Thabiti hugged his arms across his body in the early Monday morning air. It was seven o’clock and he, Sam and Judy had left Aureus Lodge and driven to Lewa Conservancy to meet Reuben and his tracker dogs. They stood in the recently cleared finishing area for the Lewa Marathon.
“I still think we should have told Robert Scott Watson that a woman’s hand had been found on Lewa,” Thabiti said as he blew into his cupped hands.
“If it is his wife’s hand, and we discover foul play, then he will be our lead suspect,” replied Judy. She didn’t have her uniform with her at the lodge, so instead she was wearing a black fleece with ‘Police’ embroidered across the back.
“I think it best we keep him out of the way for as long as possible,” remarked Sam. He was wearing a green woollen hat, black fingerless gloves, and his large frame was accentuated by his British Army issue camouflage padded jacket.
Reuben and another dog handler appeared around the corner of some thorn bushes and were dragged towards them by two large bloodhound dogs. Obediently, the dogs sat and looked at Thabiti with an expression of solemn dignity. Their faces appeared to droop because of the excess of wrinkled skin they carried and their long sagging ears.
“Habari,” greeted Reuben. He carried a small blue and white cool box. “I suggest we drive to the spot where the hand was found and see if the dogs can pick up the trail back to its source.”
Thabiti noted that he avoided saying body.
“Jump in,” said Sam. He was driving one of the lodge safari vehicles and he and Reuben climbed into the cab. Thabiti and Judy joined the other handler and the dogs in the back.
As they drove through the open, seemingly empty landscape, Thabiti marvelled at its sheer expanse. It was so different from the busy, noisy Nairobi he knew so well, and even from Nanyuki, which was never quiet. But out here he could almost feel that time was something tangible.
It was extraordinary, as if the past and future came together and were indistinguishable from the present. How many other people, possibly his own ancestors, had gazed across these same plains? In the distance, the Mathews range had, for centuries, watched over the slowly evolving landscape.
The vehicle stopped and Thabiti stepped out onto a dry grassland area beside an umbrella thorn tree. The black earth track beside them was the one he and Marina had run and walked along during the marathon and, looking back, he saw it disappear down a steep hill which had been particularly tiring to walk up.
“I believe this is the spot,” said Reuben as he climbed out of the car carrying the cool box. He opened it in front of the dogs, who stuck their long pointed muzzles inside. The leads jerked and Reuben and the other handler were borne away. “Please bring the cool box with you,” Reuben shouted over his shoulder.
“They don’t seem very sure where to go,” commented Judy, as they watched the dogs zigzag across the area in front of them, often doubling back, stopping, sniffing all around and then following another invisible path.
“They’re seeking out the right scent,” Sam replied. “They should be able to distinguish the scent of the hand from the jackal which carried it, and the other animals that have passed this way, even though it was found yesterday evening.”
The other handler’s dog barked, and with its nose almost touching the ground, the bloodhound set off back along the side of the track they had driven along.
Sam jumped into the car. “Are you coming with me or walking?”
“I’ll walk,” replied Judy.
She jogged to catch up with the dogs as Thabiti climbed into the vehicle beside Sam.
He watched the dogs and remarked, “They move at quite a speed.”
Sam chuckled. “When they have the scent, little gets in their way. They are invaluable in our anti-poaching efforts and one of the primary reasons Lewa has reduced the number of poaching incidents.”
Thabiti ran his fingers across the dashboard in front of him. “But how do they stop the poachers?”
Sam drove steadily along the black earth track. “They don’t physically stop them, but they have become so efficient at tracking down the culprits following a poaching incident, often over many miles to outlying villages, that it acts as a great deterrent. You see the gangs need local recruits to steal the ivory and most are now too scared to work for them.”
They drove on for over a mile, following the route of the marathon up a hill. They descended into the main valley and Thabiti spotted the dogs turn off the track by a thicket of white thorn acacia trees. Sam parked the car, and they followed the dogs through the trees until they emerged into a small clearing. The dogs began to bark in the undergrowth at the far end.
Reuben pulled them back, turned to Sam and said solemnly, “They have found your body.”
Judy stepped carefully through the damaged vegetation and squatted down to examine something. She stood, turned and called to Thabiti, “It’s the body of a young woman. Thabiti, do you mind confirming that it’s Nina Scott Watson?”
Thabiti felt his chest tightening. Did he really have to identify the body? He looked around the group and found everyone watching him expectantly. What had he thought would happen? They had gone in search of Nina’s body and he was the only one who had met her in person.
He took a small, hesitant step forward.
Sam took hold of his arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll come with you.”
Thabiti stopped and looked at him wide-eyed. “I’ve only seen one dead body. And that was my mother’s.”
Sam took him firmly by the elbow and guided him forward. “I suspect this one will look less like a living person and more like a corpse, having been out here overnight, and we know she’s missing a hand.”
Thabiti stopped and bent over, feeling bile rise in his throat. He gulped and looked up at Judy. She gave him a clenched half-smile of pity. She had no problem examining a dead body, so why should he? He shook himself free of Sam and stepped forward through the trampled undergrowth.
The body was indeed like something from a horror movie with sallow, blotched skin. Not only was the left arm missing, but also her right foot and her eyes. He turned quickly away, not wanting to see any more.
“Yes, that’s Nina,” he called as he rushed to the entrance of the clearing and vomited.