Today's Embrace (47 page)

“Well spoken, Evy, and may He continue to bless those who bring His truth to all the tribes of the earth.”

“But is it a fact that some in the BSA have confiscated the cattle of the vanquished Ndebele farmers for their own livestock?”

“The pioneers heartily deny the injustice and cry foul!” Dr. Jakob said.

Could they be right?

After more work at the medical ward, Evy went back to the bungalows to inform Mrs. Croft she would be going with Jakob to Bulawayo the following week.

Mrs. Croft wasn't at any of the bungalows, and Evy remembered she had gone with Alice to pick the standing corn.

Evy was tired, and the walk to the fields seemed too long on this hot, dusty midmorning. She borrowed Dr. Jakob's horse-drawn trap and drove from the bungalows onto the narrow dirt road to the garden fields belonging to the mission.

Despite the station's being located near the river, the dust was thick, resembling reddish makeup for a powder puff. The South African sky appeared like a sheet of cloudless blue marble. Her skin felt damp and sticky, and the dust settled on her hands and stuck there.

She thought of Rogan, sighed, and flipped the reins. The fields were just ahead. She pulled the trap to the side of the field and stopped the horse.

Her lips turned into a smiling memory that she treasured. It had been wonderful during the first months of their marriage when he had been close by her side.

She climbed down, feeling the heat on her bare ankles with the rise
of dust. What was unthinkable in Grimston Way—not wearing stockings—came naturally here at the mission outpost. Out of habit, she gave a quick glance along the edge of the path to make certain no safari ants were on the move, then took the cutoff from the road that led toward the fields.

Odd … she tucked her brows together. The birds were still not singing … For that matter, there weren't any animal sounds at all.

Mrs. Croft was farther ahead, with Alice Tisdale Brown, talking with a Shona woman, whom Evy noticed had come hurrying up from the river, excitedly pointing behind her. Evy paused and looked that way too. She couldn't see much of the river water, as the sloping fields ran down to the banks, where tall grasses and bushes grew.

Alice was standing with a big sunhat on her red-blond hair worn in looped braids across her shoulders. Alice's prissy ways and crisp lace collars had certainly been washed limp by her years in the African velds! Even her pale complexion, with its scattering of freckles, was browned by the scorching summers that were so different from the cool damp ones of Grimston Way. Some distance away, her and Derwent's three children were squealing and playing with a handful of African children of the Christian converts.

Mrs. Croft's cheeks wore two rosy dollops of color from the heat, and her expression was one of fluster and overwork. She stood frowning at the large Shona woman.

“What's that?” Mrs. Croft crowed, showing the language differences irritated her. “Eh? Winged
what?
What'd she say, Alice?” Mrs. Croft put a hand behind an ear and leaned toward Alice.

Evy walked toward them. Alice had picked up some of the Shona language from her years here, but in this situation she appeared dull of senses and merely stood gaping at the African woman, as though Mrs. Croft had not spoken.

Evy laughed at the sight. She couldn't help it. She wished Mrs. Tisdale could see her spoiled Alice now—

Evy paused and frowned. What was that unearthly noise in the distance?

She turned and looked. The sky appeared like the bottom of a sallow pond.

Evy held her canvas hat in place with one hand and shaded her eyes with the other. How very odd indeed! Why, it sounded almost like a coming train, and that was quite impossible.

“Oh noooh,” came Alice's whine. Her voice trailed unfinished as she jerked toward her children. “Derry—Katie—Molly, quick, quick, come to Mama—” She hurried to gather them together.

Mrs. Croft was looking all around and up toward the tree tops. “That crazy noise—what on earth—?”

Evy hurried forward. “Sounds like a train, but it couldn't be.” Her skin crawled. A lion's roar? No, certainly not. This was different. She turned on the beaten path, looking intently and straining to identify the noise.

“Inside the huts,” Alice was shouting toward them. “Hurry, Evy, Mrs. Croft—” She had grabbed her three children's arms and was practically lifting them off the dust and trying to run with them toward the nearest hut.

The Shona woman was shooing the other children toward the huts like a hen with her chicks, kicking up the red dust around them as she did.

The mission station itself was too far to reach for safety, but Evy, confused, wondered what it was they were trying to escape.

So, apparently, was Mrs. Croft, who was still trying to comprehend when Alice screamed, “Locusts!”

Locusts? Evy squinted toward the sky. The horizon was darkening before her eyes. Could there be that many grasshoppers? She stood transfixed, staring.

The sky toward the north looked as if twilight were setting in due to a dark storm, but this seemed to have a bizarre density to it. The size and speed of this dark cloud challenged her courage. For as the dark
blotch grew nearer, she could see that the darkness was in the shape of a moving arch, flying as one body.

Her bewilderment turned to dismay as she understood that it was bearing down upon her. The edge of the giant dark blotch seemed to darken the sun with a smoky haze.

Evy saw that Alice and her children were nearing the hut with the Shona. Evy started toward Mrs. Croft, who came toward her, and interlocking their arms, they moved toward the hut where Alice was huddling, beckoning Evy to hurry, but she couldn't run. She felt clumsy with child, and her spine was aching. Her legs wouldn't move smoothly over the uneven rows of corn, and Mrs. Croft refused to leave her.

“Lord Jesus, help us,” Evy prayed.

Swiftly the dismal surge of wings canvassed the heavens, and the sun appeared to turn a dull orange, while a massive moving shadow swooped upon the land.

Mrs. Croft was pulling her along with her steady grip. The sound was becoming louder. Looking upward, Evy saw the curtain of flying insects smother the sky, followed by a sound of whirring, tiny wings, millions of them. The brassy sun looked like a misshapen orb.

The sound of wings gathered strength and filled Evy's ears until the horror of the great army of locusts started descending toward her and Mrs. Croft.

The rustling wings turned into an oppressive roar, and then a rush of wind came as the sunlight was shut out. From out of the sickly eclipsed half-light came the twisting columns of locusts.

With the roar of millions of wings descending upon the field where she and Mrs. Croft were seeking refuge, they dropped to the ground on their knees and clung together, heads bent as the locusts struck like grapeshot, smashing into them. Evy felt the stinging impact of each horny-winged body with numbing effect. Evy used her hands to protect her face. She was half-blinded and dazed by the rushing torrent of wings swarming about her head, but when she swatted at the air, they were so
thick that she merely caught them in her hands. She could barely see Mrs. Croft, who was covered with them.

Evy looked with horror at a locust in her hand. Its body was twice as thick as one of her fingers, and its wings had bright orange and black designs. The thorax was shielded with a horny armor, and from its helmeted head, multiple bulging yellow eyes looked back. Its long rear legs were fringed with red-tipped barbs that cut her skin. The locust kicked convulsively in her palm, leaving blood droplets. She screamed. Multitudes of them swarmed all around her in a cloud—millions and millions.

She thought of the third plague of Egypt, and the locust army of Revelation, as well as the great destructive army of the Lord in the book of Joel.

She turned her back to the onrushing advance of flying bodies, but it was too late, for they were everywhere—on the ground, in the air, in her hair, on her back, her face, their thorny feet stinging as they vaulted into her. Her mind swam giddily; revulsion choked her.

Mrs. Croft reached for Evy. They held tightly to each other, burrowing their faces into each other's shoulders.

“Lord,” she kept praying, “help us, help—”

Then, with an abruptness that was startling, the sunlight broke through, and the air around them was clear.

Evy raised her face and had to shield her eyes from the glare of the noonday sun.

“Th-they're gone—” she rasped, shaking Mrs. Croft's shoulder.

Evy glanced around. “No, they've come down.” The locust swarm had landed on the earth, and now the world around them was becoming a skeleton. Evy gasped at the sight. The trees and bushes were moving and squirming with layers of orange and black bodies. The branches trembled under their greedy weight until they snapped every second or two with a repeated hideous sound. The corn stalks they had come to harvest were toppling down to the earth, as though an army of threshing instruments moved forward in unison. The ground seethed with
writhing bodies, rustling wings, and the hard click-click of bodies bumping into each other, crawling over each other.

“Oh, dear God,” prayed Mrs. Croft in a wail. “It's horrible, horrible—”

Evy laid an arm around her quivering shoulders, an arm scratched in places and speckled with blood. Her face felt sticky and sore.

“What's that?” Evy looked up and around them. Now there came a new sound—excited squawking, chirping, cawing, screeching. Another great army was on the wing. This one of birds, thousands of them gobbling up a great feast of locusts. A myriad of several kinds of birds dived, whirled, and landed with ecstatic glee. Storks were knee-deep in a sea of choice, meaty morsels.

The monstrous devastation from the locusts, followed by a gigantic feast for the birds, lasted less than an hour, and yet to Evy the horrifying experience had seemed unending. In reality, within minutes, the locust swarm, as if on a single cue, arose into the air as one mammoth body. Once more they soared heavenward. Sullen twilight fell across the land again as the sun was turned into a dull orange glow. Then darkness was followed by a burst of dazzling sunlight. The menacing black cloud winged away southward to wreak havoc on new greenery.

Evy and Mrs. Croft managed to get to their feet, holding to each other. They stood in the gaunt, stripped field, two figures huddled with astonishment.

After a minute or two, they were slowly joined by Alice and the Shona woman, all looking weak and small amid the ruined crops.

Evy blinked, dazed. She hardly recognized the area.

The corn fields were gone. Even the corn stalks had been devoured. The meager flowers and vines that had been struggling in the drought for skimpy survival were now no more. There were no feeble flowers with a brave smiling face, no golden grasses waving in the wind, no bush, nothing except some denuded spikes here and there.

The fruit trees Dr. Jakob had planted months ago upon coming here from the Zambezi were all bare sticks. Even the distant trees on the
hills and the growth along the banks of the Khami River had been stripped bare by the devouring locusts.

Evy looked near and far to find even one small trace of summer green, and there was none. No leaves or stalks or stems of grass. Nothing was left at all that had not been molested. All that remained was a brown world of death. The locust army had marched through Bulawayo and left it in calamity.

The locust plague, the cattle disease called rinderpest, and the months of drought had taken a heavy toll on Bulawayo and the surrounding region of Rhodesia. As the cattle were dying by the thousands, a wail went up among the African tribe. “The white chief has brought a great curse!”

The indunas gathered in a secret location and hummed in angry agreement. Cattle were their power and wealth. Who cared for diamonds and gold except the white chief? The white chief had shamed the impis and scattered them like skinny chickens across the veld. No blooded warrior of Zanzi blood knew who could take a wife because the young could not marry until they dipped their assegais into enemy blood. The cattle were cursed, and the sweet grass no longer grew. The rain no longer fell from the sky to quench the parched land.