Free The Hunter by Tony Park Page B

followed she had kept her distance from him. They were still friends, though they had never made love again.
    Then an old flame had come back into her life and Brand had been happy for her, for a short while. Sadly, for Hannah, her former beau had overdosed on heroin six months after they had reunited. Hannah took the dirty ashtray back to the bar.
    Brand looked at his phone. He did not want to make the call, but he knew he had to.
    It was two days since he had killed one poacher and wounded the other. His licence was still suspended, but even if it hadn’t been he had no work. This sort of thing happened every time a guide discharged their weapon, but he was confident he would be cleared by the parks board, just as Van Rensburg had closed her case on the shooting, if not on the murder during the World Cup. A couple of other guides had told him there was misinformation being spread about the shooting on Facebook. Patrick was out there spinning his version of events, saying Brand had run like a chicken and left him hanging.
    Brand had spoken to Gert Pols about what had gone down at Zebra Plains and Gert had not seemed overly surprised by the chain of events. Brand thanked him for not warning him about Patrick and his strong desire to get himself and the guests killed while walking in the park. ‘You’ll be fine,’ Gert had said, laughing off Brand’s sarcasm. ‘The investigation will clear you. I’m finished with Patrick, though. He’s a cowboy and he’s cost me money.’
    The safari had been cancelled, the guests traumatised by the death of the poacher and how close they had come to danger. Gert had organised with Tanda Tula, a tented camp in the Timbavati, to take Darlene and the others. They would be staying in luxury, at Gert’s expense, and if they were still keen for a walking safari after their experience they could do one from Tanda Tula’s field camp.
    His hand shook a little as he raised the beer to his lips, remembering the moment when he had pulled the trigger. He wasn’t nearly as cool now about the shooting as he had been when Van Rensburg had questioned him; he’d had time to think about how close he’d come to getting shot. Darlene had broken down in tears after the shooting, but she had left him with a kiss. He was pleased she was safe, but he knew he’d never see her again, and now he was out of work and out of money.
    He recognised most of the half dozen or so other patrons in the open-air bar but he drank alone by choice. He didn’t feel like socialising. Brand decided that as soon as he finished this beer, his third, he would go next door to Oom Kallie’s butchery, buy some boerewors for his supper and drive home. But first he knew he should make the call.
    The afternoon sun was slanting into the courtyard where he sat at a table under an umbrella. Most of the Pepper Vine was open to the elements, except for about a quarter of the pub’s drinking and eating area, including the bar and kitchen and the big flat-screen television where they showed the rugby, which was under a tin roof. Normally in this familiar setting Brand would have been feeling pleasantly mellow. Instead, his stomach was knotted and he gripped the glass too hard. The gate to the courtyard, the entry to the pub, squeaked.
    ‘ Ag , look who it is. The great white chicken himself. Howzit , Hudson.’
    Of all the people he did not want to see right then, Patrick de Villiers’s elder brother, Koos, would have been close to the top of the list. Unlike his sibling, Koos was a banana farmer, with hands the circumference of an elephant’s hind foot, and the build, brains and temperament of a Cape buffalo. Brand had seen Koos demolish men and furniture in other bars, over matters so trivial that no one could recall them the next day. Brand had a premonition just then that people would remember why Koos had done what he was surely about to do.
    Brand drained his beer and dropped sixty rand on the table top, more than enough for