Field Guide Stacy McAllister hushed her group of safari trekkers who were chatting together in loud voices, loud enough to alert animals for miles around. Shame-faced, they became quiet. Stacy was leading the small group on a walking safari in search of game for them to shoot with their cameras.

Stacy, an experienced and fully licensed FGASA—Field Guides Association of South Africa—level 2-field guide, took parties into the bush on walking treks. Her trusted African tracker, Gambas, thirty yards in the lead, was always alert and ready to respond to any danger. Behind her were the three men, guests of The African Adventure Company. AAC, formally known as Clarke’s Bush Tours until the Serious Crime Squad had arrested the owner, Josh Clark, for diamond smuggling and conspiracy to murder.

Some two hundred yards behind the party followed Mbeki, a bushman who, they said, could find water when there wasn’t any. The regulations required that each person carried a two-day supply so they would not need to use Mbeki’s skills. Still, it was always best to be prepared.

Stacy had driven her charges twenty-five miles from home base into the veldt, where she left the vehicle in charge of her assistants. On foot, she and her party would then trek fifteen miles to the first of the overnight stops where luxury-tented accommodation awaited them. Each day, they were to trek on foot from camp to camp, approximately fifteen to twenty miles apart, while her staff took the vehicle on to the next stop. Then, on the fifth day, they would drive back to base camp, arriving during late afternoon, just in time for a hot shower before the evening meal, usually a barbeque of grilled steaks. Leisure time in the bar would follow, which normally meant the clients having a few drinks while chatting excitedly about their trek and what they had seen.

Gambas stopped suddenly, held out his hand and squatted, his eyes studying the ground around him.

Stacy immediately held her hand out for the rest of the party to freeze until Gambas had ascertained it was safe for them to continue.

As usual, the men in her party were not paying attention and the first one bumped into her. “Whoops, sorry,” he said, again far too loudly.

“Be quiet,” she whispered fiercely, feeling his hand briefly stroke her bottom. Damn it, what a bunch of bloody amateurs I have this time. Bloody randy buggers, too, she thought with a grimace. They would be lucky if they saw any animals at all if they kept up all the noise, and she would certainly have to keep her butt out of John Carter’s reach.

Stacy watched Gambas studying the ground about him. Then he smiled, his teeth gleaming in the ebony of his face. He signalled Stacy to approach him, so she told the party to remain where they were and wait for her signal. Once at Gambas’s side, she saw the rhino tracks he had been studying. The deep indentations indicated it was a big one. There was with only one track, so it was probably a lone male. The wind was in their faces, so he wouldn’t smell them. Rhinos had poor eyesight, but their sharp hearing could detect the crack of a twig carelessly trodden on from a hundred paces.