Shooting Butterflies

by T. M. Clark

  The SADF were doing their part to stop the mass murders, and continued to burn all their files.

  He’d watched as his files on the poachers in Angola and those within the SADF that he’d linked to them had been burnt. All the evidence was now gone and no one would ever know what had happened to make a few people so rich while working under the protection of the SADF. White gold. Ivory. White powder in Mandrax. Diamonds. All commodities that had been traded, and syndicated from Johannesburg, and then distributed to the world from there. The blood that had been spilt, the huge price paid by the wild animals of Africa for a few greedy men, had been buried forever.

  He shook his head as he looked at the fire in the middle of Camp Doppies. He smiled as he thought about the camp’s name. Only a SADF camp could be called after a spent bullet. The camp had been called ‘Doppies’ because of a vervet monkey who used to come in and steal the doppies after the live ammunition practices. Apparently he’d run into camp, pick up the doppies then run out again with his treasure hoard. Twenty years later and Terry the lion was now its resident mascot, a far cry from that original monkey.

  Soon, they were going to abandon the camp that had been home for the last few years, and he knew he was going to miss it. Soon it would be overgrown with African bush, the small brown mice would find refuge in the stone and brick foundations that remained. Seeds from the forests would grow into strong trees in the cracks in the concrete, breaking it further and reclaiming it into the wild. Buffalo weavers would build huge nests in the trees, and their droppings would fertilise the leaf litter underneath and more plants would grip their roots into the tough African soil, and grow. Grasses would cover over the mounds used for target practice. The scarring done by humans would be healed.

  So many men had walked there over those last twenty years, yet once they cleared out, nothing would remain to tell the history of the place that had been home, a refuge to them. Only memories and stories would survive, around a campfire at a reunion somewhere. People who had not been there would listen in disbelief to that oral history, and when all those who shared that history died, their stories would pass into obscurity.

  But Wayne’s melancholy mood was for something more.

  He had arrived at Doppies young, naive and determined. But he was leaving jaded about the future of the defence force that he had once believed in. His one hope was that with the extra time on his hands and a civilian life, he might soon find Tara and his son, Josha.

  He knew that he’d miss Terry more than the camp itself. He knew he was going to have to leave Terry behind. He was still a wild lion, he could fend for himself, but he was worried for him.

  One of the first changes he’d made to his farm since January was to instruct the new manager to begin regenerating the bush on his farm. The sugarcane was to be slowly phased out, and as it did, planting of native trees and grasses was taking place. He was transforming his land into a game farm. He knew that logistically, he couldn’t take Terry there now, but he could provide a home for the other lion, elephant, rhino and hippo that were being hunted to extinction. His closeness to the Hluhluwe Game Reserve made it a perfect spot to transform into a safari operation. He’d seen Mala Mala and the international trade that they did, being situated so close to Kruger – and yet providing five-star accommodation and service.

  His manager had been employed because when Wayne interviewed him, he found the man had the same vision for a safari farm that offered photographic safaris and was built around the preservation of game – not hunting. The new manager had been working on it for six months already and Wayne was looking forward to seeing his progress when he went home.

  ‘Earth to Wayne. I asked you to come to Zimababwe on holiday with me. Say yes,’ Bevin said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He knew that Tara had once lived in Zimbabwe. He wanted to visit as something other than an operative to see what was happening in her former country. See if he could dig up any news on Tara. You never knew who would know something about the family. Perhaps he’d find something there, as so far, the investigator had got nowhere with his search.

  It was as if Tara had disappeared, or moved overseas.

  Now he was going to Zimbabwe, and he’d start looking there.

  CHAPTER

  12

  The Pioneers

  Amarose Lodge – Private Game Reserve, Karoi, Zimbabwe

  August 1990

  Wayne gritted his teeth as they drove over the abnormally large cattle grid. His gaze was drawn by the green crop of tobacco growing to either side of the driveway leading into Bevin’s great aunt Rose’s farm. In the distance, where the bright green ended, he could see a eight-foot-tall electrified fence.

  ‘So this is where you spent your holidays when you were at school?’

  ‘Yip. Loved it up here.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stay here, instead of doing your national service, and becoming a Recce?’

  ‘I wanted to serve my country. I wanted to be that Special Ops man. Visiting my aunt was what drove me to want to fight. I have seen so much happen here, and I didn’t want that to happen to my own country. In a way, as long as I was up in Angola fighting, I knew that she was safer here on her farm. I was last here in 1985, just before my aunt fired her white manager and Jamison took over the position.’

  ‘He’s the one who got her to diversify?’

  Bevin nodded. ‘He doesn’t seem to be your average bossboy. Apparently the manager before him was stealing from her big time, syphoning off her best tobacco to another friend in the auctions so she looked like she wasn’t doing as well as she was. Jamison came to the farm to learn about tobacco. When she fired the manager, the old bossboy was about to leave her too. Jamison talked him into staying and teaching him before retiring, and the old bossboy passed the reins to him. By then it was with her blessing of course. But in a time when she needed help, this Jamison had rallied everyone around her, and they stood together.’

  ‘Sounds like a good man.’

  ‘I always hoped so. Once he had the position, he began to instigate changes. She’s always supported the poorer blacks in the TTL down the road, but he ensured that those living in that tribal trust land were looked after with basic necessities, like having clean water. He made sure they knew it was her who was looking after them, and that it could stop if they poached on her land, and suddenly the theft that she was experiencing from her sheds stopped, and there were no more snares on her property either.’

  ‘That’s a practical way to get rid of the problem. Wish more people would look at a sustainable culture like that,’ Wayne said. ‘I’ve got poaching happening on my farm. I think every farmer in Africa does. It’s just the scale that differs from place to place.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Bevin was still talking about his aunt’s employee. ‘Jamison was the one who encouraged her to look to diversify, because tobacco prices fluctuate so much. With the farm on a profit-share scheme, she needed to make sure that she could always look after her workers. I think she likes that they look to her as the Mama of the land. She took this man Jamison’s advice and let him go with her bakkie, for three months during the off-season, to the lowveld to learn about how to recreate a bush environment. First he went to Gonarezhou National Park, and he visited farms in that area. He visited with the fenceless Mana Pools National Park up the road from there, and somewhere along the line, he became a licenced professional hunter, although the details of how he got that so quickly were a bit sketchy when she corresponded with me.’

  ‘A licenced hunter, not a tracker?’ Wayne said.

  ‘Hunter, as in he knows his stuff with the flora and fauna, and he’s taken down an elephant with one shot. Only then do you get your licence.’

  Wayne looked at Bevin, but there was no expression on his face. Just a man relating a story. ‘Sounds like a real businessman and a good marksman.’

  ‘He came back to her and rolled out the plans for her farm that he’d worked on, with those he had visited, and they
began building their fence. Next they ploughed in a huge section of tobacco, once it was done for the season, and they planted velvet beans to attract the natural game in the region.’

  ‘That was smart. Why buy game if it’s for free roaming around the place,’ Wayne said. ‘I think I like him before I even meet him.’

  ‘You do realise that this is just a black guy, right?’ Bevin said.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Black is still black,’ Bevin said.

  Wayne shook his head. The hatred was so conditioned in some people that they would never see past the colour of a person’s skin. It would take generations to get rid of the unnecessary hostility drummed into them from when they were young. Wayne smiled. He thought of how his dad had been so much before his time, how as a farmer he carried none of the prejudice against blacks. He’d always treated his workers properly, built them decent-sized housing for their families. They had a small but decent compound with running water and electricity. The tractor collected the 44-gallon rubbish drums and emptied them twice a week into their dump on the farm. There were so many things that Wayne had to be grateful to his dad for, yet living by example was probably the most precious gift he could have passed on to Wayne. And he had saved Tara, found a path through for her when Wayne had been unable. He loved his dad even more for that, even if he had kept it a secret from him.

  ‘You need to get over that prejudice, Bev, South Africa will soon be ruled by a black government. Then what are you going to do? There’s nowhere further south for white people to run. Except go overseas, if you want to do that.’

  Bevin was shaking his head vigorously. ‘Hey, Wayne, I don’t hate the blacks. Not at all. It’s just this man, Jamison, he’s different to all the rest. I keep wanting to know what his ulterior motive is. I know my aunty Rose has … had,’ he corrected himself, ‘a profit-share scheme, but I keep thinking that surely he wants more than that. Like if he loved the farm so much and she put it up for sale, why didn’t he try and buy it?’

  ‘You don’t know if he tried to or not.’

  ‘True, but there is just something about him. I keep wondering why would he do these things to help an old white woman.’

  ‘Perhaps he likes your great aunt. Perhaps it’s just a friendship that is different to what you’ve experienced. I think it’s wonderful. What else did they do to the farm?’

  Bevin harrumphed, blowing air through his teeth and lips. ‘Aunt Rose paid some hot shot conservationist to come to the farm and help them to create natural bush as quickly as possible. They regenerated huge tracts of land with natural bush plants, and spread grass seeds so that when their fence was finished they could close the gates. They began to travel together, the old white lady and the black man, to collect wild animals, attend auctions, and buy in game. Zebra, giraffe, eland and wildebeest. She even organised him a passport so they could go down to South Africa on buying trips.’

  ‘They sure wanted game. Weren’t there like, restrictions bringing it through the border?’

  ‘Sure, but they got permits and things, and drove on through Beit Bridge and came on up to Mashonaland. Jamison driving the big cattle truck they bought and modified, and my aunt Rose sitting next to him.’

  ‘Bet the border post on the South African side just loved that.’

  ‘Oh she’s a firecracker, my aunt. My dad didn’t want Jamison sleeping in the second bedroom of the cottage at the bottom of our garden, insisted that Jamison should sleep in the ikhaya the maid uses when she’s there. But Aunt Rose read him the riot act about his bad behaviour and how Jamison was their guest too and she’d leave if he left. Guess who won?’

  ‘Aunt Rose.’

  ‘You bet. And after they had visited the first time, there were many more, and Jamison always used the second bedroom.’

  ‘That’s quite telling …’

  ‘No, telling is that just two years after those two began their project, they opened their first safari camp. They worked like Trojans to get this place into what it is today. It wasn’t only the money, it was the raw ambition behind getting it done quickly. I take my hat off to Jamison, I just don’t understand where the drive to succeed comes from within a black guy, as I’ve hardly ever seen it so strong as with that man.’

  ‘That’s not true. What about Isaac, and Majoda? Those trackers practically lived with us, and although they weren’t Recces, how many times did one of them save our necks?’

  ‘That’s different. They weren’t in it for money, they did that to survive.’

  ‘What makes you think that Jamison isn’t doing just that?’ Wayne asked.

  Bevin shrugged.

  ‘So if they are doing so well, why sell up? Why’s she moving to your folks’ house permanently?’

  ‘Aunt Rose fell off her horse. Something spooked the animal and she fell badly. Although she’s alive, she was pretty broken up, ribs broken, lungs punctured, legs both broken, and a hip had to be replaced. She’s slower than she used to be. The doctors said she needed more than a maid with her twenty-four-seven, she needed to be in a frail care home. She refused, but Jamison managed to convince her that it was the right thing to do to sell most of the farm, because it was time and she needed to enjoy her retirement. He’s crafty though. He told her to split the farmhouse and a small tract of land around it from the title of the farm so she had a home after the sale. I tell you, he’s one clever black man. He thinks like a white man, seriously.’

  ‘That’s a compliment, coming from you.’

  ‘I do admire him. I just want to know his reasons, that’s all,’ Bevin conceded. ‘So a few months back, she put the farm on the market. She sold the tobacco side and the safari camps with all the game.’

  ‘But not her home?’

  Bevin shook his head. ‘That’s about it. When she sold, she still refused to move into frail care, saying she was going to die on her farm. But she hasn’t healed as well as she should have. She’s become more frail. The fall seems to have taken a lot out of her. When she had the accident, Jamison helped her upgrade from a maid to two full-time qualified nurses, and he insists that they stay. My mother has been on the phone with her constantly, asking her to come live with them, and after another fall, this time in her living room, she’s at last agreed to move in with my folks. She’ll still have nursing staff, but being with relatives will be so much better for her than out here in the bush with only the blacks to keep her company.’

  ‘What an amazing old woman!’ Wayne said.

  ‘They breed them tough here in Zimbabwe.’

  Wayne smiled. That was true.

  His Tara was a born and bred Zimbabwean, and he was hoping that tough spirit had been passed on to their son. When they found each other again, then he was betting that it would be that toughness that would help them to create a real family.

  They stopped at a huge security gate.

  ‘This is it,’ Bevin said, ‘I hope she remembered to switch the electricity off in her fence.’ He got out to open the gate.

  The old woman standing at the top of the stairs was dressed for church on a Sunday. Her clothes were neat and pressed, a matching long cotton skirt and jacket of a natural linen colour, complete with white court shoes. She wore a small pill-box hat with a little veil that she hadn’t bothered to pull down, and she rested heavily to the right-hand side on a walking stick.

  Bevin wrapped her in a bear hug, then her gently lifted her off her feet in both his arms, holding her under her knees and around her shoulder. Spinning her around a few times, he set her back down.

  Tears brimmed in her eyes, which she dashed away quickly. ‘Now, Bevin, I’m getting too old for you to do that to me,’ and she giggled like a schoolgirl.

  Wayne couldn’t help but smile at the reunion. Despite the generation gap between them, they were so obviously close friends, and for a moment Wayne hated that the SADF had kept these two apart. There was love and affection there, and he could now better understand Bevin’s concern for her bossboy having such
a huge part in her life. Bevin was jealous that it had been Jamison who got to spend the time with his aunt.

  ‘Mrs Crosby, lovely to meet you,’ Wayne said as he shook her hand.

  ‘Just call me Rose, honey,’ she said. ‘Any friend of Bevin’s is a friend of mine.’

  Wayne grinned.

  ‘You keep flashing those dimples at me, I’ll die a happy woman,’ she said.

  Wayne laughed.

  ‘Come, sit, Elise will take care of your bags and put them in the guest rooms. It’s been too long since your last visit, Bevin. You have grown. My boy is now a man,’ she said as she smiled with affection at her great nephew.

  ‘How are your folks?’ she asked as she limped back into her house. Bevin was immediately by her side, holding onto the arm that didn’t wield her cane.

  ‘They send their love and said to tell you that they are looking forward to you coming down. The renovation of the cottage is almost done. So by the time you get there, everything will be ready for you.’

  ‘Your mother has always been a good person, the best thing my nephew ever did was marry her. I’ve always thought that she has a heart as big as Kariba. She’s behind them asking me to stay,’ Rose said as she sat back down in her rocking chair. She rested her walking stick next to her against the small table.

  Wayne noticed that a groove had been cut into the table to stop the stick from falling over. He wondered who would have done such a thing for her if her family were sparse on visits, and then it dawned on him.

  Probably Jamison.

  From what Bevin had told him, the man was as close to the old girl as a good friend could be. He was no longer just the bossboy.

  Bevin sat close to her, pulling another old but functional chair closer. Wayne sat opposite on the couch. He looked around.

  The room was old world, with overstuffed furniture that didn’t look like it would break when a man sat down. There were no trophy heads hung on the wall, and no skins on the floor. Instead there was a large round reed mat, and on the walls were paintings in heavy frames of pioneer days. Teams of horned oxen pulled heavy covered wagons through bushlands. Black overseers cracked whips, and dogs ran alongside. He stood up to get a closer look.