The Leopards of Sh'ong. Paul Jaco

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      Not far from him I found the bag with the camera. I searched for the binoculars, but they were nowhere to be seen. I took more photographs.

      As we returned, walking past the ghastly sight of the first body and the mutilated leopard mother, Cram sniffed around and stopped at a little enclosure near a hollow old tree trunk. Something smelled funny, and when I looked inside I found a little cub, nothing older than a day!

      “Stay!” I commanded. Cram would never as much as snap at a house cat, but this thing smelt like bush and he could kill it in one bite.

      What a discovery!

      When I tried holding the cub against one of the dead mother’s teats, no milk came out. The mother must have been dead for hours already.

      Towards late afternoon, after taking photographs of the scene where the female leopard and her attacker lay, I headed back, the camera slung over my shoulder and the cub tucked inside my shirt.

      I was already quite far from that place with its ghastly scenes, when a voice called out to me from behind a boulder. “Seevie!” It was Tensy, of course. She had already seen me holding the stolen bag. When she reached me she kissed me and held me very tight. She had never done that before.

      “Looking for trouble, are you?”

      I shrugged her off, and quickly told her everything, speaking rather softly, not forgetting this was leopard area.

      Luckily she was clever enough to bring a torch and when I showed her what was inside my shirt she exclaimed: “Seevie! He must have been born last night!”

      I just said: “Come. It’s a she.” We walked down the same path where we went down previously, a path now having its own memories. Cram faithfully led the way.

      “He’s hungry, poor thing,” Tensy said as she looked at the dog when we reached the cars. In a flash he jumped in with her and I had to drive back all by myself.

      “My back itches like a mad now. And I’ve got ticks!” I said through an open window.

      “I’ll bring your dog. First tell Merby what you’ve found,” she advised. “This is a matter for the police!”

      We were each left to our own thoughts as we drove home. I saw her entering their driveway and then opening the remote-controlled gate. She came back rather quickly with Cram and she made him jump in with me. He was so pleased he insisted on getting inside my shirt. “You’re not the only pet any more,” I said.

      The cub was lying very, very quietly inside that new pouch into which heaven had saved her. Only now and then there was a small little movement from somewhere near my belly button.

      “You kissed me,” I said to Tensy as I started the car again. Then, without complaining, I drove off. “It was rather spontaneous,” I admitted to Cram, who gave me a wise look. Then on another note, I added: “We’ll have to phone Gum and tell him what happened.” He agreed, snorting like one of his bulldog forebears. “And find this one some food!” No comment. I pushed him down again, making him snort in protest, giving me a flatus that made me open the window.

      As I still couldn’t get hold of Merby, I reported the incident by telephone to his acquaintance, a police officer, a political appointee, who helped himself by borrowing a spanner or two every time he visited Merby’s workshop. Captain Dubuzan was in charge of the investigations into cases of violence and murder in our province.

      “Just go and make a statement and then bury them,” was all he said, “but bring me those leopard skins as proof.”

      Indeed, as proof!

      When I saw Tensy again a little later, I told her about this. She frowned and shook her head in confusion.

      “Leopard skins are highly sought after!” I explained.

      “Rather do what he says. He might ask you for your driver’s license. Where’s the cub?” she asked.

      “With Mother,” I said as we went to make statements at the charge office. Then we left it all in the capable hands of Sergeant Hattawa, a trustworthy old policeman who, having acquired a great respect for Merby’s PI diving work for the police in the past, knew what he had with us. “Does your father know of this?”

      “No. He was out.”

      “You must come with me,” he said, indicating that he would have to visit the scene. “We’ll leave right away,” meaning we would be leaving Tensy behind this time.

      They took the bodies of the two men to the mortuary.

      I had a special request. “The superintendent said he wanted the skins and I should bring them to him.” When I went, the officer at the mortuary brought me the two leopard skin loin coverings in a plastic bag. I drove to the captain’s office and innocently offered him these. It was evening already. He sat there, playing drafts with one of his subordinates.

      He smiled graciously and said: “No, I meant the skins of the leopards that were killed.”

      “Sure, you could go there yourself to get them,” I dodged him. “By this time, the hyenas will have done their share, mind you.” His expression was negative. “I asked Officer Hattawa if he would take the skins to Headman Sh’ong, because they rightfully belonged to him.”

      “No! You take them!” He was thinking of those hyenas, I guessed.

      I phoned Gum and he said he’d join me. I took some farm stuff, went back, and flayed the carcasses just in time.

      With his knife, Gum excised a morsel from the male leopard’s thigh. Holding it out to me at the tip of his knife, he said: “A bite?”

      “Not without salt!” I objected rather disdainfully, feeling more or less like the first time I ate crayfish. No thank you, not dead leopard. But I remembered the story of how he and Merby ate raw leopard while they were still in the army and were not allowed to make a fire.

      Then, as if showing me what the difference was between men and mice, he took it between his teeth and ate it with style.

      That was Gum. How Grace could have married him I would never understand. She was the most delicate, prim and proper girl on earth. Maybe I was still crazy about her. “It doesn’t just go away. Ah, well, she’s too old anyway,” I said to myself while our gas lamp made its noise.

      “Who?” Gum asked.

      Since I was thinking out loud, I didn’t dare answer. “The leopard,” I said and Gum smiled wistfully.

      “On our honeymoon,” he said, “we met a guy who wouldn’t eat leopard either, one I had killed with a knife. It wasn’t because we didn’t have salt, but because he said we had not bled it properly. But it was bled, all right. Its whole gut was cut open.”

      “Did you get hurt?” Stupid question. He didn’t answer and just showed me his shoulder, where the scars bore an eternal mark of that event.

      Some hyenas did turn up. They sat waiting outside the light of our torches and lamps. When we left, they went in with a flash and finished off the rest of the two leopard СКАЧАТЬ