by Peter Riva
“Right, thanks.”
On the edge of the way down the plateau, scanning the border region through binoculars, seeing nothing, Pero decided he would ask the locals, maybe that night or the next day.
On the way down, the loose sand slid the tires sideways and they couldn’t stop in time, crushing the front fender into the tire on a rock. Surveying the damage, Heep said, “Damn and blast!” So, while they tugged and pried the aluminum fender off the burst tire and changed to the spare for the next hour, it became their mantra: “Damn and blast . . . heave! Damn and blast . . . heave! Their muscles ached, their clothes were drenched in sweat, but eventually they started off again, tire changed and no more chafing of the bodywork. As they made the bottom of the slope safely, just as dusk fell, Heep said, “They’ll have to take that descent a whole lot slower tomorrow.”
Mbuno, who had said nothing to this point added, “Damn and blast slower.” Smiles and chuckles helped lighten the mood.
Back at camp, Pero and Heep explained the videotaping plans for the next day. No sooner than Pero was through, the stooge spoke up. In no time at all, in his rhythmic East African accent, he was boring them all with a government lecture, probably page thirty-five of the official stooge-minder handbook. His mouth pursing, lower lip sticking out with every beat of the sentence, he intoned, “not to proceed beyond the track at the foot of the Ajuran Plateau. It is most dangerous! It is not safe! It is forbidden, it is not safe!” No one answered or even looked at him; their eyes were fixed on the flames licking dried, smoky, desert brushwood. Actually, his territorial imperative sounded okay to Pero, there were brigands known to be about, locally called shufti.
Pero had already warned the crew weeks before bringing them up here, that the Gurreh-Ajuran region also hosts a sometimes violent, always sparse, people of the Cushitic language tribes, eking out a hard living in harsh, arid conditions, up here near the border of Ethiopia, about fifty miles from Somalia. Pero had been here before a few times, sometimes with shufti danger just averted when they were filming and tracking the elusive scimitar Oryx. It was Mbuno who had made them stop filming and speed back to base. The shufti followed, but Mbuno’s good sense got them into a defensible position. Pero feared a repeat of the armed attack—it all came so swiftly. Thankfully, on arrival, there was not a Gurreh to be seen, but Pero was sure they were aware of their presence—in this land, the local tribal knowledge is never to be underestimated. His hope was that as “muzungus” (white men), as they were called, seen working busily in the sun all day, they might be considered nuts and hardly worth the effort. Pero chuckled, watching the embers die down, seeing his dusty, scruffy crew, stamping cold feet. They certainly did not look like rich tourists, ripe for plunder, more used to sitting around a pool sipping iced drinks. And tourists never got up at the ungodly hour they were planning for tomorrow, especially not to go up an escarpment, and definitely not to leap off.
CHAPTER 2
North of Wajir
Long before the first rays of the sun inched their way across the middle of the desert and struck their tent flaps, deep in Gurreh territory, Pero’s windup alarm clock rang its bell at four a.m. Habit taught Pero to swing out of bed—or in this case camp cot—then try and come awake. At least sitting with his feet on the cold floor Pero knew his bladder was about to kick in, forcing the mechanism to do something, maybe even actually return to feeling human. Pero thought of his body in the third person, somehow trying to will control over what was, as Pero got older, increasingly less reliable bits and pieces. His latest failure? Creaky knees in the morning and liniment before bed. Add that to failing eyesight now requiring reading glasses . . . Pero guessed he was just an ordinary middle-aged American whose faculties are falling apart, albeit thankfully slowly.
Mbuno, on the other hand, relished the morning, even when it was cold, because he knew his favorite meal was coming. Chai (tea) and mkate (bread) with lashings of Okiek asali (honey) he had bought for the safari. Although the desert morning was cold, only about forty degrees Fahrenheit, Pero and Mbuno knew Malka Mari National Park, where they were camped, would heat up nicely to 120° by lunchtime. From personal experience, learned the hard way, both men brought and wore warm clothing in the morning. It is easier to strip with the sun than shiver in the dark. And, at over six feet and a large frame, if Pero didn’t bring it along, chances were he wouldn’t be able to borrow it from anyone else nor find it in some local duka, or shop. Mbuno, on the other hand, only ever seemed to have one threadbare green wool sweater over which he wrapped a kikoi (cotton skirt wrap), worn like a shawl.
Even though Pero always insisted crews wear stout desert boots, someone often forget to shake them out in the morning, only to feel that squirm and sting of a scorpion as the toes enter. That can cost a day’s filming, which then becomes his problem. So, as part of a more boring routine, Pero woke each person in the dark of night, shook out their shoes, and dropped them on the sleeper to get things moving. Pero always thought it was a bizarre job being a producer, even if, at times, the filming location was exotic.
That morning there were no stingers, but Pero did leap back as a horned toad jumped over his socks. In the dim light, his imagination got the better of him for a split second. Out there, life is on borrowed time, it could have been a spitting cobra. Anyway, that’s the image his sleepy mind left him with, adrenaline pumping
The night before, the conversation had fallen to past glories and recent triumphs. Videography, as his partner Heep likes to call videotaping for TV, is a passion for them all. Get it right and the world is captured and carried to someone’s living room. Their message is the medium and, as Pero was the producer, he was the ultimate messenger bringer. Whether their tales were thirty feet down off an Australian reef, or halfway up a mountain in the Urals, or freezing toes off on a windswept plateau in northeastern India, all had a common truth: the advent of dawn until dawn plus one hour is when wildlife openly exhibits itself.
So, when Pero ran a wildlife camera crew, he made sure everyone was up and active in the cold edge of night, to be ready. That morning the fire, stacked and lit by Mbuno and Joseph half an hour before even Pero’s alarm went off, crackled and warmed. There was not much talk from the crew or the minder. All stood or sat, sipping hot chai. In Kenya chai consists of water, black tea leaves, sugar and milk all brought to the boil together in a battered kettle poured steaming hot into tin mugs clasped firmly in two hands, soaking up the warmth to ward off a pre-dawn chill. Only Mbuno ate bread and honey, somewhat shocked that Ruis and Priit refused their individual slices. They both smiled when Mbuno put the two together, took a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped the sandwich for later.
As pre-dawn’s early violet changed to rose, the desert owls caught their last meal before curfew, their cries like fingernails down a blackboard. The crew’s steamy breaths reflecting the crackling fire, there were feet stamping and throaty coughs as sips were taken. They were all outfitted the same—green khaki extra-pocket trousers, rolled-down long sleeved canvas shirt (with double breast pockets), leather belts complete with holster for cell phones and walkie-talkies, socks, padded vests, and stout boots. Joshua, the rental Land Rover driver who they found most amiable, came over and said the cars were ready.
No matter where or when Pero was filming, as the crew left for location shooting, Pero would make a count of the boxes and bags going along. Like a schoolteacher and her charges on a day trip, Pero counted them into the bus and out of the bus. Into the Land Rover, out of the Land Rover. Into the plane, out of the plane. Every day, each location, over and over. That morning the loading of the Land Rovers took Pero and Joshua a full twenty minutes, working efficiently.
Heep was being patient, as always. After chai, he waited until the cameras were cleaned and checked by Ruis, he waited as the crew loaded last things into the Land Rovers, he waited as the sun peeked over the horizon, he waited as their cars inched their way across the rock and thorn bush-strewn desert, waited as the ca
rs bumped, yard by yard, climbing the sloping backside of the plateau, waited as Simon’s glider was being assembled and harnessed, waited as the vultures began their first heat-rising soaring off nests on the cliff face, and then he waited for Pero to tell him they were ready.
On Heep’s command of “Action!” Simon ran the three steps to the edge, swooping down and away. The updraft of the first thermals of the day caught him, and he soared fifty feet above their heads. On their command into his earpiece, he dropped the nose, as planned, and swooped past the cliff edge to the right of Heep, out into the void.
The already soaring vultures gave him a wide berth. Those still on nests took fright and flight, rushing at him to defend their young against this larger predator bird. A few made contact with the hang glider but finding it not alive, simply became curious and flew alongside.
As usual, Heep was shooting this first day himself. He wanted the show’s leadoff shot to be Emmy-worthy, to add to his collection. In a safety harness leaning over the cliff edge, he strained the climbing rope that Pero had attached to a tow-point of the lead Land Rover as an anchor. Making no sound, shooting both ambient sound and the flight mike, he held the over-the-shoulder Betacam steady with his right hand, suddenly gesturing to Pero with his left. He knew Pero was watching only him. It was how they worked. They’d been working as an effective team, off and on, for almost eighteen years. Without moving the camera or his eye on the viewfinder, he pointed with his left hand to a distant dust cloud approaching on the valley floor below. Pero looked down apprehensively. They had a visitor. A visitor who was going to break shot. Pero ran back from the edge, ducked behind the Land Rover, and used the walkie-talkie plugged into their soarer’s ear. What Pero softly said wouldn’t be caught on tape.
“Simon, don’t answer, they’re filming, you’re doing great. Do us a favor and soar west a bit, will you?” Simon’s response was a mike double-click, meaning “acknowledged.”
Pero ran back to Heep’s left side as he tracked the camera to his right following Simon’s new flight path. Heep gave Pero the okay sign and continued filming. Pero’s eyes focused on the approaching vehicle, still way too far off to identify. Pero calculated that it would intrude into their filming in under fifteen minutes at the speed it was doing, using a bad track that led straight back to Ethiopia and, Pero knew, eventually wound its way through gullies to finally reach Somalia, some fifty miles further on. Pero felt the tingle of danger creeping up his spine and resolved to order his crew to make a run for it, once they had collected Simon after he landed. Pero saw no point in heroics. Out here, heroes were jackal food, never to be seen again if the shufti caught you.
Heep lowered the camera, yelled “Cut,” and called for tape and batteries as he walked quickly to the Land Rover. They didn’t bother telling Simon out there in free-float they were leaving. He wasn’t coming back up here anyway; he would ride the thermals, down eventually. There was a rendezvous spot they’d picked out on the valley floor directly below and they now had to rush to get there to complete the day’s shooting, filming upwards against the blue sky. Seeing them rushing for the Land Rovers, Simon caught the thermal again and rose above the level of the plateau, joyriding with the vultures above the cliff face. Hanging around “up there,” he gave them time to get down and into position. The thermals and updraft were “no problem” he radioed them, but they hurried anyway. The crews were already in the cabs by the time Pero took one last look, leaning over the cliff, at the approaching car, still coming, ten minutes to intrusion into shot, twenty-five minutes to arrival and possible danger. Pero ran and ordered the Land Rover to move before he even finished shutting the door
The drive down was more dangerous than the drive up. The two-foot ruts had been a slow inconvenience on the way up. On the way down, these could flip a Land Rover before the driver could correct the steering. They eased past the worst bits, especially the sharp bend, in and out and again back into the pitted ruts. They inched around what they had called the Damn and Blast rock, careful not to crack-up the Land Rovers. Finally, after only fifteen minutes of swift and nervous driving, they were off the plateau, on the flat again, so they gunned the engines, spun tires in the loose sand, and raced to catch filming continuity, matching the sun for Simon’s landing.
On the valley floor about 200 yards short of the rendezvous point, Joshua’s Land Rover bounced hard in a rut in front of them, swerved, misjudged the recovery, and gently toppled over in a cloud of dust. Heep wanted the shot. “On, keep going. No stopping.”
Pero nodded to Mbuno, with his decades of experience, driving faster than any of them could have, they roared past the toppled Land Rover.
Suddenly Heep called, “Stop! This is fine, here.” After the trailing dust had overtaken them, Heep leapt out and reached back in to get the camera off Pero’s lap. Part of Pero’s job was to keep vital equipment safe—an unwritten agreement between them. Heep turned, placed the heavy Betacam on his right shoulder, and aimed up to shoot Simon soaring with the vultures. No Simon.
They scanned the sky. No Simon.
The other Land Rover, plastered in dust, pulled slowly alongside looking none the worse for wear, windscreen not even cracked. Land Rovers are strong and it was a gentle tumble, easy to push upright. As they scanned the sky, no one said anything. They all knew not to. When Heep had his camera up, he could be filming, the camera’s microphone active.
Heep lowered the camera and looked at Pero, frowning. The silence was palpable.
Pero climbed on top of the Land Rover and scanned the plain calling Simon on the walkie-talkie. Nothing. Pero could see no blue wing jutting up, no one waving in the distance. Pero could see the valley floor, bushes, and rocks, for ten miles, at least, in every direction except around the northeastern point of the Ajuran Plateau.
Now down on the valley floor Pero could not spot the mystery dust trail anymore.
Pero broke the silence. “Simon must be down, may be hurt.” Pero looked at Priit, “Your Land Rover okay?”
Priit answered in his singsong accent; the clipped phrases almost Scandinavian: “The car is okay. A little dirty.” Joshua nodded, “And some water spilled over the tapes. But I think they’re okay. The generator” (for their batteries) “may be out of order. I’ll need to fix it.”
“Good enough. You, Ruis, and Joshua take the Land Rover and drive, slowly, towards the base of the cliffs over there.” Pero pointed ahead of them. “Take it slow and keep a lookout, out the top.” Like all safari cars the Land Rovers had observation roofs—a four-foot by three-foot hole cut to allow paying passengers to stand on the seats to better view the wildlife. “Hey, and listen, watch for ravines. Maybe Simon fell into one of those.” The valley floor was littered with flood-rain dry gulches.
Heep was already getting back into their Land Rover. Over his shoulder, one foot on the running board, Pero called back to Ruis: “One hour, no more, if the walkie-talkies don’t work, we’ll meet here. No one leaves without the other.” Mbuno was waiting at the wheel.
Right now, Pero needed his expertise, again.
“Mbuno, go to the point there, see?” Pero pointed, Mbuno accelerated. “We need to go there and around, slowly, tafadali.” Even after all these years with Mbuno, an order with a please showed respect. Respect is the cornerstone of civilization in tribal Africa.
“Yes, Mr. Pero, it is not easy, not very fast there. We go now.” His English had improved over the years, but his unique word and verb placement rang in Pero’s western ears for weeks after each shoot.
“Asanti, Mbuno.” A thank you doesn’t hurt either. “We need to find Mr. Simon, he may have crashed.”
Heep, from the back seat, had a better idea, “Pero, Mbuno has better sight than both of us—let’s put him up on top.”
“Okay. Stop the car, Mbuno, I’ll drive, you watch.” Mbuno nodded. Soon they were off again, Mbuno sitting on the open hatch lip, swaying with the Land Rover’s pitching and yawing, eyes fixed on the horizon.
&n
bsp; The government minder had kept silent up until then, content to sit in the car and “earn” his $100 a day, sullenly. Now he spoke up. “No! You must not drive here. You are forbidden to drive off the track. There is a fine. This is a park. It is not permitted. This is a park, a park—it is not allowed.” He pronounced park like paak and allowed as allow-ed. Both implied a command, not a warning. Pero didn’t stop. Simon could be in need of medical attention. The minder became agitated. “You must stop. It is a park, it is forbidden.”
“An extra fifty dollars for whoever sees Simon first,” Pero countered. Pero shot the minder a stare, while wrenching the wheel to avoid a large rock behind a thorn bush.
The Nairobi man wasted no time, popped up next to Mbuno, and quickly said something in fast Swahili. It was clearly a command. Mbuno simply answered, “Ndiyo.” If he spotted anything, he was to tell the minder, who would tell Pero so he could pocket the cash reward.
Pero smiled, his reward plan to work around these new Park rules had worked. Heep, knowingly, gave Pero a shake of the head and winked. It didn’t take Mbuno’s vision long to help their minder to make that fifty dollars. He pointed to his right. Pero quickly radioed the other Land Rover, “We have him, almost there, follow our tracks.”
What Pero saw told him that Simon was dead. Pero didn’t really have to double check. He turned off the engine and opened his door before the hand brake fully stopped the Land Rover, racing to get to the hang glider first, shielding Simon’s body from view of the Land Rover. Ripping the duct tape, Pero pocketed their minicam off the main strut before the minder even got down and out of the Land Rover as he was purposefully delayed, having to squeeze past a suddenly unhelpful Heep who accidentally blocked the doorway, making apologies. Heep had guessed Pero would be retrieving the remote camera.