The sound of singing lured Sam from the camping ground at Drotsky’s Camp. He’d been lying in the hammock, strung between two mighty trees, letting the suggestion of a late-afternoon breeze cool the sweat on his bare chest after finishing putting up the tents. He put down the field guide to African mammals he had been reading and pulled on his T-shirt.
A well-trodden, winding path led him through the thick riverine bush towards the main dining area, a wooden building with a thatched roof and a wide shady verandah overhanging the Okavango River.
He saw a flash of colour through the leaves ahead, orange and bright and bobbing like some exotic African bird. When he emerged in a grassy clearing he saw it was a woman – several, in fact. A singing, dancing, clapping procession dressed in vivid printed dresses and turbans came into view. The lyrics were repetitive but harmonious and melodic. The voices filled the clearing and reverberated off the surrounding trees, which formed a natural auditorium.
Past them walked the newlyweds. Unlike the traditionally dressed guests the young African couple looked like they’d been plucked off the top of a wedding cake. The groom wore a tux made of a shiny grey material, with a burgundy cummerbund and matching bow tie. His shoes were the same colour as his suit, and pointed. His bride’s obvious natural beauty was eclipsed, rather than enhanced, by the folds of ivory satin and lace that engulfed her and the lacy parasol she gripped awkwardly. Her new husband hooked a white gloved finger in his collar and ran it around, clearly chaffing.
The photographer, in a funereal black suit with mildew on the shoulders, organised them on the lawn into the most uncomfortable poses possible while the female chorus kept up their joyously monotonous lyrics.
Like Sam a few tourists had been drawn by the sounds of the wedding party and some of them filmed and beeped away with their digital cameras while the official photographer laboriously snapped, wound and manually focused his battered Nikon, oblivious to the increasingly pained looks of his melting subjects.
Sam loved the spectacle of it. Cheryl-Ann would probably have ordered Rickards to film it, but Sam thought that even the tourists’ pocket digitals seemed intrusive. Here was Africa, he thought, as the groom was finally allowed to raise himself from his knee and haul his grateful bride to her feet. Traditional singing and blessings for a couple who had probably blown a couple of months’ wages to dress like people out of a twenty-year-old American or British wedding magazine.
Rickards swivelled on his stool at the bar as the wedding party filed in; he waved and Sam moseyed over to join him. ‘Quite a spectacle, eh?’
‘Yeah,’ Sam said. He ordered a Windhoek Lager for himself and another Castle for Rickards.
‘Whole clash of cultures thing makes for good vision. I’ve shot shitloads of that sort of cake and arse crap for docos in the past.’
Sam took a sip of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He stayed standing, even though Jim had pushed a chair out from the bar for him. He wouldn’t have described what he’d seen as crap.
‘Hey,’ Rickards said, pointing with the neck of his fresh beer bottle. ‘Here comes Robo-Barbie. Nice and salty – just how I like ’em.’
‘I’ll have another of these,’ Sam said to the barman. ‘Excuse me, Jim.’ He took both bottles and left the bar.
‘Assume attack formation, soldier.’ Rickards raised his Castle in a mock salute, then turned back to watch the cricket playing on a TV mounted above the bar.
Sonja stopped on a grassy spot by the river and pressed some buttons on her watch. She shook her head.
‘Not a good time?’
She looked over her shoulder at him and brushed damp strands of hair from her forehead. Her green tank top was camouflaged with black blotches of perspiration and she wore short grey running shorts made of a stretch fabric. The word ARMY was printed in white, vertically, on the right thigh of her shorts. ‘Could have been better.’
‘Could be your leg,’ he said, pointing with a bottle at the dressing. It was fresh, but there was a small stain in its centre. ‘Any more weakness leaving your body right now?’
She regarded him curiously. ‘It’s not too bad. Are you going to drink both those beers yourself?’
He handed one to her and she took a long, deep swallow. He thought the smooth skin of her neck was incredibly sexy as she tilted back her head. ‘Nice view of the river,’ he said, to take his mind off other brewing thoughts.
‘Nice breeze, too,’ she said, leading the way to the verandah, which skirted the dining area and reception room, where the wedding meal was in full swing.
The setting sun was turning the river into a flow of red lava. They found two chairs made of dark timber slats that were a lot more comfortable to sit in than they looked. She put her running shoes up on the railing and leaned her head back, taking another sip of beer.
‘Only five or six kilometres, towards the main road and back.’
‘Weren’t you worried about wild animals?’
‘There isn’t the wildlife on this side of the delta that there is in Moremi and the concessions bordering it. Crocs and hippos in the river, for sure, and maybe the odd leopard in the riverine bush, but not much else.’
‘It’s a shame the whole delta and the river can’t be proclaimed a game reserve or national park.’
Sonja drank some more lager and nodded. ‘I agree with you, but plenty of others don’t. Botswana has a strong commercial farming sector and the panhandle is good agricultural land. Plus, there are the traditional landholders to consider. Some of them, like Chief Moremi III back in 1963, saw there was money to be made by locking up parts of the delta and charging tourists and white hunters big bucks for access. Others are quite happy to keep hunting, fishing or running their goats and cows on the land.’
He nodded. ‘I want to cover all that in the documentary – the competing land uses.’
‘They needn’t be competing. Africa’s a big bountiful continent, but we humans have made some terrible mistakes over the years in how we’ve used and abused her gifts.’
‘There’s so much to learn.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘A lot to fit into a sixty-minute TV program.’
‘Hey, two sixty-minute programs. And don’t forget my survival special – though we may have to reshoot some of that, minus the bits where you try to kill me. Not good for my tough-guy image.’
She laughed, and he was grateful for it. ‘Hey, it’s none of my business, but I kind of got the impression when we were headed for Xakanaxa that you were intending on staying at the camp.’
Sonja looked out over the river, all trace of mirth gone from her face. ‘You’re right, it’s none of your business.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, meaning it. It seemed that every time he got this prickly creature close to being at ease with him he said something to make her curl up into a ball again. Screw it, he thought, sensing she was about to get up and leave. He had nothing to lose and a lot to gain. She was beautiful, even after a run and streaked with dust and sweat. ‘Stirling told me he’d kill me if I laid a hand on you.’
Her eyes and mouth opened wide as she stared at him. ‘What? What the hell?’
Sam shrugged. ‘All I did was ask him how he knew you. Were you two close?’
She ignored him, obviously stunned by the revelation. She took another gulp of beer. ‘He … the fucking hide of that man. Aargh! How dare he say that to you and treat me like I didn’t even exist.’
‘So, how do you know each other?’
She slumped into her chair and waved a hand in the air. ‘We were teenagers together. I thought I loved him and I thought he loved me, but I left, to … to go away.’
As always, she was holding back more than she was telling, but he was interested to learn more of the connection between her and Stirling. ‘Stirling thought I was hitting on his girlfriend, Tracey, and he whacked me. See?’
She leaned closer to see the discoloration on his cheek. ‘Were you? Hitting on her?’
Sam shook his head. ‘It was a misunderstanding. I don’t want to talk out of school, but Tracey, well she kind of …’
Sonja nodded. ‘Stirling’s an idiot to fall for her.’
‘If Stirling’s an idiot it’s for not wanting to see you again.’
She looked back at him and he couldn’t read what she was thinking. ‘Thank you,’ she said at last, and he breathed a tiny sigh of relief.
Sam reached his hand across the arm of his chair to Sonja. ‘With all that’s happened I haven’t had a chance to say a proper thank you for saving my life in the bush, and getting me back to Xakanaxa safe and sound.’
She shook his hand and smiled, and he felt his heart start to pound. ‘Thank you.’
She held on to him and her grip was firm yet not manly. He didn’t want to let go and waited for her to relax her hold on him. He looked into her eyes. He could see her chest heaving and wondered if she was still short of breath from her run.
‘It was nothing. And thank you, seriously, for my clothes,’ she said, and pumped his hand up and down once, then let go.
Sam could still feel the burn of her on his fingers, like dry ice.
Sonja stood. ‘Thanks for the beer. I’ve got to go get some water now, and shower.’
With that, she walked away. Sam relaxed in his chair and enjoyed the rest of his beer, and the sunset, alone but with a secret smile on his face.
The guests at the wedding feast started singing again and their joyous harmonies pricked at Sonja like an annoying mosquito. Like Sam’s remarks about what Stirling had said to him at Xakanaxa. She couldn’t believe how childish Stirling had been, falling for his two-timing poppy yet still thinking he had some proprietary claim on his old girlfriend. It was maddening.
A yellow-billed hornbill sailed past her, wings spread straight and wide, and landed in the fork of a tree. She paused and watched him deposit a bug through a small hole in what appeared to be the tree’s trunk. She knew that it was a facade, a wall of mud covering a much larger hole, inside which resided the bird’s mate and their chicks. The male had probably spent the whole day shuttling from the ground to the tree, catching insects for his wife and babies. The female would have plucked out all her feathers and used them to line the nest as the male had walled her in with lumps of wet clay. She and the chicks were safe inside from predators, but totally dependent on the male to keep them fed. Safety and security at what price? The ability to fly.
The other TV people seemed to have all gone to dinner when she returned to the camp site, which was just fine by her. Annoyingly, one of the men had ignored her warning about monkeys and baboons and left his tent flap open. She peeked inside and wrinkled her nose. It was Rickards’s tent. An empty chip packet lay on his unrolled sleeping bag. Salt and crumbs covered the bag, but worse than that was a small turd, covered in bright green buzzing flies. As well as being expert thieves and wanton vandals, vervet monkeys liked to add insult to injury by leaving their small but disgusting calling cards. Sonja was tempted to leave the tent flap open, but she would hate it if a snake slid into Rickards’s sleeping bag and bit him during the night. She paused to reconsider for a second, then smiled and zipped the tent closed. She left the monkey’s dropping where it was – that would be enough of a reminder.
She unzipped her own tent and sat down on her mattress. A francolin strutted past her tent and squawked a few notes. The run hadn’t cured her restlessness and if anything she felt more wound up after talking to Sam. She did fifty push-ups and a hundred situps to try to stop thinking about men and how stupid they were. The additional exercise speeded up the effects of the beer she’d drunk, so she finished off the bottle of warm water from her pack.
Sonja saw the rolled magazine protruding from a pocket of the rucksack. She pulled it out, along with her Surefire torch, which she switched on. She flicked to the article about Sam. There was a picture of him with an attractive blonde starlet, whose name Sonja vaguely recognised, and another one of him, much younger. It was a police mug shot and he stared back at the cameraman with a mix of shock, sorrow and defiance. She’d seen that stunned expression on soldiers after a fire fight.
STONED AND DRUNK CHAPMAN DID TIME OVER FRIEND’S DEATH.
Sonja folded back the cover of the magazine and read on.
Wildlife World presenter Sam Chapman’s image as a clean-cut all-American boy has been shattered with the revelation the handsome star did time in a juvenile jail over the death of his best friend.
Chapman, aged seventeen at the time, stole a car with buddy David Rollins, also seventeen, and terrorised the streets of the quiet suburb in Butte, Montana, where they lived, on a high-speed drink- and drugsfuelled rampage.
Police sources in Montana this week confirmed reports in Entertainment Truth magazine that Chapman lost control of the car and rolled it. Rollins, a high-school football hero, died instantly when the car came to rest against a streetlight pole.
‘I’m glad the truth is out, at last,’ said a still distraught Denise Rollins, the dead boy’s mother. ‘Sam Chapman is living the life of a Hollywood star, but he robbed my David of his future. He killed my son and I will never forgive him.’
Chapman was convicted of the manslaughter of his friend and drink-driving offenses, and sentenced to two years in the Pine Hills Youth Corrections Facility. He also pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana, which was found in the wrecked car.
Wildlife World, which produces Chapman’s award-winning documentaries, refused to comment, as did the star’s agent. Chapman is said to be filming in Botswana for a forthcoming series of specials for the cable TV company.
Staff at the University of Montana were stunned to learn of Chapman’s checkered past, with one former academic colleague, who asked not to be named, saying Chapman was well respected before leaving academia to pursue a career in television.
A back-handed compliment, if ever she had heard one, Sonja thought as she lowered the magazine and leaned back against her pack. She’d thought Chapman just another perfect product of a soft, well-fed suburban life; a smart man who had capitalised on his good looks to find a shortcut to the American dream.
Chapman has had other contact with juvenile delinquents later in life, reportedly working as a volunteer at so-called ‘brat camps’ where he teaches young inmates about survival in the wild. It’s not known if he has ever shared his dark past with any of the kids he has worked with.
There were several pictures of Sam with the article. There was a shot of him administering a drug or taking a blood sample from a sleeping coyote; a frame taken in front of Ayers Rock, now known as Uluru, in the middle of Australia; and another one of him walking from the surf at a beach. He had a perfect set of abs. She remembered the feel of his warm skin on hers as she took his hand. Her face reddened when she remembered how she’d held onto it for too long.
It was dark by the time she grabbed her towel and a bar of soap and headed for the small ablution block in the campground. Inside the ladies she stepped into the shower cubicle and stripped. Sonja turned the hot tap on, but no water came out. The pipes juddered and groaned somewhere behind the wall. ‘Shit,’ she mouthed. She tried the cold and the same thing happened. She wrapped her towel around her and fastened it above her breasts and picked up her clothes.
Outside she paused outside the door to the gents side of the block. The light was out and there was no sound from inside. She pushed the door open and peeked inside. The curtain to the single shower stall was half open, but she could see no one inside. There was no one else in the campground, so there was little chance of anyone disturbing her. She laid her clothes down on a bench and stepped further into the darkness.
Then she heard the breathing. It was deep, but rapid.
Next she smelled him, the strong rich odour of his body.
Shit! There was a man in there, behind the half-drawn curtain. Sonja bent to grab her things and only then noticed that hanging on the back of the door she’d just come in through were Sam’s jeans and bush shirt.
Sonja took a step on tiptoe towards the door and reached for it, but recoiled as she saw movement in the half-light. Sam had turned and was leaning, with one hand up against the tile wall. She ducked backwards so that she was concealed by the wall of the toilet cubicle, but she could just see around the edge of the partition. Sam’s arm was moving.
She caught her breath and dared not take another in case he heard her. He was breathing louder now. She rested her cheek against the wall and watched him through one eye. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom she saw his hand, wrapped around his thick, engorged penis. She stared at it.
He worked his palm up high over the head, then squeezed as he slid it down his shaft. She could hear the slickness of his natural lubrication. Tearing her gaze from it she saw him lean his head back, his mouth half open as he breathed out.
The well-defined muscles in his back and shoulders glistened with perspiration as his hand and breathing increased their pace. He shifted again and moved his left hand from the wall to the shower tap. The water pattered on the plastic curtain and he replaced his hand on the wall. He’d shifted in the process so she could see more of him, though his back was to her now so she couldn’t see his right hand or his cock.
Sonja felt the moisture seep from deep within her and her nipples strain against the weave of the towel. She swallowed and allowed herself a half-drawn breath. Her face was on fire, and she wanted to run for the door. And she wanted to run for the curtain and rip it to one side.
Sam raised himself up on to his toes, his beautifully chiselled backside clenching in the process. He threw his head back further and let out a gasp of relief as his whole body shuddered.
Sonja darted to the door of the block, slipped outside and ran, barefoot, through the campground to her tent. She hastily unzipped, threw her clothes inside and lay down on her mattress. Her heart was racing as she stretched out, but it threatened to explode from her chest as she came in the darkness.
Sonja braked to let a trio of male kudus cross the road. The middle antelope paused and stared at them for a second, then gave a toss of his long curved antlers and leapt away, his white tail curled protectively across his rump.
It wasn’t a close call as she had cut her speed to eighty kilometres after they crossed the border into Namibia at Shakawe. Botswana, Namibia and South Africa were all part of a common customs zone, so there was no problem taking the vehicle across borders. Sonja held her breath while the African woman on the Botswana side scanned her passport, but the forgery was good – Steele maintained the best sources around the world – and the document passed inspection on both sides of the border. Sonja made a mental note of the Namibian Army bakkie parked behind the customs and immigration building, and the two soldiers who chatted to a cleaner leaning on her mop outside. The soldiers, in camouflage, were armed with AK-47s. It wasn’t a large force, but nor was it common to see armed military men at a border post in this part of the world.
The country around Shakawe on the Botswana side was given over to commercial farming – crops and cattle – but as soon as they crossed the line into Namibia they were in wilderness, with brittle bone-dry bush on their flanks. It was why Sonja took it slowly, as there was little warning if an animal wanted to cross. A yellow-billed kite wheeled above them patrolling the road in search of roadkill.
‘What’s this place?’ Sam asked from behind her.
‘The Mahango Game Reserve. It’s about thirty thousand hectares. The Okavango River is off to our right and beyond that is the beginning of the much larger Bwabwata National Park, which was called the West Caprivi Game Reserve when I was younger.’
She watched him in the rear-view mirror, nodding at her explanation, then recalled the sight of him rising on his toes in the shower. She looked out the driver’s side window in case Cheryl-Ann saw her blush. Sonja had imagined him on her, in her, as she’d touched herself in the tent and wondered if it was her he’d been thinking of in the shower.
Sonja pushed the distracting thoughts from her mind. She’d play the tour guide for the TV people, but her other job was to assess the landmarks they passed from a military planner’s point of view. The Mahango Game Reserve extended north to within about twelve kilometres of Popa Falls, near where the dam was being built. If Steele’s force infiltrated Namibia near Shakawe the reserve would provide cover for part of their journey, or perhaps a hidden bush base where they could group and prepare for an assault. There would be Namibian Wildlife Authority rangers patrolling the reserve, but not enough of them to pose a threat to a force of heavily armed mercenaries. Sonja would have liked to have taken a boat up the Okavango from Drotsky’s Camp to the border, to see what kind of controls were in place on the river itself, but there was no way to justify the trip.
‘Big five country?’ Gerry asked.
Sonja shook her head. ‘All the rhino were killed here decades ago, but there are still lion, buffalo, elephant and leopard, plus occasional sightings of wild dog and cheetah.’
‘Cool,’ said the sound man.
Rickards yawned and Sonja could smell the stale booze on his breath. Cheryl-Ann sat in silence, watching the greys and browns of the thorny bushveld pass her by. Sonja had arrived late for dinner, just as the others were finishing, and ordered herself a snack from the bar. She didn’t feel like a confrontation with Cheryl-Ann and, besides, they were talking business, planning the shoots for the next few days. She had half feared she might stumble on Sam eating alone, or that he might make an excuse to stay back in the restaurant with her, but he left with the others and nodded a polite goodnight to her as she ate her burger and drank another two beers by herself to calm her pulse.
They had all breakfasted together early that morning and Sonja had eyed the other woman off across the table. Polite and friendly, but a long way from friends. That was fine by Sonja and she hoped it would be enough for Cheryl-Ann.
‘I phoned ahead,’ Cheryl-Ann said. ‘They definitely have cabins available for us tonight.’
So there would be no fighting over tents. ‘Good.’
Cheryl-Ann looked away from the scenery and across to Sonja. ‘Did you have trouble with the water in the shower block, Sonja?’
‘Um … yes.’
‘I complained to reception, but they just told me to use the other block. It was way down the other end of the camp. That’s really not good enough.’
Sonja shrugged. ‘I just used the men’s shower.’ She couldn’t resist a glance in the rear-view mirror as she said it and when she looked up she saw Sam looking her way. It felt like his eyes were searching for hers and she shifted her gaze immediately.
‘You’re coming on the river cruise with us this afternoon, Sonja.’
It was said as a statement rather than a question, but Sonja was pleased nonetheless. Cheryl-Ann would want her there to ensure they correctly identified any birds and mammals they saw during the filming, but Sonja wanted to do a recce of the stretch of river leading to the falls and the dam wall. If she hadn’t been automatically included on the river cruise she would have asked to come along, or booked one for herself. The last option was the least desirable, though, as it might have aroused the TV crew’s suspicions. ‘That’ll be great, Cheryl-Ann. I never get sick of going out on the river,’ she said.
Ngepi Camp was a couple of kilometres off the main road, towards the river on a sandy but firm track that passed a village and some local people tending a few cows. The camp itself was on a sand island, though the tributary of the Okavango they passed over, via an earth and rock causeway, was dry. Sonja wondered when it had last flowed. She parked and walked into the reception building, which was open on three sides.
Cheryl-Ann bustled up to the bar, but Sonja hung back and looked around her. She’d heard abut Ngepi, but never stayed here. The camp and its accommodation were pitched at new-age backpackers and free-wheeling overland travellers. It was fun and funky. Every sign around reception seemed to contain a joke and some of them were funny. Behind the bar was the obligatory collection of baseball caps and foreign currency bills stuck to a wall. Overhead was a poster of Che Guevara, and the Namibian flag hung from the rafters of the thatched roof. Sonja wandered past a fire pit surrounded by benches made from old sausage tree mekoros, and onto a wooden platform that jutted out over the river.
The river in front of Drotsky’s had been divided into narrow channels by islands of pampas grass and papyrus. Here, further upriver and much closer to the dam, the river was wide and open, though judging by the pinkish brown back of a hippo that protruded above the water’s surface, it was not all that deep. She could see the far shore, several hundred metres away, which was the beginning of the Bwabwata National Park. More country that was largely empty, except for animals.
A force travelling by boat might be able to conceal itself by taking a quiet channel downstream, but here all traffic was clearly visible from both sides of the river.
The Okavango was flowing quite fast, judging by the stems of grass and a plastic bag that motored past her. Beneath the platform was a swimming cage, about eight by eight metres, held afloat by old fuel drums and fringed with a rickety-looking wooden walkway. The cage was to protect swimmers from wildlife. Hippo, it was often said, killed more people than any other animal in Africa, but Sonja knew crocodiles were responsible for savaging and killing plenty of locals who swam, bathed, and herded their cattle on the edges of the rivers in the Kavango and Caprivi regions of Namibia. A girl in a bikini, with a large tattoo of a butterfly on the red skin of her back, was sunbathing. An African man with dreadlocks and a runner’s build was kneeling on the walkway, pulling out clumps of grass and weed, and another bag that had snagged on the mesh of the cage. A sign warned swimmers that if they pissed in the cage they’d be drinking it later, downstream in Maun. Sonja conceded a smile.
Cheryl-Ann came out onto the deck followed by the men, like a mother duck.
She waited until she had reached Sonja before producing the keys she had collected from reception. ‘Here you go, Sam, Gerry and Jim. You’ve each got what they call a treehouse bungalow, on the water.’
Sonja said nothing and didn’t put her hand out for a key. She had already guessed what was coming.
‘Sonja, I’m afraid we didn’t book a room for you. The plan was always for the guide to camp in or with the vehicle, to look after it.’
‘No problem. It shouldn’t be too far from the camp site to your bungalows, so you won’t have too far to carry your gear.’
Rickards made a face behind Cheryl-Ann’s back and Sam just rolled his eyes. She cared nothing for the petty point scoring Cheryl-Ann had initiated. In fact, she cared nothing for these spoiled people and their insignificant contribution to the world. ‘The Land Rover’s unlocked. I’m going to check out the camp site.’
Sonja headed down the sandy path to the floating swimming cage. The reddened girl was still baking on the wooden deck and the African guy Sonja had seen earlier was sitting on the edge with his feet in the water.
‘Morning,’ he said.
‘Howzit?’ Sonja said.
‘Fine and you?’
‘Lekker, man.’ Because of her shortage of clothes Sonja was wearing her bikini under her safari clothes, as underwear. She took off her shirt and slid out of her sandals and shorts and did a shallow dive into the confines of the cage. The water was cool and as soon as she surfaced she felt the current drag her to the downstream end of the enclosure. She turned and started a lazy breaststroke against the river’s flow. With a little effort she maintained a stationary position in the centre of the floating pool. It was a novel way to get a little exercise, and a good reminder that any approach towards the dam would have to be done in boats with outboard motors. Even though the river was low, the current was still fast, so stealthy kayaks were probably out of the question.
‘Looks like you’re getting nowhere,’ the African man said, smiling.
‘You don’t know how right you are, my friend.’
‘I saw you pulling rubbish out of the cage before,’ she said. ‘Do you work here?’
‘No, but it doesn’t mean I don’t care for the environment. That dam they’re building upstream is responsible for too much pollution.’
‘How so?’
‘Plastic bags and other rubbish dumped by the construction workers in the water, oil and diesel from the trucks and bulldozers, unchecked flows of silt during construction. Anywhere else in the world they’d be prosecuted.’
‘Anywhere else in the world and it wouldn’t have been built, for environmental reasons. You sound like you know what you’re talking about.’
He laughed again, deep and hearty. ‘Don’t let the ’do and the duds fool you, sister,’ he said, pointing at his dreadlocks and the shiny red baggy board shorts he wore, hanging low down on his arse so his Calvin Klein underwear was showing at the back. ‘I’ve got a degree in Environmental Management from the University of Zimbabwe, but the only way I can made a buck is as a guide on an overland tour truck. That dam’s going to kill a beautiful thing.’ The white girl stirred, sat on the edge of the pool and slid in. ‘The locals won’t notice it so much here upriver, but it’s going to kill the environment downstream, and hurt the tourism business at the same time. All because of greed.’
Sonja nodded. ‘For water?’
‘For money,’ the guide said. ‘Some people have big plans for the Caprivi Strip once that dam is finished. It’s not just about hydro-electricity and water for Windhoek; there are plans for more mines, including diamonds, and large-scale commercial farming up there.’ He gestured north, over his shoulder, with a thumb. ‘Big money.’
*
‘That incredible bird, flying just above the water with its bill in the water, is an African skimmer,’ Sam said to the camera. The boatman had cut the outboard and they were drifting silently, swiftly, down the Okavango.
‘It’s listed as near-threatened and there are as few as fifteen thousand of these incredible creatures left on earth. It catches small fish by flying with its lower beak – its mandible – just beneath the surface of the water. Amazing.’
‘Great,’ Cheryl-Ann said.
‘I’m loving this light,’ Rickards said, panning slowly and pulling back on the focus to take in more of the sky, which was a triple-layer cocktail of deep pink, gold and azure.
Sam looked to Sonja, who was scanning the bank through binoculars. ‘Why is the species threatened?’
She lowered her binoculars. ‘Habitat destruction, especially because of dams. Rising waters flood the sand bars and banks where they breed. Also, pesticides and other run-off from intensive farming can kill the little fish that the skimmers feed on. You should put that in your program.’
‘Jim?’ Sam said. The cameraman held up a finger, wanting to catch a few more seconds of vision of the sky.
‘Let’s not get into politics until we’ve had a chance to inspect the dam and interview the folks upriver,’ Cheryl-Ann announced.
Sam was about to argue, but he knew it would be pointless. The more he learned about the hydro-electric power plan for the Okavango, the less he liked the sound of it, but perhaps Cheryl-Ann had a point. There seemed to be a truce between the two women on the boat this evening, but it was still an uneasy one.
Sam had left his treehouse and walked to the campground half an hour before their departure to see if Sonja needed help setting up. Predictably, her small camp site was already established and her gear stowed with military precision. He found her at the pool, where she told him she was enjoying her second swim for the day. She invited him in.
‘I can’t. I don’t want to ruin my hair or makeup.’
She laughed out loud and he marvelled again at how that simple act could transform her and make him feel so good.
He tried not to stare at her breasts when she climbed out and put her clothes on over her wet swimsuit. ‘I read that article about you,’ she said.
He stayed silent and waited for her verdict.
‘It’s not easy seeing a friend die.’ She was stating the obvious, but the way she said it made him think it had happened to her, too. ‘Wouldn’t have picked you as a teenage car thief, though.’
He’d told Sonja the truth, by the pool, as he looked out over the Okavango, that the car had belonged to David’s mum, who had let him use it unsupervised on plenty of occasions before the accident. Denise Rollins was a lush, who let her teenage son take her car so he could drive to the liquor store for her. David had insisted Sam drive that night and had urged him to go faster and faster. David had bought the pot, as well, although Sam had smoked some.
‘You didn’t tell all this to the judge?’ Sonja asked.
‘It didn’t lessen the fact that I was the driver and my best buddy was dead. I didn’t want to make it harder on his mom by dragging their names through the mud.’
Rebecca, his former girlfriend, had told him he was a sap for not mounting a stronger defence, when he had told her the same story.
‘Good for you,’ Sonja had said. ‘Come. The boat guide’s waiting for us.’
Out on the motorised pontoon Sonja had impressed Sam and the others – even Cheryl-Ann, he suspected – with her ability to spot birds and wildlife, sometimes even before their experienced African guide, Julius. While Sonja and Julius scanned the riverbanks for game, Sam stood in front of the camera.
‘Action,’ Cheryl-Ann said.
Sam cleared his throat and looked into the lens. ‘The Okavango River rises in the highlands of Angola, to the north of where I am now, where it’s known by its local name, the Kabango. From there it passes through this part of Namibia, before entering Botswana. Here it flows as a wide river, fully deserving that title. If you imagine a skillet then where we are is on the handle – in fact it’s known as the panhandle here – but as it winds south through Botswana the river runs into ground that’s been lifted and rippled by millennia of seismic activity and it starts to split into numerous small rivers and creeks. The Okavango finally peters out in the Kalahari Desert into myriad seasonal channels that only flow after the annual rains.’
‘Elephants,’ Sonja whispered. ‘Turn, Julius, quickly, hey. They’re coming just now to drink.’
‘Cut, Sam. I don’t see any elephants, Sonja,’ Cheryl-Ann said.
Julius was swinging the outboard. He pointed with his free hand.
Sam saw the cloud of dust, which was tinged pink by the setting sun’s rays. Of the animals themselves there was still no sign.
Another tourist boat saw them turn, and the spreading V of their wake on the shiny brass surface of the water as Julius accelerated. Julius called across the water and the guide on the other craft swung his tiller to follow them. The first of the elephants came into view.
‘That big one, in front, with its trunk up, is a female. She’s the matriarch, the head of the herd,’ Sonja said.
Sam saw the elephant sniffing the wind, but if she detected the scent of humans it was not enough to slow her headlong charge for the river, or to stop the pressing crowd of wrinkly grey flesh behind her. Almost lost in the forest of trunk-like legs and choking dust was a tiny baby that threaded its way to the matriarch’s side. ‘How old is that little one.’
Sonja shifted her binoculars slightly. ‘Less than a year old. You can tell because he can still fit under his mother’s belly. Also, look at the way his little trunk is flopping from side to side.’
‘I see it,’ Sam said. ‘It’s like he doesn’t know what to do with it.’
‘Exactly. They have to learn how to use their trunk, and what it’s for.’
Julius headed for a sandbar island, about twenty metres from the far riverbank, where the elephants had arrived. Their front rank splashed knee-deep into the water.
‘Can’t you get closer?’ Cheryl-Ann asked.
‘He knows what he’s doing,’ Sonja muttered.
Julius turned the craft towards the island, revved the motor, and the pontoons’ bows shushed up onto the sand. ‘We can get off the boat, now,’ Julius said.
‘Perfect,’ said Rickards, who needed no further invitation. ‘Come on, Gerry. Let’s move it. Light’s fading.’
Sam followed the camera team off the front of the boat and stopped to offer his hand to Cheryl-Ann, who waved him away. She jumped and landed unsteadily in the sand, but regained her balance at the last second. Sonja stepped off and touched the sand with graceful confidence.
‘Will they cross the water?’ Sam asked.
Sonja shook her head. ‘See the matriarch sniffing again? She knows we’re here. The water is a barrier. They could cross it if they wanted, but see how the rest are drinking now. They’re relaxed about us, and they’re bloody thirsty.’
‘The drought?’ Sam asked.
Sonja nodded. ‘Look at the vegetation.’
Sam could see trees shredded to matchsticks. The bush on either side of the gently sloping sandy beach that led down to the river had obviously been a favourite feeding spot for the herds that came to drink here. He lifted his own nose to the air and caught the damp, musty smell of the elephants wafting across the narrow channel.
‘Ready when you are, Sam, if you want to do a piece to camera,’ Rickards said.
Cheryl-Ann had been staring at the elephants, as if locked in a trance. It was, Sam thought, a rare lapse in her relentless professionalism, but he liked the fact she had been moved to silence. ‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘Get in there and give me something that will make me cry.’
Sam moved in front of the camera and dropped to a crouch so Rickards could keep filming the herd, which was now framed above his left shoulder. He cleared his throat, then drew a deep breath through his nostrils and exhaled. ‘This family is close enough for me to smell them. It’s a rich, earthy smell, as powerful as the urge that drove this mother and her offspring through the harsh, dry African bush to this temporary sanctuary.’
Rickards gave a slight nod of his head and Sam took the cue, and looked back over his shoulder. The herd had parted and Sam could see one elephant, nearly as big as the matriarch, sinking to its knees in the sand. He wasn’t sure what was happening. He looked at Sonja, who whispered, ‘She’s dying. Thirst.’
Sam nodded. ‘Who knows how far this herd travelled to reach the Okavango River. What is clear, though, from the scene unfolding behind me, is that for at least one of these mighty animals the journey was too far. That female,’ he turned again and saw the elephant was now lying on her side, ‘is dying.’
He paused and let the pictures tell the story for a few seconds. The rest of the herd had paused in slaking their thirst and were now standing in a semicircle around their fallen relative. Trunks were sniffing her. A young one, not much older than the matriarch’s baby, raised its trunk and let loose a piercing, wailing scream. It lowered its head and started nudging its stricken mother, as if trying to rouse her.
‘People ascribe almost human emotions to elephants and it’s hard to know where fact stops and legend begins. We do know that elephants will spend time sniffing the bones and carcasses of other dead elephants, as if they are trying to identify the fallen one and, perhaps, grieve for it. You make up your own mind about what’s going on behind me.’
He paused again and all of them watched the mournfully slow procession as the herd members, one by one, stopped to sniff and lay their trunks gently across the body of the fallen one. The dying elephant’s baby was inconsolable, and ran in a circle, trumpeting and shaking its head, refusing to accept the inevitable. The sun was behind the camera crew, bathing Sam’s face in soft light. He knew the vision would be extraordinary. Cheryl-Ann was whispering instructions to Rickards, who twitched his head like he was trying to shake off a buzzing mosquito. Gerry watched the scene with his mouth open. Sam moved his eyes to Sonja and when the young elephant cried again she flinched.
Those elephants that had not yet drunk did so, while four others kept vigil over the fallen one. Sam looked back again and could now see the angular protrusion of the cow’s hip bones. She raised her trunk, no more than a metre off the ground, and her youngster seized on the tiny movement and moved to his mother’s side. He entwined his trunk with his mother’s for a few seconds, but when he shifted position and lost his grip the adult’s trunk fell to the sand, and didn’t move again.