"Stanley, Michael - David Bengu 1, A CARRION DEATH" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stanley Michael)

Bongani was staring at the bodiless head.

'It's not one of our people,' Andries continued. 'Wbuld've heard that
somebody was missing. It'll be one of those bloody poachers that have
been causing trouble up north. Damned cheek, coming this close to the
camp.' Andries gave the impression that the man had got his just deserts,
given this lack of proper respect for the authorities.
Bongani looked at the area around the corpse. Thorn acacias, trees
typical of Kalahari stream verges, were scattered along the edges of the dry
Mver. Vultures brooded in the branches, waiting for another chance at the
remaining scraps should the men and the hyena withdraw. The riverbanks
consisted of mud baked to hardness by the sun. From there scattered tufts
of grass spread away from the bank, becoming less frequent as they battled
the encroaching sand. Beyond that the desert had won, and the first slope
of loose sand ran up to the Kalahari dunes, which stretched endlessly into
the haze.
The two men stood under one of the trees, its canopy cutting off
the heat, its roots sucking moisture from the subterranean water. The
body sprawled on the edge of a mess of twigs, leaves, and branches, which
had fallen to the ground over the years. Behind it lay the sand bed of the
long-vanished river, patterned with tracks of animals, some old with the
edges of the imprints crumbling, and some as recent as the disturbed
hyena.
Bongani spoke for the first time since they had spotted the vultures
circling. 'Do you have problems with white poachers here?'
Andries just looked at him.
'Look at the head. There's still some hair left on the scalp.'
Andries knelt next to the skull and examined it more closely. Although
the hair was fouled with blood, he could tell it was straight and perhaps
five centimetres long. This was a disturbing development. These days
game reserves survived on tourists rather than conservation imperatives,
and bad publicity would be unwelcome.
'You wouldn't expect to find a poacher down here anyway. You just said
so,' Bongani pointed out. And why on his own in a dangerous area? They
don't operate like that.'
Andries was reluctant to give up his simple diagnosis. 'Some of them
aren't in gangs, you know. Just hungry people trying to get some food.'
But he knew it would never wash with that straight hair. 'But not the
white ones,' he admitted. 'It'll be some damn-fool tourist. Has a few too
many beers in the heat and decides to take off into the dunes to show how
macho he is in his four-by-four that he's never had off-road before. Then
he gets stuck.' The retributive justice of this new idea made him feel a little
better.
Bongani focused farther up and down the river. The wind, animals,
and the hard stream verge could explain the lack of footprints, but a
vehicle track would last for years in these conditions. It was one of the
many reasons why visitors had to stay on the roads.
'Where's the vehicle?' he asked.
'He'll have got stuck in the dunes and tried to walk out,' Andries
replied.