so peaceful, so perfect.
It's a little Eden before the fall. We will make it so, he promised,
but in the night the gunfire woke him. He rose quickly, leaving her
lying warm and quietly sleeping, and he went out on the stoop.
It came again, faintly on the still night, distance muting it to a small
unwarlike popping. He felt his anger stirring again, as he imagined the
long white shaft of the killing lamp, questing relentlessly through the
forest until it settled suddenly upon the puzzled animal, holding it
mesmerized in the beam, the blinded eyes glowing like jewels, making a
perfect aiming point in the field of the telescopic rifle sight.
Then suddenly the rifle blast, shocking in the silence, and the long
licking flame of the muzzle flash. The beautiful head snapping back at
the punch of the bullet and the soft thump of the falling body on the
hard earth, the last spasmodic kicking of hooves and again the silence.
He knew it was useless to attempt pursuit now, the gunman would have an
accomplice in the hills above them ready to flash a warning if any of
the homestead lights came on, or if an auto engine whirred into life.
Then the killing lamp would be doused and the poacher would creep away.
David would search the midnight T expanse of Jabulani in vain. His
quarry was cunning and experienced in his craft of killing, and would
only be taken by greater cunning.
David could not sleep again. He lay awake beside Debra, and listened to
her soft breathing, and at intervals to the distant rifle fire. The
game was tame and easily approached, innocent after the safety of the
Park.
It would run only a short distance after each shot, and then it would
stand again staring without comprehension at the mysterious and dazzling
light that floated towards it out of the darkness.
David's anger burned on through the night, and in the dawn the vultures
were up. Black specks against the pink dawn sky, they appeared in
ever-increasing numbers, sailing high on wide pinions, tracing wide
swinging circles before beginning to drop towards the earth.
David telephoned Conrad Berg at Skukuza Camp, then he and Debra and the
dog climbed into the Land Rover, warmly dressed against the dawn chill.
They followed the descent of the birds to where the poacher had come on
the buffalo herd.
As they approached the first carcass, the animal scavengers scattered,
slope-backed hyena cantering away into the trees, hideous and cowardly,
looking back over their misshapen shoulders, grinning apologetically
little red jackal with silvery backs and alert ears, trotting to a
respectful distance before standing and staring back anxiously.
The vultures were less timid, seething like fat brown maggots over the
carcass as they squawled and squabbled, fouling everything with their
stinking droppings and loose feathers, leaving the kill only when the
Land Rover was very close and then flapping heavily up into the trees to
crouch there grotesquely with their bald scaly heads out-thrust.
There were sixteen dead buffalo, lying strung out along the line of the
herd's flight. On each carcass the belly had been split open to let the
vultures in, and the sirloin and fillet had been expertly removed.
He killed them just for a few pounds of meat? Debra asked
incredulously.
That's all, David confirmed grimly. But that's not bad, sometimes
they'll kill a wildebeest simply to make a fly whisk of its tail, or
they'll shoot a giraffe for the marrow in its bones. I don't
understand, Debra's voice was hopeless. What makes a man do it? He
can't need the meat that badly. No, David agreed. It's deeper than
that. This type of killing is a gut thing. This man kills for the
thrill of it, he kills to see an animal fall, to hear the death cry, to
smell the reek of fresh blood, his voice choked off, this is one time
you can be thankful you cannot see he said softly.
Conrad Berg found them waiting beside the corpses, and he set his
rangers to work butchering the carcasses.
No point in wasting all that meat. Food there for a lot of people. Then
he put Sam to the spoor. There had been four men in the poaching party,
one wearing light rubbersoled shoes and the others bare-footed.
One white man, big man, long legs. Three black men, carry meat, blood
drip here and here. They followed Sam slowly through the open forest as
he patted the grass with his long thin tracking staff, and moved towards
the unsurfaced public road.
Here they walk backwards, Sam observed, and Conrad explained grimly.
Old poacher's trick. They walk backwards when they cross a boundary. If
you cut the soar while patrolling the fence you think they have gone the
other way leaving instead of entering, and you don't bother following
them. The spoor went through a gap in the fence, crossed the road and
entered the tribal land beyond. It ended where a motor vehicle had been
parked amongst a screening thicket of wild ebony. The tracks bumped
away across the sandy earth and rejoined the public road.
Plaster casts of the tyre tracks? David asked.
Waste of time. Conrad shook his head. You can be sure they are changed
before each expedition, he keeps this set especially and hides it when
it's not in use. 'What about spent cartridge shells? David persisted.
Conrad laughed briefly. They are in his pocket, this is a fly bird.
He's not going to scatter evidence all over the country. He picks up as
he goes along. No, we'll have to sucker him into it. And his manner
became businesslike. Right, have you selected a place to stake old Sam
out? I thought we would put him up on one of the kopies, near the
String of Pearls. He'll be abe to cover the whole estate from there,
spot any dust on the road, and the height will give the two-way radio
sufficient range. After lunch David loaded their bags into the luggage
compartment of the Navajo. He paid the servants two weeks wages in
advance.
Take good care. He told them. I shall return before the end of the
month.
He parked the Land-Rover in the open hangar with the key in the ignition
facing the open doorway, ready for a quick start. He took off and kept
on a westerly -heading, passing directly over Bandolier Hill and the
buildings amongst the mango trees. They saw no sign of life, but David
held his course until the hill sank from view below the horizon, then he
came around on a wide circle to the south and lined up for Skukuza, the
main camp of the Kruger National park.
Conrad Berg was at the airstrip in his truck to meet the Cessna, and
Jane had placed fresh flowers in the guest room. Jabulani lay fifty
miles away to the northwest.
It was like squadron Red standby again, with the Navajo parked under one
of the big shade trees at the end of the Skukuza airstrip, and the radio
set switched on, crackling faintly on the frequency tuned to that of
Sam's transmitter, as he waited patiently on the hill-top above the
pools.
The day was oppressively hot, with the threat of a rainstorm looming up
out of the east, great cumulus thunderheads striding like giants across
the busliveld.
Debra and David and Conrad Berg sat in the shade of the aircraft's wing,
for it was too hot in the cockpit.
They chatted in desultory fashion, but always listening to the radio
crackle, and they were tense and distracted.
He is not going to come, said Debra a little before noon.
He'll come, Conrad contradicted her. Those buffalo are too much