Poacher (9 page)

‘Fine, last I heard.’ He shook hands with
Sam’s parents and kissed Estelle lightly on a tear-streaked cheek.
‘Let’s go and see him.’

Upon entering ward nine, they were accosted
by the formidable fat sister. After a brief explanation, however,
she led them to Sam’s room. ‘He is doing very well. The surgery
went well, but we will be keeping him here for quite a while. There
is always the very real danger of peritonitis developing in cases
where the bowel has been ruptured, you know.’

Estelle didn’t know what peritonitis was, but
it sounded bad enough for her to start crying again softly. Louis
put his arm around her comfortingly. ‘It’s all right, old girl,
your man is as tough as a honey badger. He’ll be walking out of
here in a couple of days.

She leant forward and cradled Sam’s head in
her arms, kissing him lightly on the forehead. As her warm tears
ran down his face, he mumbled restlessly in his sleep.

‘Let him rest, Estelle,’ Sam’s mother said,
touching her shoulder.

‘I love you. Heal quickly,’ her breath was in
his ear, and his subconscious registered her presence. Her image
crowded everything else from his dreams and soothed this troubled
mind. Everything was going to be all right, Estelle was here.
Deeper down in his subconscious an alarm bell was clanging, but he
suppressed it. Sighing contentedly he drifted into a deeper plane
of sleep.

With an intuition peculiar to women in love,
she straightened, drying her tears. ‘He will be all right,’ she
said to everyone in general, smiling for the first time.

Sam’s father put his arm around her. ‘We had
better go and find ourselves a place to sleep. Have you got a place
to stay, Louis?’

‘Haven’t had time to organise anything yet,
Mr Jenkins.’

‘Good, join us. I think we can all do with
some rest.’

Reclining in the leather upholstery of the
Jenkins’s Mercedes, Louis recounted the story briefly, omitting the
threats Joao had made.

‘How seriously is this Joao injured?’ Sam’s
father wanted to know.

‘The doctor says both upper and lower jaws as
well as some other facial bones are broken. He reckons the
maxillofacial surgeon won’t operate before Thursday at the
earliest. Apparently they have to wait for the swelling to subside
first.’

‘Sounds like you worked the bastard over
properly. Maybe it would have been better if he’d gotten himself
shot too.’

‘I think so myself,’ Louis agreed, thinking
about the threat. It worried him – he was convinced that it had not
been an idle threat made in the heat of the moment. Better keep
tabs on Joao when he gets out of jail. If he ever decided to cross
the wire for a quick strike it would be very difficult to
anticipate and stop him. Lodging a complaint with the Frelimo
government would be worse than useless. He would take up the
problem with John van Reenen.

Smitty was having a big battle with himself.
He didn’t want Linda to come and see Sam but, if he failed to
notify her, she was sure to jump on him later when the story hit
the media.

He picked the phone up reluctantly.

She answered on the fifth ring, and sounded
pleased to hear his voice. At least that was something. ‘Sorry to
phone you at this time of night, but I thought you would want to
know. We’ve got Sam in the hospital. The surgeons removed a bullet
from his stomach earlier this evening. Nothing vital was damaged,
and he is doing quite well.’

There was a shocked silence on the other side
of the line. ‘Oh no! Which ward is he in?’

‘Linda, you can’t see him now. He’s under
sedation. And secondly, there’s no way you will get past the ward
sister at this time of night.’

‘You can get in, can’t you? Wait for me at
reception, I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

‘No, I told you . . .’ He slammed down the
dead instrument in disgust.

Smitty was at reception when Sam’s people
left. One look at Louis, armed to the teeth, told him who they
were. Estelle’s beauty knocked him for six, and he felt his
animosity towards Sam rising again. With a fiancée like that, there
was no reason for him to fool around with someone else’s woman.

A few minutes later Linda came breezing in,
kissing him fleetingly. ‘Hello, Smitty, so good of you to let me
know. How is he?’

‘My girl, you had better tread carefully.
Some very important-looking visitors have just left. Among them one
extremely beautiful young lady who, I am sure, is the future wife.’
It was not his intention to sound so smug about it.

‘Oh?’ She arched an eyebrow at him. ‘Nothing
wrong with visiting him, is there?’

He refrained from answering and entered the
elevator.

The fat nurse pouted her lips into the
resemblance of a string-drawn tobacco pouch but maintained an aloof
silence.

Smitty knew there would be questions from the
superintendent tomorrow.

Sam was lying on his back, snoring lightly. A
dim bedside lamp cast a yellow glow across the bed. The softening
of Linda’s features sent a wave of resentment coursing through
Smitty.

‘Sam,’ Linda whispered, taking the hand that
was lying on the sheet in both hers.

‘I told you he is under sedation, dammit.’
Smitty disengaged her hands and looked over his shoulder furtively.
Fortunately the nurse had returned to her station.

Sam opened his eyes groggily. ‘Hello,
beautiful,’ he croaked. ‘Water.’

She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Smitty,’ she
said.

Turning back, she put a hand on his chest.
‘How are you feeling?’

‘Lousy.’

He took the glass from Smitty and gulped
greedily. He had just started lowering his head again when the
warning bell clanged in his brain. He knew Estelle had been here.
He jerked his head up to look around and nearly screamed as the
pain tore through him stomach.

His head fell back on the pillow with a
grunt.

‘Sam.’ Her hand was on his chest again and
tears glinted in her eyes, ‘Are you all right?’

He just lay there, breathing deeply, trying
to ignore the world. In the drug-induced confusion images and
thoughts jostled for supremacy in his head. Estelle and Linda
merged into one personality, overwhelming and smothering him. As he
drifted off again, sweat beaded on his forehead, and he mumbled
incomprehensibly, rolling his head from side to side.

‘He’s got to sleep this off, Linda. Leave him
now.’ Smitty took her hand in his.

She pulled away and leant across Sam once
more. She kissed him on the lips. ‘Goodnight, love,’ she
whispered.

‘Time to go. You are upsetting the patient.’
Smitty took a firm grip on her elbow and led her out of the room.
He was afraid of losing her, so he decided not to say anything. He
knew that, if he dared to comment now, she would be at him in a
flash.

He walked her to her car in silence. She
pecked him goodnight and started her car. ‘Thanks, Smitty, I really
appreciate this.’

Gripping the top of the door, he pressed his
face close to hers: ‘Linda, please listen to me. You are playing
with fire. This man is on the verge of getting married to another
woman. They are happy. Leave them alone before you hurt
somebody.’

She looked him in the eye without saying
anything for a while. ‘Goodnight, Smitty,’ she said, and patted him
on the cheek before roaring off, laying down two wide black lines
on the tarmac.

He stood alone in the darkness, watching her
brake lights flash briefly as she joined the flow of traffic. A
light breeze was flapping the white coat around his knees as he
turned and walked back towards the hospital slowly.

The next morning Estelle had everybody in the
dining room the moment they started serving breakfast. She had
already phoned ward nine and the day sister had assured her that Mr
Jenkins had had a good nights’ rest and was feeling much better.
And no, him being in a private room, she didn’t mind him having
visitors outside official visiting hours.

Not wanting to leave his firearms in his room
unattended, Louis drew a few puzzled stares from the other guests.
Fortunately he had a clean set of khakis in his kit bag, and
without a two-day shadow on his jowls he looked nearly civilised.
Even so, the other guests politely gave him a wide berth.

On their way out he settled his bill,
planning to rent a car at the hospital and return to the Park
directly after having seen Sam.

The morning was clear and sunny as they
arrived at the hospital just before eight.

Not wanting to let the nursing staff get at
him, Sam had shuffled to the bathroom earlier for his morning
toilet. He was clean shaven and dressed in fresh hospital-issue
pajamas when Estelle entered. She was radiant, and her genuine joy
at seeing him evoked searing waves of guilt in him. The bullet was
out of his stomach, but the snake was back. Ignoring the pain in
his stomach he hugged her, breathing in the clean smell of soft
hair. I must be bloody crazy jeopardising all this for another
woman, he thought.

Sam’s father was clearing his throat: ‘When
you are quite finished . . .’

‘Ah, daddy-o! Mom, how is everybody?’

After the greetings, Sam’s parents pulled up
chairs and, with Estelle sitting on the bed holding his hand, he
had to recount the story once again, also omitting Joao’s
threats.

As he finished, Louis entered the room.
‘Howdy, sport. I’ve just been down to see our prisoner. Doubt if
his mother would recognise him. The surgeon reckons he will wait
another day or two for the swelling to go down before he
operates.

‘Have they got a guard on him?’

‘His eyes are swollen shut, so I doubt if he
could find his way out of the room, but the cops are guarding him
24 hours a day anyway.’

‘Good, I’d hate to lose the bugger. How many
rhinos did he get?’

‘Three. Judging by the horns one of them was
the big bull in the quarantine camp.’

‘Maybe a good thing I got shot before I could
get my hands on him.’

‘I doubt it. Mark my words, the moment he
gets out of jail he will be back in the Park, poaching to his
heart’s content. Two years at the most. There’s no way they’re
going to pin the murder of the policeman on him – there is no proof
that he actually did the shooting, and there were no witnesses. He
could make up any story he pleases.’

Sam knew this to be true. ‘At least the other
one won’t be doing any more poaching. And if Joao comes back, I’ll
be waiting for him.’

‘Yes,’ Louis pressed Sam’s arm to try and get
the message across. ‘We will have to talk about that sometime.’

Louis knew that Joao was no ordinary poacher.
He was big time, and a very dangerous man. Earlier, while he had
been talking to the guard, Joao had become aware of his presence.
‘Tell Sam Jenkins,’ he had mumbled through his swollen lips and
broken teeth, ‘tell him not to forget. He is going to pay dearly
for the death of my brother. Tell him I will devote the rest of my
life to killing him.’ Louis had had difficulty in restraining
himself from breaking some more bones in Joao’s skull. He once
again refrained from mentioning this in front of Sam’s family.

Louis collected his hardware and made his
farewells, then ambled off in search of transport.

‘Good man, that,’ Sam’s father remarked.

‘The best, Dad.’

In the course of the morning Smitty came
breezing in and was introduced to everyone. He examined Sam and
chatted a while before leaving.

‘Friend of yours?’ Estelle asked.

‘Yes, I met him and his girlfriend in the
Park a while ago. Two very nice people,’ Sam said, taking the gap
expertly. ‘She’s a local lawyer. You’d like her.’ I hope to God you
never get to meet her he added silently.

He knew, however, that those dark clouds were
approaching the fan when the flowers arrived. ‘With love, Smitty
and Linda,’ the feminine handwriting on the card said.

That evening, his family having returned from
dinner, Sam was lying there with a sense of foreboding. Every time
he heard high heels in the passage, he shuddered inwardly.

Linda came striding into the room, holding
Smittys’s hand. Oh shit, Sam thought as she kissed him on the
cheek, this is it. Judging by the pained expression on Smitty’s
face, their arrival must have been preceded by a monumental
argument, which he had lost hands down. Introductions were made,
and everybody started chatting away happily, except Sam and Smitty.
Sam was once again overwhelmed by Linda’s presence. Must be her
pheromones, he thought, trying to comprehend the effect Linda was
having on him. When she was present, logic just ceased to exist.
The snake in his stomach coiled up tight, and he found himself once
again craving for her.

Even though they were two opposites, the
women seemed to be getting along well, and the evening passed
without incident.

On kissing Sam goodnight, Linda pressed his
arm briefly. ‘Sleep well, Sam. I’ll be popping in now and again,
even if Smitty can’t make it. He is working himself half to death
these days.’

Chapter Five

Throughout the days of his recovery, Linda
kept up this pretence. Every time Sam made up his mind to end it
the next time he could see her alone. The few times that he did see
her alone, however, his resolve collapsed instantly and he wanted
to make love to her there and then. The days passed agonisingly
slowly.

Two floors below him, Joao was also healing
slowly. An open reduction had been performed on his upper jaw and
his jaws were wired shut. The remnants of five of his front teeth
had been removed, but this made eating and talking between the a
lot easier. The flame of hate he had been nurturing was now a
blazing inferno.