Poacher (13 page)

When Sam could see the vultures overloading
the branches of a clump of trees he stopped and listened. No loud
voices, and the chopping of axes removing tusks was absent. Flat on
his stomach he started stalking the trees. There was ample cover
and he was convinced that he could get very close without being
seen. The sudden ear-splitting snarl of a lion followed by a
cacophony of growls stopped him dead. He was now so close he could
hear flesh being torn. The fact that no bones were being cracked
yet meant that the kill was either very fresh or very large. Sam
cautiously crept up to a clump of tall grass directly in front of
him and carefully parted the stems. Two magnificent male lions,
four mature females and a horde cubs of varying sizes were tucking
into a freshly killed giraffe. The fact that the prey was so big
gave the females and the young ones a chance to feed at the same
time as the males. Both males were positioned at the prime spot
between the hind legs, where the meat was soft and the intestines
were readily accessible. Sam slowly closed the curtain of grass in
front of him and started retreating. When he was a hundred yards
away he got up and started walking back to his bike. The herd of
buffalo had moved off and he reached the bike without incident.
After unloading the LM5 he slung it onto his back again and rode
off the way he had come, taking his bearings carefully. Finding a
particular spot in the bush at night is extremely difficult, no
matter how well you know the area. He intended bringing Linda out
tonight to watch the lions feed. That giraffe was going to keep
them occupied for a couple of days.

Getting back on to the tourist road he
increased speed slightly. It was a dirt road, as only the major
roads in the Park were tarred. But the surface was good, and he did
fifty kilometres an hour with ease.

The lions should provide quite a spectacle
tonight, and he was sure it would be something new for Linda to
observe them feeding at close range.

It was nearly noon when he took the turnoff
to his house, noticing fresh tyre marks on the road leading right
past the no entry sign. Damn, he thought, another tourist with a
problem. When he noticed that the high barbed wire gates leading to
his yard were closed, but there was no vehicle in evidence outside
he got worried. Job, his ancient houseboy cum gardener, knew better
that to open the gates to anyone in his absence.

Revving the bike in front of the gate he
noticed the tyre tracks leading into the yard. On a sandy patch
there was the clear imprint of a P7 Pirelli. He knew of only one
car shod with these exotic tyres, and his pulse started racing in
anticipation. Job was fumbling with the padlock, his rheumatoid
fingers struggling to insert the key.

‘Job, you know this gate must not be opened
for anyone in my absence,’ he admonished.

‘Hau, nkoski, I have not been near the gate
since you left this morning.’

Job had never been good at telling lies.

‘You are as old as the mountain over there
and still when a woman smiles at you, you would gladly sell your
soul to the devil,’ Sam remarked as he rode past. Job’s wrinkled
face was even more distorted as he smiled gleefully, exhibiting a
full set of very yellow but strong teeth. He interpreted every
visit by a female as yet another conquest to be chalked up to the
virility of his master, a matter of great importance to him, as he
regarded Sam as an adopted son, and anything achieved by the son
was a direct reflection on him. The one that had arrived a while
ago was prime stuff. She would definitely put some fire into nkosi
again, and he giggled as he thought about what the nkosi was going
to put into her. He locked the gate and shuffled back to the
kitchen.

Instead of parking under the car port next to
his Toyota, Sam rode over the lawn towards the front of the house,
following the faint tracks on the short grass. As he had
anticipated, the white Porsche 911 Targa was parked under the
gigantic Natal mahogany on the front lawn. She was sitting on the
garden seat in the shade, a tall cool-looking drink in front of her
on the table and a glossy female magazine open across her tanned
knees. As usual, just looking at her had a devastating effect on
him. He killed the engine and sat there, straddling the bike and
feasting his eyes once more on the most desirable woman he had ever
encountered. She was wearing plain white summer dress with thin
shoulder straps and around her throat was a platinum chain from
which was suspended a silver pansy shell. The green grass, tanned
skin, white dress and potent car in the background combined to make
a picture fit for the cover of the best magazines.

Linda dropped the magazine and rushed towards
Sam as he dismounted. She let out a delighted yelp as he swept her
off her feet and crushed her to his chest. She could smell the male
sweat intermingled with the dust and pipe tobacco as she nuzzled
her face into his neck. She could also detect a faint tint of
something wild and primitive, and it sent the blood pounding
through her veins. ‘Shame on the old fossil for letting you in on
our secret. I wanted it to be a surprise. I intended putting in at
least half a day’s work seeing that my partner is on leave, but it
was such a nice day that I decided not to go to the office at all.
And of course there was the nice man at the end of the road, just
waiting, with time on his hands.’

‘Time is not all I have on my hands,’ he
said, pushing her away. ‘Mind we don’t get any on your nice white
dress. Give me ten minutes, I just want to run through a quick
shower. Don’t go away,’ he said over his shoulder as he entered the
house unslinging his armament and chucking it onto a couch. ‘Job,’
he shouted with the same breath, ‘cold Castle in the bathroom
chop-chop!’ By the time he reached the shower he was down to his
underwear.

He was working the shampoo into a nice lather
when the door opened accompanied by a glassy tinkle. ‘Thanks, you
old fart. Just put it down anywhere.’ With the invigorating spray
stinging his face he was unaware of her getting undressed. When she
swept the shower curtain aside she startled him into opening his
eyes for a brief moment, imprinting on his brain the image of a
naked goddess before the soap stung him into closing them again. He
laughed and pulled her under the spray. ‘Come into my parlour, you
beautiful thing,’ he said embracing her.

‘My hair,’ she complained half-heartedly.

‘Africa is a rough country, my girl.’

Sundown found them under the big mahogany
once more, dressed in light summer apparel, a big leadwood fire
roaring in the fire pit. The activities of the afternoon had
brought upon them a lethargic sense of well-being, and Linda was
lounging in her chair with a feline-like grace, reminiscent of a
leopard relaxing in the fork of a tree.

‘Sam, I am in love with you.’ Establishing a
fact. Just like that.

He nearly dropped his Castle. He knew the
difference between crap and mud, and this was not mud heading his
way. Those clouds again! Except for a certain amount of confusion,
he had a pretty good idea of how he felt about this himself, but
with the typical male reluctance to face up to situations like
these, he was disinclined to respond in the way that was most
probably expected of him.

He leaned closer and squeezed her knee.
‘Linda, I am crazy about you,’ he said, evading the commitment.
‘You know that. But you also know the position I find myself in.
Please don’t say things like that.’

‘Relax, darling, that was not a proposition.
I have no intention of backing you into a corner, and I have no
intention of jeopardising your relationship with Estelle. So just
relax and enjoy. I was just notifying you of the fact that I am in
love with you. No strings attached.’ Not yet, she added softly to
herself. She knew that she still had a few months grace to make him
see the light, and she intended making full use of her formidable
arsenal of female cunning combined with the subtle powers of
persuasion she had acquired over the years as a top lawyer. She was
raised in a house where money was no object, hence the house and
the Porsche, so she was used to getting what she wanted once she
set her mind on it. And Sam was what she wanted. So Sam was, in her
book, what she was going to get. It would just take some work and
enough time for him to realise where he was going.

‘Don’t look do dejected, lover, no heavy
emotional scenes envisaged. Tell me what you have in stall for us
for the weekend. Have the impala started casting their young
yet?’

Impala had the uncanny gift of retaining
their young until the veld was fit to sustain the lactating ewe.
Hence the fact that their gestation period could be stretched at
will, up to a point. The first lambs hardly ever appeared before
the new grass of summer was at least two inches high.

‘My dear, this year’s lambs are already
beginning to think about producing lambs of their own. But I have
another surprise for you. I think after we have eaten we will go
for a dip in our special reservoir in the moonlight, and then I am
going to show you something very few people have ever seen.’

‘Pray tell,’ she said, leaning over and
hugging him.

‘Patience, woman. I, too, would like to have
the pleasure of giving you a surprise. And please stop breathing so
close to me, otherwise we are never going to go anywhere
tonight.’

‘Who cares,’ and she slid her tongue between
his lips.

‘You are a witch,’ he said, disengaging her
slender arm from around his neck. ‘If you promise not to interfere
you may accompany me to the kitchen. Tonight you will experience
the culinary expertise of a master in the preparation of venison
over the open fire.’

‘Oh, you are a master in something else too?’
she inquired innocently as they entered the house holding
hands.

Job had prepared a pot of maize porridge and
some tomato sheba before being forcibly evicted in the direction of
the compound. It had been his intention to stick around, acquiring
juicy morsels of information to be expounded upon later around the
fires in the compound. The aroma of the sheba consisting of fried
onions, green peppers and tomatoes, liberally spiced with curry and
garlic reminded Sam that he had not eaten since very early that
morning. The whole fillet of a young impala was on the table,
covered with a gauze cloth. Job knew that Sam preferred to prepare
his meat for a braai personally. To braai, that is, to cook meat
over an open fire outdoors, was a favourite pastime in this
country, and most men took a certain pride in their own secret
recipes and methods. Linda realised that this was a ritual not to
be interfered with, and lifted herself onto the edge of a kitchen
cupboard, sipping her drink and regarding Sam fondly.

He removed the tough outer fascia of the
large muscle with surgical precision and proceeded to cut the
fillet crosswise into discs two inches thick. He then pounded the
meat down to half-inch thickness with a wooden mallet, laid the
steaks out on the table and lightly spread a weird-looking
concoction on both sides. Linda could not contain her curiosity.
‘Share the secret of that strange looking marinade?’

‘We’ll get to the marinade in a while. This
is green pawpaw that has been put through the blender. Nature’s own
meat tenderiser, much more effective than anything available in the
shops. You just leave it on the meat for ten minutes, rinse it off,
and voila! This gives me enough time to refill your glass, get
myself another beer and give you a proper kiss.’ With the two
glasses in his hands he pushed her knees apart where she was
sitting on the high cupboard and kissed her lingeringly. She
started giggling as her hand strayed downwards. ‘Oh my, if we want
to eat at all tonight you had better pass me some of that meat
tenderiser.’ He grinned and touched the tip of her nose with
his.

‘I think I may have told you previously that
you are a witch. You are juggling with my soul. You have cast a
spell over me. I am putty in your hands.’

‘If this is putty,’ she murmured, closing her
hand on him, ‘it has been in the sun too long.’

‘Break, break!’ he said, stepping back.
‘Enough, woman, I have work to do.’

‘Let me fix the drinks.’ She jumped to the
ground nimbly and took the glasses from him. ‘You get on with the
food. I am ravenous.’

He rinsed the steaks thoroughly and dried
them on a paper towel. Linda watched attentively as he made a
mixture of smooth apricot jam and Worcestershire sauce, coating the
meat thickly. Separately he mixed some salt and pepper into a cup
of flour, placed the meat on a shallow plate, and they took it all
out to the fire.

Linda was fascinated by Sam’s frying pan. It
was a ploughshare to the convex side of which was welded three
ten-inch legs. From the centre of the concave side was projecting a
three-foot long handle, sticking straight up in the air.

He poured some sunflower oil into the pan,
and when it had heated up nicely, he dipped the steaks into the
flour one by one and laid them in the pan.

Linda brought the plates and the rest of the
food out, and gave Sam another beer.

When they eventually sat down to their meal,
Linda could not believe what her taste buds were telling her. ‘Sam,
this is the tastiest meat I have ever eaten. It is absolutely
unreal.’

‘Beef and mutton is something we rarely see
around here, and if you eat game regularly you have to start
playing around with recipes or else you grow tired of it very
soon.’

By the time they had finished, the full moon
had risen from behind the foothills of the Lebombo mountains,
bathing the bush in its eerie light.

Sam fetched his spotlight with the removable
red filter and plugged it into the cigarette lighter of the Toyota.
He checked the Winchester’s magazine, clipped the rifle into its
cradle at the back of the cab, and made sure the batteries in the
powerful torch under the seat were in good shape.