The Devil's Horn (20 page)

Chapter 19

Neels loved the bush at night. His fighting youth had been spent in it, then he’d spent time in it as a tracker and a teacher of trackers.

He trained his rangers to love the dark Kruger as well, to respect and fear it. The veld fed at night, it roamed and rested. The land and sky were eternal, they were endless and black together. Though the dangers did not go away, the twisted, sun-beat bush became more mysterious and artful in moonlight, starlight. The mystery and art of the place—that was what Neels taught his rangers to blend with. The poachers who came here did not love or understand the Kruger. They would stand out because of it, and could be caught.

He parked the Land Cruiser off the pavement, just far enough to be hidden. Vehicles were not allowed off-road in the park’s natural habitat. Karskie waited in the car while Neels did a quick walk around. He’d seen a female honey badger in the area recently. She was not a creature to surprise if she had cubs.

He opened the boot. When Karskie got out, Neels let the last chance to tell the boy to stay in the car, drive it back, and go home to sleep slip away.

Though doughy, Karskie was a broad lad and could carry plenty. Neels slung both packs of food and water on his own back and two rifles. In one hand Karskie carried boxes of ammo, in the other the tape and reel of fuse. Neels hoisted the crate of dynamite onto one shoulder, then grabbed his own rifle.

“Stay far behind me.”

Karskie bulged like a pack mule.

“Why?”

“Because I might trip and blow myself up. Sure you want to come?”

“And miss that?”

Neels grunted, turning for the bush. Karskie had pointed on a map to the coordinates the general had given him. Neels knew the spot where the drone had crashed, an open patch of scrub and marulas, elephant-grazing ground. The ten-kilometer walk due east should take two hours under their burdens, if the boy could keep the pace and Neels did not, indeed, blow up.

He headed out under the crate, a hundred meters on a game trail, then looked back. Karskie was not yet following.

Neels called out, “I’m not carrying a fucking nuke.”

Karskie rounded a corner of brush; he came into sight grumbling that he didn’t know about things like dynamite.

“Time to learn, boyo.”

Neels did not let them rest for the first trudging hour. They covered more than half the distance, and when Karskie collapsed next to Neels, he looked done in. Neels offered to switch loads; the boy demurred.

The boy panted louder than the insects. When his breathing leveled out, Neels let him have another few minutes, to be sure they could make it the rest of the way. His own shoulders were slumped and sore from the crate.

“So what did you do to get thrown out of the university?”

“I didn’t get thrown out.”

“You quit first. What did you do?”

Karskie leaned back on his elbows, crossed his ankles, a leisurely pose, a pampered man. Neels almost began disliking him again.

“There was a girl. There frequently is, you know.”

Neels didn’t.

“Go on.”

“One of my students. She knew my family had some money. She let me spend it on her. And so it goes.”

“No. How does it go?”

“Not so different from you, really. We both trained to do something. Mine was numbers and teaching. Yours was tracking and killing men. You and I got very good at what we did. Both young and invincible. Took risks, did things we marveled at later. You ate a baboon off a fence. I slept with a young girl and did drugs.”

Karskie stood first, looking down on Neels.

“Want to swap loads?”

Neels climbed to his own feet.

“If I could.”

Karskie held his ground, not laughing.

“I’m not the general’s boy. Frankly, there’s nothing he can buy me with. I want you to know I’m actually happy to be working in the Kruger. It’s cruel and stupid shit, what the poachers do. I’ve been on the chopper, I’ve seen the carcasses. It feels good to be in the fight. I can help, I can do things. But I need the rangers to believe in me. To bring me the facts, the numbers. I need to be trusted. So I’m here. Tracking poachers.”

“You mean again.”

“What?”

“You need to be trusted again.”

“Yeah. If we’re being honest. Yeah.”

Neels held out a hand; they shook. Not so different, as the boy had said.

Karskie donned his burden. He swept a hand before him for Neels to do the same and lead the way, far out in front.

For the remainder of the trek, Karskie held up better than Neels. The big boy didn’t complain or fall behind, while Neels’s knees and back griped from the crate carried high on one shoulder. His mood tumbled into his discomfort. Still, he held no conversations with his gone wife. Neels had tried to pull his heart from the bush for her, his memory from carcasses and the war, and put it elsewhere. He’d failed, but there was no need for the boy following him to hear or know that. Besides, carrying dynamite was no time to let the woman make him crazy.

Neels let the land guide him. They crossed into an open plain where predators prowled in the daylight and in the spring the hedges bloomed. Herds grazed here, impala, bushbuck, and kudu, feeling safer on the flatlands with great distances to run. Elephants grazed on the scrub and trees; giraffes plucked the highest branches. There might have been animals there now, but the night cloaked them.

Neels shifted the crate to his other shoulder, also worn down. He forged across the grassland, nearing the crash site at its far edge. He cleared himself of curiosity, what he would find ahead, what the Americans would need him to do. He put his mind on his tiring legs and could not recall what it was like to be young.

Neels didn’t trust himself to lower the crate carefully from a standing position. He folded to his knees before hefting it from his shoulder, shifting the weight into both hands. He eased the dynamite to the ground and stayed down with it, waiting for Karskie.

The boy galumphed up the trail, jangling his load, dragging his boots. He said nothing when he arrived but assumed they were resting again and began to unburden himself. Neels stopped him by reaching a hand for help off the ground.

“Stay quiet.”

“What’s up?”

“That hedge ahead. The drone will be on the other side of it. I’ll be back.”

“No. We go together.”

“I said stay here.”

“They’re Americans.”

“They say they’re Americans.”

“Is that a little paranoid?”

“Yes. Until something goes wrong. Then it’s not.”

“Look, if something does go wrong, I’m useless by myself anyway. They’d find me wandering the park next Tuesday. So I’m going with you.”

Too tuckered to argue more and not sure he should, Neels nodded.

“Leave it all here but the rifles. Walk where I walk. Don’t talk.”

Karskie dropped everything quietly but kept one rifle. With Karskie striding behind, Neels led the way toward the hedge. He followed evidence of the crash, a furrow in the earth, the landing rig of an aircraft, warped metal and rubber wheels. The groove ran through a ragged opening in the hedge; Neels paused there, hidden. Big Karskie slipped in beside him.

After decades in the bush, Neels knew its shapes and motions intimately. Man was unnatural here; his works and movements, his spoor, did not belong. Even in the dark at fifty paces, the wreckage of the drone stood out, looked like nothing wild.

Neels also had a keen sense of what and who belonged in his park. Two American Special Operators, if that was what they were, did not. Not without his knowledge or permission, regardless of what the general had to say.

Neels didn’t see them. But he would if they moved. Behind the hedge, he brought his rifle stock to his cheek. Neels whispered to Karskie.

“Do nothing.”

“What? What are you going to do?”

Neels shouted across the open ground.

“Put your hands where I can see them.”

Immediately two figures, lumps in the dark near the wreck, grew in height. Neels centered his gun barrel on one of the silhouettes. A man’s voice answered.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the one with a rifle aimed at your heart, lad. So first, who are you?”

“Captain Wally Bloom. US Air Force.”

“Drop your weapons, Captain.”

The figure with the voice folded at the waist, setting a gun down. Neels firmed his finger on the trigger as he moved from behind cover. He whispered again for Karskie to stay behind him and shut up.

Neels approached in combat mode, weapon tucked to his cheek, scanning. He strode only far enough to get a clear look at the two men before halting to scrutinize them down the barrel of his FN. They wore the same stiff camo uniforms, military web vests. One stood tall and lean, the other short and burly. Both held their arms from their sides to show open hands. A handgun lay in the dirt between them.

Nearby, the tangled wreck of the drone rose, one wing intact, the other ripped off and hanging. The fuselage had dug its nose into the earth. Not far away, stones had been stacked into a long, low mound. Was somebody dead? That upped the ante.

Neels moved the muzzle to the shorter man.

“Who’s this then?”

“Master Sergeant Gus DiNardo. US Air Force.”

“Fine. Let’s see some ID, boys.”

Both dropped their hands at that. The squat one made a deflating sound. The tall shadow kept talking for them both.

“That’s going to be a problem.”

“Is it? Then get your hands back up.”

Behind Neels, out of the darkness, another voice answered.

“They’re Americans.”

Karskie pivoted at the sound. Neels did not, keeping his barrel trained on the two unknown men.

“That you, Promise?”

“I saw them parachute in.”

“What are you doing here, girl?”

“I stayed to help them.”

“Step out here.”

“Lower the gun first. They’re not armed.”

“Are you?”

Chirping bugs filled the seconds until Promise spoke.

“No.”

Neels tamped down the urge to wheel on her, shouting. Why was one of his rangers unarmed in the park? Why hadn’t she called any of this in? Whose goddamn side was the girl on? Was she a Kruger ranger or a fucking American?

“Where’s the boy, Promise?”

“Dead. The poachers shot him.”

“That him under the rocks?”

“Yes.”

“Yissus.”

Neels sucked his teeth. The boy had been young, immature, and small. Neels blamed himself for teaming him up with this girl.

The two Americans had not lifted their hands as he’d ordered. Promise was not in sight. Karskie, behind him, radiated nervousness, restive and shifting. Neels lowered the rifle.

“Alright.”

The gun went down, but the tension hardly lessened. The Americans held their ground, Neels as well. Karskie turned a full circle, jittery and unsure where to look. Promise formed out of the night, closer to the Americans than to Neels, as if she’d chosen a side. The squat American jabbed a finger at her as the girl appeared out of nothing.

“Did you teach her to do that? It’s just weird.”

The captain moved next, plucking the pistol off the ground. He shoved it inside his belt before walking to Neels with a hand extended. Neels shouldered the rifle strap and met the American’s handshake. Closer now, the captain’s battle uniform lacked insignia and patches; this sort of cleansing had been standard for covert ops in the Scouts; apparently the Yanks did the same. The captain repeated his name, Bloom. Quietly Neels compared himself to this more modern warrior, gave the man’s hand a press, and got one back. Bloom had proper bearing, a rod up his arse like a good officer. But Neels stood in the Kruger, his park and his sector, with one of his rangers dead and another one disobedient. Neels knew nothing of these Americans except that they needed dynamite, food, water, and him. He did not release the captain’s hand but squeezed harder.

“What are you doing here?”

“You have a name, sir?”

“I do. What are you doing here?”

The captain increased the pressure in his own clasp.

“I’ll tell when you let go of my hand. Or we can do this for a while, if you like.”

Neels held long enough to imply that he could, indeed, go on for a bit more, and on another day, around some beers, he and this captain might.

Both let go.

“Neels Boing. Sector chief of Shingwedzi.”

“Are we in Shingwedzi?”

“We are.”

“Who’s this with you?”

Karskie stepped forward, one hand out. He held his rifle so it pointed straight up over his shoulder, carrying it like a toy soldier.

“Donald Karskie. I work in intel.”

Neels had not known Karskie’s first name. It suited the boy.

“Captain, before we settle in, I have to ask you and your sergeant to move away from this area. Go sit over there.” Neels pointed to the broken hedge.

“Why?”

“This is a crime scene. A ranger’s been killed. A missile’s stolen. Your missile, if I understand it right. Every step you take makes my job harder.”

“You’re a tracker.”

“I’m a lot of things, Captain. Donald there will give you the supplies we brought. Got plenty of food and water.”