‘You realise this only now, but I have been warning you. You were not listening and now we are here.’ Beatrice pulls Nthebolang to the side, away from the people streaming out of the kgotla, out of their hearing. ‘What have you done?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ says Nthebolang.
‘No secrets.’ Beatrice’s face is set hard. ‘What has happened to you? You’re different. Are you against me now? I can’t have you against me.’
Nthebolang decides she will keep her promise – no secrets. No more secrets between them.
‘The other night … I went to Motsumi. You were right. I see that now. He cares nothing for me. I went to him; it’s done. I made a bad choice and now it is done. I can’t change anything.’
Beatrice’s face softens. ‘I’m sorry for that. He’s no man for you, though, and I’m glad you see that now.’ She rubs her hand along Nthebolang’s back, her mood suddenly gentle. ‘And that man, who is he?’
‘Which man?’
‘The man just now. I saw him look at you; he was with the old lady.’
No secrets. Beatrice is the only one she can trust, Nthebolang tells herself.
‘His name is Barobi. He’s the one who killed my uncles, I’m sure of it now. The one who should have been executed in my father’s place. Now I think he’s arranging to kill Motsumi’s brother. They are pushing Motsumi to him, to be part of it all. Barobi. And now the brother has been shot – maybe the boy is already dead. Maybe he has used his magic and killed the boy already.’
Her words make it seem real and Nthebolang fears she will cry. She hates to think of that innocent boy in the middle of all of this.
‘A dangerous man, I could see that.’ Beatrice nods, considering what Nthebolang has said. ‘You need to help me with something. We need to act quickly – everything is moving faster than I had anticipated. Will you help me?’
‘Yes. Yes, I’ll help you.’
At home, Nthebolang’s mother puts Elizabeth to bed for her nap and then starts on the Sunday lunch. She prefers to cook alone, and Sunday after service is usually a free time for Nthebolang, so her mother doesn’t miss her when Beatrice asks to meet her in front of the back shed.
‘What are we doing?’ Nthebolang asks. She looks down at the shiny padlock on the shed door that had not been there before. Thomas Milner must have put it there to keep his guns safe. Beatrice produces a key and unlocks it. She steps inside the darkness of the shed.
Nthebolang follows her inside. Normally the shed holds tools, the harnesses for the wagon, baskets for harvesting. Those things are there, but at the back is a tall stack covered with a tarpaulin.
‘There they are,’ says Beatrice. ‘He’s taken some. He’ll come for the rest tonight – I’m sure of that now. We need to act immediately.’
She pushes back the tarpaulin and there are the crates of guns. There are six crates in all, far fewer than the number that had arrived.
‘We can’t take an entire crate,’ says Beatrice. ‘He’ll notice. I think one or two guns are enough to convince them. And I must remove the label for evidence.’
‘Evidence? Evidence for whom?’
‘It’s really only insurance, nothing more.’
Beatrice smiles and gets to work. She grabs a long piece of metal and prises open one of the crates. She takes out two guns. From another crate she removes the slat of wood that carries the label of the gun maker. She pounds the lid back in place. Then she replaces the tarpaulin so that everything looks undisturbed. She wraps the guns and the slat of wood in the blanket that she has brought with her and ties it to her back.
‘But Thomas will certainly notice the missing guns,’ says Nthebolang.
‘Yes, later when he takes them to Kgosi Sechele. He’ll be furious – furious with the men who sold the guns to him. But he’ll not let Kgosi Sechele see it. The thing you don’t understand about Thomas, Nthebolang, is that he thinks I’m an idiot, a bushwoman with no brain. A black woman with no sense to plan anything. Give him a million years and he’ll never suspect me.’
Nthebolang thinks she hears a noise and jumps. She looks out the door but no one is there.
‘We need to hide them. I think the cave will be the best place,’ says Beatrice. ‘Let’s go.’
‘I don’t think we should go back there. Let’s find a place around here, nearer,’ Nthebolang says. She doesn’t want to go back to that cave.
‘No, it’s not safe. I can’t risk it. The Boers might attack the village and find them. I must keep these guns; they’re too important. The cave is far enough away. We’ll bring them closer after things have settled down.’
Nthebolang reluctantly agrees, though she can make no sense of Beatrice’s plan. How will stealing the guns secure anything? And yet now they’re off to the cave to hide them. After the Boer attack, the land around the village is not safe and people will be moving around as they prepare for war. They need to find the most circuitous path to the cave. The guns strapped to Beatrice’s back don’t look like guns, but they don’t look like a child strapped there either. People will be curious; they’ll ask questions. They’ll talk.
‘But the cave … the evil there … You were the one who said—’ Nthebolang starts.
‘Yes, evil should be with evil. What do you think these guns are? They’ll bring only misery.’
‘They’ll bring the people back. They’ll save them from the Boers.’
‘Yes, perhaps. But what will the cost be? There will be a cost. Evil must stay with evil.’
This makes little sense, but Nthebolang goes along with what she considers an ill-conceived plan. It’s already getting late. They will not be able to make it back before sunset. She feels as if she betrayed Beatrice by not telling her about the guns when she first suspected what the crates contained, and for what she and Motsumi did, and she doesn’t want to let her down again.
‘We must tell my mother something,’ Nthebolang says. ‘She’ll wonder where we have gone.’
‘Yes, fine, but make it quick. Thomas could return at any time.’
Nthebolang goes into the house. Her mother is busy pounding sorghum for porridge. ‘Is Elizabeth asleep?’
‘Yes. She’s so upset about what she heard. It’s too much for a child.’
Nthebolang can see her mother is upset too. She would have preferred to stay with her but now things have already been set in motion and Beatrice is waiting for her.
‘Beatrice and I heard one of the injured men has been brought into the village. We thought we might go and see if we could help. At the very least, Beatrice thought we could pray for him.’
‘It’s good to hear her taking up her role as the reverend’s wife. Better she does that instead of her normal wandering. Good, yes, you go. Help the poor man. I’ll stay here and wait for Thomas Milner, watch Elizabeth. This whole thing has shaken me up so.’
Nthebolang and Beatrice leave, heading away from the village in the opposite direction of the hills. They will need to circle back on the other side of the cattleposts and this will take even more time, time they do not have. They reach the base of the hills just as the sun falls to the horizon.
‘We’ll need to be very careful,’ says Nthebolang. ‘There are wild animals—’
‘We’ll be fine,’ Beatrice interrupts her, rubbing the spot between her breasts as she does so often.
Beatrice takes the lead, suddenly very knowledgeable about the terrain, sure-footed and unafraid. It’s dark when they reach the place where the path divides and Beatrice heads right without a word. They’re moving at a steady pace, aware only of the sound of their breathing.
At the top, Beatrice turns back to Nthebolang. ‘I think you must lead us now. I don’t remember the way very well from here.’
She stands to the side of the narrow path and Nthebolang moves ahead of her.
Baboons bark in the distance and Nthebolang is nervous. She’s not comfortable out here in the hills at night, unlike Beatrice who seems at home among the things of the night. Bab
oons are a leopard’s favourite food. Where they are, leopards surely follow. Nthebolang tries not to think of that and moves off through the dense brush, pushing it aside with a stick, holding it back so Beatrice can pass.
At the cave, Beatrice takes a candle and matches from her pocket. Nthebolang is thankful for her forethought. The light of the candle shows that the cave is empty, the bats gone for their nightly hunt.
Beatrice enters the cave and walks quickly to the back. With the candle, they can now see that it’s quite deep, deeper than it had felt the last time. It’s at least twenty feet to the back of the cave. They walk to the edge where they nearly fell into the darkness the last time. Beatrice holds the candle out over the hole.
‘I can’t see any bottom. It goes down very far. I don’t feel them here at the moment, though … the spirits. I wonder why; I wonder where they’ve gone.’
‘It goes on forever,’ says Nthebolang, looking down at the hole. Fear slices through her thinking of what might have happened the time before.
Beatrice holds the candle up behind them and spots a ledge in the rock some distance away from the hole. ‘There, that’s perfect. Help me put these up there.’ She removes the blanket from her back and lets the package fall to the floor of the cave.
The ledge is higher than either one of them can reach. Nthebolang bends down so that Beatrice can get onto her back. She climbs up holding the blanket containing the two guns and the plank with the label, and pushes them on to the ledge, as far back as she can. No one will see them, not even with a candle. They’re well-hidden and safe until Beatrice needs them again.
As she climbs down, she knocks over the candle that she’s stuck to the wall. It goes out and, as it does, they hear voices at the entrance to the cave.
Alarmed, they fall silent as they move closer to the wall, pressing themselves against it. They’re hidden at a place where the wall curves sharply; they cannot be seen from the mouth of the cave. Nthebolang prays that whoever it is will not decide to walk to the back.
She looks at Beatrice in the dim light of the candle the people entering the cave have brought with them. Beatrice’s face is set, determined, but Nthebolang sees no fear there. She notices something in her hand and when the light flickers again, Nthebolang sees it’s a small knife, sharpened to a razor’s edge. She looks at Beatrice’s face but Beatrice is concentrating on the people who have entered the cave.
It’s more than one person; it sounds like three: two women and a man.
‘Sit,’ the man says.
‘I don’t like it here,’ a woman says. She sounds young.
‘Keep quiet; do as he tells you,’ an older woman says.
‘I have some of his flesh. I cut it from the wound,’ the man says. ‘I’ll cut it into two pieces. You will each eat one. It will give you power over him. He’ll not see you at all. No one will be able to harm you.’
Nthebolang hears the younger woman crying. No one pays any attention to her. No one tries to comfort her.
‘Eat!’ the older woman demands.
The man begins to chant and the older woman joins him. Nthebolang can’t understand the words; it’s not a language she’s familiar with. Although she and Beatrice cannot see the three people, they’ve made a fire of some kind and their shadows are reflected on the opposite wall of the cave.
As they chant, their shadows move faster and faster on the cave wall as they dance around and around the fire. Beatrice grips Nthebolang’s hand. The chanting in that unfamiliar language speeds up and the shadows on the wall are blurred into one as they dance faster and faster in a circle. Nthebolang feels a cold breeze. It comes from the back of the cave – from the hole. The breeze grows stronger, and soon a wind howls from the hole, an icy wind blowing towards the front of the cave. New shadows appear on the cave wall. Where there were three before, there are now many – tens, hundreds maybe, a crowd dancing, naked and laughing. Wild laughter echoes throughout the cave, the chanting bouncing off the rock walls amplified each time. The fire flickers higher and higher as the crowd dances against one another.
Nthebolang is statue-still; next to her Beatrice is the same. They watch the spectacle on the wall as they huddle in the icy cold. It goes on and on, becoming ever more wild and reckless.
And then everything stops.
The cave is silent. The temperature rises. The fire goes out.
‘It’s time to go,’ the man says. The women do not respond. Nthebolang hears them for a while: collecting things, stepping here and there. The younger woman seems to be weeping again.
Beatrice and Nthebolang do not move for a long time, hours maybe; they have no way of telling. Fear freezes them in place. They don’t move until they’re sure the three people have left the cave, left the mountain. They move only when they’re sure the three are long gone, gone with everything they brought with them, including what came from the hole at the back of the cave.
Chapter Twenty-seven
It’s past midnight when they arrive back at the mission house. Nthebolang’s mother rushes out to the gate, frantic. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I told you where we went,’ Nthebolang says. ‘There was no need to worry.’
‘You lied,’ her mother says. ‘You two are just lucky that Thomas Milner has not yet returned. If he had come, what would I have said?’
‘That we had gone to the injured man’s house. That’s what I told you.’ Nthebolang does not want to speak to her mother right now.
‘I know you were not there. Mmapitse told me. She was there. I asked her about you and she knew nothing. She was very concerned too. She wanted to know where you went. I could see she was also scared for you.’
‘I told you not to speak to her about me,’ Nthebolang says, more sharply than she means to. ‘I don’t like her; she’s not who she claims to be. I told you, I don’t want her to know anything about me.’
‘I was worried, that’s all.’
Beatrice interrupts. ‘I’m sorry, Mary. It was me. This whole thing – the attack and everything – it upset me so. I was scared and so worried for our safety. I wanted to go for a walk to calm down, a walk away from the village, away from all of it. It seems we got lost. I’m sorry that we worried you. We walked east of the village, a place we’re not so familiar with and we got turned around. It took us forever to find the path again once it was dark.’
Nthebolang’s mother backs down. ‘No … yes, it’s fine, Madam. It’s nothing … but you must be careful where you walk. There will be fighting now – we won’t know when or where. It’s better you stay around the village.’
‘Yes, of course. I was very foolish. Nthebolang tried to tell me but I insisted. Please don’t blame her. It was me.’ Beatrice looks the picture of remorse.
‘Yes … well … best we all get to bed. It’s nearly morning. Maybe we can still get a few hours of sleep before we must be up again.’
Nthebolang follows her mother to the servant’s hut and Beatrice goes into the mission house. They barely spoke on the way back. Neither of them wanted to confirm what they’d seen, and what they felt. It could wait for daylight when it’s easier to speak of such things.
Beatrice is right. Just after they go to bed, Thomas Milner arrives with the wagon and loads the last crates from the storeroom. Nthebolang cannot sleep after what happened and sits on the stoep of the servant’s hut waiting for daylight. Thomas Milner needs only to look her way to see her, but he doesn’t. He’s engrossed in his work. He loads everything quickly and leaves. His face shows he’s excited. Nthebolang finds this odd. There’s death ahead, killing, helped by him, and yet his face looks as if he waits for it all with great anticipation. It’s as if he enjoys what will come.
When she’s sure he’s gone, she slips out of the gate and heads to the koppie. The sun is not yet up and the village is silent despite all the worry pulsing through it. Nevertheless, she slips around the back, not wanting to be seen. She wants to be away from everything. The mission house is tainted by Tho
mas Milner’s guns and Beatrice’s plans, by thoughts of what happened in that cave, by the medicine put at the gate by Mmapitse. She needs a calm place where her mind can be silent so that she can think; the koppie calls to her.
She slips around to the eastern side and sits down, her legs pulled up close to her chest. What happened in the cave? Could she even explain it to anyone else? Who were those people? It had been hard for her to see from the shadows, even from the voices, distorted in the echoing cave. Whose flesh were they eating and why? She also wonders where Beatrice got the knife she had in her hand. Beatrice demands she keeps no secrets, but secrets are all Beatrice seems to be made of. Though the questions mount, Nthebolang tries not to answer them because surely the answers will be even worse. She tries to calm her mind and think of other things.
Nthebolang hears something behind her and there is Motsumi.
‘You’re here,’ he says. ‘I didn’t expect you to come. Not after everything.’
‘I didn’t expect you either. I just needed to get away from the mission house for a while,’ Nthebolang says.
He sits down next to her in the space between the two boulders. He faces her, pulling his legs up and holding them with his arms, mirroring her.
‘Baatweng is at home. He was shot in the shoulder. It’s not bad. They had the healers there. They say he’ll recover. He’ll be fine.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you fine now? Did you get things sorted with your mother and Seabe?’ Nthebolang asks, her hopes still unable to be quashed.
‘I spoke to my mother. I said I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be part of her plan. I told her I wouldn’t marry Seabe either. She was angry, so angry. But I think in the end she understood. I think so anyway. She promised she would tell them that we would not be part of it … part of any of it. That she would tell … Baro—I mean the man.’
Her suspicion is confirmed. It is Barobi. She suspects he is hiding that from her since she said how much she despises the man. At least he has spoken up and freed himself from their horrible plans.
But Deliver Us from Evil Page 17