Kassie stood up, grabbed his windbreaker off the armrest and said goodbye to Rooi. His thoughts turned back to Maria. She was a lovely person, always friendly and thoughtful … She hadn’t deserved an asshole like Barnie.
And now the asshole was MIA. Kassie shook his head. How could someone like Barnie just disappear?
* * *
Sophia Milton. British father. Italian mother. Brunette with extraordinary brown eyes, a friendly smile and long legs.
On her first day of school, I couldn’t wait to chat to her at break. I noticed Vicci deliberately distracting Smiley so he wouldn’t join us. Sophia suddenly made all the other girls seem mousy.
I planned to win Sophia over body and soul. I didn’t look too unattractive in the mirror and Sophia seemed to think the same. By the first Friday night, I’d already been invited to her house.
We listened to her collection of Beatles records, music that was entirely foreign to me. I was used to the rhythms of Kadongo Kamu guitar music, which was immensely popular in Uganda at the time, but I oohed and aahed along with her about the Liverpool four.
I was rewarded with a French kiss that made my heart beat like a Baganda drum in my chest, and after that Sophia was never out of my thoughts.
Two weeks later we were officially a couple. By then, I’d been allowed the privilege of touching her left breast during an Alfred Hitchcock thriller in the dark little school hall, a fact I obviously shared with Smiley with great pride.
I could see he was jealous and that he was dying to charm Sophia. But luckily Vicci, defending her territory against the Sophia threat with desperate perseverance, demanded all his attention.
Sophia’s father was the only hurdle standing in the way of us getting to know one another in the Biblical sense. He guarded his daughter like a watchdog and regularly came in to check on us sitting on the couch in their living room listening to ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’. The goodbye kiss at the front door was never guaranteed, either – her father was invariably on the porch with his pipe when it was time to go home.
So it was a dream come true when Smiley invited the two of us to their farm for the weekend. Vicci would be there too, Smiley said. Sophia’s strict father didn’t have a choice but to give in, seeing that Smiley’s father was the chairperson of the school governing body and one of the biggest contributors to the church’s limited funds.
For the rest of that week, my mind was overrun with images of Sophia and me in the shower.
6
They hid behind a boulder on a hill. Natasha’s gaze swept over the bushveld below them, but Gert spotted them first through the binoculars.
‘Three of them,’ he whispered. ‘Just as we suspected. One of them has a gun.’
Not far away, the leader of the SANParks anti-poaching unit had also spotted them. He waved his four teammates closer and spoke to them in whispers, though the poachers were still only tiny dots in the distance. He looked back at Natasha and Gert and pointed to where they were going to wait for the poachers.
The men ducked and darted into the thick bushes, disappearing towards a giant baobab about a hundred metres from a group of five grazing rhino. They had to move silently not to alert the rhinos.
Natasha watched with bated breath. Things could get dangerous if the rhinos became aware of them, but they seemed unperturbed. It helped that the men were moving downwind of them.
She and Gert had spotted the poachers two hours earlier. The three men had immediately ducked into a clump of bushes and Gert had carried on flying, as he always did, to create the impression that he hadn’t seen anything.
A few kilometres on, they’d seen the rhinos near the Maritube dam. It was clear that they were the poachers’ target – as with all poaching units, one of their group would be an outstanding tracker. Gert had landed at Punda Maria at the anti-poaching unit’s ranger station and they’d driven here in two Land Rovers.
Natasha smiled as she remembered Gert’s surprise when she said she was staying for the operation. Usually, the two of them would return to the closest camp to wait for the anti-poaching unit, but today was different. Ever since Werner Erwee had given her the bad news, she was determined to prove the Americans wrong. She had three months before the budget was cut … three months to prove to IESA’s donors how wrong that resolution was. What she wanted was a major breakthrough that would make them feel guilty and cause them to reconsider their ridiculous decision.
Werner didn’t believe her plan would work, but he was a natural pessimist. He’d never been the right person for this post as IESA’s head honcho. She needed a leader with more passion, someone who would fight tooth and nail – and even fists – for the cause. The responsibility now rested entirely on her shoulders.
A thing that had been worrying her for a long time was that too many anti-poaching operations failed. Just look at the number of times poaching gangs get off scot-free. She wanted to be present from now on to see how that happened so that she could make recommendations to SANParks. She wanted to add value at every possible level.
She took the binoculars from Gert and trained them on the three men. They’d advanced considerably and she could see what looked like backpacks on their backs. They were jogging along, ducking under the low branches of thorn trees.
‘Do you think it’s okay for us to be hiding here? There might be shooting,’ Gert whispered.
A layer of sweat shone on his upper lip and his light skin was starting to glow from exposure to the sharp midday sun. Behind the controls in the helicopter, he was entirely at ease, but down here, in the bushveld, he was out of his comfort zone. Before retiring to his current job, he’d flown rich tourists around and got used to staying at luxury lodges with them. ‘I like my comforts,’ he’d once admitted to her.
‘Stay behind the rock if you’re afraid,’ she said.
‘I’m not afraid,’ he said irritably, ‘but neither you nor I have weapons. And how do we know there aren’t lions around? I …’
She hushed him with a gesture. She could see the poachers now, through the binoculars, walking in formation, spaced about twenty metres from one another. This was going to complicate things for the rangers – all hiding behind the baobab – who were planning to surprise them. Natasha hoped the leader was aware of the change. There was no time now to warn him.
The middle poacher, who looked like he was the tracker, was heading directly for the baobab. The other two were about thirty metres either side of him now. Natasha swore under her breath as the rangers jumped out from behind their tree. Too soon! Too bloody soon!
The poacher nearest them turned around, dropped his backpack and ran. He weaved in and out of the acacias like a fleeing antelope. A shot rang out, but the poacher kept running.
The rhinos lifted their heads, ears twitching. They started stepping around fretfully.
The rangers, under loud command of their leader, chased after the fugitive. One of them spotted the poacher on the left of the formation trying to hide behind a shrub. Two rangers stormed towards him, but he slipped away into the thicket.
More shots. To Natasha’s great relief, the rhinos had disappeared in the opposite direction. Then she spotted the third poacher. He was heading directly towards her and Gert. He spotted her as she got up from behind the rock, and quickly changed direction.
She knew immediately that he was heading for a dense clump of shrubs about seventy metres off. She didn’t stop to think but sprinted towards the nearby patch of acacias. She was ahead of the poacher and the trees would provide enough cover for her to ambush him.
She looked around for a weapon as she ran.
‘Natasha!