Tracking

1/31/13
They're tracking Happy and Fluffy, two male cheetahs on the property who hang out together as a coalition. High and hot in the wide blue sky, the sun shimmers in the grasses alongside the Land Rover. Every so often they stop, kill the engine, and climb up on the hood with a telemetry device. Each radio collar emits a unique frequency. Over the course of several hours they triangulate the signals until they narrow the animals' location to a block between roads. They hop out eagerly and proceed single file through the bush, on the lookout for born experts in camouflage, the fastest animals on land. Picture your housecat taking down an impala.

At the end of the wet season, the grasses are flush, flowering, hip-high. Even more so than other animals, cheetahs blend in perfectly, motley coats like grass and shadow. Hunters. Silent. Still. You're lucky to see an ear twitch.

Antenna in hand, Elisa leads the queue, listening close, walkie-talkie receiver near her ear. Volume way low, static faint. Eyes peeled, head on a swivel. The last time they were out, they came upon the cats suddenly. Suddenly—like one of them growled, and everyone froze.

Elisa leans down to scratch at a bit of thistle in her sock. The blips are constant now, from every direction. The cheetahs are within 10 meters. That's...about 30 feet. Brooke walks behind her, field-guide studies forgotten; in the practical, in the bush, in the thick of it. Step by step. The hush of grass. Even the volunteers in her wake are quiet.

No one says a word. Scanning the area. Looking for tiny movements. Bugs hum; the grass sways in the breeze. Shadows stick close.

Elisa feels it first. A mass under her boot, soft and giving, but not squishy like mud or dung. It moves—she jumps. The snake rises above the grass. It locks eyes with Brooke. Darts toward her. Dark body, light green belly. She sees its beauty. Recognizes it from her guidebooks. Its eyes—

Black mamba. Or snouted cobra.

Either way...

Its hood spreads. She leaps away.

It follows.

The volunteers scatter. The sun beats down. The grass undulates. Brooke leaps away. The snake swerves. Fixes her with its eyes. She leaps away. It follows. A breeze rustles the bush. The others look on, helpless. She leaps away. The snake pauses. Disappears.

After a long moment the group breathes again. The telemetry receiver blips, indicating the cheetahs are still at hand. Brooke smiles. She shrugs. "Catlike reflexes," she says. The sun beats down. After a bit, they see the cheetahs.