Safari

by Tony Park

  Tony Park was born in 1964 and grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney. He has worked as a newspaper reporter in Australia and England, a government press secretary, a public relations consultant, and a freelance writer. He is also a major in the Australian Army Reserve and served six months in Afghanistan in 2002 as the public affairs officer for the Australian ground forces. He and his wife, Nicola, divide their time between their home in Sydney and southern Africa, where they own a tent and a Series III Land Rover. He is the author of Far Horizon, Zambezi and African Sky.

  Also by Tony Park

  Far Horizon

  Zambezi

  African Sky

  Safari

  Silent Predator

  Ivory

  SAFARI

  TONY PARK

  First published 2007 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

  1 Market Street, Sydney

  Copyright © Tony Park 2007

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or any entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations) in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Park, Tony, 1964-.

  Safari.

  ISBN 978 1 4050 3805 8 (pbk.).

  I. Title.

  A823.4

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Typeset in 11/15 pt Birka by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

  Printed and bound in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  Cartographic art by Laurie Whiddon, Map Illustrations

  Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  These electronic editions published in 2007 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  Safari

  Tony Park

  Adobe eReader format 978-1-74198-123-0

  Online format 978-1-74198-126-1

  EPUB format 978-1-74262-477-8

  Macmillan Digital Australia

  www.macmillandigital.com.au

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.

  Contents

  Cover

  About Tony Park

  Also by Tony Park

  Title page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  For Nicola

  1

  He killed to feed his family, and to make some money to buy clothes for his children and to pay their school fees.

  He broke the law because it no longer existed in the country he had proudly served for more than thirty-five years. He had worn the green and khaki uniform of the national parks and wildlife service and he had been as proud and as well turned-out as any soldier on a parade ground, right up to the day he was compulsorily retired, on his fifty-fifth birthday.

  He had taken a bullet from a poacher’s rifle defending the black rhinos up in the Matusadona on the shores of mighty Lake Kariba. And then the bastard government that he had served for most of his life had taken his job and given it to a wild-eyed city boy from a different tribe, because he was a member of the party. They scared him, these youngsters, so full of hate and intolerance for other tribes, for other political beliefs. He prayed that when the government fell, as surely it must, these boys and girls would see sense again.

  The scar still itched sometimes. He scratched it and thought it ironic that now he was the enemy of the state. Now it was him in the ragged trousers, carrying a black-market AK 47. He had become what he had despised for thirty-five years.

  A poacher.

  He knew this countryside like the wrinkles on the back of his hand, the furrows and clefts of his wife’s ample body, the smiles of each of his children. The dry golden grass swayed with the wind that had long since sucked the moisture from every blade and leaf. What the wind had spared, the elephants had devoured, like a plague of seven-tonne locusts, eating everything in their path in their annual contest to survive until the rains came. In the old days they had culled the elephant – slaughtered them by the hundreds to keep the population under control, to spare some vegetation for the other animals, and to feed the poor people of his country. Culling had long ago gone out of fashion, because of the emotions it stirred in people half a world away from Africa, and the government and the party had long since stopped caring about feeding the hungry. Patrick shook his head. The world had gone crazy.

  Four months ago he had made his decision to sacrifice his pride, his values, his honour and his honesty. A year into his retirement and he was starving. The pension the government paid him didn’t increase fast enough to keep pace with the rampant inflation that was crushing the life out of the economy, like a python squeezing its prey to death. He had no trade – other than scouting for animals and tracking and killing Zambian poachers. The only other skills he’d picked up in the service of his country’s wildlife were a basic knowledge of mechanics and, most important of all, tyre mending. How many punctures had he repaired on Land Rover tyres in thirty-five years? Hundreds, for sure, maybe thousands. He had scoured the roadsides and dumping grounds for old inner tubes and two pieces of flat bar to use as tyre levers and bought himself some glue. Patrick Mpofu, senior ranger, holder of a bravery commendation for being wounded in the line of fire, vaunted tracker and scout, had found an old piece of cardboard and nailed it to a tree on the outskirts of the town of Victoria Falls and written the words Tyre mending.

  His first business venture had proved spectacularly unsuccessful. There was no diesel or petrol in the country, so few people were driving. No driving, no punctures. Then, on a winter’s night, the police had come. With bulldozers.

  Patrick and his wife and four children had lived in a nice, albeit basic, house after he had lost his job, but the inflation meant they could not continue to pay the rent. They moved, with h
undreds of others, to a shantytown on the outskirts of the Falls and constructed a home out of offcuts of corrugated iron and crumbling asbestos sheeting.

  The government called it Operation Murambatsvina – a Shona word for ‘drive out trash’. The untidy rows of makeshift homes were a breeding ground for criminals, state television had said. There were criminals living amidst the squalid settlement, of that there was no doubt, for many people had turned to thieving to feed themselves. Most, however, were people like Patrick, displaced from their normal lives because of the shambolic economy and government mismanagement. Some of the people broke the law, but all of them were against the government and for the opposition. To survive, they made household goods out of scrap metal, wove baskets, carved curios out of wood and soapstone, and mended tyres. And they hated the government.

  The police, who were supposed to be dedicated to the rule of law and the preservation of peace, had come with the bulldozers and destroyed what passed for Patrick’s home. His youngest daughter had broken free of her mother’s arms that night and raced back, into the dozer’s path, to retrieve a rag doll. The police had apologised afterwards, but that would not bring back a seven year old’s leg.

  He sniffed the dusty, musty air. Elephant. He had no interest in killing one of them. Of course, there was money to be made in ivory, if you had the right connections, but Patrick knew from his time in the parks service that the poacher made a pittance from shooting an elephant, compared with the fortunes exchanged by the middlemen in the trade in white gold. He was not going to risk his life or a prison sentence, and leave his family destitute so that some wealthy Japanese businessman would have a nice seal with which to ink his letters. Nor would he hunt rhino. To kill a bejane would mean giving up his soul as well as his principles. It would make a mockery of the blood he had spilled, to cut off a horn of matted hair so that a Chinese millionaire could relieve the symptoms of a fever, or a rich Arab could have a new handle for his dagger.

  On the low rise, on the far side of the dry pan, he saw a branch move in the opposite direction to which the wind was blowing. His joints were stiff and his knees clicked as he walked, but he had the eyes of a boy, focused with the experience of a lifetime in the bush. He saw the telltale flick of the big ear. Hearing was a kudu’s best defence, but its overly large antennae were also its biggest giveaway. It was a bull – alone, by the look of it – and he had hooked one curly horn into the branch of an acacia in order to pull it down to his mouth.

  In his mind’s eye, Patrick saw a day when his son could wear the uniform of the Zimbabwean Parks and Wildlife Service, when the government’s madness had passed, and when his few months as a criminal could be forgotten, even atoned for.

  For now, though, he dropped to a crouch and, as he watched the kudu feeding, his thumb slowly, silently, moved the safety catch. He told himself again he was hunting only for the pot, to feed his family. The money he’d make from selling the rest of the carcass would pay another month’s school fees, so his son wouldn’t have to grow up to be a criminal, like his father.

  ‘Too young for Vietnam, too old for Iraq,’ the American sighed.

  ‘You sound like you’re upset about it,’ Fletcher Reynolds said. He dropped to one knee and pointed to an imprint in the dust the shape of two elongated teardrops, fanning out from the narrowest points into a ‘V’. ‘Kudu.’

  The other man took off his khaki bush hat and mopped his scarlet brow. ‘Should have worn this damn hat yesterday. No, it’s not so much that I’m upset, Fletch, more, I guess . . . unfulfilled.’

  Fletcher wouldn’t have described war as a fulfilling experience, but he supposed he knew what the overweight, overindulged, overpaid dentist from Chicago was trying to say. They had been discussing military service – the American’s time as a member of the Illinois National Guard, as opposed to Reynolds’ four years on operations with the Rhodesian Light Infantry in the late seventies. The two men were of a similar age, and both lived for hunting, but that was where the similarities ended. ‘You didn’t miss much, Chuck.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. But all the same, as one hunter to another, you’d have to say, Fletch, that there’s nothing like the ultimate contest – man versus man.’

  ‘Nothing like surviving an airline crash either, I suppose, but that doesn’t make it right, or something you should feel bad about having missed out on. Quiet now, we’re closing on him. Looks like a big bull from the size of the spoor.’

  The American nodded and seemed to tighten the grip on his Weatherby Safari rifle. Reynolds was grateful for the momentary lull in the banal conversation. Occasionally he met a client he actually liked. All too occasionally. He heard the snapping of branches in the distance. Elephant. Best they steer well away from the herd. The dentist had at least been honest enough to say that buck and zebra were more his league, rather than buffalo or elephant, which could do a man some real damage if things went pear-shaped. Talk of the war didn’t usually bother him, but it irked him that the American thought that killing another man was something to aspire to – a rite of passage of which no man should be deprived. What a load of shit.

  ‘Can you see it yet, Fletch?’ the dentist whispered.

  Mother of God, the man couldn’t be quiet for two blessed minutes. He’d tried to tell him, on day one, that his name was Fletcher, not Fletch. He turned and glared at the overdressed, sweating millionaire. He was rewarded with a grimace and a mouthed ‘Sorry’ from the client. Reynolds forced a smile and winked at him. He couldn’t afford to offend the man. He could barely afford to keep the hunting lodge running, in fact, so he needed to send Chuck the dentist home to Chicago with a smile on his face and a kudu’s head with a magnificent set of horns. He squinted and peered through the thornbushes towards the low rise this side of the dry pan.

  The dentist fidgeted behind him, breathing hard in the African heat and dust. Fletcher reminded himself that he hunted for a living, to feed the two teenage children he saw once a year, to pay their school fees, and to fund the jewellery and fashionable clothes his ex-wife wore to please another man. He shook his head at the absurdity of it all.

  The kudu roamed alone. His brothers were dead – one taken by a lion, the other shot. He walked with a limp, his left rear leg having been savaged by a big cat just days earlier. He had escaped the predator and the wound was not bad – it would probably heal well in the dry heat. But even if he did regain full use of it, he would not live long by himself.

  He stood as tall as a grown man at the shoulder and his twin horns had three twists each, marking him as a veteran of twenty or more dry seasons like this one. The long shaggy beard that hung beneath his chin and chest had impressed the females once – now it just snagged on the acacia thorns. As impressive in stature and looks as he still undoubtedly was, he was getting older and slower as time wore on. The loss of his brothers meant his continued existence relied on one pair of eyes and ears, rather than three.

  Patrick moved as a leopard – low and slow through the waist-high yellow grass. He paused and scooped up a handful of powdery earth and then let it trickle through his fingers, watching the fall of the grains and dust. The wind had changed direction, as he knew it would. He circled the antelope until he was on the rise, level with it, a hundred metres off.

  Fletcher Reynolds put a finger to his lips. He couldn’t believe they were this close to the prey and the dentist had been about to speak again.

  He pointed to the kudu, which was still up on the rise. A warthog was ferreting in the black mud at the edge of the waterhole, its fat little bottom pointing skywards as it rested on its front knees and searched for tubers. Other than that, there was no other sign of life. Fletcher chewed his lower lip. He knew exactly where they were. He knew this country like the faces of his two estranged children, who now called another man Dad.

  As they tracked the kudu he had been acutely aware that they were straying closer and closer to the border of Hwange National Park. The dry pan was in a shallow valley, a natural
watercourse that marked the park’s boundary, and the kudu had crossed it. Even though he and the dentist were outside the reserve – just – the animal was within it. It was illegal for him to let his client bag this magnificent trophy animal. To make matters worse, the American was leaving the next day. Chuck raised his rifle to his shoulder.

  ‘No!’ Reynolds hissed.

  ‘Why not? It’s a clear shot.’

  Reynolds explained in a whisper.

  ‘Aw, damn it to hell!’ the American said.

  The kudu’s ears twitched and turned like revolving satellite-tracking dishes as it fixed the source of the noise. Startled, it leapt a metre into the air, its short white tail curled over its rump.

  Reynolds saw the sun glint on something metallic, shielded his eyes from the momentary dazzle, processed what he realised he had just seen and yelled, ‘Down!’ He grabbed Chuck Hamley by the collar of his expensive khaki safari shirt and yanked him to one side as the gunshot echoed across the pan.

  The bullet zinged through the air a metre to the right of the dentist, leaving a shower of twigs, thorns and leaves in its path and carving a splinter from a tree which embedded itself in the American’s cheek, causing him to howl in pain as he dropped to his knees.

  Reynolds stood over his client, rifle raised, scanning the bush for another sight of the poacher.

  Patrick realised his first shot had missed, so he continued to follow the kudu’s arcing bound and squeezed off a second. As he did, he heard a voice. Fear welled from his stomach to his throat, almost making him gag. He looked past the fleeing antelope to where he thought the voice had come from.

  The second shot was close enough for Reynolds to feel the air being displaced as the round passed his left ear. He hadn’t been on the receiving end of a bullet for more than twenty-seven years, but his old reflexes kicked in and he dropped face-first to the ground.

  Chuck, his face bleeding from the timber dart that hung from his cheek, was getting to his feet beside him.