Frederick Ramsay_Botswana Mystery 01 (6 page)

Chapter 11

Sekoa reached the shore of the Chobe at dusk. He approached the river’s edge cautiously. Crocodiles lurked beneath its surface and while he had never witnessed one attack a lion, he had seen a nearly grown zebra pulled in. He studied the water’s surface and satisfied there was no danger, crouched and began lapping. His tongue, like that all of the
Felidae
,
was not particularly adept at drinking and it took him some time to finish. When he was done he rose up from his crouch and tested the air. In the past he’d relied on his eyesight to search out prey and relied less on his sense of smell. A movement to his left brought him to full alert.

One of the members of the pack of hyenas that had dogged him earlier sidled from the bush and stared at him, its tongue lolling. The lion growled and took a step toward the hyena, who scuttled away back in the direction he’d come. The lion watched him leave. He was downwind, and now he caught the scent of the rest of the pack. They were trailing him. Waiting for him to die; perhaps they might even hurry that process along.

He followed the shoreline, trotting eastward, away from the park and toward a set of vaguely familiar odors. He recognized some of them. He’d caught them before when the large stinking beast with no legs came forward and sat near the pride. It never attacked and they’d become used to it. It made a curious growling noise and when it did so, it emitted a strong smell and made other noises like birds but there were no birds on it like on the buffalo, just dangly things that smelled like what was in his nostrils now—definitely an animal smell. Possibly human, although he could never separate it from the large legless beast. He knew he needed to shake the hyenas off his trail and they, as most of the beasts in the park, always shied away from that beast and its appendages. If he could get close to it or them, perhaps they would leave him to die in peace.

A giraffe and its mate stood motionless, watching him from afar, ready to employ their hooves if he were to change direction and come at them. Those hooves could be deadly. He never hunted healthy giraffe. Impala and kudu scattered from his path as he trotted along the river bank. He ignored them. He would have liked to pull one down but he knew he had neither the endurance for the chase nor the strength to actually drag it to the ground. His earlier lucky kill had provided enough sustenance to last for a few days. In the old days, when the pride would hunt, he could eat fifteen or sixteen kilos and sleep for a week. But that was no longer the case. He would have to steal a smaller predator’s food or find carrion.

***

Bobby Griswold paced the hotel room. He didn’t know what had become of Brenda and he worried. Not about her safety, but about whom she might have met and what she might be doing. Before they’d married she’d confessed the affairs she’d had. He’d accepted them. After all, he wasn’t exactly a saint, and in her line of work, he couldn’t have expected anything else. Hadn’t he been one of them, at least at first? But he still had jealous moments when he thought of the men in her past, the ones she met at parties, and the ones he imagined her meeting but he wasn’t aware of. He couldn’t trust her alone and out of his sight. More than once this constant surveillance and suspicion had brought him to the edge. What if she had hooked up with some guy?

He had doubts, not for the first time, about his decision to marry and in fact often wondered how it had happened. He couldn’t remember thinking about it but, well, Brenda had a way of getting what she wanted. He heard the key in the lock and hastily found a chair, sat, and opened the paper.

“Hi.” Brenda tossed her bag on the bed and strolled to the bathroom. He didn’t like that. Why did she need a bathroom right after she came in the door?

“Where’ve you been?”

“Around, you know shopping and all. What else have I to do with my time? I mean, I thought we were coming to Africa and see wild animals and things, not mope around a hotel all day. This could be downtown Cleveland, for crying out loud.”

“You left me an hour ago. So, what did you buy?”

“I didn’t see anything. The stuff in the gift shop is, like, real tacky. Like I said, this could be Cleveland.”

“We’re supposed to go to some river where there are the animals and things, the day after tomorrow. Leo is going to send the engineers and most of the others back home and we’re flying out to a resort or something.”

“Resort? You’re kidding, right? What kind of resort are you going to find in the middle of Africa? Geez, Bobby, use your head. It’s gonna be tents and MREs.”

“No, no, look at the brochure on the table. It’s where we’re going.”

Brenda scanned the pages. “You’re sure this is the place? Do they have a spa? I don’t see one in this thing? I could use a massage.”

“Come over here and I’ll give you a massage.”

“Can’t do it, Babe, I have to meet somebody.” She slipped out of her jeans and into a short skirt and blouse. The neckline made Bobby frown.

“You’d be better off if you wore a bra with that blouse. Who’re you meeting?” Bobby’s jealousy antennae were up.

“Nobody. It’s, like, business. Don’t look at me that way, Bobby. It really is business.”

“The only business you know is—”

“Don’t even say it. You are going to have to learn to trust me. It might as well be now. I say it’s business with a capital B, and that’s what it is.”

Brenda applied lipstick, gave her hair a pat, and left. Bobby waited until he felt certain she’d reached the elevators and rose to follow her. He’d find out soon enough what kind of business she was up to.

Chapter 12

Leo found Henry Farrah in the lobby turning out his pockets. He watched as his lawyer checked and rechecked them. He inspected the floor close to where he’d been sitting, and then he seemed to have an epiphany, stood upright, and headed for the hotel bar. Leo followed. As Farrah disappeared around the door jamb at the bar entrance, the double set of elevator doors opened. Brenda exited from the first, Travis Parizzi from the second. The corridor to the bar suddenly seemed crowded. Neither saw Leo, who slowed his pace and edged to the wall out of their line of sight. The two followed Henry into the bar. Leo continued his walk and nearly ran into Bobby Griswold who bolted from the stairwell.

‘You headed for the bar as well, Robert?”

“What? No…ah, yes. Maybe. Should I be?”

“Everyone else is. Henry, your wife, Travis, and I’m thinking I might join them. Then again, perhaps I should let the children plot and scheme for a while before I embarrass them with my presence. What do you think?”

“Um, I don’t know, sir. Whatever.”

“Articulate and decisive as always. Are you waiting for me to die, too?”

“Sir?”

“Never mind. Walk with me, Robert. We need to have a word.”

***

When Travis and Brenda entered the bar, Farrah and the barman seemed to be having an argument. The barman pointed in their direction and said something to Henry.

“What’s that old bag of—?”

“Oh, oh, he wants his notebook back.” Travis waved to Henry.

“Henry, I’ve been looking all over for you. I have your notebook. Here,” he reached into his pocket and produced the book and its pen. “You left it here earlier. The bartender asked me to return it.”

Henry squinted at Travis. Finally, he held out his hand and took the book.

“You forgot to pay your bar tab, too. You owe me sixty pula and fifty thebe, whatever that works out to in dollars.”

Henry pocketed the book, reached into another pocket and withdrew a one hundred pula note. “Here, keep the change.” He pivoted and rushed out of the room.

“Thank you, Henry. I’ll have a drink in your honor.” He turned to Brenda. “He bought a scotch and a beer and didn’t drink either one. Left them on the bar.”

“What was in the book?” Brenda steered them to a booth away from the door where they couldn’t be seen from the corridor.

“How would I know?”

“I saw you reading it, so don’t give any of your—”

“Okay, I looked. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think he has been a naughty boy.”

“Meaning?”

“I could put something really big on permanent hold if I wanted to. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Does it have something to do with the public offering?”

“How’d you know about that?”

“There’s lots of stuff I know, mister. Just because I ain’t been to Yale or someplace like you did, doesn’t mean I’m a complete ditz.”

“I didn’t attend Yale, either. Okay, you called for this meeting. What is it you want from me? I’ve already laid down the rules for redeeming your husband’s stock. You will do me a favor if you will let this all ride for another two weeks at least.”

“I’m okay with that for now. I want you to level with me. What are you up to that needs Bobby’s stock in play?”

Travis weighed his options. He could feed Brenda Griswold a line of complicated nonsense and hope to fool her, he could give it to her straight, or he could shoot for something somewhere in the middle. The fact she’d tumbled on to anything at all persuaded him that nonsense wouldn’t sell and might possibly antagonize her to the point she’d precipitate a move that would be rash, or stupid, or both. Before he decided which way to go, Brenda started to guess. She laced her thesis with more Anglo-Saxon epithets and figures of speech than he’d heard since his days in the army, and he’d heard plenty. And that didn’t include the straight up profanity. His mother, had she been there to hear it, would have described her discourse as “earthy.” Somehow, a business deal as Brenda described it sounded wholly different than when the same deal was presented in a board room with PowerPoint and spreadsheets.

And her guesses were very nearly correct. He looked at her with new respect. Potty mouth or not, this woman had a functioning brain in there with all that organic fertilizer. Clean her up and she’d really be something. Educate her and she’d be dangerous.

He had to interrupt her in midstream.

“You’re close. Do me a favor. Cut out the locker-room language and listen.”

“I didn’t spend much time in locker rooms, pal, at least not since the year I was a junior cheerleader and had some things on with the football team, but that was a long time ago. I learned this way of talking from CEOs, COOs, and other hot shots like you, with alphabets after their names that came to the club and figured they could let go with the girls. You never came to the club, did you?”

“No, never had the pleasure. Unlike the guys who can’t or won’t go home, I live a very full…That’s all neither here nor there, though, is it? The truth is, I can do this without Robert’s stock. It will take a little longer and cost more, but I can still do it.”

“What if Leo finds out you’re trying to move in on him?”

“He won’t unless you tell him, and I’m betting you won’t.”

“Why?”

“Because your stock holdings give you zilch unless Leo drops dead. With that crappy heart of his, that could happen, of course, but if you throw in with me…” he left the rest hanging.

Brenda frowned. “I think we need to take this conversation somewhere private. We can’t go to my room. Bobby’s there and if he gets involved he’ll only screw it up.”

“My room?”

“Sure, why not?”

“You’re not afraid of being alone in my hotel room?”

“I been in plenty of hotel rooms with more guys than I care to count, and I can take care of myself, believe me. If you can show me how this can work so me and Bobby get a bigger payday, I may surprise you with some moves of my own.”

They left the bar and took the elevator.

***

Leo took Bobby’s elbow and steered him out to the lawn to the pool area.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Bobby’s tone was just short of surly.

“Boy, I promised your mother I would look after you. That job is getting harder and harder. I gave you a job that a high-school kid could do, and the head of Accounting says you’re a slacker with a capital S. You take three-hour lunches, sometimes don’t return. You are over your allotted vacation time. And if you weren’t under my protection, you would have been fired months ago.”

“Yeah, well, since when did you start caring?”

“My God, you are a tiresome boy.”

“I’m not a boy. Why does everybody treat me like a kid?”

“Because you act like a teenager who’s had too much money and not enough responsibility, which in fact is the case, only you are not a teenager anymore, and you have no excuses. I’m tired of putting up with you, to be honest. I might like to see if you can live off the dividends from your stock and that little trust fund you have. I’m done with you.”

“What?” Bobby turned away. Leo saw the panic in Bobby’s eyes.

“You just realized that you wouldn’t last a week on what you draw down from that. Am I right?”

“You’re firing me?”

“The minute we get back.”

“But…”

“But what?”

“I need a loan.”

“A loan? You’re kidding. I just fired you and you ask me for a loan? I have to hand it to you kid, you got balls.”

“I need it. I’ll pay you back.”

“How? You don’t have a job after next month. You don’t have even the minimum skills to land employment at one third what I pay you now, and even if you did, that skank you married will have you broke inside a week.” Bobby seemed close to hyperventilating. “What is it? You look like you just soiled yourself.”

“I don’t have any stock and my trust fund doesn’t even pay the rent.”

“What do you mean you don’t have any stock? Of course you do.”

“I had to sell it to Travis Parizzi.”

Leo studied the boy-man in front of him, guessed he told the truth, and took his elbow again. “My room, now. You need to tell me everything.”

Brenda and Travis, their backs to the corridor, were entering Travis’ room when the elevator doors slid open and Leo Painter and Robert Griswold stepped out.

Chapter 13

The sun had set hours earlier, and torches and a few dim electric bulbs lighted the area. With the help of the neighborhood boys, Michael had finally finished the repairs on the Toyota HiLux, and now the villagers gathered around the vehicle, waiting. It had taken him hours to do what he could have done in minutes before. He reached in the cab and turned the key in the ignition. It took some doing, but the motor finally coughed to life. The HiLux’s engine roared and produced a huge plume of gray exhaust. Michael sat down in a chair in the court yard, grinned, and made an attempt to wave.

“You cannot destroy a HiLux,” he said, his voice weak but clear.

The men from the village cheered even as the smoke from the exhaust pipe spread across the ground and drove them back. A beaming Sanderson climbed into the cab and positioned herself behind the truck’s cracked steering wheel.

“Drive it,” A man shouted. She smiled and put the pickup, her
bakkie
, in gear and let out the clutch. The vehicle lurched forward and steadied. She drove it in a wide circle past the houses and huts that constituted her small village. The headlights wobbled and blinked off and on, but the truck moved. The younger men and women cheered, but some of the older men stood back in the shadows and looked on disapprovingly. It was not the place for a woman to be driving about in such a machine, they seemed to be saying. She pulled up in front of her house, set the brake, but left the motor running. Michael said they needed to be charging the battery.

“We will paint it next,” she declared. “I will go to the store and buy a great can of red paint and we will make this a beautiful truck, you will see.”

The men, and a few women, walked around the truck, banging on the side panels, squinting at the interior, kicking the tires, and muttering their approval. Mma Michael and her poor son had performed a miracle for certain.

Sanderson sat down next to him and patted his knee.

“I will need your help on this next thing I must do.”

“To paint?”

“No, no, I will need you to talk to those old men and the others who know hunting. I must find a bad lion and kill it. It is a thing I do not know how to do. They will listen to you. They will do it for you. I am not so sure they will become hunters for me.”

“Mma, you are old-fashioned. They will listen to you.”

“It is not I who am old-fashioned. These men are from the days before. They are not ready to listen to this woman. If you ask, they might.”

“And they might not.”

“Yes, that is so, but if I am the one to ask and I fail the first time, there will be no second. But if you ask, there will always be a chance.”

“Mma, this is not necessary. They must hear you. It is the way, now.”

“Do this favor for me, Michael. I cannot be taking a risk. If they do not go hunting with me, I am lost. Mr. Pako is sure I will fail and will report it. I might lose my employment. You must do this for me, please.”

Michael nodded and signaled to Rra Kaleke, the oldest and therefore the man held in highest esteem in the village, to come over. The old man approached and saluted them.

“
Dumela, Mma,
Michael,
o tsogile jang
?”

“
Ke teng, Rra Kaleke, tanki.
”

“You wish to speak to me, then?”

“My mother begs you to do a thing for her.”

“What sort of a thing?”

“Her boss, Mr. Pako, requires her to hunt a lion and to kill him.”

“This Pako, he asks this of a woman?”

“Yes. He is sure she cannot do it, and it will be hard for her if she fails. As you can see, she must not lose her employment.”

“That Pako is a foolish man. Hunting
ditau
is not a suitable occupation for women. I am admiring you, Sanderson, but this is a very bad thing for you to be doing.”

“Thank you, Rra Kaleke. You are correct, but it is so. I know you and the other men of the village know of hunting lions. I wish you to ask them if they will help in this.”

The old man scratched his head. “We have not been permitted to hunt
ditau
for many years. Young people today, they do not know how. We hunted them before. My father used his army issue Enfield to kill a lion, and his father, my
rremogolo,
killed a lion with a
lerumo
, with his spear, you understand? We have hunted the lion for many generations. It is not a thing to take lightly. This Pako must be very stupid. Hunting lions must be done by the man who knows how to do it. It is very dangerous.”

He closed his eyes and Sanderson thought he must be traveling back in years to when he was young and alive, before Independence, before the new way of doing things, back when he might have led a party of English hunters into the bush.

“We will meet in the
kgotla
and talk of this, Mma Michael.
Sala sentle.”
He nodded, turned, and shoulders back, strode away.

***

The men of the village gathered in the
kgotla
later. They sat on an assortment of chairs, some wood, several plastic in a variety of garish colors, and upended crates, Michael sat at their center, Sanderson at the extreme end of the semicircle. A late arrival required her to give up her chair and so she sat on the ground, legs extended,

As he was the oldest, Rra Kaleke assumed the leadership of the group.

“We are being asked by Mma Michael to hunt a rogue lion. This lion has killed a man, and the government wants it removed. She has sensibly asked us to help in this hunt. I ask you, now, Missus, where is this lion doing his killing?”

Sanderson pointed east. “The boy ran into the bush at night near Kazungula.”

“When did this take place, and why would he do such a foolish thing?” a tall man with a scraggly beard asked.

“This boy ran into the lion over a week ago. He wished to avoid punishment by the men of his village. They caught him stealing.”

Sanderson did not mention that the items the boy stole were now mounted on the truck they’d admired earlier that evening.

“Kazungula is on the other side of Kasane and away from the park. He will be a Zimbabwe lion, I think.” The man said. The others murmured in agreement.

Mr. Naledi, Michael’s boss, turned to the assembly. “You are better at hunting than I. You have tracked the lion in your youth. I have not. I speak with respect to you, therefore, but does it not seem that by this time that lion is back in Zimbabwe. Have there been any more reports of him? Are there goats missing, cattle, and other sightings since this event?”

Sanderson shook her head.

“Mr. Naledi says the truth. There is game in Zimbabwe,
dipitse ya naga
and
dikolobe
.” The men grunted their agreement. There would, indeed, be zebra and warthogs over the border, impala, too. Game a lion could track and kill.

“Perhaps,” a third man said, “but if this lion has been run off by the old man of the pride, he might not be so happy to go back to Zimbabwe so soon.”

“You are right there, but if he did or did not, Mma Michael is still burdened with the task of finding him and sending him to his ancestors. We must at least look at the place where the death happened and see,” Mr. Kaleke said.

“I can take you there.” Sanderson said. The men seemed to hesitate. “Mr. Naledi will drive the truck.”

Mr. Kaleke shook his head in approval. “Tomorrow we shall visit the place where the lion killed the man, and then we will see.”

The men nodded their heads and disappeared into the night to their homes. One by one the torches guttered out leaving the sky brilliant with stars and a three-quarter moon.

Sanderson was pleased.