White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,85
kilometers west, moving slowly in the direction of the fence. Carcasses littered the landscape, beasts dead from thirst and famine. Among the living were very few young ones. He parked the Land Rover near the section of fence where he planned to start, unbolted his license plate, and hid it under a blanket in the back.
Five strands of thick wire were strung between wooden standards. He tested the tension on the cable to see whether it was likely to snap out when it was cut. Probably not. From the backseat, he lifted out an industrial-sized bolt cutter with solid pipe handles and black rubber grips that his friend Leonard had lent him. Leonard said it would cut through anything—something like an eighteen-hundred-kilogram cutting force for a twenty-five-kilogram force on the handles.
Ian opened the jaw of the thing, positioned it around the bottom wire and pushed the handles together. Snap. The wire coiled back on itself in two directions. He moved up to the next cable and did the same. All the way up through the five cables. Would the ends of the wires injure animals? He thought it best to cut through close to the standard and coil the loose ends of wire around the adjoining post as best he could.
He moved to the next post. He told himself he’d do five standards, or twenty-five cables, and rest. Twenty-five more cables, rest. After a hundred cables, he’d drink some water. He made it through only seventy-five before needing water. He paused and went back to wrap the wires around the posts. By the end of the day, he’d averaged something like eight posts an hour. Nothing brilliant, but the pace was manageable. Close to fifty standards by six P.M. About 150 meters. It wasn’t a large enough opening to make a real difference, but if a herd traveled along the fence looking for a way through, they’d find it here.
On the third day, he came back at six in the morning and found evidence that a small herd had passed through to the other side—hoof prints of wildebeest and zebra, possibly steenbok. As he moved west, he found more carcasses of wildebeest, and farther along, part of the carcass of a giraffe that must have died or been killed in the night. Three cape vultures circled, their white bodies glowing in the sun, dark tails spread and black wing feathers stretched out like fingers, feet dangling oddly, like something dead. Their wingspan was at least three meters wide. As they descended, their bodies tensed; their feet became suddenly poised and muscular. They landed, and two of them hopped, hissing and cackling to the carcass, naked throats extended, their black beaks lethal as the bolt cutters Ian held in his hand. At the outskirts, slightly away from the carcass, one waited, its neck S shaped. After a time, they took off, trailing death, climbing on warm thermals.
He set to work again, still moving west. The bolt cutter was doing a number on his arms and shoulders after only a couple of days’ work. The pain disgusted him. In his twenties, he could have worked three times this fast and not felt a thing.
He opened another forty-five standards before noon, dropped the bolt cutters where he stopped, and walked to the Land Rover to get the billy can for tea. The work made him ravenous; he’d be running short of food within a day or two and needing to return to Maun. He lit a fire and boiled water, opened a tin of sardines, and made a sandwich of fish and bread. A few wildebeest, with a young one trailing, moved along away from the opening he’d cut. They looked weak enough to push over. Ian put down the sandwich and tea, ran around behind them, and waved his arms, until they turned around and walked in the other direction toward the opening in the fence. He urged them along until they went through. Water was eighty kilometers away.
On the fourth day, he was clipping and sweating and didn’t hear a Land Rover come up behind him until it was almost on him. A red-faced man leaned out the window. “What the hell you think you’re doing, mate?”
“Cutting wire.”
“I’ve got eyes. What the bloody hell for?”
“Notice the animal carcasses? They can’t get to water.”
“Well, see those cattle over there? Those are part of my herd. That’s my living. Hoof-and-mouth will wipe me out in a matter of weeks.”