Shooting Butterflies

by T. M. Clark

  Tara, Gabe and Bomani lay on the bank, drying off in the sunshine, watching Egyptian geese squabble over some titbit of food they’d found in the shallow waters.

  When Bomani had resaddled Apache, and Tara had strapped her holster back on, Gabe helped her mount into her saddle again.

  She looked down at him. ‘He’s never going to see this again, is he? He’ll never ride with us, never touch Apache. He’s really dead. He’s never coming home.’ The tears began to flow.

  And they wouldn’t stop.

  Gabe didn’t try to comfort her. He didn’t try to stem her tears as Tara howled into Apache’s mane. He allowed her the space to grieve.

  Bomani looked away.

  One month after her father had been murdered, Tara at last cried real tears.

  CHAPTER

  5

  New Beginnings

  Hluhluwe, South Africa

  January 1982

  Hluhluwe in South Africa was small. It was what the Afrikaans people called a dorp. But Tara saw it as a new place to call home. Around the town was bush, and wide open spaces. She wound down her window and breathed in the country air.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Just filling my lungs with freedom. Smell that air! No soot, no smelly fish sea air … ah!’ After the last three weeks in Durban with her mother’s family, she was happy to be out of the city and back in the country, away from their relatives.

  Tara knew that moving to Durban hadn’t exactly worked out for her mum. The happy family reunion Maggie had hoped for was short-lived. Tara’s grandmother and Aunty Marie-Ann had started badgering Maggie about getting a decent job, about her daughters’ schooling, and how she was going to keep her ‘wild farm girls’ out of trouble almost from the first day they arrived.

  Dela’s voice broke into Tara’s thoughts. ‘The map says turn off the N2 at R22.’

  Her mum made the turn where a huge sign said Hluhluwe Town, with an arrow to turn right, and Game Reserve, with an arrow to turn left.

  They drove along, looking at the town they would now call home.

  ‘We need to go through the town, then just before the railway line at the end of the town, we turn right, back towards Durban,’ Dela said.

  ‘There’s lots of places that take tourists into the game reserve,’ Dela pointed out, looking at the shopfronts.

  ‘I’m just glad it’s not tall buildings that crush you in and make you feel like you’re just an ant,’ Tara said, and Dela and Maggie laughed.

  ‘Here, Mum, turn right,’ Dela instructed as they reached the railway line.

  They drove along the dirt roadway to the end of the houses, then turned left and stopped at a wide Z-style gate where a single house sat behind tall trees. Tara hopped out of the car and opened the gate, then followed behind as Maggie parked in the carport attached to the house.

  The house was a whitewashed single storey with a green tin roof. Big trees ringed the property and the scent of freshly cut grass greeted them. A note was pinned to the back door, which Tara read out loud.

  ‘“Welcome, Wright family. The door is open. I’ll stop by later to see that you’re comfortable.” It’s signed “Alice Cinco”.’

  ‘That’s the lady who did the telephone interview with me and organised our accommodation,’ Maggie said.

  ‘So this is the lady who gave you the job despite the fact she knows you can’t type?’ Tara asked.

  ‘Yes and you don’t need to rub in the fact that I don’t know how to be a railway secretary. I’ll learn fast, it can’t be too hard to do. I think she sensed my desperation to keep us guys together.’

  ‘I know, Mum,’ Tara said. ‘I’m so proud of you for getting a real job. But mostly I’m just happy to be out of Durban.’

  ‘I guess it’s as good a place as any,’ Dela said. ‘Just as long as I get my own bed again, I’ll be happy. But I’d rather be home in Zimbabwe.’

  ‘We’re not going back to Zimbabwe, ever. The financial sanctions in the new Zimbabwe were not real nice to me as a widow, all I could bring out was ten thousand dollars and our furniture. If it wasn’t for the laws of the new Zimbabwe, we wouldn’t be having to battle financially at all, and I wouldn’t have to go to work. Despite your dad providing for us in his death, I couldn’t get any of that money out of Zimbabwe. It’s almost like walking out like a refugee, except they allowed us to bring our beds. Our days of having a nice house are a thousand kilometres or more behind us. So Dela, this is home now,’ Maggie said.

  Tara saw her mum dash away a tear.

  ‘Dela, you idiot!’ she said. ‘You made Mum cry again!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I didn’t mean to upset you,’ Dela said. ‘It’s a good job, and we’ll learn how to fit in in Hluhluwe, even though we don’t speak any Afrikaans and we’ll be living in a railway house …’

  ‘Dela, your days of being a “mistress of the manor” are over. Alice Cinco told me that people who work for the government get their children’s schooling at a cheaper rate, and this way we can afford to rent this house and stay together. If I didn’t get this type of job, we would be stuck in Durban with your grandmother. Do you think you might like that better than here? At least here we are in the bush again!’ Maggie said as she pressed down on the large brass handle on the door and opened it inwards. For a moment there was silence between them, then Maggie gasped as they stepped into the house. ‘And we have our own kitchen, look at that old Esse stove!’

  A big anthracite-burning stove sat in one corner with an electric stove opposite it. The kitchen was functional, but old. The built-in cupboards were made of what looked like plain wood, sanded and hung, unpainted, with no handles. The floor was an ugly red lino. A huge fridge stood on the other side of the room, next to the door that led into the main house.

  ‘It’s not a five-star hotel, but it’s ours,’ Maggie said.

  They walked into the next room, Tara leading the way. There was minimal furniture in the dining room, just a fold-up table and four chairs. A brown carpet that had seen better days covered the parquet floor.

  ‘At least we have a table to eat at until our furniture arrives,’ Maggie said. ‘Come on, let’s look at the rest.’

  They toured the house together, surprised to find that it had two bathrooms and four bedrooms, more than enough space for the three of them.

  ‘Wow, it’s big,’ Tara said.

  Three mattresses had been piled together in the main bedroom, with neatly folded sheets, pillows and blankets.

  ‘It’s nice of Alice to lend us those and the linen,’ Maggie said.

  ‘I bags the room that looks over the front lawn,’ Dela said as she tugged one mattress off the pile and carried it through to the room she’d chosen.

  Tara took hers to the room that was closest to a bathroom. It was the only room with a picture on the wall. A huge old painting of a baby giraffe, a mother giraffe gently pushing it onwards, dominated the small space. Its calming effect appealed to Tara. She ran her fingers over the intricately patterned gold frame.

  She walked to the window and looked through the thick metal burglar bars embedded in the plaster on the inside of the wall. Her new room faced onto the back garden, where a washing line was strung between two uprights. She opened the old sash window and breathed in the scent of lavender. She noticed movement in the bush to her left, and a fat warthog trotted out, its grey skin bristling. Tara held her breath.

  It stopped at the washing line and scratched its butt on one of the uprights, shaking the lines and the pole as it got to a spot that was obviously itchy. She let out the breath slowly. After nearly four months away from the bush, she couldn’t help but gaze at the ugly animal. The warthog foraged on the lawn under the lines, obviously used to there being nobody in the house.

  Tara smiled.

  Their house.

  It was a bit of a fixer-upper, but it was theirs, for now.

  No granny.

  No Aunty Marie-Ann.

  Just
the three of them: her mum, Dela and her.

  She walked through the house to the car to fetch her suitcase, which she dragged into her room. The first thing she unpacked was the picture of her dad, a present from Gabe. She thought of when her mum had handed the gift to her at Christmas, how she’d slowly opened the wrapping paper and found the simply framed photograph, taken on the day her dad had died. It was of her and her father together. He’d just helped her onto Apache and she was looking down at him while he looked up at her. Apache’s ears were forward and alert, showing how proud he was to have her ride him. At the bottom of the photo Gabe had written: ‘Remember moments like this and everything will be okay’.

  She set it on the windowsill.

  ‘We’re here, Dad. It’s not Whispering Winds, but at least there are dirt and animals outside,’ she said.

  Then she unpacked her writing pad, and began to write: ‘Dear Gabe …’

  That night, after Alice Cinco had visited and they had eaten a takeaway meal from the Indian shop in Hluhluwe, Maggie called the girls into her room. ‘Come, sit.’

  They sat down on the mattress and snuggled in next to her.

  She took her hands out from where they were hiding under the blanket. In each palm she held a small sparkly box.

  ‘Mum!’ they said together.

  ‘I wanted to give you these today because it’s our first day in our own home in South Africa,’ Maggie said.

  Dela ripped hers open at the same time Tara opened hers. ‘‘Thank you, Mum,’ Tara said.

  She lifted the silver bracelet out of its box. Inscribed on the back were the words: ‘Three’s a family too – always.’

  ‘Aw, Mum, it’s so delicate,’ Tara said as she turned the bracelet over and ran it through her fingers.

  ‘Neat!’ Dela said.

  ‘Look,’ Maggie said as she showed them her wrist. ‘I’ve got one too, because now that we’re three, we need to be reminded that we’re still a family and we need to stick together.’

  Tara looked at her mother and snorted. As if she needed to be reminded that they were now just three.

  Her father was gone.

  Her farm was gone.

  Her horse and everything else that was her life was gone, taken away and sold.

  She didn’t understand what her mother had done by uprooting them and moving them to South Africa, taking her and Dela away from everyone and everything they knew. Changing their lifestyle so drastically.

  A few years ago she had been trusted to carry a weapon with live ammunition, to sleep with claymores in her cupboard and crates of weapons under her bed. But now her father was dead and her mother treated her and Dela like children, incapable of helping her to make any important decisions. Yet she was reminding them that they were the remnants of a family. Just the three of them.

  Tara shoved the anger and resentment deep inside.

  ‘You okay?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Will be,’ Tara said as she put the bracelet around her wrist. ‘Thanks.’

  She took a deep breath. And she looked at her mum and sister. They were still together, not scattered across different countries like Gabe was from his family. They had a place they could call home again. That was enough for now. There were new roots beginning to be put down. And for the first time since her father was shot, Tara felt the first stirring of hope that she might not lose her whole family along with him.

  That maybe they might not get taken away from her too.

  CHAPTER

  6

  The Butterfly Theory

  Piet Retief Farm, Zimbabwe

  July 1982

  Buffel rocked backwards and forwards in his armchair. Sleep eluded him, despite his exhausted body. Sleeping in his chair was becoming a necessity. He found it easier to wake up from his nightmares in his chair than in his bed, and even if he couldn’t sleep, not sleeping at all was better than the nightmares.

  He knew that peace was coming eventually. The butterfly dream had shown him that so many months ago.

  Peace for Impendla.

  Peace for his own conscience.

  He just needed to be patient.

  Mwari had showed her plan to him.

  She hadn’t sent a Karoi to tell him, instead she’d entered his nightmare and shown him the way to peace.

  In his dream, the angel had taken Impendla’s hand and walked with him, crossed over to the other side, and helped him on his journey to his ancestors. And all the butterflies had come from the bush from miles around and flown around them like confetti, to celebrate the release of the children’s souls from their cocoons.

  If Impendla’s soul could be saved like the Karoi had saved those people who cast a stone in the deep blue water of Sinoia caves, then his dream of the angel in the cocoon was the path he needed to take.

  The angel’s blonde hair was so white it shone like a halo. He’d seen it in the dreams that started the very night after she visited him with her mother.

  She was the key to helping Impendla’s soul cross over.

  She was the perfect age to be the sacrifice for Impendla.

  Perfect.

  The perfect angelic cocoon.

  But he’d missed the shot.

  He rubbed his hand, fisted it and looked again at where his fingers should have been.

  For so long he’d learnt to compensate for the loss of them, and yet just a slight wind, a little excitement at once more taking a human life, and he’d missed the girl.

  His dream had shown him that he needed the angel to be part of the ritual. But the beautiful butterfly-in-training from next door had got away.

  Shooting the overprotective father and uncle had been a small compensation.

  He remembered how the police had crawled over everything at the farm next door and the road on his property near the river bed where the killings of the brothers took place. They had asked everyone about what they had seen. He’d told the police he had been in the house, having a sleep.

  Shilo had backed him up, saying that he was in the house snoring.

  His kaffir-boy hadn’t let him down. They had been together during the Rhodesian Bush war, and were bound together by the blood spilled during their time in the PSYOPS unit.

  He smiled. It was good to have someone you could trust working for you. It allowed you to pursue alternate interests.

  Buffel looked down at his own disfigured hand. Before the war started, he had sacrificed his fingers, saving four other men from certain death during a routine blasting that had gone wrong at his quarry. Those same men had recognised not only his above-average strength, his tenacity and sheer stubborness not to give up, but also his temper that had ultimately given him the physical power to cut his own fingers off to free his hand, and give him time to clear the blast area, and survive. But they had also been privy to his irrational insistence that they try to find the pieces of his fingers. They had spent hours searching, but to no avail. His fingers were gone, and all that the hospital could do was neaten the amputation up, offer condolences, and praise him for saving his workers, one of whom was an ex-South African. From then on they all referred to him as Buffel.

  He looked at the two fingers he’d taken from the men who had protected the angel that day. And he remembered the sight. In death the brothers had looked like he did, incomplete.

  Collecting tokens from them had been an unplanned bonus.

  He’d pinned them with dress pins to a piece of kaylite to dry, then he’d put them with the other trinkets he collected to decorate his cocoons. He’d get to use them one day. He’d have that butterfly moment in real life, not just in his dreams. But sometimes, like tonight, he would dig them out from their hiding place, and he would touch them, as if touching the father would bring him knowledge of where the daughter now was. As if perhaps he could lead him to her in South Africa somewhere.

  One day he would get to decorate the angel with their bones, hang them around her neck as a decoration to take with her into the spirit world. She would
appreciate having her father and uncle there to guide her, to be with her, as she guided Impendla and the other boys towards the light.

  He tipped his head backwards and rocked again.

  Perhaps one day, Mwari would reward him for his sacrifices, and his dedication, and he would allow Impendla’s soul to be saved, as it had been in his dream. Allow his friend’s spirit to fly like the butterflies they used to watch down at the dam when they were just kids. Allow him to fly free and join his ancestors in the light, instead of remaining an eternal child in a cocoon state.

  Where they had been. Never to hatch. Never to know the sense of freedom and the gift of flight.

  He still knew that his friend rested in a dark place.

  Only now he understood he needed to appease Mwari, to allow Impendla into the light. To cross over and go to his ancestors.

  His minister father had always claimed that Impendla was an innocent child and God forgave and welcomed the innocent into his heaven, but Buffel wasn’t so sure about that. He believed Impendla had paid incorrectly.

  It was he who should have been taken.

  It was he who had disturbed the Karoi’s magic and invaded her area. It was he who had angered the Tokoloshe and yet it was Impendla, who had warned him of the dangers, who had paid the ultimate price.

  For a moment, he shuddered at the thought that he’d already sold his own soul to try to save Impendla’s. The concept didn’t rest easy within him, even all these years later, his Christian upbringing and the expected morals that came with it like a megaphone in the back of his head.

  But in reality, this was his punishment to bear.

  He’d done nothing at the time to save his friend.

  And that rested heavy like molten lead in his conscience.

  The feeling of sadness lifted, and he knew that Mwari was giving him guidance. He closed his eyes, holding his trophies in his hand as the TV flickered. Its black and white images broadcast out to no one as Buffel fell asleep, still in his armchair.