Game Auction, Hluhluwe Outskirts, South Africa
17th February 1999
10:30am
Buffel stood at the edge of the crowd at the onsite game auction. He had on the felt hat he always wore when he was going hunting, only now it was pulled down low over his forehead. He had forgone his usual safari suit and worn denims with a white shirt. To anyone else he looked like a farmer who had come to the game farm for the auction, to buy game for his own ranch.
But he was here for a different prey.
The brother of Moeketsi had sung like a Burchell’s coucal, warbling on about how Moeketsi had a better life now that he had moved away, and he was now a professional hunter, and he lived on a farm that belonged to a white man who treated his black workers like kings, all the while he and his family were almost starving under his Zimbabwe government. About how unfair life was that he was getting beaten up for his lucky brother again. Just like when they were children together.
Buffel hadn’t even needed to torture him for the address. He had given it freely.
Kujana Farm, Hluhluwe, South Africa.
But live men tell tales, so he’d had to be silenced.
Buffel smiled at the memory.
A telephone book, and two phone calls, and Buffel knew where Shilo was going to be. The farm had been easy enough to find, off a main road on the back of Hluhluwe, and everyone in the small town had known the Wild Translocation trucks, pointed them out to him. They had even told him that they would be at a local game auction the next day.
Small tourist towns. The people were always so easy and helpful, especially to strangers.
The ostriches in the boma near him were having a commotion about something. Their loud protest defied anyone close by to have a conversation. He looked at the hessian sacking wrapped around the temporary boma enclosure, but he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary causing their distress.
He checked down the boma line, to where some sable antelope were penned. The meanest bastards to a hunter. A wounded sable would fake death when you shot him, only to impale the hunter with its scimitar-sharp horns if he wasn’t careful when he went up to it for a photograph. Aggressive as hell, the sable was an antelope many underestimated in the safari trade and the hunting business. He strolled towards the pen, feigning interest. Counting minutes, straining to see Shilo in the crowd as they milled around him.
The viewing panel in the solid part of the boma was about the size of a standard pillowcase. Made with corrugated iron, it rattled loudly when he opened it. Within a moment, he saw the big black bull rush from the one side of the boma, and slam into where he stood. Only the strength of the boma spared him the wrath of the animal. He stepped back as the attack happened, but eagerly stepped up towards the window to see what damage the sable had inflicted upon itself.
The base of its curved horns was thick, yet this cornered beast was fighting for its freedom, with no regard as to how much pain and suffering it could give itself.
He was magnificent.
Buffel looked at him through the eyes of a hunter, thinking how proud he would look on his wall in his trophy lounge.
The sable slammed at him again. He closed the viewer window, not wanting to draw attention to himself, and not wanting to spoil the trophy beast.
He noticed Shilo the moment he walked around the side of the boma set up outside the tent. In the six years since he had last smoked him out, he had not aged much. He looked from Shilo to his companions.
The farmer. He walked with the swagger of a confident military man. One who was at ease in the bush and in any shithole of war around the world. His short blond hair was typical of one who had served or still served within the SADF.
But it was the person who held his hand who suddenly drew Buffel’s full attention. He held his breath. Trying to stop his beating heart. Trying to hold his mouth closed. Stop himself from grinning like a baboon having too many marulas. It was impossible.
His white-haired angel. He knew it was her.
Impendla’s saviour. The Butterfly.
Tara Wright was just as beautiful in adulthood as when she had been just about to blossom into a woman. She wore an impractical white dress, close fitting to show off her body, it left her shoulders free for the African sun to kiss lightly. She had on dark sunglasses, but he didn’t need her to remove them to know that the colour of her bright blue eyes wouldn’t have changed. They would be the same as when they had first looked at him across his veranda table when she was too young.
The same eyes that tormented his dreams.
The same eyes that had the power to call all the butterflies together, and to save Impendla.
He looked to her right, and striding next to her was a boy. He had the same white hair she did, and his eyes were shaded by sunglasses. He walked tall and although he looked a bit like the farmer there was no mistaking he was her son. Bordering on manhood, the boy walked with a purpose that many of the younger men lacked now.
Pride. He strode, he didn’t simply walk, he held himself tall.
A worthy warrior to accompany the Butterfly on her journey, he thought.
The last man in the party walked on the other side of the boy. He looked out of place with his denims, and his shirt rolled at the elbows. His hair looked like it had been styled with a dryer, and he held the boy’s hand.
Buffel bristled. A moffie or a male model. Not a man’s man, but a man who thought more like a woman.
He spat in the dust.
Then he turned slightly to the left, so that when they passed by they wouldn’t see him. He turned and watched as they walked into the huge white marquee that sat like a giant bullfrog in the middle of the farm. The auctioneer was already inside, and a general hum like millions of bees could be heard from the tent. He walked slowly behind the party.
He couldn’t help grinning. He could quieten Shilo and get his angel and her warrior in one clean sweep.
All he had to do was be patient, and strike like an Egyptian cobra when he made his move.
It had to be on his terms.
He had to plan.