Shooting Butterflies (29 page)

The man put the tailgate on the
bakkie
down, and ensured that the woman was seated on the ledge, before he turned and strode towards Wayne.

Wayne's eyes were drawn to the familiarity of the approaching man.

‘I'll be damned!' he said as he smiled. He'd know that figure anywhere. Having spent two weeks with the man in Zimbabwe walking all over Amarose, talking about how to go about recreating the African bush, and then having a week of cruising around the waters and walking over the shores of Kariba with him, Wayne was unlikely to have forgotten the man who had taught him so much. He remembered them dodging buffalo, safeguarding against crocodiles so they didn't eat their vundu and tiger fish catches as they dried on the banks. He had shown Wayne how to make the elephant hair bracelets that he still wore, and produced silver wire to use as knots on the one he'd made for Tara. The bracelets still sat in his cupboard, waiting to go on the arms of both Tara and Josha, when he found them.

Wayne shook his head as the man approached. In their time together at the Kariba, they had watched the huge hippopotamus as they dragged themselves from the water in the evening, waddling onto the land to eat the sweet grasses on the banks. The man knew the bush as well as he did, and he knew how to read the wild animals that inhabited it.

Jamison.

‘Friend,' he told Storm, who stayed by his side but dropped the aggressive hackles that she was showing towards the newcomer.

‘So, you were being honest when you said you were a hands-on farmer,' Jamison said as he stuck his hand out.

Wayne clasped it and shook it.

Storm whined, and he made the introduction, she smelt Jamison, then rolled over for a belly scratch.

‘Some guard dog you have there,' Jamison said.

‘She does her job, but she's young still. ‘It's good to see you. Is this a social visit or are you coming to work with me?'

‘My life is packed up and in my
bakkie.
I figured you were doing the exciting part and I didn't want to miss that.'

Wayne smiled. ‘Congratulations, I see you are expecting.'

‘Thank you. It was touch and go if she would be able to even keep our child after she was in an accident at the beginning of her pregnancy, but we have been blessed. Still another month to the due date, and Ebony is determined to carry to full term.'

Wayne smiled. ‘I wish you all the luck with your family.'

‘Thank you—'

‘You know, I could sure use your expertise. I might have been a good Recce but my farming skills need work,' Wayne admitted.

‘You have done a lot in just under two years from what I've seen as I drove in.'

Wayne said, ‘I have, but I could still use more help.'

Wayne stamped the dirt from his boots. ‘Come sit,' he said drawing out a white steel wire chair from the table and motioning to Jamison and Ebony to sit on the veranda, in the shade. Jamison crossed to where Wayne had gestured to the chair, and, pulling the chair out even further, he signalled for Ebony to sit, and made sure she was comfortable before pulling another one out for himself.

Wayne gazed out at the lawn, trying to view his redface brick home through Jamison's eyes. He saw his lawn was immaculately mowed, and rose petals fluttered across it like lazy moths from a garden of white flowers. Strategically placed trees shaded the garden in places and he could see reeds growing dark green and tall from a pond. Bulrushes speared the skyline, and some had burst,
shedding their fairy-like seeds to float on the small breeze. It was a typical farm house, modest in size and functional.

‘Ella,' he called behind him, ‘I'm home for lunch and we have visitors.'

A moment later an older black woman, dressed in a traditional South African maid's uniform covered in green flowers, came through the door. ‘Master Wayne, I was just cleaning—' she said.

‘Jamison, Ebony, meet Ella, the best cook in South Africa.' Wayne made the introductions and Jamison sat back down. Ella bustled about, quickly laying a lunch on the table in front of them. She put a jug of orange juice next to the food platter, then three chilled glasses.

‘Thank you,' Wayne said.

She nodded and silently left them on the veranda.

‘The manager's cottage is free at the moment, but there is a lot of other stuff in there. If you can put up with the mess for a day or so, I can arrange to hire a container and it can be packed into that.'

‘Thank you, that is more than I expected,' Jamison said.

‘Don't thank me yet, you haven't seen how much is packed into that space. When I inherited Kujana from my father, my mother was still living in my house. So when I employed a white manager to run the place, with plans that I would still be in the SADF, I had a new house built for him to move in to. It's a little away from the main buildings so that he had space, and wasn't under her feet.'

‘So where is your manager now?' asked Ebony, her fan still slowly moving the air around to help cool her.

‘Gone. He was already converting it towards a game ranch at my instruction, but the progress was slow. When I came back from Zimbabwe and told him my new plans, and how I was going to accelerate the process and achieve it, he was out of here so fast. Told me he wanted nothing to do with game farming anymore, and he was more interested in growing sugar cane. It was less work.'

Jamison nodded. ‘You are lucky. Men who do not understand that the wealth of Africa is in its wildlife are idiots and best not to have around.'

‘Agreed. I lived in his house until my mother found her new home. Then I hired an interior decorator to refurbish the old homestead, while I began building my dream outside. So, the manager's house has been storing all my mother's old junk. She at last moved down to Umhlanga, but she left lots of furniture and crap behind. I didn't want her things around, so I put them there. I'll have to check if she wants any of it or if she wants me to get rid of it.'

‘We'll be happy to use it, rather than give it to someone. I have no furniture to fill a house with,' Ebony said.

Wayne smiled. ‘You say that now, but you have no idea what it looks like.'

‘We'll be happy with it, believe me. It's better than an
ikhaya
and an outhouse, which is what most of the black people in South Africa have on farms,' Ebony replied.

‘Not here, they have proper housing,' Wayne said.

‘Good to know,' Jamison said as he bit into the ham, cheese and tomato sandwich that Ebony had made for him from the assortment of food that Ella had put in front of them.

They ate in silence for a while, and when they were full, Wayne cleared his throat. ‘So you are really going to take the job?'

‘I am. Thank you. But don't you want to know why we left Zimbabwe?'

‘Not important, unless it will interfere with you performing your job here?' Wayne said, then looked at his wristwatch. Jamison exchanged a look with his wife.

‘No, it won't interfere with my work.'

‘Good, then I can show you your cottage. You start first thing in the morning.' Wayne stood and held out his hand, and once Jamison shook it, he turned to Ebony. ‘Ebony, I hope you will be very happy here at Kujana.'

16

Mhondoro

Piet Retief Farm, Zimbabwe

1992

Buffel knew he'd had to take action.

He couldn't stop himself once he had seen Shilo Jamison Khumalo in Amarose Private Hunting Ranch's advert. Since then his fragile peace had been shattered by the re-haunting of the nightmares that began again the very night he had seen Shilo's picture.

He'd had to try to silence Shilo. He was the only one who could connect him to the Wright brothers' murders. Only once Shilo was silenced would he would be free to track down the butterfly, to pursue her in earnest, to save Impendla's soul.

He might have failed in seeing Shilo die, but the fires that had lit the night sky had made Buffel remember what power he did possess. He had grown old and weak on the medication that suppressed the nightmares. On the synthetic drugs his doctor had prescribed him, to sleep and to wake.

Weak.

He put his hand over his heart and then pulled it away. It was all a heap of shit. His body told him only one thing. Impendla was dead. He had survived.

Impendla called to him for help, for peace, and he had to deliver that.

Being back near the mission where he'd been brought up, and visiting the Chinoya caves that he and Impendla had spoken of had stirred more memories and feelings from his childhood he thought were long forgotten. He had purposely thrown a stone into the blue water and challenged those ancient spirits to come and take him. He had felt power again, possession, as if he was
Mwari
's vessel himself, like Impendla used to say. He was the
mhondoro.
The lion spirit.

He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. The spirits of Chinoya hadn't come for him, and he was thankful because instead of being taken by the spirits, he had returned to Malabar a few days later, late at night, and captured a game guard who would provide him with Shilo's new whereabouts. Then he could finish the job, and this time, he would use his knife. At least that way he wouldn't fail.

‘That bastard had better talk today!' he cursed and pulled his shorts and shirt on. Walking with purpose, he made for his mushroom shed. He knew the way in the darkness of night, but he lit it with a torch anyway, conscious of the spitting cobras that could be active at night.

He opened the door to the shed and as the smell of drying skins and heads washed over him, he detected the scent of fear too. A scent he had smelt years before, when torture was just part of his life in PSYOPS.

‘You ready to talk yet?' he asked the man hanging by his arms from one of the rafters that held the corrugated iron roof in place.

‘I don't know where Jamison has gone. I don't know. After the fire was out, and he had spoken to the police, he left, and he didn't come back.'

Buffel picked up a long dressage riding crop. He had found it in the tack room of Whispering Winds years ago.

He flexed the crop. Then he flicked it with his wrist. The split leather at the end bit deep into the naked flesh of the anti-poaching guard he had kidnapped from the Amarose. The man screamed, the sound sweet to Buffel's ears. Many years had passed since he had heard that sound. He once thought he hated it, the sob of a grown man in such pain that he would begin to cry like a child. But after the last two days, he realised he had missed it. The sound of a broken man whose spirit he owned.

In the dim yellow light of his torch, the body of the guard glistened black, but the welts from the lashing to his body marred the shimmer, making it appear mottled. Imperfect.

‘Where did he go?' Buffel repeated.

‘I don't know. Please, I don't know.' The man began to sob. ‘No more, I can't take it, no more. I beg you.'

Buffel drew back his arm and whipped him.

‘One,' he counted aloud. ‘Two … three … where is he?'

The screaming had intensified as the man sobbed at the same time. ‘No, I don't know, I don't know,' he sobbed.

‘Four … five … six … seven. You ready to go to heaven yet, you useless trash?' he asked the man.

‘No, I don't know,' the man sobbed again.

‘What? You don't know if you want to die?'

‘I don't want to die. Please stop. Please,' he begged.

Buffel stuck the end of the riding crop against the man's exposed penis. He slammed it down with precision, and the man passed out from the pain. Still hanging by his hands, his shoulder made a loud popping sound, dislocating to allow the limp body to sink further into the bloodied ground, which was covered in faeces and urine of a man soiled in his terror.

‘
Eish
, you gooks have no stamina anymore,' Buffel said as he drew his .9mm from its holster. He slowly screwed on the homemade silencer.

Originally the blacks on his farm had become restless when Shilo had left as bossboy. He went down to only three staff after their exodus, and he was pleased that he hadn't replaced any. Those
three who stayed were his tracker, Gibson Ncube, who had arrived after Shilo left, and two men who had always looked after his few cattle and his Dorper stud sheep.

Gibson was a good
kaffir
, he had saved Buffel's life more than once, first with the doctor, and later in the field while hunting. He was sure that the other two men sold their generous rations on the bush-meat market for extra money. But meat wouldn't buy their silence like his bond with Shilo had once done, ensuring he didn't talk. But now Buffel wasn't so sure anymore.

He had to be more careful now that the war was over. Their
ikhayas
were situated too far away to hear a scream in the night, but they would hear a shot.

He was getting nothing from this man. He knew nothing.

Buffel put the gun to the man's head and shot him.

His body jerked once.

‘Useless waste of time,' Buffel muttered as he sat on a pile of skins. He wiped the blood splatter from his gun on his cotton handkerchief. He waited for the heat to leave the metal before he unscrewed his silencer, and put it back in his pocket, and the gun in its leather holster at his hip.

He walked to the far back corner of the shed where the roof was lower and he needed to stoop to fit. He lifted the large spade that waited there, ready to bite the earth floor, and he began to dig a shallow grave.

The smell would mingle with the rotting aroma of newly harvested kudu horns that dried in the shed and the huge skins laid flat with salt on them, drying in the heat on the inside of the shed. He returned to the body. With his hunting knife he cut the rope that held the man's hands, and dragged the corpse along by one arm. When it fell into the grave at an angle, he kicked at it with his foot to ensure it crumpled totally into the hole. Taking the spade again, he moved back the disturbed dirt until it covered him. Finally, he shifted an old pallet over the grave, and covered the uneven ground with a stash of dried skins waiting to go to the taxidermist in Bulawayo.