Running Wild

by Bristow, David;

  Day one was dressage, all the riders groomed and coiffed, legs long in the stirrups and correct centre-of-gravity positioning. The judges were looking for good posture (slightly back for the collected trot, a fraction forward of centre for the passage).

  “Heels down, steady hands, quiet hands,” as Dell had coached Melodie on Top Deck. “Bend her inwards, with your leg … bend her!”

  The ever-petulant Justin Wolfe won the dressage on his dun warmblood Lancer, as everyone had expected. Scarlet on her Tswana horse, a dark bay named Rascal, came second and Melodie on Top Deck third. Show jumping on day two turned out to be Scarlet’s forté, a pouting Justin coming second and Melodie third again by a small margin, with Top Deck hesitating at too many jumps and accruing a penalty for disobedience.

  The climax would be the cross-country course on day three – traditionally held on the second day but delayed when a family of warthogs was found on the Saturday to have taken up residence on the hill and dug up part of the course, having to be evicted with great commotion. By the end of day two the field had been thinned considerably with Scarlet and Justin running neck and neck in the lead.

  The cross-country event would be run around a three-kilometre course with a full complement of 34 obstacles on the slopes of gnarled Kgale Hill, a 1 200-metre-high koppie that overlooked the capital. It was a rather exceptional feature in the landscape of a country that was otherwise as flat as an inland sea (which it had at one time been). For a girl who had grown up in the mountains this would be little more than a walk in the park. Her competition, on the other hand, was nervous and had good reason to be.

  From the starter’s flag Melodie surged ahead and was uncatchable, grinning as she and Top Deck cleared dongas, boulders and fallen logs. At one point she saw Justin sweating and swearing as he tried to push and bully Lancer over an obstacle. Scarlet could jump okay but she and her horse had never before encountered anything so energy-sapping and they came in slow and exhausted. Melodie took all the obstacles in her stride, only just able to contain herself from showing off and taking the black-flagged jumps on the senior course, which would have seen her disqualified.

  There were many technical eliminations on the day including some voluntary and some not-so voluntary retirements, as well as falls for horses and riders. There were penalties for jumps taken in the wrong direction, refusals to jump (the most common fault), too many time faults to count and a few disqualifications for reckless riding (not always intentionally).

  The only penalty accrued by Melodie was for coming in under the optimal time (10 points). That was more than enough (or less in the case of the scoring where the lowest number of penalties wins) to take her to the top of the points table.

  She was third to go up onto the stage and shake hands with Lady Ruth Khama, wife of the deceased Sir Seretse Khama, great-grandson of King Khama I and the first president of independent Botswana. The much-revered white mother of the nation was frail but graceful and much more assertive than the young rider had expected, with a steady gaze and firm handshake, even with her bird-like claw.

  “Excellent round my dear, you really showed the rest of the field how it should be done,” as Lady Khama handed Melodie Theron her blue ribbon and an envelope embossed with two horse shoes over a baobab tree.

  She was on cloud nine and the nation’s first lady could just as well have been the Queen of England, or Sheba. She could hardly contain herself from ripping open the envelope while still on stage, but managed what she hoped was an elegant dismount from eventing heaven and walked to the competitors’ tent.

  Scarlet tried not to look too interested as she peered over Melodie’s shoulder to read what was typed on the printed letterhead from Mashatu Private Game Reserve. It was a complimentary horse safari with Limpopo Valley Horse Safaris. Melodie’s heart beat so hard the rushing of blood in her head deafened her to what her fellow competitor was saying. Something about “a great place to ride”.

  That was the last public appearance of the First Lady of Botswana, who died several months later of cancer. Ruth Williams had been a legal clerk at Lloyds in London when Seretse Khama was studying law there in the late 1940s. They married a year after meeting and were promptly ostracised by just about everyone. She had outlived her husband, the African high-born who had married a commoner, became a chief, then a president and finally a sir and she a lady.

  14

  The Chase

  THE MID-YEAR COLLEGE HOLIDAY that year saw Melodie clearing customs at Rhodes Drift and heading to Fort Jameson in the LVHS Land Cruiser. It was situated on high ground a way back from the Limpopo – where the horse operation had moved in the aftermath of the great flood (it had been renamed after the bottle of whiskey that had been downed the day the storm abated). The office remained where it had been, in the shade of two mighty mashatu trees. Two Mashatus it was called.

  She was booked on a five-day wilderness trail and would meet the other riders at the main camp.

  “Actually there is only one other guest booked on the wilderness trail. An American woman who’s a repeat client,” explained the intern who walked her through the camp orientation. “There’s also a French family who are doing the regular ride-out safari.”

  Melodie wiped her face and hands with the ylang-ylang-infused facecloth handed to her on a tray by a smiling member of staff, drank the iced tea proffered, then followed her bags to her tent. Drinks would be served at five in the boma, and dinner would be at six.

  “Winter light-saving,” quipped the intern. “See you round the camp fire.”

  On a pretext she asked to see the stables and asked the grooms leading questions about the horses. She pried, trying not to be too obvious, but there was no information to be gleaned there about her old beloved.

  As the sun tickled the filigreed canopies of the mashatu and ebony trees, seeming to burnish them in newly forged copper, the guests drifted into the boma. The usual “where are you from” and “what do you do” introductions followed.

  Harvey arrived to host the evening and introduced himself and everyone else:

  “Ursa, our she-bear from the States, Olivier and his daughters Cecile and Nadine is it … yes, from Paris, and our special guest, Melodie from just across the border.”

  Explaining how the young South African woman came to be there helped ease the conversation towards dinnertime. Melodie thought that she-bear was a rather odd description for a woman who was as thin as the letaka reeds used for screens around the camp.

  Harvey plonked down in an empty chair and promptly picked up a book on the seat next to him. “Simon Barnes, The Horsey Life: A Journey of Discovery with a Rather Remarkable Mare,” he read. “Well, aren’t they all.”

  Then, without bothering to ask permission from whoever’s book it might be, he opened it to the place marker and began to read:

  “Knees into the saddle roll, bum in the air, hands low, teeth in the mane, every muscle in your body moving in rhythm to that of the horse, so that it’s hard to tell where you begin and she ends, at least as long as the gallop lasts; then you slow and stop, patting a sweaty neck, mouthing nonsensical endearments, fizzing with glorious repletion, letting the reins go out until you clasp the buckle, because you know trust is a two-way street …”

  “Is this riding or sex he is describing?” Olivier wondered aloud and everyone laughed out in relief.

  “Maybe sex with a horse,” Harvey tossed in a party hand grenade, which was just when roly-poly chef Joyce arrived to break the awkward silence by announcing soup was served.

  In the morning the French family set off in the bitter cold of sunrise for their day’s out-ride, while the wilderness safari took substantially longer to get going. Everything had to be double-checked while grooms saddled up the horses and loaded the pack animals that would bring up the rear, escorted by the trainee guide Wes (nicknamed West) who would also act as camp staff. The camp’s assistant chef, Mpho, had to learn to ride a horse in order to follow the safari caravan and work
his culinary magic in the wilderness. In time he became a back-up guide.

  Ruff and Harvey checked their rifles, slipped them into their scabbards and then began the briefing.

  “At least you’re not a bunch of rookies,” said Ruff with typical tactlessness.

  “Just a bunch of women, eh?” Ursa raised an eyebrow.

  “Ja, well, that can’t be helped.” Ruff smiled. Ursa huffed. The young South African woman was not yet worldly enough to realise or care that she’d been slighted.

  “Okay, so I’ll be riding Moyeni, the black thoroughbred. Harvey is on big Frank, or Frankenstein. Ursa you’ll be riding Geronimo, our Indian Appaloosa, and Melodie you’re on Pale Face. West will ride behind with Mpho to look after the supply train.”

  Pale Face reminded Melodie of her old palomino Top Deck and she liked him immediately.

  “Why Frankenstein?” Ursa asked.

  “Because he is one big specimen of equestrian evil,” answered their leader.

  “No, he’s not really, he’s a gentle giant,” Harvey chipped in. “You just have to speak nicely to him.”

  “Pah, he’s a monster,” insisted Ruff.

  It was true Frankie was a big horse and not very athletic, but quite why Stevens was so hard on the horse that had been lost in the storm and found its way back several months later no one understood.

  “It must be something between the two of them,” Harvey said in an aside to the two women.

  They finally left camp in a line six horses and two mules long with all the kit needed for several days in the bush. There would be a resupply halfway through because you could not carry enough on two pack mounts to satisfy the needs of the modern safari. It was a bit like the mountaineering parody about climbing Mount Rum Doodle in Yogistan. For each climber there was an army of porters, and then another for the porters and so on until the expedition numbered several thousand. The real question was: how much do you need to be comfortable on safari?

  The continuum from Bushman to modern safari lodge is about as long as a piece of string. Some people today, having frog-leaped their cave-dwelling ancestry, will not do tents even when said tent includes a king-size bed with white linen, designer décor and en-suite bathroom. Even a horse safari, which has to carry itself, straddles at least a millennium of technological advancement.

  On this one, their lodgings would be modest dome tents, one each for the guests with staff sharing, with stretcher beds and foam mattresses added for the two women. There was a canvas screen and fold-up toilet seat over the long-drop for the “ladies” and a shovel named Doug for the men. A bucket shower hung in a tree partially screened from the camp, pre-warmed on the campfire. There was hot food every day, freshly baked bread, wine, beer or whisky and even ice in a cooler box that would last until the resupply.

  “Any more than that and it is not a safari,” said Harvey. “It’s a party.”

  Camp was set up each night under the canopy of large trees on a riverbank. Each morning the fire would be started before sun-up in the chilled winter air and by eight they would ride off while the camp was dismantled behind them. With a larger group each rider would be expected to do a watch through the night, but with just the two women it was decided the guides and camp staff would share guard duty.

  The horses had to be kept secured on a line to prevent them wandering off and becoming lion food. Lions enjoy horse flesh like Billy Bunter loves a cream bun. The fire had to be fed all night with torch and rifle at the ready. Lions and hyenas were heard calling, usually far off, but not by Melodie who slept the sleep of innocence and exhaustion.

  By the second day they were a well-drilled team, Ursa and Melodie helping with the bush kitchen, learning how to make pot bread on the fire and where to find Bushmen truffles in the Kalahari sand. !Xabas Mpho called them and taught the women to pronounce the plosive click. It became a competition to see who could find the little black vegetal balls first each evening.

  On the third afternoon when they rode into the re-supply camp, staff from Fort Jameson were there to meet them with those colourful drinks that no one really likes but seem to be mandatory, a new load of ice, fresh meat and even cheesecake with ice cream for dessert that night.

  Around the breakfast fire in the morning, Ruff told them that they’d got news from Mashatu Safari Lodge of a horse running around somewhere between Disappointment and Zebra Koppies. Ruff explained to the two guests that they lost horses from time to time.

  “It’s become very dry over the past few years and the animals are getting desperate,” Harvey added, “hanging out near the village in the hope of finding a bit of water or food. Which is how they got domesticated in the first place.”

  “We get stories all the time of horses running wild,” added Ruff. “We have to check them all out. Rasta and Ironsides disappeared into Zimbabwe we think, and we have not seen or heard about Tommy or Zulu since …”

  “Zulu?” Melodie piped in.

  “Ja, a black horse, one of the horses we lost in the big storm in 2000.”

  Melodie did not pursue the interrogation because her Zulu had one white sock and a white splotch on one shoulder, and anyway he was hardly the only black horse in the world. And the flutters got in the way.

  “We never know whether it is going to be a pitse, a horse, or a pitse-ya-naga, one of their striped cousins,” said Harvey. “We have to check out each report.”

  “So we could be in for a bit of fun today,” Ruff grinned.

  They set off from camp along a shaded tributary of the Majale, the riders striking out northeast in the direction of Disappointment Koppie. They passed to the north of Mamba Hills along high ground, through bone-dry bush devoid of grass and only crisped leaves on the wild raisin bushes and small evergreen leaves on the shepherd’s trees, most of which were out of reach of the game.

  “Do you see the browse line?” Ruff pointed out the clean line at the bottom of the canopy of each tree that still had any leaves, mainly the drought-resistant shepherd’s trees, looking as if a gardener had clipped them all the same way. “That’s as high as most browsers can reach. Only larger antelope and giraffes can feed on the leaves higher up.”

  Mid-morning break was called when they reached the Majale. Red-eyed and Cape turtledoves were coo-cooing in the treetops and a troop of baboons scuffled in the shade not far off. As the riders dismounted and tied up their horses, Harvey walked over to the high riverbank. Ruff was handing out nuts and biltong when Harvey whistled and motioned the rest of the group over to a place where the roots of a giant sycamore fig created a natural hide. He put a finger to his lips. A herd of about a dozen elephants, females and young ones, slid down the opposite bank and made for a pool hard up against the near bank, about 40 metres upstream.

  Two calves were still suckling and flung their little untrained trunks into the water like hosepipes out of control while their moms and aunts set about the serious business of drinking. Any good safari guide can tell you an elephant’s trunk has nearly 40 000 muscles, compared to just 639 in the entire human body.

  The muscles work in pairs and make the trunk by far the most versatile appendage in the animal kingdom. The end of the trunk has two finger-like nodes that can pick up a peanut from the ground (smaller Asian elephants have just one node), while the trunk itself can hoist a small car. They also have a sense of smell four times more acute than that of a bloodhound and can smell water from several kilometres away. The humans with all their lotions and potions had been detected by the elephants from a long way off.

  After remounting, the riders found a steep game path across the river. They spread out and galloped one by one down the three-metre ramp, slugged across the loose sandy bed and then up the embankment on the far side. An hour later they reached the Jwala where they sat down to a frugal lunch, finding comfy spots on the raised roots of a baobab tree. The tree was devoid of greenery, the stubby fingers resembling roots rather than branches, which was where the name “upside down” tree was derived from.<
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  “Well, no pitses,” Harvey offered as he passed the potato salad.

  “Not even a bloody pitse-ya-naga so far,” added Ruff as he tucked into the cold meats. “Enjoy.”

  “You certainly seem to,” mumbled Ursa into her plate.

  The young woman heard and smiled. Melodie noticed that the older woman pushed the food around her plate but ate virtually nothing. While packing up, Ruff also noticed the food left over and muttered under his breath something about the bloody Mrs Schwartzes from the Hamptons who were so high maintenance and looked like X-rays.

  Lunch done they clattered across a rocky section of the Jwala where there were a few shallow pools full only of algae and frogs. From there they headed north towards Fika Futi (come again). Places are usually named for good reason and the Fika Futi Koppies were no exception. The reason is the seasonal, nutritious red love grass that grows around a sprinkle of small seasonal pans on the northern side of the koppies: although there was none to be had there now.

  Across the invisible line of the Tuli Circle an old farm reservoir set among dense evergreen thorn bushes still held a film of water in the dry season. Most game that dared their luck would soon be in a village pot but the Africans of the region would not touch zebra meat. Dube, they called them in Zimbabwe, and a dube was a wanderer. If you ate the meat you would forever wander and never settle down.

  “Zebras,” called Harvey, pointing to the line of trees that marked the Matabole River that ran parallel to and south of the Jwala. “A dazzle” of zebras is as appropriate a collective noun as ever there was. With the sun in their eyes the riders had to scan hard before the shapes of the zebras emerged from the variegated gloom. As the group of riders approached, the stallion came forward to challenge them.