smell the reek of fresh blood, his voice choked off, this is one time
you can be thankful you cannot see he said softly.
Conrad Berg found them waiting beside the corpses, and he set his
rangers to work butchering the carcasses.
No point in wasting all that meat. Food there for a lot of people. Then
he put Sam to the spoor. There had been four men in the poaching party,
one wearing light rubbersoled shoes and the others bare-footed.
One white man, big man, long legs. Three black men, carry meat, blood
drip here and here. They followed Sam slowly through the open forest as
he patted the grass with his long thin tracking staff, and moved towards
the unsurfaced public road.
Here they walk backwards, Sam observed, and Conrad explained grimly.
Old poacher's trick. They walk backwards when they cross a boundary. If
you cut the soar while patrolling the fence you think they have gone the
other way leaving instead of entering, and you don't bother following
them. The spoor went through a gap in the fence, crossed the road and
entered the tribal land beyond. It ended where a motor vehicle had been
parked amongst a screening thicket of wild ebony. The tracks bumped
away across the sandy earth and rejoined the public road.
Plaster casts of the tyre tracks? David asked.
Waste of time. Conrad shook his head. You can be sure they are changed
before each expedition, he keeps this set especially and hides it when
it's not in use. 'What about spent cartridge shells? David persisted.
Conrad laughed briefly. They are in his pocket, this is a fly bird.
He's not going to scatter evidence all over the country. He picks up as
he goes along. No, we'll have to sucker him into it. And his manner
became businesslike. Right, have you selected a place to stake old Sam
out? I thought we would put him up on one of the kopies, near the
String of Pearls. He'll be abe to cover the whole estate from there,
spot any dust on the road, and the height will give the two-way radio
sufficient range. After lunch David loaded their bags into the luggage
compartment of the Navajo. He paid the servants two weeks wages in
advance.
Take good care. He told them. I shall return before the end of the
month.
He parked the Land-Rover in the open hangar with the key in the ignition
facing the open doorway, ready for a quick start. He took off and kept
on a westerly -heading, passing directly over Bandolier Hill and the
buildings amongst the mango trees. They saw no sign of life, but David
held his course until the hill sank from view below the horizon, then he
came around on a wide circle to the south and lined up for Skukuza, the
main camp of the Kruger National park.
Conrad Berg was at the airstrip in his truck to meet the Cessna, and
Jane had placed fresh flowers in the guest room. Jabulani lay fifty
miles away to the northwest.
It was like squadron Red standby again, with the Navajo parked under one
of the big shade trees at the end of the Skukuza airstrip, and the radio
set switched on, crackling faintly on the frequency tuned to that of
Sam's transmitter, as he waited patiently on the hill-top above the
pools.
