African Dawn (41 page)

Tate, Natalie and George got into the double cab
bakkie.
‘Where is Chengetai, Elias?’ Tate said to the ranch's senior field guide, who climbed into the front passenger seat next to Tate. Elias's green uniform was already crusted with white-ringed sweat stains. He and his men had been hard at work for several hours capturing and loading rhino.

Elias pointed ahead and off to the left and Tate put the truck in gear and set off. He imagined the men were not overly happy at seeing all the rhinos being loaded; the smarter ones would realise that the ranch was ending its days as a rhino-breeding outpost.

Tate looked in the rear-view mirror and saw George Bryant's typically unfriendly eyes glance away. Natalie was very quiet. He wondered what was on their minds.

‘There,’ said Elias, pointing through the windscreen.

Tate pulled a small pair of binoculars from the centre console. ‘That's Chengetai.’

‘What does her name mean?’ Natalie asked.

‘“To take care”,’ her father answered. ‘Let's just hope she doesn't take care of us.’

Tate told Elias to get behind the wheel, but knew he didn't have to give the old field guide any more instruction. ‘Natalie, you can come up in the back if you like and hand me a second dart if I miss.’

‘OK.’

Tate got out and then vaulted up into the bed of the pickup. He extended a hand and lifted Natalie up. She was slim and when she bent over to tie up a shoelace he couldn't help but notice her pink underpants showing above her green bush trousers. The skin of her lower back looked smooth and soft. He wanted to touch it. Elias started driving and Tate grabbed Natalie's hand to stop her falling over.

‘Thanks,’ she said. She stood next to him and held on to the roll bar.

‘Tate, you didn't dart the rhino on the ranch whose horn went missing, did you?’

He looked at her, into her eyes. ‘No.’

‘It's just that … I remember you talking about sustainable harvesting of rhino horn when we were at Victoria Falls.’

‘I did, but there is no way I would have done that to Paul, not for my own gain. If you ask me, I think it's exactly what he should do here. He should dehorn all these rhinos and sell the horns direct to the Vietnamese or the Chinese or whoever wants them, but we all know that's not possible. As well as being against the law it would cut out Emmerson Ngwenya and we now know what he's capable of.’

‘Why should I believe you?’ she asked.

‘I don't care if you believe me or not. It means nothing to me. I'm not trying to impress you, Natalie.’ He looked into her eyes and couldn't read them. She bit her lower lip.

Elias reached out of the driver's side window, tapped on the roof and pointed. Tate saw old Chengetai. She raised her head and sniffed the air. She had seen human beings in their vehicles nearly every day of the sixteen years of her life – rangers, researchers, tourists – but she sensed this was no ordinary day and no ordinary vehicle.

Tate loaded a dart into the stock of the gun, tapped it home and screwed the cap closed. He adjusted the air pressure and leaned across the cab of the truck. Behind them the three-tonner trundled along at a sedate pace. ‘Try and keep her out of the thick stuff,’ Tate called down to Elias.

They bounced along the rough ground and Natalie picked up a spare dart, ready to hand it to Tate if he missed. ‘Be careful with it,’ he said to her, ‘just a drop of the stuff inside that dart is enough to kill a human.’

Chengetai tossed her head again, then started to run.

‘Faster! Don't lose her,’ Tate called.

Natalie swayed beside him, gripping the roll bar with one hand and holding the dart in the other. Tate hoped she didn't fall and stab him with it. She grinned at him like she was having the time of her life and her smile cut through his thick-walled defences. God, he still wanted her. And it wasn't just because his brother was taking her from him.

Chengetai ran across the grassy plain towards a wall of thorn bush. Elias had to get Tate in position for a shot before the rhino led them into the trees. Not only would it be harder to keep pace with her and get a good shot, but it would be a mission to get the bigger truck in there and to load her. They might end up having to walk her out, in a semi-drugged state, or clear a path for the truck. The first option was risky and the second meant hours of hard work.

Tate leaned around to yell through the driver's window. ‘Put foot, Elias!’

Natalie gave an involuntary whoop of excitement as the truck crested a small rise and became airborne. Tate bent his knees to brace for the impact as the Hilux slammed back to earth. He stayed on his feet, but Natalie lost her grip on the roll bar and her arms flailed as she started to fall. Tate reached out with his left arm and hooked it around her waist. Elias swerved to miss a stout shrub and Natalie fell sideways into Tate.

‘I've got you.’

She laughed and looked up into his eyes and for an instant he kidded himself that anything was possible, but then she straightened and Tate had to focus all his thoughts on the capture as Elias yelled and pointed to one o'clock. ‘There she is,
baas
!’

Tate tapped on the roof of the
bakkie
to signal he had seen her. He brought the stock of the dart gun to his shoulder and leaned his body across the roof of the cab, legs spread and braced. He registered Natalie's arm around him, presumably because she thought it would help steady him, but didn't look back to acknowledge the gesture. Tate's concentration was focused, as much as possible given the bouncing of the truck, on Chengetai's left hindquarter.

As the truck closed on the galloping rhino Tate pulled the trigger and the dart found its mark, the bright pink fluffy bouncing against the animal's skin as she continued her mad charge.

Natalie patted him on the back. ‘Good shot!’ But when he straightened and turned to her, she was looking straight ahead again. Elias kept pace with the rhino, though he had to swerve to avoid a deep, washed-out creek. Tate knew this was the time of maximum danger for the rhino, in case she fell into such an obstacle and broke a leg.

When they veered back onto the rhino's course Tate was pleased to see Chengetai had slowed her run to the classic high-stepping walk that indicated the opiate was working its magic. Elias slowed the vehicle and they all watched until, finally, Chengetai stopped, swayed a little, then sat down on the ground.

‘Everybody out, but watch her …’

Tate led the way, jumping over the side of the
bakkie.
When he got to the rhino the first thing he did was wrap a long length of cloth around her eyes to blindfold her. ‘She's not unconscious,’ Tate said to Natalie, ‘and covering her eyes will stop her from becoming panicked.’

Elias was talking loudly in Ndebele into a handheld radio. ‘The lorry's on its way
baas
,’ he said to Tate. ‘Three minutes.’

‘Good.’ Tate opened the plastic toolbox he'd brought with him from the
bakkie
and took out a syringe and laid it ready in the opened lid. ‘OK, nose rope and leg rope.’

The African men had worked on countless rhino captures and one was already dragging Chengetai's left rear leg out from under her and tying a stout rope around it. Elias helped Tate and Natalie lift the animal's massive head so they could tie a second rope around her snout, just behind the second horn.

Chengetai tossed her head suddenly. Elias dodged quickly to the left and narrowly escaped having his shoulder opened by the sharp tip of the rhino's horn.

The three-tonne lorry appeared and the driver cautiously negotiated his way around ant hills and fallen logs to get as close as he could to the prone rhino and her captors. Tate gave the thumbs-up and the driver got out and operated the small crane on the back of the vehicle, swinging out the steel-reinforced transport crate. Three of the capture team swung the crate around as it neared the ground, pointing the rear towards where Chengetai lay so that its opening was only about ten metres from the drugged rhino.

‘Good work,’ Tate said to the men. ‘Natalie, you can climb up on the back of the truck, so you can lean on the open top of the crate. Take the electric prod from my toolbox and reach in and give Chengetai a zap on her bum if I tell you to. OK?’

Natalie nodded. She found the prod, gave it a couple of tests and climbed onto the truck. Tate had one man take the nose rope and pass it in through the rear of the crate and out a hole at the front. The man took up the slack, and when everyone was in position Tate took the syringe of Naltrexone and jabbed the drug into the rhino. Chengetai became more alert instantly. Tate gave her a slap on the rump and, still somewhat groggy, she got to her feet. ‘Take up the slack on the ropes!’

The man on the nose rope, together with a colleague who had joined him, heaved hard, one of them putting a foot against the grate. Chengetai tried to fight the force that pulled her head up and forward, then, as Tate had hoped she would, she charged forward, sensing the men in front of her. ‘Keep control of her,’ Tate told the others. Chengetai hopped a step as her left leg was hampered by the efforts of Tate and his men. ‘Heave!’

Tate looked up and saw Natalie sitting on the edge of the crate. He would have preferred her standing safely on the truck and looking on while they worked but saw, too late to do anything about it, that there was a gap of a metre or more between the three-tonner and the crate, and she couldn't stand on the flatbed and reach over to see into the crate. ‘Careful up there!’

She smiled, enjoying the spectacle. ‘I'm fine.’ She brandished the cattle prod and gave him a wink.

The men on the nose rope continued to pull, but Chengetai baulked when she came to the entrance of the crate. Tate let go of the leg rope and went to Chengetai's rump. He grabbed hold of her curled-up tail, pulled it straight then leant over, placed it between his teeth and bit down hard. Natalie laughed, but the rhino snorted and whined, and when the nose-rope crew redoubled its efforts she stomped halfway into the container.

‘Now, Natalie!’ Tate yelled up to her. ‘Zap her on the rear.’

Natalie leaned over, pressed the prod into Chengetai's hindquarter and pushed the button activating the zap of electricity. Chengetai surged forward to escape the pain and lowered her head and slammed into the far end of the crate. The impact knocked over one of the rope crew, who had been pressing a foot against the outside of the crate. Chengetai threw back her head and backed up a couple of paces and the second man on the nose rope yelped as the coarse hemp was dragged through his bare palms.

‘Get hold of that bloody rope! Close the back!’ Men were pushing and slapping Chengetai's butt as the big rhino, temporarily free of the tension from the nose rope, tried furiously to back out of the crate. Two other workers were trying to slide down the trapdoor at the rear of the crate, but Chengetai had moved half a metre of her rear end past the entrance to her temporary gaol. ‘Zap her again, Natalie!’

Natalie leaned into the crate, her belly bent over the steel frame of the container above the wooden walls. Tate could see the rhino bucking and rocking inside and the end of the electric prod waving about as Natalie tried to make contact with the panicked animal. ‘I can't reach her, Tate!’

Tate used his shoulder to heave against Chengetai's rear and with the help of the others managed to push the rhino inside just enough for him to be able to give the command to drop the door. The men jumped back as the heavy barrier slid down its rails into place. Suddenly freed of the tension on her rear leg Chengetai charged forward again and slammed her head into the far end of the box.

‘Tate!’

Tate, his face covered in sweat and his clothes filthy from heaving against the rhino, looked up but couldn't see Natalie. ‘Shit.’

‘Tate!’

Tate scrambled up onto the truck and to the rim of the crate. Natalie screamed as she scrambled to get to her feet. She had fallen into the crate and was crouched at the rear. The rhino heard her scream and started to back up. Natalie reached out and hit Chengetai with a zap from the cattle prod, which made the rhino jump on the spot and thrash about in the impossible task of turning around. Even though she couldn't charge forward, Tate knew the rhino could easily crush Natalie to death by backing into her.

Tate leaned into the crate and reached for Natalie. ‘Grab my hand.’

She reached up and locked onto his hand and Tate heaved as hard as he could. Natalie's boots slipped on the crate's wooden walls but couldn't find purchase. Her hand was slippery with perspiration and she slipped from Tate's grip, and screamed.

Chengetai was bustling backwards and Tate knew that unless he tried something else Natalie would be jammed against the rear of the crate. He jumped over the rim of the crate and landed, legs astride, on the rhino's back. Chengetai hopped on the spot like a bucking bronco as Tate reached again for Natalie. She took both his hands and managed to get her foot onto one of the metal framing ribs that ran parallel to the ground. Tate rode the jumping rhino and got a hand under Natalie's bottom to steady her. When she was able to grab the rim of the crate Tate half-slid and half-fell off Chengetai's back. He landed on the floor of the crate and reached up in time to get a hand under Natalie's foot and heave her up, giving her the boost she needed to get out.

Tate yelled and slapped Chengetai's bottom so hard it stung his palms. He looked up and saw Elias standing on the back of the truck leaning in. He had Tate's toolbox in one hand. ‘I don't know how to load the dart gun,
baas
!’

‘The dart! Throw me a dart!’

Natalie grabbed the box and opened it. She found the spare dart Tate had made up earlier.

Tate looked for the electric prod but Natalie had dropped it and Chengetai had stomped on it and destroyed it. The rhino kicked back and Tate dodged to one side and nearly lost his balance. He started to climb, but Chengetai reversed at full speed and smashed her body into the rear of the crate. Tate yelled in pain as he felt his left leg being crushed against the timber of the rear door. The whole crate shook with the impact and it was only the fact that his leg had been to one side of a steel reinforcing tube that had stopped his bone from being pulverised. Nevertheless his leg buckled under him when he dropped to the ground.