Shooting Butterflies

by T. M. Clark

  Shilo looked down at his own clothes. The blue overalls were damaged at the knee and had seen tidier times. Anyone would mistake him for a vagrant farm worker.

  He took the paper ticket in his right hand. ‘Siyabonga kakulu Madala,’ he said to the older ticket vendor as a sign of respect. ‘I will look after them.’

  ‘Travel well.’

  Shilo looked at the man sitting in the cubicle. His face was lined deeply by the sun and years of living. He had the look of old age, but the dark eyes that sat in that bald head still looked at him with intelligence and understanding, but more, with compassion.

  He was early, the train wasn’t for another hour, but Shilo hadn’t known how long it would take to walk from his hiding place in the bush to the train station. He hadn’t seen any sign of Buffel following him so he’d decided that today, he’d catch the train.

  He sat on the bench and waited, closing his eyes. He’d hear the train coming from miles away and feel it when it got close, so for the moment he rested.

  He saw white sands and an ocean so blue and clear that the silver fish darted from seagrass clump to seagrass clump to avoid being seen. He could almost feel the wind on his face as the dhow cut through the water, skimming towards the island.

  The sound of a soft step nearby startled him and he jumped up, pulling back a fist ready to strike. But it wasn’t Buffel, just the old man from the ticket office who stood in front of him. He quickly dropped his arm, and his fighting stance.

  The old man smiled at him. ‘I had this in my office.’ He handed Shilo a hand-knitted woollen jersey that had seen better days. ‘Just in case. You will need it more than me in Umtali. It is cold up in those mountains.’

  ‘Thank you, Madala. Thank you.’

  The old ticket vendor nodded and shuffled back to his little booth that sat on the edge of the concrete platform, back into his little work place, with a ceiling fan that defied its age and continued to swirl the already hot air around the small room, as the sun beat down on the red corrugated iron roof.

  Shilo stared after him and wrapped the jersey around his hands. That single item of clothing was now his only possession, other than what he wore. Buffel had burnt down his ikhaya and all his possessions in it. He’d nothing now to show of their days together. Snorting, he corrected his thinking.

  He’d nothing to show for his thirty years on the earth. Well, except a bank account, that he no longer had a bankbook to access.

  But he was alive.

  At first, keeping an eye on the war torn PSYOPS Captain hadn’t been that hard. Ensuring no children lived on the farm had been easy. Accompanying him everywhere he went had not been difficult. But since the Tara visit, when he’d begun to kill again, it had become a living nightmare. Such an innocent catalyst to bring the monster out again. Such an insignificant event, yet the results were horrific.

  Almost a month after her father’s funeral, Tara had visited Whispering Winds for the last time. Buffel had informed him they were going hunting, which was nothing new. But Shilo had known the moment they went to cross through the strands of barbed wire, and onto the neighbouring farm, that this wasn’t a normal hunt.

  They were hunting humans.

  With a sickness in his stomach, Shilo knew he just couldn’t live this life anymore. Couldn’t continue to put his own life on hold while he watched over a monster who could emerge at any time. He had dreams of his own. For a year he had protected the children on Piet Retief from the monster by ensuring they were moved away. There had been no killings. Then a single child had come into Buffel’s orbit, and the monster inside Buffel had awoken and wouldn’t be pacified again. They were out hunting the girl.

  They had concealed themselves well in the bush, and even the kudu that passed them had not flinched, nor even scented their presence.

  But Shilo wasn’t a killer. Although at that moment he had wanted to kill Buffel before he unleashed his wickedness into the world again, his conscience wouldn’t let him. His Christian upbringing was strong, and murder condemned a man to hell.

  Killing during war was different, that was kill or be killed, and Sergeant Riley had said to them that they would be absolved from those sins by God. He had believed his sergeant.

  But murder of a unit member. His soul would belong to the devil. Eternal damnation.

  Instead he’d attempted to stop the killing. Yet he was mindful that if Buffel suspected him, he would show no such mercy and would cut his throat without a second thought.

  Shilo had removed the firing bolt from Buffel’s .303 that night while Buffel slept. He wanted desperately to throw the bolt as far into the bush as he could, so Buffel would never be able to use his rifle again. If he did that then Buffel would know that he had tampered with it, but if when they got back to Piet Retief homestead, he could drop it on the floor where Buffel always cleaned his weapons, or lay it on the bench, Buffel would find it, and think that he had messed up while cleaning his weapon the last time before putting it away, and hadn’t reassembled it completely before he stored it in its soft case. An easy enough mistake to make. Carefully, Shilo had put the bolt into his sock in case Buffel patted him down. It was a risk, but it was one worth taking to save the girl’s life.

  Buffel continued to snore, unaware that a unit member was betraying him by sabotage.

  In the morning Tara had ridden towards their hiding place on her horse, her blonde hair shining in the bright African sun. She’d swum in her clothes in the dam on Whispering Winds. The young white man, Gabe, had been with her and the horse boy, Bomani.

  But Buffel had surprised him.

  When the girl came out of the water, and began weeping, he hadn’t even reached for his weapon to line her up in his crosshairs of his sights and kill her. Instead he’d continued to watch her through his binoculars in fascination as she cried.

  ‘She’s not ready yet. She’s still too young. She needs to blossom. She’s still like a boy when you look closely. She’s yet to become a woman,’ Buffel said.

  Shilo had hung his head in relief, silently sliding his own .9mm back into its holster. Having had no sleep the night before, worried about what was about to occur, he had eventually come to the decision that he would not allow the murder to happen. Surely the God who was all forgiving would forgive him if he shot Buffel if he shifted the rifle from its open carrier to line her up. Because he knew that if Buffel didn’t get to shoot her with his rifle, he would take Shilo’s and use that. And Shilo hadn’t sabotaged his own weapon in the bush.

  Enough was enough.

  Like a sick dog, he had been about to put Buffel out of his misery before he hurt another child. He had decided that in this case, murder was justified.

  He would save the child.

  Tara, Gabe and Bomani had remounted their horses, and ridden off, not knowing that Tara had dodged death from Buffel’s hands a second time.

  But it was just as Shilo was beginning to breathe normally again, and his heartbeat had begun to slow as they walked back to Piet Retief, that Buffel had knelt in the riverbed, next to a set of deep old prints.

  Buffel had fingered the prints as if trying to assess them, and then he had looked at Shilo’s feet.

  He’d known that Buffel knew – they were his prints.

  When he’d covered up his tracks from saving Tara the first time, he’d laid false trails and used the leaves to cover up his run through the bush when he realised what Buffel was about to do. In a hurry to return to the house, he’d neglected to cover those in the riverbed. And there had been no rain to wash them away since that fateful day.

  His secret was out.

  Now Shilo needed to save his own life.

  He couldn’t go to the police as men from the once feared PSYOPS unit had been integrated into normal life and were everywhere. He knew one was a judge. He knew one was in the police force. They had been elite once, now they hid in clear sight of everyone, but each held their tongues and kept their secrets. Kept the unspoken vow never to re
veal the atrocities they committed in the name of freedom and national security.

  A few of their unit had fled south and been absorbed into the Recces in the South African Defence Force, knowing that there they would be untraceable and safe from any prosecution.

  Buffel had simply returned to his farm, Shilo with him.

  No one, except Shilo, really knew the monster that had been unleashed during the bush war years and who now lived within their community.

  And Shilo was leaving that monster in the community, unguarded.

  Even as he sat on the railway bench, he fought a war within his own conscience. Should he go back to Buffel, or continue walking away, saving his own soul?

  He jerked upwards and alert as he heard the train whistle at a siding further up the track. Soon Shilo could feel the train as it approached. It vibrated through his feet and up into his heart. He smiled as the train driver blew the whistle and the train slowly came to a stop.

  No one got off the train. Shilo opened a carriage door and climbed inside.

  Slowly the train pulled out the station, gaining momentum as it laboured on the steel tracks with its heavy carriages dragging behind.

  Shilo sat down in a spare seat. He let out a deep breath and turned his head to watch the siding slide by and silently prayed that he’d never again have Buffel’s face darken his life.

  The train stopped at Umtali station. Shilo climbed out and breathed the fresh mountain air. He’d missed this place.

  His regiment had come this way many times on their way to Mozambique to attack terrorist camps, and as always, it was cold. He looked at his overall bottoms, and lack of shoes, but he felt warm inside the jersey that the old man had given him. He walked proudly out of the station and turned south down the street. He didn’t need direction to know where he was going.

  The Blue Lady Shebeen was at the far end of the township of Sakubva, almost seven kilometres from the real city centre. Shilo walked past the Musika Wahuku, or as the people liked to call it, the chicken market, around which all life in the area now centred. The huge outdoor food and free trade market was bustling with colourfully clad vendors hawking their goods. White chickens clucked loudly, and those that had cages to enclose them fluffed up as they challenged the diamond-spotted guinea fowl in the cages next door. Goats bleated, children ran about squealing in happiness chasing after a car made of wire with polish tins for wheels. Smells of different spices on offer, of curry, cumin and achaar, swirled with the different cooking smells of boerewors and braaivleis, and mingled with the tart smell of cooked sadza to create amazing aromas.

  Sakubva, on the outskirts of Umtali, had been the first black township settlement. The once male-only accommodation had long since been crowded with family groups, and the excess had spilled out into surrounding areas. Now it held more than half the town’s population, in the smallest area.

  He walked down the street he knew so well until he saw the familiar sign. The faded hand-painted sign had seen better days, but the ground outside was swept clean of leaves and any rubbish. The large sign on the door claimed in Shona that the place was ‘under new management’.

  He laughed at that as he pushed the door open.

  The Blue Lady Shebeen had always had just one owner.

  Behind the bar area, a black man sat on a high stool. In his hand he held a hunting knife that he was using to pick at the dirt underneath his nails. His hair was done up in dreadlocks, if you looked carefully you could see cowrie shells braided intricately into them. Care had been taken to drill the holes into the shells, and braid them. Bits of his braids were bleached to an almost yellow blond and made the dreadlocks look like a fancy multicoloured mop. His fringe was short, but also braided, and stopped directly in line with his eyes, as if he couldn’t stand not to have 20/20 vision. Although his feet were propped up on a second chair, his counter was spotless. No dust sat on the varnished mahogany wood, no water marks marred the perfect surface. Even with his elaborate hair, Kwazi was unmistakable.

  Shilo smiled. ‘An old friend told me once, that if I ever walked away from a monster, that I would always find a bed to sleep in and food for my belly in his home.’

  Kwazi looked up and dropped his feet to the floor. Standing to his full six-foot-three height, he asked, ‘And did this old friend tell you that if you called him old he’d throw a knife through your heart?’

  ‘No, Madala!’

  Kwazi put the knife down on the counter and laughed. He walked around the bar to meet Shilo halfway across the room. They hugged like the good friends they were, friends who had shared adventure, terror and tears together.

  ‘It is good to see you,’ Kwazi said at last. ‘I must admit that I thought I never would.’

  ‘A long time in the making, but a short trip here once I was free.’

  ‘The monster already came by two weeks ago looking for you. I could truthfully tell him then, I hadn’t seen you. Now, come sit at my bar, tell me what has been happening. But first, let me get you some shoes, it won’t do for customers to think that I run a shabby shebeen. This establishment has class – yes?’ He laughed and walked through some tacky beaded strings that marked the end of the bar and the beginning of his home section of the building.

  Shilo followed.

  The lounge room behind the bar didn’t belong in a black man’s house. The leather lounge suite and the smoky glass tables were smart. The parquet flooring peeking out from under the throw rug was shining and buffed, and as Shilo stood on the rug, his toes sank in as if it were made of lambs’ wool. In one corner stood a big television.

  ‘You’re this rich now?’ he asked Kwazi.

  ‘I was always rich, it was just that we were at war and I couldn’t show it, but now, in the new Zimbabwe, I can dig up my money and spend it on nice, comfortable things. I am never sleeping on the ground again. My army days are over. It’s just me and my shebeen, and maybe a few of the ladies …’

  ‘You and the ladies, they have always been your weakness and they will be the death of you.’

  ‘Here,’ Kwazi said, ‘through there is a bathroom, with running water, the towels are in the cupboard by the door. Have a nice hot shower, and take these clothes to change into. Then we can talk.’ He handed Shilo some faded blue denim jeans and a black T-shirt.

  ‘Thank you,’ Shilo said as he took the clothes and heard Kwazi say, ‘Don’t lock the door, the lock sticks.’

  Shilo smiled. It was so typical of the new Zimbabwe, the black people everywhere were prospering, showing off their wealth, and yet they were not fixing small things like the locks on the bathroom door. He closed the door but didn’t lock it. Shilo stepped in to the shower and cranked the hot water to blast off all the dirt and memories of the last few weeks.

  Drying his hair after his shower, Shilo sat on the bar stool opposite Kwazi. Kwazi’s voice was rising, slowly getting louder in volume as he disagreed with him.

  ‘Shilo Khumalo, you’re mad,’ Kwazi said. ‘There is a war on in Mozambique still. Zimbabwe, we’re at peace at last. But you want to go into Mozambique and fight again?’

  ‘No, I want peace and quiet too, but Buffel will continue to look for me. He’ll come again, looking to silence me. Like you said, he’s already checking each person in the unit, and eventually he’ll come back to you again, and he’ll ask you if I was here. And we both know you’re not a good liar when it’s Buffel who’s asking the questions.’

  ‘I could have been interrogated by anyone but him. Just knowing what he is and what he’s capable of … You’re right, I would speak. Quickly. I like my tongue, my teeth and my balls, thank you. I don’t want to hang upside down in a meat locker with dead pigs.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I can’t stay, that’s why I just stopped here to get some supplies, and a few good nights’ sleep. Soon, I’ll head out, go past the old Addam’s Barracks, and across the minefield, by Freddie’s Ridge, into Mozambique. I only hope that they haven’t changed all the mines’ positions.’
<
br />   ‘I hope so too. Are you sure you want to go that way, and not up further north and into Mozambique instead?’

  ‘This is the area I know, so I cross here. Then I head wherever there is the least fighting.’

  ‘North?’

  ‘You saw the ocean there, the clear water. There doesn’t seem to be any fighting on their islands, just the mainland. I’m looking for an island to live on one day, but there is talk of establishing “safe” corridors in Mozambique by the Zimbabwe government. Maybe I can get work on one of those corridors, keeping the people safe. I’m good at that. As a white man, Buffel will not follow me into Mozambique. It’s not safe for him there, but I can be a civilian, I can hide, mingle with the locals, learn Portuguese and French, and he won’t find me.’

  ‘No, but the people in Mozambique will, and give you up as a Komeredes, a new Zimbabwe soldier, and you will be butchered. You’re going to walk in to a FRELIMO and RENAMO wasp’s nest. Why not just go underground here, at least here you have contacts, and people will hide you from Buffel.’

  ‘And do what? Go where?’

  ‘If you go east, go live with the Batonka tribes in the Kariba area. They are my people. I will come with you and you can hide there, work the land. Catch kapenta for a living on Kariba. He won’t find you there. Or you could go and work on those tobacco farms in Karoi. They are always looking for workers, you can hide there. Even in the lowvelt. You can get work in the Thuli-makwe irrigation scheme, or even in Triangle, safari camps and hunting safaris are springing up everywhere. Go to Botswana. You’re a good tracker, and you can shoot straight, get your professional guide licence or your hunter’s licence and join a safari. Just don’t go near Buffel, and if you see him, hide. I have spoken to people from all these places, all over and they are looking for hardworking men to farm and you know how to do that. I can give you some names—’

  ‘No names. They can’t know I came via you or they too could be hurt by Buffel.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you want to go to the police and have him put in jail?’