Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur. Страница 31

Minutes later, he picked out another less obtrusive sound from the subtle orchestra of the wilderness.  It was the whirring chatter of a honey guide.  The sound told him where to look and he spotted the small nondescript brown bird in the top branches of a mopane far ahead.

It flitted above the game trail, flicking its wings, darting from tree to tree and uttering seductive entreaties.  If they were prepared to follow the bird, it would lead the honey badger or man to a hive of wild bees.

While they robbed the hive the honey guide would hover in close waiting for its share of the comb and the grubs that it contained.  The bird's specially adapted digestive system was capable of breaking down the beeswax and deriving nourishment where no other creature could.

Legend maintained that if you failed to leave the bird his portion of the spoils, then the next time he would lead you to a deadly mamba or a man-eating lion.

The honey guide drew closer to where Isaac waited, and suddenly he discerned obscure movement in the forest below the fluttering bird.

Swiftly the shadowy shapes resolved into a column of men moving down the game trail.  The head of the column drew level with the head of the donga where Isaac lay.

Although they were dressed in tattered and filthy clothing with an eclectic selection of hcadwear that ranged from baseball caps to faded military floppies, each of them carried an AK 47

rifle and an elephant tusk.

Some of them carried the tusk balanced upon their heads, the natural curve of the ivory drooping down fore and aft.  Others carried it over the shoulder, using one hand to balance the burden while the other hand held the assault rifle.  Most of them had woven a pad of bark string and soft grass to cushion the galling weight of the ivory on their scalps or collar-bones.

The agony that their loads were causing after all these hours and miles of trek was evident on their contorted faces.  Yet to each of the raiders the tusk they carried represented an enormous fortune, and they would suffer permanent physical damage rather than abandon it.

The man leading the column was short and squat, with thick bow-legs and a bull neck.  The mellow early light caught the glossy scar down the side of his face.  Sali, Isaac hissed as he recognised him.  He was the most notorious of all the Zambian poachers.  Twice before their paths had crossed, and each time it had cost the lives of good men.

sed close to where Isaac lay at a swinging jog-trot, He pas carrying the thick honey-coloured tusk balanced on his head.

He alone of all his men showed no signs of distress from the long march.

Isaac counted the poachers as they passed his position.  The slower and weaker ones had fallen far behind the killing pace that Sali set, so the column was strung out.  It took almost seven minutes by Isaac's wristwatch for all of them to go by.

Nineteen.  Isaac counted the last pair as they limped past.

Greedily they had selected tusks too heavy for their own strength and they were paying the price now.

Isaac let them go, but the moment they disappeared in the direction of the river, he rose from his ambush position and slipped away into the donga.  He moved with extreme caution for he could not be certain that there were not still other members of the gang on the trail behind him.

The assault boat was where he had left it, moored in the reeds at the entrance to the lagoon.  Isaac waded out alongside the boat and swung him self in over the gunwale.  He noticed that the man he had sent down river had returned.

Quietly he told his men what he had found, and he watched their expressions.  They were good men, all three of them, but the odds were formidable even for them, and the enemy were hard men with faces like lions, as the headman had described them.  We will take them on the water, Isaac told them.  And we will not wait for them to fire the first shot.  They are armed, and they are carrying ivory in the Park.

That is enough.  We will take them by surprise when they expect us least.  Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, had issued a directive that was unequivocal.  They had the right to shoot on sight.

Too many Parks men had been killed in these clashes to justify the usual niceties of a formal challenge.

The expressions of the listening rangers hardened and they hefted their weapons with renewed confidence.  Isaac ordered them to work the boat out of the reeds and as soon as they reached open water he cranked the starter motor.  The engine balked and fired roughly and cut out.

He cranked it again and again until the battery became sluggish.

They were drifting away swiftly down stream.

Muttering angrily, Isaac hurried back and pulled the cover off the motor.

While he worked on it he was vividly aware that upstream the gang would be loading the plundered ivory into the canoes and preparing to cross back into their own territory and safety.

He left the motor uncovered and ran forward to the controls.

This time the motor fired and ran, surged and then faded.  He pumped the throttle and she surged again and then settled to a steady beat.

The engine whined shrilly as he turned across the current and ran back upstream.

The sound of the unmuted motor carried far ahead, and it must have alerted the gang.  As Isaac drove the assault boat around the next bend, all the canoes were strung out across the river racing for the north shore.

The rising sun was behind Isaac's back and the broad stretch of water was lit like a theatre stage.  The Zambezi was bright emerald green, the papyrus beds were crowned with gold where the sun's rays struck them. The canoes were starkly lit.  Each of the frail craft carried a boatman and three passengers, together with a full load of ivory.

Their free-board was only the width of a man's hand, and they lay so low in the water that the men seemed to be crouched on the very surface.

The boatmen were paddling frantically.  Their long spearshaped paddles flashed in the sunlight as they drove for the far bank.  The leading canoe was already within a hundred yards of the Zambian papyrus beds.

The propeller of the Yamaha carved a lacy wake from the glossy green surface as Isaac swung the boat in a long curving trajectory to head off the leading canoe from the sanctuary of the reeds.

As the two vessels closed, Isaac made out the scarred visage of Sali . He squatted in the warped bows, turning his head awkwardly to glare back at them, unable to move without upsetting the delicate trim of the canoe.

This time we've got you, Isaac whispered, as he pushed the throttle forward to the stop, and the Yamaha shrieked.

Suddenly Sali rose to his feet and the canoe rocked wildly under him.

Water slopped in over the wooden sides and the canoe began to flood and settle.  Sali shouted a threat at Isaac; a mask of fury and he lifted the AK his face was contorted into and fired a long continuous burst at the boat racing down on him.

Bullets slammed into the hull and one of the instrument gauges on the control console in front of Isaac exploded.  He ducked, but held her on course to ram the canoe.

Soli flicked the empty magazine out of the rifle, and loaded another from his bandolier.  He fired again.  The bright brass cases sparkled in the sunlight as they were spewed from the breech.  One of the rangers in the front of the assault boat cried out and clutched at his stomach as he tumbled to the deck, and at that moment the bows of the assault boat crashed into the side of the canoe at thirty knots.  The brittle kigelia wood shattered, and the men in her were hurled into the river.