Chapter 1
“Mama, why are you dressed like that?” Themba asked, pulling up his school socks.
Simphiwe chuckled as she stirred porridge over a small wood-burn stove. Her tall frame bent over the food as the steam wafted over her high cheek bones. Themba was standing at his bed across the room, his uniform spread over the fluffy brown blanket.
Simphiwe left the porridge to bubble, and crouched in front of her boy. “Today, I start my new job,” she said, speaking in Zulu.
His fingers traced the pocket of her green, brown and black shirt. “Is that why you’re dressed like a soldier?”
Simphiwe smiled and tucked in his collar. “Yes, Themba.”
The icy air of a South African winter seeped in through the foggy windows of the small brick house.
“Are you going to fight in a war?”
“Sort of. I’m going to work for the Kruger National Park Anti-Poaching Unit.”
His eyes grew. “Are you going to die?”
“No, baby. Mama will not be shooting anyone. But I will be catching bad guys.” She winked at him.
“Like a policeman?”
“Yes, like a policeman.”
Themba clutched the ends of her long braids. “Mama, I don’t want you to go.”
“Why not?” She stroked his short hair.
“The lions will eat you.”
Simphiwe drew his head into her chest and kissed his forehead. “No, baby. The lions and I have made a deal. I protect them, and they don’t eat me.”
“OK.”
“Tomorrow, I will buy us some meat,” she declared.
“Really, Mama?” His head popped up.
She gently held his arms and pushed him back into a standing position. “Come eat your breakfast, before you’re late for school.”
Ten minutes later, Simphiwe watched her boy skip down the dirt path ahead of her. As the sun rose, the dry grass of the hills glowed golden. Huts and small houses scattered the valley. Ant rows of people dotted the paths that led to the main road, heading to work or school as they passed cows, dogs and washing lines. Simphiwe’s eyes fell to her son’s shoes. The fake-leather was wrinkling away and the toes were beginning to open up like puppet mouths.
“Some new shoes, I think.”
His face lit up. “Can I have some new books for school too? And some pencils?”
She smiled. “Yes, baby.”
As with every morning, they passed the hut of a hunched man, who sat wrapped in blankets at the doorway. His cotton beard wobbled from behind his layers of blankets as he greeted them.
“Sanibonani!”
“Sawubona, Baba.” Simphiwe replied. “Themba, greet your grandfather.”
“Hi,” Themba said, preoccupied with jumping from one rock to another.
The old man’s grey eyes met his daughter’s. “Be careful, my child,” he croaked in Zulu. “This boy needs you.”
“Don’t worry, Baba. Everything will be fine.”
The old man swatted the air as his daughter walked on.
They reached the tar road, where mini-bus taxi’s honked and bustled, swerving and pushing their way towards customers in a frenzied swarm. Men hung from the open doors, yelling prices and gathering money. Plump women in dresses and cardigans squeezed their way through the sliding doors, besides men in paint-splattered overalls and school girls in over-sized uniforms.
Themba turned down the road and waved to his mother. His school was only three miles down the road so he walked every day. Simphiwe waved to her boy and then handed some notes to the taxi-man in-front of her. As she climbed into the over-crowded vehicle, she could feel the eyes of the passengers glued to her.
“What is this? A woman soldier?” One of the men laughed. Simphiwe kept her head straight and her eyes forward.
…………………………………………………………………………..
“Left, right, left!” Sergeant Ngobeni yelled. Her red lips and blue eye-shadow stuck out against her camo military uniform. Behind her, marched twenty-four women in black boots and matching uniforms, some with weaves, others braids, or short afros with streaks of blonde. This was the Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit.
“And…halt!”
The women stopped with a synchronized thump of their boots. They were in a clearing before a stone building. The Kruger National Park logo hung above the doorway and flaking trees stretched up from the hard soil beside it. A few meters from the building, an electric fence marked the edge of the reserve.
“OK, ladies,” Ngobeni addressed the unit in English, “I want to remind you to stay focused while you’re out there. I know these are long days but we want to make this park as difficult a place to poach as possible. Your work so far has already helped save hundreds of animals, and we are very proud of you. Now, for today, we have a new Mamba – Simphiwe Sithole.” The women clapped and Simphiwe tried not to smile, holding her position in the middle of the group. “Congratulations on completing your training. Sithole and Mkhabela, today you will take section A.”
Simphiwe glanced at the short, stocky woman she knew to be Felicia Mkhabela. Felicia gave her a small smile and a nod. When Ngobeni had completed the morning announcements, the unit dispatched to their allocated zones.
Simphiwe and Felicia crunched their boots over the pale earth, hugging the fence line of Kruger National Park’s Zone A. Felicia scratched at her earring and scanned the electric wires of the fence. Simphiwe adjusted her cap. Already the sun had climbed high enough to reclaim some of its heat.
“My father does not think this is a job for a woman,” she said.
Felicia laughed. “That’s what they always say.”
Simphiwe stayed closest to the fence, glancing back at the bush as they walked. She had seen plenty of elephants and buck in her life, but never any of the big cats. Only the horror stories her father told fueled her knowledge of the beasts. “How often do you come across lions?” she asked suddenly.
Felicia chuckled. “Don’t worry, lions do not like the taste of weaves.” Her hand rested on her generously cushioned stomach as she laughed. Simphiwe relaxed a little and allowed herself a smile.
“You know,” Felicia said, “you’re lucky to get section A on your first day. Not much happens in section A.”
“The poachers don’t like it here?”
“They know this is the closest zone to the response unit. They don’t want gun wars.”
“What about the helicopters that come in the night? The ones with assault rifles and night-vision goggles?”
Felicia kicked a rock with her boot. “Those are the Chinese sponsored poachers. They avoid gun wars too, but can handle a fight if it comes to it. But in Zone A, mostly the poachers don’t come here.”
Simphiwe nodded. Growing up, her uncles had snared impala when jobs were scarce and fridges were empty. She’d thought nothing of it at the time.
For hours, the two walked beneath the sun, scanning for footprints, collecting SD cards from surveillance cameras and searching for any signs of poaching activity.
“And your husband? What does he say?” Felicia asked.
“Oh, I don’t have one,” Simphiwe said.
“Really? A young woman like you?”
Simphiwe shrugged and kept her eyes on the fence. The grass rustled and the leafless trees whistled from the cool breeze. An eerie grey covered the land as the sun disappeared behind an overcast sky. There was a faint sourness in the air. As the breeze strengthened and the two continued forwards, the sourness grew into a revolting stench that clogged their nostrils and lungs. Felicia frowned and their paces slowed, searching the vegetation more carefully.
Then they saw it.
In a clearing, soaked in a pool of its own blood, the body of a rhino lay in the dirt. Its lifeless frame was bloated, the skin stretching like a balloon. A platter of blood and pink flesh marked where its horn once was, just above its nostrils. Swarms of flies buzzed around the thick oozing swirls of red and black. The rhino’s open mouth pressed into the soil by the weight of its hacked skull. Eyes shut forever.
Simphiwe felt something in her shatter and she gagged.
A small whimper escaped Felicia’s lips before she pulled her walky-talky from her hip. “We need to call this into the office,” she said, trying to steady herself. This was not the first rhino poaching Felicia had seen, but each time never ceased to shock her. “Hello. We are at Alpha Foxtrot two,” she said in English. “We have come across a dead rhino. We are going to do the 360 degrees.”
Simphiwe stood frozen to the spot, staring at the slaughtered rhino. Felicia approached the body.
“There are multiple bullet wounds,” Felicia said into the walky-talky. Her hand pressed against the chest of the rhino between holes where the flesh tore away from itself. For a moment she hung her head. Simphiwe stepped forward slowly, tears coming to her eyes.
How could such a magnificent creature be brought to such horror?
“Come on,” Felicia said, switching back to Zulu and walking off into the bush. Simphiwe shook herself and followed her partner through the dry grass and scratchy trees. Long needle-like thorns caught in her clothes and jabbed into her skin. She paused to unpick them from her sleeves as insects clicked in the shrubs around her. Freed from her thorny trap, Simphiwe pushed on, the long grass brushing against her legs. They searched the area and found footprints, empty cartridges and splatters of blood.
“They must have come in the night,” Felicia said.
“How were they not seen or heard? We’re only five kilometres from the base.”
“Silencers.”
“What about the night units?”
Felicia rubbed her chin. “The response unit cannot be everywhere at the same time. But it’s true, this is very strange.”