The Last Rhino by David Mark Quigley

Author:David Mark Quigley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hashbooks Publishing
Published: 2021-09-20T09:25:05+00:00

Chapter 6

Moving Giants

Douglas Tanaka, a sly old Shona rogue, liked to poke his nose into everyone’s business. He was about 65, weathered and dried out like an ancient stick of tobacco, and as stooped as a marabou stork. He was dubiously related to one of Vusa’s Kunda blacksmiths, by way of a recent union with one of the blacksmith’s distant cousins. The cousin was his fourth wife. She was the flowering of his aged and withered heart, the light in his otherwise glassy and fading eyes. She was so full of energy, laughter and joy, and was his little laughing dove, his njiwa in Swahili, the common language they shared. And the old man doted on her. While these sort of intertribal marriages weren’t uncommon, Tanaka’s lifestyle was always a source of regular and intriguing information that once imparted gave him standing that he wouldn’t normally receive from outside of his own tribal circles.

Once Vusa became aware of Tanaka’s existence and since he had an association with an already committed employee on his retainer, the employee earned certain favors by passing on the old man’s information directly to him.

The bent old Shona was a familiar presence at Mana Pools, regularly used by ZimParks as a truck driver to transport the relocated rhinos to protected sanctuaries across Zimbabwe. Since Vusa’s warehouse complex was only three hours by road to the border crossing at the Kariba Dam, Tanaka was able to make weekly visits to his wife and her extended family, and impart all that he had gleaned from his week across the border in Zimbabwe.

The Shona’s gossip spread on the African grapevine. Once it made its way to Vusa, he had summoned the old man to his mezzanine office in the warehouse. One of the reasons his shady enterprise thrived for so long was because of his network of spies and paid-for allegiance of local informants.

His hard, calculating eyes settled on the old Shona. ‘Tell me about the transportation of the Zimbabwean rhino,’ he asked Tanaka in Swahili, their common language.

‘Bwana mkubwa, great lord,’ Tanaka began flattering him. ‘There has been much coming and going with trucks from Mana Pools, Matusadona and Sijarira, to the holding depot at Msuna.’ Then added for emphasis. ‘I have seen these things with my very own eyes.’

This was indeed interesting news. He studied the old man’s milky eyes. ‘How many trucks?’

‘A great, great many.’ Tanaka broke into his shifty toothless grin, trying to hide his ignorance. In reality he had only been involved with those shipments coming out of Mana Pools and hadn’t seen much else.

Vusa took this in his stride. In Tanaka’s telling, the holding pens were stacked to the rafters with rhinos. He suspected the old man was semi-illiterate and would have difficulty counting past 20. ‘How many trips were you involved with?’ Mana Pools to Msuna was a round-trip of 18 hours, but with loading and unloading it was realistically a two-day trip.

‘For two weeks, I have been involved. Today is my first break since they began trucking the faru, the rhino, from there.

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