Dust Devils (30 page)

Heard his son again. Urgent. Spooked. "Headlamps. Coming this way."

Zondi sat on a rocky ridge in the middle of the eroded plain, the Ford stowed behind an outcrop below him. The moon dangled over the empty landscape. The track Inja's convoy had followed to the shepherd's post lay like a pale scar in the moonlight.

Again Zondi waited. He'd heard the shouts of interrogation and the gunshots and the screams of the sheep. Knew Inja and his men would have to return this way, there was no passage over the hills that surrounded the plain. So he waited. Uneasy. Too close to old ghosts. He rubbed a hand against the stubble on his jaw, caught the scent of the Sunlight soap still clinging to his skin.

Thought of his mother. He never saw her alive after he fled the valley and the money he'd dribbled down from Jo'burg hadn't stopped tuberculosis and poverty from taking her. She was buried not far from where he sat. Just the other side of the range of low hills that hunkered before him.
Fucking godforsaken place.

Zondi heard the low growl of engines and headlamps cut through the night, powdery dust motes dancing in their beams. He watched as the vehicles slowed. The Pajero stopped and the trucks fell in beside it. The revving of motors, snatches of shouted Zulu, and then the vehicles moved toward the hill opposite Zondi. The SUV driving straight ahead, the trucks fanning out on its flanks.

Inja was using the classic beast horn formation so beloved of the Zulus of old. The tactic that had left these plains sticky with British blood. Inja would attack from the center, and the two horns would outflank and surround the targets, cutting off any escape.

Zondi scrambled down the embankment and started the Ford, the engine grinding before it caught. He set off after the convoy. Running blind. Following the beams that speared the night.

They were closer. Three sets of headlamps. Dell dropped the glasses and turned. His father knelt, trying to stand. Not making it. The girl whispering to him.

"We're getting out of here," Dell said.

Goodbread stared up at Dell, just enough moonlight to see his dead man's face. "Leave me." A torn whisper.

Dell was tempted. Knew he and the girl stood a better chance if they abandoned Goodbread. But the girl grabbed one of the old man's arms, lifting him. Strong these women. From years of carrying water and gathering firewood, while their men smoked weed and plotted revenge.

Dell reached down and took Goodbread's other arm and between them they got the old man standing, his arms slung around their shoulders. Dell could feel his father's ribs fluttering like birds, fighting for every breath.

They left the cave and started down the slope, feet loosening rocks that clattered down to the valley. The bobbing headlamps were close now. The low growl of the approaching vehicles echoed in the hills. Then a spotlight kicked in, feeling its way up the rocks toward them.

Inja saw the three people caught in the beam. The old one supported by the man and the girl. "Don't shoot," he shouted out the window of the Pajero, even as he heard a shot coming from the truck to his right. Idiots.

He shouted again, his voice drowned as the men in the vehicle to his left opened up. Before he could see whether any of the shots had found their target the truck with the spotlight hit a rock and the beam bounced off the trio, scribbling a wild path up the hillside.

The shooting stopped and Inja climbed half out of the side window of the Pajero, bellowing: "No fucking shooting, I said!"

He heard the scream of an engine and a light colored pickup appeared from behind a hillock, speeding across the plain. Inja was almost flung from the Pajero as his driver swerved and floored the gas, in pursuit of the truck.

The lights of the three vehicles glared at Dell from the rearview. The pickup's headlamps danced crazily across the uneven landscape and he could hear rocks tearing at the underbelly of the Toyota. He swerved to avoid an eroded sinkhole, fishtailed, almost lost the truck, fought to find traction on the sand.

The girl sat at his side, gripping the dash, staring over her shoulder. Muttering some incantation. Maybe she was praying. His father was sprawled across the rear seat, panting like a dog.

The Toyota vaulted a ridge, all four wheels off the ground. Seemed to hang forever, suspended in space and Dell could see two moons staring down at him like predator's eyes through the bullet-starred windshield. Then the truck hit earth. The girl flew and her head smacked the roof with a dull clang.

"Seat belt," Dell shouted. No idea if she understood. No time to strap himself in.

The door at the back of the camper shell burst open and banged madly as the truck barreled forward. No lights in the rearview and for a moment Dell thought he'd lost them. Then his headlamps dimmed through dust and he saw the haunch of a yellow truck swerving in ahead of him. He fought the wheel hard right into a slide and felt the back of the Toyota glance off the yellow vehicle, leaving the pickup yawing and weaving like a drunk.

A Pajero had got in front of them and the Toyota's cracked windshield disintegrated in a shower of glass. Dell thought they were under fire but realized it was a rock, hurled by the rear wheels of the SUV.

The yellow truck was at their side and the third vehicle came in at them from the right. The Pajero's brake lights burned red as jewels and the flanking vehicles boxed them, a vise closing. Dell saw the passenger to his right withdrawing the snout of his AK-47 before it was sandwiched.

Dell stood on the brakes. The girl braced herself against the dash. His father's body smashed into the rear of Dell's seat. The Toyota skidded to a stop, flinging up a curtain of dust. Dell spun the wheel one-eighty and floored the gas.

Checked the mirrors for lights. Heard the girl scream. Saw a rock face looming. No time for brakes. A detonation of metal and glass and his chest smashed into the steering wheel, hard enough to crush the wind from his lungs. He smelled smoke and the engine died. Fighting for breath he looked back. The Pajero turned in a dusty slide, shook itself like a wet dog, then charged forward again. The other two trucks falling in behind.

Dell tasted blood in his mouth. Spat. Felt for the pistol at his waist. Still there.

The girl opened the side door and took off into the night. Dell reached for his door handle and shoved. Wouldn't budge. As he struggled across to the passenger side, the rear door of the truck swung open and his father stood up, silhouetted in the fast-approaching beams. Firing the rifle on automatic.

Inja saw the girl fall from the Toyota, kneeling in the sand. Staring into their lights. Then she pushed up like a sprinter from the blocks and took off into the night.

"Follow her," he shouted to the driver.

A hard rattle of an automatic rifle and the driver's window exploded. The man slumped over the wheel, dead foot still tramping the gas, sending them full speed into the rear of the truck. Inja's head starred the windshield.

Goodbread walked toward the light. Felt the rifle bucking in his arms. His weak goddam old man's arms. Nearly dropped the weapon. Stitched a couple of rounds uselessly into the earth, then fought the rifle up and heard bullets drumming on metal. Glass shattered and the SUV shimmied then hurtled forward.

Passed by him so close that its wind tugged at his clothes, just before it rammed the Toyota. Another truck was loping across, spotlight flaring in Goodbread's eyes. He shot the light out. Kept walking forward. Firing. Empty. Hammer clicking like a Zulu tongue. Grabbed the hot magazine from the weapon. Dropped it.

Felt a bullet take him in the leg. Sank to one knee. Rammed the spare magazine home. Something hit him hard in the shoulder. Burned like a bastard. Raised the rifle and closed his finger and felt the weapon buck and chew and spit.

Then everything was quiet and slow and Goodbread felt the warm sand enfold him. He lay on his back, staring up at a terrible light that was at once the moon and something else entirely.