Storms Over Africa

by Beverley Harper

  Steve herded the others from the room. ‘Now,’ she thought. ‘I have to leave now. Now, while he’s occupied, needed. Later I will not have the strength.’

  They took the pilot, held by the feet so his head bumped down the stairs. Blood left a thick snaking line along the green carpet. He was tossed off the verandah and left to bleed to death. They took the other man, naked and ready for his turn. His screams as they cut off his manhood were wild and agony-filled. Steve put her hands over her ears. Then she took them away. This was a wild land. These were wild people. And this was justice if she had ever seen it done.

  Tshuma had been hit with a seven iron and a thin stream of blood trickled down his face and onto his shirt. They would have treated him to the same punishment but she stopped them. ‘He will rot in prison,’ she told the men from the village. ‘He will be as a bird in a cage which is too small. He will go slowly mad in his boredom.’

  Tshuma looked wildly around. ‘No,’ he screamed at the men. ‘Kill me now.’

  And the men from the village looked from Steve to Joseph Tshuma and they realised that the punishment she spoke of would be far greater than the punishment they had intended.

  ‘I can’t think of a nicer person for it to happen to,’ Steve said to the men from the village.

  They laughed with her.

  She looked at Joseph. ‘What a pity you have the mind of a caveman.’

  She laughed at him. She had touched the wild herself and the wild had reached out and touched her back. Vengeance was sweet. An eye for an eye. She knew the feeling would pass. She went inside and telephoned the Security Forces.

  While she waited she wrote Richard a note.

  I love you. I will love you forever.

  She would have written more but, when she looked at the words, realised she had said it all.

  She hitched a lift to Harare with the helicopter. Tshuma, grey and old-looking, saw the face of the white helicopter pilot and realised the end had truly come. The black pilot died on the way back to Harare. ‘His death,’ said a grim-faced soldier, ‘would be put down to a mysterious virus.’ The other man lived. His life, once he was well enough to go to prison, would be a misery.

  Much later that day Richard stood on the verandah and watched the doctor’s car drive away. The good man had come all the way from Harare when Richard explained that he was too scared to move his daughter. The doctor had examined her thoroughly and sedated her. He pronounced her physically well. He was not so sure about her mental condition. He recommended a clinic in Switzerland, far away from Africa, far away from the wildness and the danger. Richard promised to consider it. When the doctor left, he took Moses with him for a short stay in hospital. Tshuma’s shot had creased his skull and knocked him out briefly. He had been concussed but it had not stopped him running for help. The silent and stoic man had looked startled, then embarrassed, when Richard hugged him. ‘Please, master, I am not a woman.’ But he got into the doctor’s car grinning.

  Richard knew why Steve had gone. He found her note and understood her pain. He knew he could find her if he wanted to. But he knew it would be no use. Love needed clean air.

  Penny was moved to the guest room downstairs. She was groggy, weepy and clingy. Her strength, her stubborn will, had flown. He prayed it would come back. She would need it in the forthcoming days, weeks, months, maybe years. For now, he freely gave her his own.

  Wellington brought them soup. ‘Go to your house, old one,’ Richard told him in Shona. ‘It has been too big a day for such an old man.’

  ‘I am not such an old man. I am well.’

  Richard looked at him, really looked at him. In the twenty years he had known him the man had aged and become grey. His slight body was a little stooped. But his brown eyes were clear and fine and his smile was real and loving. ‘I have not seen you too often,’ he said in Shona, ‘but I see you now, my friend. Thank you.’

  ‘It is easy to look through someone who is always there, master.’

  ‘Yes it is.’ Richard looked at the man, loving him. ‘But I will not do it again.’

  Wellington smiled. ‘Yes you will, master.’

  Richard smiled back, nodding. ‘Yes, I probably will, my friend.’

  He made Penny swallow another sedative and, once he was sure she was asleep, went outside and picked up the body of the puppy. He would bury the animal where the hedge had been. He would replant the hedge. He would replace the smashed furniture upstairs, rip out the carpets, repaint, cleanse the house of the stench of fear. ‘David will be upset over the dog.’

  When did David say he was coming back?

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he had said. So much had happened.

  He spent the night on the floor beside Penny. She woke often, calling out to him, calling out to her mother. She had not put two cohesive words together since her ordeal. ‘No, not ordeal,’ he thought savagely as he comforted her again. ‘Attempted rape. Let’s not pretend it was anything else. Use my anger, Penny, use it. Fight it.’ He smoothed her hot brow. What would you do, Kath? You would be gentle, understanding, loving. But Penny told me not to change. She needs this anger.

  And he held his daughter and smouldered in impotent rage.

  In the morning she smiled at him. ‘Hello, Daddy.’

  ‘Hello, my darling.’

  ‘You look like hell.’

  ‘Gee thanks, you’re no oil painting yourself.’

  ‘Up yours.’

  ‘Charming.’ He was smiling, delighted with her.

  ‘Where’s Steve?’

  ‘Gone.’ He could add nothing. It hurt too much.

  ‘I’ll miss her.’

  ‘It was all she could do.’

  ‘Is David back?’

  ‘No, he’ll be back later.’

  ‘Daddy?’ She looked confused. ‘What’s been happening. Why am I in the guest room?’

  God! She doesn’t remember.

  ‘Tshuma trashed upstairs.’ Oh great, Dunn, ram it down her throat why don’t you. Poor little bugger.

  Memory returned. Her eyes filled with tears.

  He went to her and held her. ‘They didn’t touch your heart, Pen. They didn’t dirty your soul. You haven’t changed, darling.’

  ‘But I have,’ she sobbed. ‘I feel filthy.’ She put her face in her hands.

  Where the hell are you, Kath?

  ‘Pen, look at me.’ She shook her head. ‘I love you, Penny. I love your heart and your mind and your funny face. I love your spirit and your soul. You are my little girl. They didn’t take that. You’re as perfect now as you were the day you were born. You’re as unblemished now as you were then.’ Fuck it, Kath, where are you? I need your words.

  ‘When you were eighteen months old you climbed into the contents of your nappy. You had shit from head to toe and spread from one end of your cot to the other. We threw you into a bath and it all came off.’

  Jesus Christ, well done.

  But Penny was shaking. It took a little while for him to realise she was laughing.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’ he growled, horribly aware of his shortcomings.

  She took her hands away from her face, threw her head back and roared.

  He grinned at her. Pleased.

  The tears on her cheeks were tears of mirth.

  He joined her.

  They laughed for nearly five minutes, belly muscles aching, unable to stop.

  Penny was on the way back.

  Itchy from inactivity he decided to go and look for David. He needed to do something, anything. He left Penny deeply asleep, the lines of pain and fear smoothed away. He went looking for Philamon. He had not seen the man since he returned home. But Philamon’s wife said she had not seen him either. She appeared to be worried.

  ‘At least David’s in good company,’ Richard thought, driving down the escarpment towards the valley. It often worried him when his son went out on his own, his imagination sometimes ran riot with visions of bandits, rogue elephants or snakes. He never conjured u
p anything as mundane as mechanical breakdown. He went straight to Adam Robinson’s camp. ‘But David left here last night around six.’ ‘He said he was spending the night here.’ ‘He said nothing about it to me.’ Panic blew a gale in his head. ‘Where the hell is he then?’ ‘Hang on. I’ll help you look.’ They followed the Land Rover tracks easily enough. They found where David had stopped and, looking around, discovered the dismantled and broken traps piled against a tree. ‘Christ, David’s been tampering with the traps.’ He grinned. How like his son. The boy’s quiet determination was beginning to earn more of his respect.

  He found more traps further into the reserve. ‘Had a busy night, I see,’ he thought wryly. Then, an hour later, still following the tracks, he found the Land Rover. Where the hell is David?

  Panic turned to fear. Some instinct, some inner voice, was sounding a warning. The forest had a stillness which was abnormal, even though it was the middle of the afternoon and most animals were resting. Usually something rustled in the undergrowth, birds sang, there was always some noise. Richard scouted the area. He found a couple of traps but, unlike the others, they had not been collected and piled together, simply discarded on the ground.

  Quite suddenly, he came to a snap trap which had not been tampered with. Instead, lying on his side with terror and pain in his eyes, a young impala had his back leg snared. Richard dropped to his knees beside the stricken animal. The leg was torn and broken. Adam shook his head. It was beyond repair. Taking out his knife, Richard slit the impala’s throat quickly. There were tears on his cheeks as he watched the trembling limbs go still and the light of life die from the animal’s eyes. The suffering and fear of the impala was something he could really relate to now.

  Still kneeling beside the animal, he sensed, rather than saw, an indistinct mountain of grey off to his right. Looking through the trees he saw a large bull elephant, no more than fifteen metres from where he knelt. The animal had his back to Richard. There was no wind. Unless they made a noise, they could move away from the elephant without the animal becoming aware of their presence.

  Adam was moving silently backwards, his rifle held ready in case the animal saw them and charged. Richard moved with him. They found an ant hill and crouched down behind it. ‘He’ll move on in a minute,’ Adam whispered. One of the mysteries of Africa, an elephant’s ability to camouflage itself even from such a short distance, made it difficult for them to see what the animal was doing. It was swaying on it’s huge feet and making deep rumbling growls. They watched the elephant pluck a branch from overhead, shake it fiercely, then lay it on top of a pile of others. Next, the bull inhaled dirt into his trunk and blew it out in a fine spray. Then, as if to check his handiwork, the elephant ran his trunk along the entire length of the mound of branches, occasionally stopping to adjust a branch, rumbling constantly. The bull had curiously shaped ears, torn in half, which looked like old-fashioned bloomers.

  The actions of the elephant seemed almost tender, the rumbling growl coming from his stomach was constant and, once or twice, he trumpeted loudly as if in outrage. They watched him for ten minutes before, satisfied, the animal gave one final trumpet and ambled away. He was very soon lost from view.

  Cautiously, they approached the mound of leaves, twigs, branches and dirt. Then Richard saw the shoe. It was a sports shoe, the kind David always wore. He stopped, staring at it. There was something odd about the way it was lying, with the toe sticking upwards. Realisation was slow in coming as he tried to deny what he knew must be. With a cry of fear, he flung himself at the heap on the ground, feverishly removing the branches and brushing away the dirt, telling himself it could not be David. But in his heart he knew it was David, even before he uncovered his son’s face.

  ‘Noooooooooo.’ Richard’s voice rang out in the stillness of the game reserve.

  David lay on his back, his eyes staring up to the sky. Philamon’s bullet had taken him cleanly in the back of the head. He must have died instantly.

  ‘No, God, no,’ Richard shouted, cradling his son in his arms. He pulled David’s stiff body onto his lap and rocked him, calling his name over and over, great tearing sobs welling up from the bottom of his guts. ‘My son, my boy,’ he called, heartbroken.

  Adam Robinson stood in shock next to them, swearing obscenely. Then he swore again as he noticed a second mound of the elephant’s work.

  Bloomer Ears had not gone very far and, when he heard the man’s shout, returned to see what had made the noise, not at first identifying it with the dreaded sound of his enemy. He had never forgotten that day at the river, when his family, his friends, cousins, aunts and acquaintances had been slaughtered by the loud repeating thunder which came from the trees and smelled of man. He had been wary of man ever since, except the one who came and made the ground safe. He saw the man with the dead boy in his arms, rocking him, and somehow, instinct told him he was in no danger.

  ‘Sweet Jesus, David, my son, oh, dear God, David.’

  Bloomer Ears sensed sorrow and anger. He was familiar with the emotion. He had felt the same way at the river . . . confused, frightened, angry and sad. It was clear that this man felt the same. He swayed on his huge feet, pushing his trunk forward and up, flicking his ears. Instinct stopped him rushing the man to rebury the still one. The same instinct that had him cover the bodies in the first place. The man cradled the still one and made strange choking noises. The other man uncovered the second still one, the one who was still holding the thunder stick under his chin.

  ‘Kathy, Kathy, have you got him with you? Take care of him, darling. I love you, David. Oh, Jesus, who would do this to a schoolboy?’

  Bloomer Ears saw the man lower his face into the still one’s neck and saw the sobs racking his body and heard the wrenching anguish.

  He could have had no way of knowing that this man in front of him had once been as guilty as those responsible for the carnage in the game reserve. Even if he had been able to perceive this fact, it would not have prevented him from following his instincts and gently covering the bodies of David and Philamon. He was a wild thing and his intuition rather than reason guided his actions. So he watched the man and the boy for a while, before turning away and ambling off in search of food. In her mysterious way, fate had brought Richard Dunn and Bloomer Ears together for a fraction in time and then allowed them to go their separate ways, neither of them knowing how connected they were and neither of them perceiving that justice, in this terrible form, could be seen to have been done.

  TWENTY

  Richard buried David in the reserve. The little glen where he lay became known as Bloomer’s Boma. The elephant seemed attached to the spot and was seen there more often than not, sometimes with his trunk resting gently on the headstone of David’s grave. The headstone simply read

  DAVID JAMES DUNN

  AGED 17 YEARS

  GO WELL, MY SON.

  Theoretically David should not have been buried there, it was against the law. But Adam said, ‘It’s a big park, Richard. I can’t be everywhere at once.’ He, like Richard, wanted David to lie forever among the animals he had loved so much and for whom he had lost his life.

  Philamon had been taken to his village to be buried by his wives. Richard bore him no grudge. He took full responsibility for David’s death and felt an honest sadness that Philamon had taken his own life when he realised who he had shot that night.

  Somehow time healed them. Faces, sadly missed—David, Samson, Philamon—were less painful to recall. Richard sometimes found himself smiling at a memory instead of crying. He and Penny leaned on each other, drawn together by their need to find comfort instead of grief, held together by their battered self-confidence, welded as one while they clawed their way back to what they used to be.

  Penny’s drug habit was cured before she stopped grieving, before she even had time to think about it. Her nightmares took longer. Her body, strong and young, shrugged off the cocaine, alcohol, miscarriage and the bruising from the attempted rape. Her mind
would not let it go. She shunned all contact with the outside world.

  Richard worried about her. He started inviting Adam Robinson to the house. He liked the man enormously and thought he would be good for his daughter. Penny treated Adam with complete indifference. But she would grow cranky and difficult if he stayed away too long. Adam, a strong and fiercely independent man with the patience of one who lives alone and with nature, gave her all the time and space she needed, content to let her find out in her own time that which he already knew.

  It was Adam who gave Richard the idea of turning Pentland Park into an exclusive game-viewing ranch. Under other circumstances he would have rejected the idea. He did not want tourists tramping all over Pentland. But once the seed had been sown he came to see that this was his chance to perpetuate David’s dream of another safe haven for the wild animals of Africa in their diminishing world of safe havens. On a plateau, halfway up the hills on the other side of the valley from his house, he built eight chalets and a large complex to house the staff he would need to look after the tourists. An indoor/outdoor bar, a small cinema, a swimming pool and tennis court completed this luxurious yet rustic hideaway. He sold all but a few of his cattle which he kept on the western side of his land. The animals from the reserve quickly learned they would come to no harm on this extension of their space and, before long, the land which had been dotted with cattle now supported herds of zebra, wildebeest, tsessebe and kudu. Cheetah found the grassy hills in front of the escarpment to their liking. Leopard adopted the rocky bush country near the reserve.

  Six months after David died, Pentland Park Game Ranch was opened for business and became an overnight sensation, bringing in overseas tourists and tourist dollars. A mere 100 kilometres from the capital, it was within easy striking distance. The reserve next door was a natural extension to the ranch.

  Penny helped her father run the ranch. If any of the male guests tried to get close, they were slapped down with a sharply sarcastic comment. Very few were tempted to try their luck again with this coldly beautiful girl. They did speculate, though, and many fantasised what she would be like under her cold exterior.