Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur - Страница 49

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"I will bring the name of that person to you," Comrade Lookout promised. "Watch for our signal fire on this hill Twelve days later, through his binoculars, Craig picked up the little grey feather of smoke on the distant whaleback of the hill. He drove alone to the assignation for Sally Anne had left three days previously. She had wanted desperately to stay, but one of the directors of the Wildlife Trust was arriving in Harare and she had to be there to greet him.

I guess my grant for next year depends on it," she told Craig ruefully as she climbed into the Cessna, "but you phone me the minute you hear from your tame bandits Craig climbed the hill eagerly and on the crest he was breathing evenly and his leg felt strong and easy. He had grown truly hard and fit in these last months, and his anger was still strong upon him as he stood beside the smouldering remains of the signal fire.

Twenty minutes passed before Comrade Lookout moved silently at the edge of the forest, still keeping in cover and with the automatic rifle in the crook of his arm.

"You were not followed?" Craig shook his head reassure ingly. "We must alwayfbe careful, Kuphela."

"Did you find the men?"

"Did you bring the money?"

"Yes." Craig drew the thick envelope from the patch pocket of his bush-jacket. "Did you find the men7

"Cigarettes," Comrade Lookout teased him. "Did you bring cigarettes?" Craig tossed a pack to him, and Comrade Lookout lit one and inhaled deeply. "Haul'he said. "That is good."

"Tell me, "Craig insisted.

"There were three men. We followed their spoor from the kill though it was almost ten days old, and they had tried to cover it." Comrade Lookout drew on his cigarette until sparks flew from the glowing tip. "Their village is on the escarpment of the valley three days" march from here.

They were Batonka. apes," the Batonka are one of the primitive hunter-gatherer tribes that live along the valley of the Zambezi, "and they had the horns of your rhinoceros with them still. We took the three of them into the bush and we spoke to them for a long time." Craig felt his skin crawl as he imagined that extended conversation. He felt his anger subside to be replaced with a hollow feeling of guilt he should have cautioned Comrade Lookout on his methods.

"What did they tell you?" They told me that there is a man, a city man who drives a motor-car and dresses likea white man. He buys the horns of rhinoceros, the skins of leopards and the teeth of ivory, and he pays more money than they have ever seen in their lives."

"Where and when do they meet him?"

"He comes in each full moon, driving the road from Tuti Mission to the Shangani river. They wait on the road in the night for his coming." Craig squatted beside the fire and thought for a few minutes, then looked up at Comrade Lookout. "You will F tell these men that they will wait beside the road next full in oon with the rhinoceros horns until this man comes in his motor-can"

"That is not possible," Comrade Lookout interrupted him.

why?" Craig asked.

"The men are dead." Craig stared at him in utter dismay. "All three of them?"

"All three," Comrade Lookout nodded. His eyes were cold and flat and merciless.

"But--2 Craig couldn't bring himself to ask the question.

He had set the guerrillas onto the poachers. It must have been like setting a pack of fox-terriers onto a domesticated hamster. Even though he had not meant it to happen, he was surely responsible. He felt sickened and ashamed.

"Do not worry, Kuphela," Comrade Lookout reassured him kindly. "We have brought you the horns; of your be jane and the men were only dirty Batonka. apes anyway." Carrying the bark string bag of rhinoceros horns over his shoulder, Craig went down to the Land-Rover. He felt sick and weary and his leg hurt, but the draw-string bag cu tung into his flesh did not gall him as sorely as his own conscience.

he rhinoceros horns stood in a row on Peter Fungabera's desk. Four of them the tall front horns; and the shorter rear horns.

"Aphrodisiac," Peter murmured, touching one of them with his long, tapering fingers.

"That's a fallacy," Craig said. "Chemical analysis shows they contain no substance that could possibly be aphrodisiac in effect." "They are nothing wore than a type of agglutinated hair mass," Sally-Anne "explained. "The effects that the failing Chinese roue seeks when he crushes it to powder and takes it with a draught of rose water is merely sympathetic medicine the horn is long and hard, voilap "Anyway, the Arab oil men will pay more for their knife-handles than the cunning old Chinese will pay for their personal daggers," Craig pointed out.

"Whatever the final market, the fact is that there are two less rhino on Zambezi Waters than there were a month ago, and in another month how many more will have gone?" Peter Fungabera stood up and came around the desk on bare feet. His loincloth was freshly laundered and crisply ironed. He stood in front of them.

"I have been pursuing my own lines of investigation," he said quietly. "And all of it seems to point in the same direction as Sally-Anne's own reasoning led her. It seems absolutely certain that there is a highly organized poaching ring operating across the country.

The tribesmen in the game, rich areas are being enticed into poaching and gathering the valuable animal products. They are collected by middlemen, many of whom are junior civil servants, such as district officers and game department rangers. The booty is accumulated in various remote and safe caches until the value is sufficient to warrant a large single consignment being sent out of the country." Peter Fungabera began to pace slowly up and down the room.

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