The leader picked up the joint from the tray and took a deep drag, then blew the smoke out his nose. “Okay,” was all he grunted, then signaled for his colleague to provide the up-front funds.

The sangoma instructed Simon to stand and take off his shirt. She then took a small razor blade and made a tiny slice in the skin on his upper back. Simon winced in pain and turned to his colleagues. They glared at him coldly. Don’t be a coward, their eyes said.

Inyanga continued to make a series of nicks down his upper back and legs. She then withdrew one of her jars of muti and rubbed a dark, gritty substance into the wounds, which added to the burning sensation Simon was experiencing all over his body.

Inyanga then blessed Simon and untied one of the red and one of the white strings that were draped like a bandolier over her shoulder. As she stepped forward and tied the strings around Simon’s waist, he could feel Inyanga’s bare breasts pressing against his stomach. It was the closest thing to a sexual encounter the adolescent had ever experienced, and he timidly averted his gaze.

Once the strings were tied, she stepped back. “You are now invisible to the mlungas until you return these to me.”

Inyanga repeated the ceremony with the other two men. Then, with the spirits now on their side, they stepped back out into the light and remounted the pickup truck.

The truck rolled to a stop in the middle of the savanna, and the three men silently piled out. The leader opened the tailgate, revealing a secret compartment. Inside were an old AK-47 with a folding wire stock, a rusty hand axe, and a .303 hunting rifle with a makeshift silencer fashioned from an oil filter.

The second in command tied the empty Fanta bottle to a tree on the side of the road to mark their drop-off point, and the hunting party headed out into the veld. The leader carried the AK-47 while the other man carried the hunting rifle. Simon trailed the gunmen, awkwardly lugging a large plastic jug of water.

An hour later, as their knees parted the tall adrenaline grass, a mobile phone vibrated, and the man carrying the silenced rifle stopped and checked the incoming text, which included a geo-tagged photo. Over his shoulder, Simon saw the image of a white rhino and her calf. Aside from a couple of private reserves, they had been extinct in Mozambique for some time now. Simon felt a quiver of excitement at the possibility of seeing one in the wild.

CHAPTER 6
THE RHINO

kruger park, south africa

It was Cobus’s favorite time of day, when the breeze picked up and the shadows grew long. Flanked by Basani and Lawrence, he marched along the mud at the edge of the meandering Letaba River. Crocodiles lazed in the shallows, and lions perched on the rocks, preening and licking their chops. It was a strange thing, Cobus mused, dedicating your life to protecting creatures that were naturally inclined to kill you.