Heart of Africa (19 page)

“What is it?” I breathed.

“From the size of the track, it can only be the white rhino. It is similar to the hippo in many ways.”

He drew a spoor resembling the rhino’s, only with more elongated toes.

“Both, you see, have broad, flat tracks. These animals lumber; they cannot prance or spring since their weight is much too heavy for that.”

“Is… is it alone?” I managed.

“I don’t know. The white rhino is often found in small familial groups. They’re interesting because they defecate in what are called rhino middens. I glimpsed one back there near the gulley, but I believe you didn’t notice it at the time.”

Peter was absolutely correct; I’d been incapable of noticing anything that morning. My eyes flitted about as I probed the dense foliage, remembering the butchered rhino near where I’d run across Peter again.

“If it’s a rhino, mightn’t there be poachers about?”

“Perhaps, though the rhinos this deep into Kruger Park are more protected since military presence is so pronounced.”

“Are rhinos ever dangerous?” I asked, wishing I could wipe his troubled frown away.

“The white, not very, but the black is unpredictable and solitary. Since I suspect these are white’s tracks I’m not so leery. He’d probably just ignore us. Look here—see the little beetle with the long antennae?”

A black-and-red beetle scurried across the print, oblivious to our presence.

“He’s amazingly quick.”

“Yes. It’s a longhorn beetle, named such for his antennae, which natives thought resembled miniature horns. He’s harmless enough.”

I lifted my water bottle and took only one deep gulp. He smiled, noting my conservation.

“Are you alright now?” he asked. It was the first time he’d made any reference to the death of the young woman and her child.

“No,” I replied, gazing straight into his russet eyes. “I will never be the same after witnessing that.”

“Some things are not meant to be forgotten. Let’s rest, since we’ve been pushing so hard. Why don’t you sit on that log while I find us something to eat.”

I sank down on the dirty tree trunk near the seeping water, and my tired eyes drifted back to the spoor. Certain I could identify a rhino in the future, I scanned the dense woodland for wildlife. A dull yellow bird with a black head hopped in to drink from the algae-laden water before flitting off. Red dragonflies hovered over the smelly water, searching for who knows what, and a sad dove moaned in a nearby tree.

Peter returned only a few minutes later and handed me some round, hard nuts.

“Crack the outer shell,” he instructed. “You’ll have to smash it against a rock.”

I did, revealing tiny brown seeds, which upon consumption tasted bitter and oily. I didn’t even bother to ask him what they were; our Spartan meal simply fell into the gastric generalization of
food equals survival
. We munched silently for several minutes, Peter scanning the turquoise sky and tangled woodland, while I rested and choked down the unappetizing nuts.

“It is a sad thing about the woman,” he finally said.

“Yes,” I answered simply.

“But, strangely, I believe her time must have come.”

Suddenly my cousin’s arrogant face flashed before me.

“That’s a bunch of hogwash!” I said hotly, the fermenting thoughts of the morning welling to the surface. “It was NOT her time. I refuse to believe we have a specific time to die. We have accidents or make mistakes for sure and… and we are subject to folly and sometimes major missteps… but… but… I can’t believe, I refuse to believe, that was all the time she was allotted on earth.”

Peter said calmly. “The elephant did not mean to kill her, Mandy. The matriarch was simply protecting her own.”

“And that’s it? So Esther and Precious, at the moment of their births, were destined to die in that wash. It could just as easily have been us!”

“It wasn’t our time,” Peter stated calmly, cracking another nut against the flat surface of the rock near where we sat.

“Nonsense! No one has a specific time. I admit I’d like to say that if she truly was an evil woman she got her just desserts, but the baby… the baby! That woman only wanted a better life for her child and a trampling by a hairless mammoth was her reward?”

“We
all
want a better life. Some of us just have to strive harder to get it.”

“Because someone’s black?”

“Maybe, or perhaps belongs to the wrong tribe, practices the wrong religion, or simply suffers from the fatal mistake of being born in the wrong place or wrong time. If I’d been born just three hundred kilometers across the border in South Africa, my life would have been so different. My parents wouldn’t have lost their farm, and maybe I wouldn’t have become a nature guide. If I’d been born a Shona and poor, it could have been me crossing this treacherous park seeking to find a better life, not her. I don’t understand why we are born to certain circumstances, I only know we have a duty to utilize what we have and strive to live in harmony with nature.”

“My cousin says we all have a purpose as well. He says some of us count and some of us don’t.”

“Ah, that sounds like the novel
The Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand.”

“You’ve read it?” I couldn’t keep the disbelief out of my voice.

“Of course, it was in my father’s library.”

It seemed strange to be sitting in the middle of the bush, discussing a novel about New York in the 1920s whose protagonist, Howard Roark, believed in the philosophy called objectivism.

“Did you… you
like
the novel?” I asked, holding my breath for his answer. I hadn’t liked it much myself.

“I don’t know. It is interesting—the belief that the achievement of one’s own happiness is the total moral purpose of life. That is the ruling philosophy of the book, isn’t it? I think that it must have been written by a white South African during apartheid.”

I wanted to laugh, but couldn’t. The truth was too pathetic. “It’s an interesting philosophy and I would have to agree that while we all strive to be happy, it’s much more important to take the chance of bettering ourselves to rise above our station. I don’t believe there’s just a massive populace that can be thrown aside by the elite few, trampled to death like that woman.”

“You and your cousin fought,” Peter said wisely. He seemed proud of the fact. “He sought to be your oppressor.”

“My oppressor? Yes. But in hindsight I can see we didn’t fight nearly enough. As a young woman, I let my cousin spout philosophies, usually narrow and cruel, without as much as a whisper of defiance. I either lacked the courage or maintained the foolish notion that if I remained quiet, his stinging words wouldn’t really matter. So I always let Ken speak and never contradicted him. I realize now that was a sin. If one doesn’t speak out, you’re agreeing with whatever the speaker states.”

“You are becoming a radical,” said Peter mildly. “You would be put in prison in Zimbabwe. My father said that God is the rainbow. Wherever the arch landed, the rays hit the ground and the fragments shattered, scattering different colors and different ideas into every land. I’m not sure I believe in God, but I do believe in rainbows.”

“I believe in rainbows too,” I said and we joined hands.

“And your cousin, he is a first-class asshole?” He said the last word just like Arnold Schwarzenegger and I had to laugh.

“Ken is
challenged
in many ways. He lives a little life.”

“So tell me American Miss—what do
you
believe is the most important thing for a man to do?”

“Any
person
should strive to take care of those they love, learn something new every day, and bring about something good in this world during their life.” My own answer stunned me. Until this very moment I wouldn’t have uttered any of it, not truly believing it. The miracle was that I did believe it.

Peter smiled, his teeth flashing brightly in his darkly tanned face.

“That is much better than the ideas from
The Fountainhead
, or those of the cousin whom you despise. But for now, my lady, we must make it to the waterhole. You’re not tired anymore?”

“No,” I said and took the uplifted hand he offered. It was not far now.

Chapter 22

The only game we spotted on that final trek to the
waterhole
was another giraffe. Old, its reticulated spots peeked dark and grimy from under a layer of dust. Its tongue proved brilliant for the task of reaching around thorns to pluck at the succulent leaves. We watched him for over five minutes as he munched contentedly upon the long, slender leaves of the peculiarly twisted thorn tree.

“You could learn a lot from the giraffe,” said Peter, who had broken off his examination of the tall mammal to stare at my neck.

His brilliant brown eyes locked on my throat disturbed me. “What on earth do you mean by that?”

“The giraffe, for all his neck, has no vocal chords. He is mute—the silent one of the bush.” The corner of his mouth twitched and puckered.

It took a moment for his subtle insult to sink in.

“Why, you…”

I bent and picked up the closest object I could find to fling at my tormentor. A bone, gnawed and dry, whistled through the clear air. He gracefully dodged the clumsy toss and we laughed together like children.

The waterhole we were making for was not an actual waterhole per se. It consisted of a large, concrete reservoir that fed water into long, narrow troughs so the animals could drink. Forty minutes later, as we rested at the top of a small knoll, Peter pointed to the man-made structure.

“Do you see it?” he questioned. I did indeed. In the distance, a small metal windmill revolved slowly in the slight breeze. Just beyond that, the faint glint of circular white concrete indicated we had nearly made it to Mazanje. “The river is just there.”

I peered in the opposite direction where the water gleamed, a white, fast-moving blur.

“Why did they build it here when the river is so close?”

“The banks in this region are very steep and cliff-like above the quite narrow shores of the river for nearly three kilometers. The middle of the Limpopo is strewn with boulders, generating white rapids. A small waterfall, less than a kilometer upstream, feeds this section, and it runs much deeper and swifter than further downstream where the river widens out. The lesser creatures found it difficult to access water safely, as did the rangers, so this waterhole was constructed in the early nineties.”

I studied him. Peter appeared confident but wary with his broad shoulders and homemade spear held ready.

I brushed my hair away from my face. It had long since broken free of its elastic tie.

“May I borrow your little notebook?” Peter asked. I obliged immediately and using my airline pen, he began to write. “The number belongs to my sister Elizabeth, in the Cape. If… if for some reason we get separated, call her.”

“We won’t get separated,” I stated confidently and studied my wonderful man as he replaced the notebook carefully back inside my pack.

“I noticed you recorded the hijackers’ license plate number.”

“I did indeed. Heads are gonna roll!”

He laughed and extended his hand. “It’s fairly steep here, Mandy, watch your step.”

That last little trek to the waterhole was uneventful. We must have not been much more than 100 meters away when Peter straightened.

“Did you hear that?” he hissed. I stopped, nestling close to him.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“I thought I heard a motor,” Peter said.

“We must be nearing the waterhole. Maybe it’s a car!” My voice rang jubilantly. Peter hesitated, cocking his head to listen.

“Perhaps it was not a motor at all,” I said, disappointed when only the chatter of waxbills hopping about black-thorned acacias answered my cry.

“More likely it was just the wind turning the wheel of the windmill to pump the water,” returned Peter.

“That’s probably what it was,” I disappointedly agreed.

“We’re very close now, lass.” He joined one of the countless animal-made trails leading to the waterhole and I followed. The dry, short grass brushed our pant legs as we walked briskly toward the windmill. This particular path was quite narrow, probably formed by countless impala, nyala, or bushbuck heading toward the reviving water.

The brush made brisk whisking sounds as we hurried through it. My eagerness and haste made me careless. I longed to sing out in happiness; I was finally returning to civilization! It would just be a matter of minutes before Peter and I would run into a car and be whisked back into the safety and cleanliness of Shingwedzi camp. The license plate numbers and descriptions of the hijackers hurried my steps even more as the desire for revenge crowded its way through the joy.

The trail made an abrupt curve. We could not have been more than 25 meters away from the windmill when a horrible stench assailed my nose. Just to the right of us the ravaged remains of a huge male kudu littered the beaten-down grass. The poor beast had not been felled by an animal, but had died from a gunshot right between the eyes. Its hindquarters had been carefully and meticulously cut away. The poachers had not desired its lovely curved horns or majestic head to mount upon their wall; their need had been simple—food. It did not take long in this midday sun for scavengers to catch a whiff of the decaying flesh. I glimpsed a black-backed jackal in the distance, slinking through the tall grass, and high above, lappet-faced vultures circled, ready to swoop down upon the decaying meat.

It was then that I heard what Peter had earlier; the grind of a truck’s motor pulsing through the midday heat. A large, open truck full of armed men roared into the clearing where the poacher’s lifeless victim lay.

“Oh, no!” I hissed, clinging to the false hope that perhaps they hadn’t seen us. How guilty we must have looked, standing not twenty feet from the butchered buck. Peter grabbed my arm and pulled me backwards.

“Stop!” cried the lead soldier, who wielded a deadly-looking rifle. Peter thrust me behind him.

“
Eish!
Run, Mandy! Make for the river! These are not our friends!”

We tore through the brush, the thorns grabbing at my wrapped ankles. I could hear the rapids below, and the shrill screech of a fish eagle. But far louder was the roaring, reckless pursuit of an armored jeep and shouting soldiers. The way was rugged, and the jagged rocks and brush aided us for a while, but our pursuers were determined.

The steep cliff served as an insurmountable barrier and we both halted abruptly, clouds of dust and debris surrounding us. Peter shoved me behind him and raised his makeshift spear.

“Get behind me Mandy!  Don’t shoot! We are lost! I have an American woman with me. Don’t…”

Those were the last words Peter emitted. I remember it now in horrifying clarity, the long seconds ticking brutally in demented slow-motion. Like harpies, the camouflaged soldiers descended upon us, jumping from their truck and swinging automatic rifles up to their shoulders.

I’m not exactly sure, as I tumbled to the ground behind Peter, what it was the handsome Zimbabwean intended to do. I think that perhaps he’d just meant to ward them off. Or, was it simply the hunter and tracker’s instinct in him that compelled him to raise his rudely-made spear at them, or were his hands held up in truce? As the shots rang out know I screamed, the hysterical pitch of my voice filling the late-afternoon air.

Several bullets hit him simultaneously and Peter tumbled backwards, plummeting over the cliff. The soldiers lurched forward, aiming their rifles at me, ready to fire. I heard the frightful splash as his body hit the water, and crawled in the dirt like a lizard to peer over the crumbling cliff. Peter rocked face down, his body swirling in a slow-motioned circle; the crimson of his blood tingeing the water. The current caught him and tossed him to and fro. Then he was tumbling, twisting over and over in the frothing white water to be pummeled and forced downstream.

The half-dozen or so troopers circled me, their rifles held ready as I screamed in helpless confusion. A soldier pulled me roughly to my feet. Helplessly sagging in agony, I gazed at the silent murderers who stood so mutely at the edge of the cliff overlooking the charging river.

The finality of death should be a simple concept, particularly when one is stranded deep inside a huge game reserve where living creatures struggle every day for their lives. Of course I understood that. Hadn’t I witnessed my grandparents’ gentle transition into death and watched my father battle tooth and nail for every feeble breath during his last few weeks of life? And of course, there had been the helpless young woman this morning, trampled to an early demise by the belligerent elephant. But this was different. How can something as vital as a living man—as energetic as the vibrant Peter—finally succumb to death? The reaper, now perched in the massive fig tree bordering the watering hole, grinned as the river carried away his prize, his scythe signaling to the circling vultures that yet another tidbit awaited them amongst the rocks when the river finally calmed.

“He’s not a poacher!” I screamed finally, and the camouflaged soldier who had helped me up found it difficult to keep hold of me. It finally took two more of the stone-faced men to restrain me, as I fought and writhed in my helplessness, held firmly by the trio.

“He is not a poacher,” I cried hysterically. “You’re murderers, murderers! Peter! Hurry! Take your vehicle and find him! He might still be alive!”

The soldiers shifted, suddenly made acutely uncomfortable by my loud incriminations. What they had viewed as a rescue rendered them only abuse. Their leader edged closer; a thin, wiry man with short, kinky hair dotted abundantly with gray. His dusty sunglasses rebuffed my hysterical face. I continued to scream as he solemnly removed them, his broad nose flaring widely under eyes so dark they were rendered opaque. He studied my frantic form in silence. I shrieked again and would have sought to batter him if I had not been held so firmly by the three soldiers.

“He was not a poacher!” I repeated; my voice high and tight.

The officer didn’t even flinch at my piercing cry. “Yes, he was,” the commander said quietly, responding to me like a parent does an inconsolable child.

“He wasn’t. Peter was just taking me to the waterhole because we’d been hijacked and lost. He was my guide and friend.”

“He is Zimbabwean?” my tormentor asked matter-of-factly. “His name Voorhurst?”

“He
is
a Zimbabwean, but his name is
Peter Leigh
, not Voorhurst!”

“You have his papers?” asked the unfazed leader. “I thought not. He,” said the officer, peering straight at me, “is a notorious poacher. Hijacking women tourists, stealing our precious game. You are safe now.” He gestured towards the distant waterhole where the brutalized kudu’s left hind leg pointed toward the sky, locked grotesquely in rigor mortis.

“No, no,” I moaned.

“It is no great loss,” the troop’s leader continued, “that another of these invaders has perished. It is one less problem for me to deal with. One less problem in a sea of problems.”

I protested weakly. “Peter is an innocent guide who helped me. I was lost… lost in the bush, and Peter came to my aid.”

The tall man snorted. “Innocent, him? Of course not. He came illegally into our country as a poacher. He knew the consequences if he was discovered.”

For some reason, I couldn’t control my body’s massive shaking. The head soldier’s voice gentled as he pondered me.

“It is only important that you are safe, ma’am. You
are
the missing Miss Phillips, aren’t you? That Zimbabwean, he kidnapped you?”

Hadn’t this bastard heard anything I’d said? I didn’t respond because my voice had dried up. I could only shake my heavy head. Speaking was wickedness and silence only slightly less so.

He continued, taking my lack of response for agreement. “We have been searching days for you. Your jeep was found abandoned across the Limpopo. The tires were shredded from the rough road and the hijackers ripped out the console and DVD player and removed the seats and much of the engine. You are fortunate to come out unhurt from such uncouth men.” He spat towards the cliff. “His kind has no regard for life.”

I could only stare blankly at him as the now idle soldiers milled around, oblivious to Peter’s plunge into the river. One appeared to be chewing gum.

“I have forgotten my manners. My name is Sergeant Thabo Magandi. It is time for us to take you to safety.”

I must have suddenly sagged because the troopers’ iron grip loosened. They now struggled to hold me up rather than restrain me.

“Do not worry about this poacher. We will take care of his body… if the crocodiles leave us anything to find. He was nothing, nothing at all and cannot harm you anymore.”

Peter, nothing? The man who had saved me, taught me, filled me with hope, and most importantly, loved me. Guilt and fury overwhelmed me.

I violently shrugged off my captors, who respectfully stepped back. I had no knowledge of how wild and tough I appeared to them. My chestnut hair resembled greasy, matted dreadlocks and my normally pale skin was burned beyond recognition and stained with charcoal. My bug-ridden clothes were torn and filthy and my trainers had two gaping holes in the toes. I swayed, but refused the men’s offered help. Staggering feebly toward the cliff’s edge, again I searched the rushing river. Nothing. No Peter, no hope. I whirled on the sergeant.