Shooting Butterflies (5 page)

He dressed the girls in skins he pulled from his cargo bag, and quickly hung them up by their feet in the tree too. Their skirts hung down and formed collars around their necks, decorated with small animal heads stitched on the skins. It looked as though the clothes had been custom made for the children. Buffel quickly cut the young girls with different markings, but unlike the boys who he made into warriors, he gave the girls baskets and stabbing spears. Both the girls he had chosen were already in their teen years, just blossoming into their womanhood.

Shilo looked on, his body shaking with unreleased rage.

The blood dripped from the children's wounds and soaked into the dirt of the playground.

Shilo gritted his teeth and closed his eyes to the atrocity in front of him.

Buffel had crossed a line.

This was murder.

The four children standing against the wall of the school building remained still. Their eyes were huge but they made no sound.

Shilo felt Riley pull at his arm and he followed him silently into the bush, his breathing shallow. Clear of the low bush, they fled. Minutes later they heard four shots. The bastard PSYOPS captain had killed the other surviving children anyway, after making them watch the horror that was his ritual.

They ran faster, making sure they were in front of the mad Buffel.

A hand clamped over his mouth and another held him down on his chest.

Shilo woke from his light rest while waiting for the pick-up helicopter, but didn't fight when he saw who it was that had silenced him.

‘Sergeant Riley is dead,' Kwazi whispered. He removed his hand from Shilo's chest and signalled him to remain silent.

Shilo nodded. ‘What?' He sat up, careful to keep his voice to a whisper. ‘He ran out with us, he was not injured.'

‘He confronted Buffel on those killings and he didn't survive the consequences.'

‘Shit!' Shilo swore.

‘You and me, we say nothing!' Kwazi said. ‘We keep our noses clean and we keep quiet. I watch your back and you watch mine, just like when we were training. If this PSYOPS trooper can kill a white man and get away with it, he can bury us black guys six feet under and no one will notice.'

‘I didn't volunteer to kill kids,' Shilo said.

‘Me neither. But if we're going to survive our unit now being used as a PSYOPS one, we have to pretend we were never with Riley and we never saw that copycat ritual killing. No one must know that we know it wasn't a
sangoma
who did that. No one.'

Shilo nodded.

Riley had been their sergeant and he'd always been there to watch his unit's back. Even though he was white, he trained and lived with the black men. Like family.

Now he was dead.

Shilo and Kwazi had witnessed what Riley had. If the PSYOPS captain knew they had been with Riley, they would be next.

Guilt weighed heavy on Shilo's heart.

He'd never forgive himself for just standing by and seeing those children being murdered. He crossed his chest and prayed to all the gods to help him be a better person, to forgive him for not stopping the massacre. He prayed that if Buffel remained with their unit, he'd have the strength to stop him from murdering again.

3

Imbodla's Race To Survive

Whispering Winds Farm, Zimbabwe

September 1981

‘Please, Daddy,' Tara begged as she batted her blue eyes at her father. Six foot tall in his army boots, she nonetheless knew that she'd get her own way eventually. All it took was perseverance.

‘
Please
, Daddy!' Tara said. ‘Please let me ride with you. I really don't want to sit in the
bakkie
with Mum and Dela, they will be talking girl things all the time and singing silly songs. Please?'

‘Okay,' Joshua said, his voice as soft as a sergeant major's could ever get. ‘Fine. You can come with us. And, as a special present because it's school holidays, you can ride my Apache on the way home.'

‘Thank you, thank you, Daddy!' Tara said as her father helped her mount his stallion and slip her feet into the top of the stirrup leathers above the irons, the stirrups hiked up as short as the holes would allow. The McClellan saddle was obviously too big for her, not that she'd ever care.

‘Just remember, he might be big, but he's a gentle giant,' Joshua said to her. Then he pulled his horse's head towards his chest and said roughly into the stallion's ear, ‘Take good care of her. I'll be watching you …'

The stallion breathed deeply, his nose flaring as if he was listening to every word. He stomped his foot and tinkled with his bit, eager now that the day was nearly over and he was heading in the direction of home. Joshua smiled at Apache, once a proud warhorse. Together they had survived the Rhodesian Bush War during their time in the Grey Scouts, and now he was being subjected to family pony rides. Apache snorted as if understanding Joshua's thoughts.

Joshua laughed.

‘Just take care of her, you spoilt brat,' he said to his horse. ‘This is the easy life now.'

‘What about Gabe? Can he ride home too?' Tara asked.

‘Not this time. His dad is waiting at the intersection for his drop off. The weekend is over, your cousin needs to go home, to his own house.'

‘But Dad, why can't he just stay with us? It's holidays. It's not fair that he always has to be in his house on a Sunday night. That's a stupid rule his family has.'

‘My cousin's house, his rules.'

‘It's not fair, Dad. It's not like they ever do anything with him anyway. He might as well live with us all the time, it would be so much nicer for him and for me.'

‘Don't say that, Tara. Their family might have their own problems, but they are family, and you can't speak about them as if they are bad. They are just different from us. Closed off. Private. You're lucky that his dad allows him to spend so much time with us, he could be nasty and not let him visit at all. Then who would you talk to all the time?'

‘Dad,' Tara said. ‘Uncle Stuart is your first cousin, hey?'

‘Second,' Joshua corrected.

‘So there is blood in there somewhere. So promise me that just because you have some of the same blood, you will never be like him, okay?'

‘I promise I won't. His path and mine took different directions years ago. Now, we need to leave or we will be arriving home in the dark.'

‘Thanks, Dad,' Tara said and she smiled.

Joshua's heart melted at the innocence in her smile. She remained totally oblivious of the harsh world that he and her mother protected her from. His heart broke to think that poor Gabe had to return home to his drunk, abusive father. But what happened behind closed doors within a person's home was their business. It was a rotten system.

Joshua turned to his twin, Jacob, who stood holding the reins of the other horses.

‘Poor kid. Sometimes I wish I could smash Stuart's face in for what he continually puts Gabe through. I'm amazed the boy returns for holidays from university. I'd stay well away if I were him,' Jacob said.

Joshua nodded. ‘Me too. To both Gabe staying away from home, and to wanting to beat up Stuart. But I think Gabe comes home for Mauve, to check on his mother, not for want of seeing his father. I don't know how we can actually be related by blood. Pity you can't choose your relatives.'

‘Agreed. But I'd still choose you, brother, despite the fact that you are a total softy. You know you give in to Tara all the time, right?' Jacob said, but his face was soft too, the words said without malice.

‘Thanks, but you would not have to choose me as your brother. Because you were born exactly three minutes after me, I would be the one choosing my younger sibling.' Joshua laughed and Jacob shook his head.

Joshua coughed, and his tone turned more serious. ‘I know I give into her. She looks at me with that pixie face, bats those blue eyes and I'm toast. There's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for her. Not that I have ever heard you say no to her either.'

‘That's my sworn duty as the doting uncle. Never to give her cause to doubt I'll say yes. Since your girls will be the only ones who will ever call me Uncle, it's my duty to spoil them,' Jacob said as he
mounted his horse, Ziona. He took the lead reins of the five horses from his brother's hand, so that Joshua could mount up on the bay, Elliana. ‘You, on the other hand, will face the wrath of your wife when we get home so late with your daughter. Give it another two hours and it will get dark while we stand around here talking. Even though the war is over, she still hates it when you are out in the dark. Especially if you have Tara with you.'

‘She'll forgive us. She always does. Besides, she knows that Tara gets her horse-madness from me, and that she is happier on a horse than anywhere else. Maggie loves me, she always forgives me.'

‘You're a lucky son of a bitch, you know that? First Maggie and now the girls. I tell you, I envy your life now that independence is here.'

‘No you don't. You love being the footloose bachelor of the district. Think of the routine life I have settled into, the downside of being a lawyer from Monday to Friday. You would die trapped inside a courtroom.'

‘That I would. Give me my trucking company any day …'

‘Come on,' Joshua said as he mounted. His brother passed him back two of the lead reins, and twisting in his saddle, Joshua touched Elliana's flank with his heels to begin their journey home. She needed no second urging and the horses on lead reins pranced behind her, free of their saddles that had been loaded in the back of Maggie's
bakkie
, they tossed their heads in high spirits, sensing they were on their homeward journey.

Joshua grinned at his daughter. It was hard to believe she was already twelve years old. With her pixie build, inherited from her mother, she looked about eight. Her ash-blonde hair, cut with a blunt fringe, was sticking up at all angles after their day spent at the district party at the Farmers' Club. Her dungarees were striped denim and she wore a cotton shirt. Maggie had told him that although Tara still had no bosom, she'd put all her T-shirts at the back of her wardrobe and would only wear thick, button-up cotton shirts so no one could see that she was a late bloomer behind the other girls at school. Her huge dark blue eyes noticed everything,
and were like windows into her soul. Sparkling mischievously, they radiated her humour, her love for life and her passion for horses.

‘Do I have to stay behind the lead horses on the way home, or can I ride next to you, Dad?' she asked as Apache automatically pushed his way forward to be nearer the lead, putting the mares and geldings behind him.

‘Just keep Apache close to the front, honey,' he said. ‘But don't let him get too far ahead of us.'

Tara patted Apache's thick neck as he tossed his head.

‘Bye, guys, see you soon,' Gabe called as he aimed an old camera at them. Tara turned slightly in her saddle, waved and blew him a kiss. Gabe was the opposite of her in looks, and despite their age difference he was her best friend. His eyes were as green as bright emeralds, rimmed with thick lashes and heavy eyebrows. His thick sable-brown hair was cut short on the sides, and a little longer on the top, so that it seemed to fall like a horse's mane to the side of his face. She smiled, thinking of him cooped up with her sister Dela and her mum in the front of the
bakkie
, until the intersection of theirs and the Victoria Falls Road, where he had to get out and drive back into Bulawayo with his dad.

Her smile slipped from her face. She wasn't too fond of Gabe's dad. Once she had tickled Gabe when he was with them for a weekend, and he had winced away. She lifted his shirt, despite him telling her not to, and she had seen the biggest, blackest bruise on his side. When she asked what had happened, he told her he'd fallen down the stairs at home. But Gabe was swift and surefooted, and he would never have done that. So she kept asking, until eventually he told her that his dad had hurt him, and made her promise not to tell her parents, because if she did, then he wouldn't be allowed to come to their house anymore. She had never told a soul. She would rather see a bruised Gabe than never see him at all. And she made him promise to try to keep out his father's way. And he had – mostly. Soon after that he finished school and went away to university, but he still came home for holidays. Tara wished he came only to them and not to his parents' house.

Apache began to gain speed. Tara quickly brought her mind back to her horse and her hand back to her reins as the stallion followed her dad as he urged his horses into a trot, then a gentle canter as they left the farmers' club behind and headed homewards.

Dusk was just knitting its inky darkness over the African sky. The lengthening shadows had joined together and formed barriers of dark beneath the
lowvelt
bush. A quietness spread over the small riding party. Ahead of them, a big kudu bull leapt over the road, followed by another three. Their large twisted horns looked majestic as crowns as they nimbly negotiated their way into the thick bush on the other side of the road and disappeared from view, their grey coats and white stripes perfect camouflage, helping them to blend into the thorn trees. Dusty brown impala flicked their tails as they grazed along the shorter grass next to the road, ghosting silently back into the bush as the party of three humans and eight horses walked peacefully near them, the buck unthreatened by the riders on their horses. Beetles sang into the coming night, loud and high pitched. A go-away bird called, signalling their intrusion into the bush.

‘Can we have a rest, Dad?' Tara asked as she yawned and arched her back to ease the ache that had begun to throb there. After riding for the past hour and a half, and having to keep Apache in check, her muscles needed a break.

‘We are almost there, only one fence left. We're still on Potgieter's land, but soon we'll be home.' He turned to her and smiled, and she saw his teeth flash white in his tanned face.