Page 39 of Duty Preserved

They’d grown up here. They knew this land. And poaching was something they’d heard about happening to other reserves, other people’s animals.

“Not here,” Zayn said. He shook his head once, slowly. “This does not happen here.”

“Never?” Cole asked.

“There have been incidents elsewhere in Laikipia.” Zayn shook his head again. “Not here. The ranger presence has kept the reserve clear. Even when the program wasn’t running well, we were still here. That alone was enough.”

“Which makes this worse,” Baraka said from the back. He was leaning against one of the tent poles, arms folded, and for once, his voice carried no swagger at all. “If we kept them out just by being here, and now they came anyway⁠—”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.

The Citadel guys had gone still. Andrew wasn’t joking. Cole wasn’t leaning back. And Donovan had straightened in his chair, his whole body pointed at the problem.

“Where exactly?” he said.

I described the location. He and Cole exchanged a look.

“We should go tonight,” Donovan said. “Secure the site. See what we can read from the tracks before they degrade.”

“It’s dark,” Cole said. “And whoever set that snare is long gone. They didn’t stick around to watch it work.”

“We don’t know that.”

“We know they stripped the animal and left. That’s not someone camping nearby.” Cole turned to the rest of the group. “First light. We take a team out, work the site properly. Read the ground, check for other snares in the area, establish whether this was isolated or part of a pattern.”

Donovan didn’t argue. But his hands were flat on the table, and he hadn’t leaned back in his chair, and I got the sense that sitting still right now was costing him something.

“First light,” Cole confirmed. “Zayn, pick four of your best. Full kit.”

Zayn nodded. The rangers broke off into low conversation, Swahili mostly, with English threading through. None of them were leaving. Even Baraka stayed at his post by the tent pole, unmoving and serious.

I looked at the zebra in my mind. The wire. The empty ground where the meat had been.

Someone was killing our animals. And it hadn’t happened before.

The camp broke apart slowly. Rangers drifted toward the bunkhouse. Cole and Andrew went to talk logistics. Alyson touched my arm on her way past and said nothing, which was exactly right.

I stayed after the last of them had gone. The lamp above the table hummed. The camp sounds thinned out one by one until there was nothing left but the reserve beyond the canvas.

I couldn’t sleep. I tried but then gave up after a couple of hours tossing on my bed. That zebra was sitting with me, and it wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

I ended up back at the mess tent without deciding to go there. The lamp was still on, the tables empty, the canvas sides open to a darkness that had no edge. I sat where I’d sat during the briefing and listened to the reserve breathe. Tried to do the same.

I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there when I saw Donovan crossing the compound toward the tent. He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. He had a mug in his hand, and he set it on the table and leaned back.

Neither of us said anything for a while. The generator ticked behind one of the buildings, and beyond the tent, the reserve was a cacophony of wildlife that seemed to protest the sound of the industrial machinery of our camp.

“Can’t sleep either?” he asked finally.

“No.”

He took a sip from the mug. “The zebra?”

“I keep seeing the wire.” I pressed my thumbs into the edge of the table. “We’ve never lost one to poaching here. Not once. And now someone’s come onto our ground and taken a zebra apart like it was nothing.”

“We’ll find them. You heard Cole. First light, we’re going back to the site to see what it tells us.”

“I know.” I pulled my hands back. “I just hate that it’s here now. That it’s reached us. Even the rangers, as useless as some of them have been, and I know that’s a terrible thing to say⁠—”