Poacher (14 page)

‘My goodness, but we are going on some
expedition,’ Linda remarked, watching all the preparations.

‘Something you learn very early in this neck
of the woods is to make sure your equipment is in good shape before
you venture out into the bush, especially at night. When things
start to go wrong, they tend to go horribly wrong.’

When they were completely out of sight of the
Nwanetzi rest camp Sam stopped and showed her how to operate the
spotlight, after removing the red filter from the lens.

‘What is the filter in aid of?’ she
asked.

‘We use that when observing carnivores at
close range. The 300,000 candle power of the spotlight bothers the
sensitive eyes of the night hunters, and the red filter not only
weakens the intensity of the light, but it alters the wavelength as
well, making the light invisible to them.’

‘Very ingenious. Do you think we will see
some lions tonight?’

‘You can bet that magnificent little backside
of yours on it. Personal friend of mine by the name of N’gonyama
has agreed to trot out his whole family and lay on a little
something very special just for you.’

‘N’gonyama?’

‘That’s what the Shangaans call a lion.’

‘Beautiful. Let’s get to them.

‘Swim first?’

‘Lions first, please?’

‘Anything that will make you happy,’ he said,
driving off.

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek
lightly. ‘You make me happy.’

Before turning onto the fire break they
encountered a civet cat and several herds of impala, and a few
kilometres along the fire break the spotlight picked up a grey
colossus barring their way.

‘White rhino with her calf,’ Sam informed
her. ‘Switch off the spot, quick!’ Sam switched off the truck’s
lights as well.

Linda apprehensively regarded the massive
animal cantering along under the full moon like an overweight
ballerina. ‘Aren’t we a bit too close?’ she asked
uncomfortably.

‘White rhinos are not aggressive unless they
feel threatened. If this were a black rhino it most probably would
have stuck its horn into the radiator right up to the exhaust by
now. Just don’t shine a bright light into their eyes at night – it
confuses them, and they may just try to flee right through
you.’

‘How do you tell the difference between a
black and white rhino? Surely you can’t distinguish shades of
colouring with any certainty in this light.’

‘Contrary to popular belief, the
distinction’s got nothing to do with colour. The colour of a rhino
depends on the type of mud where he took his last bath. In general
the black rhino is slightly smaller that the white, but that’s not
a very safe criterion. The black one carries its head higher, and
look, this calf is running behind its mother. With the black rhino
the calf always runs in front. Nobody knows why. Let’s slow down
and see if they’ll turn around.’

They did, and Linda, observing the business
end of the cow, felt like getting out in search of a high tree.

‘Her upper lip is square because she is a
grazer,’ Sam pointed out. ‘By that I mean she’s a grass eater. The
black rhino hat pouted upper lips, being a browser. In other words
its diet consists of leaves, and the pouted lip enables it to strip
the leaves from the twigs.’

‘Thanks for the very interesting lecture,
professor, but how the hell do we get past this lot without ending
up looking like kebabs?’

‘Easy,’ Sam said, engaging first gear and
driving past the rhinos slowly. The cow tossed her head once and
disappeared into the bush, closely followed by the calf.

‘Phew, I think I will have one of your cold
beers if you don’t mind.’

‘What a precious thought,’ Sam said and
stopped. He got two Castles from the cool box on the back of the
pickup and they drove on, Linda scanning the bush avidly with the
spotlight.

When they got to the spot where the elephant
trail crossed the fire break, Sam got out and engaged the freewheel
hubs on the front wheels, ‘We’re now going to do a bit of bundu
bashing, and if we do get stuck we can switch to four-wheel drive
without having to get out,’ he explained. ‘Another beer?’

‘No thanks. This one will last a while
longer.’

He took one for himself and turned off the
fire break into the bush. The going was slow and rough, with
branches screeching along the body and Sam often having to reverse
to look for an opening in the bush.

‘Good grief, where are we going? I must tell
you, I’m glad I am with you. If you left me here I would never find
my way back in a million years.’

‘Don’t worry about it. It takes a couple of
years to stop getting lost in the bush.’

A short distance further and they encountered
the first hyena, testing the breeze excitedly with his nose in the
air. In the distance the cacophony of feeding animals could be
heard faintly. Sam stopped again and clipped the filter onto the
light.

‘How did you know where to find the
lions?’

‘That’s not a lion, dear, it’s a hyena,’ Sam
said mockingly.

She aimed a backhand at him. ‘I may be
intimidated by a prehistoric animal with a two foot horn at the
business end, but I do know the difference between a lion and a
hyena.’

Sam was still telling her about the kill,
when the headlights picked up fifteen pairs of eyes, bobbing and
weaving about. He drove the Toyota to within a few yards of the
carcass, as Linda pulled her arm holding the spotlight into the cab
and rolled up her window.

It was her turn to sound condescending.
‘Seems to me your friend has forgotten about the appointment.’ Some
fifteen hyenas were bustling and shoving to get at any part of the
soft intestines that might still be available. The whole body
cavity of the giraffe had been opened by the lions, and a couple of
hyenas were more than halfway into the chest cavity, their muffled
snarls actually emanating from inside the giraffe.

‘They won’t stay away long. We are about
three kilometres from the water, which is where they’ve gone. The
lions most probably ate themselves into a stupor this morning,
slept at the carcass most of the day, and have now gone for a
drink. But sit tight. Watch the scrap when they catch these guys
raiding their dinner table. Don’t be fooled by the tales that a
hyena is an utter coward. If they outnumber the lions by a
comfortable margin and when they are hungry, they are quite capable
of chasing lions away from a kill and taking over. But unless this
lot gets reinforcements very soon, they are going to be forced into
a tactical withdrawal.’

Sam had the spotlight now, and the whole
gruesome scene was bathed in the diffused red light of the
carnivore filter.

Linda shuddered as she looked at the
blood-smeared animals gorging themselves in a frenzied orgy of
feeding and fighting. Occasionally one would dislodge a strip of
meat too large to be swallowed in one go, and he would back away
with it, only to be pounced upon immediately by his companions,
vying for part of the spoils and complaining at the tops of their
voices.

At times it actually appeared as if two
hyenas started swallowing the same piece of meat from either side,
tearing it off as their noses touched.

‘Disgusting table manners,’ Linda
observed.

‘They always carry on like this, but tonight
they’re more in a hurry than usual. They know the lions are due
back at any moment, and then it’s going to be a long time before
the lions leave the carcass again. Most of the time the lions go to
the water in relays, but I suppose N’gonyama reckoned the hyenas
wouldn’t make much of a dent in a carcass this size during his
absence.’

‘I’ve been told that hyenas are of common
gender?’ she wanted to know.

‘Not even an expert can tell the difference
between sexes without physically examining the animal, although the
females tend to be slightly bigger than the males. But in mammals
there’s no such thing as being of common gender. That, thank God,
is limited to some of the lower life forms like earthworms. What
causes the confusion is the fact that the sex organs of males and
females look exactly alike externally, and at a glance you would
classify all hyenas as male. However, judging by the rate at which
they multiply they seem to have licked the problem, as it
were.’

She was still giggling at the innuendo when
all hell suddenly broke loose. With a bloodcurdling roar the big
lion was amongst the hyenas, both front feet off the ground and
swiping at everything in the vicinity. Close on his heels two
lionesses also charged into the mêlée roaring and coughing. Hyenas
were making somersaults in their haste to get away from the yellow
furies creating havoc in their midst. One of the hyenas experienced
some difficulty in backing out of the rib cage, and it appeared as
if he (or she?) intended taking along something for the road. A
glancing blow by N’gonyama broke its back, and as the hyena was
frantically trying to drag itself off by the front legs, a young
male bowled it over and killed it instantly, crushing the vertebrae
directly behind the skull. This had taken place a short distance
away from the rest of the pride, who were all standing around the
carcass, panting and snarling. Four hyenas were immediately onto
the young lion, and with a startled roar he promptly rejoined the
rest.

‘Good lord,’ Linda whispered,
awestricken.

‘You said it. When my old friend promises to
put in an appearance, he does so with a vengeance. Quite
devastating, aren’t they?’

The lions settled down to their feeding,
occasionally lifting their heads and snarling at the hyenas,
continuously circling and kicking up a tremendous row.

After observing the lions for some time, Sam
suggested a swim.

‘If we don’t get moving soon, we will be
swimming in the truck. And I don’t think this is the ideal spot to
get out to answer the call of mother nature. Let’s move.’

‘Also,’ Sam observed, ‘there is the matter of
the beer in the back. Trying to get one now could get a person
recycled,’

Once on the fire break they relieved
themselves and opened fresh beers. ‘Thank you, Sam, that was
beautiful. Your macho friend and family could not have put up a
better show even if they rehearsed it. It was spectacular.’

Arriving at the reservoir Sam circled it
once, scanning the area with the spotlight, before parking right up
against the nine foot concrete wall of the dam. These reservoirs
were built throughout the Park in areas where permanent water was
scarce. A borehole was sunk and a windmill erected. The water was
then pumped into the reservoir, which is basically a round concrete
dam built on top of the ground, so that there was no danger of
animals drowning in the sheer-sided waterhole.

From this reservoir water was let out through
a ball valve into a drinking crib some distance away from the
reservoir. With the Parks Board’s typical attention to detail, a
lot of work had gone into the design of these cribs. They had to be
at ground level to make them as natural as possible, and it took a
lot of experimenting to come up with an acceptable crib that
resisted the attempts of elephants to convert them into mud
wallows.

They shed their clothes on the back of the
truck, and Sam was first to climb onto the roof of the cab and dive
in. The water was lukewarm, but nevertheless refreshing. He swam to
the other side and turned around, hanging onto the wall with one
hand. Linda was standing on the wall, her beer still in her hand.
The white light of the full moon contrasted her starkly against the
darker background of the trees behind her, accentuating her
magnificent body. The nipples on her high, firm breasts were teased
into full bloom by the slight breeze pushing in from the distant
Mozambique channel, and the dark triangle covering her mons looked
like part of a minute tanga in the eerie light.

‘You are the most beautiful woman God has
ever created,’ Sam whispered hoarsely, his voice carrying clearly
over the now still water.

She stood for a moment longer, looking
straight into his eyes. Had the light been better, the expression
in her eyes might have warned him. ‘And what you see is what you
get,’ she said before dropping the empty can onto the back of the
truck and diving . . .

Chapter Seven

‘We are experiencing a slight problem with
the Veterinary Services about the outbreak of anthrax in the Satara
division, and I am flying down tomorrow morning at six, coming back
Sunday. Want to come along?’ Dr. Fisher looked at his beautiful
daughter across the dinner table fondly.

‘Oh, dad! Beautiful!’ Estelle jumped up and
hugged him. A worried frown crossed her face. ‘But Comair flights
are always full over weekends. Will you still be able to get me on
the plane too?’

‘Done. We’re flying to Phalaborwa airport,
where an Avis car has also been booked. You can drop me off at
Satara and drive on to Nwanetzi for the day.’

‘Lovely. Are you also coming through when
your things have been sorted out?’

‘No, I haven’t the faintest idea how long our
discussions are going to take, so I don’t think we will be staying
with Sam this time. The guest house in Satara is reserved for us.’
He was hoping that she would not notice his discomfort. Mrs Fisher
appeared to be totally engrossed with her dinner, not paying any
attention to the conversation. Beneath the surface, however, she
was seething.

Earlier in the week Dr. Fisher had received a
visit from Smitty. What he had assumed was just a courtesy call had
turned out to be the beginning of a nightmare. He could still
recall the conversation vividly, and shuddered as he once more
thought about the possible consequences of his actions.

‘Dr. Fisher,’ Smitty had started immediately
when he was shown into the sumptuous office. ‘What I am about to
tell you is going to upset you greatly, and inevitably a lot of
people are going to get hurt by it. I have done a lot of
introspection before coming to talk to you. The honest conclusions
I’ve come to is that my reasons are mainly selfish, but on the
other hand, if things are driven to a point at this early stage,
the damage may not be permanent. I have only the highest regard for
your daughter, and it would distress me greatly if she . . .’