I said softly. This was worse than Ashlea and Shane’s nightmare, because our attackers now had guns, our guns.
“It’s them!” Tensy groaned. Over his shoulder, one of them wore a bag with an old army-type pair of binoculars and a mobile phone.
We had our camera equipment in our hands, and in a desperate attempt to save our lives I called out to them: “Hi, gentlemen! Want these?”
I quickly tried offering them what we had. There were our rucksacks, a tripod, a flashlight, two lenses, an unused spool and our binoculars. A hand-out was better than an assault. Watching their trigger fingers very closely, I braced myself for a quick veering reaction in case they started shooting, but what could one really hope for?
One of the men stepped forward while the other kept Tensy’s rifle pointing at us. He took our rucksacks and photographic equipment.
They threw some of the smaller items on the ground. Neither of them said a word. One decided he would also have the binoculars, and it went into the bag where the camera was. To our astonishment, after removing the cartridges, they placed the guns back where they had found them. Then they walked off rather briskly.
Our other cartridges were in the car. With the mine headquarters only six kilometres down below, they might have been off-duty workers. But then, why were they wearing tribal cloths, with all the root juice markings? Spying on us from afar?
I was sure I could take them on, now that they didn’t have the weapons any more. They were walking straight into that patch of bushes where the leopard had disappeared the previous day.
On the verge of charging after them, intent on using my karate skills, Tensy grabbed my arm firmly. “They’ll kill you; they would have spears somewhere. Besides, they’re sure to have their own firearms. You have nothing.” Trying to calm me down did make sense. “Why didn’t they kill us?”
“We’re small fry,” was all I could think of. “Tribal reasons, maybe. Gum never found these two guys.”
Her expression turned into one of deep concern. “It can’t be just that. This is part of my father’s scheme! They’ve probably been watching us, trying to stop us from prowling around. Don’t forget that he’s interested in exploring this part of the mountain. We’re in his way. And he can’t stop us. But he tried yesterday, remember?”
“Oh, come on!” I said.
“You’re a black belt. If you went after them, they could have killed you, saying afterwards that you had assaulted them. I’m telling you, this is my dad’s way of trying to stop us from coming here.”
“I still don’t believe it,” I said. “And what about Ashlea and Shane?”
She straightened up. “Seevie, stop arguing.” She turned and started heading back to the car, leaving everything for me to carry. Our day was over. Her figure was etched against the blue horizon where the mountain ended. She was crying, as if she could see into the future. She knew very well what havoc her father could create.
We took a path, and I glanced sideways. Some lofty trees made up the thicket where those men were now heading. “Well, the leopard is their problem now,” I said when I finally caught up with her.
Her argument continued on our way home. “The only reason why they didn’t kill you, was because I was there.”
“They’d kill me to get you, bright spark,” I said. Afterwards, this possibility did, in fact, strike me again when I remembered how one of those guys had looked at her.
During the previous week we had received the results of two tests at school, with Tensy getting hundred per cent for maths and ninety-eight for science and I only got seventy-nine and eighty-four. We were in the same grade, but our ways would part soon when she was to transfer to a special school for the gifted and I was going to remain where I was, IQ minus 16.
When we got to the car, I said: “I’m coming back here. I’ll first get some more cartridges.”
“No, Seevie, no! Don’t go up there alone!” she pleaded. “Ask your dad to go with you if you have to risk it. And take Cram with you!” She saw my resentment. “You’re so stubborn!”
I had to give in to her and tried phoning the man who was supposed to be my dad, Merby, on his mobile. But he was in a meeting, so I just took off after dropping her at home.
Soon I was back on the mountain with my dog, ready to shoot somebody in the foot if it meant getting that camera back.
It was Merby’s camera.
I found myself at the place where the two robbers disappeared over the rise. Yes, the little footpath they were following led straight to where that leopard mother had fled the day before. It was less than a kilometre away from where I was standing.
I cocked my rifle. “Come on!” I said to Cram, my pit bull terrier, a fighter who had saved my life more than once, like the previous Saturday when a wounded bushbuck charged me and my hunting rifle failed. Well trained, he took the spoor, stalking mode, heading straight towards the thicket. He did not have enough weight to handle a leopard, and his legs were too short. But he did once fight a honey badger to death somewhere in the bush, where our staff later found the remains of the skin. For two weeks he lay like something that was hit by a train, hardly eating; and did he stink! But he was all fight now.
When I reached the bushes I had to push past about fifty thorny acacias and at least twenty coral trees. From a deep shadow, I strained my eyes as I stopped Cram with a “tssst”. There was a small clearance. A dense collection of southern mahoganies and some bushes formed a thicket a little way in. I went on, very cautiously. There was no path to follow here. Still, Cram went ahead when I touched his backside with my foot. Everything was quiet. In front of us was a larger opening. Expecting anything to happen, I went in.
In the centre of the opening lay the leopard, dead. Her belly was ripped open and the contents lay spilled over the ground. An assegai, remaining stuck in her throat, was obviously the weapon of defence. Those men must have been unaware of what this place stood for!
Ten metres from her lay the man who had pointed Tensy’s gun at us; also dead. His face and abdomen were in tatters and he must have died bleeding to death from a severed jugular vein. His abdomen was virtually dissected by the animal’s formidable medial nails.
I touched nothing, holding Cram back from attacking the dead leopard. Dogs often defecated when they smelled a leopard, but Cram merely cocked his ears, looked in the direction of where the path was leading to, and then he headed straight towards the densest part of the thicket. Again I needed to restrain him.
We moved forward slowly, but we weren’t even halfway when the dog suddenly rushed in.
The largest leopard male I had ever seen, charged him! From his side swung an assegai shaft, and he was clearly out on a desperate, grizzly revenge. I had no choice but to shoot as quickly as I could. The dog was at his chest in an instant, but the bullet had entered his skull and had done its work, leaving an ugly sight. The spear had entered just below the spine.
On a great leadwood stem, forking out sideways, hung another human body, half-eaten. A .45 Browning lay in the bush about five metres from him. I didn’t touch the Browning either, whispering a short tribute of thanks to Tensy for sensing that the men could have
