by T. M. Clark
‘I see it. Do you know who it belongs to?’ Enoch asked.
‘That is the fire of the Caçador Escuro, the Dark Hunter. We avoid such fires when we see them.’ Julio shook his head and made a cross on his chest as if to ward off evil.
Enoch frowned. ‘Why?’
‘These men are evil. They hunt people. Men, women, they don’t care, but they’re not soldiers. When we see the fires on the old elephant trail, we stay out of the bush. You shouldn’t travel tomorrow, they will be out there, looking for someone to hunt. You’re better off here, near the village. You have kept us safe from the crocodile, now we must protect you from the Caçador Escuro. I will tell my father that I saw their fire tonight; tomorrow no one will leave the village, not until we see no fire again or we see the vultures in the sky as proof of his successful hunt.’
‘Are they not scared of the RENAMO soldiers?’ Xo asked.
‘That hunter is not afraid of anything. He is penga in the head.’
‘How do you know that he hunts people?’ Enoch asked.
‘When the vultures flew close to the village, we went to look to see what was there; if there was anything for us to scavenge. That was the first time we noticed him in our bush. We buried the bodies of two men that day. He always digs the bullets out of the heads—it is not a good sight to see, but we must face it. He does not give them a burial to help their spirits rest, he always leaves the body for the scavengers.’
‘Has he killed anyone from your village?’ Xo asked.
‘Yes, the first time we knew he was out there. One was a woman of ours, the other a man who walked so far that he had got lost, and our woman had taken him back to the old elephant migration track to follow, to get home to Malawi. It took us a while to connect the fires and the killings. Now we keep a lookout for the big fires that tell us he is here.’
‘This’s interesting. We have someone who kills like this near Kruger Park, too. Our people call him Inthunzi Zingela—the Shadow Hunter. But I have not heard of him killing women, only men. Could you identify him?’ Nick asked.
‘No, we do not go close. He shoots anyone he can find in the bush. But he makes a fire like a signal on the hill, so that everyone can see it. As if he knows that there is nothing anyone can do about him being here. Hunting people here.’
Enoch nodded slowly. ‘Only one man?’
Julio shook his head. ‘The one man—he is always the same, with big feet, wears boots with a good tread. From the tracks in the sand, we can tell that the others change all the time. But mostly, if there is a killing of a man, there are always two sets of prints. When there is a woman killed, only one set of tracks, never two.’
‘Do you know if he drives here, or do they walk in?’ Nick asked.
‘He drives on a track he has made slowly over time. RENAMO have not mined it; as he is not FRELIMO, they do not care.’
‘Hasn’t he shot any of them?’ Filipe asked.
‘Only those who do not stay with their group, deserters, people wanting to go back to their own villages.’
‘Have the killings been going on for long?’ Nick asked.
‘It has been five years since he killed the woman from our village. He has killed twenty people since then that we have found the bodies of. I can show you each grave. Before that, the scavengers of the bush might have been cleaning up his kills. Even now, they might clean up before we can bury the dead.’
‘Have you told your police?’ Nick asked.
‘There is a war here, and no one will care if one more man gets shot. We do not have any police in this area,’ Julio said.
‘Did you follow the track back to see where he came from?’ Khululani asked.
‘We stopped where it joins another road used by the South African hunters. RENAMO do not mine their roads. From there he can drive to South Africa or Zimbabwe. We do not know,’ Julio admitted. ‘Because we cannot tell you what he looks like, only that he drives a white bakkie, and he never comes with a tracker. We cannot go to the police in either country to ask for help to stop him. This man knows enough about the bush that he can find people on the Camino Dorado, the Golden Road to Johannesburg and their gold mines, to shoot them.’
‘Does he ever kill any animals?’ Enoch asked.
‘Not that we have seen, only people,’ Julio said.
They finished the crossing in silence. When they were on the other side, Julio pulled two necklaces from his pocket. ‘I made these for you to thank you for killing the beast. I have given you each one of his canine teeth for strength in your journey to come.’
Enoch shook his head. ‘I cannot accept these, you need that for you, to make yourself stronger for next time.’
‘No. Now I am strong. It is dead, and the villagers it had taken are avenged. If another one comes, we will be a strong enough village to kill it as soon as it arrives. We will have the courage next time because we drank its bile in the utshwala tonight.’
‘I hope so. I’m all for living with nature,’ Nick said, ‘but if a croc is taking your people and your cattle, he’s a menace and needs to go.’
‘The Caçador Escuro is a menace and needs to go too,’ Julio said.
‘We do not kill people,’ Enoch said, shaking his head. ‘That would make us murderers, like them.’
‘I understand,’ Julio said. ‘Travel well.’
They jumped off the pontoon onto dry land and pushed it back, then walked to where the truck was waiting for them, the horses restless and calling softly as they had heard them approaching. The boma they’d built around the whole camp area, with the horses free to move inside the truck for the night if they wanted to, would keep them safe from predators.
Enoch looked in the direction of the fire and frowned. Those he knew about, he could prepare for, but how did one defend against a two-legged predator who lurked in the night out there?
How did he keep his family safe from the Caçador Escuro?
* * *
It was late, Enoch and Filipe had gone out for another perimeter check, and Chloe was supposed to be sleeping till they woke her up for her watch. Instead she threw another log on the fire, not caring that the supposed human hunter out there could see the light from afar. She pulled the soft sleeping bag around her, and tried to stop her teeth from chattering.
Nick sat down next to her. ‘You okay?’
She looked in the direction of the river. ‘I don’t know. I’m alive, so I should be happy with that, but the thought of almost drowning today makes me want to throw up,’ she admitted.
‘Come here,’ he said as he put his arm around her shoulder and she moved a little into his warmth. ‘It’s a natural reaction to something traumatic like that.’
‘I know, but it keeps playing again in my head like a stuck record.’
His fingers moved on her shoulder. She rolled her head and winced at the pain.
‘I’m not surprised that you are wound up tight like a cobra. Sit in front of me and I’ll massage those shoulders.’
She adjusted her seating and he began rubbing. At first it hurt, and she flinched. But then he softened his touch and she began to relax.
‘I wanted to say thank you for being there. I don’t think I got a chance with everything that was happening.’
‘If it’d been me in the drink, you’d have done the same.’
‘I guess, but you did do it, and that’s what matters.’
‘It was my pleasure. I really didn’t want to see you drown out there.’
‘Gee thanks,’ Chloe said and moved her neck to the side for him to massage a little higher into her hairline.
‘The horses were good. Shows their training was outstanding because they didn’t panic either. You’ve done a good job with them.’
‘Thanks,’ Chloe said, ‘but I can’t claim all the credit. Xo and Enoch also train with them.’
‘And with you. All Enoch’s training helped you and Xo to stay calm in the water today. It’s a credit to him. Most people would have panicked,
let go of the rope and been lost in the river.’
She shuddered.
He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her. ‘I didn’t mean to set you off again. It helps to talk about experiences like this.’
‘I’ll be okay.’
He started to rub her arms with his hands to warm her. She smiled as he returned to massaging her shoulders.
‘What are you going to do with yourself when you get home to Delaware?’
‘Take a long, very long, deep bubble bath,’ she said. ‘Filled so high with nice warm water that it slops on the floor, and I won’t care.’
‘Now that I can imagine,’ he said, laughing quietly.
‘And after that, I guess settle into rebuilding the farm. Enoch warned me that while Aunty Grace is there, she isn’t much of a farmer, she’s only a caretaker. Enoch has had to keep giving her instructions over the phone, which she just passes on to everyone. He said he suspects that the farm isn’t in as great shape as it could be.’
‘Is that right? And you are going to do it differently? You didn’t study farming, you did a Bachelor of Commerce.’
‘Enoch will be there to look after the farm and teach me, while I look after the business side.’
‘You think you’re up for it, taking on a farm the size of Delaware at just twenty?’
‘Twenty-one, I’ll be twenty-two on the first of February,’ she corrected him.
‘Even if I have the year wrong, you know I don’t forget your birthday.’
‘I know.’
Nick smiled, and moved his hands further down her back to work on the next set of muscles that were bunched together.
‘Have you thought about how the workers will react to the change?’
‘I’m going to need to prove that I’m no longer little Chloe, the baas’s daughter. Then they’ll work hard for me, like they did for Dad.’
‘You have it all figured out.’
‘Actually, no I haven’t. I’m scared to get there and find that Aunty Grace has done such a great job that there’s no need for me. No place for me. I’m scared that when I get there, that Xo will think there’s nothing there for him either. He’s probably given up the most of all of us. He was in the middle of high school, my dad was hurt, and his life was thrown into that of sticking with his own dad, looking out for mine. The life of a farm worker. And he never got the chance in South Africa to go and do anything. I went to varsity, and he stayed and worked with his dad. I’m worried and torn firstly, that when we get there he’ll want to move away from me. He might go to varsity in the city, but as much as I want that for him, to be independent, and successful, I don’t think that I would cope, living away from my brother. He’s always been there. I know that is selfish, but I want him there with me, riding horses and just being there. He’s only a year older than me, but he never got to do anything with his life.’
‘It sounds like that was his choice to make. I can’t imagine how his life has been, not having a choice about being able to do what he wanted. Putting his life on hold for your family.’
‘Said like that, it makes me feel even worse, thank you.’
‘That wasn’t my intention.’
‘I know, it’s just when it all happened, I never gave his future a thought. I was completely focused on my father and helping him. It didn’t really sink in until I was in varsity that Xo had given his life up so I could keep studying. That he was the one doing all the farming things, the garden, the horses, and helping his dad with the cattle truck, making enough money to keep us from bankruptcy, at the sacrifice of furthering his education.’
‘It was his choice. I’m sure if he’d wanted differently, you all would have made an alternative plan.’
‘That’s a nice thought, but I’m not so sure now.’
‘Chloe, you’re lots of things, but selfish isn’t one of them. You all made your own choices.’
‘I guess.’
They lapsed into silence for a few minutes and the fire crackled. Chloe watched the green flames as they danced along the dead wood, and then slowly turned blue and orange. Sparkes flew upwards as something in the wood ignited, and the light shone brighter, then darkened again. ‘What about Enoch? I worry constantly how going home’s going to affect him.’
‘What do you mean?’ Nick asked, his hands stopping.
‘I still don’t know what happened the night my dad was hurt. I have these vivid memories of you being there, but you were not with my dad and Enoch. It’s all muddled in my head. There was a lot of shouting. It was such an emotional time. I just can’t seem to remember it clearly.’ Silently, her mind screamed at her to say something about Enoch burying something. About her dread that she had seen him burying a body, and that he had covered something up deep in the soil of Delaware.
‘You really should ask Enoch about that night. You need to know what happened.’
She shook her head. ‘I asked him once, he was adamant that I drop the subject and never bring it up again. I figured one day he might be ready to tell me, and then I figured what if I ask him and I don’t like what I hear? I can never un-hear it.’ She threw a stick she was dragging through the dirt into the fire.
‘Sometimes the truth is hard, but it helps us understand the past. You need to talk to Enoch. He’s the only one who can tell you everything that happened. Yes, I was there with you, but I didn’t go out with them that day. It’s his version of the story you need to hear, not mine. What you do with the information he tells you is up to you.’
‘But it’s never the right time, and it’s as if he is avoiding the topic as much as I am.’
‘No surprises there,’ Nick said, his hands continuing their massage.
‘I never know when I’ll step on a landmine with him and the past. When I suggested that we come to you for help, Enoch was convinced that you wouldn’t want to, that you would turn us away. Why would he think that?’
‘There were many things that happened back then, Chloe. I was younger. I made my share of mistakes. So too did Enoch and Mike. At first I also had a lot of anger, resentment, and admittedly hurt. It’s taken all these years for me to realise that perhaps we were all just doing the best that we could during those trying times. For me, there’s no who’s right and who’s wrong anymore. Life’s too short to live like that. So, while I have begun to put the past behind me, and learned to live with the memories, perhaps he hasn’t. Perhaps he still allows it to haunt him.’
His hands had stilled on her back while he was talking, and now she was feeling the coolness of the night instead. She shimmied back to recline against him for the warmth, and he wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head.
After a while she took a deep breath and exhaled. After what he had done that day, if she was ever going to trust Nick, this was the time to tell him. To let him know about the ghost that haunted her memories. ‘I think something else bad happened that night, and while my dad can’t talk about it, Enoch chooses not to. I have flashes of memory: he’s there when Xo and I stand next to each other and watch something being buried. You’re there, and you have blood on you, like Enoch does. Something’s in the back of the cattle truck, there is blood everywhere. But I can’t remember enough to put it together. Then there is just Enoch, and he had a shovel and is stomping the ground, flattening it and putting the veld grasses back on top. Something is buried. Someone. I’m scared to know.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Nick said on a heavy sigh. ‘I appreciate you confiding in me, but this is not my story to tell you, Chloe. You have to get Enoch to talk to you, and soon. If there is this Caçador Escuro out there, he could hunt any of our small party on this journey. None of us are safe. You need to know what happened before you get back to Delaware. But promise me that when Enoch does tell you, you listen with an open heart. I want you to know that even back then, before all the madness, you were special to me. And I would have helped you through this journey a million times, just because you asked me to. There is nothing
that I wouldn’t do for you.’
They sat in silence, lost in their own thoughts.
She pulled her hands from inside the sleeping bag and wrapped them around herself, over where his held her. ‘I read every one of your Christmas and birthday cards over and over. Other than Aunty Grace’s, yours were the only cards I received, and I loved them. I would get all excited when I saw your writing on the envelope,’ she said.
He moved his head slightly, and gave the top of her head a whisper of a kiss. ‘I’m glad. You know I thought about not sending them because I began to feel a little self-conscious when you were in varsity. You’re so clever and studying a business degree. I thought that you might think the cards frivolous and stupid.’
‘I never thought that.’ She shook her head.
‘I always bought them from the little store in Crocodile Bridge. There is an old couple there, Alice and Gil, who own it. One day, Alice asked me who it was that I bought the cards for, because I took so long deciding, reading each one in the shop.’
‘Did you tell her?’
‘I told her it was for someone I hadn’t seen in many years, but whom I really wanted to see again.’
Chloe felt him alter the hug as if he needed her even closer to him, and the tightening of his arms matched the tightening of her stomach. ‘What did she say to that?’
‘Alice told me that I should get in my bakkie and drive to wherever you were, and hand-deliver the card.’
‘But you didn’t …’
He shook his head, and she could feel it as it moved over the top of her hair. ‘I didn’t get a chance to. It was only shortly after that excellent bit of advice that you called me.’
‘Were you surprised?’
‘I’ve been putting my numbers on your cards every year, just in case you needed them, but the fact that you did was a surprise. I had no idea you were in trouble, but I’m happy that you turned to me.’
‘And finding that we were fleeing the law? Not exactly the behaviour of someone who’s supposed to be clever enough to be at university, is it?’
‘It was the best, wisest and most selfless decision you could ever make. Fleeing to save Enoch’s life. It helped me realise what a fool I’ve been all these years.’ He rested his head back on hers. ‘I left Zimbabwe soon after that night, not knowing how badly hurt your dad was. I only heard later about his diagnosis. I was so mad at him and Enoch, and then at myself, that I could only see one solution, and that was to get as far away as I could. But you travelling with your dad now, despite his condition, and doing what you are doing, it’s helped heal something inside of me, too. I never hoped it would happen, but there’s a calmness in me that has been missing for a long time.’