Nature of the Lion Read online

  She paused for a moment, giving what she had said time to sink in.

  ‘This type of collaboration between hunter and member should never happen. We feel it necessary to remind you that the rules are in place for a reason. They are there to protect the society. If the client cannot make a kill or chooses not to complete their hunt, then the penalty must be carried out immediately. Hunter #5 has been replaced, and you will meet the new hunter soon.’

  There was silence around the table.

  ‘On a more positive note, your lists of members for the next year are in the folders in front of you. We also remind you that all copies of faxes used in communications both to and from us must be destroyed after you have the information you require. Any questions?’

  Again, there was silence around the table.

  ‘Let us proceed.’

  The hunters nodded and opened their files.

  * * *

  The meeting had adjourned, and the elders had left the Hall of the Hunters. The silence in the room was shattered when Hunter #3 slammed his hand on the table. ‘Hunter #5 would never have talked. It’s a pity they eliminated the member because I want to kill him with my bare hands.’ He was a tall Icelander, his blue eyes piercing. His accent was strong, and his skin so white it was almost translucent.

  ‘Agreed,’ Douglas said, ‘but right now, we need to focus on what the council is reminding us of. There are no second chances on a hunt. Either the member kills or we eliminate the member there and then.’

  ‘Yes,’ Hunter #2 said.

  Douglas looked at her. She was a German woman who wouldn’t look out of place on a magazine cover. She’d been one of the 6th hunters since before he’d joined.

  ‘Aye,’ Hunter #6 said. The man was tall and broad, and his almost bald head had wisps of red sticking out where he had shaved it close to his skull. He had a large wiry beard to match, looking as if the hair had slid off his head and onto his chin. One could almost expect the man to wear a kilt, no matter where he was, Scotland or abroad.

  ‘Not that I needed it,’ Douglas said, ‘but consider me reminded. It would be inconvenient if I have to shoot my own clients on a hunt. Becomes bad for regular hunting business when a client gets shot, but the rules are the rules.’

  ‘They did not say they had to be shot. Any accident could happen,’ Hunter #1 said, his Brazilian accent as thick as the black hair on his head, but his English perfectly pronounced.

  ‘Every time we lose a hunter, they remind us of the rules. Each and every one of us knew what was at stake when we became 6th hunters. Losing a member isn’t good for anyone’s business reputation, so we need to protect our client, no matter what. If that means we need to help them over this decision on the hunt, then so be it,’ #2 said.

  Hunter #6 nodded his head. ‘Most of us hunt in the jungles and the wilds of the world. But #5 was a specialist in the urban environment, and she got caught there. Cornered like a rat. I think that #5’s experience was an exception and we haven’t been given all the details.’

  ‘In reality, how many failed members have we had to deal with? They know the consequences when they pay their fees. I’ve never had a client I couldn’t ease into obtaining their trophy, even if the hunt took a day or two longer. A much better outcome for all—as opposed to losing a client,’ Douglas said. ‘There is a good reason that the council recruited each of us for this job: we are professionals.’

  ‘I have not lost any,’ #2 said.

  ‘None,’ #6 said.

  ‘None,’ #3 said.

  ‘None,’ #1 said.

  ‘We must not allow this to happen again,’ Hunter #6 said. ‘I have seen the occupants of each of your chairs change. All have been good hunters, but this is the first time that I have heard of a client being responsible for an empty chair.’

  ‘Then we need to be more careful, help each other to ensure it doesn’t happen again,’ Douglas said.

  ‘Agreed,’ #6 said. ‘Anyone ever need help, or find themselves in a similar situation, let’s call on each other to sort it through as the hunters, before the executives step in.’

  The door opened, and in walked the woman in purple. All the hunters turned to look at her.

  ‘Your discussion has been interesting,’ she said.

  Douglas clenched his fists. He had always suspected that their hunters’ talk time was being monitored. He guessed nothing was actually secret or personal within the walls of the headquarters, so why wouldn’t the executives listen in on the hunters’ gathering, too?

  She sat down at the head of the table, her movement fluid, graceful, and removed her hood.

  ‘I’m sorry that Hunter #5 did not feel she could confide in the society of her change of heart. And that she did not ask for help. However, it is good to know that none of you let her down either. It is sad that she did not feel she had friends in her colleagues to call on to assist her with her problem.’ She looked around the room, taking the time to look at each hunter’s face.

  The hunters all remained silent as they stared back at her.

  She continued, ‘The society realised that in our own small way, we need to extend our relationship with the 6th Elite Hunters in this changing hunting environment. From now on, if a hunter needs help in any way, personal or professional, they only need to fax and ask. I will always be on your side, and I will do whatever it takes to help you.’

  ‘So, who do we address the fax to?’ #2 asked. ‘Until today, we have never seen your face, much less been introduced to you by name.’

  ‘You may call me Kupua,’ she said.

  ‘Kupua?’ Hunter #6 said. ‘Like the demigod monster that appears in different kinds of bodies?’

  ‘I’m impressed,’ she said, yet her eyes were steely. ‘But make no mistake; I live up to my name.’

  CHAPTER

  2

  Crocodile Bridge, Kruger Park, October 1986

  There would be no debating it’d been a harrowing night out. As the morning sun touched the tops of the Mopani trees, Nick stopped the Land Rover when Khululani tapped twice on the dashboard and pointed.

  Nick squinted through his windscreen, then grinned as he reached for his camera and climbed out. Resting it on the open door, he looked through the viewer and took a series of photographs. ‘The lack of sleep last night was worth it when we get to see Mbulala moving her cubs outside the fence line for the day again.’

  ‘Yebo,’ Khululani said as he took the binoculars out of the cubby hole and stood on the other side of the Land Rover with them pressed to his eyes. He clicked his tongue. ‘She has blood on her face; she must have joined her pride for the hunt last night.’

  ‘Look at those fat spotty bellies; they’ve obviously just finished nursing,’ Nick said, taking another photograph.

  Khululani nodded. ‘Soon these cubs will be big enough not to hide anymore, and she will stop using our workshop area and fuel drums, and we can mend the fence.’

  ‘I’ll miss photographing them here,’ Nick said. ‘We’ve built up quite a collection.’

  ‘It’s an expensive habit, your photography, having those films developed,’ Khululani said, just as one of the cubs started to pounce on their mum’s tail that flicked up and down, the only acknowledgement she showed that she knew they were being watched. Finally, she relaxed enough and began to groom herself, and then each of her cubs, washing them in the early-morning light.

  ‘It’s worth it, just look at them,’ Nick said. ‘One day there won’t be any lions left in Africa, and at least then I will have proof that I saw them in real life.’

  The lioness got up, her nose clean of blood, and slowly walked away. For a moment the cubs continued to play, then as they realised their mother was moving, they ran to catch up and fell into line behind her. They slowly headed away from the workshop, and the complications that being in close proximity to the humans could bring, back through the fence and into the bush.

  Nick stretched and put his camera on the seat. ‘Just as well,
my eyes are battling to stay open. Let’s put these tools back in the workshop, then I’ll drop you at the compound. I vote we both take today off to sleep. I think we’ve earned it.’

  * * *

  Nick was dragged out of a deep sleep by the ringing of the phone. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hey, boet. Sorry, man, it’s Dave. I need your help. There’re tourists who’ve broken down just north of the Crocodile Bridge near the Lindanda Memorial. When one of the safari vehicles drove past, they found the idiots sitting outside their vehicle. The driver told them to get inside his 4x4—or get back inside their car—till they could contact us. Anyway, they insisted they were okay, and their vehicle would be fine once it cooled down.

  ‘The driver reported it when they got into Skukuza campsite, and I sent some rangers to check them out. They found the vehicle abandoned. Those tourists have been missing for about four hours, and we need you to come and find them. I lost their tracks close to the Mozambique border.’

  Now fully awake, Nick squinted at the clock. Two pm. He’d only got to bed just before five that morning, after helping fix a ranger’s vehicle that had broken down while chasing a hippo that had raided farm lands back into the reserve, and then having to help him get the lumbering mass of blubber back where it belonged before the farmer shot it.

  He ran his hand over his stubble. ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘I owe you. I need you and your boy to find them. What idiots go walking in a national park with lions when they’re visiting a lion-attack memorial? I’ve been driving around since they were reported. I really expected to get out there, throw a tow rope and bring them into the camp.’

  ‘I’ll get Khululani, then we’ll join you.’

  ‘Do you want to know where I am?’

  ‘Lindanda Memorial, obviously. I’m sleepy, not stupid.’

  Dave chuckled. ‘Ja, boet. See ya soon.’

  Nick climbed out of bed and hit the shower. After dressing in his khakis, he nabbed a packet of chocolate Romany-cream biscuits and a couple of Cokes—he needed something in his stomach to get him going—and headed out the door, grabbing his hat on the way. He made sure both backpacks were sitting in the back of his Land Rover, and that he had fresh water in the canisters hanging on the outside. Climbing in, he opened the windows to let out the hot air trapped inside. He drove around to the workshop, looking for Khululani, who, if he was awake and at work as Nick suspected he would be, was hopefully servicing the lorry that had broken down when the men were out collecting wood from a big mopane tree that had been struck by lightning. Given that the tractor had blown something the week before, and was still being repaired, taking the lorry had seemed like a practical solution, until that had also broken down.

  He found Khululani lying under the lorry. His black legs were recognisable. Lighter than the rest of him, they held a shiny glow to the damaged skin, and were laced with a patchwork of scarring. He refused to wear the long pants of the overalls issued by the Kruger Park management. Instead, he would cut them into shorts so that they didn’t irritate him by rubbing on his scars.

  Nick didn’t have an issue with this, but some of the other senior rangers did as it made Khululani look different to the others, and because of that, he hadn’t progressed up the ranks. He’d remained a junior ranger, on a junior’s pay, despite his ability to do everything well, aside from sitting the ranger’s exams. Khululani was illiterate, and that above everything else was probably what was holding him back. Nick was working on that one, and soon they would surprise those idiots who sat in their office and thought that literacy was the most important skill in the park.

  There was so much more to being a good ranger. An overall approach was needed, or an alternate way for Khululani to take those exams.

  ‘Woza, Khululani, time to finish up here. We need to head into the park,’ Nick called out.

  The trolley under the lorry zipped out, and Nick saw the familiar wide grin on Khululani’s face, which he always wore when he was going into the bush.

  Of all the rangers, Nick knew that Khululani loved the animals and the bush with the deepest passion—as if every animal or tree belonged to him. If you took the time to listen to the older man, he’d tell you stories of the rangers in the past, and how they’d had prison gangs working to clear areas to erect the fences to keep the game inside and safe. He’d tell you of the many deurlopers that came from Mozambique to work in the gold mines of Johannesburg, and how they’d saved many of them after they’d been treed by lions—and buried what was left of the not-so-fortunate ones. Khululani’s face was creased with the years spent labouring in the hot African sunshine, and yet when he smiled, it was a face that was grateful for his full life.

  ‘You came to save me from this white man’s work and take me into the bush? Twice in twenty-four hours?’ Khululani said as he approached the Land Rover, cleaning his hands on an old rag.

  ‘Sure did. We’ve got a couple of lost tourists to find.’

  Khululani continued to grin as he walked towards the Land Rover, then gathered himself to climb into the tray at the back.

  ‘Get in the front,’ Nick said. ‘We need to talk about these idiots walking around in lion country unarmed.’

  Khululani nodded and got into the passenger seat, closing the door with a loud bang.

  Nick drove off, thinking about the friendship he experienced with Khululani. Not so long ago, he’d done everything possible to keep others at a distance. Not so surprising for someone from his background, really. Not with his useless father, and his mother’s inability to stand up to his drunken, thieving ways. Nick had been happy when the bastard had eventually abandoned them and disappeared into Africa somewhere. Nick didn’t know if he was still alive and he didn’t care. By the time he was five, he’d been smacked across the head enough times and told that cowboys didn’t cry, to know that he dared never show any emotions when his father was around, sober or drunk. His mother’s friendship with Sarah Mitchell had been his saviour in a time when a boy needed a decent role model and mentor. Mike Mitchell had been everything that Nick had wanted his father to be and more. But even Mike had let Nick down. Enoch had always been at Mike’s side, and Nick had had a deep respect for both of them, to the point that he had even rushed to enlist into the Grey’s Scouts as soon as he was of legal age to serve with them. He had put them both on a pedestal so high that when they tumbled off they had almost crushed him with their fall.

  Though guilt still ate at him for not doing more on the day Mike had been hurt, the resentment he had felt at the time had simmered close to the surface. He had chosen to leave Zimbabwe before he did something he would regret, to cut all ties and start a new life in South Africa.

  Away from the heavy burden of being let down. Away from those he’d once believed in.

  To others it had appeared that he had run from the demons of war, and the loss of his country to a man he had never even heard of before the elections. Nick had never bothered to correct them. His reasons were more personal than that. He’d walked away from a friendship that had been born in blood and trust but shattered by gold. Gold that was supposed to be the noblest of metals, but which to him represented the stain of betrayal.

  He had shied away from relationships and forming connections with others, remaining aloof and reserved. Alone. Until Khululani had saved his life. Nick had accepted the position in Kruger National Park as a chance to start again, but he hadn’t been prepared for what being back in the bush would be really like.

  Hours of alone time to think on the past, to mull over and over what had happened. But within the first week of Nick’s arrival in Kruger as a ranger, Khululani had appeared at his door after work and told him they needed to go walking in the bush together. Instead of telling Khululani to get lost, Nick had accompanied him, and then again the next day. Soon they had got into a routine. After the work was done, he wouldn’t even enter his house. Instead, he and Khululani would walk for a few hours.

  To anyone watching, Khul
ulani was teaching him the South African names of the trees and plants, and the history of the park. What Khululani had actually done was to give him a new purpose in life, to protect those animals, plants and people within the fence. A different country, a different fence, but the task was just as vital. But to Nick, even more importantly, he’d learned to love Kruger Park with the same fierce passion that Khululani did.

  ‘How’s the lorry going?’

  ‘That axle is ifela. Dead. I can’t fix this one. We need to get a new one, or newer at least. Jeremiah has a brother who works at a scrap yard in Pietersburg; he says he is sure he saw a truck just like this last time he was there. He wanted to call him tonight on the telephone if you let him.’

  ‘Sure. We need it up and running again, and we don’t have lots of money in the budget, so we must maak ’n plan.’

  Khululani nodded. ‘What about these tourists?’

  ‘We don’t have much information—two of them, disappeared early this morning,’ Nick said.

  Khululani clicked his tongue. ‘Inthunzi Zingela could have them by now. We could be looking for two dead people.’

  The Shadow Hunter, as the black people called him, was the whispered foreboding to whoever went missing around the national park area lately. No one ever saw him, but the body count of those found with bullets dug out of their heads was adding up. As far as Nick knew, the police in the area were not getting any closer to solving the mystery.

  ‘Do you know how many people have already walked over their spoor?’ Khululani asked.

  ‘Too many. Dave Muller and whoever was with him lost the tracks; they called us in.’

  ‘Always, when the other trackers give up, they call you and me. The grease monkeys do their jobs and save their bacon again.’

  ‘True. But I’d rather talk to an engine and hear it purr when it’s fixed, than have to listen to the constant chatter of the tourists; like parrots screeching in my ear.’

  Khululani laughed. ‘One day you will meet the one woman whose voice does not annoy you, and then you’ll think differently.’