Drowning (17 page)

Slipping on the silk robe I’d found in the bathroom, I padded out of the room to see if I could find him.

The sound of his voice became clearer as I walked softly down the passage. Before I rounded the corner I could make out what he was saying.

“That’s fine. I’ll be out there in twenty minutes.” He paused. “No, I can’t make it sooner. I’ll need another spotter, and I will have to call my…”

He broke off as I walked round the corner.

“Okay. See you then,” he finished abruptly.

“Hey,” I said softly. “Is anything wrong?”

“Yes.” He moved over to me, put an arm around me, kissed me. “I didn’t want to disturb you, but I’m going to have to go out now.”

“Out? Where? And why?”

“A gang of poachers just tried to kill one of the white rhino in Kruger Park. There was a shoot-out and they fled on foot, in the direction of our boundary fence. I’m going to call Joshua now, and we’re going to go out and see if we can spot them. The rangers can’t use their vehicles because of the flooding on that side, so it’s important we get there fast.”

I thought about this for a moment.

“You said if you call Joshua, there will be a delay.”

“Yes. His house is on the other side of the estate, about ten minutes’ drive from here.”

“Well, take me along, then,” I said, with more bravado than I felt. “Ready in two minutes, and then we’ll bag these guys.”

Nicholas gave me a reluctant smile. “Sorry, Erin, I’m not exposing you to this danger.”

“Why not?”

“It could get violent. The gang is armed. You’ll be safe here with all the doors locked.”

“Hey, I’m already living on borrowed time. I’d be dead now if it wasn’t for you.”

Striding back toward the bedroom, he gave me another tight smile, “Even so, I can’t let you come along, and that’s the end of it.”

“You can’t stop me,” I retorted. “And that’s the truth of it. Remember, I’ve got a good eye for seeing things in the bush. Your words, Nicholas!”

“It’s going to be too dangerous,” he insisted.

“I’m a photographer. I’ve taken footage of violent urban riots, and forest fires, and natural disasters. Danger is part of my job. I might not have my camera with me, but if I did, I’d be coming with you and bringing it along.”

I turned on the light and pulled on my clothes. I slipped my feet into my too-big borrowed sandals, and I was ready to go before Nicholas had fastened his own combat boots.

He stared at me with a blend of frustration and admiration. Raising my chin, I stared back at him, trying as hard as I could to give the impression of a tough woman who knew exactly what she was doing.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s get moving.”

He took his Remington out of the safe in his bedroom. As we hurried out to the garage, he got on the phone to Joshua and told him to drive up to the boundary as soon as he could. Then we bundled ourselves into the truck and set off into the moonless night.

“I’ve got a spotlight here which I’ll use if I need to,” Nicholas told me in a quiet voice. “For now, though, you just need to try and get your eyes accustomed to how the bush looks at night. These poachers will keep still when they see our headlights. It won’t be easy to pick them out because they’ll be wearing neutral colors, to blend with their surroundings.”

“No worries. We’ll spot ’em.” I could hear the nervousness in my own voice. It wasn’t only the fact that this was a potentially dangerous situation—it was also that I really did not want to let Nicholas down. He’d trusted me enough to bring me with him—and now I needed to prove myself to him.

“Scout for loose wires in case they’ve broken through to this side,” he said. “Probably, though, they’ll be hiding out near the boundary on the Kruger Park side, waiting for another chance to go back in and track the rhino. So we’ll go through the gate and start hunting on that side of the fence.”

Oh, boy. And there I was thinking we’d be staying safely on our side of the fence and peering through. My stomach twisted. I took a deep breath and tried to think of the rhino, the magnificent animals whose lives would be saved.

The portable radio crackled and Nicholas answered it, communicating with the rangers who were on their way, and were to be backed up by a helicopter from the South African police service.

“Looks like there’ll be a lot of backup arriving soon,” he reassured me, putting down the radio speaker and shifting to low gear to accelerate up a hill. The
Land Cruiser
rocked and swayed as it hurtled along the dark tracks. Branches scraped the sides of the car and every so often I heard a loud popping noise as a stone flew out from under the tires. Once, I saw a flurry of retreating backsides as a herd of impala ran to escape the noisy threat of our vehicle, and I also noticed the pale fluttering of wings as a large bird—an owl, perhaps—took off from a nearby tree.

“Let’s hope the backup arrives in time,” I said nervously.

“Let’s hope it does.”

Nicholas skidded to a stop at the gate and dragged it open before driving through. He then got out and padlocked it firmly behind him again. No poacher would be sneaking through this entrance to prey on his beloved black rhino.

“We’ll start south,” he said, climbing back in the truck. “The poachers would have been coming from that side of the park, according to what the rangers said. With some luck, we’ll intercept them.”

The bush looked so different at night. The truck’s lights threw the trees and bushes into sharp, uncompromising relief. In the harsh bright headlights, the muted greens and golds of the veld had morphed into subdued grays, sooty blacks, and bright, blinding whites.

Narrowing my eyes, I stared into the tangle of brush and undergrowth. Surely they would not hide near a road—but then again, in the darkness, perhaps they did not know where all the roads were. Certainly they would not be standing up. I needed to keep my eyes down, where the vegetation was thickest, looking for any signs of a human being—without being misled by a rock, or a twisted branch, or stump.

“Take the light, Erin,” Nicholas told me, and I grasped the large spotlight before buzzing the window down and hooking it over the side of the door. I noticed that he had his rifle at the ready, its muzzle jutting out of his open window. He was driving slowly now, easing his way along the road, giving us both plenty of time to take in what lay on either side.

Shoot first…

As a photographer I knew the saying all too well, even though my interpretation of the phrase had involved a shutter and a lens rather than bullets and a gun.

The spotlight was intensely bright and penetrated deep into the undergrowth, but it produced a confusion of shadows and shapes. More than once I drew breath, ready to tell Nicholas to stop, but each time whatever I was looking at resolved itself into a natural and unsuspicious form. It struck me powerfully that this issue was bigger than affairs or infidelity—this was a matter of life and death, good against evil, a hellish battle playing out in what I had perceived to be paradise.

We traveled for another ten minutes before I saw the movement in the undergrowth.

It was such a tiny motion, a slow downward easing of a shadow, and the only reason I noticed it was that the night was otherwise so perfectly still. I strained my eyes but could see nothing more… all the same, what could have caused it? An animal would have moved fast, bursting out of the undergrowth.

“Nicholas,” I said in a low voice. “I saw something there, on the left.”

“Where?” His voice was soft but urgent. He stopped the vehicle and leaned across to stare out of my window.

“Just beyond that taller bush, the one straight ahead.” I pointed. “You can’t see it now, but there was a movement there.”

Nicholas eased the truck backwards a few yards and then we caught our breath simultaneously as we both saw it through a clearing in the grass. An unmistakably human form, lying prostrate on the ground.

He got onto his cell phone, I supposed because it was quieter than the crackling radio, and within seconds was speaking in a low voice to the game rangers.

“We’ve got at least one of them here, possibly others,” he said. “Hiding out about twenty yards east of where we are on the road.” He gave the ranger the exact coordinates. “How far away are you?”

He listened, then spoke again. “Okay. We’ll stay here and watch them. We’ll see straight away if they try to move.” He paused. “Good. In five, then.”

“The rangers are five minutes away,” he whispered. “They’re going to walk up a parallel track, then head toward us from the western side and hopefully bracket the poachers. Just be careful, Erin. There’s a chance these guys may panic and try to shoot their way out of here. Any gunfire, and you get down, okay?”

“Yes,” I murmured, and swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.

Five minutes had never passed so slowly, nor seemed to race by so fast. The poacher, or poachers, must suspect that we had spotted them because we were stopped nearby. Why were they still laying low? Were they, too, making frantic contingency plans in the same way we were? I supposed that with the powerful spotlight blinding them, they didn’t have many options but to stay where they were, cowering face down in the muddy soil.

Suddenly, another brilliant flashlight illuminated the bush from a point beyond the poachers. Over a crackling megaphone, a loud voice demanded the criminals’ surrender.

“Give yourselves up! Put your weapons down immediately. Hands in the air!”

I tensed as gunfire exploded around us. In a split-second, Nicholas had shoved me down onto the seat.

He leaned over me, protecting my body with his own as he flattened his foot on the gas pedal. The engine roared and we followed a haphazard route along the track, with the big vehicle swaying and jouncing. He must be finding it difficult to steer, I thought dazedly, since I could still feel his body over mine. Or was there another
reason for his erratic driving? Surely—surely—he could not have been hit?

As the Land Cruiser finally skidded to a stop, my heart raced with anxiety at the thought of Nicholas wounded. I was desperate to confirm he was unhurt. Was it safe to speak now? Surely it must be.

“Nicholas?” I whispered.

“Erin?

“You okay?”

“Keep down for now. I’m fine. You okay?”

As I said, “Yes,” another deafening round of gunfire broke out. Then silence my ringing eardrums couldn’t register. Soon, it was broken by shouts, a scream and a groan, and another, louder noise I recognized—the sound of a helicopter.

“That’s the police,” Nicholas said, straightening up. That crazy, zigzag drive had taken us a long way down the track. One of the rangers, his clothes wet and streaked with mud, stood on a flat section of the road with a flashlight, guiding the helicopter down.

Nicholas let out a deep breath. Then he reached for me and held me tightly in his arms.

“That was a very close call. We could easily have been hit. Thank God you’re all right. Thank God.”

“Well, you’re the one who got us out of the way,” I stammered. I was shaking uncontrollably. I wanted to say thank God that he was unhurt.

Slowly, Nicholas reversed toward the scene and climbed out. “Stay in the truck until I say otherwise,” he cautioned me, before striding toward the group gathered some distance away.

A minute later, I heard him calling.

“Erin! Could you come along and bring my first aid kit? The box in the back.”

Oh, Jesus, we’d been lucky, but somebody was wounded.

I scrambled out of the car and snatched the heavy box out of the back before jogging over to the group. The four poachers lay face down in the mud, their khaki outfits slathered in grime. Their hands were cuffed behind them and one ranger stood over them,
his Kalashnikov pointed at the prisoners. A mud-spattered armory of confiscated weapons and tools was strewn on the ground a short distance away.

Nicholas bent over a fifth man who lay on his back, groaning, while another ranger trained a flashlight on them. In the bright light I could see the crimson stream of blood spurting from his drenched khaki leg. The man’s face looked Asian… Surprised, I realized the injured man was one of the poachers.

“Thanks,” Nicholas said to me. He opened up the box and snapped on a pair of surgical gloves. I crouched down beside him and passed him equipment as he asked for it.

“He gonna die?” the ranger asked, his tone implying that he didn’t really care. For one fierce moment, I couldn’t help sympathizing with his viewpoint. After all, shots had been fired from both sides, and if the poachers’ aim had been better, it could now be one of the rangers bleeding on the ground.

“Bullet hit his thigh,” Nicholas said to the ranger. “Quick, Erin, scissors! And the gauze.” He worked swiftly and in silence for a minute before adding, “Just missed the femoral artery, but it’s ruptured a major vein. I suspect the bone’s broken if not shattered. I’ll get the bleeding under control, but he’ll need hospital fast!”

Carefully, Nicholas cut the man’s bloodied trouser leg away.

“Police are here now,” the ranger observed. “They can fly him to hospital. Be nice if he survived,” he added with heavy humor. “The others told us he’s the ringleader so he’ll have all the intel.”

The poacher stared blankly up at Nicholas, biting his lip in pain as his wounds were attended to. His face looked drawn with shock, and his eyes were shadowed. I wondered whether he would survive, and if he did, whether he would keep his leg. Either way, I was glad the rhino were safe for now. I watched, feeling dazed by the trauma of the night’s events, as the three armed policemen interviewed the rangers and took photographs of the scene.

“Erin,” Nicholas said to me in a gentle voice once he’d finished stabilizing the injured man, “I’m going to have to fly out with the police, and accompany this patient to Hoedspruit hospital. That means
I’ll only be home tomorrow. Joshua should arrive any minute. When he does, could you follow him back to the lodge in my car? He’ll stay there with you until Miriam arrives.”

Nicholas—leaving? I felt stricken at the thought, and he must have seen my expression change because he added, “I’ll get a ride to the Nelspruit police headquarters tomorrow morning, and fly my own helicopter from there back to Leopard Rock.”