Dictator

7

When the news came through that poachers had killed Sinikwe and Fairchild, Dick Stratten’s first instinct was to go and investigate the incident himself. The younger men, however, were having none of it.

‘Come on, Dad, let me do it,’ Andy pleaded. ‘I could use some excitement.’

‘That’s what worries me,’ growled his father. ‘I don’t want any excitement, just someone to go and see what’s happened. If there’s going to be any action, any poachers getting scrubbed, I want some police right there so it’s all above board.’

‘Please, Mr Stratten, do not concern yourself,’ said Moses. ‘I am sure that no one will come to any harm.’

‘But Moses, dear,’ said Jacqui, ‘you must be tired after such a long flight from London. Wouldn’t you rather rest?’

‘It’s all right, Mrs Stratten, I’ll be fine. I slept very well on the plane. This will make me feel as though I have properly come home. Besides, you have been very generous to me. I would like the chance to be useful to you, to show my appreciation for all that you have done.’

‘Fair enough,’ Dick Stratten conceded. ‘Take a couple of the boys with you. I want all four of you armed. But you are only to fire in self-defence. Do you understand me? I don’t want you arsing about, trying to act like John Wayne.’

‘John who?’ Andy said with a grin.

‘You know exactly what I mean, young man. Be careful out there.’

‘Please, darling,’ said Jacqui, ‘do what your father says. And come back safe.’

Andy Stratten kissed his mother’s head as he passed her. ‘We will, Mum, no worries,’ he said, and then, to Moses, ‘Hey, boet, let’s cut!’

The two friends bantered back and forth as they drove out to the site where the shootings had been reported. But the conversation stopped when they came upon the mutilated corpses of the two rhinos.

‘Bastards!’ hissed Andy. He turned to Moses. ‘Welcome back to Africa. Not a lot has changed.’

‘Not yet, no,’ Moses agreed. ‘Come, let us see what happened here, and where the killers went.’

The four men began examining the crime scene, tracking every footprint across the grove, noting the patterns of cartridge shells as carefully as police forensics officers. Tracking spoor was a skill Andy had learned from his first footsteps. To the Ndebele it was a heritage that stretched back through countless generations to the very dawn of humankind.

Moses spoke to the two other black Africans, then addressed Andy. ‘So, we are agreed: eight men, armed with AK-47s, but only seven of them fired. The eighth man stood here, watching the whole scene.’

‘The leader,’ said Andy, ‘giving orders.’

‘I would think so, yes.’

‘OK, so let’s see where they went. I know we promised the old man there’d be no heavy stuff, but if I find the bastard who ordered this, he’s a dead man.’

‘Yes, and then what will happen?’ Moses asked. ‘Nothing good for you, that is for sure. So you must calm that hot Stratten blood. We will follow these men. We will find them, observe them, call in their position and wait for the police. Then, maybe, you can have your revenge. But for now we just follow the spoor.’

The poachers had made an attempt to cover their tracks and set false trails, but the failure of their deceits merely added to the confidence of the men following them. It was not long before they found the spot where the Hilux had been left. The tyre-tracks clearly showed how the poachers had turned off the road and left their vehicle screened by mopane scrub. They had not turned back on to the road, though, when they left the scene. Instead, they’d kept going away from it, deeper into the scrubland.

‘They headed for the river,’ said Andy. ‘They must be nuts.’

‘Perhaps they thought they could cross it,’ Moses suggested.

‘There are fords, but not here. They can’t be that stupid, can they?’

Moses shrugged. ‘Not stupid, perhaps, but desperate. We should be careful. Maybe we should stop here. There are eight of them, remember.’

‘Stop? No way. I will have these fuckers, mark my words.’

Moses said nothing. But his knuckles whitened around his gun and his eyes darted nervously around as they made their way through the mopane bushes that rose as high as ten feet to either side of the path forced through the undergrowth by the heavily laden pick-up.

No one was talking now. The air was still and close, heavy with the resinous, turpentine smell of mopane seeds, and the men’s shirts were gummed to their backs with sweat. The visibility was poor in every direction, every sightline blocked by trunks, branches and foliage. The men bowed their heads low, looking ahead of them at ground level, below the foliage, hoping to catch sight of a poacher’s feet or his shadow.

Even Andy Stratten’s demeanour lost its bullish confidence. His father had fought in the vicious civil war that led to the transformation of the white-ruled former colony of British Mashonaland into an independent Malemba governed by its own people, but his son had been spared that pitiless conflict. For all his talk of revenge he had never gone after human prey, nor been a target himself. Fear was gripping him by the throat and twisting his bowel and guts.

Then, with barely a warning, they were through the scrub and standing by the banks of the river. There, sure enough, was the Hilux, its front wheels and bonnet half underwater, its cab tilting down towards the river, only its rear wheels still finding some purchase on the damp red soil of the bank.

‘Fuck!’ Andy Stratten exclaimed. ‘I hope those dumb munts can swim.’

His relief had made him forget himself: he’d used the white Malemban slang for a black man. No sooner had he said it than he realized his offence.

He was starting to stammer an apology to Moses when the sound of his voice was drowned by two sharp bursts of gunfire. The two estate workers had no time to cry out, still less raise or fire their weapons as the bullets from the AK-47s dropped them where they stood.

The poachers emerged from the mopane scrub, just a few paces away, screaming and gesturing at Andy and Moses to drop their weapons. Then their leader stepped on to the open ground on the riverbank. His eyes hidden behind a pair of fake designer shades, he walked up to Andy Stratten and jabbed a finger hard at his chest.

‘Now who’s the dumb munt?’ he said.

Then he stepped back and got out of the line of fire as the order rang out and the guns started chattering again.