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While
written as fiction this
story is BASED
ON REAL EVENTS, and
is DEDICATED
TO MERYL
HARRISON, CHIEF
INSPECTOR WITH THE ZIMBABWE NATIONAL SPCA.
Lynn
Santer Lynn’s
screenwriting mentor was the multi-award winning producer/director, Mark
DeFriest. Following her early
studies with Mark, Lynn regularly visited Hollywood to work with experts in the
field such as “The Insiders System” and Arnold Rudnick, of Andrew
Lloyd-Webber’s “Really Useful Films”.
She
is a member of The British Film Institute, The Writers Guild of Australia,
Copyright Agency Limited, the Australian Society of Authors, and she has both an
agent and manager in Hollywood. In
2002 Lynn wrote two feature screenplays under contract to a Hollywood producer,
struck a deal with Stewart Entertainment to write and co-produce an animated TV
series, and passed the writing test for Grundy’s hit TV series “Neighbours”.
Also
in 2002, Lynn’s first short film production “Lewis’s Piano” won
the “Launch Film Festival BEST INDEPENDENT FILM” AWARD.
Lynn adapted the short screenplay from a feature-length musical composed
by Jonny Rothman and Simon Jacobs.
Lynn’s
own projects have been inspired by her professional experience in the world of
high finance, her extensive travels around the world, and her life-long love
affair with the big cats. BEST
SELLER: The first print
run of Lynn’s novel “Sins of Life” sold out in a matter of weeks and the book became Minerva’s
number one selling title in the UK in 1999. Her sequel novels “Into the Fire” and “Evil by
Design” have been published by Equilibrium Books.
AWARD:
In 1992 Lynn won the coveted
American Chamber of Commerce National Award for Creative Writer of the Year.
In
2001 Lynn produced a promotional short for Tippi Hedren, star of Alfred
Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. The short was to promote a special screening of “The
Birds” at the Brisbane International Film Festival as part of a fundraising
event (that Lynn also organised) for Tippi’s big cat sanctuary, Shambala. This versatile and prolific writer accepts commissions for television, feature and short film scriptwriting in a variety of genres and most budget ranges. References, coverage, and terms are available on request. A
history of Lynn’s work with the big cats and animal welfare Lynn’s
first award for raising funds for animal welfare was received when she was just
11 years old, from the PDSA (People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, UK).
She still proudly hangs on her wall the certificate she received for
“Outstanding Effort”. In
1997 Lynn worked with Virginia McKenna (who played Joy Adamson in the immortal
classic "Born Free" and who now runs The Born Free Foundation in the
UK) to rescue a lioness called Kimba from Italy.
Kimba was discovered in a cage no bigger than she was, unable to see the
sky, fed on a diet of frozen chickens. Her
back was concave, her condition squalid. When
Lynn saw Kimba freed and exploring her new home in the Big Cat Sanctuary of
Kent, England, marvelling at clouds rolling by, she wept, knowing she had found
her true purpose in life. In
working with the Born Free Foundation, Lynn came to know Roger Gale, MP (UK) who
was then Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Animal Welfare, and who is
now Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party.
Roger has become a lifelong friend and remains in close liaison with Lynn
on many animal welfare issues, including getting fox hunting banned in the UK. In
1998 Lynn was honoured by WSPA (World Society for Protection of Animals).
In recognition of funds she raised for that cause, Lynn was invited to
inspect the WSPA sanctuary for rescued big brown bears in outback Turkey
(formerly "Dancing Bears"). This
sanctuary is in a very remote area of Turkey, near the Syrian border, and
absolutely not open to the public. In 1999, Lynn was made the first and only honorary Life Member of the AfriCat UK Project 2000. Lynn has been in Africa many times, and been hands-on with the big cats that AfriCat rescue, rehabilitate, and relocate. In 1999, when her first novel was released, Lynn donated the royalties to the AfriCat Foundation. Lise Hanssen, who runs AfriCat in Namibia, joined Lynn is London’s most famous department store, Harrods, for a joint book signing of this best-seller. While
Lynn was living in London she coincidentally became the neighbour of The Hon
Juanita Carberry of "White Mischief" fame (daughter of the late Lord
Carberry). Juanita was a close
personal friend of George and Joy Adamson.
She was born and raised in Kenya. At
the age of 78, Juanita has just resigned her position on the International
Advisory Board of WSPA, and she has bequeathed her original oils of Elsa by Joy
Adamson to Lynn in her Will! The
rest of these paintings are in the National Museum of Nairobi. In 2002 and 2003, Lynn was invited to be a judge by the RSPCA at their Million Paws Walk on the Gold Coast of Australia. Lynn
has also donated a major original oil on canvas to WWF (the World Wildlife Fund)
which will be auctioned at a special event organised in conjunction with
Dreamworld’s “Tiger Island” in 2003. Lynn
retains an extremely close relationship with Meryl Harrison of the Zimbabwe
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
In 2001 Lynn brought Meryl out to Australia to meet with Tippi Hedren to
discuss an exposé on unethical hunting. Chapter
1
harlene Tynsworth mopped her brow, noticing the familiar shimmer in the
air. It was as though she was
inside nature’s cooking pot. The
heat was unbearable, but for Charlene the weather was the least of her problems.
The donkey she was tending to had been badly gashed by a barbwire
harness, an injury the likes of which she had seen a hundred times before.
The donkey hardly flinched; it was as if she knew the gentle carer was
trying to help her. Although Charlene wanted to berate the farmer who owned the donkey for his heartlessness, instead she remained calm. Charlene understood economic realism was the only rationale a native Zimbabwean struggling to put food on the table would understand. At least he hadn’t sold the beast to be used as bait for hunters who would have tied her to a tree, left to be nibbled alive for days before the prey animal stepped into their trap. Too many donkeys had unfortunately suffered that gruesome fate. For a fleeting moment she thought back to her privileged life in Los Angeles. It seemed impossible that in this day and age anyone could be struggling to put food on the table, impossible to think that ten thousand miles away the biggest problem was making sure one was only seen in the latest designer fashions, and impossible beyond comprehension to accept that most of her former friends didn’t even want to know about the horror faced by both man and beast and this far off land. None of Charlene’s friends had approved of this American beauty leaving her affluent lifestyle to devote herself to the conservation of endangered animals. Only one person kept in touch with her: Hollywood legend of the sixties, Joan Taylor. Joan too had given up many of her privileges to devote herself to the conservation of endangered animals. However, unlike Charlene, Joan remained in the US, preferring to try and change the legislation that allowed irresponsible private ownership of these magnificent creatures, which often led to the animal being discarded like garbage. Joan had created a sanctuary for these cast-offs, where she currently cared for over sixty big cats and one elephant that had gone mad in a circus. But aside from Joan, it seemed no one wanted to hear about Charlene’s quest to help stop the rapid march to extinction of many of God’s magnificent creatures. Their attitude seemed to be: why complicate a life already so full of deadlines and back-biting with issues that after all only affect mere animals in a country many would never even visit? Over time, Charlene had become more and more isolated, gradually losing all faith in humanity. She’d lived in the harsh climate and even harsher environment of Zimbabwe for ten years, engaging in her back-breaking, soul-destroying, thankless labor of love. Yet despite this, her face retained a youthful glow. There was nothing tanned, leathery or harsh about her appearance. Her soft brown eyes showed no bitterness, no despair. She’d cropped her lush auburn hair short, so that now it framed her kind, gentle face like a radiant aura. Her one true friend, her dog Shaka, whimpered. The little Jack Russell terrier could sense Charlene’s anguish and shared her pain. “Don’t
worry, Shaka, she’ll be okay,” she said kindly. While
the native farmer looked on from under the shade of an ancient tree, Charlene
examined the extent of the injuries. She
mopped her brow again, gently removed the barbwire harness from the bleeding
donkey and tended to its wounds. “I
didn’t know,” the farmer said simply, in his native tongue. “You
didn’t know a barbwire harness would cut into your donkey’s flesh?” she
retorted, almost losing her cool. Embarrassed
and caught out, the farmer simply shrugged. “I
realize money is tight,” she said calmly.
“And you’re not the only one around here who does this kind of thing,
but if you don’t look after your animals properly it’ll cost you more to
replace them than if you had looked after them in the first place.” “Yes,
miss.” Charlene
sighed, and headed to her jeep. Painted
on the door was: Zimbabwe National SPCA: Chief Inspector, Charlene Tynsworth.
She tossed the farmer’s barbwire harness into the back of her jeep and
reached inside to find a new leather one. Assuming
they were heading home, Shaka jumped onto the front passenger’s seat. “Not
yet, boy. Soon,” she smiled. With
a heavy sigh, Charlene handed over the leather harness to the farmer.
“Promise me you’ll use this from now on.” “Yes,
miss. I promise.” Nuzzling
into her touch, the donkey felt the warmth, love and devotion of this special
woman, enjoying her affectionate caress, when suddenly, loud gunshots filled the
air. They all looked around to see where the noise came from. “Oh
no,” she gasped. Bursting
through the brush, a terrified wounded leopard panted her escape from pursuing
armed hunters and their packs of ferocious collared hounds.
The collars were remote-controlled and electrified.
If any hound dared chase after the wrong species it was soon punished for
its efforts. The lowest setting of
the electric collars caused mere pain, but the higher settings caused vomiting,
and if inflicted often enough could break a dog’s back, causing an agonizing
death. It was an extremely
efficient method of keeping hunting hounds under control and on the right scent.
The
leopard had seen this all before, but she’d never before been at the sharp end
of a hunt. Over her three years on
this earth the precious spotted cat had seen lion, cheetah and caracal chased to
exhaustion and then slaughtered by the two-legs, the most fearsome and brutal of
all the predators in the jungle. It
had always been something of a mystery to the leopard as to why this predator
hunted the wildlife of Africa – they didn’t seem to be hungry, in fact many
of them seemed disproportionately large for their basic construction. And
the animals they hunted never appeared to be posing a threat of any kind to
them. No, the two-legs were just
opportunistic killers, striking out at any species they came across for reasons
that clearly had nothing whatever to do with the creator’s rules of survival.
But right now, the reasons weren’t important.
The two-legs and their hounds were after her.
She was outnumbered, injured and worn out, but she had to run and keep
running, for her very life depended on it. She
noticed the two-legs were carrying a foreign object: something the creator had
not seen fit to give them at birth. It
was a long stick-like object that made a loud noise, and whenever the loud noise
happened some animal always fell down wounded, generally never to rise again. It was an uneven chase, an unfair mismatch of hunter and
hunted. Whenever the leopard hunted
it was for food and, equipped only with what nature had given her, as often as
not she was unsuccessful in her hunt. But
the two-legs seemed never to fail in killing whatever they had set their sights
on. Laughing with adrenalin-pumped sadistic pleasure, half a dozen overweight foreign hunters dressed in army fatigues chased after their hounds. The dogs barked with the infectious blood-lusting frenzy of their masters as they continued to chase and corner the leopard. The beautiful giant spotted cat was soon overpowered by the hounds who
enthusiastically began to tear at her flesh,
just as Laurie Watson caught up with the group. Laurie was as tough and mean a son-of-a-bitch as God had ever
put on earth. After having been
dishonorably discharged from the elite forces of Her Majesty’s Special Air
Service, he’d soon found a way to make a lucrative living from his expert
training. He now ran Matupula
Hunting Lodge in Bulawayo. Over the
twenty years he’d been in Zimbabwe his British accent had been replaced with
the harsh clipped accent of his adopted land.
His skin was rough and wrinkled, but his eyes were still piercingly
bright blue, and cold as a blade of steel. “Hey!
Stop that! Get them off! They’ll
ruin the skin!” he ordered his dogs. Assisted
by his native workers, Laurie managed to remove the bloodthirsty hounds off the
mortally wounded leopard in time for his customers, the hunters, to gloat over
the prize. “Is
it dead?” asked one of the hunters, in a broad Southern American accent. “Not
yet,” Laurie replied. “Soon. No point damaging the hide further with a
bullet.” Cautiously
leering over his prize, the hunter grinned to himself.
He didn’t notice the wounded leopard’s six-month-old cub observing
from a distance, confused and panicked. The
cub peered from beneath blades of grass, which to the infant towered as high as
an impenetrable fortress. She
cocked her head to one side, trying to get a grasp of what was happening to her
mother. Why didn’t she just come home?
The cub was hungry and sensed a descending coldness from the falling
dusk. She yearned for the warmth
and security of mother. Unable to
contain her anguish, the cub cried out. “Shit,”
Laurie spat. “What?”
a hunter asked. “There’s
a cub.” “So?” “So
we’re not supposed to kill nursing mothers.” “That’s
easily fixed,” the hunter leered, reloading a cartridge into his rifle. “We
wouldn’t wanna leave the little bastard out here an orphan, now would we?” Laurie
smiled his agreement. The
light was fading in the mother leopard’s eyes, but she wasn’t dead yet.
Although she didn’t speak their tongue, she understood all too well
what they were planning to do. They
wanted to kill her baby, her legacy to the creator, her offering to keep her
species alive and perpetuating. She
could not let that happen. She used
her last ounce of strength to raise her head and give her baby a determined
“save yourself” glare. Trying
hard to understand what was happening the cub paced back and forth in confusion. The
hunter lined up the cub and squeezed back slowly on the trigger.
But before the deadly bullet could hit its mark, the mother leopard
lashed out with her claws, tearing into the hunter’s calf and causing him to
miss his target. The
bullet hit the dirt only inches from the cub. She bounded away like greased
lightning. Screaming
in agony, the hunter fell to the ground, while Laurie finished off the mother
leopard with a thud from the butt of his rifle. “Cunning bitch.” Turning
to examine the hunter, Laurie was relieved to see he’d only received a flesh
wound. “Come on, mate. It’s not that bad, up you get.” “Not
that bad? Look at me!
I’m bleeding!” “You’ll
live. Come on, we’ve got an orphan to catch!”
Turning to his native workers, Laurie added, “Release the hounds!
Get it lads!” The
dogs charged after the terrified cub as it zigzagged its way through the
undergrowth. She was young and
strong, but inexperienced and terrified. It
didn’t take long for the highly trained hounds to force her into a clearing,
where she discovered with horror she had run straight into an ambush. Knowing
the prey was surrounded, the hounds pounced on the infant like sharks in a
feeding frenzy. The cub struck
back, inflicting surprisingly deep wounds on her yelping foes.
But needles of hot saliva had already penetrated
her flesh. She felt dizzy misery
and merciless pain as all sense of location became blurred around her. Without
warning, a flash of black lightning suddenly burst out of the bushes.
The native farmer Charlene had just helped with his donkey appeared with
a rifle slung over his shoulder, brandishing a long wooden walking stick.
He pounded at the dogs with the stick, soon forcing them to turn tail and
flee. Not satisfied they wouldn’t
return, the farmer disappeared after them yelling obscenities at the top of his
lungs and waving the stick threateningly. The
cub collapsed under a shrub, unable to move now even when her self-preservation
instincts told her there was a two-leg standing over her.
Leaves rustled with movement. Charlene’s
face appeared, stained with tears. “Oh.
My poor baby,” she sobbed. Reaching
into her knapsack, Charlene pulled out a needle and carefully injected
painkiller into the panting cub. “There
you go, you’ll be alright. Where’s
your mommy?” “Well,
if it ain’t mother nature,” Laurie snapped sharply. Charlene
whipped around to see her nemesis standing there with the wounded, sweaty-faced
hunter. “I
might have known you were behind this,” she shot back. “Not
me, luvvy. You won’t find one of my bullets on that carcass.” “She’s
not dead yet, no thanks to you! But
she would have been if I hadn’t had got here before your dogs finished her
off!” “You
can’t seriously believe that I’m responsible for my dogs’ actions.
They’re animals and this is the jungle. They’re only doing what God created
them to do.” “Give
it a rest, Laurie. You know just as well as I do your dogs only attack what you
tell them to! Otherwise you wouldn't need those electric shock collars!
You're both going to pay for this!” The
hunter’s expression dropped instantly, wondering what sort of lawsuit might be
brought against him for hunting a nursing mother leopard. “Is
that so?” Laurie replied with deep sarcasm.
“Well, considering you seem to know the law so well, you must also
realize that I am quite within my rights to shoot you where you stand for
trespassing.” With
cold hatred in his eyes, Laurie raised his rifle in Charlene’s direction. “You
think I’m afraid of you? Pull that trigger, if you’ve got the guts, and see
what happens! I can see the headlines now!” Laurie
lowered his weapon, and Charlene silently let out a sigh of relief. “If
you could really get rid of me that easily, you wouldn’t have tried so hard to
make all your other attempts look like accidents, would you?” “I
have no idea what you’re talking about.” Standing
up defiantly, Charlene cradled the injured cub, glaring at Laurie. “Hey!
Where do you think you’re going?” the hunter asked, now raising his
own rifle at her. “Put
that away,” Laurie ordered. “No!”
the hunter protested. “That
cub’s mine! I want to stuff it for my baby girl’s bedroom!” “I
said, put your gun down!” Laurie repeated. “Why?
I shot its mother! It
belongs to me!” “Because,
unlike you, he will shoot to kill,” Laurie replied. “Who?”
the hunter asked, confused. “Him,”
Laurie answered, pointing away from Charlene. Following
Laurie’s gaze, the hunter quickly saw the farmer had returned and had his own
rifle pointed at them. “Drop
your weapons. Drop them!” the farmer ordered, in his native tongue. Not
prepared to take his chances, the hunter nervously, angrily and carefully
lowered his rifle to the ground and stepped back from it. “Okay,
now do as I do and walk away slowly,” Laurie advised his client. Terrified,
the hunter did exactly as he was told. “Your
hand guns too,” Charlene added. Glaring
angrily, Laurie slowly un-strapped his pistol holster and dropped it to the
ground. “Now
get the hell out of here before my friend loses his patience.”
Charlene tried to sound intimidating. “You’ve
gone too far this time, Charlene,” Laurie growled,
before storming into the bush with the hunter. Feeling
weak at the knees, Charlene gratefully turned to her rescuer.
“Thank you.” The
farmer just grinned broadly, displaying a row of dazzling white teeth as he
picked up his newly acquired weapons. “Come
on, let’s get you fixed up, my baby,” she said to the barely conscious cub
she was still cradling. As
they turned to head back to Charlene’s jeep, a breathtakingly beautiful sunset
of fire-red and orange descended on the African horizon, as ants ran up and down
a nearby tree.
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