wanted Peter to believe me competent and intelligent. That daydream moved me into action. Halting abruptly, I removed my small notebook and wrote down the bakkie’s license plate number before I forgot it. HCJ 805 NW. I also scribbled a brief description of the white van with its banged-up rear fender, as well as a clear description of my captors. I went on to describe my dusty, rented jeep and everything that had been left inside it. Unfortunately, I had less luck remembering the rental’s license plate number than that of my kidnappers.
I shoved the small notepad back into my backpack and took a long drink of water before setting off at a brisk jog. Breathless within ten minutes, I slowed down, deciding a swift walk wouldn’t tax my endurance as much as a run. As long as I made it to the main road within the hour, I would be just fine.
A strange, rasping sound startled me from my thoughts and I swung my eyes upward. Rearing up before me, not more than two yards distant, its long, charcoal body stretching across the entire expanse of the sandy track, loomed every hiker’s nightmare. The snake lifted a coffin-shaped head, its curved mouth fixed in an odd perpetual smile. I screamed as the serpent turned, rearing at least four feet in the air, its open mouth, black as night, hissing in warning. The only identification I could make through my panic was this was definitely not a cobra and must measure at least ten feet long.
I screeched and plunged off the dirt road, certain I heard the swish of the snake’s heavy body pursuing me into the brush. The rasping noise of its scales scraped the dirt directly behind me and I shrieked again. A large troop of baboons hooted and scattered into the trees as I tore past, too preoccupied to do little more than note their presence. I ran for what seemed ages, the rough scraping noise of the massive serpent’s scales indicating it remained right at my heels, intent on biting me at all costs.
Now, how could any snake be that fast and that persistent, a more rational mind might have wondered? But where snakes were concerned, I didn’t possess a single cogent bone in my body. I ran for at least a mile before a strange sort of mocking awareness crept over me. If I slowed (as I was rapidly tiring), the swishing noise slowed; if I speeded up, it speeded up too, sounding so close the serpent had to be practically upon me. I halted suddenly and the rasping noise of the snake’s scales ceased entirely. I stumbled a few paces in bewilderment before realizing dumbly that the pursuing noise I’d identified as belonging to the smiling snake as it surged against the ground was nothing more than my denim-clad legs rubbing against each other. Mortified, I paused by a thorny tree and cursed heartily, having proven beyond a shadow of a doubt what a citified fool I was! Thank God Peter hadn’t seen my frenzied retreat. The thought of what he’d think forced tears into my eyes.
The sweat poured off my face, and my back felt bruised from the pack’s violent banging against my spine. Humiliation nearly overwhelmed me, but it took quite a while for an even worse fact to sink in. In my frantic plunge through the dense undergrowth of the veldt, I’d lost the road entirely. Again disoriented, I spent the next hour frantically searching for the rough track the hijackers had used to steal the jeep. Though I tried to retrace my steps east toward the river, I couldn’t, for the life of me, relocate the wide Limpopo. The thieves’ tire imprints had been fresh in the dry sand and I consoled myself with the fact that since I’d found them once, I could surely do so again. But, as the minutes ticked rapidly toward sundown, my terror increased. I wandered half-dazed through the bush until finally, sweating and fatigued, I sank down upon a flaky stump, acknowledging for the first time that I was thoroughly and completely lost; an American idiot in paradise with my savior lover nowhere to be
I shoved the small notepad back into my backpack and took a long drink of water before setting off at a brisk jog. Breathless within ten minutes, I slowed down, deciding a swift walk wouldn’t tax my endurance as much as a run. As long as I made it to the main road within the hour, I would be just fine.
A strange, rasping sound startled me from my thoughts and I swung my eyes upward. Rearing up before me, not more than two yards distant, its long, charcoal body stretching across the entire expanse of the sandy track, loomed every hiker’s nightmare. The snake lifted a coffin-shaped head, its curved mouth fixed in an odd perpetual smile. I screamed as the serpent turned, rearing at least four feet in the air, its open mouth, black as night, hissing in warning. The only identification I could make through my panic was this was definitely not a cobra and must measure at least ten feet long.
I screeched and plunged off the dirt road, certain I heard the swish of the snake’s heavy body pursuing me into the brush. The rasping noise of its scales scraped the dirt directly behind me and I shrieked again. A large troop of baboons hooted and scattered into the trees as I tore past, too preoccupied to do little more than note their presence. I ran for what seemed ages, the rough scraping noise of the massive serpent’s scales indicating it remained right at my heels, intent on biting me at all costs.
Now, how could any snake be that fast and that persistent, a more rational mind might have wondered? But where snakes were concerned, I didn’t possess a single cogent bone in my body. I ran for at least a mile before a strange sort of mocking awareness crept over me. If I slowed (as I was rapidly tiring), the swishing noise slowed; if I speeded up, it speeded up too, sounding so close the serpent had to be practically upon me. I halted suddenly and the rasping noise of the snake’s scales ceased entirely. I stumbled a few paces in bewilderment before realizing dumbly that the pursuing noise I’d identified as belonging to the smiling snake as it surged against the ground was nothing more than my denim-clad legs rubbing against each other. Mortified, I paused by a thorny tree and cursed heartily, having proven beyond a shadow of a doubt what a citified fool I was! Thank God Peter hadn’t seen my frenzied retreat. The thought of what he’d think forced tears into my eyes.
The sweat poured off my face, and my back felt bruised from the pack’s violent banging against my spine. Humiliation nearly overwhelmed me, but it took quite a while for an even worse fact to sink in. In my frantic plunge through the dense undergrowth of the veldt, I’d lost the road entirely. Again disoriented, I spent the next hour frantically searching for the rough track the hijackers had used to steal the jeep. Though I tried to retrace my steps east toward the river, I couldn’t, for the life of me, relocate the wide Limpopo. The thieves’ tire imprints had been fresh in the dry sand and I consoled myself with the fact that since I’d found them once, I could surely do so again. But, as the minutes ticked rapidly toward sundown, my terror increased. I wandered half-dazed through the bush until finally, sweating and fatigued, I sank down upon a flaky stump, acknowledging for the first time that I was thoroughly and completely lost; an American idiot in paradise with my savior lover nowhere to be
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