Sleep seemed further away than ever. I lit my bedside lamp, taking care to keep the flame low. I was pretty sure that if Teaspoon could sleep through a tooth-rattling roar, he wouldn’t be bothered by me. Slowly, I unzipped my duffel bag. I had never written in the journal Mr. Kitwick gave me, yet the soft leather volume felt familiar and comforting in my hands. In the circle of yellow lamplight, I turned back the cover. I rubbed my palm across my shirt and took up a pen. For the first time since high school graduation, I felt I had something truly worthy to record.
On the first page I printed in neat block letters, “BONGANI BAAS.” I considered adding an account of BB’s heroism and tragic death at the hands of wildlife poachers. But then I remembered the journal was for me and me alone. To me, the name Bongani Baas said everything.
13
IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, I found many things to record in my journal. I wrote down every snippet of bushcraft I overheard from Teaspoon and the guides, starting with the importance of making noise on the pathways at night. I made lists of the birds I saw for the first time and plants that were new to me. Equally notable were the realities of life in an actual safari camp. My fantasies about Ruby and her amazing safaris had never included spacious quarters with fluffy duvets or excellent meals prepared by a chef. They certainly had not included afternoon tea.
Teatime came as a surprise on my first full day in camp. I had worked steadily since breakfast on the assembly of beds, taking only a brief break for a sandwich with Teaspoon and Jaleen. By midafternoon I had finished the last bed. I returned to the pavilion to find Teaspoon arranging a tray of cups and plates.
“I was about to come and find you,” he said. “Would you like a scone?”
“Uh, sure.”
He placed a triangular pastry on a plate and handed it to me. “Do you like your tea white or with lemon?”
I looked at him. “Tea?”
“We’re rehearsing. Nate is trying out new recipes and a new oven. When guests are present, tea and biscuits or cake are served every day at three thirty.”
“They come in from exploring the bush for tea?”
“No,” he said patiently, as if explaining to a child. “They rise from their beds for tea. Our schedule follows the patterns of the animals. We are active early and late. During the hot midday hours we rest. Teatime gathers everyone for the late-afternoon game drive that lasts into evening. Dinner isn’t served until eight or eight thirty.”
During the day’s swelter I had never stopped working, of course. No one had told me that a rest and a shower after lunch were perfectly acceptable, even for staff.
Jaleen, who was pouring herself a cup of tea, overheard. “Don’t get the idea that we sack out for three or four hours like the guests. There is plenty of work to keep everyone busy until teatime.”
I didn’t doubt this. Jackson had mentioned that Good Sam helped in the kitchen, and I had seen a girl with cleaning supplies following Jaleen. But for a camp that hosted a rotating roster of twelve guests in six tents for weeks at a time, the staff seemed pretty lean.
“The beds are finished,” I told Jaleen, swallowing a delicious bite of scone. “When do you expect Chiddy and the mattresses?”
“Late tomorrow. Jackson asked him to start out today, with a stop at your shop to pay the balance owed. He should be well on the way by now.”
It pleased me that Jackson had approved the final payment to Stash even before he had inspected the finished beds. His trust in me squared my shoulders, made me stand a little taller. I noted the pile of lumber waiting to become a bar, both pleased and nervous about the chance to prove myself again.
With no guests at Motembo, teatime was a sketchy business. Luke rushed in, took a few swallows from a cup, grabbed a scone, and turned to leave. I was studying the plans for the bar when he looked back. “I’m going out to search for leopards,” he said. “Want to come?”
I was so surprised that all I could think to say was “Now?”
“Yes, now. Bring a hat and your canteen. I’m parked behind the kitchen. Meet you there.”
I ran to Teaspoon’s tent, pulsing with excitement. The only hat I owned was a black baseball cap I had long ago unearthed from a pile at the Sisters of Charity. I grabbed it and my canteen and hurried out.
“What is SOX?” Luke asked, looking at the hat.
I shrugged, having no idea.
“Best not to wear black in the bush. The tsetse flies will think you’re a Cape buffalo, their favorite thing to annoy.”
Another nugget to record in my journal, I thought, taking off the cap.
Luke rummaged in a rucksack and pulled out a tan, balled-up wad of canvas that turned out to be a hat. “Here. You can have this.”
I looked at him. “You mean keep it?”
“Not exactly a prize. But yes, you may keep it.”
Wrinkles and frays and a small, jagged tear in the crown suggested a lifetime of adventure in the bush. I pulled the hat down over my ears. It was too large by only a little. I had never owned anything so wonderful.
Luke drove out of camp fast. The Land Cruiser jostled and bounced, not in a precarious way but with the authority of a machine with great heft and weight. The vehicle crashed through the underbrush, forded axle-deep streams, and sped over rocky terrain that would have destroyed Stash’s van. Luke worked the stick shift with unconscious ease, smoothly navigating steep, sandy rises and sudden ditches where the earth fell away without warning. We did not retrace the route I had taken into camp. Instead, we headed for a shady glen wooded with acacias and old-growth leadwood trees.
“Like all leopards, ours are very shy,” he said over the thrum of the engine. “We’ve seen three this season, a female and two males. The female is pregnant, due to deliver. We’re keeping an eye on her.”
I nodded and turned my gaze up into the trees.
From time to time, Luke stopped to step out and clear a fallen branch or study the ground for tracks or scat. Occasionally, I anticipated his purpose and jumped out first, dragging aside a limb while he stayed behind the wheel. A few times I pointed out spoor I had noticed from my seat. Once, a large baboon swaggered across our path, causing Luke to stomp abruptly on the brake.
“Alpha male,” I murmured, watching the animal’s confident, butt-swinging knuckle walk.
Luke nodded. “He’s fearless. He rules a large troop. You see why we latch our doors.”
We had been on the move for about thirty minutes when Luke downshifted again, holding the engine at a low hum while we rolled slowly forward. He was staring intently into dense brush. My pulse quickened. I had seen a leopard only once, on a hunting trip with Baba. We had gotten a fleeting glimpse as the cat slunk into long grass and disappeared. “The Prince of Stealth,” Baba had called it.
Something a distance away caught my eye, a tree trunk streaked with … what? I squinted and raised my eyes to a horizontal limb about four meters above the ground. “There,” I said, pointing.
Luke killed the engine and raised his binoculars. “That’s her. Nice spotting.”
The leopard rested on her belly, watching us. “She’s guarding a kill,” I whispered. A sticklike leg with a dark shin stripe hung from the tree. The appendage was attached to a shredded mess of flesh that had bled down onto the trunk. “A duiker, I think.”
He peered through the lenses a moment longer. “You know your antelope.”
“From hunting with my father.” I quickly added, “For the pot.”
While we watched, the leopard rose from her perch and bounded down the trunk. She was a beautiful animal, sleek and fluid. Without a pause she nosed into a dense thicket, where the white tip of her tail remained visible for a minute or two.
“She looks like she’s already given birth. The cubs are probably in that brush,” Luke said in a low voice. “She’ll suckle them in hiding for about three months.”
“I hope they last that long.”
“Yes. It’s a dangerous time. Newborns weigh only four hundred grams, about fourteen ounces. They’re defenseless against predators. We’ll keep our guests away until we see the cubs climbing trees. We don’t want to broadcast their hiding spot.”
As if summoned by Luke’s words, a brown spotted hyena appeared from the shadows and nosed the base of the bloodied trunk. Drool swung from its mouth, a scavenger’s somatic response to the scent of a kill. Other hyenas would gather soon and stick around for days, waiting for bones to fall. A shiver shuddered through me as I watched the hyena circle and sniff so close to the newborns’ hiding place.
Luke and I left quickly then, not wanting to draw more attention. We took a longer route back to camp, finding interesting, guide-like chores at every turn. Several of the tracks we followed disappeared into nothing, but Luke never diverted the Cruiser. He got out to clear brush, rebuild washouts with a shovel, or push sticks and stones under the tires to roll us out of sand. Once we got out to clear a spiderweb as big as a badminton net. Its builder, the size of an almond, hung motionless in the middle, alert for the slightest tremble in the outer threads.
I helped Luke as much as I could, watching him, learning fast. I wasn’t a novice in the African bush, yet I realized how far I was from a trained professional. Luke’s comments hinted at a vast store of knowledge, but even more instructive was his demeanor as we rolled along. His eyes never rested. They swept with laser focus right and left, up and down. Even over the thrum of the engine, he detected sounds I missed: the screech of an owl, the sneeze of an impala. He anticipated flowering trees, dead animals, even bodies of water before we came to them, apparently by sniffing the ever-changing currents of air. All his senses seemed sharper than mine, honed through practice and necessity.
“See that?” he said as we came to a full stop in the middle of nowhere.
A length of wire hung from a branch. At the end of the wire, a slipknot formed a loop the size of a truck tire.
“A near-perfect killing machine—simple, cheap, portable, easy to set up, difficult to see, and nearly impossible to escape. Tension in the loop slides the knot along the wire, closing the loop tighter and tighter.”
I hadn’t seen the wire, but I knew about snares. They were one of poachers’ favorite weapons.
Luke took a wire cutter from the storage box between our seats. “Poachers set these indiscriminately, wherever they please. Often they forget or abandon the location, leaving a snare to trap some unlucky creature by the leg or neck, where it dies a slow, terrible death.” He snipped the wire in several places and threw the pieces in the back seat. “An animal that manages to escape suffers wounds that can fester and cause an even longer, more terrible death. A sorry business all around.”
After that, I kept my eyes open for snares. I both wanted to be the sharp lookout that spotted one and hoped never to see the evil device again. We had driven another ten minutes or so when I pointed toward a copse of trees at the same instant Luke turned the wheel in that direction. The snare wasn’t difficult to see—or smell. The loop had closed around the neck of a wild dog sprawled near the track, garroted to death, buzzing with flies.
Luke freed the carcass and clipped the wire. Disgust contorted his features as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. He started the engine without a word. I felt a knot between my shoulder blades. The senseless, manmade death of an innocent animal felt worse than any of nature’s bitter realities.
He drove slowly on the way back to Motembo, holding the engine at a low hum. By raising our voices only a little, we were able to talk. “We’re always on the lookout for snares and gin traps,” he said, finding his voice.
“Gin traps?”
“Filthy, often rusted metal jaws with jagged teeth that clamp shut on a leg—or a tire.”
“They set them in the tire tracks?”
“Sometimes. More often they cut gaps in the brush to encourage animals to move in a certain direction, toward the traps. We drivers can be fooled too.”
“You must be good at changing tires.”
He nodded, grim. “We are.”
We rolled into camp as the sun fattened and fell. I helped clean the Land Cruiser by crawling underneath to clear away grasses snagged on the undercarriage. Luke rinsed the insulated camp box stowed in back. Together we washed the windscreen before covering the vehicle with a tarp. As we left the parking area, he handed me the cut lengths of snare wire to deliver to the maintenance shop. Nothing even remotely reusable was thrown away at Motembo.
After dinner that night, I was measuring lengths of wood for the bar when Luke came up beside me. “You did well today, Bones. Thanks for your help.”
Praise had never pleased me as much. Out of gratitude, respect, and something akin to hero worship, I quickly stood and removed the canvas hat I had put on again when I left the table. “I liked helping you.”
Instead of turning to go, he just stood there. Perhaps he was remembering his own past helping Bongani Baas, followed by the sudden, unbearable weight of the ranger’s death. His face sagged and grayed in what looked like renewed grief.
My voice almost deserted me. But I had the presence to add, “I’m sorry about your friend Bongani Baas.”
He extended his hand in a new way, with the fingers pointed up about eye level. Although I had never shaken hands like that, my response was automatic, as if by instinct alone. My palm met his and together we made a fist in the air that felt more solid and reassuring than anything we could have said.
* * *
When Chiddy arrived after teatime the following afternoon, I had almost finished framing out the bar. I was kneeling behind the long, rough mahogany structure, fitting in shelves, when I heard the hum of a motor, the squeal of heavy brakes, and Chiddy’s unmistakable voice. “Helloooooooo, Teaspoon.”
The greeting reminded me that Chiddy still thought I was “Bonesy.” I hurried out to say hello and set him straight. “Hi, Chiddy.” I was wearing my safari hat, as I had been all day. I gripped his wrist, demonstrating one of my new handshakes, and wondered if he thought I looked different, more manly. “I’m called Bones now.”
“Well, of course. Very fitting.” He shook my wrist, smiling and nodding. “Bones, I bring greetings from your uncle and the twins, Donovan and Drew. The boys have been busy, busy learning to be carpenters.”
“Stash is teaching them?”
“It looks to be so. Of course, they are very young,” he added, probably in case I might be worried about losing my job. “Just playing at it now.”
“I’m glad Stash has company while I’m gone,” I said, meaning it. “Did you see Mima?”
“Your lovely girlfriend was not at the workshop. But I believe I saw her through the door of the grocery store. There were many customers inside.”
Only four days had passed since I left the village. Although Mima occupied a central role in my ongoing fantasies, my home, Swale’s Grocery, and Stash’s workshop seemed very far away.
Teaspoon helped Chiddy and me carry the mattresses from the truck to the guest tents. It was hot, sweaty work that left us drenched and puffing, especially Chiddy, whose girth remained as impressive as ever. On the way back to the pavilion, I pointed out a thread of green boomslang hanging from the thatch.
Teaspoon nodded. “We know it lives up there. We never tell guests, of course. Boomslangs are reclusive, and they help control pests, so we coexist peaceably.” He looked at me. “This snake makes an appearance quite often, high above our heads. You are the first visitor to spot it.”
I nodded, solemn. “I promise not to tell.”
We stopped to observe the coffin-shaped head dangling in the air. I wondered if the snake had detected our voices or the vibrations of our movements and come out to take a look. While we watched, it suddenly vanished, as if yanked by the tail.
The evening in camp was almost festive, much happier than the two previous nights. Even before I arrived at Motembo, I had known the importance of resilience in people who live close to the realities of the African bush. In a safari camp, both the realities and the need for resilience seemed amplified many times. Everything there struck me as larger, more consequential than the rest of life and at the same time simpler, more focused and intense. I felt a constant undercurrent of excitement. I was deeply attracted to the sense of purpose and camaraderie that knit together everyone who worked at Motembo, no matter who they were or where they came from.
Jackson and Kiki returned from their condolence visit with supplies, including a large bottle of Amarula. After dinner, just as Chiddy had described a lifetime ago, all hands settled around the campfire. Everyone except Teaspoon and Newsom, who didn’t drink alcohol, held a glass of Amarula. The fire snapped and spit. Sparks climbed into the sky. A scorpion popped out of a smoldering log and scurried past my foot. Beyond our circle of light, another outer realm had come alive with the cackling, chuffing, hooting voices of nocturnal creatures on the prowl.
I took a small sip of the deceptively smooth and creamy homegrown brew I had sampled at Captain Biggie’s. Through plumes of smoke, I studied the bright faces of the people I had come to know. Everyone at Motembo, and Chiddy too, had been accepting and kind. Now they were in high spirits, relaxed, tongues loosened by camaraderie and the sweet, fermented fruit of the marula tree.
Jaleen revealed impressive storytelling skills when she recalled the time a leopard dragged a dead impala into her laundry. Her voice commanded a low, creepy register, and she paced her words for maximum effect. The others must have heard the tale many times before, yet no one made a sound as she described stepping across the threshold and almost tripping over a magnificent cat ripping flesh from a carcass.
“The leopard peeled back its bloody mouth and hissed,” she said, drawing out the s’s. “I can still see its haunches bunching and flexing as it braced for a lunge.” Her eyes were wide, glistening orbs. “I knew not to run, so I backed away as slowly as I could. S-l-o-w-l-y. Back, back, back. I didn’t stop or turn around until I was all the way to the pavilion.”
The Story of Bones Page 15