Far Horizon (10 page)

The life of a soldier's wife was not one Isabella would ever have contemplated, but now, she realised, she would do anything to be with Mike forever. The Australian government, she had read, was advertising for nurses in places as far afield as Zimbabwe and South Africa. Apparently the country also had a shortage of doctors willing to work in rural areas. She was sure she could find work, perhaps assisting Aboriginal people. She would make the overture and, if Mike was truly serious about them being together, she would sacrifice all for him.

Despite her tiredness, she smiled as she stubbed out her cigarette. They would be going soon, too, if she had her way. The only thing more appealing to her than being with her man was the prospect of creating a new life, or two.

She started to turn back inside the clinic to her patients but a low thumping noise, the beat of an engine, made her look up.

M
ike had to suffer a smug look from Jake and a stony silence on the five-hour drive north back over the shocking road.

‘You're lucky you showed up when you did,' Jake said as they drove. ‘The South Africans probably would have got the PRMs to issue a warrant for your arrest.'

Jake was lucky, Mike felt like telling him, that he had shown up. The American would have had egg all over his face trying to explain to the South African cops why their star witness, and his subordinate, had gone AWOL. The two men were even, for the time being, but Mike noticed there were no beers in the cold box this time.

‘I suppose you'll want a lift back to the airport when we're finished?' Jake said.

‘With any luck I'll be making my own way back. Just drop me at Mapai when we finish in the bush.' Mike had no idea if Jake now knew all about Isabella and him, and he had no wish to explain their relationship
or why he was travelling halfway across Mozambique in search of her.

As they turned off the main road and juddered their way along the corrugated dirt track that led towards the spot where Carlos had died, Mike's mouth became dry and he found he was swallowing repeatedly. He liberated a Coke from Jake's cold box.

There were two vehicles waiting for them at the head of the pathway, a white South African Police Land Rover and a tan-coloured South African National Parks Land Cruiser pick-up truck, a
bakkie
, as they are called in Afrikaans.

Four men – two African, two white – were comparing notes on a sheaf of papers spread across the bonnets of their respective vehicles. They all looked up as the UN vehicle pulled to a halt, showering them in a cloud of fine dust. None of them seemed to mind. These were all tough guys by the look of them, Mike thought. Introductions were made and the pecking order for the rest of the stifling afternoon established.

‘Milton Tambo, officer in charge of poaching investigations,' the short man in National Parks khaki introduced himself.

Mike thought he looked like a Xhosa, a member of the ruling tribe of South Africa.

‘This is Gareth Hornby,' Tambo said, introducing a much taller and younger dark-haired man with tanned arms and legs protruding from an olive drab bush uniform, the type worn by rangers in the field.

Hornby rested a large-bore bolt-action hunting rifle on his left shoulder, holding the barrel with his
left hand as he shook hands with Mike. ‘Ranger,' he said.

‘Captain Fanie Theron, Animal Protection Unit, and this is my driver, Sergeant Ndlovhu.' Theron pronounced his first name as
funny
.

He looked like any other detective Mike had seen in any other police force around the world. He reckoned the cop was about his age, late thirties, with big arms, thick neck, beer belly and a red-veined drinker's nose. Mike liked him at first sight. His ‘driver' was a big-boned, bald Zulu, aged somewhere between twenty-five and fifty-five.

‘Good afternoon,' Sergeant Ndlovhu said.

Tambo led off, asserting his authority from the outset. ‘It's good of you to join us, Major Williams. As the only eyewitness to this terrible chain of events, we very much wanted to meet you.'

Major
Williams. Mike wasn't in uniform. He'd dressed in tan chinos, hiking boots and a navy polo shirt for his failed rendezvous with Isabella. He wondered what it would be like to be a civilian again after nearly twenty years in the military. The sun stung his bare arms and sweat beaded his forehead.

‘No trouble,' Mike lied. He had no wish to be there in the bush again. He looked at his watch and wondered whether Isabella was still at the clinic and if he would ever get there.

‘Shall we, Gareth?' Tambo said, indicating to Hornby to take the lead as the group headed up the track.

‘There are still mines out there, past the end of the tape,' Mike said to Hornby.

Jake interrupted. ‘Sven and his team have been here all weekend, under the watchful eye of the Mozambican police and Captain Theron, clearing mines without disturbing a crime scene. Not an easy task, I assure you,' he explained for the benefit of everyone. The men carried on walking, National Parks leading, with the police duo content to bring up the rear.

A crater the size of a large washing bowl showed where Carlos had died. Everyone stopped, silent for a moment. The line of white tape had been repaired where Mike had broken through it with the Nissan, and the cleared path now extended much farther into the bush. ‘This is the place,' Mike said.

Beyond the crater, Tambo pointed out the distinctive oval-shaped tracks of the elephant, showing where it had stopped short of the blast that killed Carlos. ‘And you,' said Theron in his heavily accented English, causing Mike to turn back towards him, ‘were about here, crouching, when you fired the AK at the elephant,
ja
?' He knelt in the same spot where Mike had been, raising two arms in pantomime of a man firing a rifle. ‘Bang-click, eh!' He smiled.

Despite himself, Mike smiled too. Theron had a way of relaxing people and lightening the mood around him. One of his interview techniques, Mike guessed.

‘Yes, how can you tell?' Mike asked.

Theron raised his considerable bulk and brushed the dust from the knees of his faded jeans. He was in mufti, wearing hiking boots, jeans, and a polo shirt souvenir of the 1999 Rugby World Cup. On his leather belt was a Glock nine-millimetre automatic pistol in
a clip-on holster. Sergeant Ndlovhu wore a blue police field uniform with matching peaked cap and an automatic pistol in a flapped canvas holster.

Theron, who missed little, noticed Mike looking at his shirt. ‘You Aussies won this one,' he said, stabbing the World Cup emblem on his chest, ‘but you nearly lost this one, eh?' he added with a chuckle, pointing a finger down the track. ‘We found the spent casing from the AK round you fired – the Mozambicans missed it.' He shook his head in disgust. ‘We dug the lead out of the elephant's skull. From the entry wound in the skull I could tell you must have been down low. You didn't expect to kill him with a front-on head shot from one of those popguns, did you?'

Mike shrugged, but Theron had centre stage now and seemed reluctant to take a bow.

‘They would have taught you how to bring down an elephant at your field guide school, would they not?' he asked Mike, as he fished a hand-rolled cigarette from a small leather pouch on his belt and lit it with a match.

Mike remained silent, impressed and a little scared by how much the South African Police seemed to know about him. Jake shot Mike a questioning look, which Theron also noticed.

‘Sorry, Major Williams, maybe Colonel Carlisle didn't know you were a registered field guide, a safari guide, in South Africa?'

‘No, I did not,' Jake confirmed, staring at Mike.

‘We have computers in South Africa, too, Major. You would be surprised what we have in South Africa.'

‘Am I being charged with something here?' Mike asked.

‘No, don't worry. I don't think you were indulging in some freelance hunting – the death of the ranger, and your poor comrade, and the fact that you probably knew you couldn't kill it with the shot you took, make that obvious,' the South African said. ‘It's just that we,' he gestured to include the National Parks officers as well, ‘don't like people taking shots at our national treasures, like Skukuza, for whatever reason.'

‘The bull was trying to kill me, and besides, I think it had already taken a serious hit from the same rifle that killed Fernando,' Mike said in his defence.

‘Correct on all counts, Major.' Theron smiled as he exhaled tobacco smoke.

‘What's a Skukuza?' Jake asked.

Milton Tambo spoke, obviously keen not to be left out. ‘Skukuza means “he who sweeps clean”. It was a name given by African people to the first game warden in the Kruger park, Colonel James Stevenson-Hamilton, for his efforts at wiping out poaching in the park. Skukuza is the name of the park's headquarters and largest rest camp and it was also given to this elephant, because of the way his long tusks and trunk used to drag in the dirt, sweeping aside sticks and leaves.'

Mike had seen an exhibition on Kruger's so-called ‘magnificent seven' elephants during a visit to the elephant museum in the park's Letaba Camp. The seven, and presumably Skukuza was one of them, were big beasts aged in their sixties who had survived years of threats from poachers and other big bulls and
were easily identified by their enormous ivory. The lesson ended, the group continued walking along the track.

After thirty metres or so, Hornby turned right and led them off the track into the dense mopani bush, following a path that had also been cleared of mines and taped. He hefted the rifle from his shoulder, cocked the bolt and fired a shot into the air. Jake gave a start, then looked around to make sure no one had seen him jump. Mike smiled at Jake and brushed irritating little mopani flies from his eyes and ears.

The air filled with the thump and swoosh of beating wings and they looked up to see at least a dozen white-backed vultures rising reluctantly into the air. Hornby chambered another round and fired into the air again, sending a further half-dozen of the scavengers aloft. The wind direction changed perceptibly and now Mike could smell old Skukuza. He would sweep no more.

The elephant lay in a small clearing, on his side, and Mike could not equate the ragged, stinking lump of meat with the mighty beast that had so very nearly taken his life. He looked smaller than Mike remembered him, as if the poachers and the hyenas and the vultures had stolen more than his tusks and his innards. There was a large hole in his now bloated belly where hyenas had taken the shortest route to his huge organs, and dried blood crusted around the two ragged holes where his giant tusks had been.

Oblivious of the stench, Theron climbed up onto the carcass, near Skukuza's shoulder, using the beast's protruding backbone as a foothold. He leaned across
the massive cranium and put his finger inside a small hole in the centre of the forehead.

‘This is the major's shot. Right between the eyes,' Theron said, for the benefit of the rest of the group. He shifted on one knee and pointed next to a puckered black hole above the point where the left front leg joined the body. ‘This is the entry wound of the shot that killed him.'

‘Can you tell the calibre of the weapon?' Jake asked.

‘If we were in South Africa we'd carry out an autopsy. But by the time we found a qualified vet in this country, there would be nothing left of this old chap but bone. No, I can't tell you exactly what calibre, but I can tell you what I think – this was the work of a white man. Maybe two.'

‘On what do you base that supposition?' Tambo, the senior National Parks man, asked. His tone betrayed a hint of annoyance that a government official of the new South Africa should be making presumptions based on race.

‘This is a large-calibre weapon, Mr Tambo, a hunting rifle. These weapons are out of the economic reach of most poachers from this part of the world. He, or they, had helpers, of course, foot soldiers to cut out the ivory and carry it away, armed with AK-47s. Major Williams claims he heard a Kalashnikov firing. Isn't that right, Major?'

‘Yes,' Mike confirmed.

‘Your
African
poacher,' by which it was plain to Mike that Theron meant a black poacher, ‘kills by pouring twenty or thirty rounds from his AK-47 into
the animal's guts, not by a single, well-aimed shot like this one, which is too risky. A
hunter
, as opposed to a poacher, will try to bring an animal down with one shot. Major Williams tells us he heard one shot before the elephant charged. The Kalashnikov Major Williams heard later was probably the hunter's helpers putting a few rounds into the elephant's belly as they approached him, wanting to make sure he was dead before they started on the ivory. Those bullets are probably in some hyena's belly by now. The Mozambican police dug the slug that killed the ranger out of a tree, but they haven't got a result yet. Even if they do identify it, it will be a long time before they get around to telling us what type of weapon it was.'

‘What about tracks?' Mike asked.

‘That is our nice little puzzle, which we were discussing when you arrived. See if you come to the same conclusions we did. Sergeant Ndlovhu will explain,' said Theron, nodding to the black policeman who now stepped forward to address the group.

‘We found two sets of footprints only. One was a man wearing cheap
veldtskoen
,' he said, referring to the lightweight, ankle-high suede leather boots favoured by many men of the bush in this part of the world. ‘The other was wearing sandals made from old car tyres. We think this was the tracker – somebody local who knew the area well enough to avoid the minefields. I backtracked these two men's spoor into the bush for a while, but then was advised to stop because of the landmines. The tracks finish here, where they climbed up on the elephant to cut the
ivory. You can see the scuff mark, here, and another mark where one man slipped on some blood. But the spoor stops here. They did not walk back into the bush.'

Puzzling, all right, thought Mike. He peered down at the spoor – a tracker's term for the footprints of man or beast – the sergeant had been referring to, but they were hard to read. ‘I'm no tracker, Sergeant, but these look older than a couple of days to me.' The tracks were little more than faint indentations. There had been no rain to wash them away and Mike wondered why the spoor was so nearly obliterated.

‘Ah, yes. But there has been much wind here, I think,' the sergeant said, smiling again.

Mike didn't recall it being windy on the day Carlos died. Like today, the stillness and heat were oppressive. He wiped a hand through his hair, and it came away damp with sweat.

‘Let us see, Major, how good your powers of deduction are,' Theron said, sliding down the elephant's back on his bottom. He dusted off his jeans as he walked towards the group, lighting another cigarette in the process.