It was cold in the morning in the Okavango Delta even in December. There’d been heavy rains during the night and Dambuza put on his jacket and walked to the river’s edge. It had risen in the night. The water flowed wildly, very different from its lazy journey the day before.
“We might be stuck here a few days,” a voice behind him said .
He turned and there was the well-built Resego, one of the guides on safari with them.
“Do you think so?”
“That could have been a hundred millimetres of rain last night, more than enough to make the road un-passable in these trucks.”
It was the fifth and, finally, the last day of the safari. They were meant to go back into Maun that day. Dambuza grew up in the city of Francistown. He wasn’t a fan of the bush though he’d been living in Maun now for nearly three years. He was only on the safari after his business partner, the tough, notorious Delly Wood, who also owned the safari company, pushed him to take his daughter Ludo out for a few days while she was visiting. If not for that, he’d still be in Maun doing his everyday work – catching adulterers, liars, and thieves. A retired police officer, he now worked as a private investigator. He much preferred dealing with his miscreants than being out there negotiating snakes and elephants.
“It’ll take at least a day for that road to dry out enough to pass. No one will be on it today.”
Just then, a loud, piercing scream filled the morning air. It came from behind the outdoor kitchen and both men ran in that direction. When they arrived, Delly was already there, but she wasn’t the one who screamed. It would take quite a bit more than that to get Delly Wood to scream.
“Looks like a lion got him,” she said, looking down at the mauled body of one of the tourists. It lay sprawled behind the kitchen. Despite his stomach being torn out and his intestines strung out from his body to about ten metres, he was easy enough to identify. He was Cyril Walter, an American, sixty two years old, wealthy, a businessman from Chicago.
The young German woman, Anja Bauer, stood to the side crying. Her husband, Jens, stood next to her patting her back but staring at the body.
“Is she the one who found him?” Dambuza asked Delly.
“Yep, pretty shook up. Came back here to get some water from the tap and there he was.” She looked up. The other people in their safari group were coming around the reed wall of the kitchen to see what happened. “I gotta deal with this. We don’t want them walking all over the crime scene.”
Delly stopped the group from getting too close and turned them around back to the main camp. Among the group was Samantha, Cyril’s wife, who from her behaviour didn’t seem to know yet that it was her husband lying on the ground with his guts pulled out. Dambuza wondered how she’d take it. Cyril was in his sixties, but Samantha was only twenty nine. Too young to become a widow. A sweet young woman, Dambuza felt bad for what she was about to go through.
Dambuza bent down to look closer at the body. He suspected he was killed before midnight, but it was hard to tell because of all of the rain. It must have been one lion, a pack would have done much worse, and the tracks that still remained were few. Likely a single young male. Lions often went through the camps in the Delta, hyenas too. Tourists were warned not to leave their tents at night. What was Cyril doing out there behind the kitchen at the edge of the campsite in the middle of the storm? The police would need to come out at some point so Dambuza was careful at the scene and moved nothing.
The other safari workers were standing next to the kitchen. There was Resego, and then the two cooks who acted as guides and general helpers: Milly and Shakes. Dambuza looked at Shakes. “Listen, can you find a tarp to cover the body until we can get police here?”
“Sure.” Shakes headed off, Milly followed, and Resego stepped forward.
“I never heard of lions killing anyone here at Kaziikini,” Resego said. “It must be a rogue lion. They might have moved closer when the bar and restaurant closed, though. The lions must have thought the place was abandoned now.”
Kaziikini Campsite was under renovation. Usually there was a bar and restaurant and quite a few more tourists around. Since they were closed, most people just proceeded directly into Maun when they came in from the Delta, but Delly liked to use the campsite even without the bar and restaurant as the ablutions were still up and running. Dambuza thought Resego might be right though. The lions thought the humans had moved on and they could reclaim the place.
Dambuza went over to where the other campers were gathered. His daughter, Ludo, ran into his arms. “Are we okay Daddy? Are the lions going to kill all of us?”
“No honey, we’re fine. We’re going to be just fine.”
Dambuza could see that Delly must have told Samantha that Cyril was dead. She was sitting at the picnic table flanked on each side by the young women from South Africa, Marla and Bonita. Samantha and the two South Africans had become close over the last five days. They were similar in age, all in their twenties, and had more in common than Samantha had with Cyril in many ways.
Burt Ramaphosa stepped away from his wife Lily and nearer to Dambuza. “So? Now what? We need to get out of here if some man-eating lions are around.”
Burt and his wife were South Africans, a middle-aged couple, very rich thanks to the Black Empowerment Programme. He was part owner in a diamond mine now.
“Apparently we won’t be going anywhere today,” Dambuza said. “There was too much rain last night. The trucks won’t make it on the road.”
“So what? We just sit here and wait for a pack of lions to come and kill us all? Great plan.”
Dambuza moved away without responding. He didn’t care for Burt who, much like the dead Cyril, thought his money meant the entire world was at his beck and call. Dambuza wasn’t.
Delly was sitting with Samantha, Marla and Bonita at the picnic table. At a nearby table sat the now calm Anja with her husband. Dambuza stood in between the two tables. Burt and Lily Ramaphosa stood in front of him and Ludo to his side. The three staff members were off to the side but listening.
“So we know a few things,” Dambuza started. “It looks like Cyril was killed a bit before midnight. It’s not exact, just a guess after years of seeing lots of dead bodies. It was likely a single lion passing through and now likely on his way. Anyone hear anything last night? Samantha, did you hear Cyril leave the tent last night?”
Samantha looked up, her eyes red. She looked shrunken. She was a thin, tiny woman, but now she looked swallowed by the coat she wore.
“Yes, I heard him leave. He’d been agitated all day. He was waiting for a call on his satellite phone and the signal was going haywire. His lawyer was supposed to call. They had a court date today and he wanted to hear the outcome. He woke up in the night, about ten or so, found the phone had a signal, and said he was stepping outside the tent to make the call.”
“Didn’t you wonder what happened after he didn’t come back?”
“I must have fallen asleep…I don’t know. I only woke up when I heard Anja scream. That’s when I knew he wasn’t there, but to be honest I thought he already woke up. I wish I hadn’t slept so hard…maybe I might have saved him.” She began to cry again and Marla took her in her arms.
“Didn’t you see Cyril when you got up?” Anja asked her husband Jens.
“Got up? I didn’t get up?” Jens looked at his wife confused.
“Yes, did you forget? You got up. I saw you leave the tent with the torch.”
“No,” Jens said firmly. “Maybe you dreamed it.”
Dambuza watched the couple.
“Oh…okay, yes… perhaps,” Anja said. “I must have just thought you got up.” She looked down at her hands.
“Did anyone else hear anything?”Dambuza asked.
“It was raining so hard,” Delly said. With the rain pounding on the tents it was hard to hear anything.”
“True.”
Dambuza thought they needed to radio the police and Wildlife as soon as possible. “Okay. I think for now we need to all try to relax. There’s nothing we can do until the road dries up.”
“But what about Cyril? What about his… body?” Samantha asked.
“We’ve covered it. We need to wait for the police before we move it. We’ll get them on the radio just now.”
Milly and Shakes went to make breakfast while the others went into their tents to wait. Dambuza watched as Samantha was led to Marla and Bonita’s tent. She seemed upset, but not overly so, not destroyed. Her husband was dead, but she would survive it. He felt better seeing that she was not the weak fragile person he thought she was.
Delly was already at the truck talking to the police on the radio. She finished and turned to Dambuza.
“No one can make it until the road dries. Even the police helicopter is out. The only place they could land safely is five kilometres into the Delta. They’d do better driving from Maun which they said they won’t try until morning and then only if there is no rain tonight.”
“I thought as much.”
“So what do you think?” Delly asked.
“About the killing?” Dambuza said.
“Yeah.”
“You think something’s not right?” He knew Delly and he knew when something was troubling her.
“Yep. It doesn’t look right to me. There are no marks around the neck. Lions kill by suffocation. There would be bite marks on his neck. Also, any lion would have dragged the body further away from the camp to eat.”
“Cyril was a big guy; maybe the lion was not strong enough.”
“Yeah, maybe. But how did the lion kill him?”
“You think Cyril was dead already.”
“That’s exactly what I think. Did you check the body at all?” Delly asked.
“No, I was trying not to mess up anything for the police. It’s wet there.”
“I don’t know if you noticed how quickly the wife recovered.”
“A strong lady,” Dambuza said.
“Strong maybe…but she’s certainly going to be a rich lady soon.”
“So you think she killed him for his money?”
“I don’t know… I don’t know what I think,” Delly said “And there’s something fishy going on between that young German couple. I’ve been watching them the whole trip. They don’t get on. To be honest, she seems scared of him. He’s an odd one.”
“I thought it was her, actually. At least he tries to be friendly with the other young people—Samantha and the South Africans, but her, she just keeps to herself. Moody type if you ask me,” Dambuza said.
“No, I think you got her wrong. Try and see if you can get her alone to talk to her. The husband was out of the tent last night, despite what he’s claiming,” Delly said. “There’s something up there. I’m going to go and take another look at that body. Something is not right about it.”
Delly was right, Anja preferred her own company. Dambuza found her sitting alone reading in a camp chair pulled into the shade of a wide camelthorn. It was only eleven and the sun was high in the sky and the sun was sizzling, burning off the night’s rain, making the air heavy and wet. Dambuza was reminded that the body wouldn’t keep long under these kinds of conditions. They needed to get the police out here as soon as possible.
“Hi Anja, I just wanted to check and see how you’re doing. That was quite a fright this morning,” Dambuza said, coming up to where Anja sat. He sat down on the nearby picnic table.
“It was horrible. I don’t think I’ll ever stop seeing that picture. He must have suffered a lot.”
“Where’s Jens?”
“Off, like always. Likely with those women. Likely consoling his Samantha.”
The bitterness in her voice was clear. “It’s good for Samantha at this time to have a few friends, to not be surrounded by complete strangers. They all became close quickly on the trip.”
“Not so quickly.”
“What do you mean?”
Anja looked up. Dambuza followed her sightline and saw her looking at Jens and the South African women eating breakfast at a table in the sun. The South Africans had changed into bikinis and lay on the benches getting the sun. Jens was laughing about something; his head flung back, his long, blonde hair glistening in the sunlight. He was a handsome man, Dambuza could see why the young women were attracted to him, and why Anja was jealous. But, too, there was a coldness about him, or rather, Dambuza thought again, not so much cold as measured and calculating. He seemed to do everything with a purpose. Even that throwing of his head back in laughter, it was not natural. He knew how he looked and he was making sure that look caused the effect he wanted.
When Anja looked back her eyes were full of anger. “He is lying about last night, I don’t know why. Or maybe I do. He went out of the tent before ten. That is why I was back at the kitchen, I was looking for him. I hadn’t seen him all night. I’d checked at Samantha’s tent, where I expected to see him, but he was not there. I was looking for him back there when I found Cyril.”
“From ten last night he was not in the tent?”
“Yes, but that’s not unusual. If he’s not with the South Africans drinking in their tent, he is somewhere with Samantha. I should have known before we came. I should have known this is how it would be with them.”
Dambuza was confused. “What do you mean? Did Jens know Marla and Bonita before he came here?”
“And Samantha too. That’s why we are here. We can’t afford this; all this is too expensive for us. But we took our savings and borrowed money. Jens refused for us not to come. He said if I didn’t want to come, I could stay behind. But how could I do that? We are married. How could I leave my husband to meet these women here in this awful place?”
“How did they know each other?”
“Online. They play some game together. I don’t know…I don’t do all of that. Some game about dinosaurs in Africa, they fight and kill things. Silly waste of time if you ask me. They became friends online, for many months they play that game together, talk together. At first he did not tell me anything. I work at the library, as many shifts as I can get. Jens is unemployed now, so I need to make enough money. He is at home all day. This is what he does. He plays games and talks to these women. They organised all of the trip online.”
Dambuza found the story odd. The four never acted like they had known each other before. They acted like they were strangers to each other . He asked Anja about this.
“That…all of this, it is still part of the game. I don’t understand it. If I ask Jens, he gets angry. That’s why he didn’t want me to say he was out of the tent before. No one is supposed to know anything; it is all a big secret between them only. That’s part of the fun apparently.”
“So did Cyril know about Samantha knowing the South Africans and Jens before they came here?”
“No. I know this because it gave Jens a lot of fun. He liked to joke about how stupid Cyril was. Stupid old man. How Samantha manipulated him to come here when he had a big court case for his company in America. Everything is a funny game for them.”
“I’m sorry this trip has been so difficult for you,” Dambuza said.
“Yes, well. Better for me than Cyril.”
Dambuza headed back toward the kitchen. This heat was too much, combined with the humidity, he could smell the acrid stench of the body already. He found Resego getting out of the truck.
“I went to check the road. This sun is good, it’s drying things out nicely. I think we might be able to move out by early evening if it keeps up,” he said.
Delly came up to them. “I don’t know about that. I suspect we should wait here until the police arrive.”
“Why? They only need one of us to remain behind. They can do their investigations without us,” Dambuza said. He wanted concrete under his feet and a solid roof over his head as soon as possible.
“They’re going to want to interview all of us. A lion didn’t kill Cyril, a person did.”
“Why? What did you find?” Dambuza asked.
“I turned him over and there was a knife still sticking in his back, one of the kitchen knives. Don’t know any lions that know how to do that.”
“You’re right about that,” Resego said. “That changes everything.”
“For the time being, let’s keep this between us,” Dambuza said. “I want to snoop around a bit before the others know. I’m starting to get a clearer picture of things.”
Dambuza went back to where the others were. Jens was now with his wife to the side where she’d been sitting. They were watching the monkeys climbing around in the trees. In the distance a hippo grunted. Marla was still lying on the bench in the sun, but her friend was gone. Dambuza sat at the table opposite her.
“I hope you’ve put sunscreen. Nowadays they say the sun is dangerous,” Dambuza said.
“They say a lot of things are dangerous, you wouldn’t have much of a life if you followed all that.” Marla sat up. “Any news about when we’ll get out of here?”
“Nope, not yet,” Dambuza said. He looked out over the water to see if he could spot the still grunting hippo in the reeds, then he turned back to Marla. “I think it’s interesting how you guys—living all over the world—just met online and now you’re here. That must have taken some organising.”
At first her face showed surprise. “Did Bonita tell you? I thought she might. She thought we should come clean. She was a bit worried about everything after Cyril and all.”
“Worried?”
“Sure, it just seemed sort of odd and all. In Safari Hunt, the game we play, a man gets eaten by a T-rex. It was just so random now that Cyril got eaten by a lion.”
“Really? That isquite a coincidence.”
“But it’s been going like that you know. Like together, following the game and all. Straight away, Jens and Samantha hit it off, like Koko and Denny in Safari Hunt. And then it’s like now Jens will save Samantha just like Koko saved Denny…not exactly like because there are no T-Rexs here and all, but kind of…you know?”
“Sure, I know.” He had been keeping his eyes on people’s movement and was beginning to know lots of things.
Dambuza got up and headed to Samantha and Cyril’s tent. Without warning, he pulled back the flap and stepped in. As expected, Jens and Samantha were lying on the camp bed, wrapped in each other’s arms. As he’d been talking to Marla, he saw Bonita leave Samantha’s tent and head to the toilets and Jens leave his wife’s side. He hadn’t seen but suspected he knew where he was going and he’d been right.
“What are you doing? You can’t just come into someone’s tent like that?” Jens sputtered while trying to extricate himself from Samantha and get to his feet.
“Sorry,” Dambuza said. “I just wanted to check on Samantha, to see if she was okay, but I can see she’s…being attended to.”
Jens was standing now. Samantha lay on the camp bed watching the two men.
“We’re friends, nothing more. You don’t need to make anything out of it,” Jens said. ”There’s no need to make a big show of it.”
Dambuza looked down at Samantha. “Friends is it?”
“Yes, we’re friends,” Samantha said.
“Did he help you kill Cyril then?” Dambuza asked.
“Kill who? Kill my husband? I’d never do that.” Samantha began to cry.
“But someone did,” Dambuza said. “And Jens was the only one moving around in the night.”
“Who says this? I was with my wife last night. Ask her.”
“I did. She told me you’re often not with her. Where did you go last night, Jens? Were you behind the kitchen stabbing Cyril in the back?”
“You are crazy! I cannot do such a thing!” Jens was furious, shouting. The noise brought others to the tent door.
“But you were not with your wife, were you?” Dambuza asked again.
“No, okay. I was here. I came to Samantha. I came to check her and she told me I could stay and I did. I stayed here the entire night.”
“Didn’t you wonder where Cyril was?” Dambuza asked.
“I didn’t care. I knew he was not here and that was all that mattered. Ask her, I was here. She’ll tell you.”
“You didn’t care where Cyril was because you knew he was lying dead in the rain. He was lying dead in the rain because you stabbed him,” Dambuza said.
“No!” He turned to Samantha. “Tell him! Tell him I was with you the entire night. Tell him you told me to come. You said he would be gone. Tell him.”
Samantha’s face changed, a mask of shock covered it. “Jens, did you kill my Cyril?”
Jens looked confused. “What are you saying? You know I was here, with you…why are you acting like this?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was alone last night. Jens, I can’t believe you’ve betrayed me like this. I thought you were my friend. Killing Cyril, killing my dear, dear Cyril. What kind of friend does that?”
Resego pushed through the group at the tent door. “The police are here,” he said.
Dambuza looked at Jens. “I think you need to come with me.”
“Why are you doing this Samantha? Why?” Jens asked. “You know I was here. You know I didn’t kill Cyril!”
Samantha held her face crying. Marla and Bonita helped her out of the tent.
“I can’t believe he did such a thing,” Marla said as Jens passed. She patted Samantha’s back as the group watched Jens being put in the back of one of the police vehicles and Cyril’s body, now in a white plastic coffin, being put in the back of the other police vehicle.
Dambuza looked back at the group just in time to catch an odd glance, a slight, quick look that suddenly explained it all to him. A look between Samantha and Anja. A look Dambuza was familiar with—a look of collaboration.
And then he knew. There was a game being played here, but not the one the South Africans and Jens thought they were playing; a different game, a different game altogether.
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Enjoy the adventures of Delly and Dambuza in Lauri’s serialized novel, The Vanishings, for free. Visit the facebook page for details https://www.facebook.com/theVanishings
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Lauri Kubuitsile isa full-time, award-winning writer living in Botswana. She has numerous published books for both kids and adults, across various genres, and her short stories have been published around the world. She won the Pan-African prize for children’s writing, The Golden Baobab, twice. She won the Bessie Head Literature Award for short story, the 2007 AngloPlatinum Short Story Contest, and the Botswana’s Department of Arts and Culture, 2007 Botswerere Award for Creative Writing. She was shortlisted for the 2011 Caine Prize.
Also in this issue
Short Fiction
Playing Games in the Delta by Lauri Kubuitsile
In Her Sister’s Shadow by Hannah Onoguwe
Jar of misfortune by Mulumba Ivan Matthias
Jaw’ed Angel by Yazeed Dezele
Poetry
Like My Mind by David Ishaya Osu
The Plan by David Ishaya Osu
A Cancellation by Ali Znaidi
I’m Unlike My Mother by Liz Leppy
Spoken Word
Inside the Mind of a Happy Side Dish by Acen Miriam Carolyne
BN Poetry Awards Special
Interview with Tom Jalio