The sounds of another African day coming to an end.
Seeking the route of least resistance down the craggy Eastern slope, THE TRIAL FROM NGEZI winded uncertainly. While a gauntlet of boulders and exposed roots forced attention to the route below, dense stands of veronica and bamboo offered a low canopy of nearly continual shelter.
rocky out cropping gave relief from the cover and the chance for bill to glance up and out at the world beyond his worn-out feet. From the Northeast, scores of low-lying craters gave way to the jagged peaks of Sabyinyo, the notched flat top of Gahinga and Muhavura’s iconic cone.
Rich agricultural fields covering the Virunga piedmont like a patch work patchwork lie to the east and south. Looking at their orderly rows of crops, stone boundary walls, and permanent homes, Bill could not understand that these villages had been fashioned from the lower parts of the park less than years past.
Calls from women to gather their children to help prepare for supper-all punctuated by the bleated resistance of goats being led to evening lock-up on the tethers of little boys. Adding to the air of normalcy were the sounds of another African day coming to an end, greetings called out as people returned from fields and markets shouted invitations for men to gather for drink and conversation.
It was difficult to accept that someone from this idyllic environment could be as linked with the cold-blooded murders that had resulted in Bills forced march back to Karisoke. At its base, the weariness of the whole census day and the shock of the edge of the park top unite camp path. One last surge of adrenaline reduced the trek to camp.
ARMYS NOTE ABOUT THE DOOR OF OUR darkish cabin read simply inside Bill’s cabin. He was shocked to see Betty Cringle there. The wife of the U.S ambassador visited often and was close friend of Dian’s. Ian came out of another room looking even more hunched over and lazy than normal. As a collection of gorilla pictures stared down from the wall behind her, she informed Bill on the circumstances.
Of the faces dimly lighted by the gas lamps, Uncle Bert stood out. Dian confirmed that Uncle Bert was discovered murdered and beheaded that morning and that she also believed others were dead or kidnapped. After the murders, David Watts had followed the path of group 4s up Visokes hills and found their relative serenity to be rather remarkable. He could not, however, establish the existence of every other gorilla before night fell. That news sent Dian back to her room.
Betty Crigler had concerns about Dian’s mental status as she deals with poachers. Retaliation was not unimaginable because suspected poachers had been subjected to a range of tortures and other atrocities under Dian’s leadership. But nothing supported this point of view either. In any case, our capacity for clear thinking about anything at that moment was rather restricted, and we went without answering her questions.
Dian returned to sit at the dinner table, avoiding any eye contact and hardly touching her meal. Her agonized visage spoke volumes about the intensity of the suffering within.David also displayed the great suffering of the events of the day. Just before eight o’clock that morning he had found Uncle Bert’s still warm but decapitated corpse.
For any one, it would have been a rustic experience; but, for someone as delicate and gentle as Davis—a very quiet and serious scholar whose only emotional outlet was violin playing—it would have been very different. Dealing with the most recent tragedy to afflict group 4, he would exhibit a much harder side.
Some time before midnight, we went back softly to our cabin. Emotionally and physically exhausted after the activities of the day, we sank into an all too short slumber.
On the morning of July 25, we headed in great numbers toward the location where Uncle Bert was slain at DAWN. Bill remained behind with Rwelekana and Rukera to reconstruct the assault and examine the location for other dead while Amy and David followed group 4’s track with tiny Nemeye and Basira –an infrequent Karisoke worker.
Our starting point was the big area underneath smashed celery and other vegetation where Uncle Bert’s blood had spilled out and dried to create an unusual dark crimson carpet. The flattened greenery in every direction mirrored the anarchy of the onslaught. Separating gorilla flight paths from those of the poachers and the Karisoke crew—who had briefly surveyed the region the day before—was challenging.
Following what seemed to be the path of a lone person, Bill searched for twenty minutes. There he found a big black shape, facing down in a patch of dense sedge like vegetation. He called to Rukera, who turned the corpse over to see Macho’s horrific death mask.
Her face frozen in a twisted grimace as she dropped from one rifle fire in the rear. Macho beyond assistance focused our worries on Kweli. Though what would have been an infant’s limited route forked off from her track to join the broader labyrinth beyond, there was no indication of macho’s two-year-old son anywhere near her.
