Running Wild Page 8

  They were cantering along the edge of a treeline one afternoon, just getting into their stride, when a bushbuck ram launched out of the cover and with its dagger-like horns jabbed the horse between its front legs. The antelope dropped to the ground concussed while horse and rider went down. James was thrown clear over the horse’s head while the horse went thumping along on the ground until it came to a dead stop in a cloud of dust, blood and broken teeth.

  Harvey radioed for help. Ruff arrived in the Land Cruiser and instructed back-up guide Big Joe to drive Jane and her dazed husband back to camp, then to come back for him. Harvey led the rest of the group across open ground on the most direct route back to camp. Ruff could see Kalahari had a broken jaw and had reached the end of the road. He waited until the others were out of earshot, unholstered his .45 and bid the old workhorse goodbye.

  Pongola met a more tragic end the following year. Having also survived the great flood, gone walkabout and returned some time later on his own accord, he was bitten on the leg by a hyena. The grooms reported this most amiable of horses had started behaving erratically, kicking and lashing out in the stables. He was just too large and powerful to contain.

  When Ruff went to check on Pongola, the previously gentle and independent grey was foaming at the mouth and could barely be controlled. Nothing can be done with a horse, or a person, that has rabies so he was next to go. This terrible disease is also known as hydrophobia, fear of water. Infected victims foam excessively and go into violent convulsions at the sight of water: it appears the viruses that cause the disease don’t want their host to drink, which would limit their chances of being passed on when the deranged host bit its next victim.

  Hyenas would continue to harass the camp for several years, until they slunk back into the real and metaphorical night as Mashatu’s lion population began to re-establish the law of the jungle. During their welcome talk, guests at Limpopo Valley were warned not to leave wet boots outside their tents. Some forgot or did not really believe it and then wouldn’t stop bleating about losing their special boots.

  At one time there was a serious infestation of tsetse flies in the valley and the horses were dosed with Samorin. Tsetses are not only carriers of sleeping sickness and nagana disease, their bite is like being pierced with a red-hot needle. If you caught one you could squash it until you felt its body crunching between finger and thumb, throw it down, then a few seconds later see it dust itself off and fly away. But the drug turned out to compromise the horses’ immune systems and they started having trouble with African horse sickness. They lost five animals in as many weeks, upsetting for a person who was supposed to be an expert on the subject.

  “On the subject yes,” Ruff countered. “Not on bloody preventing it.”

  But in time he, they, did become experts at containing horse sickness. The main problem was that, if they were not on safari, the horses lived out in the open without daily care or observation. And even then few precautions were taken. Horse sickness is a viral disease that manifests as a fever but suddenly escalates to a range of serious symptoms. Death can follow quickly or it can take several days. The death rate is high, especially if the onset of fever is not detected. If the horse continues to be worked it will almost certainly die overnight.

  Zebras seem to have acquired a genetic immunity to AHS. The occurrence of the disease almost perfectly overlaps the areas where plains zebras occurred historically, which suggests they have been biologically selected by AHS. By the end of their second year, Limpopo Valley Horse Safaris had lost 10 of its stock to horse sickness and they were buying up horses from wherever they could. Ruff had to do regular rounds of the outlying cattle stations. They had few horses to spare and the local hustlers and rustlers knew how to part a white man from his money.

  Most of the replacement horses bought from the surrounding communities were Boereperd-cross-who-knew-what, which in time became recognised as the distinct Tswana horse. One day the guard at the foot-and-mouth disease control gate sent a message: there was a monna mogolo, a grey-beard, who had a “good” horse to sell. And he did indeed. The old man had worked at the platinum mine at Selebi-Phikwe. A contract worker there packing up to head on to Dubai had sold him the horse. It was a 16 hand plus one finger grey Friesian-cross-warmblood. “Chewbakka,” the old man told him, “1 000 pula.”

  Chewbakka was a magnificent specimen, verging on hot-blooded and too big and too frisky for an inexperienced rider. His stable name became Backie and he turned out to be more than just frisky, continually trying to bolt. No wonder the old man had wanted to sell him.

  One day, not for the first time, Backie bolted while Ruff was leading the ride. Normally the horse would run himself out but that day he headed for a precipice where the Motlouse River formed a four-metre-high bank on a wide eroded bend. It was wintertime and the riverbed was dry and boulder strewn. Ruff realised that the horse did not realise where it was taking them; in a split-second live-ordie decision Ruff drew his revolver, placed the barrel to the back of Chewbakka’s head and fired. The horse was left were it fell just metres short of the bank, sustenance for the recyclers of the Mashatu bush.

  But it was not all high drama. Mostly the likes of Tommy, Zulu, Pale Face, Socks and the rest of the survivors carried on not being attacked by hyenas or tokoloshes. They just went about their day jobs of being safari horses and doing what safari horses are expected to do. Which was hanging around until they were needed and otherwise being generally all-round decent horses.

  Then again it was not as if every day in the African bush could be said to be boring or repetitive; on the contrary. Zulu proved to have an uncanny ability to detect lions at night. As soon as he smelled them lurking beyond the light of the campfire he would go back on his heels and start pawing the ground. The grooms and guides knew to watch out for it and would come out with torches and rifles. No guide (with the exception of Ruff) wanted to go out on safari without Zulu.

  Elephants are legion there and Mashatu elephants were legendary for being among the most aggressive in the region. They, along with wild dogs and male lions, are among the most peregrinatious of large game; you cannot confine them with fences or even natural barriers such as mountain ranges or large rivers. When they crossed over to the tribal lands in Zimbabwe they would raid maize fields and pumpkin beds, so the farmers shot them. When they crossed over into South Africa they would be shot at by commercial farmers. Both countries were also home to notorious poachers.

  Elephants in Mashatu were generally given a wide berth by the horses and their riders – except for Moyeni. The dark bay seemed to have no fear of elephants and would face off with them, even old Floppy Ears. The nerves on one side of the old female elephant’s face had been damaged by a bullet. Almost unique among the females of Mashatu elephants she would charge the horses on sight, suggesting that she had been shot at by hunters on horseback.

  Moyeni would stand his ground and, if the rider had the nerve, they would stand as the tusker charged towards and then veered around them. It was a bit of African roulette but if you knew elephants well enough you could tell an intimidatory charge from a real one. If it was a mock charge, and it was 99 per cent of times, the ears would be out and the trunk raised. A real charge would be announced by ears back, trunk rolled up and a screech in place of a trumpet, in which case you’d need to make a run for it.

  On most safaris they would be able to ride close to the plains game such as zebras, wildebeest, eland and giraffes. You also wanted to see predators, but only from a safe distance.

  For reasons no one else at Limpopo Valley could understand, Ruff never seemed to have time for Zulu. It might have been by comparison to the other more lively warmbloods, or perhaps the black Boereperd’s disdain for the favoured Moyeni. Zulu had the habit of shortening his stride whenever he picked up the scent of elephants or predators. To any other guide this was a godsend but it irritated Ruff.

  While leading a safari one day, Ruff was on Zulu when they approached a herd of
elephants that was moving obliquely away from them and heading into a line of riverine forest. Ruff wanted to follow but Zulu hesitated. Ruff kicked the horse and shouted “Man up you dumb horse” and gave Zulu a hard slap, or AAK – an attitude-adjusting klap. The guests who saw it were alarmed but you do not easily reprimand your leader when he packs a mean punch and a large gun.

  It was the back-up guide Big Joe who saw the lions but decided the best strategy would be to keep the information to himself. After that, Zulu was relegated from lead horse to workaday cowpony, despite his being extremely consistent and composed under fire.

  7

  Return to Karl Plaas

  MOVING TO THE WATERBERG, a mountainous region of the South African Bushveld that had been the last great hunting grounds of the Voortrekkers, had been as stimulating as it was traumatic for the Theron family. Pa took a position as manager of Double M Ranch, raising disease-resistant Bonsmara cattle that had been specially bred by the veterinary boffs at Onderstepoort. The only way to farm cattle there was with cowboys and the occasional cowgirl.

  It was a farm, but it wasn’t bucolic Bergsig and it wasn’t theirs. The farm was owned by an absentee landlord, the heir to a battery-chicken empire (Melodie referred to it as Chicken Auschwitz) but it was not a bad life after all. The place was extremely wild compared to the old farm where the biggest menace had been that nothing much ever happened. Here the dangers ranged from jackals and caracals that ravaged the chicken houses, to leopards and mambas that lurked in the veld around them.

  At the time the Theron family arrived in the Waterberg, Melodie was a gangly 12-going-on-20. She was not allowed to do any real cowgirl work. Weekends and holidays kept her sane. Her parents had kept it as a surprise, that when they arrived at their new home in the Bushveld mountains, Top Deck was there to meet them. It was a bittersweet reunion for the teenager, who was extremely fond of the Palomino, but whose love was set aside for one horse only and it was not a mare.

  Pa helped Melodie set up a paddock arena they called “the jumps” on a piece of ground below the farmstead. She continued riding horses every weekend when she was home from boarding school and every holiday, exploring hill and dale. She took up show jumping and three-day eventing and by the end of that year she had won several junior titles (“eventing” was the preferred form of horse competition in the region, usually a three-day happening featuring dressage, a cross-country course and jumping).

  For Melodie, by contrast to life back on the Highveld, her time at Pioneers Agricultural High boarding school was a painful comedown. She found out soon enough that her school mates were mostly misfits who had been rejected by other schools or by their families. Pioneers turned out to be a kind of low-grade reformatory where grades were among the lower priorities; not much incentive for a bright and ambitious teenager. She felt like her parents had cheated her. Which teenager doesn’t!

  The boredom at school was acute. Classes were so agonisingly slow she started to daydream on a competitive level, usually about horses. By the end of Standard 8, when she was 15, her marks had dropped from the 80s to the 60s, yet she still came top of the class by an unassailable gap.

  While her days at Double M were consumed with riding Top Deck, her nights there, as much as back at boarding school, were a vacant space into which a black stallion would sometimes ride. She would conjure the spirit of Zulu at every possible moment: she was lying in a meadow, could smell the damp soil and see the invertebrate life delving among the grass stalks and flowers; the sun was high and warm and cumulonimbus clouds were tumbling in the sky.

  In the hypnogogic state between being awake and asleep she could feel warm puffs of horse breath on her neck and then her night-time adventures would begin. When she awoke in the morning after such a dreamtime she would always be hugging her pillow and her body would be tingling with sensual contentment.

  Several of the less than economically viable farms in the Waterberg were converting to private game reserves. You didn’t have to feed or dip wild animals and people paid you to come and see them, sometimes shoot them. Double M took advantage of the tourism boom by offering dude ranch weekends, allowing city folks to bunk over and pretend to muster cattle alongside the real cowboys and cowgirls, complete with bedroll sleep-outs and coffee pots on the campfire.

  Whenever she could, Melodie helped the resident horsewoman Wendelle Eaves as a back-up rider. She knew the land better than just about anyone. She and Dell, as her friends called her, became best buds and Wendelle’s Pegasus Safaris used Melodie’s jumps for testing new riders before they were let loose on the horses and the bush.

  Many girls go through a “horsey phase” which tends to wane after puberty as boys replace horses in the social milieu. However, some girls find a special relationship with a horse or pony and that first love – like all first loves – lingers. For Melodie at mind-numbing Pioneers her connection to horses was her social everything through the otherwise lonely high school days. Alanis Morisette and Sinead O’Conner played over and over on Walkmans under the covers provided the theme music for those mixed-up teenage nights in the hostel.

  Horses are highly attuned to picking up the small nuances of character and mood, not least when there is a chunk of metal in their mouths that the rider controls. As in any close relationship, rider and horse will explore their moods, rhythms, likes and dislikes, fears and joys. The first great joy, after simply being in the saddle astride an astonishing, potent beast, is what many horse riders describe as “flying”.

  For a blossoming young woman if that is not love it is certainly the next closest thing. For some people this fusion of minds and bodies might be the best love they ever have. Once past the basics of walking and trotting the real attraction of a horse lies in its brute strength. That kind of power can be habit forming. Call it horsepower. When it goes off it feels like a visceral earth tremor has erupted under you. For those who choose to leap through that ring of fire, the next great adventure is jumping.

  One weekend at Double M when Melodie was training for a show-jumping championship, she mistimed the takeoff for a jump. Top Deck hesitated and Melodie executed an ungainly belly-flop landing and got a mouthful of Waterberg sand. While she was dusting off and regaining her breath, along with her dignity, the young woman began remonstrating with her horse.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing Top Deck? How many times have we done that jump!”

  Wendelle, sitting on the paddock fence, noted drily: “You know you cannot have love all on your own terms. It doesn’t work like that.”

  Melodie turned and glared.

  The older woman continued calmly: “If you don’t understand your horse’s point of view your great riding adventure is going to end up in the dust like you just did.”

  The teenager stared. It was not the sympathetic support she had expected, although she should have known better, knowing her tutor as she did. Dell was wise to the ways of the world but did not often reveal her empathy with her young protégé. If you wanted to compete seriously you had to be tough, not on your horse but on yourself.

  “You have to master the subtle complexities of position if you want to become good at this. You were looking down …”

  “Yes, but I was watching …”

  “Melodie, no buts!” Wendelle insisted. “You never look down when you approach a jump. You were all tensed up. You are taking up your jumping position too early and you are pulling the reins backwards so she cannot stretch over the jump, which is why she stopped and you did not. You’ve got to loosen up to stop blocking the energy flow. Look ahead to where you are going and your horse will follow. Think about what you are telling Top Deck. If you focus more on her and less on yourself, you’ll suddenly find you’ll be jumping much better.”

  By the time Melodie was 17 and in matric, Senya’s presence at home on the farm was ever more fleeting. After finishing school, instead of taking up the sports scholarship he had been offered by Stellenbosch University, he chose to sign
up for specialist military training.

  In the summer of 1998 there was an outbreak of African horse sickness in the Waterberg which put an end to any horse safaris for the rest of that year. The cause of the outbreak was thought to have been as a result of illegal horse transportation, using faked or illegal AHS vaccination certificates.

  Most fingers at the hotel bar in Vaalwater pointed at the farm Wilgenau and the De Klerk family, well-known game poachers and general renegades. But nothing could be proved. Not for the first and not for the last time, the De Klerks of Wilgenau had stuck it to their neighbours and brought economic hardships to the district.

  Wendelle had tried to contain the outbreak on Double M Ranch and she was lucky not to lose any horses to the disease, but they all had to be quarantined. She needed to visit Onderstepoort, she told Mr Theron, in order to get the latest vaccines for this specific strain that seemed to be particularly resistant.

  It was the end-of-year holiday and Melodie was home, at that moment grooming her eventing horse inside the stables while Wendelle and her father talked outside. When Melodie heard the name her ears tuned in like radar dishes. She dropped the brush and walked outside.

  “I heard you talking about Onderstepoort. Isn’t that where they took Zulu, Pa?”

  He confirmed it was. Wendelle explained it was where the AHS vaccines were produced.

  Melodie went quiet and cold, like a woman on hearing the partner you thought you had lost in a war might actually be alive and being held a prisoner somewhere. She was not sure she wanted to find out the truth but was powerless to prevent the “what ifs” crowding her head.