The Eye of the Elephant

by Mark James Owens

  Dizzy, my vision blurry, I somehow make it to Lusaka, where I rest at a friend's home for more than two weeks. Every time I decide to fly back to camp, I change my mind because I am too ill.

  One morning Musakanya shows up with an urgent message: Chikilinti, Simu Chimba, Mpundu Katongo, and some others have headed into the park for poaching. But this time their targets are not elephants and buffalo: they intend killing Delia and me. Not knowing whom in Mpika to trust with this information, Musakanya has hopped the mail bus to Lusaka to deliver his message in person.

  The director of National Parks immediately orders trusted scouts from the Southern Province to Mpika and into the park to secure our camp. Musakanya will go back with them. But it will take two days before they can get there. Meanwhile, Delia is on her own at the river all the way across the park. Even after they arrive at Marula-Puku the scouts would not be likely to go to her, and anyway there will not be enough of them to cover camp and the airstrip and protect her. To find Delia the poachers have only to follow her truck's spoor through the bush to her camp. She will be an easy and satisfying target for them.

  Still dizzy and weak, I take off in the plane headed for camp. I feel okay until about an hour and a half into the flight, a little more than halfway there. Then my head begins spinning, my vision blurs, and sweat breaks out on my forehead. I force myself to relax, closing my eyes for seconds at a time, and I just keep flying. Over and over I imagine Delia camped alone on the Luangwa, unaware that poachers may be coming to kill her. For the first time I can understand the fear she has lived with, watching me fly off to engage the same poachers over and over.

  Nearly three hours after takeoff I fly low over Marula-Puku. Banking over the airstrip I notice a foxhole that the scouts must have dug near my avgas dump. Neither Delia nor her truck are in sight. I firewall the plane's throttle to get full power and head for the Luangwa to find her camp. Fifteen minutes later the river's broad sandbars and pools of hippos flash under the plane. Rolling steeply to my left, I drop between the rows of tall trees that line its bank and fly upstream just above the water. She must be here somewhere ... Damn her for going off on her own at a time like this!

  I spot her khaki tent with its brown flysheet, tucked under a grove of ebony trees on a tall bank above the river. But there is no truck in sight, and no Delia.

  "Brown Hyena, Brown Hyena, this is Sand Panther," I call over the radio, using our call signs from the Kalahari. "Do you read me, Boo?" Flying back and forth over her camp, I call again and again. But she doesn't answer. I hope she has her radio.

  I try the radio again: "Delia, if you can hear me, listen carefully. Poachers have come into the park to kill us. Stay at your camp and I will be there later tonight." With little daylight left, my heart heavy with worry, I follow her truck's spoor toward Marula-Puku, hoping to spot her somewhere along the way.

  A minute later my radio crackles to life. "Sand Panther, this is Brown Hyena. Mark, is that you? I've been away from camp doing some survey work. Over."

  "Roger, love. Now listen..." And I tell her of the poachers and my plan to drive out tonight to escort her back to Marula-Puku.

  "Negative. There's more work to do here. I have my pistol, five rounds of ammunition and I have a game guard with me. I don't need you to come rescue me. See you at Marula-Puku on the weekend." Nothing I say changes her mind, so I head for Marula-Puku. Later we will learn from Mpundu Katongo and Bernard Mutondo themselves that they, Chikilinti, and Simu Chimba left Mwamfushi on foot one night, each armed with an AK-47. Three days later, at four in the afternoon, they crossed the truck track two miles west of Marula-Puku. They walked a little farther, then camped for the night on a small stream between two hills.

  At sunrise the next morning they made their way through the bush and up the back side of the hill above camp. With Chikilinti in the lead, they crawled to the edge of the bank and peered down on the stone cottages. The cottage on their right, where the trucks were parked, was closest to them.

  They watched me walk along a footpath and into a building near a campfire. For the next fifteen minutes they could hear me talking on the radio. Then they saw me come out and begin walking toward the building where the trucks were parked.

  The four men crawled along the steep bank until they came to a stream cut, then scrambled down to the cover of the tall grass below. From there they watched as I walked into the workshop with three of our men. They crawled forward through the grass until they were within seventy-five yards of the trucks. There they waited, lying side by side in prone shooting positions, fingers on their triggers.

  When I stepped from the building, they quickly sighted along their weapons at me. "Wait!" whispered Chikilinti. A game scout with a rifle slung over his shoulder was talking to me, then another stepped into view. Raising his head and leaning slightly to the right so he could see past the trucks, Chikilinti saw five more game scouts sitting around a campfire. Their berets and AKs told him they were special paramilitary scouts, not his game-guard friends from Mpika and Kanona. Their presence was totally unexpected.

  I climbed into the Land Cruiser and drove away from the cottages toward the hill where the plane was kept. The poachers backed away from the edge of the camp and quickly retreated up the bank. They could not risk attacking with the scouts present. Under cover of the tall grass and bushes, they ran for the airstrip.

  The poachers crossed a stream, then climbed through mopane scrub to the crest of the next ridge. From the peak of a termite mound fifty yards off the runway, Chikilinti could see me and our two guards fueling the plane. A rifle was leaning against the tail of the plane and I had a pistol in a holster on my hip. The Bembas were unarmed. Chikilinti and his men crawled through the tall grass to a point directly across the airstrip from the plane and only sixty yards from it. Flattening himself to the ground, he pointed at something. Simu Chimba wriggled up beside his leader and looked along his finger. Just twenty yards behind the plane, a head covered with branches peered out of a hole in the ground near a stack of avgas drums. The stubby muzzle of an AK was visible over the small mound of dirt. Looking carefully, they discovered several other scouts dug in around the strip and three more walking out of the guard house toward me.

  Withdrawing through the scrub brush, the poachers turned and hiked as fast as they could back to Mwamfushi, pausing only briefly at sandy river crossings or dusty game trails to brush out their tracks with small mopane branches, in case they were being followed. Later, in hiding near the village, they sipped beer from a good mash and made plans to attack the bwana's camp after the game guards had gone back to their posts.

  18. Nyama Zamara

  DELIA

  I make all my rounds without leaving a trace and sit by the water the breeze in my face; The future is distant yet triumph is near I notice die sounds only spirits can hear.

  — SETH RICHARDSON

  I MAKE MY OWN CAMP on the Luangwa River; the Bembas call it Delia Camp. It is tucked in a Combretum thicket under the dark, embracing arms of an ebony tree, overlooking a broad bend in the river. So many massive trees line the torn riverbank—eroded during the rains by raging floods—that my small grass hut and tent are completely hidden. A sprawling white beach fifty yards wide reaches toward the water. Crooked snags and the remains of entire trees—swept away by the torrential rains—lie like fallen monuments in the now-forgiving current, which laps gently at hippo ears.

  This land is wild land. Deep ravines, jagged tributaries, and lush oxbows are lost in green forests draped with intertwining vines. Powerful roots of the strangling figs smother towering trees. This is not the open savanna I have seen; it is what I thought Africa was all along.

  It has been no easy task to reach this spot. Days of breaking trail and mending tires have brought me once again to a rugged paradise. I have come to see if what we are fighting for still exists; have we become so immersed in the battle that we do not realize it is already lost? I have come to see if Africa is still here.

>   It is. Hundreds of hippos—the river lords—laze, yawn, and sleep just beyond my beach. Puku, warthogs, and impalas graze on the far shore. On one walk I see zebras, kudu, waterbucks, buffalo, and eland. One morning a large male lion walks into my camp, and the next day a leopard saunters along the same path. I can hear baboons somewhere behind me, scampering and foraging their way through the forest. And a Goliath heron glides by on slow, silver wings.

  With the help of the Bembas I build a small grass hut on the riverbank, overlooking the beach. It is a frame of deadwood logs tied together with strips of bark and covered with a slanting thatch roof. One end is enclosed with neat grass walls, where I hang baskets, pots, and pans. The tin trunks of supplies are stacked against the walls, and grass mats cover the ground. The other end is open like a veranda with a sweeping view of the river. Here I have my table and chair for working and eating. I always return from a hike with a bird feather, porcupine quill, or snail shell, which I stick into the grass walls until my little hut looks more like the nest of a bower bird than a house.

  Hippo paths go around both sides of my tent. At first this seems like a good idea—to be close to where the hippos walk. But I have to stretch the guy ropes across their paths, and when I lie down to sleep on my mat, I worry about what would happen if a hippo tripped over the rope. Glad that Mark is not here to laugh at me, I wriggle out of my sleeping bag and remove the ropes. I would rather risk the collapse of the tent from an unlikely windstorm than a ton of mad hippo stumbling over the cord.

  My friend the moon is here, casting his warm illumination on the river bends. With ease I watch the hippos at night as they leave the river and wander along the beaches toward the grasslands and lagoons. Although some males have territories along the river and forage there every night, none of the hippos—including the territorial males—use the same paths every night. In fact, they do not sleep in the same part of the river by day.

  Before sunrise one morning, when the river and banks are shrouded in fog, I watch an enormous female hippo waddle across the beach with her tiny calf. When their young are born, females separate from the group and tend their infants in secluded reed beds for several months. This female appears to be returning to her group with her youngster, which bobbles around the beach like a rubber toy. But when they reach the water's edge, the baby halts. The mother looks at the calf and I can almost hear her saying, "There's something I forgot to tell you. We don't live on the beach; we live in the water."

  Curious to see how a baby hippo gets into the river for the first time, I creep through the grass to get a closer look. The mother eases into the current, until her legs are half submerged, then looks back at her young. He follows, but is soon completely under water except for his head. The mother lies in the shallow water with the baby bobbing next to her. Later, when the sun is hotter, the mother pulls herself into the deeper current, and her offspring floats with his head resting upon her titanic nose.

  While walking one cool July morning only a few days after setting up my camp, I discover a lagoon that stretches into a maze of clear waterways, so thick with life that the surface seems to breathe. Almost every inch of the still water is covered with bright green lilies and "Nile lettuce." The lagoon is only a half-mile from camp, but so well hidden in the forest that I do not see it until I am twenty yards away. If I had been more clever, though, I would have known it was here by watching the ducks and geese fly over my camp every morning in this direction. After they have roosted all night in the cold air, their bellies are nearly empty and they waste no time flying directly to the pools, where a buffet breakfast floats on gentle waves. In the evening—their bellies full—they fly back to their roosts on a more leisurely course, following the river bends, as though taking the scenic route home.

  Stepping silently through the undergrowth, I walk almost every day to the lagoon and am never disappointed. Crocodiles slither from the banks into the emerald shallows, where a few hippos lift lily-covered snouts to peer at me. Hundreds of ducks, geese, storks, plovers, herons, eagles, coots, owls, lily-trotters, and hornbills wade, waddle, feed, and call in a natural aviary. Nile monitor lizards—more than five feet long—splash into the water and take refuge under the weeds. Puku, waterbuck, impalas, and buffalo nibble succulent morsels in the sunken glades interlacing the lagoon. Once I come so close to a female bushbuck and her fawn that I can see the sunset in her eyes.

  This is not a swamp, oozing with decomposing matter; the water is as clear as a glacial lake—except, of course, where a thousand webbed feet have stirred up the bottom. The morning grows tall and hot, and the surrounding mopane forests are dry. I want to sidle up to the lagoon's edge, put my toes into the coolness, and slide into the pure water. I imagine that my hair would drift among the lilies and that all my troubles would dissolve. But the jagged ridge of a crocodile's tail glides slowly back and forth, just below the lily pads, reminding me that this is not my lagoon. Still, I cannot resist tiptoeing a bit closer and leaning over to touch the water. Stiff-necked and poised to spring, I must look like an impala approaching cautiously to drink. Yet I am held back from the peace and comfort of the lagoon by a strong fear; it is not my reflection that I see in the water, but the reflection of Africa beyond me.

  The lagoon has no name. In fact, I cannot find it on my twenty-year-old map, so perhaps it is only recently born of the river. I ask Kasokola and Mwamba, who are with me, to help me think of a beautiful African name for it. After a few days they suggest "Nyama Zamara." Liking the sound of the phrase, I ask where it comes from and what it means.

  "It is in the language of the Senga tribe from Malawi," Kasokola tells me. "It means, 'The game is finished.'"

  I am taken aback. "But that is a horrible name for such a beautiful lagoon."

  "It does not mean that the game is finished in this place," Kasokola explains. "But once a poacher was caught here, and on his clothes he had written the words, 'Nyama Zamara,' so that is what the lagoon must be called."

  Reluctantly I accept the name, but add, "Please, you must help me make sure that the wildlife is never finished here. We must make this pledge." And they agree.

  For despite the abundance of wildlife, poaching is a serious problem here, as elsewhere in the park. We find twisted wire snares on the game trails just outside camp, and a tree blind poised over the lagoon, where a sniper must have taken his pick of the gentle creatures who came to drink. One of the reasons I have come is to establish a game guard camp, the first inside the national park.

  Of course, we could have sent the game guards on their own, or with our staff, to set up a post here. The main reason I am here is that at least for now, I can no longer live with Mark in base camp, which has become the command center for antipoaching operations. Hordes of green-clad game guards file through on their way to forced patrols. Mark flies them to remote airstrips, packs them off toward poachers' camps, drops supplies to them from the air—yet only rarely do they return with poachers. The last time he supplied them from the air, risking his life as he flew right over the treetops, it turned out that all they wanted were cigarettes. Over and over he puts himself in extreme danger for these men, but it is obvious that they are not going to do their jobs. I beg him to try something different—for example, hiring carriers to supply the game guards, or even training our own scouts. He believes strongly, though, that it is the game guards who must ultimately protect the park, so we must do whatever it takes to get them working.

  When Mark flies dangerous night missions—in and out of storms—searching for poachers' campfires, I am the one responsible for organizing an air search if he does not return. Still, when I ask him when he expects to be back, already racked with stress he snaps that he has no idea. To make things worse, the radio is very unreliable. Sometimes I can hear him relay his position, then suddenly, as he is talking, the radio goes dead. Pacing back and forth under the marula trees in the middle of the night, I don't know whether he has crashed or not, until I hear the drone of the plane so
metimes hours later. To get away from this madness, I stay busy with the village work and the education programs. But it is not enough, and finally I decide to set up my own camp to protect this one corner of the wilderness.

  I know that our strong love is somewhere just below the surface, but I also know that love cannot survive unless it can grow. I can't afford to let myself feel too much for Mark, for tomorrow he may be dead. We have to find a way to face this struggle together, or we may come out apart on the other side—if we come out at all.

  The game guards' field camp is almost a mile north of my camp. Since they will not have to walk all the way from Mano into the park, I hope they will patrol more often. They are supposed to use their tent and food stores as a base from which to conduct four-or five-day antipoaching patrols throughout the area. But whenever I drop by, I find them lounging around the camp. I give them pep talks and cigarettes; there is no improvement.

  If I wake up early enough, at about five o'clock, and look out of the tent window, I can see the hippos strolling across the beach on their way back to the river. If I sleep too late, all I see are ears and noses in the current. It has become a game with me. As soon as I open my eyes, I scramble out of my sleeping bag, unzip the tent door, and count the hippos.

  One morning I hear thumping on the beach as an animal runs across the sand. Hurriedly I step out of the door and find myself face to face with a lioness. She has loped up the hippo path and stands only five yards from me. Sleek and golden, she twitches her tail ever so slightly and looks me over. Then she looks back at the beach, where two other lionesses and four cubs saunter toward us. Without even a glance at me, the others walk up the hippo path past my tent and into the mopane forest.

  Pulling on my clothes, I rush to the tent where Mwamba, Kasokola, and a game guard are sleeping. Calling softly, I ask them to come quickly to follow the lions.