Shooting Butterflies (26 page)

His trophies would last forever.

A hunter was judged on his trophies, and they proved his patience and his accuracy.

Both things Buffel prided himself on.

He felt the easy beat of his heart and he knew that the medicines that sat in the mirrored cabinet in his bathroom could stay there for another while.

He had another hunting client coming in a week's time, and he was looking for a new concession to take him to. The client had requested a trophy elephant, but his special request was that he wanted to shoot it with a crossbow.

Buffel had at first been reluctant to take a man who hunted like that into the bush. A wounded elephant could kill you real fast if you got it wrong. But the client had sent him, via fax, pictures of other kills he had made, of American bison that had been taken down with a single shot with his new fancy carbon fibre arrows from a compound crossbow that looked nothing like anything Buffel had ever seen before.

Buffel had begun research into bow hunting and found that it had become legal in South Africa in 1983. Yet the most important information he had learnt was that just this year, the South Africa Executive ruling had come down, the hunt was to be done under a professional hunter's supervision, and if competence could be proven, then bow hunting could be used to hunt all animals. It opened up a whole new opportunity to new hunters to bring new foreign currency into the country.

His interest was piqued.

The gentleman was arriving soon to show his skill with that crossbow, with first an impala hunt, then a kudu, and on his list for this trip he had added a giraffe to prove that he could take on an elephant.

Buffel had changed the hunt from a giraffe to a buffalo bull. Perhaps if this hunter could take down an African buffalo in one shot, he would consider the elephant hunt. Not before.

The client was happy with those terms.

He lifted the new bunch of brochures he had sourced at the last Travel Expo he had attended in South Africa. He picked up his coffee that sat on the table next to him, and took a sip, then he lifted the top brochure and began reading.

Buffel spat his coffee onto the paper. Then he wiped it quickly with his sleeve.

‘Shilo!' he said as he stared at the colour picture in the advert for the Amarose Private Hunting Ranch. Shilo hadn't aged much. He looked just as fit as he had the day he left Piet Retief. Perhaps a little grey had snuck in on his temples in the last few years, but otherwise his smile was just as big as always.

He looked happier than Buffel had ever seen him. It seemed to be an inner glow, rather than an exterior expression. Buffel frowned and ran his finger over the image.

It didn't look like he was posing for the photograph as he drove the Toyota with its tracker on the front. Three big elephant bulls with their large tusks stood in the left of the picture.

Just what a trophy hunter wanted.

He continued to read the animal listings and costs of the newest ranch to publicise its hunting quota for buffalo, lion and leopard. The Amarose Private Hunting Ranch held four of the big five up, and was advertising concessions for hunting within their fences.

But Buffel only saw Shilo.

Shilo, who had deserted him.

Shilo, who had information that could destroy him now that he had built up a new business and a reputation.

Shilo, who knew too much, and needed to be silenced.

Shilo who had helped the butterfly escape, and might know where she was now.

He put his hand over his heart as the voices rushed back into his head.

It raced.

His body was unhappy that after these years, when he has been so settled, he had found Shilo again.

But he wouldn't get up to take his meds waiting in his bathroom. He was stronger than those meds, he didn't need them.

Soon he would be hunting and then calmness would return.

Patience.

Buffel knew that patience was the secret to checking in on Shilo, making sure he'd remembered their PSYOPS code and never talked.

Patience.

He looked at his fireplace where two huge ivory tusks arched towards each other. Set in elephant feet, and weighted, he compared the size of his last trophy to those in the picture. About forty centimetres still remained inside the elephant, but he thought that the elephant he had shot in the Zambezi valley was bigger than what was on offer from the private ranch.

But he wasn't going be visiting Amarose for the animal quota this time.

14

The Phoenix

Amarose Lodge – Private Game Reserve, Karoi, Zimbabwe

1992

‘Happy anniversary, my darling,' Ebony said to Jamison as he walked through the door. He looked at the room.

It was magical. Ebony had brought every candle in the house and put them in the dining room, and she had a table laid out as if they were in a five-star restaurant.

‘Eb,' Jamison said. ‘Look at this place. Wow. You did this for us? For me?' Jamison walked around the flickering room. Shadows danced across his pathway, and the candles flickered and light leapt and soared with the changes of the air swirling through the room.

‘I thought that I could spoil us for our fifth anniversary,' she said.

He walked up to her and took her in his arms. ‘Ebony, my heart, you spoil me.'

He dipped his head and kissed his wife thoroughly.

Breathless, she eventually pushed him away. ‘Let's eat, I'll grab the dinner and put it on the table while you have a quick shower.'

‘Deal, I'll be two minutes,' he said as he walked away towards the bathroom. She flicked his butt with a tea towel, laughing.

Jamison headed into the shower. He stepped in without waiting for the water to run warm, and washed so quickly, he was just rinsing off as the water was heating up. He switched the water off and grabbed his towel.

Humming, he quickly drew on a pair of tracksuit pants, and a button-up cotton shirt so that he would at least have clothes on for their dinner. After digging around at the back of his underpants drawer, he took out a small gift box that he put in his pocket, and hurried out to join his wife.

Ebony sat at the table, their dinner in front of her, and he paused for a moment to take in the sight.

‘I still can't quite believe that you are here, and that you agreed to marry me,' he said to her from the door.

‘I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere,' she said.

He grinned.

‘Now, come on over and eat,' she said and she gestured to his place.

He sat down and looked at her. She glowed with an inner beauty. Her mahogany skin shone in the candle light. His beautiful wife.

‘Happy anniversary, Eb,' he said as he passed her the box.

She opened it.

‘
My wena
,' she said. ‘Jamison, I can't wear this on a farm, it's too beautiful.' She looked at the dainty square-cut sapphire sitting in a channel of diamonds, and set in a platinum band, with separate gold bands on both sides. ‘It's too beautiful!'

‘I know that they say one year or on the birth of a child, but when I saw this, I knew you would love it, and I had to buy it for you.' Jamison grinned. ‘I'm glad you like it.'

He reached over and took it from the box, then he stood up, and went and knelt next to her chair. ‘Ebony, you are the love of my life.' He took her left hand and added the ring to her plain
wedding band that was already there, and the band of eight small diamond chips he had given to her for their engagement. The gold colours matched perfectly. But the ring was a little tight to get on.

‘Ebony, I'm sorry it doesn't fit, I traced one of your other rings, the jeweller must have made a mistake with the size,' he began protesting.

‘No, there is no mistake. It's perfect timing. That is my present to you tonight. My hands are already changing. I'm putting on weight and in seven months I'll be fat like a hippopotamus, and as cantankerous as your buffalo you love to watch in the early hours of the morning.'

‘We are having a baby?' he asked.

‘We are!' she said and she reached for his face as he knelt there and kissed him.

After a long while, he got up off his knees, and he picked her up.

‘I'm too heavy, put me down, you idiot!' she said as she hung on tight with both arms around his neck.

‘No way, Eb. Even when you are huge with our child, I'll still be able to pick you up. You and I, we just fit right.' He kissed her on the forehead, then, cradling her to his chest, he walked towards their bedroom. ‘That is the best anniversary present you could ever give me,' he said, ‘we are having a baby. I never thought I would see that day I got to have a family, a wife and a child. You have made me the happiest man in Zimbabwe, in Africa, in the whole world!'

Jamison heard the shouts of people before he smelled the smoke, and was instantly alert.

‘Jamison, wake up, wake up,' someone yelled and banged on his front door.

He jumped out of bed, and pulled his tracksuit pants on.

‘What is it?' Ebony asked.

‘There is a fire, I have to find out where,' he said. ‘Stay there, I'll come back.'

Jamison briskly strode to the front door and opened it, stopping the incessant knocking.

Moeketsi, one of the farm's best trackers, who was nearly qualified as a professional hunter, stood outside. ‘There is a fire, Jamison, in the tobacco drying shed number 35.'

‘Get my
bakkie
,' Jamison said as he turned and ran to his room. ‘Ebony, one of the tobacco sheds is on fire. I have to go!' He hurried into the walk-in wardrobe and pulled on clothes that he could fight a fire in, a long sleeved shirt and long pants. He dragged on cotton socks. ‘Damn, this season was going so well too,' he cursed.

‘It will be okay, Jamison.' Ebony said from the bedroom. ‘You will get the fire out, you will keep it from spreading and everyone will be safe. You always look after everyone, they know it. They rely on you to keep them safe.'

‘I know, Eb, but a barn fire, we have never had one since I took over for Widow Crosby. They burn hot, Eb, someone could be hurt badly.'

‘Then hurry up and go,' Ebony said, but she softened the command with a smile. ‘I love you, now go do you job,' she said as she kissed him as he ran past. ‘Stay safe.'

‘Love you!' he replied as he fled from the room, his mind focused on the fire.

Moeketsi waited outside his front door, the
bakkie
already running. Jamison jumped into the driver's seat, the soft sand spraying backwards from his tyres as he sped off.

He slowed and stopped for the workmen from the safari camp, who flagged him down for a lift as they ran towards him, eager to help him with the farm fire. Fully loaded, with men standing in the back, hanging on, he drove through the reserve's double gates, and towards the glow in the distance.

Jamison arrived at the burning tobacco shed. For a second, he just sat there looking at the inferno that used to be shed 35. Not believing what his eyes saw. Then he sprang into action.

‘Hoses, get the irrigation pipes,' he called as men scrambled at his command. ‘Stop the fire spreading to the other sheds!'

He jumped back in his
bakkie
and drove for the main control valve for the irrigation. It was about halfway down the tobacco field, in the middle of the planted land. He checked that the couplings were in place, and then he turned on the power, and spun the handle so that water would pump into the hard pipes.

The pump gargled and spluttered before it came to life and it churned out fresh water from deep in the earth. He could see his workers as they put the last section of pipe into place, and then held the pipe tightly, knowing the velocity of water that was rushing up the pipe.

Once he could see the water at the shed he relaxed a little, and wiped the sweat that gathered from his forehead. Running back to his
bakkie
, he gunned the engine until he got almost to the fire, then he brought it to a dead stop, about two hundred metres from the fire. He got out, and reassessed the situation.

The tobacco barn would probably burn out, but they needed to continue fighting the fire, because if it spread, or embers from that fire spread to one of the other drying sheds, they could have more than one fire on their hands.

‘That's it, well done, Moeketsi,' he said as he saw the young man turn the water on to yet another patch of the exterior of the barn that was now on fire.

The fire continued to consume the building. Its huge orange and red flames licked out the top as if trying to escape. The roof would be gone soon, and then the building was sure to collapse.

‘Maidza, you sure no one is in there?' Jamison asked as he passed the worker who was rostered on duty that night for the barn.

‘No one, I was outside when I saw the fire,' Maidza said.

‘More
mvura
,' Jamison said as the next team of men brought more irrigation hoses closer to the structure. The couplings were holding despite the angle the men were bending the pipes in, and the water rushed from the pipe, and into the fire at high pressure.

There was no fire truck in the bush that could help them. They were on their own unless a neighbour saw the smoke and glow, and came to help.

The interior structure gave way, and the whole barn leant to the left, then collapsed in on itself. Embers were pushed upwards, high into the night, burning orange, illuminating the dark sky as if a million fireflies had been released simultaneously. They glowed then slowly faded. There was no re-glow. The embers were no longer alive.

The surrounds seemed to darken as the fire, no longer reaching upwards, burnt in a heap, yet it had no less ferocity. Its orange flames consumed everything, the tobacco, and the structure. There was a roar as oxygen reached a place previously inaccessible, and the fire found a new angle to burn, then the sound of the irrigation pump throbbing in the distance, and the water as it hissed and popped when the men sprayed it onto the glowing embers.