The sun dipped behind the trees, and after a long day of foraging, Oupa was now feeling dehydrated. As he lowered his mouth to the water, he scanned the pond curiously. Normally, at this time of day he would be joined by at least a few impala or wildebeests who not only were thirsty but also liked the security of having a large herbivore with a sharp horn to protect them from carnivores like lions and cheetahs. But this evening, Oupa noticed, he was all alone.

The pair of legs moved swiftly through the miombo woodland near the Mozambique border. A second pair of legs followed. The men had come across the damp, grassy rhino droppings earlier in the day and been following the footprints of their source ever since.

As they approached the water hole, the men slowed, suspecting they would soon encounter their quarry. The young rhino spotted them through the brush. It turned, meeting the larger man’s eyes.

“He remembers you,” Lawrence said, standing behind Cobus.

Wearing a T-shirt and jeans, Cobus approached Oupa cautiously to avoid causing any fear. As he stood before the young rhino, he extended his hand, gently caressing the coarse skin on his cheek. Oupa tilted his head, nuzzling Cobus’s hand.

“Are you sure you want to take the job in Kenya?” Lawrence asked. “You could stay.”

Though South Africa had always been home, Cobus had corrupted it with his darkness, and he would need to atone for his sins in exile.

He had hoped to use the money he had made selling horn to the triads to start his own private reserve, but those plans had fallen through when the Chinese police searched his safe house and discovered not only the $2 million in cash hidden in the ceiling, but a large amount of strychnine and rhino-horn residue. There was nothing connecting Cobus’s true identity to the apartment, but the money was inexorably linked to his crime, and he’d had to leave it unclaimed at the police station.

Cobus had since taken on a contract to do anti-poaching operations near the Ugandan border in western Kenya, where a warlord’s army had been decimating the animal population. If war was going to follow Cobus, he would take it to a place where a war was needed.

“Keep him safe,” he told Lawrence as he looked in the youngster’s dark, soulful eyes. “If not the others, at least this one.”

Lawrence nodded in silent promise.

Cobus’s fingers retreated from the boy’s face, and he stood a moment longer in silent communion with Oupa. As the sky began to shift from orange to purple, Oupa turned and lumbered away from the water hole. Cobus knelt, placing his hand on the earth as the boy disappeared in the dying light of the miombo.

Acknowledgments