Nature of the Lion Read online

  ‘Not likely.’ But, an image of a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl surfaced in his mind. He blinked and shook away the memory.

  ‘Did you pack the water?’ Khululani asked, still smiling.

  ‘Don’t ask stupid questions.’

  The Land Rover always had jerry cans of spare diesel and water. Along with his shotgun and hunting rifle, and enough ammo to bring down a small herd of buffalo if needed, his emergency backpack was always ready for days just like this, when he’d be out looking for tourists and could end up spending the night out. He’d rather be prepared than end up in the bush at night with no provisions.

  Khululani had once told him a story about a man who’d been driven mad with thirst and chewed on a tree for moisture, as he’d seen the bushmen do. Only he didn’t know the plants of the area—the sap had been poisonous and caused hallucinations. He’d thought that the buffalo around him weren’t real and had tried to pat them on the hindquarters, to tell them they were no trouble to him. He didn’t remember them attacking him, or the men who’d found him a day later lying battered and trampled in the veld. Nick was always doubly cautious about the water after hearing that story.

  On arriving at the memorial, they chatted briefly to the other ranger, then got to work. Nick handed Khululani a .303 rifle, and he took the other one from the cab of his Land Rover. He’d trusted his life to the accuracy that Khululani had with a rifle more than once while walking in lion country.

  Nick’s tracking skills were good—having practically grown up on Mike’s farm in Zimbabwe and hunted for the pot from an early age—but Khululani’s were much better. It might’ve been the twenty-nine years’ more experience he had on Nick, but the man could find the proverbial mouse in the haystack. Together, they’d become well known for finding lost people inside the Kruger.

  They circled around.

  ‘Here,’ Khululani said, pointing out the heel imprint in the sand. ‘And here. A smaller print. The woman.’

  Nick nodded.

  ‘That way, towards Mozambique.’

  They headed into the bush. He could see where the other rangers had lost the spoor and turned back.

  ‘Here. This is where they went wrong. Now we look together,’ Khululani said and they changed from single file to walking abreast a few metres apart.

  Only a little way further, Khululani said, ‘Two walked this way, one on each side of the dirt road, in the track indentations made by the vehicles. Here, they walked into the pack of lions. The tourists ran that way.’ He pointed. ‘Into the bush.’

  ‘The lions didn’t give chase,’ Nick said, reading the tracks in the sand.

  Khululani laughed. ‘Perhaps they were too surprised by two people walking into their dining room while they were eating,’ he said as he pointed to the fresh zebra carcass.

  The carcass was barely bones; a brown hyena crunched on the cartilage in a rib cage, and a few vultures hopped around, their necks still bloody from the feast they’d enjoyed, bellies too full to allow them to take to the skies.

  ‘I wonder what’s moved the lions on?’ Nick asked. ‘They should be here defending their kill so they can eat again.’

  Khululani took his floppy jungle hat from his head and wiped his brow with it. ‘Eish, keep an extra eye out.’

  This was where the footprints became faint and harder to follow, once they’d plunged into the veld. Knob-thorn trees dominated the area which had obviously received good rains, as it was lush, green and well grown.

  ‘They have several hours on us,’ Nick said as he took a small swig from his water bottle, the heat of the day still burning down on them.

  ‘They are scared. They tread softly, not sure where to put their feet. We will catch them quickly. Maybe before the next pride of lions,’ Khululani said.

  ‘They’ve turned again and headed south here,’ Nick said.

  Khululani nodded. ‘Perhaps they have found the river and will follow it, hoping that it joins the Orpen Dam.’

  ‘We can hope they headed for water; perhaps they will wait in the shade, or find a decent tree to climb and wait for us,’ Nick said.

  ‘I will not put my money on them waiting,’ Khululani said. ‘My hope is only that when we find them, they are still alive, and we are not the ones having to see inside their heads. Look—there are other tracks; they might be being followed. I cannot be sure as they crossed the tracks. Two people, one carries something heavy, and is tired, the other walks easier. They are both still fresh. We will need to watch if they cross again, or if they fall in behind the tourists.’

  ‘You think it could be the Inthunzi Zingela?’

  Khululani shrugged his shoulders. ‘I do not know, but there are others walking in the park, and that is never good.’

  They tracked southwards, and too soon dusk was upon them.

  Nick spoke into his radio. ‘Dave, come in.’

  ‘Nick.’

  ‘We followed their prints a lot further than your team, but we still have no visual. We’re going to stop for a while and see if they light a fire,’ Nick said.

  ‘Okay, we’ll camp at Tshokwane,’ Dave said.

  ‘There’s another set of footprints crossing theirs, coming from the Mozambique side. Might check those out once we have the tourists.’

  ‘Damn it. I’ll let headquarters know. Chances are it’s poachers, but it could be the Shadow Hunter.’

  ‘Don’t even jinx us with thinking that. We haven’t found a body inside the park, they’ve all been on the perimeter. It’s going to be really dark out here, and he’s the last thing we need to be thinking about.’

  ‘Ja, boet. Take care out there. Goes without saying that if they walk into camp, let me know.’

  Nick smiled. ‘Khululani and I like nights out in the open in the middle of summer with all the mosquitoes as much as you love losing tourists.’

  ‘Aren’t you the funny one,’ Dave said, then ended the transmission.

  * * *

  The sky was alight with a million stars, but storm clouds threatened in the distance. Lightning flashed, and the world shuddered at its ferocity. Nick watched Khululani climb up a big knob tree, as high up as the branches would hold his weight.

  ‘I can see a fire—don’t know if it is deurlopers or tourists—about two kilometres south of us.’

  ‘Hopefully it’s the tourists. You up for the night walk?’ Nick asked.

  ‘As long as we are armed and they are not, we do not have a choice, do we?’ Khululani said.

  ‘Guess not. Come on, get down from there and if we’re lucky we’ll get to them before the rain hits.’

  Amazed at how agile Khululani remained, Nick watched him descend the tree faster than what he’d climbed it. They walked in silence, listening to the night sounds of the bush, where crickets chirped, cicadas screamed their never-ending serenade, and the frogs joined in the night chorus. The deep hoot-hoot of an eagle-owl sounded as he voiced his disapproval at the men; their eyes strained to see him in the branches of a nearby tree.

  ‘Maywe, Nkhunsi,’ Khululani warned.

  Nick had heard this often: an owl being a messenger of death from an evil person. ‘Don’t go all superstitious on me,’ he told Khululani. ‘We could see their fire, they’re alive. We’ve watched many eagle-owls without dying.’

  ‘You know the Shangaan belief. There is death coming …’

  Nick knew when Khululani got his mind set on something, he wouldn’t let it go. ‘Let’s pick up the pace and make sure it’s not our tourists and it’s not tonight, then.’

  They only had to stop once for a large herd of buffalo to pass by, but the herd seemed to have a destination to reach before the rains came too, so they weren’t delayed for long.

  They came up a small incline and could see the fire clearly. Anyone covert wouldn’t have had a fire. Poachers wouldn’t build a fire at all. Deurlopers might have tried for a smaller one. Tourists build theirs big, having no idea that a rhino would try to put it out for them during the ni
ght.

  ‘Smell that?’ Khululani asked, sniffing loudly.

  ‘Just the smoke.’

  ‘In the smoke. Tamboti. Cover your mouth and nose,’ he warned as he pulled his hankie from his pocket and tied the knot behind his head.

  They heard the vomiting of the tourists before they saw them, standing side by side with the toxic fumes from the wood washing over them as they continued to stay as near to the fire as they could.

  ‘Good to see you two are alive,’ Nick said, ‘we’ve been looking for you all afternoon. I’m Nick, and this is Khululani. First thing we need to do is sort out your toxic fire.’

  They began pulling the logs off the fire and throwing sand onto them to stop them from burning any further, smothering the flames and ending the poisonous smoke. Nick then threw on pieces that were safe to burn.

  The woman sat down where she was and sobbed while continuing to sporadically throw up.

  ‘I’m Herbie, and this is Floss. Thank God you found us.’

  Nick took a bottle of water from his pack and handed it to the tourists. ‘Sip it slowly.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Herbie said and gave it to Floss first.

  Nick smiled. They’d be alright.

  When the fire was banked and casting a warm light, the tourists sat huddled together, sipping at the water. There was nothing Nick could do for them to help with the nausea; their own bodies needed to fight the poison. Herbie had commented that he was dizzy.

  ‘It’s one of the effects of burning Tamboti,’ Nick told him. ‘Just sit there and rest. It’ll start to clear out of your system now that the smoke’s gone.’

  They heard a distinctive whoop-whoop of a brown hyena close by, and the serenade of the night animals continued. A far-off cry of a jackal had Floss snuggling tighter into Herbie as the fire popped and crackled, sending sparks high into the sky and lighting up the small group around it.

  Nick got on the CB radio. ‘Dave, we have them.’ He explained where they were and about the Tamboti intoxication. ‘They should be okay by morning and we’ll walk them out. Think it best if we just camp here for the night.’

  ‘Lekker, boet. See you at sunrise,’ Dave said.

  After putting away the radio, Nick looked around the spot where they would be camping. There was no natural shelter from the rain coming, but at least the ground was almost flat. Khululani and Nick set up their small two-man tents and threw Nick’s sleeping bag into the one that Herbie and Floss would use. It would depend on the rain if Nick and Khululani even bothered getting into theirs. Although they were both tired from the previous night’s excursion, they would take turns to stay awake, on guard, against any predators approaching the camp.

  Nick stepped away from the fire and shared the food out onto the two plates. He passed one to Herbie. ‘You need to try to eat. That is for both of you.’

  ‘What is it?’ Floss asked.

  ‘Smash—a rehydrated powdered potato with a bully-beef topping. Think of it as bangers and mash with a bush twist.’

  Floss pulled a face.

  ‘You have nothing in your stomach. Your body needs some food to enable you to walk out of here tomorrow. It’s a long way back to our bakkie. You’ll need the energy.’

  Floss took the fork and tasted it. ‘It’s not too bad.’

  Herbie took the fork. ‘Not bad at all.’ He started to load it into his mouth.

  ‘Slowly,’ Khululani warned. ‘You need to eat slowly, or it will come back up again.’

  Herbie nodded. ‘Tell you what, when we’re back in camp, I’ll buy you two a proper meal of bangers and mash to say thank you.’

  ‘Deal,’ Nick said.

  Khululani was making the tea while they ate. ‘Drink this,’ he said, putting a mug next to each of them. He’d left the teabags in to make it extra strong, and added lots of sugar along with the powdered milk. Khululani’s one vice was that they always carried powdered milk when they went out. Nick had become accustomed to seeing him eat his from the packet.

  After dinner, the tourists disappeared into a tent, and soon they could hear Herbie snoring. Khululani and Nick continued to sit on their packs, in front of the low fire, late into the night. When the thunder, lightning and cool rain drenched the camp and put out the fire, the rangers took turns being on watch during the night.

  After all, in lion country, you slept with one eye open, or you died.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, November 1986

  ‘Get your kaffir driver to park in the road next time,’ Meneer Botha shouted, adding to his already foul monologue of where and what he thought black people should and shouldn’t be allowed to do. ‘Next, he’ll be thinking he can sit at your table and eat like a civilised human, too, just because he knows how to drive.’

  ‘Ignore that racist bastard,’ Chloe said quietly. ‘Don’t react.’

  Enoch opened the passenger door, and she got in. He walked around and climbed in the other side, shook the umbrella and put it against the door.

  Huge raindrops shattered on the windscreen as the thunder crashed overhead. Chloe shook the tiny bit of rain from her hair as a dog would from its coat.

  ‘You sure you have everything? Nothing left behind?’ Enoch asked.

  ‘I’ve got everything, although I’m happy to be leaving that racist pig behind.’ Chloe looked at the building which had been her share house at Pietermaritzburg University for the past three years—it hadn’t changed since she’d enrolled for her Bachelor of Commerce degree, and she was pretty sure it would look exactly the same when she came back next year to start her honours. The yellow briar roses bloomed across the front of the building, a pretty touch to the Dutch Gable residence she had been assigned to by the university.

  ‘Come on, let us go home.’ Enoch started the bakkie, and a loud backfire and belch of black smoke came from the exhaust, but he didn’t put it into gear.

  Chloe groaned. ‘Still not fixed?’

  ‘Not yet. I try—but we need a new vehicle, not a fix.’

  ‘Wish it wasn’t so low down on the list. At least we won’t have to pay accommodation fees for three months.’

  ‘Truly. It will be good to have you home for a while.’

  ‘Home …’ Chloe sighed. ‘How is he today?’

  ‘He was alright when I left this morning.’

  ‘Only because you guys are there with him all the time.’

  ‘True. On Wednesday, he had a bad turn while we were out. Ethel tried her best, but she could not stop him hitting his head on the floor when he fell. It took us hours to calm him down when we got home. Unfortunately, he had to get stitches again.’

  Chloe shook her head. ‘What would I do without you guys there to watch over him?’

  ‘I will always be there for you and your dad; you know that. Besides, in one more year you will have an honours degree, and then you can get a good-paying job.’

  ‘I know, but I still feel bad having to leave Dad with you so much. I can’t thank you enough for always being there for us.’ She reached over and squeezed his arm. ‘I worry that I’ll forget what Mum and Dad were like.’ She didn’t elaborate that what terrified her was not remembering how kind her dad used to be, and how—after her parents had read her a bedtime story—her dad would tuck her into her bed so tightly she could hardly breathe, and he’d smother her with kisses, knowing that she couldn’t stop him.

  Enoch smiled. ‘I remember when he would ride with you doubled up on his saddle, on Diablo or Maria. Not because you could not ride, but just so that you were together.’

  ‘And on the tractor,’ Chloe said, ‘ploughing rows and rows of straight lines, and then when the beans had started growing, we’d spend hours watching the herds of impala and kudu that fed on them. Ah, man, I’m remembering aeons of time on the old Massey Ferguson.’

  ‘You see. You are not forgetting. It is all there in your head, and in your heart.’

  She smiled. ‘Sometimes I still see Dad as
he was before the accident.’

  ‘He is in there. Yesterday I told him I was fetching you, and this morning he went into the garden where he picked a rose from the bush for you. Ethel found him in the kitchen, shredded by the thorns—it took her some time to get him cleaned up.’

  ‘He’s getting good at giving her the slip.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

  After her father had been injured, he had changed. At first, they’d thought that he only had a head injury, but it had turned out that he’d also suffered spinal damage. A combination that had left him with a confused mind and trapped inside a body that would often not obey him, especially on his left side where he had limited movement.

  He had difficulty concentrating for any length of time, and while his long-term memory was fine, he had shown minimal capacity to process anything that had happened after the incident. Most days he struggled to remember if he’d eaten lunch. He’d lost nearly all ability to speak and needed assistance with almost all his day-to-day activities. In older times, people would have said he’d become ‘simple’.

  The doctors had said he was suffering from cognitive impairments due to the severe brain injury, and a spinal cord injury at the C5 vertebra. They’d warned Chloe of the possible change in his behaviour once the swelling in his brain went down, that he might become increasingly aggressive. That if his voice returned, he might become very vocal, yell and swear, and possibly possess an explosive anger. Or that he might retreat totally into himself, completely withdrawn from the world. There had also been multiple warnings about his spinal injury, that his breathing would always be weak. The paralysis on his left side might improve, and he may regain some of the movement in his arm, and perhaps bend his elbow, but more mobility on that side was unlikely.

  When she’d travelled down to South Africa, she’d employed a nurse, who had taken care of her father’s everyday needs twenty-four hours a day. Chloe had shared that responsibility with her while they checked with doctors in Johannesburg, and then Cape Town to see if there was any hope for rehabilitation. At just sixteen years old, she’d had to switch places with her father; she had become his guardian and carer.