Paths of the Tracker

Henry le Roux had accepted his dying sister's last request, to take her son in hand, with a mixture of self-doubt and resentment. How was he going to re-arrange his vagabond ways so that he could have the effect on young Craig that Catherine was asking? Besides, how does one even approach such a thing? He didn't need this in his life!When he finally decided to ask Craig to accompany him on an expedition into those remote parts of Africa where he had spent several of his vagrant years, it was more out of witless desperation than any desire to have the young man with him.Craig Steward quickly found out that the expedition with his bush-hardened uncle Henry le Roux was nothing like the glamour safaris on which he and his jet-set friends would occasionally embark in their four by fours. It turned downright extreme when they abandoned Henry's vintage bush vehicle and struck out on foot into hinterlands untouched by civilization. It became a desperate struggle for mere survival as Africa engulfed them in its ancient heaves and twists.Each man, as he fought to survive the physical ordeal, was swept along on a life- changing spiritual journey...
About the Author: During the '50s a boy grew up on a farm on the South African Highveldt. It was the same farm where his grandfather had grown up, and his great grandfather, and so back for six generations. The boy loved nature and stories and even while he still had to stand his horse next to an anthill to mount, he would roam the veldt far from the old homestead on foot or on horseback, and all the time stories would weave through his head, sometimes sequencing over many days. The boy's family had great story tellers too and during long summer evenings around the large table or in winter in front of the muttering hearth, or around campfires in far hunting grounds, stories would be told. Some he would have heard before, but he still loved them. The boy grew up to be an engineer and a soldier and a businessman and a farmer and the father of three beautiful women and for a while the stories went quiet. But the man's craving for adventure and the African bush did not go quiet and he would slip away on military operations, or to roam the untouched hinterlands of Africa, often on foot, mostly alone or with African bush companions he would pick up along the way. Then the stories would come back and weave through his head, sometimes sequencing over many days... After many years of soldiering and wandering, the man decided to try to write down some of the stories. He though perhaps one day his daughters would read them and smile knowingly at each other, or read them to their children and stop for a moment and look out through the window at the veldt with a soft sadness. A friend came across the stories and said they were wonderful and they had to be published. The man was skeptical. Who would want to read his stories, he wondered. But he decided to try and today he has one book, The Wanderers, published by Safari Press and a novel, Paths of the Tracker, self-published. He hopes to one day think of himself as a writer, but for now he is just a man that farms the family land and wanders when he can and writes down the stories that have now come back and are weaving through his head, sequencing over many years.