Let the River Run
Copyright© 2026 by Jody Daniel
Chapter 9
Skukuza Base camp.
After securing the bird, Kait and I made our way across the clearing toward the ranger station.
The helicopter was still ticking softly behind us, metal contracting as it cooled in the afternoon air. The rotor blades had long since stopped turning, now resting like giant sleeping wings above the fuselage. I gave the machine one last glance over my shoulder—old habit. Years of flying will do that to you. You never quite leave a helicopter without mentally checking it three more times.
The air smelled faintly of dust, sun-warmed grass, and wood smoke drifting from somewhere deeper in the camp.
It was a quiet Sunday afternoon.
The ranger station sat where it always did, a squat, sun-bleached building with a small wooden patio out front that had clearly seen better decades. The chairs were mismatched, the table scarred by years of coffee mugs and ranger knives, but it had the kind of honest wear that told you people actually lived and worked there.
Two familiar figures sat on the little patio. Wolfie and Gustav.
Each had a mug of coffee in his hands, leaning back in their chairs like two men who had absolutely nowhere urgent to be. Both were in civilian clothes—no ranger khaki, no badges, no radios clipped to their belts. Seeing them like that made me raise an eyebrow.
Sunday afternoon. Neither of them on duty. Which meant one of two things.
Either the world had briefly decided to behave itself ... or they were up to something.
As Kait and I approached, Gustav lifted his mug slightly in greeting, a knowing grin already forming under his moustache.
“I know what is going on around here,” he called out before we even reached the patio.
I stopped a few steps from the stairs and folded my arms. “Oh really?”
Gustav nodded toward Wolfie with exaggerated seriousness. “Wolfie has an air-band radio.” Wolfie shrugged casually and lifted his coffee.
“We heard you were inbound early.”
I exhaled slowly and shook my head. “Of course you did.”
Wolfie chuckled, leaning forward slightly in his chair. “You could not stay away, could you?”
Kait glanced at me sideways with a small smile forming on her lips.
I lifted both hands defensively.
“Hey, guys! There is work to be done,” I said. Then I gestured dramatically toward Kait beside me. “And Miss Kaitlyn here practically highjacked me to bring her here.”
Kait stopped walking. She turned to look at me with wide-eyed disbelief.
“Did not!”
“Oh yeah,” I said calmly. “That’s debatable.”
Then I put a hand dramatically over my chest, pitched my voice up into the worst falsetto impression imaginable, and declared: “Mom, Dad, we are leaving tomorrow!”
The swat landed on my arm before I even finished the sentence.
“Adrian!”
I just chuckled.
Wolfie burst out laughing immediately, nearly sloshing coffee over the rim of his mug. Gustav leaned back in his chair, shaking his head with a deep rumbling laugh.
“Ja,” Gustav said between chuckles. “That sounds about right.”
Kait folded her arms, but she was smiling despite herself.
Wolfie set his mug down and stood up, his expression softening as he looked at her properly.
“I’m glad to see you are recovering well, Miss Fourie.”
Gustav nodded in agreement.
“Yes, Miss Fourie,” he added warmly. “And we are happy to see you up and running again.”
Kait’s smile softened at that. “Thank you, both of you,” she said sincerely.
For a moment the joking atmosphere settled into something quieter. These two men had seen her at a far worse point not so long ago.
Seeing her standing there now—healthy, smiling, full of life again—clearly meant something to them.
Gustav drained the last of his coffee and pushed himself out of his chair with a satisfied grunt.
“Well,” he said, stretching his back slightly, “if you would like to settle in for a while, I will go brew some fresh coffee.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small brass key, holding it up.
“I had the bungalow next to Adrian’s prepared for you.”
Kait’s eyebrows lifted.
“It is at your disposal for as long as you are here,” Gustav added.
She accepted the key with both hands.
“Thank you.”
Then she turned to me. “I think I will go drop my stuff there.”
A small, mischievous smile appeared. “Adrian can go show me where it is.”
Gustav gave me a sideways look. I immediately pointed a finger at him.
“Gustav,” I said in mock warning, “don’t make that coffee so strong. Kait needs to get some sleep tonight before you drop her into the deep end.”
Gustav stopped halfway up the patio steps and turned slowly back toward me.
His eyes narrowed with theatrical irritation.
“Adrian...” he said flatly. “ ... go play on the railway tracks.”
Wolfie barked out another laugh.
I clutched my chest in mock offence. “Such respect.”
Everyone chuckled.
Kait slipped the key into her pocket, still smiling, and nodded toward the row of bungalows visible through the trees.
“Come on, pilot.”
So the two of us turned and walked off toward the bungalows, leaving Wolfie and Gustav on the patio with their coffee and their quiet Sunday afternoon.
After coffee, Kait excused herself.
The evening had settled softly over the camp by then, the kind of African dusk that doesn’t fall so much as it seeps into the world—gold turning to amber, amber to violet, until the bushveld slowly dissolves into shadow.
We had moved from the little patio of the ranger station to the long wooden table just outside the operations room. Someone had lit a hurricane lantern even though there was still enough light to see by. Gustav claimed it was “atmosphere.” Wolfie claimed it was because Gustav’s eyesight was going.
Kait had been laughing with us earlier, but as the evening wore on I noticed the signs.
Her voice became quieter.
Her shoulders sagged slightly when she thought no one was looking.
And every now and then she blinked a little slower than usual.
The kind of tired that settles deep in your bones after the body has spent weeks fighting its way back from something.
Finally she pushed her chair back gently.
“I think I’m going to lie down for a bit,” she said.
No one argued.
Gustav nodded in that quiet, fatherly way he had when dealing with people he cared about.
“Good idea, Miss Fourie.”
Wolfie lifted his mug in a small salute.
“Sleep well.”
She gave us a small smile, wished us good night, and walked off toward the bungalows, the lantern light catching the edges of her hair before she disappeared into the darkness between the trees.
I watched her go for a moment.
Then Gustav cleared his throat loudly.
“You look like a man thinking too much,” he said.
“Occupational hazard,” I replied.
The three of us stayed a while longer, talking about nothing in particular—ranger gossip, helicopter maintenance, and Gustav’s ongoing war with the coffee machine in the station kitchen.
Eventually even that wound down.
The lantern burned lower.
Wolfie yawned.
Gustav stretched his back and declared the day officially over.
So I shuffled off to bed myself.
Monday morning broke bright and clear.
The early sun rose over the Sand River like molten gold spilling across the horizon, painting the entire landscape in warm light. The grass shimmered with dew, every droplet catching the sun like a tiny mirror.
From my bungalow veranda I could hear the bush waking up.
Bird calls layered over each other.
A distant francolin shouting at the universe.
Somewhere down by the river a hippo grunted like an old diesel engine trying to start.
Skukuza had a long history of names and stories attached to it.
Long before it became the administrative heart of the park, the area had been known as Sabi Bridge, and before that by its Tsonga name Sikhukhuza—a reference to the way the early game wardens “scraped clean” the land of poachers.
The modern Skukuza settlement lay just southwest of the airport, across the Sabie River, stretched along the banks of the N’waswitshaka River, right where it joined the Sabie.
The airport itself sat between two rivers—Sabie to the south and the Sand River to the north. A few kilometres east the Sand curved down and joined the Sabie, feeding the greater river system that wound its way toward the Mozambique border.
From there the waters eventually merged into the Komati River.
The Komati twisted and wandered through the lowlands, crossing into Mozambique where it became the Incomáti—or the Rio Incomáti—before finally spilling its long-travelled waters into the Indian Ocean.
Rivers out here were more than geography. They were lifelines. Animals followed them. Vegetation depended on them. And people built their lives around them.
After breakfast the day began moving quickly.
Just as the clock in the operations room ticked over to 07:30, the distant thump of rotor blades rolled across the airfield.
A SANParks AS350B3 Squirrel helicopter appeared over the trees and swept in low across the runway before settling neatly onto the landing pad in a cloud of dust.
The brass had arrived.
Within minutes the quiet ranger station turned into something resembling a military headquarters.
Vehicles pulled up.
Radios crackled.
People with clipboards appeared from nowhere.
A meeting began almost immediately.
Kait was pulled into it without ceremony, absorbed into the swirl of maps, reports, and problem lists like she had always belonged there.
It lasted an hour and a half.
With Jessie taken care of—fuelled, inspected, and ready—I settled at one of the desks in the hangar office with a stack of paperwork.
There are two constants in aviation. Fuel. And paperwork. I was working through the second one.
Most importantly my bill of account to SANParks. If you fly long enough in contract operations, you learn very quickly that invoices submitted late have a mysterious tendency to remain unpaid.
I was halfway through the flight hours breakdown when the door opened.
Gustav walked in first. Kait followed.
Gustav’s face was expressionless.
Kait, on the other hand, was smiling.
That was usually a sign that something interesting had just happened.
“I need maps of the park,” she announced as she sat down in the chair across from me. “Detailed ones.”
I looked up from my paperwork.
“One-to-ten-thousand scale or one-to-twenty-thousand?”
She didn’t hesitate.
“One-to-ten.”
I nodded.
“Okay. Half of them are in the helicopter and the rest are in my bungalow.”
I leaned back slightly.
“Where do you want to start? Northern half or southern half of the park?”
Kait leaned forward and began listing locations with the calm focus of someone already planning three moves ahead.
“The ones covering Crocodile Bridge Gate and the Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp.”
She ticked them off with her fingers.
“Also Sirheni Bush Camp and Shingwedzi Rest Camp.”
Those are priority.
I nodded slowly.
She continued.
“Crocodile Bridge Gate is open for day visitors, but the rest camp itself isn’t operating because of flooding.”
She shifted slightly in the chair.
“Shingwedzi is closed for overnight visitors until the perimeter fence can be repaired. That leaves us with lions, cheetahs, leopards and hippos wandering into the camp whenever they feel like it.”
I whistled softly. “That sounds festive.”
She gave me a dry look. “You have no idea.”
I closed the folder and stood up.
“You got it. Where do you want to start?”
“Sirheni.” Her answer was immediate. “They need an alternative access road.”
She met my eyes.
“That’s priority number one.”
“When?”
“The sooner the better.” Then she smiled slightly. “How about now, Adrian?”
I grinned. “Right. Let’s get going.”
I had barely taken two steps toward the door when Gustav spoke.
“Wolfie won’t be joining you.”
I stopped.
“Not?”
Gustav shook his head.
“He’ll be chaperoning the brass from here to Berg-en-Dal and Pretoriuskop.”
“Ah,” I said. “Lucky man.”
Turning back to Gustav. I asked: “Anything dangerous out there I should know about?”
He didn’t even blink.
“I’ll give you an R1 semi-automatic rifle to protect Miss Fourie.”
I brightened immediately.
“Oh, thank you!” I spread my hands dramatically. “It’s better than that stupid AK Wolfie gave me.”
Gustav chuckled. “The AK was at least automatic.”
I shrugged. “I don’t need six shots to take a threat down.”
During this entire exchange Kait had been watching us with an expression of growing amusement.
Finally she raised a finger. “What about me? I got to protect my pilot too, you know?”
Gustav and I both turned to her.
“If Adrian gets taken down first,” she continued calmly, “how do I defend myself?”
Gustav squinted at her. “Little lady,” he said slowly, “what do you know about high-calibre rifles?”
Kait leaned back in her chair with a grin that could only mean trouble.
“I grew up on a farm, remember?”
She folded her arms. “I could shoot Lee-Enfield 303s before I could walk.”
There was a moment of silence.
Then Gustav muttered under his breath—
“Dammit... ‘course you do...”
And immediately realised Kait was still sitting right there, watching him.
His face turned a shade of red I hadn’t seen since the time he accidentally reversed a Land Rover into the ranger station generator.
“Sorry, Miss Fourie,” he said quickly.
Then he sighed and shook his head. “I’ll get you an FAL FN R1 as well. With three thirty round magazines.”
“Thank you, Mister Preller,” Kait replied.
“Just, Gustav, please, Miss Fourie.”
“Then I will be just Kait, Gustav.”
“Okay, Just Kait...”
I chuckled. “Gustav! Stop teasing Kait.”
We stepped out of the operations building and into the bright morning light.
The airfield was already warming under the rising sun, and the smell of aviation fuel hung faintly in the air near the hangar. Jessie stood where I had left her, gleaming softly in the sunlight like a patient mechanical bird waiting for its next flight.
Beyond the runway the bush stretched endlessly in every direction—green, gold, and dusty brown stitched together by winding rivers and animal trails.
Kait walked beside me with a purposeful stride, the kind people have when their minds are already ten kilometres ahead of their feet.
I glanced sideways at her.
“How long do you think you’ll be busy at Sirheni?” I asked.
She frowned slightly, thinking about it.
“I don’t know...” she said slowly. “It all depends on what I find there.”
That was the honest answer, and we both knew it. In the bush, plans were suggestions at best.
I slowed my pace a little and gestured toward the row of bungalows behind us.
“Pack an overnight bag,” I said. “Say for two days.”
She looked at me immediately.
“You think?”
“Yes.”
I pointed toward the helicopter.
“It’s one hundred and twenty-three nautical miles from here if we fly it straight as the crow flies.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“Fifty-three minutes flying time,” I continued. “Which means going there and coming back already kills almost two hours of the day.”
She let out a low whistle.
“That’s a trek,” she said. “I thought it was closer.”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
I pointed vaguely northward, where the endless green of the park rolled away toward the horizon.
“It’s about eighteen nautical miles south-east of Punda Maria,” I said. “Or Punda Milia if you want to use the proper name.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
“And seeing that we have no transport to and from the airstrip at Punda Maria,” I added, “we’ll have to land directly at Sirheni.”
She looked at me again.
“There’s a landing spot there?”
“There should be.” I shrugged. “There’s a clearing just north of the camp next to their solar panel array. Rangers have used it as an informal landing zone before.”
Kait tilted her head slightly.
“And we hope it’s still landable?”
I grinned. “If the Mphongolo River didn’t wash it away in the meantime.”
She stopped walking.
“You’re joking.”
“I wish.”
She crossed her arms.
“Can we find out from someone?”
I nodded. “I already did.”
She looked curious.
“Wolfie contacted one of his buddies stationed at the camp,” I explained. “He reported the clearing still looks good.”
“When was that?”
“Two days ago.”
We started walking again toward the helicopter.
“And it didn’t rain again after that,” I added. “Plus the river level has dropped quite a bit.”
She nodded slowly, processing that.
“Just their road got washed away.”
Kait stopped again.
Her eyes widened. Suddenly realised what I said.
“There are still people in the camp?”
I chuckled softly. “Yeah.”
I lifted my hands reassuringly. “SANParks staff. They’re fine.”
She blinked.
“They just can’t get out,” I added.
That seemed to relax her slightly.
“Oh.”
We reached the helicopter now. The metal fuselage reflected the morning sunlight in bright flashes as we walked around it.
She ran a hand lightly along the side of the cargo compartment.
“Can we take some stuff for them?” she asked.
I shook my head. “That’s already been taken care of.”
I opened the baggage compartment and started checking the cargo straps.
“They’re sorted for food, water, coffee, and tea.”
She looked relieved.
Then I paused, remembering the last message Wolfie had relayed.
“They did send one special request though.”
Kait looked curious.
“What’s that?”
I looked at her with a completely straight face. “Toilet paper,” I replied.
She stared at me for a moment.
Then burst out laughing. “Of course.”
I shrugged. “In the hierarchy of survival priorities,” I said while tightening a strap inside the cargo bay, “toilet paper ranks surprisingly high.”
She wiped a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye.
“Well,” she said, still smiling, “then we’d better not forget that.”
“Already packed,” I replied and pointed at the packs of toilet paper strapped down in the baggage compartment, closing the compartment door with a solid metallic click.
I stepped away from the helicopter. “Two days in the bush,” I added.
“Let’s go pack our gear and togs for the trip and then go see what Sirheni looks like from the air.”
What is Kaitlyn thinking as they walk back to the bungalows to pack.
The hospital smell was finally gone. For days it had been everywhere—woven into the sheets, the corridors, even the air itself. That cloying blend of antiseptic, disinfectant, and sterile plastic that seems to cling to your skin no matter how many times you shower.
Out here, that smell had vanished.