After a fitful few hours, I woke with the memory of a terrified adolescent bull elephant getting sucked into the raging Victoria Falls. It had happened just after Sean had proposed and went off to get gin and tonics.
I noticed a small group of elephants crossing the strong current by swimming from tree island to tree island. The flow of the Zambezi was unusually strong that year, and an unfortunate young bull fell behind and drifted down past any possible exit points. He tried to escape the current just in front of the hotel, but there was a fence blocking him in, and the Zambezi had risen so much that there was no land for him to climb out on.
There was a commotion among the staff, and a gardener ran off to get some wire cutters to cut the fence as I looked on helplessly. The bull pressed his front feet against the chain-link surface, trying to gain a footing. I could see the terror in his eyes as his feet slipped. The current was just too strong. Finally, in his exhaustion, the elephant relented and let the current sweep him away.
Sean returned just as the elephant was turning in circles and was pulled over the falls. The tourists watching on the Zimbabwean side of the falls must have seen the horror of his legs and trunk flailing in the white wall of water as he silently plummeted to his death.
Strangely enough, reliving this memory was somehow a release. Like I, too, had fallen off a precipice, my quest to stop the doctor from killing more elephants no longer relevant as I plummeted into an abyss, feeling no fear, just acceleration. I fell into a deep sleep.
I shot the .458 from a crouched position, and the cannon blast nearly blew my shoulder off. I had aimed too high. His giant head and blood-smeared tusk snapped up at me. He paused, mid-charge. I dropped the rifle, cursing at the shock of pain in my now-dislocated shoulder.
His tooth nerve dangled from his shattered tusk. A botched hunt by poachers with bad aim. This poor elephant bull was in more pain than I had realized.
As I lunged for the rifle with my good arm, he came for me again, but I was too late. The raging bull grabbed me in his trunk and flung me in the air.
I woke with a start, falling out of bed and hitting the cold concrete floor hard on my shoulder, then my head. I lay there, rubbing my sore head, breathing slowly for a few minutes to get my bearings. Finally, I got up with a splitting headache, splashed cold water on my face, and went to turn the hot pot on. The room came equipped with tea, milk, sugar, and mugs on the bedside table so that clients could have tea on a private porch overlooking the river before breakfast.
I sat on the misty porch of my rondavel with hot tea in hand, not as early as I had hoped because I had spent another tortured night in bed tossing and turning and trying to elude the mefloquine nightmares from the antimalarial drugs that Nigel lent me. When the morning came, I didn’t want to face it. But I had paid for lingering with the final deadly nightmare that forced me out of bed.
My plan for the morning was to meet with the rangers and review their most recent elephant mortality reports, then pack a bag and run some errands in town. I figured that since Nigel was staying with Jon that night, it would be okay if I did as well.
After my second cup of tea, I got a text from Craig that immediately changed my itinerary. He had gotten permission for me to show Jon the photos of Geldenhuis’s new partner. I was planning to print the images from my printer as soon as I got back to Susuwe and head to Jon’s office.
Nigel arrived to pick me up and take me back to Susuwe. We had a colorful drive as he recounted the dinner conversation he had had with the Germans. They told him about their last trip to Namibia when they went rafting down the Kunene. “You wouldn’t believe their bad luck, hey. Their bloody inflatable was attacked by a ten-meter croc.”
“What? Can they get that big? That’s like thirty feet.”
“Apparently the crocs over there get bloody huge from dining off the dead cattle that get flushed down with the floods.”
“Their raft was bitten?”
“Their guide reckoned that the crocs got used to large, bloated inflatable objects as food.”
I laughed incredulously. “Oh my gosh, that’s horrible!”
“Dumb bloody luck, isn’t it.”
We both broke out laughing even though the thought was more terrifying than funny. As I watched Nigel laugh, I couldn’t help feeling more and more comfortable in his presence. I appreciated the contrast to the tension that was always in the air with Jon—even though I couldn’t help being drawn to the tension.
After packing a bag, charging batteries, and printing out the photos from the airstrip that I had refrained from showing Jon, I stopped at the Kongola post office on the way to Katima. I wasn’t expecting mail, but I always liked to check anyway. It felt like checking on the lottery. There wasn’t much going on back in the States, but since I wasn’t allowed to give anyone my phone number—except for my father in case of emergencies—no one knew how to reach me otherwise. Not that I stayed in touch with anyone other than my old roommate from Berkeley, Ling-Ru, via email. But for security reasons I wasn’t allowed to use my email address on my phone.
My postbox was my only contact with the outside world other than my direct satellite line to Craig. I was glad I didn’t need to use the one phone line that the post office made available for outside calls, as the line of people waiting to use it wrapped around the building. Many people had cellphones, but no one could afford to use them for calls. They just bought minutes so they could get the free text credit that came with the minutes.
The need for phone calls by the locals was building, but the only calls I could discern were complaints relating to mistakes made in orders placed through mail-order catalogs. As the local economy slowly grew after independence, money started to trickle in to the communities, and with it, the desire for more luxury goods from South Africa. Access to the Internet wasn’t an option in most of the outposts I had seen, except those catering to tourists.
I slipped past the line to get to my postal box. I opened my box and the long hollow space stared back at me. I closed the door and left.
As I exited the building a man approached me holding an ax. He looked intellectually disabled so I wasn’t too concerned about his intentions until he lunged at me, baring his teeth like a mad dog. As I leapt away, a woman immediately jumped out of line and stepped in front of him, waving her hands and yelling authoritatively, successfully steering him off his path. He snuck off with his ax dangling at his side.
I recognized the woman as Nandi, the induna’s daughter whom I had met in their cornfield.
“Nandi, right?” I held out my hand.
The woman looked me up and down curiously, then recognized me, smiled, and took my hand. “Oh, yes, you are the elephant woman.”
“Catherine.” I nodded.
I could see by how casually she had treated the situation that she must have known that guy. “What’s the ax for?”
“He took special medicine to get rich, but he did not take it correctly and now he is not well.”
I gave her an incredulous look.
Nandi shrugged. “Witchcraft.”
“Witchcraft. I see.” I didn’t want to ask her to elaborate, so I changed the subject. “Listen, Nandi, I have to take off, but I look forward to seeing you soon.”
“I would like that.”
“Did you ask your father if I could come meet with him again?”
Nandi nodded. “But, you see, he suspects that you are not wanting to help with our elephant problems. He might not tell anything of what you are hoping. He told me you are going to work with the game guards to fill out forms about dead elephants. He thinks that is your real interest—to get us to inform for you. It is not our elephants that are dying. But it is our people that are suffering from the poison.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are people in the villages helping those very bad men transport ivory. Many, many ivories pass through the Caprivi.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want her to get scared if I asked the wrong question.
“My brother was put in prison because he was set up by those bad men.”
“So, whose tusks did the game guards find?”
“I do not know. He says they are not his. But these other men deal in many, many tusks, hundreds of them. Sianga is in jail while they are walking the streets and sitting in bars drinking beer. He didn’t used to be a bad man. He was a good man.”
“Do you think he would talk to me about those bad men?”
Nandi shook her head. “It is very, very dangerous. You cannot tell the rangers about this. Please do not tell anyone what I just said.”
“Do you think your father would be willing to talk to me about your brother?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Can you ask him?”
Nandi nodded.
“Great, thanks, Nandi. I look forward to seeing you and your father in the next few days.”
“You will find me here.”
“Okay, good-bye then, Nandi.” I made a quick exit.
Nandi waved good-bye as I drove off, heading to Jon’s office.