They both got out of the vehicle, and as Scott began to walk up the small incline and up to the cave’s entrance, Ken stayed with the Land Rover. Within a few seconds, Scott had found signs of Lane’s movements.
‘Ken, if you get in the Land Rover and drive alongside me, I’ll track him from here.’
Scott had been taught how to track animals when he worked at a game reserve in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. He was taught by a colleague there named Emmanuel, who had been tracking animals since he was a young lad. Emmanuel had been happy to show Scott the little signs that were left behind by animals as they moved through the bush. He’d also told him that it was just as easy to track humans, which is something he was tasked to do on many occasions in order to track down poachers, so he taught Scott this skill, too.
Scott had soon picked up the impressions that Lane had made with the balls of his feet in the softer areas of the ground around by the cave.
‘I spotted some fresh lion spoor up there near the cave as well as Lane’s footprints. There was a male and at least one female lion walking around outside the cave,’ Scott explained to Ken.
‘So, you could be right. Maybe it was those lions that got him,’ Ken said.
‘It certainly looks that way right now, but looking at the signs, Lane left the cave after the lions moved away. His footprints have gone over theirs in many places.’
Scott continued tracking away from the cave as Ken drove the Land Rover slowly next to him. The signs that Scott was looking for were very clear and fairly easy for him to see, so he was able to move quite quickly. It also helped that he knew from the details Druker had given him that Lane had walked in this general direction.
They approached the tree covering, which had taken them around 20 minutes to get to and now it was more difficult for Ken to stay near Scott, as the trees were, at points, quite close together. This didn’t slow Scott down, though, as he continued to pick up the signs that Lane had left behind on his terrifying trek.
Scott then picked up on something new and began to get excited, as in addition to Lane’s trail, there were fresh rhinoceros spoor too. After he walked on for a few more metres, he picked up on the fact that a rhino had charged. This was apparent because the imprints were slightly deeper and wider apart than they had been when the creature was simply walking. The charging rhino spoor seemed to be following the spoor of Lane, which also showed that he, too, had been running. The evidence of action was beginning to tell Scott a story, so he picked up his pace, with Ken looking on and following as closely as he could.
Scott turned and shouted to Ken, ‘We’re getting closer; there are some rhino tracks here, too!’
The look Ken gave indicated that he couldn’t hear what Scott had said, but the tracker pressed on in any case while his colleague followed in the Land Rover.
Scott saw that the chase had come to an abrupt end, and he could see indents in the ground that looked like Lane had been pushed to the ground. The rhino spoor was also very concentrated in the same area. Then Scott spotted something in the dirt near to where there seemed to have been a battle.
As he stood there looking at the blood-stained ground, Scott could also see the spoor of hyenas that had over-printed the rhino tracks. The hyena markings made sense, as they’d seen a few of them scurrying off into the bushes as they had arrived
As he stood there studying the evidence, his walky-talky sprang to life. It was Druker, speaking in code.
‘You’d better get over to Mark Two, as callers have arrived and you need to go over and help,’ Scott heard Druker say.
‘Callers’ was code for tourists and Scott knew immediately what Druker meant. They had to get over to Smith right away to prevent these tourists and their guide from spotting him.
Scott ran to the Land Rover whilst shouting to its driver. ‘Hey, Ken, we need to get over to Smith. I’ve just had the boss on the radio saying that there are tourists in the area and we need to get Smith out of there right away.’
Scott jumped into the passenger seat and picked up the portable tracker unit as Ken put the vehicle into gear and headed in the direction Scott was pointing.
‘He’s about half-an-hour away, I’d estimate,’ Scott shouted to Ken. They bounced about on their seats as the Land Rover sped over the rough terrain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Graham was running for his life. It was as if his legs had taken on a new strength. As he ran, he kept bracing himself for the inevitable, surprised at how long it was taking for the lions to reach him.
His lungs were at the bursting point now; he couldn’t take in enough air to provide the amount of oxygen they needed to continue his flight, and his legs were now beginning to turn to jelly. However, desperate to avoid the lion’s attack, he managed to keep up a decent pace.
Everything was happening in slow motion around him, whilst his vision became like a tunnel and shut out everything to his peripheries. The ground in front of him was clearer than it had been all day; it was as if it had been sharpened with a magnifying glass. The details on the trail were so clear that he managed to place each of his feet down without stumbling.
Despite his weakening legs, he succeeded in dodging all the larger stones or branches that were in his way. His brain seemed to have mapped out this route and it was like he had managed to put it into slow-motion play, to help it to assimilate his escape.
Just as he was beginning to slow down, and just as his body was giving up, it happened. He felt the full force of the lion’s claws and paws on his back, and fell to the ground with a hard thud.
But as he waited for the final blow to his neck, he heard the loud crack of what sounded like a gun. The sound was unmistakable to him, and as the lion fell back from him, he looked up from where he lay. He saw the lion running away, with the rest of the pride in quick pursuit. ‘At last I’ve been saved,’ he thought.
He could now hear the sound of a vehicle coming from behind where he lay and as he turned his head, he saw a Land Rover pitch up right next to him. A big cloud of dust erupted from the tyres as it approached and stopped. The cloud of dust engulfed him where he lay on the ground, making him choke, at which point he began to get up.
Graham looked at the vehicle, which was an open-topped Land Rover with a roll bar. There were two men in the front. The driver was a grey-haired man with a chiselled face, tanned skin and dark shades. His passenger was a large character, young and probably in his late twenties. He had a singlet style t-shirt on to show off his very muscular and sculpted body. This guy clearly worked out a lot and, like the driver, also had tanned skin. But he had a pitted face, which looked like it was from teenage acne.
As he got to his feet, Graham was suddenly aware of his nakedness and realised he was very exposed. He covered his modesty, as he smiled to the driver.
‘Thank you for saving my life. I really thought that was it for me,’ he said to the two men.
The driver looked at Graham and then turned to his passenger, as they both got out of the Land Rover, and said, “You get him quickly, before those bloody tourists get here.” The larger of the two men approached Graham, whose smile soon vanished, his expression changing to one of confusion.
‘Who are you?’ Graham asked the huge man, as he came up to him and grabbed him by the arm. The musclebound man didn’t reply.
‘What are you doing and why are you being like this with me?’ Graham demanded, but the two men ignored his questions and began dragging him to the back of the Land Rover. Graham tried to resist, but he was already very weak from his time in the bush and exhausted from his adrenalin-rushed lion experience, plus this guy was very much stronger than him.
As he was forced to the back of the Land Rover, he noticed that in the back of the vehicle was an animal cage, which was fixed to the floor. The driver opened the gate of the cage and Graham soon realised what was about to happen.
‘Stop! What are you doing to me? This is insane! I’m not an animal!’ Graham shouted at
the two men.
Suddenly, the pain he felt in his back was excruciating, as the huge man had punched him in the kidneys, causing him to fall the ground.
‘Get the fuck up, you ponce!’ the man shouted, grabbing his arm once more and pushing him towards the back of the vehicle.
As he was getting to his feet, this man pushed him again, which made him stumble forward and hit his head on the edge of the Land Rover. The pain was immediate and immense, but the man, who had a South African accent, didn’t let go and forced him to his feet. Despite the weight and size of Graham, the man moved him about almost like he was a puppet.
The other man now joined in the struggle, as they both pushed and shoved him towards the open gate of the cage. His head was forced through the opening, and then he felt both men grab his legs and lift him up and into the empty cage.
‘He’s got crap on him and now I’ve got it on my hands. You dirty little shit!’ the larger of the two men barked.
The disappointing realisation was now coming over Graham that these men were a part of the reason he was here in the first place, and they were obviously linked to the blue-eyed man.
‘Why are they now rescuing me? Why have they saved me from the lions?’ he thought, but remembered that he’d heard one of them say, ‘Get him quickly, before those bloody tourists get here.’
‘What’s going on and where are they taking me?’
Graham heard the gate of the cage close behind him and, as he turned around, he saw them lock the bolt and the driver of the vehicle put a padlock on the lock to stop him from escaping. Then they threw a cover over the cage to conceal their cargo, which plunged him into semi-darkness.
‘My god, I’m part of some crazy sort of kidnapping,’ he thought. ‘Where are they taking me now?’
The Land Rover was shunted into gear and lurched backwards, jolting him against the bars of the cage. The vehicle then lurched in the other direction, as it was driven hard towards — where? He tried to steady himself inside his prison, but the ground was very bumpy and the driver didn’t care about avoiding rough areas. Graham bounced and lurched from side to side, hitting the metal bars of the cage, adding pain to his cuts and bruises.
His head was also pounding from the blow he’d suffered when he hit the back of the Land Rover. His body had never suffered so much punishment in all its life.
He decided to shout for help, as he realised that his two ‘rescuers’ were clearly trying to hide him from someone, and he hoped that they might be around. Just as he started to shout ‘Help!’ over and over as loud as he could, so that his lungs could not shout any louder, he found himself flying forward and hitting the front of the cage with a hard bang.
The driver had slammed on the brakes so hard that he was thrown forward within his small prison, and he hit the cage bars with such force that it winded him. He heard one of the men get out of the vehicle, then the cover over the cage flew back. He squinted, trying to re-adjust to the bright sunlight.
Soon Graham could see the barrel of a gun pointing straight at his head, and the driver holding the gun. ‘Shut the fuck up, you god-dammed slug!’ he snarled. ‘If I hear another sound from you, I’ll shoot your fucking brains out and all over the back of this truck.’
Graham was stunned as he stared at the man and then down the barrel of the gun. He said not a word because he knew that this guy meant what he said. The cover was replaced over the cage, to conceal him from whoever was around outside, and with a hard jolt the vehicle started on its journey again. He continued to struggle to avoid hitting the sides of the cage as the vehicle lurched from side to side, hitting the lumps and bumps of the African plain. But this time he remained silent, not wanting to rile the man any more than he already had done.
The journey for Graham went on for what seemed like an eternity. He was hot and hurting badly, not just from his bare feet and the lion attack, but also from the continual battering of the cage and the throbbing in his head where he’d hit the side of the Land Rover. Just as he was beginning to wonder if the journey would ever end, all of a sudden the vehicle came to a quick stop. For a second time he was flung against the front of the cage, aggravating the pain to his bruised body.
He heard the two men get out of the vehicle and start speaking, but couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, as they seemed to walk away from where he was. He sat still in his cramped prison, daring not to make a sound for fear of being shot.
‘Perhaps it would be better to be dead, if this is all the life I have left to live,’ Graham thought.
As he lay in the cage, neither daring to move nor make a sound, he heard voices again and footsteps approaching his darkened prison.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Konner’s alarm went off and, as he looked at his phone, it showed it was 4:45 a.m. Bram had said they needed to be on the road by 5 a.m. He dared not snooze the alarm and got up right away, as he didn’t want to be late. He was excited to get his first lion kill.
‘Dinner was good last night,’ Konner thought, and wondered what breakfast might include.
On getting up he went to the bathroom to have a quick shower before getting dressed. Afterwards, he put plenty of factor 50 sun cream on his face and arms, which were the only exposed parts of his body. He had decided to wear long trousers to avoid having any more flesh showing than he needed to.
Once he’d got dressed, he left his room to look for Bram and went down the corridor to the front of the building, which is where he’d been told to meet him in the morning.
As Konner reached the front door, he was greeted by Jowidah with his customary smile followed by, ‘Good morning, Konner.’
‘Good morning, Jowidah. It’s a good morning for shooting lions, I hope.’
‘Let me go get you your breakfast. Bram is by the Land Rover, which is on the other side of the yard, and he’s sorting out the rifles and ammunition for you,’ Jowidah said. ‘Wait here and I’ll take you over to him.’
Jowidah disappeared into the house, as Konner stood on the veranda looking out into the dark morning. The sun had not yet come up and the air was a little bit cooler this morning.
Within a few minutes, Jowidah arrived with what looked like a cool box and a bag over his shoulder. ‘Let’s go, Konner. I’ll take you to where Bram is,’ he said.
The two men walked across the yard, which was lit by a few dim lights around its perimeter. As they rounded the corner, Konner saw the Land Rover and Bram, holding a rifle.
‘Morning, sir. This is your rifle for today. It’s a Winchester Magnum with a .458 calibre. This will even stop an elephant in its tracks, so long as you shoot it in the right place,’ he said, but Konner had already recognised the rifle as being the one that had been in the holder in the Land Rover on the way from the airport.
‘A great gun — one of the best,’ Konner said. ‘I have a .338 Winchester at home to take with me to shoot grizzlies. But I know it has a massive recoil.’
‘Yes, it’s a man’s rifle, that’s for sure,’ Bram said, almost in a mocking tone.
‘I can handle it,’ Konner responded, wanting to make sure this man didn’t get the better of him.
‘Did you speak with Dravin about those lions?’ Konner asked.
‘Yes, I did, and he has given me the go-ahead to venture onto our neighbour’s land, but we’ll need to be careful, though.’
‘Why careful?’ Konner asked, slightly worried as he watched the way Jowidah looked at Bram.
‘Because I don’t think he’s got permission; he simply said that he had told you he knew of these large lions, and had promised you a 500-pound kill,’ Bram said without looking at Konner, as he was readying the Land Rover for their trip under the dim light of the building they were next to.
‘And if that’s what he’s promised, I have to go along with it, so get in and let’s get going.’
Konner walked around to the passenger seat of the Land Rover and climbed in, expecting Jowidah to get in the rear of the vehicle, but
he didn’t. This concerned Konner, as he thought he would be coming, too.
‘Are you not joining us, Jowidah?’ Konner asked.
‘No, I don’t go on hunting trips, sir, but Bram will look after you.’
Konner wasn’t convinced with this answer, as he got the impression from his discussions on the plane that he did go on hunting trips. Maybe it’s the risk of going onto the neighbouring property, he thought.
Konner was so set on getting the largest lion kill he could, that even though he was a bit concerned about the destination, his urge to shoot a 500-pound lion was stronger.
Soon they were on their way. Bram drove a bit like a madman, with the vehicle bouncing across the rough terrain. Not much conversation was had between the two men as they made their way across savannahs, through wooded areas and at times followed the line of the Luangwa River. Within about half-an-hour into their journey, the sun was rising up over the horizon to provide another sunny day.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
As Druker was waiting for Scott and Ken to get back, he remained in his office until Mulubwa called him to say that his lunch was ready. Druker then went out to the veranda, where he found the table set and an array of dishes with varying home-made treats, all laid out nicely.
He got stuck into his lunch and thanked Mulubwa for another wonderful meal, and she gave back one of her lovely smiles and replied, ‘You’re welcome, dear.’
He had kept his walk-talky with him at the table after Joshua had rushed over and told him that there were some tourists in the area. Druker had radioed to Scott to evacuate Smith back to base right away, and he was keeping the radio with him in case Scott wanted to speak with him again. Just as he was eating some home-made Nshima, which he was dipping into a chicken stew that she’d made, his radio sprang to life.
‘We’re on our way back boss. Over,’ he heard Scott’s voice say.
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