“What are you up to?”
He shrugged. “Nothing.”
“I know that look.”
He smiled. “What look?”
“Like you’re up to something.”
He looked away. “No, I’m just scared.”
“Scared?” I turned his head around to face me. “Scared of what?”
“Scared that what we have is so good that maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Don’t be silly.” Sean had been intimidated by me at first, and I’d worked hard to put his mind at ease as to what he had to offer our relationship. He perceived the other rangers’ interest as competition and my Ph.D. in biology as a threat. But I’d made it clear I had no interest in the others, and my lack of knowledge about the bush gave him the confidence that he had something to contribute.
Sean held my head in his hands. “I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you.”
I closed my hands around his wrists. “Sean, I’m right here.”
Sean dropped his hands and grabbed mine, looking down at my hands in his. “I hate feeling this way. I can barely sleep at night, I love you so much.”
I squeezed his hands. “And I love you, too.”
“Do you mean that? Do you really mean that, Catherine?”
“Of course I do.”
He let go of my hands and turned away.
“Sean, what’s going on?”
Sean pulled out a small round woven basket from his pocket. It had a zigzag pattern and a little lid. He held it out to me and placed it into the palm of my hand. “Do you know what this is?”
I drew a finger around the tan-and-dark-brown zigzag pattern set against a straw-colored background and shook my head. “No, but it’s adorable.”
“The Zulus use these to keep herbs. The zigzag pattern represents the pattern that a bull in musth makes while dribbling urine.”
“Really? How cool.”
Sean nodded. “I thought it quite fitting for all that time you spend watching elephants urinate.”
I laughed. “Come on, urine dribbling is a very important aspect of musth behavior.”
“Like I said, you have a preoccupation with certain biological functions.”
I twisted the top and rolled the basket in my hands.
“Do you like it?”
I stopped twisting and held it up. “I love it.”
“Open it.”
I looked at him quizzically, opening the small lid by its little woven top. I tipped it forward and looked inside to see a circle of gold. I gasped and looked up at Sean in shock.
Somehow my mind had been somewhere else. I hadn’t seen this coming. I was all at once overwhelmed, confused, exhilarated, and terrified at the idea of an engagement. I looked at the man that I never thought I’d be lucky enough to find. Such a life partner would be the most natural union I could ever have hoped for, and yet my hands shook. Even though I was twenty-six at the time, and had been engaged once before—a brief and long-regretted mistake—somehow I had envisioned being single for at least another few years. But why, when I had found the perfect one?
I could see that Sean was starting to panic, so I reached inside and pulled out the small gold ring set with a zigzag pattern of garnets. I had never seen anything like it.
“It’s not much, I know. When you told me how much you liked garnets, I took the ones I found in the Namib Desert and had them set like this. Do you like it?”
Choked up, I nodded.
Sean took my hand. “I have no interest in living if I can’t share my life with you. I need to know that I can.” He looked me straight in the eye. “Catherine, will you marry me?”
Unexpected tears flowed down my cheeks as my mind raced. I knew the answer was yes, but I was utterly speechless.
Sean wiped a tear and licked it from his finger. “I didn’t know that I’d make you so upset.”
I shook my head and inhaled deeply as my body convulsed involuntarily. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “No, no, I’m not upset. I just—”
He reached over and consumed another tear and smacked his ruddy lips. “Your tears aren’t nearly salty enough.” He took my chin in his hand. “Hey, it’s okay, you know. I’ll be okay.” He looked me in the eye and wiped another tear. “Or, better yet, if you’re thinking no, then please wait and think about it. At least for a little while.”
“No, it’s not that….I mean yes. Of course. Yes.” I gave him a big kiss. “Yes, I will marry you.”
Sean squinted skeptically. “Are you sure?”
I nodded.
Sean jumped up and belted out a tenor aria with hands held out, his long, wavy Viking hair cascading off massive shoulders. “She said yes,” he sang. “She said yeeessss.”
I laughed and held the ring out, admiring the shiny red stones.
“Do you really like it?”
I nodded as he slid the ring onto my left ring finger. Then he drew me to the ground and kissed me passionately. He stopped mid-kiss and broke into a Santana song: “You’re my black magic woman, and you’re going to make a devil out of me.”
I kissed him again. “You know what that song does to me.”
“Yes, indeed I do.” He smiled and kissed me back and then got up abruptly. “This calls for a celebratory gin and tonic. You in?”
“Of course.”
—
Suddenly, my throat seized up as the inevitable image followed.
KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, ELEVEN MONTHS EARLIER
We had gotten stuck in the mud along the boundary fence of Kruger. Sean was covered in mud, shoveling out the tires of the truck and stuffing branches underneath them. I was cutting more branches with a machete and piling them up.
“Can you bring over more of those?”
I carried the branches over to the truck, and Sean stuffed them under the tires and started the engine again, trying to pull forward. The mud was so thick that every time he put his foot down on the accelerator, the wheels would only spin and splatter mud everywhere, sinking the tires even farther.
Sean turned the truck off. “We may be stuck here for the night.”
I went to the cab and grabbed the water bottle, took a swig, and passed it to Sean.
“Cheers.” Sean guzzled some water, wiped his mouth, and gave me a big kiss. “God, you look gorgeous caked in mud.”
I smiled as he started shoving more branches under the tires. I went back to a different tree on the other side of the truck to cut more while Sean went into the bush to cut even more.
A few minutes later I heard a funny noise. Like a gasp. I dropped my machete, pulled my revolver out of its holster, and ran into the bush. There, right in front of me, was an enraged old buffalo—hideously gnarled horns—pinning Sean’s chest up against the park boundary fence. Sean’s eyes were pleading with me to shoot as I stood frozen in place.
—
A heaving breath nearby startled me out of my waking dream. My eyes shot open. In the dark blue light of early morning, I lay still, trying to orientate to the noise.
A tree branch broke, and I spun my head around to see a large elephant chewing thorny branches outside the window screen just a foot away from me. There was something very unsettling about looking up the prehensile nose of the world’s largest land creature. I didn’t dare move for fear of scaring her.
I took a deep breath and watched the elephant eat. Her slender tusks and pointy forehead told me that this was a cow. Her thick, vaudeville eyelashes closed as she chewed contentedly. I could almost feel her breath, slow and deliberate, passing through the end of her trunk. Her velvety, deeply wrinkled skin moved in swaths when she shifted her weight. The smell of elephant leather permeated my nostrils as I listened to her chew.
When she finally moved away from the window, I looked at my watch. It was six thirty. I covered my head with my sarong and lay there a bit longer before mustering up the energy to start the day. After much more chewing and slow breathing, the elephant finally walked off.
I made my way to the kitchen and lit a match under the kettle. I had a little reading to do before meeting my local contact, Mr. Baggs. I wanted to make the most of the visit without his suspecting that I was snooping around.
I got dressed and moved my backpack out onto the porch table. While sipping my tea, I opened a dossier entitled Ivory Trade Routes Between China and Africa 2010–2014, compiled by the Hong Kong chapter of the Wildlife Investigation Agency. The report included seizure records and DNA evidence from confiscated ivory, indicating Zambia and Angola as the main hot spots in southern Africa.
I opened a two-page map spread. The Caprivi region of Namibia lay at the center with arrows pointing down from Angola and Zambia and across from Zimbabwe. The Susuwe Ranger Station sat at the center of the ivory smuggling corridor.
During the most recent international elephant management conference held in Kruger, I had presented a paper on this subject. A poaching incident in Garamba National Park in the Congo two years earlier, with the possible involvement by the Ugandan government, marked the beginning of a shift in players on the poaching front. The incidence of poaching events across Africa escalated, led by rebel groups looking to buy arms. They were teaming up with organized crime syndicates throughout Africa, including American government-backed armies, to provide global distribution for illegal ivory.
Due to this extreme poaching pressure, preservation groups in East Africa argued for a return to a complete ban on the ivory trade, as had been put in place in 1989, after poaching in East Africa had reached a peak, reducing the elephant population to half of what it had been just ten years earlier. They believed that illegal ivory would eventually make its way into legal shipments.
At the same time, groups in southern Africa wanted to retain the right to raise money for elephant conservation efforts by selling government stockpiles of ivory obtained from natural mortalities and sustainable harvests. Several southern African countries were allowed to make two such sales, one in 1999 to Japan, and one in 2008 to both Japan and China. They were hoping that China would remain a good market for legal ivory sales, despite reports by some Chinese wildlife officials that it was too difficult to regulate a legal market in China.
The rift between the preservationists and conservationists was a mile wide and no one wanted to give any ground. With estimates of one hundred elephants being killed in Africa on a daily basis, discussions quickly turned into heated debates and several players walked out.
After my presentation, Craig Phipps approached me about this job. But, because I’d accepted so quickly, he seemed tentative. “There could be some dirty work involved,” he said in his British accent. “Asking questions about the ivory trade could get uncomfortable. I’m not going to lie about that.” He placed a thumb in his elegant belt and leaned up against the mahogany bar at Mala Mala, a private game reserve that hosted the farewell banquet for the conference. “Identifying players and routes is the real reason this job was funded, understood?” He took a slug of his single malt and looked me in the eye. “Are you up for that?”
Desperate for a new life plan, I wasn’t going to let anything deter me, even though I knew I should have asked more questions. “Absolutely.”
He was smart. I could see that he knew exactly what he was getting—someone with nothing left to lose.
He explained that Mr. Baggs, the head of the local Ministry of Land and Conservation, would be told that I’d be the pilot helping local staff to census the regional elephant population. This gave me the excuse to get in on the ground level and have a look around.
“You understand that this could take you down a very different path than counting elephants?”
“I understand.” I nodded.
“Good. And the pay is atrocious, of course.”
I nodded.
Craig stood up tall, held out his hand to shake mine, and then narrowed his eyes and whispered as we shook hands, “The Caprivi is a dangerous place.”
Chapter 4
On the wall of the ministry office reception area was a faded poster advertising Environment Day from five years ago. A dusty kudu skull was mounted above it—a nice rack with two and a half twists. But it had been a long while since it was tended to. Moths had taken up residence in the horns, their long gray tubes hanging from the twists, making a tired beard.
A bloated young woman, barely contained by her ministry uniform, put down her sticky deep-fried pastry as if my sudden presence was an inconvenience to her busy schedule. She shifted her weight in irritation, licked her pudgy fingers, and tried to suppress a deep cough as she asked in Afrikaans if she could be of assistance. “Kan ek jou help?” Her voice was harsh and raspy—a smoker, no doubt.
“Yes, hello, I’m Catherine Sohon. I have an appointment with Mr. Baggs.”
“Oh.” The woman rolled her eyes and pointed to a crooked chair.
I sat down facing the entryway so that I wouldn’t have to look at her. I sensed that we’d both appreciate that gesture. I opened up a faded tourist magazine with more advertisements for safaris than content. My eye was drawn to picture of an attractive couple sitting on the deck of a pontoon houseboat having a drink at sunset: Zambezi River Tours…Be Adventurous.
Gidean had brought my repaired car to me early so I could get to the office first thing in the morning. They hadn’t found anything of interest at the crime scene, but the police dusted for prints before towing the vehicle and transferring the bodies to the morgue. They saved me some of the ivory chips so that WIA could do the genetic analysis. Once he got approval, Gidean would give them to me. Meanwhile, they were off to track the wounded buffalo.
A tall, wiry man with sandy hair marched stiffly into the office. At first glance he looked like a haggard old man, wearing the same ministry uniform as the woman, only untucked and disheveled. But my second glance caught me off guard, as I fought back the urge to stare at this old man trapped in a younger man’s handsome body. He couldn’t have been more than early forties, tops.
“Morning, Draadie!” he announced theatrically. “Get me 63131.” His accent said English South African, and the tension between the Afrikaner and the Englishman was clear.
“Lines are down,” Draadie happily reported, picking up her sticky breakfast that I now realized was a koeksuster and taking another bite. The thought of eating this Afrikaans breakfast favorite—an extremely sweet and greasy doughnut—at this hour made my stomach hurt.
“Oh, Jesus!” The man’s shoulders fell. “Not again.” He groaned and collapsed against the door to the private office next to the reception area where I was still sitting, waiting to be presented.
Draadie pointed her Afrikaans doughnut toward me. “This woman says she has an appointment with you.”
I stood up.
The man winced at the woman, waiting for a further explanation.
Draadie shrugged, dropping her pastry and licking her fingers again.
The apparent Mr. Baggs turned to me and attempted to skewer me with his dark eyes. But it didn’t quite work, and I got the sense that he knew it. What I saw in front of me was a disturbingly good-looking man beneath the curmudgeonly act—his large vulnerable eyes lost in a sea of anguish.
I fumbled an introduction. “Hello, I’m Catherine Sohon.” I held out my hand.
Baggs jumped slightly, as if my hand were some kind of trap that would ensnare him.
I immediately regretted wearing shorts as he diverted his eyes to my bare knees. Feeling naked, I held my backpack awkwardly against my thighs, sliding it down farther to cover my kneecaps with the hope of breaking his stare.
When he looked back up at my face, I realized that it might have been safer to have him looking at my knees. What I had mistaken for a lewd expression, which I was used to and could fend off, was more an expression of genuine surprise.
He stiffened back up and reached for my hand, holding it limply away from his body
, forcing a vast chasm between us. “Jon Baggs,” he said officiously.
“I’m the pilot from WIA, sent up to help with the elephant census.”
He looked at me dubiously and nodded for me to proceed into his office. He signaled for me to sit in any of an assortment of half-broken chairs in front of his institutional-sized wooden desk.
As Baggs sat down, time seemed to stand still for both of us. I saw one hand gripping the other, as if he were struggling to hide behind the persona he was trying to conjure in order to intimidate me. He glared at me, while I tried to placate his irritation with calm, which seemed to make things worse.
Wasps paraded in and out of waterlogged, torn ceiling boards. A large faded map of the region fell away from the far wall. Piles of evidence collected dust in the corner—rotting leopard skins, a crocodile skull, a tattered Florsheim dress shoe, a handmade rifle leaning next to three small elephant tusks.
Unnerved by the silent treatment, I proceeded. “Did you not get the package?”
I was met with a blank stare.
“The one that WIA sent up? My clearance and, I believe, some new elephant mortality forms that need to be submitted to the IUCN.”
Baggs pulled at his shorts in frustration. He turned his head, trying not to look at me directly, and began pounding a pencil tip on his desk, annoyed. “With no cellphone reception and the landlines down, oh and the mail train derailed, communications are a bit slow in the Caprivi.”
“I have an extra copy of the forms.” I dug into my backpack, dodging the ivory trade report, and pulled out a folder of forms.
As I placed the folder on the desk, Baggs slammed a hand down on it, making me jump. “You’re bloody joking, right?”
I realized my mistake. “I’m sorry. Of course you must have tons of these blank forms lying around.”
“As blank as the stares I get from my staff when I ask whether they’ve filled them in.”
“It was like that in Kruger, too. But these are the revised standardized forms that were just issued internationally. Easier to fill out.”
Ivory Ghosts Page 3