‘Hey! Move this shit, old man.’
The old man in the plastic chair did not move. Did not acknowledge the presence of the armed men in any way whatsoever. Texas pushed on the horn.
‘Move, or we will move it for you.’
Finally the old man looked at Texas. His face was crinkled and weather-lined, his hair frosted with white but his eyes were those of a youth. And they sparkled with wit.
‘Go away,’ he said and then he removed the pipe from his mouth, took a tobacco pouch from his pocket and started working on a fill.
Texas leaned out again. ‘Fuck you, old man. Move or face my wrath.’
The old man had packed his pipe and was now lighting it with a match. When he was satisfied with the burn he stood up and walked slowly over to the Range Rover. Smoke billowed from his mouth like a stream engine of children’s literature. I think I can, I think I can. He stopped at Texas’ window.
‘Go home, boy.’ Puff, puff.
Texas literally started to vibrate with rage. His neck swelled up and his eyes became bloodshot. Such was his anger at being treated like this that he struggled to get his words out and when he did it sounded as though he were chewing on them and spitting them out as individual little packets of malice.
‘If you do not start moving this shit in the next ten seconds then I will get out of the car and I will cut your withered old cock off and choke you with it. Do I make myself clear?’
The old man stared at the gang lord for a few seconds and then burst into laughter.
‘Hau, boy,’ he pointed at his crotch. ‘To cut this monster off you will need a very big knife. And a boy like you won’t have the strength to wield such a weapon. That is a man’s job. Now go away. Okay?’
Texas grabbed the door handle, ready to jump out and teach the old idiot a lesson in respect. But he could not move. Dubula had grabbed hold of him and had pulled him back into his seat with a grip of iron.
‘Boss, look.’
The urgency of his bodyguard’s tone cut through his anger and he stopped.
‘Take a look around, boss.’
Texas scoped out the surrounding area. On both sides of the road stood ranks of Zulus. Hundreds of them. They were dressed in a variety of clothes but had one thing in common. All carried a five-foot shield and at least one assegai. And as Texas looked they started to rattle their spears against their shields. Softly at first and then with increasing volume. The sound of thunder rippled across the land, building until the hair on Texas’ neck stood up. The drumming louder than he could believe. The windows of the car shook. The doors shook. The very ground itself shook in sympathy. And then as one the impi raised their right foot and slammed it back onto the bare earth. A single crashing detonation of sound followed by a long drawn out expulsion of air.
‘Jeeeeeeeee.’
And for the first time in a long while Texas was afraid. He could clearly hear the sound of his men in the cavalcade cocking their weapons. The metallic sound small and pathetic when compared with the primeval sound of the warriors that surrounded them. He held his hands up in supplication.
‘I am sorry for my rudeness, ancient one.’
The old man nodded, accepting the change of address. The respect that it conveyed.
Texas continued. ‘We do not come here to war with the people of the sky. We come on a personal mission.’
‘Yes, mister Zangwa,’ spoke the old man. ‘We know. You seek Petrus Dlamini.’
Texas nodded his agreement.
‘He is not here.’ The old man noted the disbelief in the gang lord’s eyes. ‘He was here. He came to ask a boon of the chief. He wanted…’ The old man gestured at the impi that surrounded them. ‘This.’ He puffed again on his pipe and stared at Texas. ‘The boon was refused. He has left chief Dlamini’s lands.’
‘Where has he gone?’ asked Texas.
The old man pointed at a mountain range in the far distance. Blue and gray and green. ‘He has gone there. To hide.’
‘And why do you tell us?’
The old man shrugged. ‘It is not our battle. It is something that he has brought on himself.’
‘Thank you, ancient one. Tell me, how do we get there?’
Again the old man shrugged. ‘The mountains are called, Qiniselani Manyuswa. Get there any way that you want but do not cross into Dlamini’s land or you will never leave it. Do I make myself clear, boy?’
Texas swallowed his anger.
‘Yes, old man.’
The old man chuckled and puffed his way back to his plastic seat.
When Texas looked around him there was no longer any trace of the impi that had ranged before him and, when he turned back to the roadblock the old man had also disappeared. Texas shivered with superstitious dread.
‘Come on,’ he said to Dubula. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of this place, we’ve got some people to kill.’
***
Garrett had parked the Jeep at the foothills of the mountain range. They had driven it in amongst a copse of thorn trees and then covered it with grass and cut branches to hide it. Afterwards the seven men took to foot. The four new Zulus carried a shield, an assegai and a burlap sack with a rope tied to it so it could be slung over a shoulder. Garrett, Petrus and Mandoluto also carried a sack each. Each sack contained a plastic two-liter water bottle, a bag of maize meal, salt, and sugar, cooking utensils, a canvas ground sheet and a few pounds of biltong or dried beef. Garrett had a few extra items in his sack as well as his machete in a sheath on his belt. Petrus had his assegai and the bishop his long gun.
Taking lead from Petrus they formed a single file and jogged along a narrow track that headed into the hills. The track zigzagged upwards in an effort to keep the ascent from becoming too steep. But to anyone who was not in the peak of fitness it would still be a very hard race to run. After a few miles they came to the peak of the first of the foothills and stopped.
Garrett looked back. ‘So, Petrus. You reckon this is the only way up here?’
His friend nodded. ‘It’s the only safe way. There are other tracks but they peter out into dead ends. If you want to get into the heart of the mountains then this is your only choice.’
Garrett nodded approval. ‘Perfect. Let’s keep going then.’
The group loped on. Soldier’s strides eating up the miles. They ran into the early evening, stopping only once for a drink of water. Before it got too dark to see Garrett suggested they make camp. They broke from the trail, moving to the right for a few hundred yards and settled down in the lee of a large oblong rock. A granite loaf of bread. The Zulus started a small fire and cooked up some phutu pap, maize meal boiled up with salt until it achieved a stiff dough-like consistency.
Garrett organized the watch, taking the first hour for himself. They weren’t yet worried that Texas would be close to them but Garrett considered them to be at war, and when at war you set watches. The rest of the crew wrapped themselves in their canvas groundsheets and lay down on the earth.
After almost an hour Garrett felt the presence of someone close and he whipped his head around to see Mandoluto approaching. The bishop moved silently, not through design but merely because that was how he moved. Rolling on the edges of his feet. Each step taken with innate care. A natural predator. He raised an eyebrow in greeting and sat next to Garrett. Neither of them smoked. Not on watch.
‘And then we were seven,’ he said as he sat.
Garrett smiled. ‘Better than three.’
‘Yes. But not as good as three hundred.’
‘Three hundred would have been nice. In fact it would have been the only time that I would have been able to fight on the side of overwhelming strength.’
Mandoluto laughed. A small sound. An expulsion of air rather than a true vocalization of mirth. ‘Me too.’
‘I wonder why those four chose to join us. Friendship? Duty?’
Mandoluto stretched his arms above his head. Reached hard until his spine realigned with a series of tiny pops.
Garrett smiled his acceptance. ‘So, you good here?’
The bishop nodded.
Garrett stood up. ‘Right. I’ll get some shut-eye. Tomorrow it starts.’
He walked off into the darkness leaving the bishop to watch over them.
They woke early that morning, before the sun. Breakfast was similar to dinner except that the pap was not as stiff and sugar was added. By the time the sun had awoken they had been on the move for over an hour, moving ever up and into the craggy heart of the range. Into the broken ground where nature had formed hundreds of natural traps. Loose rocks. Grass covered pitfalls. Trails of scree and mud.
Around mid morning the trail cut around the crown of yet another peak. The air had grown colder and a fine rain misted the atmosphere. Soaking and chilling. Garrett called a stop.
‘Here,’ he said and pointed up at the peak above them. ‘That’s the place. Come.’
He headed off the track directly up the treacherous slope to the top. When they reached the top the surrounding vista was incredible. The savage folded, broken land stretched for miles around. Harsh and uncompromising. It reminded Garrett of the Scottish Highlands. He felt at home. This was a good place to start the fight. Here in this brutal landscape he would begin to bring Texas Zangwa to justice. This is where it would commence.
He called the others in close and explained what was to happen. There were a few arguments and then they turned as one and jogged off, carrying Garrett’s sack and leaving him alone on the mountaintop. And when they were gone the soldier sank to the ground and became invisible.
***
Texas had left three men with the cars. The rest, another sixty-four men, had been issued with their weapons. Each man carried either an AK with one hundred rounds of ammunition or a Skorpion with the same. Those that Texas considered as officers or long servers received a handgun as well. Everyone carried two Chinese stick grenades thrust into their belts. They had gotten directions from the locals to the bottom of the trail that headed into the mountains and had left the cars at the beginning of the track. And now they climbed, strung out like a baggage train of colonial proportions. The men carried full rucksacks, hurriedly purchased from a trading store in Drummond, containing tinned food, water, tea, coffee, tents, sleeping bags, torches, batteries, gas stoves and changes of clothing. The train stretched for almost two hundred yards with Texas and Dubula in the middle. The weather had turned and the air was frigid and heavy with moisture. Rain as fine as waterfall spray saturated all to the skin. Insidious and subtle. Whenever you stopped walking the cold crept into your bones and joints like symptoms of premature old age.
But the men’s morale was high. There was much laughing and joking. After all, it was little more than a sporting excursion. One of the locals had told them that the three men they were searching for had been joined by four others. But still these were the sort of odds that appealed to the men in the train. Ten to one advantage. After all, no one hunts down seventy foxes with a single dog. No, the odds always work the other way. To the rulers go the advantages. This was not a war, this was an example. Texas was proud of his men. He felt like a marauding conqueror of old. Crossing the mountains with his army of warriors, ready to do battle. Ready to teach the foreigner and his friends a lesson. Hannibal must have felt the same when he set out with his elephants.
And ahead of him, lying still in the grass, lay a single soldier. Waiting.
Chapter 24
Petrus, Mandoluto and the four new Zulus had clambered around the back of the mountain, a torturous and dangerous route that brought them out behind Texas and his unwieldy train of gangsters. Then they had watched them from afar and waited.
When the train was well past them Petrus spent some time selecting the perfect spot on the trail. Eventually he decided. It was where it reached its narrowest point, cutting along a particularly steep ridge, an almost sheer drop below and a climb as steep above. Then they spent the next four hours finding and rolling over as many large boulders as they could. By late afternoon they had collected over thirty of them. Then they had climbed down to the trail and, using sharpened sticks, dug out a trench underneath the trial. The trench ran for about twenty feet. Finally, their bodies aching from the physical strain that they had been subjected to, they rolled the boulders down onto the weakened trail. The first ten boulders made no seeming impact at all but by the fifteenth the trail had collapsed. When they rolled the last boulder down the hill there was no visible sign of any trail at all, merely a treacherous landslide of rocks and mud and loose scree. The way home had effectively been cut off.
***
The sun was going down and Texas had called to make camp. They had found a flattish area slightly off the beaten track but they would be unable to form a circle or square of any sort, the bulk of the tents would be strung out along the trail. But this did not bother anyone unduly as there was no possibility of them being attacked. The small handful of men that they were seeking would be attempting to get as far away as possible. In fact Texas’ biggest concern was that they were not traveling fast enough to catch up with the offenders that they wanted to punish. He made a note to himself to push harder to the next day.
The men formed groups of five or six and used their gas stoves to heat up some dinner. The tents were pitched, watches allocated and rest taken. The fine rain continued and the men standing watch pulled their coats over their heads to take refuge.
At two hours and seventeen minutes past the witching hour Garrett began to creep forward. He had noted that Texas had made the usual amateurs mistake of changing watch on the hour. Garrett had learned of old that watches should be changed at irregular times. Thirteen past or seven minutes to. Never on the hour or half hour. Because who knew, perhaps someone like just like him was lurking in the long grass.
Texas and Dubula shared a tent in the middle of the flat area, surrounded by four other tents and seven watchmen who rotated around the clock. It would be impossible, or at least very costly, to get to either of them.
They had also placed another four watchmen along the trail, one at each end and one half way down towards the middle. The watchers were all stationary. Sitting huddled up against the rain. Focusing in on their own discomfort rather than out at what was happening around them. Rule number two, keep your watchmen mobile and get their patrol routes to intersect so that they had regular interaction. Keep them awake and on their toes.
The gangsters were sleeping in a variety of tents; they had taken all that the trading store had in stock so there was no choice. They ranged from small two-man to double height four-man affairs in a mélange of colors from green to Day-Glo orange.
Garrett chose a daffodil-yellow two-man about a third of the way along the stretched out encampment. With infinite care he leopard crawled towards the tent, not taking a direct route but rather sliding from shadow to shadow. He had tied a dark cloth over his mouth to stop any condensate forming in the low nighttime temperatures and he had blackened his face with mud. His machete was in its sheath but that was not to be his weapon of choice. In his right hand he held a small, razor –sharp skinning knife, its blade smeared with mud. In his left an eight inch sharpened hardwood stick, about the thickness of his thumb. And as the night wore on the soldier edged towards the tent. As slow and insidious as cancer.
When Garrett finally reached the back of the tent undetected he used the skinning knife to cut an opening in the nylon. The blade whispered through the
fabric and Garrett eased it open. Lying there were two men. One lay on his back, the other on his side. They lay with their heads at the door, their feet towards Garrett. Both were breathing the rhythmic breath of deep sleep. Garrett chose the one sleeping on his back. Throat exposed. Slowly, he moved into the tent, supporting himself on his arms so that he was above the man. A selfish lover readying himself to enter a woman. And then with one smooth movement he let himself fall onto the sleeping form. His right hand clamped over the man’s mouth and nose and the left hand plunged towards his throat. The sharpened stake shredded the man’s voice box, preventing sound, and then continued its upward journey, penetrating the roof of his mouth and entering his brain. The body twitched slightly but Garrett was lying full length on top so the other sleeper remained unaware of the violent scene that was taking place a mere foot away from him.
The soldier waited a complete minute before he moved, and when he did it was with the same death-like stealth as before. He slid backwards off the body and then, inch-by-inch, he pulled the corpse out of the tent after him.
The return trip took even longer than Garrett expected and it was literally minutes before false dawn when he had finally moved far away enough to stand. He picked the body up, threw it over his shoulder and jogged off. After twenty minutes or so he came across a concealed pit fall, covered with grass. Treacherous. He dumped the body into it and ran on towards his pre-planned rendezvous point with his Petrus.
***
Texas was apoplectic. The gangster who had shared the tent with the missing man lay sprawled on the ground in front of him. Blood seeped from a cut on his lip and his right eye was swollen shut. Texas kicked him again, eliciting a grunt of pain.
‘How can someone cut a hole in your tent and simply take your partner without you knowing?’
The prone man mumbled an answer.
Garrett & Petrus- The Complete Series Page 21