Читать книгу The Leopards of Sh'ong - Paul Jaco - Страница 5

The cave looming in front of us was so deep that we could barely see the back walls. We went in after struggling through some mud, leaving our rifles standing erect in a bush. To keep our direction once we were inside, we always rolled out a thin rope behind us.

It was a grave we were looking for, but this cave also had nothing. When we came out, a surprise awaited us.

Two warriors wearing leopard skin loincloths confronted us. Their faces were painted with red and yellow root juice and in their hands were the two rifles we had left outside, now pointing ominously at us. The markings on their faces clearly showed their affiliation and origin. Their bare feet were covered in mud. We lived in Kwa-Violentia, after all.

“Spuds!” I said softly. This was worse than Ashlea and Shane’s nightmare, because our attackers now had guns, our guns.

“It’s them!” Tensy groaned. Over his shoulder, one of them wore a bag with an old army-type pair of binoculars and a mobile phone.

We had our camera equipment in our hands, and in a desperate attempt to save our lives I called out to them: “Hi, gentlemen! Want these?”

I quickly tried offering them what we had. There were our rucksacks, a tripod, a flashlight, two lenses, an unused spool and our binoculars. A hand-out was better than an assault. Watching their trigger fingers very closely, I braced myself for a quick veering reaction in case they started shooting, but what could one really hope for?

One of the men stepped forward while the other kept Tensy’s rifle pointing at us. He took our rucksacks and photographic equipment.

They threw some of the smaller items on the ground. Neither of them said a word. One decided he would also have the binoculars, and it went into the bag where the camera was. To our astonishment, after removing the cartridges, they placed the guns back where they had found them. Then they walked off rather briskly.

Our other cartridges were in the car. With the mine headquarters only six kilometres down below, they might have been off-duty workers. But then, why were they wearing tribal cloths, with all the root juice markings? Spying on us from afar?

I was sure I could take them on, now that they didn’t have the weapons any more. They were walking straight into that patch of bushes where the leopard had disappeared the previous day.

On the verge of charging after them, intent on using my karate skills, Tensy grabbed my arm firmly. “They’ll kill you; they would have spears somewhere. Besides, they’re sure to have their own firearms. You have nothing.” Trying to calm me down did make sense. “Why didn’t they kill us?”

“We’re small fry,” was all I could think of. “Tribal reasons, maybe. Gum never found these two guys.”

Her expression turned into one of deep concern. “It can’t be just that. This is part of my father’s scheme! They’ve probably been watching us, trying to stop us from prowling around. Don’t forget that he’s interested in exploring this part of the mountain. We’re in his way. And he can’t stop us. But he tried yesterday, remember?”

“Oh, come on!” I said.

“You’re a black belt. If you went after them, they could have killed you, saying afterwards that you had assaulted them. I’m telling you, this is my dad’s way of trying to stop us from coming here.”

“I still don’t believe it,” I said. “And what about Ashlea and Shane?”

She straightened up. “Seevie, stop arguing.” She turned and started heading back to the car, leaving everything for me to carry. Our day was over. Her figure was etched against the blue horizon where the mountain ended. She was crying, as if she could see into the future. She knew very well what havoc her father could create.

We took a path, and I glanced sideways. Some lofty trees made up the thicket where those men were now heading. “Well, the leopard is their problem now,” I said when I finally caught up with her.

Her argument continued on our way home. “The only reason why they didn’t kill you, was because I was there.”

“They’d kill me to get you, bright spark,” I said. Afterwards, this possibility did, in fact, strike me again when I remembered how one of those guys had looked at her.

During the previous week we had received the results of two tests at school, with Tensy getting hundred per cent for maths and ninety-eight for science and I only got seventy-nine and eighty-four. We were in the same grade, but our ways would part soon when she was to transfer to a special school for the gifted and I was going to remain where I was, IQ minus 16.

When we got to the car, I said: “I’m coming back here. I’ll first get some more cartridges.”

“No, Seevie, no! Don’t go up there alone!” she pleaded. “Ask your dad to go with you if you have to risk it. And take Cram with you!” She saw my resentment. “You’re so stubborn!”

I had to give in to her and tried phoning the man who was supposed to be my dad, Merby, on his mobile. But he was in a meeting, so I just took off after dropping her at home.

Soon I was back on the mountain with my dog, ready to shoot somebody in the foot if it meant getting that camera back.

It was Merby’s camera.

I found myself at the place where the two robbers disappeared over the rise. Yes, the little footpath they were following led straight to where that leopard mother had fled the day before. It was less than a kilometre away from where I was standing.

I cocked my rifle. “Come on!” I said to Cram, my pit bull terrier, a fighter who had saved my life more than once, like the previous Saturday when a wounded bushbuck charged me and my hunting rifle failed. Well trained, he took the spoor, stalking mode, heading straight towards the thicket. He did not have enough weight to handle a leopard, and his legs were too short. But he did once fight a honey badger to death somewhere in the bush, where our staff later found the remains of the skin. For two weeks he lay like something that was hit by a train, hardly eating; and did he stink! But he was all fight now.

When I reached the bushes I had to push past about fifty thorny acacias and at least twenty coral trees. From a deep shadow, I strained my eyes as I stopped Cram with a “tssst”. There was a small clearance. A dense collection of southern mahoganies and some bushes formed a thicket a little way in. I went on, very cautiously. There was no path to follow here. Still, Cram went ahead when I touched his backside with my foot. Everything was quiet. In front of us was a larger opening. Expecting anything to happen, I went in.

In the centre of the opening lay the leopard, dead. Her belly was ripped open and the contents lay spilled over the ground. An assegai, remaining stuck in her throat, was obviously the weapon of defence. Those men must have been unaware of what this place stood for!

Ten metres from her lay the man who had pointed Tensy’s gun at us; also dead. His face and abdomen were in tatters and he must have died bleeding to death from a severed jugular vein. His abdomen was virtually dissected by the animal’s formidable medial nails.

I touched nothing, holding Cram back from attacking the dead leopard. Dogs often defecated when they smelled a leopard, but Cram merely cocked his ears, looked in the direction of where the path was leading to, and then he headed straight towards the densest part of the thicket. Again I needed to restrain him.

We moved forward slowly, but we weren’t even halfway when the dog suddenly rushed in.

The largest leopard male I had ever seen, charged him! From his side swung an assegai shaft, and he was clearly out on a desperate, grizzly revenge. I had no choice but to shoot as quickly as I could. The dog was at his chest in an instant, but the bullet had entered his skull and had done its work, leaving an ugly sight. The spear had entered just below the spine.

On a great leadwood stem, forking out sideways, hung another human body, half-eaten. A .45 Browning lay in the bush about five metres from him. I didn’t touch the Browning either, whispering a short tribute of thanks to Tensy for sensing that the men could have killed me if I had followed them back there.

On examining the male, I concluded that a bullet might have ripped his ear off.

Not far from him I found the bag with the camera. I searched for the binoculars, but they were nowhere to be seen. I took more photographs.

As we returned, walking past the ghastly sight of the first body and the mutilated leopard mother, Cram sniffed around and stopped at a little enclosure near a hollow old tree trunk. Something smelled funny, and when I looked inside I found a little cub, nothing older than a day!

“Stay!” I commanded. Cram would never as much as snap at a house cat, but this thing smelt like bush and he could kill it in one bite.

What a discovery!

When I tried holding the cub against one of the dead mother’s teats, no milk came out. The mother must have been dead for hours already.

Towards late afternoon, after taking photographs of the scene where the female leopard and her attacker lay, I headed back, the camera slung over my shoulder and the cub tucked inside my shirt.

I was already quite far from that place with its ghastly scenes, when a voice called out to me from behind a boulder. “Seevie!” It was Tensy, of course. She had already seen me holding the stolen bag. When she reached me she kissed me and held me very tight. She had never done that before.

“Looking for trouble, are you?”

I shrugged her off, and quickly told her everything, speaking rather softly, not forgetting this was leopard area.

Luckily she was clever enough to bring a torch and when I showed her what was inside my shirt she exclaimed: “Seevie! He must have been born last night!”

I just said: “Come. It’s a she.” We walked down the same path where we went down previously, a path now having its own memories. Cram faithfully led the way.

“He’s hungry, poor thing,” Tensy said as she looked at the dog when we reached the cars. In a flash he jumped in with her and I had to drive back all by myself.

“My back itches like a mad now. And I’ve got ticks!” I said through an open window.

“I’ll bring your dog. First tell Merby what you’ve found,” she advised. “This is a matter for the police!”

We were each left to our own thoughts as we drove home. I saw her entering their driveway and then opening the remote-controlled gate. She came back rather quickly with Cram and she made him jump in with me. He was so pleased he insisted on getting inside my shirt. “You’re not the only pet any more,” I said.

The cub was lying very, very quietly inside that new pouch into which heaven had saved her. Only now and then there was a small little movement from somewhere near my belly button.

“You kissed me,” I said to Tensy as I started the car again. Then, without complaining, I drove off. “It was rather spontaneous,” I admitted to Cram, who gave me a wise look. Then on another note, I added: “We’ll have to phone Gum and tell him what happened.” He agreed, snorting like one of his bulldog forebears. “And find this one some food!” No comment. I pushed him down again, making him snort in protest, giving me a flatus that made me open the window.

As I still couldn’t get hold of Merby, I reported the incident by telephone to his acquaintance, a police officer, a political appointee, who helped himself by borrowing a spanner or two every time he visited Merby’s workshop. Captain Dubuzan was in charge of the investigations into cases of violence and murder in our province.

“Just go and make a statement and then bury them,” was all he said, “but bring me those leopard skins as proof.”

Indeed, as proof!

When I saw Tensy again a little later, I told her about this. She frowned and shook her head in confusion.

“Leopard skins are highly sought after!” I explained.

“Rather do what he says. He might ask you for your driver’s license. Where’s the cub?” she asked.

“With Mother,” I said as we went to make statements at the charge office. Then we left it all in the capable hands of Sergeant Hattawa, a trustworthy old policeman who, having acquired a great respect for Merby’s PI diving work for the police in the past, knew what he had with us. “Does your father know of this?”

“No. He was out.”

“You must come with me,” he said, indicating that he would have to visit the scene. “We’ll leave right away,” meaning we would be leaving Tensy behind this time.

They took the bodies of the two men to the mortuary.

I had a special request. “The superintendent said he wanted the skins and I should bring them to him.” When I went, the officer at the mortuary brought me the two leopard skin loin coverings in a plastic bag. I drove to the captain’s office and innocently offered him these. It was evening already. He sat there, playing drafts with one of his subordinates.

He smiled graciously and said: “No, I meant the skins of the leopards that were killed.”

“Sure, you could go there yourself to get them,” I dodged him. “By this time, the hyenas will have done their share, mind you.” His expression was negative. “I asked Officer Hattawa if he would take the skins to Headman Sh’ong, because they rightfully belonged to him.”

“No! You take them!” He was thinking of those hyenas, I guessed.

I phoned Gum and he said he’d join me. I took some farm stuff, went back, and flayed the carcasses just in time.

With his knife, Gum excised a morsel from the male leopard’s thigh. Holding it out to me at the tip of his knife, he said: “A bite?”

“Not without salt!” I objected rather disdainfully, feeling more or less like the first time I ate crayfish. No thank you, not dead leopard. But I remembered the story of how he and Merby ate raw leopard while they were still in the army and were not allowed to make a fire.

Then, as if showing me what the difference was between men and mice, he took it between his teeth and ate it with style.

That was Gum. How Grace could have married him I would never understand. She was the most delicate, prim and proper girl on earth. Maybe I was still crazy about her. “It doesn’t just go away. Ah, well, she’s too old anyway,” I said to myself while our gas lamp made its noise.

“Who?” Gum asked.

Since I was thinking out loud, I didn’t dare answer. “The leopard,” I said and Gum smiled wistfully.

“On our honeymoon,” he said, “we met a guy who wouldn’t eat leopard either, one I had killed with a knife. It wasn’t because we didn’t have salt, but because he said we had not bled it properly. But it was bled, all right. Its whole gut was cut open.”

“Did you get hurt?” Stupid question. He didn’t answer and just showed me his shoulder, where the scars bore an eternal mark of that event.

Some hyenas did turn up. They sat waiting outside the light of our torches and lamps. When we left, they went in with a flash and finished off the rest of the two leopard carcasses. I felt a touch of sadness, because these were the most beautiful creatures in the whole world.

At the entrance, as we left with our torches, Gum saw our binoculars lying in a bush, and also an old army one with a mobile cellphone still tucked in.

“My men have found the place where these two came up. They used mountaineering equipment from the mine’s side,” he said. “Two others in the gang also do rock climbing,” he went on, meaning more trouble. “Spuds had bought four complete sets of mountaineering equipment from wildlife packers months ago – for the mine. They’ve practised! Now they’re doing industrial spying.”

If only that were all. The men’s weapons, found later, gave a far deeper meaning to that intrusion. They had machine guns and some hand grenades hidden alongside two formidable Russian sables.

“This was a murder mission,” Gum said, “they were cut short by the storm.”

We had found all our stolen stuff, but at a price, since I simply had no time to study for the next day’s Biology test.

When I got hold of him at last, Merby asked me to tell him everything about what happened that afternoon. “And you went back there for the camera!” he scolded. “You could have asked me to go with you!”

“I tried to find you on your mobile, Merby! It’s just – I was worried about your camera.” He never wanted me to call him Dad, only Merby.

A light flashed in his eye. “Oh, I see. It was my camera!” Digital, expensive, and borrowing it was taboo, but at least it was safely back. He knew it had to do with my sister’s grave, and his advice was: “Okay, I agree, she’ll be buried in one of the caves, but leave it alone. Those caves are dangerous and they have tremors.”

Tall, poised and strong, he was all too unattached for a real father and it was once again the feeling I got as I looked at him sitting in his big armchair in our top lounge, reading his Time magazine. Coming from Griqualand, his main interest had been diamonds and rugby and he wasn’t going to lose his page.

Mother Andrietti stepped in: “Merby, leave Ladine’s matters to them …” She was straight, stout and very emotional, a soprano with her own, glorious background. When she sang, we knew about it; when she spoke like that, I loved her. She could have been my mother, but I doubted that too.

About a week later, with the leopard tragedy having been reported in the papers, I barged boldly into Neville Nobesy’s office on the far side of the mountain. He was in a meeting with his senior mine staff.

I threw down the newspaper in front of him.

“With my compliments, Sir!” I said, pointing to the gruesome photos I had taken of the leopards and the dead men. “Your former employees.” I turned and went out, having done exactly what Merby had told me to do.

Nobesy didn’t say a word, knowing I had him in a corner. His daughter, of course, had told everybody by then. Well, he had the proof in front of him. His men were industrial spies, and more. We knew that from one sentence on that mobile’s inbox. Tensy was right, but so were my deeper suspicions. We were small fry only to be scared off. Needing to please their boss, they pounced on our guns to try and hide their true mission. Taking the short cut through that thicket was their downfall.

“My men will know now where to wait for the other two,” was Gum’s final summary.

Something like a nutritional disaster did occur a day after the episode with the leopards.

“It’s like trying to fit a thirty-six tyre on a fourteen rim!” Merby stood looking at the spectacle, giving voice to his way of defining a leopard cub’s mouth and a cat mother’s teat.

The cat mother was Stella.

“She’s the biggest cat in the world,” reminded Mother. “I’ll give the kittens away! I’ve already got a home for one of them.”

Kittens were plentiful.

“The biggest ever house cat weighed twenty-eight pounds, and Stella weighs only eighteen. Check the Internet!” I argued, trying to impress Tensy, who came to collect their kitten sooner than planned, considering the crisis caused by the arrival of the leopard cub.

“You said we could have the little grey one,” she reminded Mother. “How much do you want for her?”

“Let’s wait another fortnight,” Mother said, surprising us all. The new big baby was draining every drop of Stella’s milk and the kittens were getting too little.

“This darling thing,” Merby said, pointing to the cub lying on a rug, sucking desperately on her only supply of food, “will have her new mother for breakfast within a month! We’ll have to get something bigger.”

“I know!” When Mother handled something it always worked, except for singing Verdi at two in the morning simply because she couldn’t sleep. She had been Gum’s tutor when he stayed with us and no cat ever came near them.

“This monster will be Stella’s end!” Merby said again, watching the cub.

“Her name is Shuna!” I said rather protectively. And that was it.

That is where Mother took over. “One day is all I need.” First, she telephoned the chief veterinarian at the nearest game reserve to get his opinion, which was: “It is very difficult.”

She also tried the National Nutrition Institute. Then she telephoned all the neighbours who might have lactating bitches, preferably big ones, but there were none at that point. While falling around, she came upon an unexpected foster-mother idea and it was not a cat she had in mind.

To explain, let me start at our regional fair a few months before and the most exciting race I ever saw.