The Last Leopard (6 page)

“Leopards?” asked Martine. “Here? In the Matobo Hills?”

“Yes, leopards,” Sadie responded. “Why? Are you particularly interested in them?”

Martine started chewing then, as if her mouth were full and she couldn’t speak, so Sadie continued: “Leopards are nocturnal, which, as I’m sure you know, means they mostly hunt at night. They’re the shyest and most elusive of the big cats. There are rangers in the Matopos who have worked here for twenty years without seeing one. For that reason it’s very hard to keep a count of them.”

“You said you ‘used to’ have a lot of leopards here,” said Gwyn Thomas. “What happened to them?”

“Poaching and uncontrolled hunting has wiped them out.” Sadie’s tone was bitter. “And elsewhere some have simply starved to death because the animals they eat have also been poached and killed. They are on the verge of extinction in Zimbabwe. Here in Matopos, we know of only one. Few people have ever seen him, but those who have say he is the largest leopard ever recorded. He is so cunning and elusive that the locals are convinced that when every other big cat in the country has been hunted down he’ll be the only survivor. They call him Khan. They believe the day is coming when he will be the last leopard.”

“Have you ever seen him?” Ben asked.

Sadie glanced at Ben oddly, as if noticing him for the first time. “Once,” she said abruptly. “I saw him once, but it was so long ago I can hardly remember it.”

They were finishing their meal when Gwyn Thomas gave a tut of annoyance. “Sadie, I forgot to mention that we’re clean out of fuel. We did try to find some in Bulawayo but had no luck all. We limped up your driveway on the smell of an oil rag. I assume you keep some petrol on the premises.”

“I’m afraid not,” Sadie said. “It comes in once a month. My next fuel delivery is not until—ooh, let me see . . .” She stood up with the aid of her crutches and hopped over to a calendar illustrated with local wildlife. “August twelfth, it looks like.”

“TWO weeks away!” Gwyn Thomas burst out, but she caught herself and added more politely: “That’s not for nearly a fortnight. What if there’s an emergency? What if we want to take a drive around the Matobo Hills?”

“That’s what the horses are for,” Sadie told her cheerfully, and Martine had the distinct impression she wasn’t exactly sorry that they were stuck here at Black Eagle for weeks on end—probably wouldn’t be sorry if they were stuck here forever.

“This is a disaster!” cried her grandmother.

“Gwyn, Gwyn, Gwyn,” Sadie scolded reproachfully, as if Gwyn Thomas were a misguided child. “You’re on vacation now. I’m sure you haven’t had a proper break in years. I’m aware that I’ve asked you to help me run the retreat for a month and that there’ll inevitably be a few mundane chores each day, but the present lack of visitors means there should be plenty of time to relax. At least it’s peaceful here. Matopos is so isolated that it forces you to forget about the modern world for a while. We have no television or e-mail, and the phones are hopelessly unreliable.

“As for emergencies, Zimbabweans have a saying: ‘Make a plan.’ It’s our national motto. It means that no matter what life throws at you, you keep smiling and figure out a solution.”

“You might have a point, Sadie,” said her friend. “I’m so used to my routine at Sawubona, where there are always visitors arriving or animals needing attention, that some enforced rest and relaxation might do me the power of good. It won’t do Ben and Martine any harm either. They’re still recovering from a disastrous school trip they took in June. We’re definitely all in need of a vacation. If we have to wait a few weeks for the fuel to arrive, then so be it.”

Martine caught Ben’s eye and saw he was just as stunned as she was. It was one thing being at the end of the world by choice. It was a totally different matter being stranded there.

Later, Martine was climbing into bed in her pajamas when she remembered she’d left her survival kit hanging over the back of her dining room chair. She was so sleepy that she was tempted to leave it till morning, but Tendai had drummed into her the importance of having it with her even when she least expected to use it. “Keep your survival kit with you for when you need it most, little one,” he always said. “When you need it to survive.”

Ben and her grandmother had turned off their lights, so Martine tiptoed out of the cottage and along the path to Sadie’s house, which also served as the retreat reception, lounge, and dining area. Cats’ eyes lit the way. The kitchen door was ajar. The survival kit was exactly where Martine had left it. Out of habit, she wrapped the pouch around her waist and secured the Velcro straps. She was hurrying from the building when she heard Sadie’s voice raised in anger. Surprised, Martine crept back along the passage and put an ear to the lounge wall.

Sadie was on the phone. “I don’t want your blood money,” she was saying furiously. “I want you to leave us alone. Nothing you can say will change my mind.
Ever.
Over my dead body will you take him.”

She slammed down the receiver, and there was the clack of wood as she gathered her crutches. Martine darted out into the night. A key turned in the lock and the kitchen windows went dark.

Despite her tiredness, Martine was awake for a long time, replaying in her mind what she’d heard. Who was threatening Sadie and why? “Over my dead body will you take him,” she’d said. That was a very extreme statement. Who was the “he” Sadie was protecting? Who did “they” want to take? Even more disturbing was the comment about blood money. Was Sadie being blackmailed in some way?

She was just drifting off to sleep when the silence was split by what, even through the fuzziness of half consciousness, she recognized as a leopard’s roar. But it was no ordinary roar. It was an expression of rage and absolute defiance, both the protest of a savage, untamed creature and a declaration of war, and it touched the very core of Martine’s being.

When she woke up in the morning, she had no idea whether or not she’d dreamt it.

T
uk-tuk-tuk. Tat-tat-tat. Tuk-tuk-tuk. Tat-tat-tat.
“Come in!” Martine shouted for the fourth time, her voice cross and thick with sleep. She couldn’t believe it was already daybreak, and she was very annoyed with whoever it was who kept knocking but refusing to enter. It was only when she took the pillow off her face and sat up that she realized the sound was coming from the window rather than the door. She pulled back the curtain. A black and white speckled hornbill with a big yellow beak was staring in through the window. As Martine watched, its beady eyes slid to her survival kit. She’d opened it to take out her flashlight the previous night and it was still lying on the ledge.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Martine told the bird, zipping up the pouch and tucking it under her pillow, out of view. She checked her watch and yawned. “And next time wait until at least seven o’clock before you even think about waking me up.”

“That’s Magnus,” Sadie informed her over a breakfast of butternut fritters and scrambled eggs prepared by Gwyn Thomas. “He loves shiny things and he’s an awful thief, so watch your possessions. The locals say that the person who finds Magnus’s nest will be able to feed everyone in Matopos for a year there’ll be so many rings, rubies, and riches in it. But so far he has managed to outwit us all. I have to warn you he gets very attached to visitors. Don’t be surprised if he starts following you around.”

Martine studied Sadie from under her bangs, but although her grandmother’s friend had dark circles under her eyes and seemed a touch distracted, she made no mention of the telephone argument. If she was being blackmailed or threatened, she certainly didn’t show it.

“‘Over my dead body will you take him.’ Are you sure that’s what you heard?” Ben asked as they walked down to the stables after breakfast. Magnus the hornbill accompanied them, waddling ponderously alongside.

“I’m not a hundred percent certain, because I was tired and listening through a wall,” admitted Martine, “but I’m pretty sure. And anyway she definitely made the comment about blood money.”

They followed the path through a grove of gum trees. The smell of horses, Martine’s favorite next to giraffe breath and baking bread, grew stronger. In front of her, Ben halted. The hornbill paused at the same time. On the far side of the stable yard, Sadie was in deep conversation with a man they assumed was Ngwenya. Their heads were close together and their expressions were serious.

“Maybe it was Ngwenya who Sadie was referring to on the phone,” Ben said in a low voice. “It could be that somebody’s trying to tempt him away to a better job and she’s doing her best to hold on to him. She did say he was her right-hand man.”

Before Martine could answer, Sadie’s companion spotted them. He murmured something to Sadie. She motioned them over with a crutch.

“Martine, Ben, let me introduce you to Ngwenya. Black Eagle would have gone out of business long ago if it weren’t for him.”

Ngwenya shook their hands with calloused, sun-warmed palms. “Gogo is being too kind,” he said. “She would get along very well without me.”

“Gogo
means ‘grandmother’ in Ndebele,” Sadie explained, seeing their puzzled expressions. “It’s a term of respect and affection used to address all elderly women, not just relatives. Not, of course, that I’m elderly.” She turned to Ngwenya. “And no,” she said fiercely, “I couldn’t manage without you. I just couldn’t.”

Ngwenya chuckled. “Come and meet your new friends,” he said to Ben and Martine. “You are good riders, yes?”

Ben shook his head. “I’ve never ridden a horse in my life.”

“And I’ve only ever ridden a giraffe,” Martine said.

The horse wrangler smirked and waited for her to finish the joke. When she didn’t, he glanced at Sadie as if to say “Is your friend’s granddaughter in the habit of making up such ridiculous fantasies?”

Sadie laughed. “I’ve never actually witnessed it, but I’m told it’s true. On the game reserve where she lives in South Africa, Martine rides a giraffe called Jemmy.”

Ngwenya clapped a hand to his forehead. “A giraffe!” he exclaimed. “You ride a giraffe?” He examined Martine with a great deal of interest. “With horses,” he said, “I think you will be a natural.”

As it turned out, he was an excellent judge of potential. For most of her life Martine had been hopeless at every sport she’d ever tried apart from giraffe riding, but she swung into the saddle as if she’d been doing it since the day she was born. Everything came easily to her. Everything
was
natural. After months of learning to stay aboard a ten-foot-high wild giraffe—one who had a disconcerting habit of making unexpected detours to snatch at clumps of juicy acacia leaves, sometimes in mid-gallop—riding a schooled, responsive horse was a breeze.

Mounting and dismounting using stirrups was simplicity itself, and Martine bumped only twice before mastering the rising trot. But the thing that really impressed Sadie and Ngwenya was her affinity with Black Eagle’s six horses. So tranquil did they become when she touched them that after ten minutes of watching her ride Jack, a big-boned black horse, Ngwenya declared that it would be her responsibility to exercise Sirocco and Tempest during her stay at the retreat.

Sirocco and Tempest were highly strung Arabs, with arched necks, dished faces, and delicate, flaring nostrils, but once Martine had saddled Sirocco under Ngwenya’s expert guidance and trotted her around the paddock, the chestnut mare became positively placid.

Ben was having a horrible time. It’s not that the horses disliked him; Ben was so gentle and treated animals with such kindness and respect that the opposite was true. It’s just that Cassidy and Mambo, the pot-bellied white ponies Ngwenya had told him it would be his duty to exercise, sensed that he had no idea what he was doing and took advantage mercilessly.

They had barely rounded Elephant Rock when Cassidy shied at some imaginary object and threw Ben off into a bush. And every few strides she’d pause to snatch mouthfuls of grass, or make a dash for home. Eventually, Ngwenya attached a lead rope to her bridle and she was forced to accompany him and Jack. She did it meekly but reluctantly, with lots of yawning and snorting.