Red Earth (24 page)

‘OK,' Nia replied. ‘Is he discreet?'

‘Judging by the number of affairs he's had with married women, he's very discreet.'

John flew low and fast through the night, hugging the Indian Ocean coastline. Just north of Umhlanga Rocks he turned west, inland, and Mike guided him over the hills, to Dr Boyd Qualtrough's farm.

They circled the main building, a whitewashed single-storey house with a green corrugated iron roof. In a fenced yard below Mike could see a zebra. Boyd, he could see, was still collecting orphaned or unwanted wildlife, probably without permits if he was still up to his old tricks.

‘There's an empty field up ahead,' John said. ‘I'll put down there.'

When they landed John kept the engines turning as Nia leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and Mike walked around to the pilot's side and shook his hand and thanked him. When they were sure Boyd was around – a light came on inside the house and a bare-chested man walked out – Mike and Nia helped Themba and Lerato down and John took off.

Nia carried the wriggling child in her arms.

‘What the hell?' Boyd began, walking across the grass to them on bare feet. He carried a shotgun in his hands. ‘Mike Dunn. Quite an entry, boy, almost as dramatic as the last time I saved your life.'

Mike and Boyd hugged. ‘Boyd, it's good to see you, but we're in the
kak
, big time. This is Themba. He's taken a nine-mill bullet to the shoulder. I need you to work on him.'

‘Okey dokey.' Boyd nodded to Nia. ‘Ma'am.'

‘Howzit, I'm Nia and this is Lerato. We'd really appreciate your help, Dr Qualtrough,' Nia said.

‘Never been able to refuse a pretty face, ma'am. Lerato. Come on in and let's have a look at young Themba here.'

Boyd led the way through his house, picking up a T-shirt from the sofa and shrugging it on as he walked. ‘Excuse the mess. The maid only comes once a week, and that's tomorrow. I'm in between domestic goddesses at the moment.'

Mike noted the open bottle of bourbon on the coffee table, the overflowing ashtray and the American football game on the television. Beside the whisky was a half-eaten Debonairs pizza.

Boyd opened the door on an adjoining two-car garage that had been converted into his clinic. There was an operating table, lights, a digital x-ray machine, racks of drugs and cabinets with other medical supplies. A cat miaowed from a cage on the wall and a grey-headed parrot called, ‘Hello.'

Boyd's hair had thinned a little since Mike had last seen him, just before Boyd had been kicked out of Botswana for mouthing off about crime and poaching. Mike wasn't sure what else the vet may have done to get the government offside, but it had been enough.

Mike and Nia helped Themba up onto the table.

‘There's a bathroom out back, if you need it,' Boyd said to Lerato. ‘I think from a certain odour I'm detecting that your baby might need changing.'

‘He's not my baby,' Lerato said, ‘but if I could get a hand towel or something that would be great.'

‘I'll help, Lerato,' Nia said.

‘It's OK,' Lerato said to Nia, ‘you stay and watch over Themba.'

Boyd washed his hands, put on rubber gloves and laid out an array of surgical instruments, gauzes and dressings. He cut away the bandage and lifted the dressing from Themba's gunshot wound.

‘Can you wiggle your fingers, then make a fist for me, Themba?'

Themba winced, but was able to do as the vet had asked. ‘It hurts.'

‘I'm not surprised.' Boyd drew up a syringe. ‘You were lucky, Themba, the bullet missed your vital organs and there doesn't seem to be too much damage. I'm going to give you an anaesthetic for the pain and we'll get that slug out of you.'

‘You're a real doctor?'

‘Well, none of my patients ever complained, at least not the four-legged ones.' He looked to Nia. ‘Want to scrub in? Old Bird Man here nearly passed out last time I stitched him up.'

Mike grimaced. ‘It's true. I don't like watching this kind of stuff.'

‘I'm happy to,' Nia said. She went to the sink and washed her hands and put on a pair of gloves.

Relieved, Mike stepped back to the wall of the home surgery and looked away as Boyd injected Themba.

‘How long have you been in Africa?' Nia asked.

Mike had heard Boyd's story, which he related to Nia. At fifty-five he'd had a midlife crisis and left his wife, not for another woman but for a new continent. Boyd had, somewhat ironically given his profession, been a big game hunter. He'd travelled to Africa a dozen or more times to shoot antelope and buffalo and like many foreigners had become addicted to the place. When his marriage had gone sour he'd sold his lucrative practice in Florida, cashed in his share of the business and his home and moved to Botswana.

‘I worked as a voluntary wildlife vet there,' Boyd told Nia as he waited for the anaesthetic to take effect on Themba and had her apply a compress to the wound to staunch the flow of blood. ‘The Botswana Government even made me an honorary ranger for a time, but I'm an opinionated, loud-mouthed, arrogant SOB and the locals didn't take kindly to me telling it like it was, and how I thought it should be.'

‘You seem quite meek and mild to me,' Nia said as she swapped the pads on Themba's wound, ‘not at all like most Americans I've met.'

Boyd laughed. ‘You got yourself a pistol here, Mikey boy.'

‘She's not mine,' Mike said, at the precise moment that Nia confirmed, ‘I'm not his.'

‘Snap. Well, you two would make a hell of a power couple, except Nia here's a better nurse. Just saying. Time to operate.' Boyd held out a hand. ‘Nurse, scalpel.'

Nia frowned, but found the knife.

What Boyd hadn't mentioned to Nia, not that he would, was that his health had been deteriorating. Mike knew Boyd had been suffering from pancreatitis but his condition seemed to have worsened since the last time he had seen him. He had lost a good deal of weight.

‘Just a minute, Boyd,' Mike said.

‘What is it?'

‘Do you microchip dogs and cats?'

Boyd looked at him, eyebrows raised. ‘I do. I'm going out backwards here, people don't have enough money to look after their pets, but some of them spring for a microchip with their phone numbers on it. Why?'

‘I need a reader.'

‘Should I ask what for?'

‘No.'

‘OK, well, you help yourself – the reader's in the steel cabinet over there in the corner, and if you don't mind I'll take the bullet out of our young friend here. Sit tight, Themba. Won't take a minute.'

Mike went to the cupboard, pleased to be away from the sight of Boyd cutting Themba's skin and delving into the gunshot wound. He found the reading device, turned it over in his hands a couple of times, and located the on–off switch.

He left the makeshift operating room and went back into the house. He found Lerato in the bathroom, where she was patting the baby dry and dressing him.

Lerato looked up at him. ‘He's all better now. It's amazing how strong he is, for someone so little.'

‘Kids are tough. You and Themba are tough.'

‘How is he?'

‘He's in good hands with Boyd.'

‘That man looks like an old drunk.'

‘His heart's in the right place. I need to check the baby.'

She pointed to the reading device. ‘With that?'

Mike nodded.

‘He's not something in a supermarket with a barcode, you know.'

‘I know, Lerato. He's a tiny human being who doesn't deserve to be mixed up in this
kak
any more than you and Themba do, or Nia and me for that matter, but we've got him and we need to know why people are prepared to kill for whatever has been put inside him.'

‘OK. But let me hold him.'

Lerato picked up the baby, cradling him, and slid down his T-shirt so that the soft skin on the back of his neck was visible. Mike pointed the reading device at it and pulled the trigger. The reader bleeped.

Mike looked at the screen.

‘What is it?' Lerato asked, rocking the child gently.

‘Numbers. A long one, starting with the letters “CH”, and a shorter one, six digits.' Mike wondered if he should write them down, but then had a better idea. He took out his phone, selected contacts and added two new names, old girlfriends he hadn't seen for years. He split the numbers on the reader into two, each the length of cell phone numbers, and added ‘+27', the international dialling code for South Africa, in front of them.

‘What do they mean?'

‘I don't know,' Mike said, honestly. ‘Let's go through and check on Themba.'

They went to the garage operating theatre where Boyd was finishing off, with Nia snipping the last suture.

‘Good work,' Boyd said to Nia.

‘Thank you, Doctor. That was fascinating.'

Themba was conscious, but his eyelids were heavy.

‘How's he doing?' Mike asked.

‘He'll live, but he's lost a lot of blood. I'm going to rig up a saline drip for him. He needs to rest for a few hours.'

‘Boyd, thank you, but we need to get moving again,' Mike said.

‘Well I say this young man needs to rest a few hours.'

‘I'm beat as well, Mike, and so is Lerato,' Nia said.

‘I've got three guest bedrooms,' Boyd said. ‘Won't take but a minute to make them up.'

Mike looked to Nia, who nodded. ‘OK, thanks, but we've got to find a way to get moving first thing tomorrow.'

Nia said, ‘I've got my car at Umhlanga.'

‘You can take my
bakkie
,' Boyd offered. ‘It's only a single cab in any case. The kids'll be safe here with me until you get back.'

Mike looked to Lerato.

‘I'm sick of moving,' she said. ‘I just want to sleep indoors. I'll take care of the baby.'

‘All right,' Mike said.

Boyd reheated some leftover lasagne for them and Mike, Nia and Lerato ate, too numbed to converse over dinner.

Mike and Nia helped Boyd make up the beds. The spare rooms and the linen smelled musty, as if they were rarely used. While they were making Lerato's bed Boyd winced and stood, placing his hand on his belly.

‘You OK?' Mike asked.

Boyd gave a small shake of his head. ‘It's the pancreas. Nothing's worked. I'm on the way out, it's cancer, buddy.'

‘Boyd, I'm so sorry.'

He shrugged. ‘Hell, I've had a pretty good time of it, the last shitty year notwithstanding. I always figured I'd die in Africa, but I hoped it would be in different circumstances.'

‘Is there anything you can do?'

‘My doctor told me to give up the booze and cigars, but what's the point in that? Moderation's for monks.'

‘Thanks for this. You haven't even asked what it's all about,' Mike said.

‘Well, you're a friend in need and I won't ever forget how you came and visited me in prison in Botswana before I was deported, how you brought me food and stuff to read.'

‘That was the least I could do for you. I'm just sorry things didn't work out for you there.'

‘TIA, buddy.'

Their situation couldn't just be written off as ‘this is Africa', Mike thought. It was far worse than that.

Lerato wanted to keep the baby with her, so Boyd put her in a room with two single beds and pushed the baby's close to her. Lerato rolled some towels to prop around the baby and keep him from falling out of the bed. Mike and Nia said goodnight to the girl and went out into the corridor.

‘I'll leave you to it,' Boyd said, and while Nia was looking away Boyd gave Mike a wink.

Mike would have laughed if he hadn't been so exhausted. Still, he lingered in the hallway when he and Nia reached their rooms, which were opposite each other.

‘Well, goodnight,' he said.

She stood there, with her hand on the door knob, also waiting. ‘Yes, goodnight. It's been quite a couple of days.'

‘Yes, it has.' He couldn't think of anything else to say. However, he had an overwhelming desire to be with her, not sexually, but just close to her. He wondered if he was just feeling protective.

‘I'll be OK, you know,' she said.

She was prickly and forthright, but her words didn't sound like a recrimination. ‘I know that. But sometimes it's good to know we've got somebody else looking out for us.'

Nia smiled. ‘I'll look out for you. Are you OK?'

Boyd had cleaned and bandaged the cut on Mike's hand after he had finished operating on Themba, and the pain from the lump on the back of Mike's head had been downgraded to a dull throb. Mike sensed, however, that Nia was asking him about more than his physical injuries. ‘I should have shot Egil Paulsen on sight. That way we could have all got away quicker, before the Americans arrived.'

She reached out and put a hand on his forearm. ‘You couldn't kill a man in cold blood, not after what happened to you when you were younger. You weren't to know Paulsen was going to try something.'

‘No, but I should have guessed he would. Thank you for saving my life,' he said.

‘It was a pleasure. I'm glad I killed him, he was evil, but I wouldn't have executed him if he hadn't tried anything. Don't beat yourself up for being a good guy, Mike Dunn. There are damn few of you around. Trust me, I know.'

Mike looked into Nia's eyes. She moved, slightly, leaning closer to him. Mike's phone rang. ‘Sorry.' He took it out of his pocket and showed Nia the screen. It was Jed Banks.

‘Jed.'

‘Mike.'

‘You got a trace on me, Jed? If so I'm hanging up.'

‘You need to work on your tradecraft, buddy. This is the digital age. If I had a trace on you I'd have you already. No, I'm stuck in Mkhuze goddamned national park waiting for these Navy squids to fix their helicopter. Where are you?'