I wasn’t surprised; she’d been running on adrenaline for the last few hours and was now crashing.
When we’d left this morning, we’d each had on a thin fleece along with our trousers. I hadn’t expected to still be out tonight, so I had packed nothing thicker for us to wear, but I did have athin blanket in the bottom of the backpack that she may not have found.
“Pass me the backpack,” I tell her and take it from her when she hands it to me. Digging around inside, I find the stash of breakfast bars and hand her one, ordering her, “Eat that, Tiger.”
She rolls her eyes at me but doesn’t argue, so I know she’s hungry, especially when she attacks it ravenously. I find the blanket where I’d put it, right at the bottom. Taking it out, I throw it around her shoulders and tug her closer to me so we can share body heat.
Shadrack makes his way back around to us, and the man is looking exhausted. I’m not surprised; he’s organised everything and been everywhere, making sure those of us who are injured are looked after. The buffalo that had hit us is being butchered, and we have a fire, all while being injured himself. No wonder the man looks exhausted.
“Sit down, man, before you fall down,” I tell him. “Have you taken anything for your head?”
“No,” he says as he tiredly sinks onto the seat next to me, his face softening when he looks at Josie. Looking down to see what’s caught his attention, I notice that she’s fast asleep.
“Your wife’s been a godsend tonight,” he says softly. “I’m not sure what I’d have done without her help.”
Pride fills me. Josie has always given her all, no matter what the situation. “She’s very special,” I agree.
He looks over his shoulder as one of the guys who had been butchering the buffalo comes over and speaks softly to him.
Shadrack nods as he listens to him. I can’t understand what they are saying, but Shadrack is tense.
“What’s going on?” I ask when his guy leaves and goes over to the other side of the fire and says something to the group there. Three get up and leave with him, walking towards the front of the vehicle, leaving the injured guy and one other.
“They need help to wrap the meat in the hide so that we can transport it home. We’ll only cook some of it tonight. The blood and the guts have called the scavengers, and the hyenas are coming closer and closer. I’ve told them to let me know when they are ready, and we’ll drag the offal into the bush.”
“Do you need a hand?” I ask worriedly.
He hesitates before asking, “Do you have a gun?”
“Only a handgun. Both Josie and I have one. Why?”
He grimaces slightly. “They’re better than nothing, I suppose, but won’t do much damage if a large predator decides to visit us in camp. I’ve got one rifle and about thirty rounds with me. How long until you think your brothers will realise you are in trouble?”
I look at my watch, noting the time is just after eight in the evening. The truck should make it home in the next hour, but they wouldn’t expect us until closer to ten in the evening, and they’d give us another half-hour leeway and would only start looking for us after that. We’re still nearly two hours away from home.
I lay it all out to Shadrack, who nods, “Yeah, that’s what I figured; they’d only get here in the early hours of the morning. My bosses won’t know until the morning that we haven’t turned up. I’ve got no signal on my phone, and we are out of distance for the radios.”
“Talk to me, Shadrack, why are you so worried? This is your domain. I’m not familiar with the pitfalls of the bush. Desert, yes; forest, yes; but African bush, not so much.”
Shadrack’s eyes track around the camp and stare into the darkness. I notice he doesn’t look into the fire, which would mess with his night vision. Finally, he turns towards me. “I’m not sure what’s wrong. I have a bad feeling, but that’s it. I don’t know why. And the fact that I’m responsible for all of you is weighing on me.”
Shuffling over, I lay Josie down and cover her with the blanket. Once I’m certain she’s covered, only then do I stand. “Come on, walk with me. Let me get the lay of the land. I’m not helpless. I was in the military for years. Doing perimeter checks is something I’m used to,” I assure him.
His relief is palpable that there is someone else willing to help out. Me being ex-military wasn’t something he expected. “I didn’t realise,” he says, standing, “but don’t forget you have a concussion. If you start to feel dizzy again, you make sure you sit down.”
“I will,” I assure him, very aware of the pitfalls of a concussion. As long as I can keep my headache in check and my nausea at bay, I will help out where I can. We walk around the perimeter; he introduces me to his guys who are nearly done with the butchering, and I can’t lie. The smell and the blood aren’t helping my stomach. But they have done a fantastic job and are nearly finished; I didn’t know how they’ve managed with so few tools, but somehow they have. We watch for a bit as they wrap the meat up in the skin they’d removed from the buffalo to keep the meat clean until they get it back home.
One lad looks up at Shadrack and nods over at the offal lying a few feet away. “We’re ready to take that.”
“Okay, let me get the rifle,” Shadrack says to him, and moving to the vehicle, he removes the rifle from the holder behind the seats before taking out bullets from the same place that are already loaded into a belt and straps that on.
From one of his guys, he takes a big industrial-looking torch. Shadrack turns to look at me and says, “We’re going to drag this in as far as we can to hopefully get them to follow us. Keep an eye out and the fire burning. We’ll collect more firewood on our way back.”
“Okay,” I agree. Shadrack is serious, and those with him are as well, so I’m taking his warning seriously. We watch as the three of them disappear into the bush until we can’t see the glow of the torch anymore.
Turning to the three he’s left behind, I ask, “Are you done here, or do you need to do anything else?”
“All we have to do is load this in the back and then cover the blood with sand,” one replies. I don’t know their names, and they don’t offer them. I figure we have enough going on without worrying about exchanging names. We’ll get to that when we’re all safe and back home. I help them load up what I can before the throbbing in my head makes me stop. Instead, I move away from the light of the fire that is shooting high into the sky as one of the lads adds another log to it. I keep one eye on the bush and the other on Josie. She’s still fast asleep by the fire, as is the injured man. Once they finish loading the meat, we walk back to the fire. They brought a few strips of meat with them, and I watch as they thread it onto a stick and hold it over the fire. The meat will be tasteless with no seasoning, but it will be filling at least. Seeing they’re more than capable of cooking over a hot fire, I continue to walk around the perimeter of the makeshift camp, monitoring everything.
