Shooting Butterflies (22 page)

His son. So tiny.

He turned the photo over, and on the back was written:
Josha – 11 April 1985.

He took in a deep breath, and pulled the next picture to the top of the small pile.

It was just Josha by himself, his hair blonde and curly around his head, his big beautiful blue eyes large in the close-up. Eyes shaped like Tara's, but the same colour as his own. The photo was sharp and clear, as if it had been done professionally. The third photo was the most recent. Josha was a lot taller. He was standing in front of Tara, giving her a kiss as she sat on a picnic bench. His blond head was only millimetres away from hers. She still wore her hair in its blunt bob as she had when he had last seen her the day they had parted on such bad terms, only now her hair was blonder. She was highlighting it. She had her arm around Josha's middle, and she looked like she was laughing. Josha wore a uniform, of a white short-sleeved shirt, with grey socks, and black shoes. He couldn't see the insignia on the shirt, and it could have been from almost any school in South Africa.

He flicked through the photos again. There was nothing in the pictures to see where they had been taken.

‘Ben, as my lawyer, do you know where she is?' Wayne asked.

‘No. But we can initiate a search for you. There are people who specialise in finding those who don't want to be found. But it will cost a fair amount.'

‘You know my financial situation better than anyone, having worked so close to my dad. With his money that I have just inherited, can I afford those services?' Wayne asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Then, do it.'

Wayne sat on a plastic chair under the tarp at Doppies Base Camp. Terry sat near his feet as always, his head resting on his front paws.

Bevin coughed to get Wayne's attention. ‘You know the Lieutenant suggested when we wrap up here at the end of the month, we get away, clear our heads. Travel, get in to city life again.'

‘Yeah,' Wayne said. ‘Would be in July, the coldest month. We couldn't wrap up in September when the temperatures are decent, before the heat and the rain arrive.'

Bevin smiled. ‘So, I have arranged to visit my great aunt in Karoi, in Zimbabwe. She's sold her farm at last and is coming to live with my folks. She asked me to come for one last visit, help her pack her things, make sure she leaves nothing behind. You'll like her. She used to be a tobacco farmer, but she's now diversified and put in game too. For an old lady she's one hell of a farmer.'

‘She's the farmer?'

‘Yeah. For years she was just keeping afloat until she got her new bossboy, Jamison. He's the one who's basically been running the farm for her. Although my mother tells me my aunt is in no way acting like an old woman yet.'

‘Sounds good. Hope you have a great time.'

‘After that, a week on her houseboat in Kariba. That is going to be a party! But I wanted you to come with me, you know, travel together.'

‘Does she know you're bringing a guest?'

‘Yes, I wrote and told her two people would be visiting.'

‘You assumed I would go with you? Why?'

‘Because you need the break. You're coming with me, my friend. Time for you to live a little and to give yourself a rest from looking at that photo of your child and your girl all the time.'

Wayne smiled. ‘It's become a bit of an obsession. I still can't quite believe that it's real. I have proof that I have a son, not just a feeling. Remember when I once told you that it was possible Tara hadn't
had that abortion, that she had lost things in her life that she loved, that I thought she would fight with everything she had to keep our child. Well, I was right. I guess having my dad on her side helped her to win the battle.'

‘You have your fancy lawyer trying to track her down. There's nothing you can do while you wait. So now that you're not squirelling away your money like you used to, and have moola to travel, we're travelling,
boet.
It's already arranged by yours truly. You can thank me after we get back,' Bevin said.

Wayne put his hand on Terry and looked around. In a week they would be leaving the camp. Closing it totally. The Recces would leave, and then operations personnel would clear everything out. Strip the camp down and leave it empty.

Since the release of Mandela in February, the SADF had begun getting ready for a transition to a black government. Only this time there was nowhere left for the white minority to run south too. They were as far south in South Africa as you could get.

So they needed to protect those who couldn't run.

Protect those who would remain in the society for years to come, and whose families would continue to live in South Africa.

Documents had been burnt.

Files had been destroyed so that no trace of what was happening would ever fall into the wrong hands. So that every soldier who fought during the Apartheid war would be protected from a guerrilla government should the transition become a bloodbath. Should anyone seek justice for acts to protect their country be misconstrued as crimes committed during a war time.

Since 1948 South Africans had been fighting Soviet, Korean, Chinese and Cuban forces on the front line, as well as all the black factions, yet now it was over. They were being sold down the drain into black empowerment. South Africa could either change without mass violence, as F.W. de Klerk was trying to achieve, or there could be full-scale mass murder and genocide, as had happened in almost every other African country.

The SADF were doing their part to stop the mass murders, and continued to burn all their files.

He'd watched as his files on the poachers in Angola and those within the SADF that he'd linked to them had been burnt. All the evidence was now gone and no one would ever know what had happened to make a few people so rich while working under the protection of the SADF. White gold. Ivory. White powder in Mandrax. Diamonds. All commodities that had been traded, and syndicated from Johannesburg, and then distributed to the world from there. The blood that had been spilt, the huge price paid by the wild animals of Africa for a few greedy men, had been buried forever.

He shook his head as he looked at the fire in the middle of Camp Doppies. He smiled as he thought about the camp's name. Only a SADF camp could be called after a spent bullet. The camp had been called ‘Doppies' because of a vervet monkey who used to come in and steal the doppies after the live ammunition practices. Apparently he'd run into camp, pick up the doppies then run out again with his treasure hoard. Twenty years later and Terry the lion was now its resident mascot, a far cry from that original monkey.

Soon, they were going to abandon the camp that had been home for the last few years, and he knew he was going to miss it. Soon it would be overgrown with African bush, the small brown mice would find refuge in the stone and brick foundations that remained. Seeds from the forests would grow into strong trees in the cracks in the concrete, breaking it further and reclaiming it into the wild. Buffalo weavers would build huge nests in the trees, and their droppings would fertilise the leaf litter underneath and more plants would grip their roots into the tough African soil, and grow. Grasses would cover over the mounds used for target practice. The scarring done by humans would be healed.

So many men had walked there over those last twenty years, yet once they cleared out, nothing would remain to tell the history of the place that had been home, a refuge to them. Only memories and stories would survive, around a campfire at a reunion somewhere.
People who had not been there would listen in disbelief to that oral history, and when all those who shared that history died, their stories would pass into obscurity.

But Wayne's melancholy mood was for something more.

He had arrived at Doppies young, naive and determined. But he was leaving jaded about the future of the defence force that he had once believed in. His one hope was that with the extra time on his hands and a civilian life, he might soon find Tara and his son, Josha.

He knew that he'd miss Terry more than the camp itself. He knew he was going to have to leave Terry behind. He was still a wild lion, he could fend for himself, but he was worried for him.

One of the first changes he'd made to his farm since January was to instruct the new manager to begin regenerating the bush on his farm. The sugarcane was to be slowly phased out, and as it did, planting of native trees and grasses was taking place. He was transforming his land into a game farm. He knew that logistically, he couldn't take Terry there now, but he could provide a home for the other lion, elephant, rhino and hippo that were being hunted to extinction. His closeness to the Hluhluwe Game Reserve made it a perfect spot to transform into a safari operation. He'd seen
Mala Mala
and the international trade that they did, being situated so close to Kruger – and yet providing five-star accommodation and service.

His manager had been employed because when Wayne interviewed him, he found the man had the same vision for a safari farm that offered photographic safaris and was built around the preservation of game – not hunting. The new manager had been working on it for six months already and Wayne was looking forward to seeing his progress when he went home.

‘Earth to Wayne. I asked you to come to Zimababwe on holiday with me. Say yes,' Bevin said.

‘Yes,' he said. He knew that Tara had once lived in Zimbabwe. He wanted to visit as something other than an operative to see what was happening in her former country. See if he could dig up any
news on Tara. You never knew who would know something about the family. Perhaps he'd find something there, as so far, the investigator had got nowhere with his search.

It was as if Tara had disappeared, or moved overseas.

Now he was going to Zimbabwe, and he'd start looking there.

12

The Pioneers

Amarose Lodge – Private Game Reserve, Karoi, Zimbabwe

August 1990

Wayne gritted his teeth as they drove over the abnormally large cattle grid. His gaze was drawn by the green crop of tobacco growing to either side of the driveway leading into Bevin's great aunt Rose's farm. In the distance, where the bright green ended, he could see a eight-foot-tall electrified fence.

‘So this is where you spent your holidays when you were at school?'

‘Yip. Loved it up here.'

‘Why didn't you stay here, instead of doing your national service, and becoming a Recce?'

‘I wanted to serve my country. I wanted to be that Special Ops man. Visiting my aunt was what drove me to want to fight. I have seen so much happen here, and I didn't want that to happen to my own country. In a way, as long as I was up in Angola fighting, I knew that she was safer here on her farm. I was last here in 1985,
just before my aunt fired her white manager and Jamison took over the position.'

‘He's the one who got her to diversify?'

Bevin nodded. ‘He doesn't seem to be your average bossboy. Apparently the manager before him was stealing from her big time, syphoning off her best tobacco to another friend in the auctions so she looked like she wasn't doing as well as she was. Jamison came to the farm to learn about tobacco. When she fired the manager, the old bossboy was about to leave her too. Jamison talked him into staying and teaching him before retiring, and the old bossboy passed the reins to him. By then it was with her blessing of course. But in a time when she needed help, this Jamison had rallied everyone around her, and they stood together.'

‘Sounds like a good man.'

‘I always hoped so. Once he had the position, he began to instigate changes. She's always supported the poorer blacks in the TTL down the road, but he ensured that those living in that tribal trust land were looked after with basic necessities, like having clean water. He made sure they knew it was her who was looking after them, and that it could stop if they poached on her land, and suddenly the theft that she was experiencing from her sheds stopped, and there were no more snares on her property either.'

‘That's a practical way to get rid of the problem. Wish more people would look at a sustainable culture like that,' Wayne said. ‘I've got poaching happening on my farm. I think every farmer in Africa does. It's just the scale that differs from place to place.'

‘You're right.' Bevin was still talking about his aunt's employee. ‘Jamison was the one who encouraged her to look to diversify, because tobacco prices fluctuate so much. With the farm on a profit-share scheme, she needed to make sure that she could always look after her workers. I think she likes that they look to her as the Mama of the land. She took this man Jamison's advice and let him go with her
bakkie
, for three months during the off-season, to the lowveld to learn about how to recreate a bush environment. First he went to Gonarezhou National Park, and he visited farms in that
area. He visited with the fenceless Mana Pools National Park up the road from there, and somewhere along the line, he became a licenced professional hunter, although the details of how he got that so quickly were a bit sketchy when she corresponded with me.'