Poacher (7 page)

‘Stop whining, dammit,’ Joao said, panting
with exertion. ‘Keep running. We will have those tusks and be over
the fence before nightfall. It will take those dimwits at the
compound ages to figure out what’s happened, and they haven’t got
their white god with them to tell them what to do. Nothing will be
done until tomorrow, and by then we will be long gone.’

They kept up their pace for another ten
minutes and then sat down under a camel thorn for a drink of water,
panting heavily and sweating profusely in the heat.

‘Man, did you see that?’ Joao panted. ‘Did
you see the big man go down, one shot, kapow! In the brain! You
didn’t do so badly yourself. Only two shots. And those horns!
Brother, we are in the big time. Let’s go. Another three hours and
we have the tusks as well.’

Joao’s enthusiasm was contagious, and when
they set off once again at a stiff trot, Rui’s spirits were lifted
with every yard they put between them and the scene of the
slaughter. It was really beginning to look as if they were going to
get away with something nobody had ever considered possible.

It was Tuesday, 11:20 a.m., and they were
inexorably approaching the area of the elephant carcass from a
completely unexpected direction.

Sam and Louis had relieved the sentries on
the summit before first light. They had each had a big mug of
coffee and some rusks, lit their pipes below the skyline, then
climbed onto the big boulder at the top and watched the day being
born. The horizon was still grey in the east but already the high
cirrus clouds were being painted a light pink by the approaching
sun. To the north, a lion greeted the dawn with a mighty roar,
followed by diminishing ‘uuuhmph, uuhmph, uhmphs,’ to be answered
far off by another pride.

The birds were working themselves into a
frenzy, announcing their joy at having survived yet another long
night. Competing with this cacophony was the troop of baboons whose
sleeping place had been annexed by the rangers. The reverberating
‘whaugh, whaugh!’ of the males was interspersed by the joyous
squeals of the young ones at play, carrying on as if this whole
place belonged to them.

The two men on the hill savoured every moment
contentedly. This is what motivates a man to spend his life in the
Park, earning a paltry salary that would be scoffed at anywhere
else. This was a quality of life that money cannot but. In fact, it
made the acquisition of money fade into the obscure realm of
banality. This is what life was about.

Sam found himself thinking about Linda again.
She had sneaked into his mind with the stealth of a leopard. The
thought of her tanned limbs writhing on the white sheets sent his
hormones soaring. She reminded him of his favourite spot on the
banks of the Sweni. Her red hair and her green eyes were the bronze
of an autumn sunset through the green of a fever tree. She was the
tense anticipation of a hunting cat awaiting full darkness, her
supple limbs were those of a languid leopard, preening himself in a
high fork, aloof and out of reach.

He found himself drawing parallels between
the women dominating his thoughts. Estelle was the same spot on the
Sweni, but she was morning, fresh and invigorating, eyes and hair
the colour of wild honey, her skin a high, white cirrus cloud. She
was the proud innocence of a bushbuck ewe daintily emerging from
dew-laden foliage to greet a new day. She was the quiet strength of
the slow current in a deep pool, giving life to the arid country
that blossomed abundantly with her presence.

With an effort he pushed the women from his
thoughts. ‘Time to get off the skyline,’ he said, getting up and
dusting the seat of his pants.

They moved back into the camouflaging embrace
of a stunted Transvaal milkplum and started scanning the veld to
the east in the growing light.

At eight, the temperature in the shade was
already in the high thirties. ‘Time for breakfast,’ Louis said,
lowering himself off the boulder.

The past four hours had strained their eyes,
and their stomachs rumbled at the thought of last night’s hunter’s
stew still simmering on the coals of the smokeless hardwood fire
they had decided to chance.

‘Aaron, get some men up here,’ Sam said
triggering the broadcast button on his radio.

Halfway down he handed the radio over to
Shadrick and James. ‘Remember to keep the sun off those lenses,’
Sam reminded them.

‘Yebo, nkosi,’ in unison.

After a hearty breakfast they lay down in the
shade for a nap. Sam tried to dream about Estelle, but to no avail.
Once again those tanned limbs won the battle.

At noon they shouldered their rifles once
more and started climbing.

The tawny lioness was in a bad condition.
Although she was still young, her coat was straggly and her ribs
and spine protruded through her loose-fitting skin. She was lying
in the shade, licking her front paw, which was swollen to twice its
normal size and continuously dripping bloody pus where the wire
snare was embedded deep in the bone. The pain was excruciating, and
the fact that she hadn’t been able to make a kill in the past six
days contributed to her vile mood.

When she had broken the wire, the slipknot
had tightened, severing the blood supply to her right front leg and
cracking the bone. Four days later gangrene had set in, driving her
wild with pain.

What was driving her even more berserk, was
the fact that, from the shade of the next tree, barely ten yards
away, four hyenas were gleefully eyeing her. They had picked up the
stench of her spoor in the course of the night, and were getting
bolder by the minute.

Every now and again they would run out of
patience, and work themselves into a frenzy, circling her and
making short dashes in her direction. On her violent reaction they
would retreat a short distance, just out of reach, and continue
regarding her with lolling tongues, dripping strings of saliva.

This had been going on all morning, and her
thirst was driving her towards the spruit. As she started limping
down the sandy incline, her tormenters were hard on her heels,
egging each other on with excited yelps.

She was lying flat on her stomach, licking
cool water with great laps, when one of the hyenas could no longer
resist the smell of imminent death, and decided to speed up the
process. Charging the last few yards he took a nip at the lioness’s
hindquarters, totally underestimating her lightning reflexes. In a
yellow blur she swung around with an explosive roar, her healthy
front paw flashing out like a bolt of lightning. The hyena barely
had time to start pulling back before her long nails slashed half
his face off his skull, breaking his nose and flattening him. With
an ear-splitting roar she was on him, pinning him down and closing
her powerful jaws on his skull with a loud crack. She would have
mutilated him further in her fury, but the blinding pain stopped
her, and she lay panting. The other hyenas had added another five
yards to their estimated safety zone and were watching the action
dispassionately.

With pain searing through her whole being,
the lioness started limping away aimlessly, her escort following
her once again at a discreet distance.

Joao was in the lead, his AK over one
shoulder and his knapsack over the other. Some time ago they had
slowed down to a walk, but even so they were sweating with the
Lowveld sun beating down on their backs.

‘How are we going to get past the colonel?’
Rui asked, sucking the last few drops from his canteen.

‘I think we should put the stuff with the
rest of our cache and then swipe an army truck. Once we have sold
everything we just abandon the truck in Maputo and disappear. Easy
as pie. With the amount of money we are going to make, nobody will
ever find us.’

‘You reckon the colonel will give up on us
that easily, knowing that we’ve taken him for a ride?’

‘Stuff the colonel, man. He’s got an army to
run. I suppose he will come chasing after us initially, his pride
and his pocket aching, but if he spends too much time and effort on
it his superiors are going to come down on him like a ton of
bricks. We charter ourselves a boat and pop over to Inhaca island
and spend a week relaxing. By then the heat will be off.’

The thought appealed to Rui. He could imagine
himself on the island with a nubile young body or two to while away
the idle hours. ‘I suppose we will be taking some young maidens
along, eh?’

‘As many as we can accommodate. We’ll
initiate our retirement with a week that will not be soon
forgotten.’

They slogged on for another fifteen minutes,
each thinking about the future and dreaming their private
dreams.

‘We had better fill our canteens,’ Joao said.
‘We’re nearly there, and then we will have to be leaving the
spruit.’

They followed a game trail down to the water,
and put down their loads. Having drunk their fill and topped up
their canteens they paused for a while, having a smoke.

‘Never mind the colonel’s hurt pride – can
you imagine Jenkins when he finds out about his precious rhinos!
Hey, maybe he will jump the wire and wipe out the colonel.’ They
both had a laugh at the idea.

‘Let’s go finish our work.’ Rui shouldered
his kit. The mention of the ranger evoked a queasy feeling in him.
He wanted as much distance between himself and this notorious man
as soon as possible.

Following game trails, they were in sight of
the hill, approaching from the south west, when the silence was
shattered by the roar of the crippled lioness. She came in low from
about thirty metres off. The fact she was badly hampered by the leg
saved Joao. He just had time to drop his kit and bring the AK to
bear before she tensed her haunches for the final leap. He flipped
the gun to full automatic and heaved on the trigger at point blank
range. The third bullet killed her instantly, and as the recoil
lifted the barrel the next eight shots went wild. He released the
trigger, aimed again and gave her two more shots in the brain.

The silence was overwhelming, and the dust
was thick amongst the thorn trees.

Sam and Louis had been scanning the horizon
when the shots exploded a couple of hundred yards behind them. They
had heard the roar and immediately grasped what had happened. The
distinctive flat crack of an AK47 was like a signature. They
scrambled down the hill and motioned the black rangers to fan out
wide. Aaron had already shoveled sand onto the remains of the fire.
They advanced quietly in the direction from which the shots had
been fired.

The poachers’ luck still held to the extent
that they saw the rangers at the same time they themselves were
seen. Everybody dived for cover and both Joao and Rui opened up
with full magazines. Automatic fire raked the bush and took chunks
out of the tree behind which Sam was hiding. He sneaked this
Winchester around the trunk and scanned the area through the scope.
All was deathly quiet and at first he could see nothing. Then a
slight movement caught his eye. Concentrating hard, he could
distinguish the outline of a boot-clad foot sticking out from
behind an anthill. Carefully placing the crosshairs on the ankle,
he squeezed the trigger. The soft-nosed bullet, still travelling in
excess of 3000 feet per second, expanded as it hit Rui’s leg just
above the ankle, nearly severing it completely. With a high-pitched
scream Rui reared from behind the anthill and passed out. Joao,
Lying close to him, saw it happen, and his nerve cracked. ‘We give
up!’ he screamed, tossing this gun away in a high arc. Feverishly
he got the pistol from his holster, and chucker it after the
gun.

‘Come out with your hands on your head,’ Sam
shouted. ‘And no tricks. You’ve got six guns pointed at you. How
many of you are there?’

Joao got up, clapping the back of his head.
‘Just the two of us, I swear. Get this man to a doctor, he bleeding
to death,’ he said moving towards Rui.

‘Stand still, shithouse,’ Sam said,
approaching with his gun at the ready.

‘Louis, cover him. Aaron, spread out the men
and backtrack for a while. Make sure they were alone.’ Sam put his
rifle on the ground next to him as he knelt to examine the wounded
man. The severed artery was pumping away the man’s life at an
alarming rate. He took off Rui’s belt and fashioned a tourniquet
from it. Winding it tight with a stick, Sam managed to stop the
bleeding almost immediately. Not having moved the wounded man, Sam
was unaware of the fact that Rui was lying on the pistol that he
had been carrying, tucked into the small of his back. Sam picked up
the rifle and looked at Joao. ‘You bastard. You killed one of the
biggest elephants in the Park. I thought you worked here because
you cared. You’re the lowest form of scum I’ve ever come across.
Pity you threw your AK away just now, I would gladly have killed
both of you.’

Joao was relieved to see that the rangers
were once again playing according to the rules. ‘Get stuffed. I
want a lawyer!’ he said with an insolent smirk.

Sam fought the urge to smash his face in.
‘Shut up, shithouse. It’s all the fashion to be shouting for a
lawyer these days.’

‘That’s right. You arrogant bastard, I know
my rights. You may now arrest and feed me.’ Joao said grinning.

‘Fuck off, asshole. I can have you disappear
in this bush as if you had never existed, and nobody will be any
the wiser. It won’t be the first time my crocs got rid of wiseass
poachers for me. They just love doing me a favour. So be a wise man
for once in your life and don’t antagonise me.’

Louis could hardly hide his smile. Sam’s
outburst had the desired effect. Joao’s dark skin and turned a
sickly grey as visions of the great saurians crossed his mind.

‘You get my drift, shithouse!’ Sam screamed
into his face, prodding him in the guts with the loaded
Winchester.