1
1999
Crack! I heard a rifle go off in the distance.
I jumped out of my chair. Then came a burst … crack-crack-crack. Flocks of squawking birds flew off.
Poachers. On the western boundary.
David, my game ranger, was already sprinting for the Land Rover. I grabbed a shotgun and leapt into the driver’s seat. Max, my Staffordshire bull terrier, scrambled onto the seat between us.
As I turned the ignition key and floored the accelerator, David grabbed the two-way radio.
“Ndonga!” he bellowed. “Ndonga, are you receiving? Over!”
Ndonga was the head of my Ovambo guards and a good man to have on your side in a gunfight. But only static greeted David’s attempts to contact him. So we powered on alone.
Poachers had been our biggest problem ever since my then-fiancée, Françoise, and I had bought Thula Thula. I couldn’t work out who they were or where they were coming from. I had spoken with the izinduna, the headmen, of the surrounding Zulu groups. They firmly stated that their people were not involved. I believed them. They also claimed our problems were coming from inside the reserve, but I didn’t think that could be true. I had found our employees to be extremely loyal.
It was almost twilight. I slowed as we approached the western fence, killed the headlights, and pulled over behind a large anthill. We eased through a cluster of acacia trees, our nerves on edge, trigger fingers tense, watching and listening. As any game ranger in Africa knows, professional poachers will shoot to kill.
The fence was just fifty yards away. Poachers like to have their escape route open. I motioned to David. He would keep watch while I crawled to the fence to cut off the poachers’ retreat if a firefight broke out.
The smell of gunshot spiced the evening air. It hung like a veil in the silence. In Africa, the animals in the bush are only quiet after gunshots.
After a few minutes of absolute stillness, I switched on my flashlight and swept its beam up and down the fence. There were no cuts in it, no holes made by a poacher to get in. And there were no tracks or blood trail to indicate that an animal had been killed and dragged off.
There was nothing but an eerie silence.
Just then, we heard more shots. These came from the eastern edge of the reserve. I realized we had been set up.
Someone had shot off a gun outside the western edge of the reserve to get us to come this way. Now the poachers were shooting nyala—beautiful antelopes—on the far side, at least a forty-five-minute drive away.
We jumped back into the Land Rover and sped off, but I knew it was pointless. The poachers would be off the reserve before we even got close.
I now knew, though, that this was a well-organized criminal operation led by someone who followed our every move. The izinduna were right. It had to be someone from the inside. How else could they have timed everything so perfectly?
It was pitch-dark when we arrived at the eastern edge of the reserve and traced the scene with our flashlights. We could see flattened, bloodstained grass from where two nyala carcasses had been dragged to and through a hole in the fence. The hole had been crudely hacked with bolt cutters. About ten yards outside the fence were the muddy tracks of a vehicle. That vehicle would, by now, be miles away. The animals would be sold to local butchers who would use them for biltong, a dried meat jerky, which is very popular throughout Africa.
The name Thula Thula means “peace and tranquility” in Zulu, and when I bought the land, I vowed no animal would be needlessly killed on my watch. At the time, I didn’t realize how difficult that vow would be to keep.
Text copyright © 2009 by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence
Adaptation copyright © 2017 by Thea Feldman