African Dawn (45 page)

Braedan raised his rifle to his shoulder and aimed at Emmerson. He whispered to Tate as he adjusted his stance, resting the rifle on the rock. ‘When I drop him, I'm moving. I hope Elias and the other guy will scatter, but if he decides to stand and fight he'll aim at me. If I go down, pick up the rifle and kill Ngwenya, all right,
boet
?’

Tate took a deep breath. ‘All right.’

Braedan glanced at him and winked. As he looked back down the sights at Emmerson Ngwenya the black man's words drifted across the hundred metres between them.

‘
You know, the great irony is that he was killed by Braedan Quilter-Phipps, the great hero who rescued the little girl
,’ Ngwenya was saying.

Braedan pulled the rifle tighter into his shoulder.

Now Natalie spoke:
‘The man who found me … the African man who picked me up … Braedan shot him.’

‘I picked up the bodies that day. There was a cover-up at the highest levels of the military
…’ George Bryant continued talking but the damage had been done.

Tate looked again at Braedan and saw his brother blink a couple of times and lick his lips. He wouldn't have thought Braedan, of all people, would hesitate to shoot a man.

‘Braedan,’ Tate whispered. ‘Take the shot.’

Braedan looked away from his target, at Tate. ‘Did you just hear that?’

‘It doesn't matter,’ Tate hissed. ‘Natalie – we've got to get to her.’

Braedan stared at him. ‘I killed a Selous Scout. One of our own guys. And they gave me the Silver Cross for it. I've lived a lie for thirty years, Tate. I was so full of myself. I took Hope because I thought I deserved her more than you.’

Tate saw his brother's face start to crumble. His hands were shaking on the rifle. Braedan looked back to the vignette in the clearing below them, then screwed his eyes tight.

‘It's all right,’ Tate said gently, ‘it was an accident, Braedan, you couldn't have known. Those scouts always dressed as terrs, yes? Someone else is to blame.’

Even though his eyes were still closed, a tear squeezed out as Braedan shook his head. ‘He was surrendering to me, Tate. Even if I did think he was a terr, I shouldn't have shot him, man.’

‘Enough,’ Emmerson Ngwenya boomed from the clearing. ‘Enough talking.’ He closed the distance between him and Natalie, stood behind her and pressed the barrel of his rifle into the back of her neck. ‘You, I will keep alive for a while, so you can see your family taken from you, and so I can use you later.’

‘No!’ Natalie yelled.

‘Fuck,’ Tate said. Braedan was a mess. He reached over and grabbed the rifle his brother was holding. Braedan opened his eyes and stared at him blankly, his eyes red and brimming as he released his grip. Tate worked the bolt and raised the rifle to his shoulder. There was no time to find a supporting firing position.

‘Simba,’ Emmerson said to his armed henchman, ‘kill the son first, then the old people.’

As Simba raised his AK-47 Elias darted from behind Emmerson, where he'd been cowering, and moved between the gunman and the Bryants. Elias raised his hands. ‘No, please don't shoot them.’ Elias looked down at Pip. ‘Mrs Bryant, I never meant for anyone to be harmed.’

‘Kill him,’ Emmerson said to Simba. Simba fired and felled Elias with a single shot between his eyes. Pip screamed and Simba shifted his aim to George.

‘Daddy!’ Natalie cried.

Tate took a breath and steeled himself for what he knew he needed to do. He took aim and fired at the man who had just shot Elias. The round caught the murderer in the chest and he pitched backwards, where he lay screaming in the dust.

Emmerson swung around, still with his arm around Natalie, and fired a wild, one-handed burst of automatic gunfire. George cried out in pain.

Tate worked the bolt of the vintage rifle as he started to climb over the granite boulder. He was raising the rifle for a second shot, on the move, when he was knocked off his feet by a rugby tackle from his left flank. Bullets whizzed over his head, harmlessly, but Tate was more worried about his crazy brother. ‘Braedan, what the fuck?’

‘Give me the rifle.’

‘No,’ Tate said. ‘I can do this.’ Tate gripped the weapon, but Braedan had both hands on it as well. The hardness was back in his eyes, the tears gone as quickly as they'd appeared. He flicked the butt of the rifle viciously towards Tate who, unprepared for the move, couldn't move his face out of the way in time. The rifle smashed into his cheek and he yelped in pain.

Braedan wrenched the rifle from Tate's weakened grip. He yelled a wild war cry as he vaulted the rock and ran down the hill through the bush. In the clearing Emmerson was dragging Natalie in front of him, by her hair, using her as a human shield. If Braedan had a place to stop and aim, and perhaps the fork of a tree to rest the .303 in, he might have been able to take Emmerson out with a head shot, but it was too risky on the move.

Tate, scrambling after Braedan, could see Natalie being dragged back towards the Hummer. She was yelling in agony as Emmerson pulled at her hair. George was on the ground, bleeding, but he half-raised a hand, indicating he was still alive.

Emmerson turned and fired a wild burst of bullets at Paul and Philippa, and Tate marvelled at the way the old lady threw her body over her husband's. The rounds seemed to miss them, though.

The trucks carrying the rhinos – two alive and one dead and already dehorned – were parked in a line, and the rough track leading up the hill to where Tate had released Chengetai was too narrow and sunken for the three-tonners to turn around with ease. Emmerson saw this and, as he dragged Natalie back towards his Hummer, he fired a burst of three bullets into the fuel tank of the vehicle carrying the dead rhino. Diesel fuel gushed out. Tate stopped by Pip and Paul and helped the frail Pip drag her husband behind the middle vehicle, out of Emmerson's line of sight.

‘Ngwenya!’ Braedan yelled. ‘Stop! Let her go and I'll let you live.’ Braedan had taken cover behind another trucks.

‘Drop your rifle or I'll kill her now!’ Emmerson called back.

‘Braedan,’ Tate said, from a tree he was leaning against, panting.

‘I don't have a clear shot. He's holding Natalie too close.’

‘No, listen,’ Tate said in a low voice, ‘sirens.’

‘The bloody cavalry,
ek se
?’ Braedan grinned.

Tate smiled. ‘I hope so. Throw down your rifle.’

Braedan looked at Tate and nodded, but then ducked as two other AK-47s started firing at them from further up the hill.

*

Natalie heard the sirens, too, but they were a long way off. When the new storm of gunfire swept the clearing Emmerson pushed her in the small of her back, sending her sprawling face first onto the front passenger seat of the Hummer.

With her hands still bound behind her it was a struggle for Natalie to right herself in the seat. By the time she had done so Emmerson was in the driver's position and had the truck in gear. He reversed the wide vehicle down the track at a scary speed, heedless of the ruts and bumps that shook her from side to side. Unrestrained by a seatbelt, Natalie cracked her head on the side window as the rear wheels left the ground in a washout.

Once out of the firing line, Emmerson turned the vehicle in a fast but sickening three-point turn and started to gather speed on the short drive back towards the main road. Emmerson drove with his left hand and kept his right on the pistol grip of the AK-47. He had the rifle cradled across his body, pointing at her. He looked at her and smiled, then started to laugh out loud.

Oh God, Natalie said to herself, the maniac was going to get away. She was going to die, just as horribly as her aunt had.

38

B
ullets brought up mini geysers of dirt as Tate crawled furiously across the open ground to where Simba lay dead. He snatched up the fallen man's AK-47 and turned his head at the sound of a moan of pain.

George Bryant was still alive, but his chest was soaked in blood. Tate slithered across and drew a breath at the ghastliness of the man's wound. Pink frothy bubbles of blood were forming around the wound and when George tried to speak a gargling noise came from his mouth. Tate knew a sucking chest wound when he saw one. He'd seen an anti-poaching scout die the same way.

A bullet whizzed close by his head as Tate slung the AK, put one of George's hands around his neck and heaved himself upright, lifting George in a fireman's carry. George gave a strangled cry of pure pain.

Braedan sidestepped out from behind the truck he was using for cover and screamed at the top of his lungs as he fired another round at the two men who were shooting at them from the bush. The distraction worked for a moment, and as the other gunmen concentrated their fire on Braedan who was keeping their heads down with shots aimed in their direction, Tate was able to carry George to the relative safety of the middle vehicle, where he laid him beside his father, Paul. Philippa looked up at him. ‘Tate, go get Natalie.’

Tate climbed up into the cab of the truck, attracting his share of the erratic gunfire as well. He rummaged around under a seat and in the glove compartment until he found a small first aid kit. He hurriedly climbed down and tossed the kit to Philippa. ‘Yes. I will,’ he said to her.

Tate lifted the AK, set the selector to fire, and fired two blind shots at where he thought the gunfire was coming from.

‘Over here,’ Braedan called.

Tate sprinted to the next vehicle, where Braedan was crouching. There was a lull in the fire from the other two men. ‘They're moving,’ Braedan said. ‘Trying to circle us. You've got to go get Natalie, quickly. He'll be driving at walking pace for a while, on the track. If you get behind him, shoot out his tyres. Try and get him as he's getting out of the car.’

‘Braedan, I'm no good at this stuff, you –’

‘I've got to nail these other guys, Tate. Listen to me,’ he laid his hand on his brother's hand, ‘there are the rest of them to think about as well, Paul and Pip and George. Those two gooks out there will kill them for sport if I leave, and you couldn't beat them.’

Tate nodded. He knew his brother wasn't being arrogant or unkind, just telling the truth. He was thinking like a soldier again, as if he was back in the war. Braedan's eyes were as hard and sharp as flint. He was in his element.

‘I'll be right behind you, hey, as soon as I flatten these two. Then I'll come help you get Natalie. Just make sure you stop him from getting away. Go, brother,’ Braedan said.

Tate looked into his reflection. ‘I was wrong about you, Braedan.’

‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘I don't know how I thought you could have dehorned that rhino, even to help Mom.’

Tate shook his head. ‘No, about everything, I mean. You're a good man.’

Braedan smiled. ‘
Ja
, but you're the better man. You deserve her. Go.’

Before Tate could say another word Braedan was gone, opening the breech and ramming another clip of five rounds into the .303 as he ran, his movements fluid and natural as any other predator as he melted into the bush.

Tate heard the gunfire continuing behind him as he ran down the hill as fast as he could.

*

Makuti knew, instinctively, that he needed to protect the new female presence in his realm. He was made for this – fornicating and fighting. He heard the distant bangs, and the low growl of the machine.

All his life he had run from humans. They had hunted him and their wars had nearly killed him, several times. He was angry now, and he would, finally, defend his territory. He smashed through the young trees, their thorns and branches barely scratching his thick hide.

*

Emmerson could see the black ribbon of tar, the narrow road from Makuti, to the left, and Kariba, to his right.

His plan had been to turn left, but he saw the flashing blue lights rounding one of the tight bends. He cursed. From Makuti he could have headed towards Chirundu and the lower Zambezi Valley, where a man could get lost in the bush for a while. Now, however, he would have to turn towards the lakeside town of Kariba, a dead end option by land. It would be impossible for him to cross the dam wall by road into Zambia, but perhaps he could abandon the Hummer somewhere on the lake shore and commandeer a boat to cross the border, or head up river.

The last section of the track was through a creek. It wasn't flowing, but it was a steep-sided gully. He slowed the Hummer to crawling pace. The police Land Rovers were visible now, and speeding ahead of them, now that it had cleared the bends, was a black BMW. The car looked familiar.

‘They are too late,’ Emmerson said as he wrestled with the steering wheel one-handed, his other hand still clamped on the rifle.

Natalie looked at him and he could see the despair in her eyes. She knew he was right and her terror aroused him. He would make it. He was Emmerson Ngwenya. He would find a way through this and he would use her on the boat and throw her body overboard afterwards. Emmerson was also confident his men Nicholas and Henry would kill the other whites before they disappeared into the bush.

The Hummer passed through the muddy creek bed and began to climb. Emmerson floored the accelerator. The wheels spun for a moment, then gained traction as the front tyres found level ground and bit in. As the horizon came into view through the narrow windscreen, so, too, did a black rhino. It lowered its head and charged.

Emmerson, shocked by the sight of the animal and unsure what to do, took his foot off the accelerator. A solid tonne of rhinoceros smashed into the front grille, buckling the bonnet and sending a jet of steam high into the air from the shattered radiator. Emmerson rammed the gearstick into first and pumped the gas pedal. The rhino danced to one side, then circled. As the vehicle started to move forward Emmerson felt the rear of the solid truck being knocked askew as the rhino rammed into the passenger door behind him.

Emmerson saw the rhino back off and then it started to gallop alongside him, trying to head him off. He didn't think he could push it aside or even kill it if he rammed it, and the temperature gauge was climbing. Emmerson stuck the AK-47 out the window and pulled the trigger. Most of his wild burst went wide of his target, but he was sure he saw two bullets hit the blurred grey flank.

Instead of scaring the rhino off, though, it only enraged the animal further. It charged and smashed into the vehicle once more, shattering a headlight and the front bumper. It lowered its head and pushed again.

Emmerson tried to accelerate, but the rhino must have caused greater damage to the front of the engine than just holing the radiator. When he took his foot off the brake the Hummer started to move backwards, such was the force of the rhino's push. It backed up and rammed the vehicle again. Emmerson knew he would have to escape on foot, but that meant killing the rhino first. Given the length of the bonnet and the position of the rhino, there was not enough room to get a good shot in. As the rhino backed up for its next charge it drifted further out of his field of view, towards the passenger side.

Emmerson opened the driver's side door and got out. He edged slowly forward, bringing the rifle to bear in his shoulder. As he neared the right front edge of the vehicle, the rhino put up its head. A couple of inches closer and he would have it clearly in his sights. The rhino turned, almost on the spot, and started to run away from the vehicle. A perfect shot, Emmerson thought as he squeezed the trigger.

As the first two bullets left the barrel Emmerson was pitched forward. Natalie Bryant was on top of him, her body flailing without the benefit of her hands to cushion her fall or protect her. He threw her off and lashed back at her with the butt of the rifle, striking her on the face.

Natalie got herself to her knees and shuffled towards the rear of the truck. Emmerson heard the wail of the sirens clearly. The black BMW had pulled over on the edge of the tar road and a police Land Rover was easing onto the rough track.

Emmerson looked down at Natalie, crawling away from him in fear of her life. He saw the police and wondered if he could talk his way out of this one. The door of the BMW opened and he recognised his sister Thandi immediately. If she had the police on side he was finished.

His mother was right. The whites cared nothing for them. Philippa Bryant pretended to the world she was a do-gooder, but her misguided acts had landed his father in gaol, and her coddling of his older brother had caused him to sell out his own people. His mother had known best when she'd told him that all settlers must, in the end, die, if Zimbabwe was to be free. He raised the rifle to his shoulder.

*

Tate crested a rise in the track and, at last, caught sight of the black Hummer. It had stopped on the far side of a dry creek bed. He saw Emmerson Ngwenya standing beside the open driver's door, with a rifle pointed down at the ground. There was no sign of Natalie.

Tate didn't think twice. He lifted the AK, aimed quickly and fired two rounds at the corrupt minister. Emmerson ducked and turned around. He loosed off a burst of fire, but Tate was already running down the hill. Emmerson leaned on the roof of the four-by-four, steadying his rifle. Tate kept running. He had to get to Natalie. He readied himself for the tearing impact of the bullet. There was no turning away now, no running, no hiding. He would save her or he would die trying.

Tate looked at Emmerson and fancied he could see the hate in his expression from a hundred metres. Then something caught his eye.

From the bush, on the side of the track, came a blur of grey tailed by a cloud of disrupted leaves, twigs and dirt as the rhino burst from the bush. The creature lowered his head and charged into the open door of the Hummer. As it slammed closed it crushed Emmerson Ngwenya and the rifle fell from his hand. He screamed in agony, but the rhino kept its head against the door, scrabbling for purchase in the dirt with its big front feet.

When the rhino finally eased off and took a step back, Emmerson fell to the ground, his organs pulverised. The rhino lowered its head to the bleeding man and hooked him with its long, wickedly sharp front horn. The rhino lifted Emmerson off the ground then tossed him aside.

Tate kept running. He could see police in field uniforms disembarking from a Land Rover, and a woman in a business suit was following in their wake. As Tate ran closer he saw the rhino clearly. It was a big, old male, his hide scarred and ear mauled from past battles and his ribs starting to show. This was not one of the Bryants' sleek, pampered, overfed animals. This was the same bull he'd seen, the one whose presence had led them here from the other side of the country.

‘Tate!’ Natalie called.

He saw her now as she awkwardly made it to her feet and stumbled towards the rear of the Hummer. Tate sprinted towards her, but the rhino, which had started to amble back into the bush after losing interest in Emmerson Ngwenya's body, suddenly turned.

‘Get in the truck!’ Tate yelled.

Natalie paused, then looked back over her shoulder. She saw the rhino, its head up and full of the arrogance that comes with victory. Natalie backed along the vehicle and reached for the rear door handle. ‘It's locked!’ She started to run, towards Tate and away from the rhino.

Makuti lowered his head for another charge.

‘Into the trees!’ Tate shouted. But even as he said the words he knew it was impossible for Natalie to outrun or out-dodge a black rhino in full charge, and totally impossible for her to get up off the ground to a safe height without the use of her hands. As these thoughts came to him he was raising the rifle to his shoulder.

‘Tate!’ Natalie screamed, looking over her shoulder at the charging tonne of muscle, hide and bone, his horn lowered like a knight's lance.

Tate drew a breath and pulled the trigger. Makuti had turned and was just coming on broadside to Tate. At less than a hundred metres he couldn't miss. He held the pressure and raked the grand old animal's side. Tiny puffs of dust and flowering dark holes told him at least half-a-dozen of the rounds had found their mark, ripping through the tough skin and shredding the rhino's vital organs. It was the way the poachers did it. No finesse, no precision, no care.

Tate sprinted again, even as he saw the rhino's faltering steps. Natalie tripped and fell in the animal's path and Tate dropped the rifle, the magazine now empty, and reached for her. Makuti hit the ground, raising a cloud, and blew blood and dying breath out of his wide nostrils as his momentum ploughed grass and dirt.

Tate wrapped his arms around Natalie. The rhino had come to rest with its lower jaw almost on her heels. With his last ounce of strength Makuti gave a final dismissive toss of his head that would have skewered Natalie if Tate hadn't picked her up off the ground and crushed her to his chest.

Natalie buried her head in Tate's bush shirt, her breath coming in racking sobs, as he fumbled for the tape on her wrists and unwrapped them. Tate looked down at the dead rhino as Natalie shook her hands free of the remnants of her bindings. She placed her hands around his neck, looked up into his eyes and kissed him.

From the distance, back up the hill, where the other rhinos were still in their crates, they heard gunfire.