08/09/2025
This is the synopsis for my novel, Cleopatra's Journey.
This novel describes a relationship between a wild African elephant and a female ecologist over a thirty-year period. All the events are real. All the human characters are based on real people. Only the elephant are fiction.
The story begins in 1969 in the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia. Based on a paper submitted by resident ecologist Amanda Stockdale there are too many elephant in the Park. The decision is to cull.
Amanda Stockdale is mortified. Her study group, and with it Cleopatra the matriarch whom she is extremely fond will be killed. Cleopatra reads Amanda’s mind and heads for Malawi.
Mwenda Mbao is a traditional hunter. While staying with his wife’s family a bull elephant from Cleopatra’s family raids their mealies. Mwenda shoots the elephant and his muzzle-loader is confiscated and with it his livelihood.
Mwenda and his step-son, Ben Phiri, become poachers. Mwenda hunts using the strict principals he has always applied to his profession. This creates a dilemma. Mwenda dies. Ben takes over. He does not have Mwenda’s scruples. He is crossing the Zambezi River at night and meets Cleopatra and her family. His canoe tips over and the rifle and all the ivory and horn is lost.
In the meantime, Amanda leaves Zambia and returns to her farm in neighbouring Zimbabwe. Her orphan elephant training program needs a mature female elephant. She puts the word out.
Two English tourists on a canoe safari are allowed to approach a group of elephants with calves. Their guide is inexperienced. This is Cleopatra and her family. Cleopatra charges and knocks the girl down. The safari guide shoots at Cleopatra. Badly stunned and unaware of what she is doing, Cleopatra starts running and doesn’t stop until she reaches a water-hole. Due to her concussion Cleopatra cannot reason or make decisions. Starving and with their water-hole about to dry up the elephant face a crisis. Cleopatra is darted from a helicopter and driven away. Cleopatra arrives at Amanda’s ranch heavily sedated and emaciated.
Cordelia, Cleopatra’s eldest daughter, assumes leadership of the family. Cleopatra’s mind clears when a young male elephant in her new family called Temba is threatened by the farm manager wielding a revolver. The manager’s name is Marthinus. He was one of the hunters on the cull. Cordelia is now able to get a mental picture of her mother and find her. Cleopatra gives Marthinus a beating which puts him in hospital.
Marthinus plans to return to the farm and obtain his revenge. Amanda anticipates this and sends Cleopatra and all the young elephant to the Victoria Falls to their second ranch. Temba, a young male elephant gets into the citrus orchard and is left behind.
Marthinus’s arrival at the farm coincides with the arrival of Cordelia and the rest of the family who have been guided to the farm by Temba in the absence of Cleopatra. They are very upset because they cannot find their mother. She is now miles away at the Victoria Falls. In the dark Marthinus mistakes Cordelia for Cleopatra. He fetches his rifle. But Cordelia is waiting for him and he is torn to pieces.
Amanda’s son Michael is playing in a golf tournament at the Elephant Hills Golf Club. They see a herd of elephant walking down one of the fairways. It is Cleopatra with Cordelia and the rest of the family. They are heading for Botswana. In the group are also the elephant from the training programme. In a very emotional scene Amanda and Cleopatra touch and make their last farewells.
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