African Dawn (38 page)

‘Steady, Mr B,’ Braedan said.

‘Don't call me that.’ Braedan just stood there. ‘Your bloody brother's got my father in trouble with the police and he gave Emmerson Ngwenya the excuse he needed to take over the ranch. If he thought he was doing any good for anyone other than your mother, then he's more stupid than you are.’

Braedan squared up to the older man. ‘What do you mean by that?’

Natalie looked at her father, and she was scared. He was clenching and unclenching his fists as he faced Braedan; neither man was backing down. George's face was an alarming shade of red and there was a vein pulsing in his neck. For a moment she thought that he was either about to have a heart attack or punch Braedan. The two men stared each other down, like a pair of old elephant bulls with locked tusks, each waiting for the other to move.

Her father exhaled noisily through his nostrils. ‘Nothing. But your brother needs to be reported to the police, for all the good it will do.’

‘Dad, please,’ Natalie said, moving between her father and Braedan. ‘We don't know for sure that Tate was involved. This is all just speculation, right, Braedan?’

Braedan relaxed his muscles a little and shrugged. He eyed George coldly. The tension between the two men was presumably related to Aunty Hope's death all those years ago. It was a long time, she thought, for her father to hold a grudge. Hope had been a grown woman who had made her own choices. It was tragic what had happened to her, but it was more than thirty years ago. People had to move on.

With a startling jolt of clarity Natalie realised that she was moving on. She'd come to revisit the ghosts of her past but she had been confronted by stark reality, and a living, breathing part of her nightmare in the form of Emmerson Ngwenya. She was still scared of him, and the power he wielded in this lawless country, but she also knew that her problems were not as serious as those facing her grandparents. Her demons were in her past and she doubted Emmerson Ngwenya was still out to harm her after all these years. His threat to her grandparents and their rhinos, however, was explicit and real.

In safe, orderly Australia Natalie had, she now realised, lived a carefree life. Ironically, that had given her time to dwell on her past. Now there was so much more to worry about than her experiences during that long-ago war.

Her father strode back into the kitchen and down the hallway, his shoes echoing on the timber floorboard. Natalie and Braedan followed him, and stopped just behind him at the front door. A black Mercedes had been buzzed through the security gate and was now parked on Sharon's gravel driveway. The front passenger door opened and a black man stooped with age, his curly hair grey and his face as creased and sagging as an old elephant's, grabbed the doorframe to ease himself out.

He stood there, wearing a charcoal business suit, white shirt and a maroon tie. He coughed into his hand, clearing his voice. ‘I am sorry to intrude on your tea.’

Tate was gathering his photos, hurriedly stuffing them back into the envelope in case the newcomer saw them. Grandma Pip stayed seated, but was staring at the man. Her grandfather stood, as creakily as the man who had just got out of the car. ‘Kenneth …’

‘Paul. I would ask how you are, my old friend, but I know you are in pain.’

No one else spoke as the two old friends walked slowly towards each other.

‘He's got a bloody hide,’ Sharon Quilter-Phipps whispered loudly.

‘Is that who I think it is?’ George asked his mother.

Pip nodded. ‘Yes. Kenneth Ngwenya. And Sharon's right. He has no right to be here after what his son did to us.’

In his nice suit and his fancy new Mercedes, Kenneth Ngwenya looked as though he came from a different world altogether from the whites sitting around their rusting garden table, clinging to the colonial traditions of an empire that no longer existed.

Paul and Kenneth clasped hands in the western and then the African manner.

‘I am well, my friend,’ Paul said, ‘all things considered. And you?’

‘Ah, I am fine. It has been too long, my friend.’

Paul nodded.

Pip turned away from the scene. ‘He's no friend of ours.’

If Kenneth heard Philippa's response he chose to ignore it, but Paul was determined to show Kenneth what hospitality he could. He looked at Sharon, perhaps in the hope that she might offer to organise some more tea, but she just folded her arms.

‘Pip,’ Paul said, ‘come say hello to Ken. It's been ages …’

Philippa turned her head and looked up at Kenneth, who was now within touching distance. He smiled at her.

‘What did I ever do wrong to you or your wife or your children?’

Kenneth licked his chapped lips and looked first to Paul, then to Pip. ‘You showed us nothing but kindness, Philippa.’

‘We took Winston in as if he was our own son. He was like a brother to George.’ George moved to his mother's side and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘We brought food to your family while you were in prison … and then Emmerson goes and steals our
home
. How can you come into this house and call my husband your friend, Kenneth?’

Kenneth clasped his hands in front of him. ‘I wish I could apologise for everything that has gone wrong in this country for the last thirty years, in the same way that I sometimes wish someone would have once taken the time to apologise to me and my family for what went wrong in the thirty years before that.’

Philippa glared at him, but it was George who interrupted. ‘You mean those years when we had employment, a strong economy, first-world health and education systems and infrastructure that worked?’

Kenneth nodded. ‘Yes, we had all those things, and a system where I could advance no further than the post of schoolteacher; where my wife was left to raise three children while I was locked in gaol for attending political demonstrations.’

‘I sent her food, damn you,’ Pip hissed.

‘Pip,’ Paul chided softly.

But Kenneth just stood there and nodded. ‘Yes, and I thank you for it, even if my wife never did. What you didn't know was that she had been brutalised as a child. She was beaten by a white landowner who raped her mother. She and her mother were utterly powerless against that white man.’

‘Yes, well,’ said Pip, ‘I'm sorry to hear that. But she didn't have a monopoly on tragedy. Sometimes I think this bloody country was only so fertile because of all the blood and bone that had been spilled onto it. And now you people have even stuffed that up – you've squandered the land and the wealth that people bled and died to create.’

‘
Us people
,’ Kenneth paused to cough again, then seemed to get his emotions in check, ‘include my daughter, who is a minister in the new Government of National Unity. She is working to turn things around.’

‘
Pah!
The MDC hasn't achieved a single thing,’ Pip said.

‘Perhaps, perhaps not,’ Kenneth said, ‘but they, too, have fought and bled and died for the right to try.’

Natalie watched her grandmother twitch her lips, then look down into her lap. This battle of wills was uncomfortable to watch, but no one seemed to want to interrupt it. It was as if these things, as cruel as they might be, had to be said.

‘But it's all for nothing, Kenneth,’ Philippa said, not looking up at him as she twisted a linen serviette in her fingers. ‘Because the MDC couldn't stop the farm invasions and now we have nowhere to live.’

‘It is true, Philippa,’ Kenneth said. ‘Your ranch is gone and I am afraid it is unlikely that you will get it back. It has been given to the local community to run as a conservation and tourism project.’

‘Those bastards will kill our rhinos and strip our house before you know it, and your son, Emmerson, will be the first in the door.’

‘I have some news.’

‘I don't care,’ Philippa said.

‘Pip,’ Paul said at last, ‘let Kenneth have his say.’

‘My son wanted to give me a farm for my last birthday,’ Kenneth said, ‘but I said, “No, I am a retired schoolteacher, what do I know of farming?” So I declined.’

‘More fool you,’ Pip snapped.

‘Pip!’

She looked at her husband, and nodded.

Kenneth cleared his throat again. ‘But my daughter called me yesterday. Until then I didn't know that my son had appointed himself as chairman of the community trust that was going to run your ranch and the rhino-breeding program. Thandi told me it was in the newspapers, but I don't read them because I never believe most of what's in them. But I'm rambling, I think … I don't pretend to understand the politics of the new government, but Thandi does. She told me that while Emmerson is the Assistant Minister for Land Redistribution – still a very powerful position – he has enemies within ZANU–PF. There is much jockeying at the moment amid the party faithful as they try and map out a future for themselves once the President dies or retires. There are many who are jealous of Emmerson's influence and wealth.’

‘That's money he made from poaching rhinos,’ Tate said.

‘Yes, well, I know my son is alleged to have done many things in his life,’ Kenneth continued. ‘No doubt some rumours are true, but perhaps some are spread by his enemies.’ When Tate started to speak again Kenneth held up a hand. ‘Please, I am an old man and I don't find breathing as easy as I once did. Please let me finish. My daughter, Thandi, may be a senior member of the MDC but she still has contacts within ZANU–PF. She made approaches to a woman who approached a man who approached the President and suggested that perhaps Emmerson would not be the best person to head up the rhino-breeding facility at your ranch, given the international speculation of his involvement in the rhino trade.’

‘So the ranch will go to some other puppet,’ Pip said.

‘No, Philippa,’ Kenneth said, finally letting some of his exasperation show in his words. ‘
I
am to head the community trust that will now run Kiabejane.’

Philippa blinked and shook her head, as if to clear it. ‘You?’

Kenneth smiled and spread his hands wide, palms up. ‘I was as surprised as you are. The President apparently gave the order himself that I was to be given control of the ranch in thanks for my work during the struggle. Ironic, I know, given that I have not been a supporter of the man or his party for many, many years now. But life moves in a direction beyond our control.’

Philippa started to stand and George lent his arm for his mother to steady herself on. ‘But Kenneth, what does this mean? Can you protect the rhinos from your son?’

Kenneth put his hands back down by his side. ‘As I said before, Philippa, I know nothing about farming, or rhinos, or how to protect them. I fear that as an old man I would be no match for armed poachers or organised criminals … yet you two were able to hold them at bay for a long time, and to continue to breed rhinos.’

‘We did our best.’

‘Yes, Philippa, you and Paul did your best, and that is why I would like to invite you, on behalf of the community trust that I seem to have inherited, to come back to the ranch and stay on for an indefinite period as the managers of the ranch and the rhino-breeding program. I will see that you are paid a wage … it won't be a fortune, but you will have your house and your game animals and your prized vegetable garden. Perhaps in time you will be able to find another home, in town, but I would hope that in the intervening period you would work with me to train some bright young souls, unsullied by the politics of race and hate, who might one day take over the breeding program and run it the way you would wish to see it run when it is time for you to move on.’

‘Oh, Kenneth.’ The tears streamed down Philippa's cheeks as Paul wrapped an arm around her. Philippa reached out and took Kenneth's hand and when he clasped it she broke from her husband and encircled Kenneth in a hug.

32

K
enneth Ngwenya was feeling lightheaded from the three beers he had drunk with his friends Paul and Philippa and their family and friends. Fortunately he didn't need to drive, as one good thing his son had done for him was to hire him a driver when his eyesight began to deteriorate.

Maxwell, the driver, took him out of Bulawayo into the lowering sun and the countryside out towards the Botswana border. Paul and Philippa had said that as much as they wanted to return to the ranch immediately, all of their possessions were at Sharon's and would have to be reloaded onto trucks the next day to move back.

Braedan Quilter-Phipps, Paul's head of security, said he would make his way out to the ranch later in the evening. Kenneth thought it looked like Braedan wanted to continue celebrating and he seemed to be quite fond of little Natalie Bryant, who had grown into a fine golden-haired woman. Natalie made him think of Paul and Philippa's daughter, who had been killed in the war. They had all lost someone. Kenneth wondered, as he often did, what sort of man Winston would have become if he had had the chance to grow old peacefully. The war; the terrible killings in Matabeleland in the eighties; the farm invasions – his poor country had known too much sorrow.

But now he had a farm to run, for a short while at least. Maxwell stopped at the security gate and Kenneth introduced himself to Doctor Nkomo and told him the Bryants would be coming home the next day. ‘Mr and Mrs Bryant will continue to manage the farm, so even though I am here as the new head of the community trust you are to take your day-to-day orders from them. Understood?’

‘Yes, Mr Ngwenya,’ Doctor said.

‘Very good. There are going to be changes here. I will see to it that your staff numbers are increased. Every rhino here will have at least two armed guards with it or observing it twenty-four hours a day.’

‘That is good, sir. We have had so little money for so long.’ Doctor asked Kenneth to wait a minute while he ducked back into the small hut by the gate. When he emerged he handed Kenneth a walkie-talkie. ‘If you need me or one of the other guards, sir, just press the button and call. The radio is set to our frequency.’

Kenneth nodded and ordered Maxwell to drive on.

Kenneth's bank account balance was healthy – too healthy for a man of his age. He had made some shrewd investments, and Emmerson, for all his faults, had regularly deposited large amounts of cash into his father's account, especially when he was trading the ruinous Zimbabwe dollar on the black market. Emmerson had asked for some of that money back recently – his fortunes had clearly changed – and Kenneth had of course given some of the money back to his son, but now his wealth was going to be invested in something truly worthwhile: getting this ranch back on its feet economically and beefing up its security. Kenneth had a feeling in his bones that the battle over the future of the rhinos that lived among the kopjes of Kiabejane was only just beginning.

Kenneth's cell phone played the rap song one of his cheeky granddaughters had programmed as his ringtone. Maxwell laughed as he always did when he heard the phone and Kenneth mumbled about getting it changed. ‘Hello?’

‘Father, I need to see you.’

‘Emmerson … where are you?’

‘I am not far from Kiabejane,’ Emmerson said into the phone.

‘What a coincidence. I've just arrived.’ Kenneth covered the mouthpiece and said to Maxwell, ‘Take me to the farmhouse.’ Maxwell nodded.

‘I'll be there in ten minutes.’

Kenneth ended the call. They pulled up out the front of Paul and Philippa's house. Kenneth walked though Pip's beautiful garden and when he opened the unlocked front door Kenneth felt like a trespasser.

The house was empty. A few sheets of discarded newspaper lay on the carpet, and the walls were bare, patched with pale squares where pictures had hung for decades. It would be good once his friends were back in their home; the gesture made him feel that he, and Thandi, had taken one small step towards what Kenneth hoped would eventually be a nationwide movement of reconciliation between the races. Politics as well as colour had split the country and he hoped, too, that one day his son and daughter could again speak to each other as loving siblings rather than bitter enemies.

Kenneth's footsteps echoed on the bare timber of the hallway.

‘Car coming, sir,’ Maxwell said from behind him. Kenneth heard the engine and when he looked out a window he saw a black Hummer pulling up the driveway. His son got out, dressed in black jeans and a matching long-sleeved T-shirt. That had been a lot less than ten minutes. He wondered if perhaps his son had been waiting for him, or if he had followed him out of Bulawayo.

Emmerson walked through the open door. ‘Leave us in private,’ he said to Maxwell. The driver looked at Kenneth, and Emmerson glared at him. ‘I pay your wage, fool. Leave us in private!’

Maxwell walked out, eyes downcast.

‘Was that necessary?’ Kenneth asked. He noted the chunky gold chain around his son's neck and the heavy rings on three of his fingers. Emmerson looked like an American gangster.

‘That meddling bitch Thandi has robbed me, but I want what is due to me.’

‘Don't use such language when you talk about your sister, Emmerson!’

‘She is no relative of mine. This ranch belongs to me, Father. I don't care what she or anyone else has said to you, I am the one who has been selected by the community to run this place.’

Kenneth was affronted by his tone and suddenly tired of making excuses for him. His son was a thug, pure and simple. ‘Your
community
is a bunch of unemployed criminals and party hacks too lazy to work for themselves. They have squandered the land already given to them and now they want to walk onto this place and strip it like a flock of vultures on a corpse. Well I am not going to let that happen. The Bryants are good people who have done a great service for this country and they are returning here tomorrow.’

‘What?’ Emmerson turned and slammed the front door shut. Kenneth shuddered. He never thought he would live to see the day when one of his children frightened him. Emmerson advanced on him, pointing a finger. ‘Listen to me … tomorrow you are going to call the Ministry of Land Redistribution and you are going to tell them that you are too old and infirm to head the community trust. You are going to tell whoever will listen that
I
am taking over this place.’

Kenneth took a pace back and folded his arms. ‘No, Emmerson, I will do no such thing.’

‘Why? Don't you trust me to care for this rich white man's house and all his precious animals? What do you think, Father? Do you think I am a poacher? Do you think I am a killer?’

Kenneth shook his head. ‘I don't know what to think about you, my son, but I am not going to sign this place over to you. The Bryants are going to return as managers and begin a program to train local people –
real
local people not out-of-town parasites from Harare – how to run this place in the future.’

Emmerson took another step closer until his face was just inches from his father's. His nostrils flared and Kenneth could smell alcohol on his breath. ‘If those rich
boere
racists dare to set foot on this land they will be signing their own death warrants.’

‘I will pretend I did not hear that.’ Kenneth reached out. ‘Emmerson, we have to do what is right in this world. It's not too late for you …’

Emmerson shrugged off his father's hand and pulled a cell phone from his jeans, opened it and dialled a number. ‘He said no. You know what you have to do.’ He snapped the phone shut and walked out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

Kenneth stood alone in the empty house and started to shake. He was a strong, proud man who had seen much sorrow in his life, but now, for the first time in many years, he felt like crying.

He heard the Hummer start up outside and roar down the gravel driveway. Maxwell came into the empty house. ‘Are you all right, sir?’

‘Of course. Do you have the walkie-talkie?’

Maxwell handed Kenneth the radio and he pushed the transmit switch. Doctor answered. ‘It is Kenneth Ngwenya here. Please let me know when my son leaves.’

‘Affirmative, sir. I will let you know when both vehicles leave, over,’ Doctor replied.

Kenneth wasn't sure he had heard correctly. ‘Please repeat … did you say
both
vehicles, over?’

‘Yes sir, there was Mr Ngwenya's Hummer and a
bakkie
with four other men in it, over.’

Kenneth thanked the guard and told him to call when both vehicles had left the property. ‘I'm worried, Maxwell.’

‘What would the other men be doing here?’

The sun had set and it was gloomy in the house. Kenneth and Maxwell stood there, not knowing what to do. Kenneth suddenly realised that there was probably no bedding left in the house, although there was still a staff compound out the back of the farmhouse where the cook, maid and gardener lived, and there was a bigger compound elsewhere on the property where the labourers and security staff lived with their families. Both men turned at the sound of a knock.

‘Mister, mister …’ A boy, probably no older than ten, stood on the doorstep, his skinny chest heaving under his grubby white singlet. He was barefoot. ‘Bad men,’ he said in Ndebele. He was panting from the exertion of running. ‘They are at the rhino
boma
mister. They have guns.’

‘Slow down, boy. How many men did you see?’ Kenneth asked.

The boy held up three fingers.

‘Did they arrive in a car?’

‘A
bakkie
, mister. A black truck. They have tied up my father … he was the guard on duty, mister.’

‘Three men or four men?’ Kenneth asked. Doctor had said there were four men in the other vehicle.

‘No, three, sir.’

‘We have to try and stop them,’ Kenneth said.

‘I'll get the car.’

‘No, Maxwell, they will hear us coming.’ Kenneth turned back to the boy. ‘How far is it to the
boma
?’

‘Not far, mister. We can take the short cut, through the bush.’

Kenneth pressed the transmit switch again. ‘Come in Doctor, this is Kenneth Ngwenya. This is an emergency. There are armed men at the rhino
boma
and they have tied up one of your men, over.’

Kenneth waited anxiously for the reply, but there was no answer. He tried again, calling Doctor and repeating his message. Kenneth looked to Maxwell, who shrugged and said, ‘Perhaps they dropped off the fourth man, and he has control of the gatehouse?’

‘That is what I fear. Come.’ Kenneth motioned for the boy to lead them out into the darkening bush. ‘We must hurry.’

*

Tate had drawn Paul away from the celebrations earlier in the afternoon and the two men had had a brief conversation before Tate had taken the Bryants' Hilux and driven off.

Natalie had wanted to question Tate herself, about Braedan's theory that his brother had actually been the one who had darted and dehorned the rhino at the ranch. However, when she had asked her grandfather where Tate had gone he had cheerfully replied that Tate was heading straight back to Kariba. Now that Paul and Pip were going back to the ranch, Paul was keener than ever for Tate to embark on a fully fledged study, though still in secret, of the wild rhino he had found at Makuti. Perhaps, her grandfather had said, more than one rhino had survived poaching and the efforts of the national parks rangers to relocate all the animals back in the 1980s.

Natalie didn't know how to broach the theory of Tate's involvement in the poaching, but she assumed her father would do so.

Braedan sidled up to her, a near-empty beer in his hand. ‘I don't know about you, but I think the party's winding down and I could use another drink. Let's go.’

She looked around. He was right. Grandpa Paul and Grandma Pip were in cheerful spirits chatting with Sharon. Her father looked as dour as usual, although he was on to his third beer. She knew he wouldn't kick on much longer and the older people would probably be off to bed as soon as they'd had some supper. Natalie had had two glasses of sparkling wine and now that she knew her grandparents once more had a home she was feeling pleasantly relaxed. Braedan's offer sounded good, and he really was a fine-looking man.

Tate had, in his slightly dorkish and clumsy way, charmed her at Victoria Falls and she had been well on her way to sleeping with him before he had run out on her. Now here was his ‘evil twin’ asking her out for a drink with the confidence of a man unused to rejections from women.

Braedan was an arrogant man, but he knew what he wanted, and there was something very attractive in that. And if she was honest with herself she was also feeling a little bruised by the business with Tate. She knew he was tortured by his past, and she suspected his running out on her was linked to what had happened to her aunt, but it had been confronting for Natalie too, yet she had been prepared to deal with it.

She set down her glass on a garden wall. ‘Take me somewhere where we're not the ones lowering the average age of the crowd.’

Braedan grinned. ‘I know just the place. We'll stick out like geriatrics, but you'll love it. It's the worst place in Bulawayo.’

A shiver went down her spine. ‘I like the sound of it already.’

*

Despite his relative good health, at eighty-five years old Kenneth could not run. So the boy took his arm and led him at a brisk walk. Maxwell had picked up a discarded pick handle which was resting against the wall of a garden shed. ‘We need a gun,’ Kenneth said.

‘I know where there is one,’ said the boy. ‘My father has been looking after the AK-47 of a man who is on leave. It is under his bed, wrapped in a blanket. I am not supposed to know it's there, or to touch it.’

Kenneth ruffled the boy's head. ‘I don't think you will get in trouble this time if you take us to it.’

The first of the nightbirds were tuning up for their evening chorus. A tiny scops owl called a shrill
brrr
and its mate answered back a few seconds later. The young boy led Kenneth on a narrow but well-worn path through grassland and thorn bush. Even though the two of them were taking it slow, Kenneth was puffing after a few minutes of exertion.