A Rock and a Hard Place

by George Zelt PhD

  I took a sip of water and pictured tiny bows and two-foot-long, frail reed arrows the Bushmen killed with. It was hard to believe. The feather-light arrow shafts are made in three segments. The arrowhead, a quarter inch wide and made from crude iron or a tin can was most important, as it was designed to enter the animal just enough to anchor itself. The rest of the shaft then fell off, so as to not allow the animal to dislodge the arrowhead itself. The arrowhead’s poison did the killing. It was like catching the flu. It took a few days to work its way into a larger body system, but once it did, the animal dropped, weak and tired. I have heat flu, I told myself.

  My exposed arms and legs were hot and dry like cooked meat. I wanted to drink salad dressing, vinegar and oil. I was burning up. My lips cracked more. Then there was the glare; it seemed to burn through my sunglasses. My head continued to pound. I sat under another tree, my head in my hands. Think about something. The arrow . . . Maybe it would fall out?

  Once the little arrow hit, the little men—often the size of a very lean thirteen-year-old—jumped up from their hiding place and went after their victim on foot. Mile after mile they ran without rest, chasing animals as big as the horse-size eland. They could follow tracks over rock, gauge the time it took for a plant to recover from being stepped on and how long it took a spider to rebuild a disturbed cobweb. They could smell if an animal had passed. Such ability meant life or death for their small nomadic band, which shared everything.

  Nothing more came out of the tipped canteen. I dropped it on the sand and drank from the other. I needed more water now than earlier. The slow movement of a tortoise caught my drifting eye. Squinting, I saw a pattern on its eight-inch-long shell. It was a geometric tortoise. I stood wobbling a bit but followed him as he plodded forward valiantly to a protruding rock that offered shade. I don’t know why I followed him—I think it was just something to do, something my mind focused on.

  Is the rock a metapelite? He is trying to slip under a metapelite? I focused and drank. I blinked and drank more from the remaining canteen as I stared. It’s astonishing how you find something you need when you least expect it.

  The two-foot-by-four-foot specimen lay hidden within the lighter-colored granite-type rocks enclosing it. There were large hexagonal red crystals of almandine garnet, the same as I’d seen at the far end of my field area. There was no mistaking it, even in my condition. It had geometry, like the tortoise; I weakly smiled as I looked at it, wobbling.

  But yeah, it was a high-grade metamorphic rock. It formed at high temperatures and pressures. According to Afrikaner Joost, this area formed at low temperatures and pressures. This was a huge difference to a geologist—almost like saying an Eskimo was born in Hawaii. His dissertation was wrong. Ha, ha, ha and here I am shrinking up. Talk about winning the battle and losing the war . . . My body will be found draped over this fucking rock.

  No, something would drag me off and suck my bones in the shade. Odd, the rare tortoise led me here . . . like the white rabbit leading Alice. Was I delirious? It is three o’clock and still hot. When will this end?

  I took two large swallows of water. What to do about the rock? Should I ignore it? Hell, how can I? No man believes he will die, I remembered. I am just thinking silly. I’m okay; just need water and rest.

  I ordered myself to photograph the rock and take a sample. I saw all the veins in my hands and arms were popping out, swollen from carrying rivers of blood in the attempt to cool it. Finding this rock was a fluke. The blazing, ruthless heat was strangling my thoughts, as dry, hot air lodged itself in my throat.

  Thank God metapelite was much easier to sample than the incredibly hard metabasite rocks. All I could manage were a few hits with the sledgehammer; my head throbbed each time I swung and my elbows ached. I swallowed as best as I could to keep myself from throwing up. My body was trying to purge itself of alcohol, but I knew it was better to keep the fluid in. My hot, dry skin stretched as the rock fractured. I stuffed some pieces in my almost empty pack. The tortoise was nowhere to be seen. I sat looking at the pack. I picked it up and stumbled forward.

  Did the Bushman use poison from snakes? Was it spider or lizard poison? No, it was a beetle, the larvae and pupae of a certain beetle . . .

  I staggered up to an umbrella tree. My nose was blocked, so I breathed through my mouth, sucking in the talcum dust on my tongue. Probably my body temperature had increased. It is four o’clock. Shadows were longer, but everything was still hot, hot, hot. I was nodding again and lay down. Something stirred me. I focused slowly. It was a fat tick sucking blood on my bare leg.

  Aaaaiiieee!

  I hastily raised my hand to strike it and then stopped. I fumbled for a match and held it close until the tick fell off, taking its black head with it and not leaving it embedded in my skin. I am still thinking; that’s good.

  I looked up and saw a windmill well shimmering in the distance. It gave me a target. Did I expect to find water? Was it a mirage? Lurching, I reached it twenty minutes later. It was real. Unluckily, some days or weeks before, in order to save water the farmer had stopped the windmill from turning. Not knowing that, however, I leaned up and looked over its six-foot-high concrete side, squinting. What? Yellow fangs as long as bananas flashed at me as maniacal growls raged from the tank. I fell backward, blinking, not knowing what had happened. I was unable to see clearly. Shit! I’ve seen the devil. Was I mad? Slowly I raised my head over the rim again . . . What? . . . A raving baboon!

  I looked again. Yeah, a mad baboon in an empty tank. He ran in circles, furious and screaming. Even if I could have leaned a log in or something to help him out, I wouldn’t have, as he would have likely killed me in his rage.

  He stopped for a moment and stared at me. His two fangs twisted with his head as he glared. His yellow eyes were frenzied—yeah, he was mad. Maybe he’d been so before he entered the tank? Heatstroke? He saw water in the tank that wasn’t there and jumped in? Hell, first a snake and now a baboon had succumbed to this heat. What a day . . . What chance did I have?

  Hell! Baboons travel together! I looked around quickly in fear. I need to get the fuck out of here fast!

  He continued screaming as I scrambled away. My skin prickled. I was happy he was in the tank. A large drink calmed me as I hurried. Jesus, imagine a mad baboon wandering up and down the dry river, and me with only my sledgehammer. What else can happen?The animals were coming out of hiding now—feeding time. I wobbled back in the same direction I came. It was almost five o’clock, about a third of a canteen of water left. It would be a hard, slow walk back, but it was cooler. I drank more water and felt better.

  A half an hour later, just as I stepped around a small granite-gneiss boulder protruding up from the riverbed, a cobra reared slowly up over a foot high in my path, its hood spread out like wings—and hissing loudly. An instant later, fear struck my mind: SHIT! SNAKE! RUN!

  I scrambled backward, arms flailing. Hell, another snake! It was a Cape cobra, the most venomous of the African cobras. A flattened hood, bright beady eyes, its bifurcated tongue slipping in and out between lips . . . It seemed to grin at me like evil. I wasn’t hallucinating, but it was probably as fucked up and surprised as I was in this heat. If it bit me, my heart would stop within a few hours. Although an aggressive snake, it normally didn’t strike unless its life was in peril. I was now several yards out of its hitting range, which is about as high as it raises itself. Still watching the cobra, I stood . . . tired, bent over, gasping. I wanted to throw up again. It was too much.

  A clump of Cape fig, or Hottentot fig, a succulent with edible fruit, was next to him. He was waiting, curled up in a bit of shade, to ambush any rodent that came scampering around the rock to eat the plant’s fruit. Instead of a plump rock dassie, I had come over the top of the rock.

  I have to get out of here. It was becoming a fucking madhouse. I shook my canteen and finished the water. It would be a long way, too long, but it was now just past five o’clock. I needed a field trick to help me reach
the Land Rover. I broke the route up into short segments defined by trees or rocks as they came within sight. I hypothetically named the first one 100 and began a countdown to 0, which stood for the last segment containing the Land Rover. Each segment achieved was an accomplishment, a goal I marked off in my mind.

  At segment 48 the Land Rover appeared; I had lost count many times. I stopped and stared at it with half-open eyes. Was it really there? It seemed days since I’d seen it. Dry mouthed and nauseated, I was sick again. This time I let it go while dumping my mostly empty pack off my shoulders, then staggered forward. Reaching the Land Rover, I leaned on it a moment to steady myself but shook trying to pull open its back door. Grasping inside, my fingers walked over the metal floor to a container of water. I pulled it to me and, shaking, tipped water into my mouth. I sat on the sand hydrating myself slowly for an hour. Warm quarts went down. I gagged as I finished one container after another. I poured it on my head and clothes. I soaked my large neckerchief again and again and draped it around my neck. So much relief . . . Like a very tight cork worked gently out of a bottle, I slowly came out of the Namaqualand heat. I was weak and nervous—unusually nervous. I couldn’t drive. I knew I’d pushed it too far.

  Tonight I would sleep here, on the sand. Life slowly came back to my body, and nervousness was sucked into the night. I lay down as dusk came. Waking an hour later, I gauged myself. I seemed okay but was still uneasy, with bits of nervousness and shakiness. I wasn’t so sick to my stomach, however; I thought I was purged of alcohol. I ought to eat. I needed normal activities, a purpose that would make my mind work. I needed to think. A young, fit body can recuperate surprisingly quickly, but that can be deceptive too. I sat some more.

  Is it over?

  I looked at myself in the Land Rover’s side mirror. My eyes were clear. Yeah, I had to eat, to do something normal, get strength back into my body. From the back of the Rover I pulled my kitchen box outward and surveyed its contents. The shakiness continued, but I was in control. The day had been too long, I’d had no influence on it and had to react to it, accept it. Now I am in control, I said to myself again. I was part of the recovery. Recovery from what? Later I learned the temperature had reached more than 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

  There was a handful of split peas soaking in a large capped jar of water that I prepared a day or so ago. I poured them into a pot on the burner of my Coleman gas stove and lit it. To a saucepan I added chopped onion, carrot, and garlic from a container and heated it on another gas stove. I sat transfixed, and some minutes later added them together to cook more. Still weak, I drank more. The mixture bubbled and I smelled it—the base for a hearty soup. Life was coming back.

  Standing, I pulled out an oblong tin can of Dutch ham. The can had a convenient opener fastened underneath that my sore fingers broke free. I emptied it onto a cutting board and cut it up as best as I could with a knife from the box. More water would be needed, as the ham was always salty. I needed salt anyway.

  I grinned and chuckled, smelled the food again, and figured I wasn’t hysterical, just happy and hungry.

  A slow hour later, the temperature had dropped further. Rummaging around in my kitchen box, I found my pipe and tobacco. After banging the barrel to get the sand and mites out, I stuffed it with tobacco. It was as dry as paper from the Rover’s internal heat. It burned up. I didn’t want it anyway; I was just pretending, doing something. Sitting on a rock, I looked down, breathing slowly and steadily, it seemed to me. A large pale-yellow scorpion came out from under my seat. He turned swiftly and arched his poison-laden tail. Stumbling up, I focused and slammed my boot on it. That was normal.

  The long day was over, and it was time for me to brush my teeth and sleep. How did the Bushmen clean their teeth? I asked, not able to stop myself. With a fresh twig, the end chewed into a brush, I answered. It wasn’t over yet, I realized; my mind was still moving back and forth. It hadn’t caught up yet. Maybe in the morning . . . I would go back to my trailer then and rest there.

  Chapter 9

  Unexpected Exposure: Lady and Leopard

  After being in the field for several months, I needed to return to Cape Town. Loading my rocks carefully so the Land Rover wouldn’t tilt and strain its heavy-duty springs, I began the slow drive back. Catina was away visiting her parents, but my new flatmate, Patrick, had returned from his field area. I was glad to see him again. When I first met him, he’d arrived at the PRU with two cardboard suitcases held together with ropes—a real Oliver Twist. At the same time he had a quick smile and bright eyes. “I was born in Donegal, Oireland,” he told me. “Me father had a harse [horse] and cart and dug peat for a living.” His mother had died when he was twelve. After graduating from the University of Dublin, he joined up with the Anglo-American Foundation as a way to pay off his debts. They sent him to prospect for gold in the isolated Botswana “bush” for four years.

  “That’s more than five hundred miles to the north from here,” he instructed me. “Dr. Manfred contacted Anglo, and they sent me here to study—it was cheaper for them. And I’d become too reclusive, talking only to my dog and living with my team of Tswanas,” he continued, almost shyly. “I didn’t want to see anyone coming. I couldn’t drive anything but a harse when I got there.”

  Patrick was one of those rare good guys you don’t meet often. He became a lasting friend that I relied on in difficult days.

  A week or so after I returned, we climbed Table Mountain. Looking down at the magnificent bay that formed a shimmering water necklace leading to the city, I realized just how lovely this area of the world was. On windless days, when cumulous clouds were low in the sky, they covered the flat mountain like a tablecloth, pillowing off its sides, and we walked in the sky. Nearby, high hills formed a resting lion with its head raised: a dramatic entrance to Africa from the sea.

  Early sailors, including Charles Darwin, called Cape Town the “Tavern of the Seas,” as it was a great “inn” on the way to the east. Bartolomeu Dias, the famous Portuguese explorer, first recorded its existence in the mid- to late 1400s. Following that, tall-mast ships came into the bay, their sails billowing while tar-haired, diminutive Portuguese sailors climbed high in the riggings. A colony began in the mid-1600s with Dutch-born Jan van Riebeeck serving as its administrator, at which time it became primarily a harbor for two-and three-mast Dutch fluyts, which were cargo ships sailing to India and the Far East. By bringing in slaves from Jakarta and Madagascar on those ships, van Riebeeck began building a rainbow community, with the establishment of a full settlement at Cape Town. Concurrently, he established a class of permanent white settlers who lived apart from others. That was the beginning of apartheid.

  Talk then turned to our former PRU director. “So Dr. Manfred returned to Germany,” Patrick said to me as we walked down the mountain.

  “Yes. With all his get-up-and-go, he found and brought us here, started us off, promptly abandoned us, and is now head of a geology department in his home country.”

  “What do you think of Joost, the new head of the PRU?” Our new boss was none other than Afrikaner Joost.

  “I’m worried. It could turn out to be an uncomfortable experience for me. He worked in my field area,” I replied in a somber voice.

  “But that’s good news. He should be happy you are working in his old area!”

  “It certainly should be that way, but so far I can’t find any evidence that supports his PhD dissertation concerning what happened geologically in that area. I fear I will be at odds with him. At this point, all I can see is that what he says is incorrect, Patrick—dead wide of the mark. But I will be assigned a new advisor now that Dr. Manfred is gone. He should help with this.”

  Patrick looked at me as if he didn’t believe my blunt statements. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t want to believe it myself. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

  I continued. “I did indirectly broach the subject once with him and was told bluntly that he was correct. ‘I’m sure of it,’ he state
d, staring into my eyes with conviction.” Shit, he was a professor. Still, this was a university and truth, supportable truth, should conquer all. Yeah, I needed an advisor.

  “Let’s hope you’re wrong,” Patrick said without conviction. He was picking at his black beard as if there were lice in it. “Maybe avoid any confrontation for as long as possible until you’re very sure.”

  “Yes. He is an Afrikaner. They don’t turn easily. Still, maybe he will be gracious, and maybe I am wrong.” I shrugged. I didn’t want to make problems.

  We continued walking down a steep portion of the mountain. “Come on, lad, tonight we’ll go to a nightclub and have a wee dram.”

  “It would be good to get my mind off this.”

  Portuguese Catina and I had not seen each other since I’d been in the field, and she was now doing fieldwork herself. Patrick and I went to a local drinking place where I met twenty-year-old Margret, a long-legged, slim blonde of British descent. She was a sophomore at UCT and wore a simple, short, white-satin-sleeved dress that highlighted her nice figure. Dancing until late, she took my mind off my problems. It was a much-needed relief, so when she invited me to a party her part-time employer was hosting in a few days, I accepted. Her employer, it turned out, lived in a ranch-style home with windows and doors that opened to a swimming pool tucked away in a secluded portion of the backyard. The African summer night was warm, and large trees swayed in the quiet breeze. Lights from the house barely reached the pool’s still surface.

  “Come, let’s swim,” Margret said, pulling me away from her heavily jeweled male boss moments after we arrived and before anyone could talk to me.

  “I have no swimming suit.”

  “Neither do I,” she said, as if we were discussing handkerchiefs. She led me to a darkened area adjacent to a huge tree. “Would you mind unzipping my dress?”

  “No problem,” I replied, thinking of the sight . . . I’m like a falcon getting its hood slipped off.