by Tony Park
‘It was confusing at my end too. The original plan was for me to hold in place until ten o’clock.’
‘Just as well the hunters didn’t arrive, or they would have been in the thick of your fire fight.’
‘Yeah.’ Shane reached for a fresh cigarette.
‘What do you make of her?’ Michelle asked.
‘Sorry, who?’ Shane looked as though his mind were elsewhere.
‘Marie Delacroix.’
‘Mad as a cut snake, as they’d say in Australia.’
Michelle chuckled. ‘Seriously, don’t you think it’s weird that she would even give Fletcher the time of day, let alone go out on an anti-poaching sweep with him?’
Shane nodded. ‘That’s the connection. They’ve got one thing in common.’
‘What?’
‘They both hate poachers and want to see them dead.’ Shane recounted the macabre scene of Marie posing for a photograph with her foot on the man she had killed.
‘How did she act around . . . I mean, were she and Fletcher, you know . . . ? Oh, God, that all came out wrong.’
He smiled at her. ‘Don’t be silly, Michelle.’
‘I’m not. It’s just that —’
‘You said it yourself. They’re an odd pair, to say the least, completely mismatched. She’s a ghoul – and she’s not the first one I’ve seen. Some people get off on killing. She’s bad news, and Fletcher’s smart enough to see that. I’d say he’s just keeping her on side. If he can show her he’s just as into curbing poaching as he is hunting, then maybe she won’t cause him any grief. You know, she could really put a spanner into the works on this concession if she wanted to.’
Michelle nodded. ‘So you don’t think they’re . . . ?’
Shane smiled again, then fixed her with his dark eyes. ‘He’s nuts about you, Michelle. You can see it in the way he looks at you.’
Michelle thought she caught a note of disappointment in the way he said that. ‘You’re all good now, soldier,’ she said, fastening the bandage.
18
Michelle knelt at the base of the giant figtree and watched the chimpanzees through her binoculars. They were, quite simply, beautiful.
It was odd, she thought, to see chimps in the wild, three of them lolling about lazily in the branches of the neighbouring tree, two of them eating figs, the third dozing. Like most westerners, her only experience of man’s closest living animal relative had been in a zoo and she’d remembered the captive apes chasing each other around, swinging from ropes, tapping on the glass of their enclosure, fighting with each other.
Here, however, these placid creatures had nothing to do but eat, sleep and live. There was no need for them to invent games to while away their boredom, or to fight with each other because of a lack of space to roam and forage. Of course, she knew they could be just as boisterous and violent in the wild, but today this lot seemed happy enough doing absolutely nothing.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned. Marie Delacroix smiled at her. ‘Beautiful, yes?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘There will be more chimps – unless the Congolese eventually butcher them all for bush meat – but we must keep moving if we are to find the gorillas.’
Michelle replaced the binoculars in the pouch on her belt and shouldered her day pack. Marie had set a stiff pace through the clinging swamps and pesky, snatching thorn thickets, and remained hard on Patrice’s heels as the slopes steepened and they climbed closer into the heat of the sun. Michelle set off after Marie, wiping away the rivulets of sweat that stung her eyes. She glanced back to make sure Wise was still in sight. He grinned at her – more of a grimace, she thought. At least she wasn’t the only one who needed more practice climbing jungle-covered mountains.
Shane was in Goma, at a mission hospital. While Michelle had done a pretty good job of cleaning him up after the brush with the poachers, a cut on his leg had become badly infected in the tropical conditions and he had started to develop a fever. Also, the doctor had wanted to X-ray his ankle. Fletcher had told her over the satellite phone of Shane’s anger and frustration on learning he would have to stay overnight at the clinic. Marie had arrived at the hunting camp that morning, while Fletcher was still in town, with news from a contact in the Congolese Army that a troop of gorillas had been spotted in the Sarambwe Forest, on the Congo side of the border. With no gorillas still naturally occurring in the area, Marie had surmised the apes had strayed across from Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park.
‘We must catch up with them before they cross the border,’ Marie said, not for the first time, as she glanced down at a map in a clear-plastic waterproof folder.
Michelle was keen for another gorilla sighting, though she found it amazing Marie could still be so excited, so driven to see the same creatures she had been studying for close to a decade. Dedication, Michelle thought, as she unhooked a barbed vine from her laddered khaki trousers. Perhaps it was more than that.
Patrice, who had reluctantly agreed to act as tracker and guide on the impromptu trek, slashed a creeper with his machete then stopped, the blade hanging by his side.
‘What is it now?’ Marie asked, the impatience plain in her voice.
Wise paused beside Michelle and wiped his brow with the back of his uniform sleeve.
‘Merde,’ Patrice said.
‘Shit,’ Michelle translated, for Wise.
‘Oui, the gorilla is one of the few animals which shits in its own nest, as the English would say,’ Marie explained. The four of them stood around the pile of leaves, twigs and grass, about a metre in diameter, which was liberally dosed with coils of excrement, not dissimilar to those that might be made by a human – a two hundred kilogram human.
‘It stinks,’ Wise said.
‘What did you expect?’ Marie replied, dropping to a crouch. She picked up a lump and squeezed it in her hand. Michelle heard Wise snort beside her, but decided that looking at him might force her to break out in an involuntary laugh as well. One thing she had quickly learned was that gorillas were no joking matter for Marie Delacroix. ‘Not far.’
‘We should turn back, madam. It will take us three hours to get back,’ Patrice said.
‘No, we continue,’ Marie said.
Michelle looked at Wise, who simply shrugged. Fletcher had insisted over the phone when Michelle told him of their plan that Wise accompany the trek, for security reasons. The unfenced border was crossed by poachers, rebels and refugees, as well as wayward primates. ‘We can spare another hour, I’m sure, Patrice,’ Michelle said.
The African glared at her, then turned back to the tangle of green tendrils. He raised his machete and hacked at the bush as though it were a living enemy.
They passed and, in Michelle’s case, trod in another nest. More of the fouled beds indicated the troop was at least eight-strong. Michelle felt the adrenaline course through her veins when Patrice halted again, his head cocked as he held up a hand for silence. She heard it too, the two-part cough, like a smoker clearing his throat.
‘There,’ Marie whispered, pointing through a thinned-out bamboo thicket.
There was a grunt and the hollow tom-tom of the young male’s fingers on his leathery chest as he caught sight of the humans, who crouched in unison. Michelle noticed Wise’s fist tightening on the pistol grip of his AK. ‘It’s okay,’ she mouthed to him, remembering the panic of their first encounter with gorillas.
Michelle slowly parted the blades of long grass obscuring her vision and saw the black shapes take form in the shadows, not ten metres from where they knelt. The silverback turned and stared at her. Instinctively she lowered her eyes, not wanting to challenge him. When she glanced back up she saw the patriarch had reclined on his butt at the foot of a tree and was gnawing on a stick of green bamboo. She looked at Wise and then followed his eyes and he turned to the right. He pointed up into the branches of a young tree with the tip of his machete.
Michelle craned her head and saw the young gor
illa, not much taller than a human five year old, staring back at her. She smiled and fished her camera from her pack.
‘Gorillas are generally not climbers,’ Marie whispered to her as they both watched the little one. ‘They grow to be too bulky and heavy to be arboreal, but when they are young, like that little girl, they like to explore, as all children do. We must give her some space so that she does not feel cut off from the silverback and her mother, and vice versa.’
Slowly, Marie began to stand and take a few steps backwards. To their left the rest of the gorilla family was also rising, moving away from the humans who had interrupted their afternoon feeding and siesta time.
‘Patrice,’ Marie hissed. The guide ignored her and started walking towards the tree in which the young ape still clung, staring down now at the human who was approaching her. The gorilla started to climb down, but stopped as Patrice crept closer. She scampered back up to her original position.
‘Idiot,’ Marie said, shaking her head.
The silverback and his females and other children were all but out of sight now, the chief’s huge bottom disappearing into the shadows, his indifference to the humans punctuated by a long, noisy fart. If they were worried about the youngster, neither the silverback nor his harem showed it. Michelle wondered if they had simply forgotten her. She’d heard of large families of humans inadvertently leaving a kid at a filling station on a family outing, so she had no reason to believe apes were any smarter than some human moms and dads.
Michelle heard the bite of a blade into wood echo across the hillside and turned back to where Patrice was. He hacked again at the trunk of the tree, whose diameter was no bigger than the circle her two hands would have formed with fingertips touching. A few more blows and the tree would fall.
‘No!’ Marie called, as loud as she dared. ‘What are you doing, you imbecile?’
Patrice looked at the two women and grinned, pausing mid-stroke, droplets of sweat flying from his head and arm. ‘You want to see these filthy apes, I will show you one. It will be good for your picture. Have your camera ready,’ he said to Michelle.
She shoved the camera back in her pack in defiance. ‘Enough, Patrice. Let it be.’
He laughed and struck the tree again, and again. The young gorilla’s shriek only elicited another cackle from him. Wise scanned the trees where the other animals had just departed, his rifle held up at the ready now.
Marie stood and strode back up the path Patrice had covered. She had been using a walking stick during the trek, a cut-off sapling stripped of its bark. She raised it above her head and struck down, hard, across Patrice’s back.
‘Ow! Merde!’ he cried as his final blow hit the gorilla’s refuge tree. The slender trunk slit with a cracking noise and started to fall, slowly at first, then faster as the weight of the terrified, squealing gorilla played into gravity’s hands.
Marie struck again, the second blow catching Patrice’s arm as he raised it to shield himself. He took a step forward to escape the falling tree, putting himself in contact with Marie, who added her scream to the gorilla’s as she fell backwards.
Leaves and vines flew through the air as the little primate leapt the last few metres into a shrub then, apparently unhurt, bolted off into the forest in hot pursuit of her family. Miraculously, the family had not returned to the scene of its missing member’s calls. Patrice reached out and grabbed Marie’s flailing walking stick, easily snatching it from her hand. Now he raised it over his head.
‘No!’ Michelle screamed. The distance between them was too far for her to travel before Patrice struck down. She looked around for Wise but he was nowhere in sight. Damn him! Had he run because he feared another silverback charge like their first encounter? ‘Patrice!’
The African looked at her, the makeshift club still tightly gripped in his hand, and spat.
‘Cochon!’ Marie swore back at him. ‘Drop that now!’
‘A woman does not hit a man in this country.’
Patrice swung down, but before the walking stick could connect with Marie his hips were thrust forwards violently and his arms flicked back. He fell, face first, into the tangle of vines and grass beside Marie, who jumped to her feet.
Michelle saw Wise, standing over the prone Patrice, one foot pinioning the fallen man like a trapped bug. Wise’s rifle was reversed in his hands and it was obvious to her now that he had snuck up behind the Congolese and slammed the butt of the weapon into the small of the man’s back before he could hit Marie.
‘Apologise to the doctor,’ Wise said.
‘Never.’
Wise bent and grabbed the dropped walking stick. He rammed its point down into the base of the back of Patrice’s neck, where it met his spine. Patrice cried out in pain. ‘I said, apologise.’
Marie spat on the ground, near Patrice’s face. Wise leaned on the stick some more.
‘Désolé,’ he whispered.
‘What?’ Wise said coolly. ‘Louder, man.’
‘Je suis désolé.’
‘On your feet. If you try anything on the way back, it will be a bullet instead of a stick.’
‘That’s enough, Wise. He’s learned his lesson. Get up, Patrice,’ said Michelle, taking charge. Marie and the black man glowered at each other, while Wise kept his rifle at the ready. Marie’s hand shot out and she slapped Patrice hard on the cheek. The African lurched towards her in retaliation but stopped at the metallic sound of Wise chambering a round in his AK 47. ‘Enough!’ Michelle repeated.
Marie glared at Patrice, unrepentant. ‘If I ever catch you harming a gorilla I will kill you.’ Her voice was calm now, an octave lower than usual. Full of menace.
‘We must get moving,’ Wise said.
Patrice, shamed by the two women, spat at Wise’s feet.
Michelle moved to the centre of the three feuding people. ‘Time out, everyone. Let’s get back to camp. Patrice, lead the way, please.’
‘So your boy can shoot me in the back?’
Michelle could see the muscles in Wise’s face stand out as he clenched his jaw. He said nothing and, after a few more seconds of tense stand-off, Patrice retrieved his dropped machete and strode off back towards camp.
‘Give him a few seconds’ lead,’ Michelle said to Wise. ‘Let him cool off some.’
‘Oui, and keep him away from me or I will kill him,’ Marie said.
The return path was well marked so Michelle was happy to let Patrice storm ahead. Marie excused herself to go to the toilet on one side of the trek, so for a short time she and Wise were alone, out of earshot of the other two.
‘Quite a day,’ Michelle said.
Wise looked behind them, to make sure they were alone. ‘Crazy.’
‘Yes, he was, wasn’t he?’
‘I meant both of them. They are as bad as each other,’ Wise said, slapping at a fly. ‘That woman would have killed him. What he did was wrong, for the animal, but if she had a gun she would have shot Patrice. Just like she shot that poacher.’
‘That was in self-defence,’ Michelle said.
Wise looked at her as though he were about to say something, then he turned and walked away.
19
The boy had never seen people or stores the likes of which he encountered in the small town of Kasane in Botswana. It was paradise.
In Livingstone, Zambia, the nearest major settlement to the village where he had been born and might otherwise have died if his uncle had not agreed to take him hunting in Zimbabwe, there were many people and many stores, but they were not like this.
The supermarket, where he wandered the aisles, eyes wide, spoiled for choice by a million different types of food, was spotlessly clean and airconditioned. The air was almost too cold for him and he rubbed his arms as he selected chocolate bars, Coca-Cola and, best of all, a frozen ice cream. In Livingstone the shops were hot and dirty and the shoppers were thin and poor.
The people of Botswana were fat. Big, round-faced, healthy men, and beautiful women with swivelling
hips and huge breasts that reminded him of American music video clips, which he had seen twice when he had stayed at his Uncle Leonard’s place before the big adventure that had turned into a nightmare. His uncle had lived in a house of brick in Livingstone, which had once belonged to a mzungu. His uncle was so wealthy that he had satellite television which came from South Africa. But his uncle was a thin man, with a thin wife, and he was dead now.
He thought about home and his mother. Had she given up on him? Had she assumed that he was dead, like the others must surely be? His father had been terribly thin before he had died last year and it worried the boy that his last memory of his mother was of her coughing all the time. Her arms and legs were as skinny as sticks – just like his father’s had been before he died. He missed his mother but he also dreaded going home. She would go on and on at him about going back to the school where the mzungu missionaries taught. He found reading hard – almost impossible, in fact – and he hated the way the other kids made fun of his slowness.
The boy left the chill of the Spar supermarket and let the heat of the day roll over him as he shovelled the chocolate bars and ice cream into his mouth and washed it all down with cold Coca-Cola. He would be a fat man one day, with a fat wife with huge breasts and a big round arse. Perhaps he would move to Botswana.
He ignored the stares of the Botswanans, who were not his people. He imagined that they might be jealous of the new running shoes on his feet, the Manchester United football shirt that smelled so fresh, and the LA Lakers baseball cap that he wore at a jaunty angle on his head. He had money in his pocket. But he still had the nightmares as well.
The boy had washed in the Chobe River after getting off the bus, and thrown away the rags he had lived in as soon as he had bought his new clothes from the Indian store in Kasane. As well as rotund Africans there were plenty of white tourists in Botswana. A man and a woman he walked past spoke like the man who had picked him up. He remembered the shock and humiliation of waking to find the German touching him, but he grinned with satisfaction as he recalled seeing him lying in the overturned car.