Shilo's Secret

by Stephan, Judith

  Outside the sounds of the African wild echoed around the lodge. Animals called to the golden orb of the moon suspended in the blackness and surrounded by the pepper of myriad stars … and the cicadas droned incessantly.

  CHAPTER 2

  He sped along the country lanes, flanked by walls of rough stone, towards the little village of Pennington-on-Dee. It had a quaint ring to it, and that is how he picked these villages. He scanned the map of England and looked for names that seemed alluring and mysterious and faintly medieval. That is how he had chosen Appletreewick and Shepherdshaven in the weeks before.

  His black BMW swept through puddles from the ongoing drizzle and manipulated the winding roads in the gloomy, wintry landscape. Everything was black and white and a million shades of grey. He had put in a disc which belted out his favourite music: opera. It resonated in the confined interior and he sang shamelessly along with Paverotti and friends, while slowly massaging his crotch as he thought of what awaited him.

  Soon the hamlet gleamed like a diamond in the valley before him. Small curls of wispy smoke emanated from a few of the rooftop chimneys, and the lights were already on in the late afternoon gloom. Four o’clock. There should already be a few patrons at the local pub.

  As he swept into the village and searched for a drinking hole, he marveled at the quaintness of it all. The little houses, centuries old, with their lace-curtained windows right on the street, barns in the centre of the village, and the narrow Victorian cobbled lanes bearing ancient signs proclaiming a bakery, a butchery, a sweetshop and so on. No gigantic “buy-it-all-under-one-roof” malls or big box stores like in London. The butcher was probably also the postman and the chief constable, he thought to himself. It was anachronistic – it was like stepping back in time.

  The Fox and Pheasant seemed a likely spot, and he pulled up a little way down the road from the entrance in the shadow of an old gargoyle covered Gothic church which loomed above him like a monster in the descending darkness. The warm air buffeted him as he walked in from the street, and he made his way to the counter.

  “What’ll it be, mate?” the aging bartender, complete with waxed mustachios, asked him in a broad accent.

  “Whisky on the rocks,” he said coldly.

  With glass in hand, he casually ambled to a dimly lit cubicle in sight of the entrance and waited for his prey.

  *

  The specially adapted Jeep, they used for game viewing, jolted along a bumpy track into the heart of the game farm. Michaela was not feeling up to the heat and had opted to stay lying by the pool for the morning. Dorianne sat behind Stratt covered up like a sheik with layers of protective material to shield her from the harsh rays of the sun, and a wide-brimmed straw sun hat. Shilo, dressed in tailored, crisp white shorts and a vividly turquoise chemise open over a strappy, white vest, sat next to Stratt in the front seat. Her hair was caught up in a clip and cascaded over the side of her head. Three other guests, businessmen from Germany, sat in the back seats and another couple from Greece were behind Shilo.

  They had been there two days already, but had wilted in their rooms in between short dips in the pool, as the temperature had soared to over forty degrees. This was their first game drive, and Shilo was hoping to see some real wild animals for which South Africa was apparently so famous. She had expected to see some of them along the side of the roads on the way to the lodge, but had not, only cattle, sheep, some lonely goats and a donkey or two pulling primitive carts. She could see those in England. A few monkeys had invaded the stockade around the lodge the previous day and caused great amusement among the guests … but that was it – no wild animals yet.

  She glanced at Stratt, whose unruly hair flapped around in the wind under his peaked Nike cap, as he negotiated the rocky terrain. She scolded herself for constantly finding herself admiring Stratt’s muscles in his arms and legs as he changed gears. She could see them shifting underneath his thin cotton, khaki bush shirt as he manouvred the Jeep and turned the heavy steering wheel. Again she was reminded of some hulking man of the jungle … a “Rambo”. He was repulsive yet fascinating.

  “Springbok³!” he said suddenly and pointed to a small herd of rusty brown and white buck that were grazing about one hundred metres away. They impulsively began to run and jump gracefully and then veered away from the noisy disturbance of the Jeep’s engines to disappear behind a small grove of acacia (4) trees. “Our national rugby team is named after these magnificent creatures,” he smiled as he glanced at her. She did not respond.

  Stratt chatted continuously as they drove, about the vegetation; the tracks and signs he saw along the route, evidence that animals had been there, and anecdotes about previous game drives and guests. He was a wealth of information, and although Shilo would never admit it, she was impressed and hung on every word he spoke in his intriguing accent. She looked at him while he talked. He had tiny wrinkles around his eyes when he laughed and when he looked towards the sun. His eyes were a startling green and were heavily lashed. He actually was quite attractive, Michaela had been right. But he was a commoner and she must never forget that.

  Suddenly Stratt killed the engine and the Jeep rolled silently to a halt.

  “There’s a rhino,” he whispered, glancing at Shilo and meeting her guilty gaze.

  He pointed into the veld where an uneven, dusty-grey dome was visible above the long, tawny grass about fifty metres to the left.

  “Don’t make a sound – they’re as blind as a bat but they’ve got bloody good hearing.”

  “How do you know that’s a rhinoceros?” asked Shilo, “It looks like a rock to me.”

  “Just watch and be patient,” he answered, an inner excitement bubbling just below the surface, as he gazed at the mound in anticipation. “The game just doesn’t wait for us on the side of the road, you know. It’s in its natural habitat.”

  Sure enough the mound moved, and the gigantic beast with its long horn appeared in full view of the vehicle. Stratt immediately started a monologue about the animal’s sex, age and diet in low tones, while everyone’s camera clicked at this prize.

  Once the animal had moved on, Stratt could not resist saying to Shilo: “See, I have lived here for most of my life … I know these things.”

  Shilo turned away in an assumed sulk; but in fact she too was scanning the unfamiliar terrain for a sign of life, so she could also spot an animal, any animal, and show this arrogant ranger that she did know something.

  Stratt had been very aware of Shilo’s interest in his physique. He had seen her staring out of the corner of his eye and had often met her guilty gaze. He enjoyed the attention and felt quite flattered. In fact he played up to it by opening up the buttons on his shirt, so that his muscular, hirsute chest was visible. He kept on flashing her knowing smiles. She was a real pain in the butt and it gave him a thrill to tease her.

  They managed to spot a herd of mountain zebra, two giraffes and a huge male kudu(5), which glared at them from the shade of a thorn tree, in quick succession. He even stopped the vehicle, got out and took a small green chameleon out of a small roadside bush and gave the guests a snippet of the knowledge he knew about that creature. How he had seen the green reptile among all the foliage was a mystery. Then he put it down on the brown soil and they all watched it turn brown, almost at once, as it walked in its jerky, stealthy manner back into the vegetation. Stratt pointed out some dung beetles on the narrow track that rolled balls o0f animal excrement twice their size over the bumpy ground. He made comments about the freshness of the dung and the broken trees along the way, indicating the passage of elephants there in the not too distant past and increasing the chances of running into them up ahead. The tourists were beside themselves with eager anticipation at this possibility. Just imagine …real African Elephants!

  It was ten-thirty and the sun had begun to climb to its fiery zenith.

  “The best time to come out is before dawn. It’s cool then and the animals are all up and around the waterholes,” Stratt in
formed his guests.

  “Oh, really?” said Dorianne enthusiastically from her back seat. “How exciting! Do you do game drives in the early morning?”

  “Of course we do,” Stratt answered, “just let me know when.”

  “I never get up that early,” said Shilo to no one in particular.

  “In Africa that’s what we do – we don’t waste the daylight hours when it’s not too hot. And if you want to see some big game, that’s what you should do. In the heat of the day the animals, especially the lions and leopards, retreat from the sun and sleep under shady trees and below grass level to keep cool. Your chances of seeing them are nil,” Stratt answered her in a rather pedantic tone.

  Shilo mumbled some undistinguishable complaint under her breath and Stratt looked at her disapprovingly.

  “Don’t you think you should put on some sunscreen?” he asked, noting the pinkish tinge appearing on her shoulders, chest and bare thighs. Her chemise, that she had worn earlier, had been discarded on the seat between them. “You’re going to burn that lily-white skin of yours.” His tone had unintentionally begun to ring with the sarcasm to which he himself had been subjected. He chastised himself for sinking to her level. They were after all his guests, as his father had reminded him.

  “I’m just fine!” snapped Shilo, running her slim fingers down her arms. “I want to go back to England with a glorious tan.”

  “This is the first week – Take it slowly. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Would you please stop interfering,” Shilo retorted, “I really don’t need some stranger telling me how to look after my skin!”

  Suddenly there was a loud trumpeting sound to the left of the Jeep, and Stratt was angry at himself for losing concentration on his surroundings. He slowed the vehicle.

  “Elephants,” he whispered.

  The word was loaded with as much mystery as if he had said “Leprechauns”,” “Unicorns” or “Trolls”, as all the foreigners stared at the clump of grey-green bushes in absolute horror.

  “I told you they were nearby.”

  Two bull elephants and a cow emerged about ten metres away.

  “Something’s wrong,” Stratt said to himself, “they’re upset about something.”

  He glanced around: the elephants started trumpeting, doing mock charges, stamping up clouds of dust, flapping their giant ears vigorously and swinging their gigantic heads in distress.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Stratt stated, thrusting the Jeep into first gear and screeching off in a cloud of dust away from the huge Pachyderms. “I see the problem. There was a calf on the other side of the road. We were in the way and posing a threat.”

  Dorianne gasped and Shilo clung to the door handle in horror.

  “Will they still charge?” she asked.

  “No, not now. It could have been dangerous though,” Stratt said smiling.

  “What do you mean?” accused Shilo, “I hope you didn’t put our lives in any unnecessary danger.”

  “If we hadn’t moved away, they might have charged. We were parked in between the mother and her calf. Their instincts are to protect their young. I moved us away from the danger.” Stratt reiterated, assuming the role of the eternal pragmatist.

  “He saved us from danger,” stated one of the German men with a strong accent, “Please stop complaining.”

  Shilo recoiled in horror at the humiliation of being reprimanded by a complete stranger. She had forgotten about the other people in the Jeep, as she had been focusing so much attention on Stratt. Again she looked away sulkily. So they continued along the track that headed down towards the river. They drove through the shallow water sending a crystalline spray up from each wheel, which caught the sunlight in a host of colours. They saw crocodiles slithering into the water through the reeds from muddy banks or lurking, log-like, in the shallows. They watched a hippopotamus surface slowly, open its mouth in a wide yawn, and then sink again into the murky depths. It grew hotter and hotter. Soon Stratt, under the sultry gaze of Shilo, shrugged off his shirt, rolled it into a ball and stowed it under his seat. She felt momentarily embarrassed at the man’s forthrightness and nakedness. Men with whom she usually mingled did not just strip off like that … but yet she found herself marveling at his glistening deeply tanned torso in the bright sunlight. The ripple of the packs of muscle shifting underneath his bronzed skin as he changed gears was like some supernatural magnet to her eyes. She physically strained herself to look away, but she found her eyes darting back to focus on his well-defined physique. Not even colourful, exotic birds or chattering chimpanzees were a diversion. And what was worse was that she was convinced he was aware of it as he kept on surreptitiously meeting her gaze with a slight smirk on his face.

  A bachelor herd of rooibok(6) galloped in front of them for a while, and then veered of into the brush, startled by the roaring engine.

  “Oh, my God. They’re beautiful,” Shilo sighed impulsively, “They’re just so graceful.”

  Once the words were uttered, she could not remember if she was referring to the graceful antelopes… or the half-naked man next to her. She tried to stifle a laugh as she realised how ridiculous she was being.

  Stratt smiled: “So you’re enjoying Africa then?”

  Shilo remained silent and stared straight ahead.

  “You’re really burning,” he continued casually. “You are going to be very sore tonight.”

  It was almost a triumphant statement as he watched Shilo suddenly become aware of her bright pink shoulders and thighs.

  “Here,” he said, thrusting his discarded shirt at her. “Put that on and cover yourself up before it gets worse.”

  Shilo took the outsized shirt in her fingers as if it were some repulsive object and gingerly put it around her stinging shoulders. There was instant relief from the direct rays of the sun, as due to its size, it fell loosely over both her arms and thighs.

  “Thanks,” she said reluctantly, feeling rather inadequate and unprepared.

  She hated feeling this way … and it had happened many times before … especially in front of strangers. She was always so confident and self-assured. Something about this particular man and this particular place made her feel very insecure and extremely vulnerable.

  Lunch was a picnic in a hide, next to a small dam. They hungrily devoured fresh cold cuts; cut salad vegetables; delicate egg salad sandwiches; spicy chicken drumsticks and fruit washed down with cartons of fruit juice, bottles of water or cans of Cola. Then they had the opportunity to watch the water birds on the small lake with Stratt’s binoculars. They saw a flock of flamingos at the far end – a pink haze; a pelican swoop down and scoop his catch out of the water and a fish eagle circling on high. There was also a pair of spoonbills sifting through the mud in the shallows. Brightly coloured kingfishers and many cormorants, Egyptian geese and birds of shocking red, shimmering green and sapphire blue which darted in and out of the reeds. She could feel Stratt’s dominant presence behind her as she had her turn with the field glasses.

  He bent over her right shoulder and whispered,” Look over there towards the shore. See those two rocks? … just to the right of that is what looks like a log on the sand … it’s a crocodile.”

  She felt a thrill pass through her, and was not quite sure if it was the allure of this vicious prehistoric carnivore, or the fact that this hulking man was bending over her, and she could feel his breath in her hair as he pointed into her field of vision.

  *

  In the early afternoon, they roared back into the car park, and Shilo immediately returned to the coolness of her room. She sat on the edge of her bed and wrapped her arms around herself in a self-piteous gesture and stared blankly into the mirror. She looked a wreck: her face was red and tender, and flecked with dust from the ride in the open air vehicle; her hair was windblown and again the dust had made it lose its lustre, her carefully made-up eyes were smudged and she was still wearing that detestable Stratt’s shirt. She slipped it off, and im
pulsively held it to her nose – it smelt very masculine with the tinges of a woody cologne, of wood smoke, of dust … it smelled of Africa, and it was … she had to admit …. Incredibly good. Then she folded it neatly on her lap. What was it about that brute of a man that got to her? Here she was, an heiress to millions, who moved in aristocratic circles that Stratt could only dream of, with power and wealth and social standing. And then there was Stratt, a lowly game-ranger who had a way with words which made her feel so insignificant, as if all of it did not matter to him: who she was or where she came from. No one had ever made her feel like that before. It was disturbing and unsettling.

  She shrieked as she sank into the hot Jacuzzi bath, not realising how painful it would be to cover her crimson, sunburned limbs with hot water. But the longer she remained submerged, teeth gritted, the more bearable the pain became. When she emerged from the tub, half an hour later, and gazed at her naked figure in the full length mirror, she was amazed to see how her lily-white limbs had metamorphosed into a deep, painful scarlet. She wrapped a towel around her dripping wet hair, and donned a soft cheesecloth creation, which hung loosely on her burning shoulders. She hated to admit that Stratt had, once again, been right.