Jabulani's sweet grazing and the perennial water of the pools helped to
carry the herds through times of drought and scarcity.
It's becoming very important to you, this business of the wild animals.
Debra had listened silently, fondling the labrador's head, as David
spoke.
Yes, suddenly it's important. When they were here, I guess I just took
them for granted, but now they are gone it's suddenly important.
They drove on for a mile or two without speaking and then David said
with determination, I'm going to tell them to pull that fence down. They
can't cut us off like that. I'm going to get hold of the head warden,
now, right away. David remembered Conrad Berg from his childhood when
he had been the warden in charge of the southern portion of the park,
but not yet the chief. There was a body of legend about the man that
had been built up over the years, and two of these stories showed
clearly the type of man he was.
Caught out in a lonely area of the reserve after dark with a broken-down
truck, he was walking home when he was attacked by a full-grown male
lion. In the struggle he had been terribly mauled, half the flesh torn
from his back and the bone of his shoulder and arm bitten through. Yet
he had managed to kill the animal with a small sheath knife, stabbing it
repeatedly in the throat until he hit the jugular. He had then stood up
and walked five miles through the night with the hyena pack following
him expectantly, waiting for him to drop.
On another occasion one of the estate owners bounding the park had
poached one of Berg's lions, shooting it down half a mile inside the
boundary. The poacher was a man high in government, wielding massive
influence, and he had laughed at Conrad Berg.
What are you going to do about it, my friend? Don't you like your job?
Doggedly, ignoring the pressure from above, Berg had collected his
evidence and issued a summons. The pressure had become less subtle as
the court date approached, but he had never wavered. The important
personage finally stood in the dock, and was convicted.
He was sentenced to a thousand pounds fine or six months at hard labour.
Afterwards he had shaken Berg's hand and said to him, Thank you for a
lesson in courage, and perhaps this was one of the reasons Berg was now
chief warden.
He stood beside his game fence where he had arranged over the telephone
to meet David. He was a big man, broad and tall and beefy, with thick
heavily muscled arms still scarred from the lion attack, and a red
sunburned face.
He wore the suntans and slouch hat of the Park's service, with the green
cloth badges on his epaulets.
Behind him was parked his brown Chevy truck with the Park Board's emblem
on the door, and two of his black game rangers seated in the back. One
of them was holding a heavy rifle.
Berg stood with his clenched fists on his hips, his hat pushed back and
a forbidding expression on his face. He so epitomized the truculent
male animal guarding his territory that David muttered to Debra, Here
comes trouble. He parked close beside the fence and he and Debra
climbed down and went to the wire.
