‘Will they be armed?’
‘No. Not even with knives. They’ll take bottles out and smash them in the car-park and use them on him. What happens outside is no one’s business in here.’
Michael looked at her and saw the concern and even fear in her eyes. He had attempted to use her and, in a way, he had succeeded. He had learned through her that anyone of importance or interest that he talked to would know what he was doing. He also knew that this girl had a magic about her which could probably unlock doors and men’s voices. He asked her, ‘Is this friend important to you?’
‘Yes. It’s a long story, but he once helped me when I was very young, and in helping me caused himself such trouble. He was never my lover and never will be, but he’s a good friend, I want to leave now and get to a phone and try to get some help for him.’
‘Is that easy?’
‘No. His friends will not want to come to this territory . . . But I have to try.’
Michael took his decision. He asked, ‘Do you want me to help your friend?’ She looked at him without comprehension. He repeated the question. ‘Do you want me to help your friend?’
‘But how? And why?’
He was looking at the three men in their suede jackets. His gaze then swept around the room at all the other black faces. He asked, ‘I’m a white man. If I get involved against those three, are the rest of this lot going to lynch me?’
She shook her head.
‘No. Even though it’s their territory, that gang is not popular. The others will not be offended if a stranger went against them. Even a white one.’
Michael turned again to look at the dance-floor. Shavi was standing close to him. He could feel the warmth of her arm against his. He asked, 'If you go on to that dance-floor and talk to your friend, will he do what you tell him?’
She was looking at her friend and the girl in the white dress who was swinging her tightly-clad bottom in the direction of her ex-boyfriend, and obviously revelling in the situation.
‘He will do exactly what I tell him,’ Shavi answered. ‘I can see even from here that he’s frightened and wishing to God that he never let her bring him here.’
Michael glanced at the three men again. ‘I told that taxi driver to wait for us at the corner. Do you think he’s still there?’
‘Definitely. You gave him ten dollars — he would wait there for a week. But what can you do? You may be tough, but so are they, and I think that my friend is not tough. He would not be much help.’
She saw Michael smile slightly.
He said, ‘The last thing I want is his help. You will make him understand that.’
‘Are you armed?’
He could feel the shape of the Colt 1911 pistol nestling in its chamois shoulder-holster under his armpit. He said, ‘No, I’m nor armed.’ He leaned closer to her ear and gave her his instructions. When he had finished she looked up at him.
‘I should be terrified for you, but for a reason I cannot understand, I’m not . . . I feel a little frightened of you.’
‘Go and do it,’ Michael said.
As Shavi moved from his side, he turned back to the bar and beckoned to the owner. The huge man moved forward and took Michael’s outstretched hand. Michael said, ‘I’ve enjoyed your club and the music and the good cold beer. If you ever come to my island, you ask for me and I’ll be your host.’
The man’s face split into a huge grin. He said, ‘I’ll do that. But don’t expect me next week.’
Michael released the hand and turned back to look at the three men. They were watching the dance-floor. They all held dark-brown bottles of beer. Michael noted that two of them held the bottles in their right hands, while the other one, the girl’s ex-boyfriend, used his left hand. He turned his head to look at the dance-floor. Shavi was gripping her friend by the shoulders and talking urgently into his ear. He was nodding and looking frightened. He glanced at Michael and then at the ex-boyfriend. The ebony girl in the white dress was standing with her arms crossed, looking very irritated.
Michael felt under his wide leather belt and found the flap and eased out three gold Krugerrands. From the corner of his eye, he saw Shavi heading for the door with her friend close behind. The girl in the white dress was shouting at him above the music. He did not look back.
The ex-boyfriend and his two partners were moving. As they came past Michael, he moved with them. They seemed not to notice him. The door was narrow and led on to a dusty yard with a few wrecks of cars scattered around. Michael reached the door just in front of the ex-boyfriend. He saw Shavi about twenty metres away, pulling at her friend’s arm, trying to drag him away. Her friend was looking back at the door. Michael cursed under his breath and then turned, opening his left hand. The three gold Krugerrands glinted on his palm. Loudly, he said, ‘I’m a tourist! I know it’s illegal, but I want to change these. Are you interested?’
The ex-boyfriend was trying to brush past him, the beer bottle in his left hand. His two partners were pushing from behind. He was looking at Shavi and his enemy, but for a fraction of a second — he glanced down and saw the glint of gold. He turned and shouted, ‘Wait! I’ll be back.’
It was almost the last thing he said. Michael pivoted and his fist slammed into the man’s solar plexus. It had nothing to do with any form of martial arts. It was pure street-fighting, at which Michael excelled. The air in the black man’s lungs whooshed out as he doubled over, sending his face into Michael’s slamming left knee. He rebounded backwards into one of his partners. The other man was trying to react, smashing his bottle against a door post and turning, but Michael took one fast stride and kicked him in the testicles with his right foot. He screamed and dropped the bottle, grasping for his groin. Michael hit him with a short, vicious uppercut and pushed his body away. The second partner was struggling to get up from beneath the ex-boyfriend. Michael kicked him in the head and he rolled away, moaning. They lay in a triangle in the dust. It had taken about five seconds.
Shavi and her friend were standing like statues. Michael tossed the three gold coins into the centre of the triangle, and walked briskly towards them, saying, ‘Let’s find another club.’
Chapter 19
Creasy was squatting on his haunches on the bank of the Sebungwe River, his rifle held loosely but ready. Maxie was wading across the river. The water was up to his chest, and he held two rifles high above his head. Creasy’s gaze was intent as he scanned the river and opposite bank for signs of crocodile. It was the third day. They had crossed the Gwaai and Mlibizi Rivers, and this was the last river they would cross before trekking to the murder site on the lake. They had passed through a land which Creasy had found strangely satisfying. During his time as a mercenary in the Rhodesian War of Independence, he had served mainly on the Mozambique border in the Eastern highlands, and the topography there could well have been Northern European, with mountains, pine forests, trout streams and very little game. But during the last three days, he had been walking through the real Africa. The terrain was undulating, with high outcrops of basalt rock. The dry Kalahari soil supported mopani woodlands between grasslands and jessie bush. The river valleys were studded with evergreens, particularly the Zimbabwe ebony and baobab trees.
The area was Maxie MacDonald’s backyard and because of his impressive knowledge and the studied casualness which masked total awareness, Creasy had done something out of character. As they had climbed out of the Land Rover and watched it drive away, three days earlier, he had tapped Maxie lightly on the shoulder and said, ‘You’ve done jobs for me off and on over the last fifteen years. I’ve always been the boss. But while we’re in this part of the African bush, you’re the boss and you give the orders.’
Maxie grinned with pleasure and said, ‘OK. You don’t have to call me sir, unless we meet up with anybody in a sort of social activity,’
As he turned away, Creasy kicked him in the backside, and then they went into the bush.
Although they were not expecting to find anythi
ng until they were in the region of the murder, Maxie’s eyes rarely left the ground in front of him, while Creasy took a broader view. They had decided to take three rifles: a high-velocity 300.06, an AK47 assault rifle, in case they ran into a bunch of poachers, and a very lightweight, single-shot. 22 with a silencer to shoot small game, in the event that their trapping was unsuccessful.
They had not had to use the .22. On the first two evenings, Maxie had laid traps on game-tracks near the rivers. The traps were simple but effective; a branch was pulled down and stressed with thin twine against a catapult-shaped branch, pushed hard into the ground with a toggle behind it. A thin twig rested on one side of the toggle and the twine was fashioned into a noose with a slip-knot and placed over and around the trip twig. As soon as anything touched that twig, the toggle was released, the branch whipped back and the noose was tightened. On the first evening, they caught a bush-buck, on the second evening, a small duiker. Apart from their rifles, their only other implements were hasp-knives and many metres of thin strong twine wrapped around their waists. The meat was tough and rangy and would have tasted better after having been hung for a few days, but still, as they ate the charred meat with their hands, they felt that they had never dined better in their lives.
Game was plentiful. Impala, zebra and giraffe, an occasional buffalo, which they left at a wary distance, and the beautiful kudus with their spiralling horns and regal expressions. They skirted a breeding herd of elephants, and on the previous afternoon had briefly tracked a rhino, which was rare because they had been mostly poached out in that area. They had spotted it after an hour and Creasy felt a strange anger as he watched the beast and listened to Maxie’s words.
‘It has been dehorned by the game department, in an attempt to save it from poachers who come across from Zambia.’ Maxie had sighed. ‘But it doesn’t help. The poachers kill them anyway.’
‘Why?’ Creasy had asked. ‘If they have no value.’
Again, Maxie sighed, more in anger than in sorrow.
‘There are two reasons. First, so they don’t waste time in the future, tracking that particular animal — sometimes tracking takes several days. Second, and more disgusting, their bosses pay them the same money for killing a dehorned rhino as for one with horns.’
‘But why?’
‘It’s incredible but simple. Just five years ago, there were more than two thousand black rhinos in Zimbabwe. Today there are only about three hundred and fifty, of which half are on private land and well-protected. The people who pay these poachers have big stocks of rhino horn and they sell very little of it, to keep the price astronomically high. It’s their intention to make wild black Rhinos completely extinct. The day that happens, the value of their stock will shoot through the roof. In the Far East, ten grams of rhino horn would become more valuable than a pure white nine-carat diamond. It’s estimated that those bastards have stocks of up to five tons. We’re talking tens of millions of dollars . . . it’s pure filthy economics.’
Creasy had looked at the once-beautiful but now unbalanced creature and his anger had mounted.
‘How much do the poachers get for a horn?’ he asked.
‘On average, about five hundred dollars . . . That’s a year’s normal wages in Zambia, but the risk is high. The game department wardens have a licence to kill, and they do it often. Trouble is, there aren’t enough of them and they only have a single helicopter for the whole damn country.’
They turned away from the animal and Creasy said, ‘Well, if we come across any of the bastards, we’ll shoot to kill. You have the licence.’
‘It’s unlikely,’ Maxie said sadly. ‘They operate further to the west. That rhino will have great difficulty finding a mate in this area, and so his line will die out anyway.’
Creasy thought about that and then muttered, ‘Well, we can live in hope.’
Maxie had reached the opposite bank and reslung the .22 over his left shoulder. Without looking back, he moved cautiously through jessie bushes, holding the AK47 at the ready. Creasy knew that he would do a circuit to make sure that his landing area was not threatened, either by man or animal.
It was fifteen minutes before Maxie reappeared on the bank. His eyes swept the river for any sign of crocodile and then he beckoned and Creasy waded across.
They picked up the tracks about fifteen kilometres from the murder site. Maxie squatted and studied the dry soil for several minutes, while Creasy sat and watched. Then Maxie moved in widening circles, until he stopped and crouched again and then beckoned to Creasy. He pointed to the signs: the flattened grass, the broken twigs and the scuffed dirt.
‘This was their camp last night,’ Maxie said. ‘Two of them. Afs.’
‘You’re sure they’re Afs?’
‘Definitely. They’re wearing sandals made from cut-up car tyres.’ He pointed to an imprint on the ground, ‘Whites would be wearing Fellies or bush boots like us. They’re not Wildlife Rangers and they don’t have much money, otherwise they’d have decent boots or shoes.’
‘Rhino poachers?’
‘I doubt it. Those guys usually wear army boots, either from Zambia or Zimbabwe. These two are probably local poachers after meat and skins. They’d be using the same sort of traps as we have during the last few days.’ He gestured to his right, “There’s a Batongka village about twenty k’s over there. The tracks show that they came from that direction. They’ll be heading for the lake and, from the spoor, I guess they’ll end up a few k’s north of the murder site.’
‘You’re the temporary boss,’ Creasy said. ‘What do we do?’
Maxie straightened and looked at his watch. He turned away to his left, in the direction of the lake, and then thought out loud. ‘If they’re from that village back up the river, they probably poach this area on a regular basis, and be sure they know it like the backs of their hands. They might have seen something about the time of the murders. Now that kind of poaching gives them only a subsistence living. If they did see something or cross some tracks before that big rain, then their information could be useful. If they’re Batongka, then they’re traditionally tight-lipped, but for a little gold they might loosen up.’
‘Let’s talk to them,’ Creasy said. ‘Can you track them?’
Maxie nodded.
‘They’re being careful but I can track them. You remember the technique?’
‘Sure,’ Creasy said, and looked at his watch. ‘We have five hours to sundown. Let’s get going.’
Maxie walked over to a mopani tree and ripped off a branch about one metre long. With his knife, he stripped off the twigs and leaves and then moved forward. Creasy waited until he was about fifty metres ahead and then followed, watching him closely. It was classic two-man tracking. Maxie followed the spoor closely in front of him and, with his stick, pointed out the signs of the spoor for Creasy to see. A bent clump of grass, showing the direction, an imprint on the soil or a dislodged twig. If Maxie lost the spoor, Creasy would stand beside the last sign, while Maxie would circle around to find the spoor again. Within the next two hours it happened twice on outcrops of basalt rock, and Maxie had to circle at a distance of several hundred metres before he picked up the spoor again on softer ground. Creasy was a well-trained and experienced tracker himself, but on these occasions, he marvelled at Maxie’s skill.
After three hours, Maxie stopped, crouched down and closely examined the soil. He picked up some earth on his finger and smelt it and let it dribble from his finger. Then he beckoned Creasy forward.
‘They stopped here and took a piss,’ he said. ‘Not more than an hour ago. We do the same.’
‘Why?’ Creasy asked impatiently.
Maxie explained, ‘Because ten minutes ago we scared a white-crown plover from its perch, and that bird makes a lot of noise. Five minutes before that, we disturbed those baboons and that coughing bark of theirs can be heard over a long distance. About ten minutes before that, a Greater honey-guide bird tried to attract us to a bees’ nest . . . and that bir
d’s call is also clear over long distances. If those two boys up front are very experienced, they’ll relate the noises to our movements. So we stop for half an hour to ease their minds.’
Creasy grinned down at him. ‘You’re not just a pretty face, Maxie.’
Maxie stood up and grinned back. He said, ‘I spent about three years during the war in this bush. If I just had a pretty face, you wouldn’t be looking at it now. You’d have to dig six feet down to look at a pretty skull.’
Creasy pointed at the darker areas of earth, where the men had urinated. ‘Do you think those men are armed?’
Maxie had unzipped his trousers and was taking a pee.
‘I can’t be sure,’ he said. ‘If they are, and they’re caught by the game rangers, they’d get an extra five years in jail.’
‘Do you speak their language?’
Maxie nodded.
‘Not brilliantly, but enough to get by. But they probably speak Ndebele as well. Most of the smaller tribes in this area do.’
They caught up with them an hour before sunset. Maxie had paused again for half an hour on two occasions when they had disturbed the birds. Creasy had felt no impatience, just admiration for his friend’s caution and uncanny skills, as he had pointed out with his stick the almost invisible marks of the spoor.
They were only two kilometres from the edge of the lake when they held a brief, whispered conference.
‘They won’t go to the edge of the lake itself,’ Maxie said. ‘By now they would have made camp about a kilometre from here, and they would be setting out their traps on the game trails. They’ll work individually, each setting up about four traps each. They’ll go back to those traps just before dark, and then bring whatever they’ve caught back to the camp. That camp will be in a hollow or dip, so that when they light their fire, it will be undetectable from a distance. We move in just before nightfall. I go first, just wearing my shorts and unarmed. You cover me with the 300.06. I’ll approach from an angle, so you’ll have an open field of fire.’
Black Horn (A Creasy novel Book 4) Page 10