“She’s not smarter than I am, she’s just vindictive!” I screamed, wiping off my face.
“I warned you not to piss off the ellies. You’re lucky she didn’t kill you when she had the chance.”
“I’ll get her for this.”
“Enough fooling around. We have to go evaluate the damage from the storm.”
The storm has transformed the valley into an unrecognizable state. Entire roads have disappeared, washed away by rivers of rain. Trees have been snapped in half and scattered by the wind. The grounds that use to be dry, cracked, and dusty are now drowning in thick mud.
Mother Nature’s fit of rage is devastating. “It looks like a different place, I can’t believe it.”
“It’s a tragedy.” The Drill Sergeant’s voice is heavy with concern. This exhibition of emotion from him is almost as eerie as the dark sky.
“Isn’t rain good after so many years of drought?”
“A little rain, yes, but not this, this is gonna screw up everything. The entire ecosystem is in shock.”
The Drill Sergeant has a hard look on his face. Is there a faint whisper of sadness under his steely exterior? He inhales deeply on his cigarette, too distracted by deep thought to exhale. Instead, the smoke curls out of his lips and hangs in the thick, moist air. The end of his cigarette reaches his fingers, he doesn’t even notice when it begins to burn them. “There is a pregnant giraffe here, I want to find her and make sure she survived.”
“Okay, I’ll look for giraffes.”
“And look for the baby rhinoceros, too.”
“Do you think it’s that bad?” I didn’t realize rain could have such a profound effect on wildlife.
“I don’t know. Sometimes it takes a few days to realize the effect on the animals. The cold and damp can get into their lungs and cause a fatal respiratory infection. The young and older ones are most susceptible.”
Even some of the main roads are nearly decimated from the storm. Harrison has difficulty gaining traction.
“We’re going to have to rebuild these roads,” the Drill Sergeant says, grinding the gears while urging Harrison uphill.
“Do you have heavy duty equipment to do that?”
“No. We’ll repair them the South African way… by hand.”
I knew it. Nothing is done the easy way here, and everything is done by hand, machete, or with a rusty old tractor from the turn of the century. Harrison takes a sharp turn and slides through the mud to a long stop just in front of a harem of grazing Cape zebras. The zebras are native to this area and flourish here. Mating has been strong and their numbers continue to grow. A zebra’s stripes are unique to him, like a human’s fingerprint, it’s how we identify them in the field.
“Good morning, Zebras! Have you seen the giraffes?” I call out, trying to lighten the situation, but no one answers, not even a head nod. Instead, they answer me with a chorus of anal acoustics. The lower digestive system of a zebra is extremely vocal due to their hind-gut fermentation process that allows them to digest larger amounts of food in a shorter period of time. It is a highly efficient system, but the byproduct is copious amounts of gas.
“Get out of the way!” the Drill Sergeant shouts. “Damn zebras. All they do is run and fart, run and fart.”
We leave the tooters behind and continue on in search of the giraffe. In the distance, a small head with little ears and horns appears just above the tree line.
“Look there!” The Drill Sergeant doesn’t try to contain his excitement.
The female giraffe hides behind a clump of sagebrush when she hears the truck approach. She doesn’t realize she is not hidden by a bush half her size.
“She looks fine, yep, just fine, she is.” There is noticeable relief in the Drill Sergeant’s eyes.
I untie a bail of Lucerne, and throw a clump on top of the sagebrush to make it easier for her to reach. The expectant mother pulls apart small pieces, chewing each one several times. Giraffes are nature’s gentle giants, timid and shy, despite their towering size and strength.
Suddenly, the thundering of hooves hammering the ground cause the giraffes to bolt, leaving their breakfast behind. ’We’re about to be ambushed by a herd of hungry wild buffalo.
Hhuuuuuuucccckk. Harrison’s spinning wheels splatter mud onto the faces of the buffalo already gorging on the giraffe’s breakfast. They’re uninterested and couldn’t care less as they chew in a near-hypnotic state.
I hold on tight to the bails of Lucerne while Harrison fishtails down the muddy trail. My new role is to search the horizon for anything that seems out of the ordinary, to scope out any situations that need expert attention, but all I see is mud. Until…“Stop, stop!”
There, right on the side of the road is a rare site, something that one would be lucky to see even from a distance, but up close it’s miraculous. It’s too good to be true. Lying down, with her legs folded up underneath of her, is a magnificent red hartebeest. A cousin of the antelope family, she is bigger and more powerful than her smaller relatives. Her horns are longer than Bonty’s and curve backwards at the top. Her beauty steals my breath.
There are only two hartebeests on the reserve, one male and one female. They have been together as a pair for as long as the Drill Sergeant can remember.
Harrison rolls closer to her but she doesn’t move. This isn’t natural. Wild animals run away. She isn’t budging. My insides turn empty and my heart tightens. She’s dying. Or maybe she’s just cold. She’ll be fine now that the storm has passed. Any minute now she’s going to stand up and run away. Please, stand up. Run away. Get out of here! Go! She doesn’t move. She only looks at us, undaunted by our presence. In her dark eyes is an unprecedented wisdom and strength; there is no fear present in those eyes. Her head is held high and her shoulders are broad, a noble creature even when in a vulnerable position.
Has she been attacked? Why won’t she move? Her dark red fur is soaked right through and a pool of mud has started to take form around her shape. It’s obvious that she has been here for a while.
Something catches my eye, and there on the side of the hill, not far above her, is her partner. He takes a few steps towards her, but quickly retreats. He repeats this several times. Our presence is causing him stress.
Looking at the Drill Sergeant confirms that something is wrong; his face is heavy. His eyes are full of sadness. The pit in my stomach is deepening. Hope is quickly fading. Searching his face for some sign of hope, I find none. He senses me looking at him and shakes it off, replacing it with his usual stone cold aloofness. But it’s too late, I’ve seen his human side.
He picks up his radio and says something in Afrikaans.
“Will she be okay?” Please say she will.
“Hard to say, these animals don’t do well in the cold.”
“Can we do something to help her?”
“No, it’s out of our hands. This is Mother Nature’s domain,” he says coldly.
“Are you sure? She looks like she’s suffering.” Her coat is soaked, and she is too weak to stand. If a cheetah finds her she’s finished. We can’t just leave her here like this.
“Sometimes Mother Nature is harsh. That’s her prerogative as the world’s most powerful woman.”
The further away we drive from the hartebeest, the closer the male gets to her. Like a faithful committed partner, he waits by her side, guarding her, protecting her, and comforting her, but knowing that he is helpless in saving her.
He looks hard at me, and I at him, and I feel what he feels. I know his anxiety, his sadness and the way his insides are twisting into painful knots, sickening him. I know his rage, his trepidation, and his overwhelming fear to be alone. Above everything else, I know his feelings of helplessness. That goddamn feeling of vulnerability when you realize how powerless you are, and how unfair and cruel life can be, and how, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise, we are not in control.