Rhino E-Book

alastair macleod

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The Rhino is being hunted mercilessly for its horn which the Chinese mistakenly believe is an aphrodisiac.

Many dedicated people are struggling against the tide of killing and poaching going on in Africa. This is the story of some of them.

Leseprobe

Alastair Macleod

Rhino

We borrow the land and share it with other creatures. To the Rhino and those who care for all animals in the wild. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Rhino

A crisp crackle of automatic fire ahead of them made them crouch. Oginga used hand signals to direct his ranger team to fan out to right and left. The acacia scrub was dense. Now it was all up to the ears. Nothing could be seen. Then the slow chopping thud of a wood axe. They had made a kill and were removing the horn. The rangers burst forward out of the bush. Three men, their attention taken up with the fallen beast, turned, startled reaching for their weapons. But a burst from Oginga cut them down and they crumpled lifeless like their quarry.

The rhino had sunk to its knees, deep wounds from large calibre bullets clustered on its flank. The animal had defecated in its death throes and the air was filled with a sharp dry odour. The horn was already a bloody mess at the base where the axe had torn off large lumps of flesh.

The rangers warily approached; there just might be others, lookouts, in the bush nearby.

They would have to remove the horn to prevent associates returning to recover it. 

Oginga called on his radio for the backup bush truck.

Before the men sat down and rested they removed the rhino’s radio collar.

The bush was silent after the gun fire. It was now the heat of the day. Then a cape turtle dove recommenced its “work harder” call. And above them the first vulture wheeled. Soon there would be several. When the rangers finally abandoned the kill the birds would swoop and begin. Hyenas would move in too and perhaps at night a big cat as the scent of the carcass began to drift on the air.

615, or Ambo, had been a young bull black rhino, one of the few left in the reserve and for that matter in the world. His creased tough hide could resist the acacia thorns and even the claws of a lion but not the penetrating power of a modern shell travelling at 715 meters per second.

He lay like a fallen king, large, magnificent, once powerful, now still, a little blood oozing from the exposed flesh round the horn.

The radio squawked. The head ranger guided the truck in. With the chainsaw from the truck the rangers swiftly sliced through the horn and stowed it in the truck. Photos of the kill and the dead men were carefully taken for later analysis. The bodies were examined for identifying scars and tribal marks, as were any adornments such as necklaces and bracelets.

A search was made for tracks to try to conclude were the poachers had come from.

They loaded the bodies into body bags and put them on the back of truck by the horn and the saw.

The ranger team were about to mount the truck when a hail of bullets strafed the vehicle.

The team lay flat trying to figure out where the shots were coming from

“Spread out,” shouted Oginga.

His men moved separately to points on the clearing perimeter.

Bodies could be heard now moving through the bush; words in Swahili were being shouted. So, a big group.