Read or die! | Africa | Wildlife | Poaching |
The Last Rhino
This is Part Twenty-Four
Refresher from part 23
Rebecca put down the phone and hurriedly pulled on a flimsy dress, not even considering underwear. Everything was packed in the middle of the floor. The windows, the sills, and the occasional tables were stripped of everything. She ignored them and hurried out the door.
Part 24
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The sun was hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk several minutes before nine. Mahoney walked up the steps and into the High Court, wondering when they would fix the air conditioning. He simultaneously released the knot of his tie and pulled his shirt open at the collar. The humidity level was sure to bring home a storm and flooding rains.
His brief on this hotter-than-hot morning was to ask the High Court to accept South Africa’s Private Rhino Owners Association's request for another thousand rhinos to be hunted, tranquilised and brought into their private parks for photographic safaris, legal hunting, and breeding.
The Nhdlovus were asking for three hundred more on their ranch, bringing their total to two thousand seven hundred rhinos. Mahoney was confident this request would go smoothly, but there were other requests the Court might want to learn more about before agreeing.
The Courtroom, as usual, was filled with minor offences, drunkenness, drug abuse, and theft. The people were fanning themselves with anything they got hold of. Sweat poured from the men’s brows and armpits, and women sweat inside their loose clothing, clammy, sweat running down the insides of their thighs as they wafted their frocks, getting only a hot breeze.
A young man from the Batonka people was in the dock, handcuffed. He was charged with assaulting a white man verbally. Before the judge would pronounce the sentence, he asked the young man for a reason he would assault a white man with threats.
The young, strong, athletic Batonka stood up. “How can a Batonka stop a river?” he said, looking fierce and strong. “No one can stop the sun rising, the night coming, or the thunder; likewise, we Batonka cannot stop the white man coming for our food, our rivers, and take away wood for our fires.” The judge raised his hand. He told the young Batonka to sit down.
Judge Joseph, a black judge, looked through some papers and then looked up at the prosecution’s table. “Do you have any other convictions to bring against this boy?” He asked.
“No, your honour,” came the reply.
He looked toward the young Batonka. “Boy,” he said, “do not get yourself into trouble again. Do you understand?”
The boy said, “Yes.”
The judge peered down over his glasses at the prosecuting lawyer. “I do not find a case to answer here,” the judge said. “The boy is free to go.”
When Rebecca arrived at Gabriel Kruger’s office, Fletcher was already there. Gabriel had not mentioned anything about Rebecca coming to this meeting. As she walked through the door in the last of the evening’s sun low in the sky, the flimsiness of the dress revealed her figure.
Words were spoken, but Fletch wasn’t listening. Rebecca had washed away the day's heat in all her tempestuous beauty, her cool loins imagined…
“Fletch? Are you listening?” Gabriel asked again.
“Sorry, mind elsewhere. What did I miss?” Fletcher looked anywhere but at Rebecca.
“Rebecca called me earlier this afternoon. She wants to help get the people who murdered my men.”
“That’s helpful. Can you shoot a rifle?” He asked Rebecca sarcastically.
“You think killing poachers is going to stop what is going on, Fletch? Seriously?”
“It’s not what I think, Rebecca; it is what the South African government believes. I’m just an employee. I’ve been given a role in the decision to hunt down poachers, and if they resist, I have the right to shoot.”
“Gabriel, you know this won’t end it; there will always be more poachers. How old are they, fourteen into their thirties, with their whole lives ahead of them?” With his elbows on the desk and his palms together, Gabriel opened them as if his fingers were flowering.
Rebecca went on, and she was persistent. “Listen to me, Gabriel, I’m packed and ready to leave. Go somewhere else, somewhere I can make a difference. You sent me out with Fletcher for a reason. I know it. It worked. I want to help. We can bring these men, the syndicates, to justice. We can start with the bent judges, Gabriel, and expose them. I’ve seen what goes on. You know what goes on. Let’s do something about that.”
Fletcher, who was half thinking about the wetness between Rebecca’s legs, asked, “And how do you propose we do that?”
“We catch them making an abusing the laws of the country. We take our case against them to the Superior Court in Johannesburg.”
Gabriel took his elbows off the table and leaned back in his chair. “Rebecca, it all sounds great. However, you’ll be their first target. Before anything ever gets to Johannesburg, you’ll be dead. I’m not having your death on my hands,” he said stubbornly.
That raised Rebecca’s fever. “But you’ll damn well have Fletcher’s blood on your hands, correct?” She spat back.
Gabriel came forward in his chair. “Fletcher has military training; he’s been employed to fight and, yes, kill poachers if necessary,” Gabriel said.
Rebecca glared at Gabriel. “While I should be making dinner for two kids in a nice home in Dublin, is that right, Gabriel?”
Fletcher just sat there, inattentive, imagining waking up, and she was there with him. But then he grows accustomed to her, no longer needs her, and he begins to dislike and then hate her. Fuck. Why does it always work out that way? He thinks to himself, daydreaming.
“Fletcher, would you like to share your thoughts?” Rebecca asked, frustrated he wouldn’t voice to be on her side.
“Is this is a cause you’re prepared to die for, Rebecca?” Fletch asked.
“I’ll have you on my side, right? And Gabriel, here. I won’t be alone,” she said.
Gabriel looked at Fletch with raised eyebrows. Fletcher looked at Gabriel.
Who would be the first to crack?
At that moment, a thunderous clap broke open the sky, and rain came down in a blue-grey curtain, turning the hot, dry earth into a bog.
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