The gentle serenade ceased and Peter strode forward to help me drag the heavy log over the makeshift grave.
“Zorora nerunyararo,”
[2] he uttered huskily.
In less than fifteen minutes, a dozen logs and stones lay stacked upon the girl’s and her infant’s still bodies.
“We didn’t even know her name,” I mourned sadly as I fruitlessly rubbed my dirty hands upon my streaked jeans.
“Would you feel better if you knew?” asked Peter. Telltale trails made narrow paths through the dirt lining his tired and filthy face.
“Somehow I think so. Yes. I would have liked to know their names.”
“Then name them,” he ordered softly.
The chatter of what sounded like magpies and the buzzing of persistent insects were the only noises as I pondered what to call this nameless woman and her poor, dead child. Finally I said, “I will call her Esther, and for the child, a name I’ve discovered many workers in South Africa have: Precious.”
Peter flashed a pained smile. “Then their names shall be Esther and Precious. Hurry, Mandy. As you can see, it is not safe to walk the wild ways. We must get to the waterhole before dusk.”
Numbly I marched away from the burial site, mind whirling as I tried to make sense of it all. Who, besides us, would ever know that this ragged woman, so desperate to join her husband and family that she risked death, lay buried under log and rock? Would anyone besides the grimly silent Peter and me ever know she’d been trampled to death by an irate elephant? Where was the justice of it all? What had made her approach that dry riverbed at precisely at that instant, forcing her to come between the elephant and its calf?
I have always been a staunch believer that a benevolent God watches over us and when something bad happens, the Lord enables something good to come from it. As my tired feet tramped through the dust, I could not fathom any good resulting from that poor woman’s death.
Perhaps if I embraced a religion such as Hinduism I’d have felt more settled. If one believes in reincarnation, there must be some satisfaction that when this life ends, you simply begin another. Christians aren’t so fortunate, believing you’re only given one shot and when your allotted time is up you proceed either to heaven or hell. But that tiny baby—what happened to him? Had he already sinned so much he deserved to die? I’d read somewhere about how souls are recycled. Had baby Precious already arrived back at the soul factory, ready to be inserted into another body that would hopefully have a better run of it next time?
I fretted inside as I trudged through the bush behind Peter and swatted at the blue dragonflies attracted to my sweaty face. God has a plan—He must have! And if He had a grand design, what was his plan for Esther and baby Precious? What benefit had their little lives brought? Worse yet, what was my purpose? I battled myself the whole rest of that horrible march until Peter finally took pity upon me.
“Stop,” he ordered abruptly. He crouched, his arms resting upon his legs, staring at the ground.
I lifted myself from my misery, my damp eyes finally focusing on what he examined. The spoors were fresh and clear, only slightly smeared by the damp soil. We had come across a seep hole where algae-scummed water, dotted by small tufts of grass, made a shallow muddy place where swallows whirled above and plovers shrieked warning. The imprint Peter examined reminded me of a flower with five blunt petals, the topmost being broadest. The six sets of tracks abruptly ended at the perimeter of the seep hole.
“Can you figure out what this track is, ma’am?” Peter asked, peering up at me. I crouched beside him, grateful for the rest. Our sorrow had propelled us at a killer pace.
“A lion?” I suggested. To me, any large track must belong to that merciless killer.
“Not even close, my lady,” he returned, grinning.
Peter grabbed a dry stick and poked at the half-dry mud. “The lion’s paw has a flat rear knuckle-like area with four toes at the top.” He drew it carefully in the gooey earth.
“This is an important track to recognize since it can mean the difference between life and death. Another dangerous one is this.”
He traced two curved beans roughly one-and-a-half inches long, facing each other.
“I know that one!” I said excitedly. “It’s the Cape buffalo.”
“Very good, Mandy. They rarely travel alone, as we’ve noted. And this dainty little one is the impala. But this spoor is deep and reveals the animal’s massive weight. You see, the track is quite broad and indicates that heavy legs must support its incredible size.”
“What is it?” I breathed.
“From the size of the track, it can only be the white rhino. It is similar to the hippo in many ways.”
He drew a spoor resembling the rhino’s, only with more elongated toes.
“Both, you see, have broad, flat tracks. These animals lumber; they cannot prance or spring since their weight is much too heavy for that.”
“Is… is it alone?” I managed.
“I don’t know. The white rhino is often found in small familial groups. They’re interesting because they defecate in what are called rhino middens. I glimpsed one back there near the gulley, but I believe you didn’t notice it at the time.”
Peter was absolutely correct; I’d been incapable of noticing anything that morning. My eyes flitted about as I probed the dense foliage, remembering the butchered rhino near where I’d run across Peter again.
“If it’s a rhino, mightn’t there be poachers about?”
“Perhaps, though the rhinos this deep into Kruger Park are more protected since military presence is so pronounced.”
“Are rhinos ever dangerous?” I asked, wishing I could wipe his troubled frown away.
“The white, not very, but the black is unpredictable and solitary. Since I suspect these are white’s tracks I’m not so leery. He’d probably just ignore us. Look here—see the little beetle with the long antennae?”
A black-and-red beetle scurried across the print, oblivious to our presence.
“He’s amazingly quick.”
“Yes. It’s a longhorn beetle, named such for his antennae, which natives thought resembled miniature horns. He’s harmless enough.”
I lifted my water bottle and took only one deep gulp. He smiled, noting my conservation.
“Are you alright now?” he asked. It was the first time he’d made any reference to the death of the young woman and her child.
“No,” I replied, gazing straight into his russet eyes. “I will never be the same after witnessing that.”
“Some things are not meant to be forgotten. Let’s rest, since we’ve been pushing so hard. Why don’t you sit on that log while I find us something to eat.”
I sank down on the dirty tree trunk near the seeping water, and my tired eyes drifted back to the spoor. Certain I could identify a rhino in the future, I scanned the dense woodland for wildlife. A dull yellow bird with a black head hopped in to drink from the algae-laden water before flitting off. Red dragonflies hovered over the smelly water, searching for who knows what, and a sad dove moaned in a nearby tree.
Peter returned only a few minutes later and handed me some round, hard nuts.
“Crack the outer shell,” he instructed. “You’ll have to smash it against a rock.”
I did, revealing tiny brown seeds, which upon consumption tasted bitter and oily. I didn’t even bother to ask him what they were; our Spartan meal simply fell into the gastric generalization of food equals survival. We munched silently for several minutes, Peter scanning the turquoise sky and tangled woodland, while I rested and choked down the unappetizing nuts.
“It is a sad thing about the woman,” he finally said.
“Yes,” I answered simply.
“But, strangely, I believe her time must have come.”
Suddenly my cousin’s arrogant face flashed before me.
“That’s a bunch of hogwash!” I said hotly, the fermenting thoughts of the morning welling to the surface. “It was N
OT her time. I refuse to believe we have a specific time to die. We have accidents or make mistakes for sure and… and we are subject to folly and sometimes major missteps… but… but… I can’t believe, I refuse to believe, that was all the time she was allotted on earth.”
Peter said calmly. “The elephant did not mean to kill her, Mandy. The matriarch was simply protecting her own.”
“And that’s it? So Esther and Precious, at the moment of their births, were destined to die in that wash. It could just as easily have been us!”
“It wasn’t our time,” Peter stated calmly, cracking another nut against the flat surface of the rock near where we sat.
“Nonsense! No one has a specific time. I admit I’d like to say that if she truly was an evil woman she got her just desserts, but the baby… the baby! That woman only wanted a better life for her child and a trampling by a hairless mammoth was her reward?”
“We all want a better life. Some of us just have to strive harder to get it.”
“Because someone’s black?”
“Maybe, or perhaps belongs to the wrong tribe, practices the wrong religion, or simply suffers from the fatal mistake of being born in the wrong place or wrong time. If I’d been born just three hundred kilometers across the border in South Africa, my life would have been so different. My parents wouldn’t have lost their farm, and maybe I wouldn’t have become a nature guide. If I’d been born a Shona and poor, it could have been me crossing this treacherous park seeking to find a better life, not her. I don’t understand why we are born to certain circumstances, I only know we have a duty to utilize what we have and strive to live in harmony with nature.”
“My cousin says we all have a purpose as well. He says some of us count and some of us don’t.”
“Ah, that sounds like the novel The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.”
“You’ve read it?” I couldn’t keep the disbelief out of my voice.
“Of course, it was in my father’s library.”
It seemed strange to be sitting in the middle of the bush, discussing a novel about New York in the 1920s whose protagonist, Howard Roark, believed in the philosophy called objectivism.
“Did you… you like the novel?” I asked, holding my breath for his answer. I hadn’t liked it much myself.
“I don’t know. It is interesting—the belief that the achievement of one’s own happiness is the total moral purpose of life. That is the ruling philosophy of the book, isn’t it? I think that it must have been written by a white South African during apartheid.”
I wanted to laugh, but couldn’t. The truth was too pathetic. “It’s an interesting philosophy and I would have to agree that while we all strive to be happy, it’s much more important to take the chance of bettering ourselves to rise above our station. I don’t believe there’s just a massive populace that can be thrown aside by the elite few, trampled to death like that woman.”
“You and your cousin fought,” Peter said wisely. He seemed proud of the fact. “He sought to be your oppressor.”
“My oppressor? Yes. But in hindsight I can see we didn’t fight nearly enough. As a young woman, I let my cousin spout philosophies, usually narrow and cruel, without as much as a whisper of defiance. I either lacked the courage or maintained the foolish notion that if I remained quiet, his stinging words wouldn’t really matter. So I always let Ken speak and never contradicted him. I realize now that was a sin. If one doesn’t speak out, you’re agreeing with whatever the speaker states.”
“You are becoming a radical,” said Peter mildly. “You would be put in prison in Zimbabwe. My father said that God is the rainbow. Wherever the arch landed, the rays hit the ground and the fragments shattered, scattering different colors and different ideas into every land. I’m not sure I believe in God, but I do believe in rainbows.”
“I believe in rainbows too,” I said and we joined hands.
“And your cousin, he is a first-class asshole?” He said the last word just like Arnold Schwarzenegger and I had to laugh.
“Ken is challenged in many ways. He lives a little life.”
“So tell me American Miss—what do you believe is the most important thing for a man to do?”
“Any person should strive to take care of those they love, learn something new every day, and bring about something good in this world during their life.” My own answer stunned me. Until this very moment I wouldn’t have uttered any of it, not truly believing it. The miracle was that I did believe it.
Peter smiled, his teeth flashing brightly in his darkly tanned face.
“That is much better than the ideas from The Fountainhead, or those of the cousin whom you despise. But for now, my lady, we must make it to the waterhole. You’re not tired anymore?”
“No,” I said and took the uplifted hand he offered. It was not far now.
Chapter 22
The only game we spotted on that final trek to the waterhole was another giraffe. Old, its reticulated spots peeked dark and grimy from under a layer of dust. Its tongue proved brilliant for the task of reaching around thorns to pluck at the succulent leaves. We watched him for over five minutes as he munched contentedly upon the long, slender leaves of the peculiarly twisted thorn tree.
“You could learn a lot from the giraffe,” said Peter, who had broken off his examination of the tall mammal to stare at my neck.
His brilliant brown eyes locked on my throat disturbed me. “What on earth do you mean by that?”
“The giraffe, for all his neck, has no vocal chords. He is mute—the silent one of the bush.” The corner of his mouth twitched and puckered.
It took a moment for his subtle insult to sink in.
“Why, you…”
I bent and picked up the closest object I could find to fling at my tormentor. A bone, gnawed and dry, whistled through the clear air. He gracefully dodged the clumsy toss and we laughed together like children.
The waterhole we were making for was not an actual waterhole per se. It consisted of a large, concrete reservoir that fed water into long, narrow troughs so the animals could drink. Forty minutes later, as we rested at the top of a small knoll, Peter pointed to the manmade structure.
“Do you see it?” he questioned. I did indeed. In the distance, a small metal windmill revolved slowly in the slight breeze. Just beyond that, the faint glint of circular white concrete indicated we had nearly made it to Mazanje. “The river is just there.”
I peered in the opposite direction where the water gleamed, a white, fast-moving blur.
“Why did they build it here when the river is so close?”
“The banks in this region are very steep and cliff-like above the quite narrow shores of the river for nearly three kilometers. The middle of the Limpopo is strewn with boulders, generating white rapids. A small waterfall, less than a kilometer upstream, feeds this section, and it runs much deeper and swifter than further downstream where the river widens out. The lesser creatures found it difficult to access water safely, as did the rangers, so this waterhole was constructed in the early nineties.”
I studied him. Peter appeared confident but wary with his broad shoulders and homemade spear held ready.
I brushed my hair away from my face. It had long since broken free of its elastic tie.
“May I borrow your little notebook?” Peter asked. I obliged immediately and using my airline pen, he began to write. “The number belongs to my sister Elizabeth, in the Cape. If… if for some reason we get separated, call her.”
“We won’t get separated,” I stated confidently and studied my wonderful man as he replaced the notebook carefully back inside my pack.
“I noticed you recorded the hijackers’ license plate number.”
“I did indeed. Heads are gonna roll!”
He laughed and extended his hand. “It’s fairly steep here, Mandy, watch your step.”
That last little trek to the waterhole was uneventful. We must have not been much more than 100 meters away when Peter straightene
d.
“Did you hear that?” he hissed. I stopped, nestling close to him.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“I thought I heard a motor,” Peter said.
“We must be nearing the waterhole. Maybe it’s a car!” My voice rang jubilantly. Peter hesitated, cocking his head to listen.
“Perhaps it was not a motor at all,” I said, disappointed when only the chatter of waxbills hopping about black-thorned acacias answered my cry.
“More likely it was just the wind turning the wheel of the windmill to pump the water,” returned Peter.
“That’s probably what it was,” I disappointedly agreed.
“We’re very close now, lass.” He joined one of the countless animal-made trails leading to the waterhole and I followed. The dry, short grass brushed our pant legs as we walked briskly toward the windmill. This particular path was quite narrow, probably formed by countless impala, nyala, or bushbuck heading toward the reviving water.
The brush made brisk whisking sounds as we hurried through it. My eagerness and haste made me careless. I longed to sing out in happiness; I was finally returning to civilization! It would just be a matter of minutes before Peter and I would run into a car and be whisked back into the safety and cleanliness of Shingwedzi camp. The license plate numbers and descriptions of the hijackers hurried my steps even more as the desire for revenge crowded its way through the joy.
The trail made an abrupt curve. We could not have been more than 25 meters away from the windmill when a horrible stench assailed my nose. Just to the right of us the ravaged remains of a huge male kudu littered the beaten-down grass. The poor beast had not been felled by an animal, but had died from a gunshot right between the eyes. Its hindquarters had been carefully and meticulously cut away. The poachers had not desired its lovely curved horns or majestic head to mount upon their wall; their need had been simple—food. It did not take long in this midday sun for scavengers to catch a whiff of the decaying flesh. I glimpsed a black-backed jackal in the distance, slinking through the tall grass, and high above, lappet-faced vultures circled, ready to swoop down upon the decaying meat.
Heart of Africa Page 17