Trackers (29 page)

I closed my eyes.

'Jeez,' said Lotter.

We stopped. I opened my eyes. The plane's propeller was not
much more than two metres from the massive trunk of a baobab tree.

He turned off the engine, breathed a long sigh.

'That wasn't so bad,' he said.

'And what about taking off tomorrow?'

'Naah...Piece of cake.' But even he didn't sound convinced.

In difficult
terrain, where signs are sparse, trackers may have to rely extensively on
anticipating the animal's movements.

The Art of Tracking:
Principles of tracking

Ten minutes after we landed, a battered Land Rover came
rattling through the grass and thorn trees. Two black men got out and welcomed
us shyly in English. Visitors weren't an everyday occurrence, it seemed.

'We will take you to camp.'

Lotter looked at the vehicle with deep interest. 'Amazing,'
he said, 'Series II station wagon, the two-point-two-five diesel. This thing
must be at least fifty years old.'

He was in raptures. You'd never have guessed we'd just defied
death.

We each took a bag, climbed in and were shaken about on the
barely discernible jeep track through the bush, disturbing a small herd of blue
wildebeest and their swarm of accompanying birds. Three giraffe, aloof, ignored
us. The heat was bearable here, less oppressive than in Musina.

The camp was situated on the side of a hill, a circle of
light green canvas tents on wooden platforms in the shade of massive msasa
trees. Beside the road was a rough sign, the words
Chinhavira Camp
carved out of a block of teak. There was a
lapa
in the middle, a few tables and chairs, a
huge hearth. A man was raking the red earth between the tents. At a table
beside the
lapa
, two other men were peeling
vegetables.

Our driver said: 'Shumba will come later. I will show you
your tents.'

'Shumba' had to be Ehrlichmann.

We followed him.

He appeared at sundown, a big man walking through the long
shadows, crooked walking stick in hand, khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirt,
sandals, a broad-brimmed hat and long silver hair down to his shoulders. A
clean-shaven Moses in safari gear.

Lotter and I sat in the
lapa,
he had a beer, I had a Coke, since there was no Birdfield or Grapetizer. The
man propped his staff against the encircling ring of wooden poles, took off his
hat, smiled broadly and held out his hand as he approached us.

'I'm John Ehrlichmann,' he said in the same pleasant,
modulated voice I had heard over the satellite phone.

We rose to meet him, introduced ourselves.

'Lotter.'

'Lemmer.' I expected him to ask about the state of my face,
wondered what witticism Lotter had ready.

'Alliteration,' said Ehrlichmann. 'We have a lot of that up
here,' and then he laughed gently. 'Welcome to Chinhavira. I see Chipinduka and
Chenjerai have taken care of you.' He was close to two metres tall, his face
deeply lined. He had to be on the shady side of sixty, but he made an
impressive figure, vigorous and fit. The long grey hair formed a halo. An array
of armbands circled his left wrist.

'Please. Sit. Enjoy your drinks. I'll be with you soon.'

'Thank you,' said Lotter.

'My pleasure.' He turned and walked slowly and solemnly
towards the tents. Once he was out of hearing, Lotter said quietly: 'You know
who he reminds me of?'

He liked people. So I was expecting some noble comparison. I
gave him my best attempt: 'A sober Nick Nolte?'

'No,' he laughed. 'That mandrill-baboon in
The Lion King
, the one with the walking stick,
what was his name ...? This guy has the same loping gait... Rafiki! He's bigger
and he's older, but he reminds me of Rafiki.'

Rafiki Ehrlichmann was the perfect host.

When he came out again, he was showered and in his wilderness
evening wear: long-sleeved khaki shirt, blue jeans and
velskoen
leather boots. The cascade of hair was
tied back in a ponytail, the shirt sleeves turned up just enough to show the
armbands. They glittered and shone in the light of twenty paraffin lamps and
the big campfire. First he made sure our glasses were full, then ordered a
whisky and soda for himself before joining us. He stretched out luxuriously on
the camp chair and enquired delicately about our journey, seeming to want me to
reveal our purpose. I wanted him to have a couple of whiskies before raising
the subject. So I left Lotter to describe the flight, and our visit to Wickus
and family.

Every now and then Ehrlichmann would comment briefly, with a
sage nod of his grey head. Diederik Brand is a 'fine man'. On the subject of
the Swanepoels he said, 'wonderful people' - clearly a popular view. When
Lotter, equally intrigued by the lives of others, began asking about
Ehrlichmann's, he told his story as though it were commonplace and
insignificant. Born on a farm outside Gweru, boarding school in Bulawayo, BSc
at the University of Cape Town, Game Warden in the Matobo National Park in the
old Rhodesia days. After that he was Senior Warden at the newly established
Mana Pools Park in the early eighties, later Deputy Head of the Chizarira
National Park, until the Mugabe witch-hunts began. Since then he had been a
concession hunter and walking tour guide. The black men who worked with him
were all field guides or support personnel from his Chizarira days.

By his second whisky he skilfully steered the conversation to
stories of his experiences. He had two mannerisms - stroking his right hand
over his hair, and a set of his mouth, a sardonic half-smile when he came to
the finale of every anecdote, an expression that said, 'There you have it'. His
stories were about elephants and lions, crocodiles and hippopotami, fish eagles
and dung beetles. I wondered how many times he had related them, how many
foreign tourists he had regaled with them around the campfire. But he was
masterful, had perfect dramatic timing, a fascination for nature, and a studied
modesty, as if it were mere chance that he was so privileged.

We drank
Nhedzi
soup of
wild mushrooms. We ate
sadza,
made with maize
porridge and pork, served with green beans and pumpkin fritters by his quiet,
efficient team. Then a bottle of French cognac appeared on the table.

'Wow,' said Lotter.

Ehrlichmann looked at me. 'I do believe you don't take
alcohol.'

'No, thanks.'

Then, as he poured a quarter glass each for himself and
Lotter, 'But you did have some questions regarding the rhino.'

No, I said, my questions were about Cornel van Jaarsveld.

'Mmm ...' he said, and got up slowly,
walked thoughtfully over to the glowing coals and threw on more wood. He poked
a stick in the fire, waited until the flames began to lick the logs, came back
to the table. 'May I ask exactly what happened?'

Sometimes you have to trust your
instincts. I told him, without unnecessary detail. About the rhinos'
'dermatitis', the journey, and the attack, the amazing recovery of the animals,
Flea's disappearance. I took the scrap of pink plastic out of my pocket and
showed it to him. Throughout, I observed him closely, his eyes, his hands, his
body language. His only reaction was raising his eyes when I described the
hijacking, and a fleeting glance at my face, as if the damage made sense to him
now. He took the plastic and rolled it between his fingers. He asked a few
questions, about the numbers of sores, the exact size of them.

I played open cards about my
suspicions about Diederik, and the Swanepoels. I told him I already suspected
that he himself was involved in some way. That produced a serious nod of the
head.

When I had finished, he looked away
and stared into the night. 'She has such potential,' he said, to himself.

He picked up the cognac glass, rolled
it between his palms, sipped at it. Rolled it again, deep in thought.

He made his 'there-you-have-it'
grimace.

'I think ...'

Stroked a hand over his hair, looked
at me.

'I think I know what she was smuggling.'

The average person should by
practice and experience be able to
become a fair tracker, but really
outstanding trackers are probably born with the latent ability.

The Art of Tracking:
learning to track

He paused for dramatic effect before
he began.

'It will be conjecture, but I'm
pretty sure ... Let me tell you the whole damn story ...'

He said it was, like everything in Zimbabwe nowadays, a bit
of a circus. Two game rangers from the Chizarira National Park had been caught
two years ago with twenty-two elephant tusks. There was intense international
reaction from the Green faction, but only once tourism boycotts began to
threaten the only remaining source of foreign currency, did the Mugabe
government respond. Their conciliatory strategy was to agree to the elephant
census that the WWF insisted on. This organisation approached Ehrlichmann
because of his background. Flea van Jaarsveld was part of the team of more than
thirty who set up camp in the national park in April.

He only really noticed her after she had outshone the other
three trackers. 'She was phenomenal, I've never seen anything like it. That
sixth sense ... her knowledge, detailed knowledge about the veld and the
animals, insects, birds, you name it. I started keeping an eye on her. As you
know, that was no hardship ...' He smiled with old man's nostalgia.

She was driven, working from sunrise to sundown. At night she
mixed with different groups by turns - the WWF people, the game wardens, the
volunteers, labourers and helpers. One evening she was at the table with
Ehrlichmann and two spirited young veterinarians, a Hollander and an Austrian.
There was a discussion about the sedation of elephants, the Europeans were full
of book learning and big theories. Flea silenced them with one word:
'Bullshit'. And went on to tell them with some annoyance and in fine detail how
it was done in Africa.

'So, obviously, I thought she was a vet. I asked her if she
had studied at Onderstepoort. No, she said, she worked with Douw Grobler for
three years. Now, Douw used to be the head of Game Capture in Kruger, probably
the best of the best. But even so, for her to assimilate so much in-depth
knowledge ... She's a very smart girl. But I digress ...'

'Are you saying she isn't a veterinarian?'

'No, she isn't. But she could hold her own with those two
guys. On everything. When it came to wild animals in transit, she knew much
more. That's why I called her when the two rhinos became an option for
Diederik.'

I almost missed it, still pondering Flea's false career.
'You're a vet,'

Swannie had said respectfully when we loaded the rhinos. Her
answer had been a string of big medical words, anaemia and gastrointestinal
diseases. A delicate way of avoiding the truth. Then I registered what Ehrlichmann
had said.

'You called her? How did you contact her?'

'She left her card with just about everybody after the
census. I called her cellphone.'

'Do you still have the card?'

'Of course. I'll find it for you. But first, let me tell you
what I think happened. And then you can draw your own conclusions. In the first
week or so, I was impressed by how she mingled with everybody, quite
deliberately, and with such consummate skill and charm. After a while I
realised that there was method in this socialising, because she started to
ignore certain people, even snub them, and shift her considerable focus onto
others.'

It wasn't difficult for him to grasp her purpose: the people
she spent more and more time with were those who were useful to her. Someone
who might use her services in future, or at least provide access to other, more
important people. But her most peculiar choice was the final evening, the
closing function at Kaswiswi camp number one.

'We had this huge barbecue, lots of booze, your typical VIP
bush bash, because a number of government people had flown in by helicopter:
the Minister of Environment and Tourism, his three directors, the Head of
Parks, the regional chief of the Wildlife Fund ...'

Ehrlichmann cast a quick glance over his shoulder, leaned
across the table, and dropped his voice as if sharing a secret. 'But the one
guy Cornel spent the most time with that night, was Johnson Chitepo.'

He saw the name made no impression on us.

'You've never heard of Johnson Chitepo?'

'Nope,' said Lotter.

'He is Mugabe's crony-in-chief,' with a reluctant admiration.
'He is the key man in the Zimbabwean Central Intelligence Organisation, the
head of the Joint Operations Command, and the man with whose blessing almost
any crime in Zimbabwe can be committed with impunity. If you believe the
rumours, he is also the guy who rigged the last elections, and the leading
candidate to become the next president.'