“Hey Karl, looks like your little horse has gone a bit bossies,” Ruff hoped he’d found Karl’s needle spot.
Bossies was a term that had returned with the veterans of South Africa’s ignominious so-called border war, its own back-yard Vietnam. When South African soldiers, men like Ruff and Karl, got spooked they were said to be bosbefok (bush whacked), shortened to bossies. Elsewhere it was known as PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.
Karl spent the rest of that safari trying to keep as far away from Ruff as he could. If you had filmed it and played the movie back at high speed, it would have made for great comedy: one rider advancing and the other retreating, ducking and diving, around every bush or termite mound.
Albany was a dark bay with a hint of chestnut, nimble for his 16.2 hands. He was named after a dark chocolate bar and came from a farm on the Zimbabwean side of the Limpopo that had been invaded by Robert Mugabe’s storm troopers. They called themselves war veterans for political expediency – “wovits” the white farmers called them – even though most of them would not have been out of nappies by the time the civil war there had ended in 1980. Albany came for free (the farmer just wanted him to go to a good home before the wovits ate him) but with a lurking temper. He was a Friesian-cross and of the bloodline of horses much favoured by the knights of the Middle Ages.
Albany immediately identified Zulu as his opponent in the paddock. Zulu, however, had reached a stage in his life when he no longer felt the need to fight off every challenger. He was like an old gunslinger in a Western movie who has hung up his guns but is constantly being sought out by younger buckeroos who want to prove themselves.
Zulu knew he would have to watch his back with Albany and it made him feel bone-tired.
21
The Cowboy is Leaving the Valley
BACK INTO THE ROUTINE OF LIFE at Limpopo Valley, Ruff was busy with all the admin that came with running a horse safari business – replying to booking queries, dealing with staff squabbles, keeping ancient freezers running, fending off the boss’s inquiries about why his old huntin’-fishin’ chum had not been given as much ice as he’d wanted in his Scotch, repairing tack, shooting mambas in the kitchen … when the radio bleeped.
“Boss, you really need to be here.” It was Karl, who had more than his hands full with a boisterous group of females who were drinking the place dry each night. It was the four males in the group who feared for their reputations. As much as he could calm a panicked horse with a firm lip twist, it was widely known that Ruff could calm a distressed damsel with a disarming grin: “So what’s the houlihan, hot lips?”
When Ruff arrived at the kgotla camp, an open-to-the-sky bivouac with a palisade of leadwood logs shaded over by a giant mashatu tree, he was ready to chew up anyone who fed him duck curry.
“Ruff? Ruff Stevens! Where the hell have you been?” Lucy Raeburn grinned, standing legs apart with her hands on her trim hips. For the next few days Ruff and Lucy paid only scant attention to the others. Ruff even forgot his feud with Karl and Zulu. Lucy’s friends had heard no end to her stories of a modern-day Ivanhoe who had swept her off her feet and into bed at Badminton the previous year (the “bodkin inn” indeed).
And here he came, riding out of the pages of her fantasy. The friends watched, titillated, and smiled. You couldn’t make this stuff up. (Why, one might wonder, had she not simply let him know she was coming. The reasons were simple and few: she was not sure the passions of the Cotswolds would travel well to Botswana, and Botswana was a big place. She wasn’t 100 per cent sure it even was Botswana.)
They were riding along a game path that ran parallel to the strip of riverine forest beside the Limpopo. Karl was riding back-up since Ruff had moved up the echelon of riders to natter with Lucy and her mates. Not ideal, and he should have known better. A second back-up guide, Ray, who doubled as the camp cook, was riding point. This was the day Ray earned his nickname Doc.
Although he had qualified at Main Lodge as a field guide, Ray had yet to pass Juliette’s stringent riding test. He was a natural on a horse, but Juliette, ever the traditionalist, insisted he do his time before giving him free rein. The sun was pulling fish out the water so he turned his horse, Socks, into the cool shade of a grove of big jackalberry trees when a movement in the blue-grey murkiness caught his attention.
All Kevin, who was next in line, saw was Ray leaping from his horse, wrestling something to the ground. “Come and help me with this wire,” Ray instructed, dispatching with formalities.
When his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Kevin could make out a fully grown male impala thrashing on the ground. He did not hesitate and leaped off his horse.
“Here, help me get this snare off his head, but hold those horns,” Ray instructed the rider-cum-surgeon’s assistant. “You don’t want those things stabbing you, or me.”
Next to arrive was Carol, who was dismounting while Kevin wrestled the noose of wire free. That done, Ray gave the stricken antelope a few sharp pumps on its ribcage. Before Carol (who had trained as a nurse before being lured into the world of corporate finance) could lend a hand, the creature shuddered, issued a gurgle followed by a sharp snort, blood flying out its nostrils, jumped to its feet and bolted. All that the third and fourth riders saw was the dark form of something bolting. The rest saw nothing but the aftershock of a fleeting moment in time.
Kevin was standing, holding the wire noose.
“Poachers,” explained Ray as Ruff and the rest of the riders rode up. Ray explained to the gathered crowd how poachers set wire traps along well-worn game trails.
“Well, you certainly don’t see that every day,” chuckled Kevin, still recovering from the adrenaline rush and still holding the fence-wire snare.
“If anything happens to me in the bush, I want Ray to be my doctor,” said Carol, overwhelmed that a man would leap off a horse to save the life of an antelope.
“Hey Doc, now you’ve got a reputation to live up to,” came Ruff’s two cents’ worth from the rear.
Around the camp fire that evening, with a thunderstorm building in the east, the billowing anvil heads glowing purple and gold in the last light, Ruff stoked the fire and the conversation.
“So Doc, tell us. Are you a doctor of humans or a doctor of animals?”
“Ah, you know Ruff, I’m a witch doctor,” he chuckled, upending a steaming pot bread onto the dining table.
The celestial light and sound show continued well into the night. Revisiting the impala incident, fortified by well-doctored coffees and the protective ring of firelight, a glow of amity infused the group. The open boma, the thunderstorm and later lions roaring in the darkness ignited human passions. The following morning more than a few veiled glances and furtive brushings crossed the rough-hewn breakfast table.
Then it was time to leave. As the Pilatus PC-2 did a circuit of the airfield to signal all was well, Ruff waved to the faces pressed at the windows. He and Lucy had not made any plans but they would be together sooner than they could have imagined.
On the ride back to the stables, it was not only Ruff who noticed that Zulu had become increasingly nervous. Something had changed in him that even Karl could not figure out. Back at camp, Juliette confirmed he had developed what she referred to as “little colics”. She became concerned about Zulu’s worsening condition.
“Just like some women I’ve known.” Only Ruff laughed at his own wit.
Colic is the biggest killer of domesticated horses. It is some kind of intestinal interference but, like headaches or lower back pain in humans, it is almost impossible to pinpoint a specific cause. It can be nerves and horses are nervy animals by nature. It can be the result of an over-rich diet, it can be from an obstruction in the intestines, an ulcer, parasites or poison. It results in a build-up of gas and a horse will roll frantically in order to rid themselves of the discomfort. This will often lead to the intestine twisting and if a vet is not on hand the horse will die.
Ruff discussed Zulu’s situation with Juliet
te.
“Yes, I know: no ride and you’re hide,” she acknowledged. “But Zulu is such a special horse, and has a great temperament. You do know he is special, don’t you!” she demanded more than asked, holding his jacket and staring at him.
Ruff would not back down on the temperament thing but he did offer a compromise. They agreed it would be best to send him back to Rhodes Heights and see if things improved, rather than sell him to a butcher or put a bullet in his head. Karl and Juliette knew both were real options according to Ruff’s rules and Zulu was, technically, still his horse.
Once again Sean Trautmann was told to hitch a trailer to his battered old Ford F250 and head to Mashatu. He didn’t mind at all because life up on the escarpment had been driving him a bit bossies; his problems being irascible Ratty Michaels and a house full of toffee-noses. He relished the chance to get back into real bushveld and hang out with the guides at Mashatu.
Emotions at Limpopo Valley were running at around the high tide mark when Ruff arrived at the stables one morning and found the grooms and interns sitting in the shade around the back, drinking tea and shooting the breeze. It was the breeze that had alerted him, carrying as it did the distinctive earthy herbal note of baboon cabbage.
It was ten in the morning and he would have let it go, except he noticed the stables had not yet been mucked and water had not been replenished. Ruff was old school and disliked the whole hippie thing as much as fraternising with the help. It was enough to prime his fuse.
“Who is on duty?” he demanded.
“Ah, it’s Wilfred boss,” replied one of the staff hesitantly.
“Well, where is he?”
“He is coming late baas.”
“Better late than never, hey Ruff,” interjected one of the interns who did not appreciate the gravity of the moment.
Although Ruff was not averse to giving a misbehaving horse a good snotklap, he insisted on only one kind of care for the herd.
“Late is NEVER better,” he glared back. The young man stubbed out the joint he was holding and began to fidget.
“Horses cannot use a broom, or turn on a tap! You look after your horse first before you feed your own face. Or I’ll shove that broom up your arse. Do you understand?”
No reply was necessary or forthcoming.
When Wilfred appeared sometime later he realised he had stepped into a shoot-out at the OK Coral. It was not the first time the groom had neglected his duties.
“Wilfred, do I have to put a fucking cow bell around your neck so I can hear when you are working?”
Ruff knew himself well enough to know he was on the edge of a red-mist flash and he barely managed to check himself. His safari operator’s permit depended on not screwing up things too much with the staff, who were citizens and he was not, so he spun around and marched off.
The next day, Wilfred reported for duty much earlier than usual, saying he was ill and needed a lift to the clinic. Ruff, who had got over the previous day’s transgression, consented. Except the man was on his way to lay a complaint against his boss at the tribal kgotla. In African society you never admonish one person in front of another unless you are the chief. Even worse was to liken them to beasts of burden, like hanging a bell on them. These things were taken seriously, so the headman called the district commissioner, who called Ratty Michaels, who was well connected to the president and who could not give an unequivocal character reference for the rough-hewn horseman.
When the time came to renew his permit, Ruff’s file did not make good reading.
There had been complaints before about Ruff’s bullying and offensive comments. It had been reported, for example, that the word munt was often heard around the stables.
“But it means person, muntu is an African word, Ndebele,” protested Ruff when he was called to the DC’s office for an interview.
The DC was a reasonable man but he had to appease his constituency. “I know what it means, Mr Stevens. Around here a black person can call another a munt, but a white person should know better. Just like in New York a black person can call another a nigger, but a white person dare not.”
Ruff knew to keep schtumm.
“Your people were the colonisers here, Mr Stevens, that’s just the way it works.”
The DC adjusted his tie, pulled at the lapels of his military-style jacket, and continued to peruse Ruff’s file.
“Mr Stevens, it also appears you have been calling some of your staff animals.”
Ruff looked perplexed.
“Apparently you threatened to hang a cowbell around someone’s neck.”
Ruff realised he was in quicksand so he said nothing in his defence.
“I see, Mr Stevens, that it will be difficult for me to renew your operating licence, as well as your work permit.”
Not long afterwards, Ruff’s landlord, Ratty Michaels, was on the blower.
“DC called, says you must be out the country by the week’s end.” He did not sound disappointed.
“Yes, yes, you can take your own horse, and all your own possessions. But the rest of the horses, and all the tack, and all the other equipment belong to the business. And as you recall the business belongs to me.”
Ruff did not need reminding.
22
Mountains of the Sky
THE BLACK HORSE STOOD ON A high crest of the Mpumalanga escarpment, the forested scarp face plunging away to the Lowveld with the Kruger National Park and Mozambique coastal plain beyond that stretching away, seemingly forever …
The high ground on which Zulu stood fell away on both sides: to the east, Mpumalanga, where the sun rises, it plummeted in one great leap; to the west, eshonlanga, the setting sun, it rolled and bucked in golden-green dinosaur ridges and elephant backs. It was the northernmost extension of the Drakensberg, the Dragon Mountains, that formed a giant gallery along the eastern margin of South Africa.
Rhodes Heights was both a rich person’s playground as well as a nature conservancy that protected the fonts of numerous water catchments that were the lifeblood for millions of people in the agricultural lowlands. The highest point stood proud at 2 700 metres, rendering the place cool in summer and frigid in winter. The streams were stocked with trout and game had been re-introduced – white-tailed wildebeest and grey rhebuck, blesbok, oribi and zebra among them.
The dozen visitors allowed at any one time could fly fish, go walking, horse riding or mountain biking with the lean, tanned, taciturn reserve manager and guide, Sean Trautmann.
“Why is it so green?” one visitor had asked him at a time when the rest of the country was in the grip of an El Niño drought cycle.
Because it rains a lot, was his reply.
The rocks that formed this ancient landscape had settled along the shoreline of a primordial seabed around a billion years ago. Gold had settled along the water’s edge in a thin arc of brilliant yellow dust as it might around the edge of a prospector’s pan and lay trapped in seams of black reef quartzite and dolomite. The ancients – shadowy people who had worked the precious yellow metal long before the written word left any trace of their passing – had worked the base element here.
Gold from here was used to cover Solomon’s Temple, the death mask of Tutankhamun and much of the decorative gold of the ancient world. Centuries later, white settlers only needed to locate the old diggings and with the aid of dynamite they delved deeper into the Earth’s viscera to find the sparkling veins.
Protruding above the red oat grass were burnished mounds of dolomite, like the bald heads of old men half buried. Growing among the rocky protrusions were velvety-leafed Highveld sugarbushes which baboons break off and munch on like ice cream lollies. When the last of the winter grass is burnishing delicate, scarlet river lilies erupt along the stream banks. It was, as one admirer observed, a land lovelier than any telling of it.
Huge anvil-head clouds were gathering in the sky over Rhodes Heights game farm and stud. There would be an almighty thunderstorm later that afternoon …
The prevailing wind came from the east, with the rising sun. Moist air from the warm Indian Ocean banked up against the Drakensberg and covered the Lowveld in a soft downy quilt of mist most mornings. As the sun rose and warmed the Earth, the mist lifted and flowed in shredded wisps over the escarpment rim. It seemed to seep up from below as though someone had turned off gravity and things were flowing upwards, as if the centre of the tangible universe was not holding.
By midday the mist would likely vanish. But like any good card trick, the Ace was hiding up the sleeve of the supreme illusionist: it was suspended invisibly in the atmosphere just waiting for a change of temperature and pressure when it would be revealed in another form. By mid-afternoon the heat of the sun had warmed the land below, making warm columns of air lift skywards.
The telltale sign that a thermal or warm air column has lifted off the ground is a dust devil that dances across the landscape with a lashing tail of menace. If large enough, the column will become a stream of warm rising air. It will become visible again when the water vapour cools and condenses into clouds: puffy, playful cumulus clouds that gambol across an invisible glass table top called the dew point.
With enough energy in a thermic column, and enough water vapour, those innocent-looking cumulus clouds rumble and tumble as they mushroom upwards until they begin to darken and swell into great brooding thunderheads. These are the cumulonimbus clouds of summer afternoons that bring showers, lightning, thunder, hail, flash floods and general meteorological mayhem.
The average thunderhead contains energy many times greater than that of the atomic bombs that were once dropped on a recalcitrant Japan. When they unleash their wrath you know the ancestors are unhappy.
A thundercloud suddenly blacked out the sun and Zulu instinctively looked for cover, but there was none for miles around. The first crack of lightning caused the horse to jump with all four feet in the air. A few seconds later the blast wave of thunder smashed into the ground with the impact of two bull elephants clashing.
Running Wild Page 21