Black Horn (13 page)

Michael
felt under his wide leather belt and found the flap and eased out three gold
krugerrands. From the corner of his eye, he saw Shavi heading for the door with
her friend close behind. The girl in the white dress was shouting at him above
the music. He did not look back.

The
ex-boyfriend and his two partners were moving. As they came past Michael, he
moved with them. They seemed not to notice him. The door was narrow and led on
to a dusty yard with a few wrecks of cars scattered around. Michael reached the
door just in front of the ex-boyfriend. He saw Shavi about twenty metres away,
pulling at her friend's arm, trying to drag him away. Her friend was looking
back at the door. Michael cursed under his breath and then turned, opening his
left hand. The three gold krugerrands glinted on his palm. Loudly, he said,
"I'm a tourist! I know it's illegal, but I want to change these. Are you
interested?"

The
ex-boyfriend was trying to brush past him, the beer bottle in his left hand.
His two partners were pushing from behind. He was looking at Shavi and his
enemy, but for a fraction of a second -- he glanced down and saw the glint of
gold. He turned and shouted, "Wait! I'll be back."

It was
almost the last thing he said. Michael pivoted and his fist slammed into the
man's solar plexus. It had nothing to do with any form of martial arts. It was
pure street-fighting, at which Michael excelled. The air in the black man's
lungs whooshed out as he doubled over, sending his face into Michael's slamming
left knee. He rebounded backwards into one of his partners. The other man was
trying to react, smashing his bottle against a doorpost and turning, but
Michael took one fast stride and kicked him in the testicles with his right
foot. He screamed and dropped the bottle, grasping for his groin. Michael hit
him with a short, vicious uppercut and pushed his body away. The second partner
was struggling to get up from beneath the ex-boyfriend. Michael kicked him in
the head and he rolled away, moaning. They lay in a triangle in the dust. It
had taken about five seconds.

Shavi
and her friend were standing like statues. Michael tossed the three gold coins
into the centre of the triangle, and walked briskly towards them, saying,
"Let's find another club."

Creasy
was squatting on his haunches on the bank of the Sebungwe River, his rifle held
loosely but ready. Maxie was wading across the river. The water was up to his
chest, and he held two rifles high above his head. Creasy's gaze was intent as
he scanned the river and opposite bank for signs of crocodile. It was the third
day. They had crossed the Gwaai and Mlibizi Rivers, and this was the last river
they would cross before trekking to the murder site on the lake. They had
passed through a land which Creasy had found strangely satisfying. During his
time as a mercenary in the Rhodesian War of Independence, he had served mainly
on the Mozambique border in the Eastern highlands, and the topography there
could well have been Northern European, with mountains, pine forests, trout
streams and very little game. But during the last three days, he had been
walking through the real Africa. The terrain was undulating, with high outcrops
of basalt rock. The dry Kalahari soil supported mopani woodlands between
grasslands and Jessie bush. The river valleys were studded with evergreens,
particularly the Zimbabwe ebony and baobab trees.

The
area was Maxie MacDonald's backyard and because of his impressive knowledge and
the studied casualness which masked total awareness, Creasy had done something
out of character. As they had climbed out of the Land-rover and watched it
drive away, three days earlier, he had tapped Maxie lightly on the shoulder and
said, "You've done jobs for me off and on over the last fifteen years.
I've always been the boss. But while we're in this part of the African bush,
you're the boss and you give the orders."

Maxie
grinned with pleasure and said, "OK. You don't have to call me sir, unless
we meet up with anybody in a sort of social activity."

As he
turned away, Creasy kicked him in the backside, and then they went into the
bush.

Although
they were not expecting to find anything until they were in the region of the
murder, Maxie's eyes rarely left the ground in front of him, while Creasy took
a broader view. They had decided to take three rifles: a high-velocity 300.06,
an AK47 assault rifle, in case they ran into a bunch of poachers, and a very
lightweight, single-shot .22 with a silencer to shoot small game, in the event
that their trapping was unsuccessful.

They
had not had to use the .22. On the first two evenings, Maxie had laid traps on
game-tracks near the rivers. The traps were simple but effective. A branch was
pulled down and stressed with thin twine against a catapult-shaped branch,
pushed hard into the ground with a toggle behind it. A thin twig rested on one
side of the toggle and the twine was fashioned into a noose with a slip-knot
and placed over and around the trip twig. As soon as anything touched that
twig, the toggle was released, the branch whipped back and the noose was
tightened. On the first evening, they caught a bush-buck, on the second
evening, a small duiker. Apart from their rifles, their only other implements
were hasp-knives and many metres of thin strong twine wrapped around their
waists. The meat was tough and rangy and would have tasted better after having
been hung for a few days, but still, as they ate the charred meat with their
hands, they felt that they had never dined better in their lives.

Game
was plentiful. Impala, zebra and giraffe, an occasional buffalo, which they
left at a wary distance, and the beautiful kudus with their spiraling horns and
regal expressions. They skirted a breeding herd of elephants, and on the
previous afternoon had briefly tracked a rhino, which was rare because they had
been mostly poached out in that area. They had spotted it after an hour and
Creasy felt a strange anger as he watched the beast and listened to Maxie's
words.

"It
has been de-horned by the game department, in an attempt to save it from the
poachers who come across from Zambia." Maxie had sighed. "But it
doesn't help. The poachers kill them anyway."

"Why?"
Creasy had asked. "If they have no value."

Again,
Maxie sighed, more in anger than in sorrow.

"There
are two reasons. First, so they don't waste time in the future, tracking that
particular animal -- sometimes tracking takes several days. Second, and more
disgusting, their bosses pay them the same money for killing a de-horned rhino
as for one with horns."

"But
why?"

"It's
incredible but simple. Just five years ago, there were more than two thousand
black rhinos in Zimbabwe. Today there are only about three hundred and fifty,
of which half are on private land and well-protected. The people who pay these
poachers have big stocks of rhino horn and they sell very little of it, to keep
the price astronomically high. It's their intention to make wild black Rhinos
completely extinct. The day that happens, the value of their stock will shoot
through the roof. In the Far East, ten grams of rhino horn would become more
valuable than a pure white nine-carat diamond. It's estimated that those
bastards have stocks of up to five tons. We're talking tens of millions of
dollars... it's pure filthy economics."

Creasy
had looked at the once-beautiful but now unbalanced creature and his anger had
mounted.

"How
much do the poachers get for a horn?" he asked.

"On
average, about five hundred dollars... That's a year's normal wages in Zambia,
but the risk is high. The game department wardens have a licence to kill, and
they do it often. Trouble is, there aren't enough of them and they only have a
single helicopter for the whole damn country."

They
turned away from the animal and Creasy said, "Well, if we come across any
of the bastards, we'll shoot to kill. You have the licence."

"It's
unlikely," Maxie said sadly. "They operate further to the west. That
rhino will have great difficult finding a mate in this area, and so his line
will die out anyway."

Creasy
thought about that and then muttered, "Well, we can live in hope."

Maxie
had reached the opposite bank and reslung the .22 over his left shoulder.
Without looking back, he moved cautiously through jessie bushes, holding the
AK47 at the ready. Creasy knew that he would do a circuit to make sure that his
landing area was not threatened, either by man or animal.

It was
fifteen minutes before Maxie reappeared on the bank. His eyes swept the river
for any sign of crocodile and then he beckoned and Creasy waded across.

They
picked up the tracks about fifteen kilometres from the murder site. Maxie
squatted and studied the dry soil for several minutes, while Creasy sat and
watched. Then Maxie moved in widening circles, until he stopped and crouched
again and then beckoned to Creasy. He pointed to the signs: the flattened
grass, the broken twigs and the scuffed dirt.

"This
was their camp last night," Maxie said. "Two of them. Afs."

"You're
sure they're Afs?"

"Definitely.
They're wearing sandals made from cut-up car tyres." He pointed to an
imprint on the ground. "Whites would be wearing Fellies or bush boots like
us. They're not Wildlife Rangers and they don't have much money, otherwise
they"d have decent boots or shoes."

"Rhino
poachers?"

"I
doubt it. Those guys usually wear army boots, either from Zambia or Zimbabwe.
These two are probably local poachers after meat and skins. They'd be
using the same sort of traps as we have during the last few days." He
gestured to his right. "There's a Batongka village about twenty K's
over there. The tracks show that they came from that direction. They'll be
heading for the lake and, from the spoor, I guess they'll end up a few k's
north of the murder site."

"You're
the temporary boss," Creasy said. "What do we do?"

Maxie
straightened and looked at his watch. He turned away to his left, in the
direction of the lake, and then thought out loud. "If they're from that
village back up the river, they probably poach this area on a regular basis,
and be sure they know it like the backs of their hands. They might have seen
something about the time of the murders. Now that kind of poaching gives them
only a subsistence living. If they did see something or cross some tracks
before that big rain, then their information could be useful. If they're
Batongka, then they're traditionally tight-lipped, but for a little gold they
might loosen up."

"Let's
talk to them," Creasy said. "Can you track them?"

Maxie
nodded. "They're being careful but I can track them. You remember the
technique?"

"Sure,"
Creasy said, and looked at his watch. "We have five hours to sundown.
Let's get going."

Maxie
walked over to a mopani tree and ripped off a branch about one metre long. With
his knife, he stripped off the twigs and leaves and then moved forward. Creasy
waited until he was about fifty metres ahead and then followed, watching him
closely. It was classic two-man tracking. Maxie followed the spoor closely in
front of him and, with his stick, pointed out the signs of the spoor for Creasy
to see. A bent clump of grass, showing the direction, an imprint on the soil or
a dislodged twig. If Maxie lost the spoor, Creasy would stand beside the last
sign, while Maxie would circle around to find the spoor again. Within the next two
hours it happened twice on outcrops of basalt rock, and Maxie had to circle at
a distance of several hundred metres before he picked up the spoor again on
softer ground. Creasy was a well-trained and experienced tracker himself, but
on these occasions, he marvelled at Maxie's skill.

After
three hours, Maxie stopped, crouched down and closely examined the soil. He
picked up some earth on his finger and smelt it and let it dribble from his
finger. Then he beckoned Creasy forward.

"They
stopped here and took a piss," he said. "Not more than an hour ago.
We do the same."

"Why?"
Creasy asked impatiently.

Maxie
explained. "Because ten minutes ago we scared a white-crown plover from
its perch, and that bird makes a lot of noise. Five minutes before that, we
disturbed those baboons and that coughing bark of theirs can be heard over a
long distance. About ten minutes before that, a Greater honey-guide bird tried
to attract us to a bees' nest...and that bird's call is also clear over long
distances. If those two boys up front are very experienced, they'll relate the
noises to our movements. So we stop for half an hour to ease their minds."

Creasy
grinned down at him. "You're not just a pretty face, Maxie."

Maxie
stood up and grinned back. He said, "I spent about three years during the
war in this bush. If I just had a pretty face, you wouldn't be looking at it
now. You'd have to dig six feet down to look at a pretty skull."

Creasy
pointed at the darker areas of earth, where the men had urinated. "Do you
think those men are armed?"

Maxie
had unzipped his trousers and was taking a pee.

"I
can't be sure," he said. "If they are, and they're caught by the game
rangers, they"d get an extra five years in jail."

"Do
you speak their language?"

Maxie
nodded. "Not brilliantly, but enough to get by. But they probably speak
Ndebele as well. Most of the smaller tribes in this area do."

They
caught up with them an hour before sunset. Maxie had paused again for half an
hour on two occasions when they had disturbed the birds. Creasy had felt no
impatience, just admiration for his friend's caution and uncanny skills, as he
had pointed out with his stick the almost invisible marks of the spoor.

They
were only two kilometres from the edge of the lake when they held a brief,
whispered conference.