A Delicious Mistake (3 page)

“Thomas
and I found another pitfall trap yesterday,” he said as he kept his eyes
trained on the treacherous terrain ahead. “That’s the second one this month.
These poachers are showing no signs of slowing down. They’re getting cockier
and bolder.”

It
worried him. It worried him immensely, and, quite frankly, it pissed him off.
The poaching had been going on for quite a while now, and Luke was rapidly
becoming fed up.

Benjamin
frowned and kept his eyes on the road. Beneath Luke’s careless, casual tone,
Benjamin could sense his friend’s tension. Luke’s anger was a palpable
entity—Benjamin could see it in his fists curled tightly around the wheel, so
tight that his knuckles had gone pale, on his, taut, tanned features, and in
the sharpness of his pale blue eyes.

Luke
wasn’t the only one who was troubled by the recent events.

Benjamin
had spent quite a few sleepless nights himself. He tried to make sure he kept a
positive attitude, especially around their youngest rangers, such as young
Thomas Blake, but at night his fears leaked out. Benjamin had been a ranger at
the Huttons’ game farm for years. He had done such a good job that he had been
promoted to Ranger Manager and now he got to face scenes of poaching almost on
a daily basis.

There
was no getting used to it. It saddened and angered him that in recent years the
poachers had gotten more dangerous and desperate. Fighting poaching and other
unlawful activities in the Game Lodge had changed drastically from the early years
when the most they had to worry about was the occasional starving man armed
with a bow and arrows. Those were the good old days. Now wildlife crime was a
massive business with a network spanning continents. It made for brutal
adversaries who were truly capable of anything—against beasts and men.

Benjamin
and Luke’s daily routine consisted in commuting from dawn till dusk, bouncing a
Jeep over bad roads and risking constant tire puncturing from jagged rocks.
Then again, a flat tire was the least of their worries. The real threat to the
animals came in the form of soulless, heavily-armed rural poaching gangs, which
made their job a life-and-death predicament.

“You’re
right,” Benjamin finally said, turning to look at the tense form of his best
friend. “They
are
getting bolder. Even worse, they’re increasing their
ranks. I went into town yesterday and rumor has it there might be the chance of
new poachers having recently moved into our territory.” The words tasted bitter
on his tongue. If the stories were indeed true, that made for a very bleak
scenario indeed.

“I
heard that, too,” Luke said. “I’m thinking about going back to the area where
we found the pitfall trap yesterday. They’re bound to have left some tracks.
There’s no way they could have just vanished. Perhaps a more accurate
examination of the area will lead somewhere.”

Benjamin
nodded. “I’ll follow up on the leads I got from the locals. We’re bound to come
up with something. Someone’s got to make a misstep sooner or later.”

Truth
be told, he was beginning to despair that any of these poachers would ever
betray themselves. He would never admit that out loud. Not even—and especially
not—to Luke Hutton.

“Do
you really think they’ll talk?” Luke asked. He glanced over, worry and
skepticism in his eyes.

Benjamin
shrugged. “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. It’s worth a try.”

A
few months ago one of the locals had tipped them off about a location where
they could catch poachers who were removing tusks from the carcass of an
African elephant they had just killed. But such events were rare. Locals didn’t
want to expose themselves to reprisals or arrest, and so would only give out
vague information, and sometimes Benjamin didn’t really know what to make of
the clues they had been given.

“I
hope we get something,” Luke said. “
Someone
,” he said correcting himself
with a frustrated breath. “They’re decimating our wildlife and the government
is doing nothing to help us.”

It
was true. They were on their own. They didn’t necessarily have all the
resources or the expertise to fight this threat alone. But that did not mean
they wouldn’t try. Benjamin was glad in a way that Sarah, Luke’s sister, had
stayed in London and had not returned to Africa. This was not the Serengeti she
had known as a girl. But sometimes he thought of her— she with her burnished
red hair which seemed as warm as the earth and her pale skin that took on a
golden hue from the sun. He thought of her often and wondered if she had
married—had she found herself a man? What did she look like now that she was
fully grown? He had known when she was a girl that she would be beautiful. But
as the daughter of the Huttons, she had been as far above him as the sun in the
sky—or so his father and his mother had told him. And so he had become a
brother to Luke, and a guardian to Sarah. At least until her and her family had
left. But Luke had returned, and Benjamin had again settled into his spot at
the side of the man who was closer to him than any blood relative.

As
they drove on, they passed a group of excited tourists being treated to a view
of the wildlife in the northern regions of the Serengeti—the regions Benjamin
and Luke tried so hard to watch over. Zebras, dik diks, lions, and of course,
the buckling wildebeests—the animals brought these vast plains to life. They
were
the plains. Benjamin never waned to imagine a world where these animals and
landscapes simply didn’t exist anymore. The Serengeti was a part of him, and he
was a creature of the Serengeti. He would do anything to save it, despite the
government’s lack of assistance, and he wouldn’t be alone.

He
knew that Luke felt exactly the same way and was hell bent in fighting as
fiercely and tenaciously as he was. After all, wasn’t that the reason why Luke
had come back to the family estate? Wasn’t that the reason why he was back for
good? Yes, the Game Lodge had been in need of attention, too, but they all knew
it could almost run itself.

No,
Luke hadn’t returned just to take care of his father’s business. He had come
back because he had felt the pull of the wild. He had it in his veins as much
and Benjamin did, and it didn’t matter one bit that he was a white man. The
savannah didn’t distinguish the color of a man’s skin—just his heart. Luke’s
heart belonged to Africa, as it had since the very first day he had set foot on
it as a very small child. Luke might not have been born in Tanzania—not like
his little sister Sarah who had been born here, a child of Africa. But Luke had
a love of the land burning inside him. Anyone could see that.

As
their drive progressed, Benjamin watched as Luke gradually began to relax. The
wildlife and plains always had that calming effect on him, and Benjamin had to
smile fondly. Not for the first time he thanked whatever powers may be above to
have blessed him with such a man in his life that he could call a friend. More
than that, one he could call a brother. It was impossible for him to forget
that the man driving next to him had been a best friend all his life. Over
time, their bond had grown stronger, so much so that even Luke’s forced and
prolonged absence from Tanzania after his father’s stroke and subsequent
permanent relocation of the family in their native England had really changed
anything. When Luke returned, Benjamin had found that they were closer than
ever. They weren’t just childhood friends. They were brothers in the truest,
deepest sense of the word.

As
a boy Benjamin had thought his world had just come to an end when the Huttons
announced that they would no longer be spending half of the year in the
Serengeti, as they had done for decades. The stays had become too strenuous for
David Hutton, who had recently suffered a stroke that had left his left hand
and leg partly paralyzed. For as far back as Benjamin could remember, the Huttons
had visited their Game Lodge in Tanzania once a year, staying for a period of
four to six months to escape the gray winters of England. To know they wouldn’t
return had been heartbreaking and earth-shattering for Benjamin, and he had
thought Luke felt the same. Benjamin had even found little Sarah crying out
near the gates. He had sat with her, not touching her, merely watching out for
her and guarding her as he had always done. But he had known that for Sarah and
Luke—and for him—the end of those visits had seemed like the ending of the
world. At the very least, it was the end of
their
world, and there was
no denying that.

But
Luke hadn’t been able to stay away. As soon as he was old enough and out of
college, he had moved back to Africa and the Serengeti in order to take over
the management of the Game Lodge his family had owned for generations. But
Sarah and her family had remained in England. Benjamin tried to be happy with
what he had with Luke. The tough, often frustrating, and always demanding job
of protecting their land and its cultural and natural treasures from adversity
and threat—whatever those may be—had become a lighter load just because they
were blessed with the chance of working side by side.

Feeding
off his friend’s returning serenity, Benjamin sat back in the passenger’s seat
and relaxed. He allowed the green of the Serengeti plains to give him peace as
it seeped into his eyes and skin and blood.

Luke
suddenly broke the silence. “I think we should go now.” Benjamin looked
sideways over to him. “Back to the area where I found the trap yesterday, and
you can head back into town to check out those rumors.”

Benjamin
sat up. “What about the rest of our morning patrol?”

“I
dare say, this calls for our immediate attention.”

Rubbing
the back of his neck, Benjamin mulled this over for a few moments. He didn’t
like the thought of leaving some of the areas unchecked for the day. But their
patrol was meant to find any trouble and deal with it. They had found trouble,
and it needed to be dealt with.

Finally,
he nodded. “All right then. Let’s go back to base camp and I’ll take another
Jeep.”

Luke
flashed him a grateful smile.  “We’ll take care of what we saw the day
before. That’ll be good.” Benjamin nodded. He didn’t particularly like delaying
action, either.

Luke
drove back to the garage that hosted all of the ranger vehicles. Benjamin took
his rifle from the back of Luke’s Jeep and jumped into another Jeep. They met
right outside the garage, their vehicles side by side, each ready to drive in opposite
directions that would hopefully lead somewhere useful to their cause.

“I’ll
meet you back here at dusk,” Luke said. “We’ll regroup then.”

“Be
careful,” Benjamin advised.

Luke
nodded and gave him a wink. “Always, brother.”

Reaching
out, Luke stretched out his hand to grab Benjamin’s forearm in a brotherly
hold. He held the grasp for a moment, then let go and gave a wave. A moment
later, he drove off, his face set in a firm, unforgiving expression. He looked
like a man with a mission.

Benjamin
hoped one of them—well, ideally,
both
of them, but he didn’t dare hope
for
that
much—would come up with something. A small worry nagged at him
that perhaps he should stay with Luke. But Luke knew this area as well as he
did. Luke had grown up here. So what was he to worry over? It was not like this
would be the last time he would ever see Luke Hutton alive.

* * *

               
Benjamin paced the ranger camp. Something was not right. He always had that
uncanny sense of intuition, the infamous “sixth sense.” He hoped, for once, he
was wrong and there was actually nothing to worry about. It turned out,
however, that he was horribly, painfully right.

He
had returned to the Lodge a little earlier than expected, his hands empty and
his heart heavy. Luke had been right. No one seemed to really know anything. If
they did, they weren’t willing to expose themselves. Dusk came and nightfall
followed…and Luke hadn’t returned. Benjamin did his best not to worry, but
eventually, after hours had passed, he could no longer ignore the foreboding
that had taken residence in the pit of his stomach. He waited for his best
friend to show up for as long as it was reasonable and then he snapped into
action.

Unable
to shake the awful feeling that his brother must be in some kind of terrible
danger, Benjamin quickly rounded up a search posse. The team consisted of a few
rangers and other staff of the Game Lodge. They had all offered to help. Soon
enough, they were heading off on their search, holding torches to fend off the
overwhelming darkness of the African night. Normally, Benjamin welcomed that
darkness, but not tonight. He needed to see clearly, and the light of the
almost-full moon simply wasn’t enough.

Dread
sunk heavier and heavier in Benjamin’s chest as the hours went by and they
found no sign of Luke. Benjamin had taken young Thomas and four more men with
him, instructing the youngest ranger to guide him to the area where Luke and
Thomas had found the pitfall trap the previous day. Benjamin’s stomach cramped
when he caught sight of Luke’s Jeep. Luke, however, was nowhere to be found.

Getting
out of his own Jeep, Benjamin ordered, “Let’s scout the area.”

Splitting
up was probably not the smartest idea, but it would allow them to cover more
terrain more quickly. God forbid if Luke was hurt, they had no time to waste.
As Benjamin headed off into the night he thought that, for the first time, the
darkness seemed so unmerciful. He forced himself not to think the worst. He
simply could
not
go down that road—the possibility was just too horrible
to contemplate.