Pale Horses

by Jassy Mackenzie

  ‘Why did he stop working for you?’

  ‘He got sick, I think.’ Loodts looked away, as if, with the prevalence of AIDS in South Africa, he surely didn’t need to say anything else.

  ‘What happened to him?’ Jade asked.

  ‘It was very sudden. He started looking emaciated – we both commented on it one weekend, myself and my wife. He left work early saying he’d been vomiting blood and he needed to go to hospital and get his stomach right. But you could see he was terminally ill. Then he stopped coming. That was the last time we saw him.’

  The rider looked at Jade again and for a while neither of them said anything. The tearing sound the horse made as he ripped up mouthfuls of dry grass was all that broke the silence.

  ‘He was a good guy,’ he said, as if he felt the need to supply a suitable obituary. Then he smiled. ‘I remember he used to ask to get paid in food.’

  ‘In food? I thought they were growing their own food in the community. That they were self-sufficient.’

  ‘This guy Khumalo, he wanted whatever we could give him. Anything from our pantry or freezer, and not always the stuff you’d expect those guys to ask for. We gave him meat, of course, but he also took vegetables, white flour, baking materials – hell, he even went home with a pack of tofu, soy sauce and rice noodles one time after we’d done a Japanese-themed dinner for the church. I remember he told us he had a wife who was trying to teach herself to be a chef.’

  Jade didn’t ask if he knew what had happened to the wife.

  She’d heard rumours of entire villages being wiped out by AIDS. Not in South Africa, though, in countries further north – Zambia, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of Congo – but she had no idea whether they were true or wild exaggerations. Very often it was the parents who died, leaving their children behind. If an entire community had been wiped out here, which was unlikely, Jade was certain it couldn’t have taken place in such a short time. That would take years, surely. And despite the stigma attached to the disease, wouldn’t some people have sought help at the local hospital?

  She looked again at the barren fields and then walked over to the closest edge. The rider followed her. The change in the quality of the terrain was obvious; a clear line where weeds and grasses ended and arid-looking soil began.

  ‘Doesn’t look like anything ever grew here,’ she observed. ‘Not that I’m a farmer, but this soil looks completely barren. You’d think there would be some sort of plant life taking root.’

  Loodts walked his horse out onto the field. The gelding dropped his head, sniffing the dry earth. Discovering nothing edible, he pawed the soil with an unshod hoof, raising a small cloud of dust.

  ‘Ja, I can’t say. If they were practising slash-and-burn agriculture together with overgrazing, that could have degraded the environment quite quickly, although you’d see more evidence of erosion. So perhaps it was something different. Maybe they got the fertiliser balance wrong, or used too much herbicide or pesticide,’ the rider hazarded. He glanced over at the lush growth that hemmed the flowing stream. ‘The river banks look OK though, but of course the running water can wash pollutants and toxins downstream. Once they’re on the field, they’re in the soil, aren’t they?’

  ‘Do you use water from this river on your farm?’

  ‘No. My farm, “Vyf Damme”, over on the other side of that hill, is named for its water supply. We have five large dams on the property. Never had a problem, I must say, and I’d know pretty quickly if there was one.’

  He turned the horse around and rode back onto the grass. ‘Doing without those poisons is a way of life for me,’ he continued. ‘Natural, organic, unspoilt. That’s what we try to do on our farm. We have the whole ecosystem working with no input from chemicals.’ He glanced down and checked his watch.

  ‘I’ll follow up on your theories,’ Jade said. And then, as an afterthought, ‘Have you ever heard of a group called the Boere Krisis Kommando?’

  ‘That bunch of extremists? Yes, I’ve heard of them but I don’t subscribe to their views. Anyway, I’d better get going now. Got another horse to ride after this one. Enjoy your day.’

  Giving her a friendly nod, he wheeled the horse around and cantered back up the steep slope.

  Jade walked over to examine the outlines of the houses that had once been there. Nothing now remained of their walls and doors, or the floors that once surely must have been installed. It was as if the entire settlement had been picked up and removed from the earth.

  The door to the old barn was gone, and so was its window glass. She walked around the inside, examining the walls, peering into the gloomy corners, but there was nothing to be seen. As she walked alongside the back wall, her foot brushed against something soft. She froze, looked down, but saw only the crumpled shape of a dirty sack. It looked as if it had been stuffed into a gap where the barn wall met the floor; perhaps to help keep out rain or rodents.

  She eased it out of the hole. It was dusty and filthy, with congealed dirt caked into its folds. It was also empty, although when she shook it out – handling it carefully by the corners in case it had contained something toxic – she noticed a logo printed in black on the brownish canvas. She frowned, struggling to make it out in the dim light. Walking over to a brighter area of the barn, she could see it comprised three leaves in the distinctive shape of a trident, which she remembered seeing on the invoice in the Williams Management offices.

  Not poison, then. Seeds.

  She folded the sack up again and shoved it back into the gap between the bricks.

  Outside, the sun seemed even more blinding. She blinked against its glare, looking away as she waited for her vision to adapt. She noticed a rocky outcrop in the shade of the twisted-looking thorn tree near the barn. The boulders had caught her attention not because of their smooth shape, but because of the streaks of rusty reddish-brown on their sides.

  Curious, she walked over to take a closer look.

  In this sheltered outcrop, she saw the only evidence that anything had ever lived here: a crimson liquid that had pooled on the flat surface of the rock and trickled down its sides. Dry now, it was faded on the top where it had been exposed to the sun’s rays, but darker on the shadier sides. It looked suspiciously like blood.

  Had someone lain here bleeding or vomiting blood? Had an animal been sacrificed here, either to be eaten or to appease the spirits?

  Jade took a photo of the rock using her cellphone. She needed it for the record because when the summer rains came this evidence would most likely be washed away for good.

  She found no other traces of anything untoward in the remainder of her search around the dusty remains of the settlement.

  Making her way back up the hill, Jade wondered what Sonet had been doing here on the land, after the community she’d worked so hard to help had vanished. Had she managed to find out where and why they had gone?

  It was only when she was back in her car, which was warm from standing in the sun, that she realised something.

  Taking off her baseball cap and tying her hair back into a ponytail, Jade suddenly remembered that Sonet had worn her hair short. Cropped to the nape of her neck like a boy’s.

  Down there on the lonely farm, Jade had been wearing her hair loose, blowing back over her shoulders in the chilly breeze.

  There was no way that, from a distance, anyone could have mistaken her for Sonet when the differences in their hair were so distinctive.

  So who, then, had the horseman originally spoken to on that abandoned land?

  15

  Ntombi wrenched herself away from her thoughts and forced her attention back to her surroundings. The purr of the BMW’s idling motor was so soft she barely noticed when she switched it off, especially with the constant flow of chatter from her son in the back seat. She had picked up Small Khumalo from school just a few minutes ago, the normality of this act seeming almost impossible after the long, dreadful hours she had spent with the hired killer.

  Light spilled
through the ventilation gaps in the garage’s wall, giving her a glimpse of the street outside. Minibuses jostled for position at the taxi rank, most of them white or off-white in colour, many with dents in their bodywork, all with the compulsory yellow reflective strips along their sides.

  Behind her, Small Khumalo undid his seatbelt and slid out of the car. She heard the miniature thunder of his feet as he raced away; she was just about to call him back when she realised he’d seen a school friend arriving home on the other side of the garage.

  Ntombi got out of the car and stood on legs that were leaden with exhaustion. She glanced again at the taxis. Every single one, to her, represented an escape route. She could climb in and go … leave the evil behind … but go where? Where would be safe? Really safe?

  She would have to sacrifice everything – her ID, her bank account, her cellphone, the money she’d so diligently saved. She knew from listening to her employer how people could be traced by these things, and he’d told her that he wouldn’t hesitate to track her down if she tried to run. In fact, he was already tracing her. The phone she used had GPS activated at all times so he knew where she was. The car she drove had a tracker system in place. Even her bank account was controlled by him and was a savings account only, with a credit card but without the facility to make cash withdrawals. The cash she required for her everyday use was given to her by her employer, and every last cent had to be accounted for.

  The only way she could obtain her freedom would be to give it all up. Climb into one of those taxis, paying for herself and Khumalo with the few hundred rands that was the most she ever had on her at any one time. And then disappear off the grid. But where would she go and how would she support her son? What sort of work would she be able to obtain with no identification and no references? Even being able to drive would be useless without a licence.

  Perhaps, with the cookery skills she had, a restaurant or fast-food outlet somewhere in a small town would hire her … but in small towns people talked and news travelled. And in the big city, although she was nobody, she would not even dare to stand at a traffic light begging for money in case she was recognised by one of the people who would doubtless be hunting for her.

  She locked the car after taking her shopping bags out of the boot and hauled herself over to where Khumalo was having an animated conversation with his school friend, Bongani. The two boys raced out of the exit door, heading, Ntombi knew, for the private lift that led up to Bongani’s apartment.

  Bongani’s mother was a stately woman with immaculately braided hair and expensive-looking clothes that were exquisitely cut to fit her generous frame. She turned from opening the boot of her gleaming black Toyota Prado.

  ‘Hello, my sister.’ Portia Ndumo greeted Ntombi with a smile as sparkling as the large diamond pendant that rested in the cleft of her bosom. ‘Your Khumalo, how is he? My son tells me he is the class maths champion.’

  Ntombi nodded weakly in reply. ‘He’s well, thank you,’ she replied in a low voice.

  ‘And you? How are you?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘Well, that is good. I myself have a problem right now, a worry in my mind that I do not know how to deal with. You see, my son …’

  But Ntombi was not listening to the woman speak. She was staring at the grocery bags that she was unloading from the car and packing carefully into a wheeled carry bag for easier transportation up to her apartment.

  Among the Thrupps delicatessen packets and Fournos bakery parcels, Ntombi saw the distinctive green-and-white bag, the package containing the brand of white maize meal that was sold all round the country and was the staple food of the poorer people.

  Before she could stop herself, before she could think better of it, she shouted, ‘No!’ and grabbed the maize meal from the woman as she was transferring it to the carry bag.

  Startled, Portia let go of the heavy package, which also slipped from Ntombi’s grasp and landed with a dull thud on the concrete floor. It split as it landed, and its contents spilled out in an ocean of white.

  For a moment neither woman spoke. Ntombi stared down at the fallen bag, breathing hard, feeling tears prickle her eyes as she braced herself to incur Portia’s wrath.

  But when Portia spoke, her voice was surprisingly gentle, even if her words told Ntombi that she had misunderstood her futile gesture.

  ‘Are you perhaps suffering from stress?’ she asked. ‘Because you are behaving as if you are.’

  ‘I think so.’ Ntombi found herself blinking furiously. ‘I think I might be, yes.’

  ‘That is what I said to my husband the other day. I said: Khumalo’s mother is too thin and her hands are shaking every time I see her. Is it post-traumatic stress, my sister? Have you been a victim of crime?’

  Yes, Ntombi wanted to scream, but she shook her head.

  ‘I was hijacked some years ago,’ Portia continued. ‘The hijackers grabbed me at gunpoint and took me with them. They made me drive for half an hour before they let me out by the side of the highway. I was unharmed, but for a long time afterwards I found myself acting like you did. Outbursts of temper for no reason. The counsellor I visited said it is a common reaction to trauma. Are you sure you have not been traumatised, my dear?’

  Now Portia looked more carefully at Ntombi, her expression quizzical and her brown eyes wide with concern.

  ‘I have not,’ Ntombi whispered, but even she could hear the lie.

  ‘Well, if you say so …’ Having transferred most of the groceries to the carry bag, Portia picked up a plastic grocery bag, bent down, and carefully lifted the broken maize package, together with its remaining contents, inside. Another small stream of maize poured out as she did this. ‘Do you know, I was given a good piece of advice by a friend after that incident, advice that I wish I had taken.’

  ‘What is that advice?’

  ‘My friend told me that, if you are hijacked and forced by the criminals to drive, you should make sure your seatbelt is as tight as possible and you should crash the car.’

  ‘Crash the car?’ Ntombi echoed incredulously.

  ‘Absolutely. Look for something solid to drive into and smash into it as hard as you can. Have you ever known a hijacker to wear a seatbelt? Mine did not!’ Portia laughed. ‘If I’d done that they would have gone straight through the windscreen.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you be killed as well?’

  ‘A luxury car such as the ones we drive will protect its passengers with seatbelts in place. You may be injured, yes, of course. But injured is better than dead, or gang-raped, is it not, sister?’

  Ntombi didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to remember how it had felt to drive the frightening man around; the one with death in his eyes.

  ‘Here. Pass me another of those empty plastic bags and let me see how much of this I can clean up.’

  Ntombi knelt down next to Portia on the garage floor, which smelled faintly of rubber and engine oil. She scooped the gritty maize meal into her hands, even though the feel of it nauseated her, and poured the double handful into the rustling plastic bag.

  ‘We were not always wealthy people,’ Portia told Ntombi. ‘I grew up eating this maize meal every night, and so did my husband. We made a promise that once a week, we would remember our roots. That our children would grow up knowing how to cook and eat a simple dish of maize meal, perhaps with some chicken and gravy or perhaps just with tomato-and-onion sauce. So once a month I buy a small bag of maize meal, and every weekend we enjoy it together.’

  Ntombi began to cry, sobbing so violently she could hardly get the words out.

  ‘One year ago, I made a promise, too. I promised that for twelve months, myself and my son would eat no maize meal; that every single dish I made for my family would be prepared by myself, from cookbooks and recipes. For breakfast, lunch and supper I would make food that could be served and eaten in a restaurant, because that was my dream. To leave the farming community where we lived and to find work in a town or a city as
a chef.’

  ‘There, there. Don’t cry so hard. Tell me what happened.’ She found herself in Portia’s warm embrace, the two of them kneeling on the gritty maize as she held onto her and buried her wet face in the silky fabric of her blouse. Gently Portia rubbed Ntombi’s back. She knew she shouldn’t spill her story out; that telling it once had already landed her in the situation she was in now and that telling it again could only do more damage. But she had to share a part of it; she had to share her grief.

  ‘For most of that year my husband worked weekdays and weekends. Sometimes he brought home food, sometimes money to buy the food. Occasionally he brought home utensils as well. Every morning and every afternoon I cooked on my small stove making breakfasts, lunches, dinners. Roasts and omelettes; cakes and breads; dishes from Italy and Asia and Argentina. There was always enough for two, sometimes for three, when my husband was home, but not always. He believed in me. He told me I had a talent; he used to joke that soon he would be able to retire when I opened my restaurant.’

  ‘Where is your husband now?’ Portia’s voice was soft.

  Walking tiredly into the front room of the tiny prefab house … wiping his hand over his mouth then tossing a cob into the kitchen bin …‘The harvest’s finished,’ he told her.

  ‘He’s gone,’ Ntombi sobbed. ‘He’s gone.’

  She couldn’t say ‘dead’. It sounded too final. But she knew that Portia understood, because the other woman held her even more tightly as she sobbed and wailed her grief away.

  16

  While Jade was driving back down the seemingly endless minor road leading to the highway she noticed the signpost for a hospital on the right-hand side, about ten or twelve kilometres before the highway turn-off itself.