fort built in the loft. I might show it to you one day.’

  He laughed.

  Chloe grinned. ‘Seriously, Xo eventually made it with me. He got tired of me running away, so he built me a place to go away from the house, which was still close by. That way, he didn’t have to track me into the bush all the time. I was really quite a brat, and he was the one tasked with entertaining me when I was younger. Poor guy, he was only a year older, and I was like this little girl hanging around him all the time.’

  ‘You are such good friends though, I can’t imagine you running away from him,’ Nick said.

  ‘It wasn’t from him. Some of my best childhood memories are when he and I would go out on the horses, or just walk. We’d track and watch the game, shoot something or trap a pheasant for lunch if we wanted to. We’d cook it on a fire we’d made. I loved those times. I can’t even remember what I was always running away from.’