Shooting Butterflies

by T. M. Clark

  Buffel hadn’t even needed to torture him for the address. He had given it freely.

  Kujana Farm, Hluhluwe, South Africa.

  But live men tell tales, so he’d had to be silenced.

  Buffel smiled at the memory.

  A telephone book, and two phone calls, and Buffel knew where Shilo was going to be. The farm had been easy enough to find, off a main road on the back of Hluhluwe, and everyone in the small town had known the Wild Translocation trucks, pointed them out to him. They had even told him that they would be at a local game auction the next day.

  Small tourist towns. The people were always so easy and helpful, especially to strangers.

  The ostriches in the boma near him were having a commotion about something. Their loud protest defied anyone close by to have a conversation. He looked at the hessian sacking wrapped around the temporary boma enclosure, but he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary causing their distress.

  He checked down the boma line, to where some sable antelope were penned. The meanest bastards to a hunter. A wounded sable would fake death when you shot him, only to impale the hunter with its scimitar-sharp horns if he wasn’t careful when he went up to it for a photograph. Aggressive as hell, the sable was an antelope many underestimated in the safari trade and the hunting business. He strolled towards the pen, feigning interest. Counting minutes, straining to see Shilo in the crowd as they milled around him.

  The viewing panel in the solid part of the boma was about the size of a standard pillowcase. Made with corrugated iron, it rattled loudly when he opened it. Within a moment, he saw the big black bull rush from the one side of the boma, and slam into where he stood. Only the strength of the boma spared him the wrath of the animal. He stepped back as the attack happened, but eagerly stepped up towards the window to see what damage the sable had inflicted upon itself.

  Nothing.

  The base of its curved horns was thick, yet this cornered beast was fighting for its freedom, with no regard as to how much pain and suffering it could give itself.

  He was magnificent.

  Buffel looked at him through the eyes of a hunter, thinking how proud he would look on his wall in his trophy lounge.

  The sable slammed at him again. He closed the viewer window, not wanting to draw attention to himself, and not wanting to spoil the trophy beast.

  He noticed Shilo the moment he walked around the side of the boma set up outside the tent. In the six years since he had last smoked him out, he had not aged much. He looked from Shilo to his companions.

  The farmer. He walked with the swagger of a confident military man. One who was at ease in the bush and in any shithole of war around the world. His short blond hair was typical of one who had served or still served within the SADF.

  But it was the person who held his hand who suddenly drew Buffel’s full attention. He held his breath. Trying to stop his beating heart. Trying to hold his mouth closed. Stop himself from grinning like a baboon having too many marulas. It was impossible.

  His white-haired angel. He knew it was her.

  Impendla’s saviour. The Butterfly.

  Tara Wright was just as beautiful in adulthood as when she had been just about to blossom into a woman. She wore an impractical white dress, close fitting to show off her body, it left her shoulders free for the African sun to kiss lightly. She had on dark sunglasses, but he didn’t need her to remove them to know that the colour of her bright blue eyes wouldn’t have changed. They would be the same as when they had first looked at him across his veranda table when she was too young.

  The same eyes that tormented his dreams.

  The same eyes that had the power to call all the butterflies together, and to save Impendla.

  He looked to her right, and striding next to her was a boy. He had the same white hair she did, and his eyes were shaded by sunglasses. He walked tall and although he looked a bit like the farmer there was no mistaking he was her son. Bordering on manhood, the boy walked with a purpose that many of the younger men lacked now.

  Pride. He strode, he didn’t simply walk, he held himself tall.

  A worthy warrior to accompany the Butterfly on her journey, he thought.

  The last man in the party walked on the other side of the boy. He looked out of place with his denims, and his shirt rolled at the elbows. His hair looked like it had been styled with a dryer, and he held the boy’s hand.

  Buffel bristled. A moffie or a male model. Not a man’s man, but a man who thought more like a woman.

  He spat in the dust.

  Then he turned slightly to the left, so that when they passed by they wouldn’t see him. He turned and watched as they walked into the huge white marquee that sat like a giant bullfrog in the middle of the farm. The auctioneer was already inside, and a general hum like millions of bees could be heard from the tent. He walked slowly behind the party.

  He couldn’t help grinning. He could quieten Shilo and get his angel and her warrior in one clean sweep.

  All he had to do was be patient, and strike like an Egyptian cobra when he made his move.

  It had to be on his terms.

  He had to plan.

  CHAPTER

  28

  Sensory Overload

  Game Auction, Hluhluwe Outskirts, South Africa

  17th February 1999

  11:00am

  Moeketsi ran to catch up to the others. Having turned back to the vehicle for his hat, he now wished that he had left it where it was. He was already sweating from the heat, and adding the physical exercise to it, he was going to look like he had run under the sprinkler when he went inside the auction tent.

  He noticed the man standing by the boma, and he slowed. Instead of catching up to Jamison and Wayne, he hung back. He had seen the sketch that Gabe had done of the man they thought was responsible not only for Tara’s father’s death but for the disappearance of a heap of white girls.

  He couldn’t tell if it was him, but the similarities were too many to dismiss. The height, the set of his jaw. His overall size.

  The man turned away as Wayne and his family passed, then he stood staring at their backs for a while. Eventually, he pulled his hat lower on his head, and followed them inside the huge tent.

  Moeketsi lifted dirt from the floor and let it drip slowly through his fingers. It stayed vertical, no deviance from ninety degrees.

  No wind.

  No reason to pull a hat further onto your head.

  Unless you were trying to hide under it.

  He walked to where the man had stood and began to track his footprints around the boma.

  ‘Come on, Africa, show me his story,’ he muttered as he bent to check if he had the print correct, and continued to track what the man had done before standing watching the Wild Translocation party.

  Moeketsi followed the spoor to a white king cab bakkie. The back was grated, designed to carry animals, like sheep or even small buck, and raised on a higher suspension than normal. Customised. The back had obviously been cleaned and laid with fresh hay for the auction. There were three thick-cut sticks in the back, like a Zulu fighting stick in size with big knobs on the end, but heavier than a normal knobkerrie.

  He memorised the Zimbabwe numberplate.

  He walked around the vehicle, and tried each door, but it was locked. Peering through the deeply tinted window he couldn’t see anything amiss in the bakkie, only a small old-fashioned duffel bag that sat on the back seat. In a city, the car would be broken into and the bag stolen, but here the farmer knew that his possessions would be safe at the auction.

  Moeketsi walked slowly back towards the tent. The scalloped white edge didn’t move as there was still no wind. He looked for the stranger, but couldn’t see him outside hovering anywhere. He slipped into the back, letting his eyes adjust to the naturally dim interior.

  The auctioneer stood in the front of the tent, a portable steel game pen visible behind him. Farmers in khaki sat in the rows of white plastic chairs which fil
led the area in front of him. Some were rocking on the back legs of the chairs as they waited for the lots that interested them. Women waved the program, fanning themselves. The auctioneer’s voice rose in pitch as the figure being offered grew higher and higher.

  It was easy to spot his colleagues. Madam Tara’s hair was very white compared to any other blonde there, and as she sat alongside Wayne and Jamison, she looked tiny. Josha was next to her, not quite as tall as his dad yet but getting there.

  His eyes continued their search.

  Finally in the opposite back corner he spotted the man.

  Still wearing his hat, despite being indoors, he nursed a Coke up close to his face as he stood on one leg, the other crossed over forming a V as his toes tapped an irritated rhythm in the dirt. He didn’t seem to be listening to the auction, but his focus was on the back of Tara’s head.

  Moeketsi watched him for a while, ensuring that he had the trajectory of the stare right, and then he slowly made his way to where there was a spare seat next to Gabe. He sat down and held his position for about thirty seconds, feigning interest in the auction, then he leant forward and snapped his fingers low at knee height to gain Wayne’s attention.

  Wayne leant towards him to listen.

  ‘He is here. Back left corner, wearing a hat. Madam Tara is being watched.’

  Slowly Wayne sat up, then he spoke in hushed tones to Jamison who sat next to him. ‘Moeketsi says Tara is being watched by the man in the left corner with a hat. Do you recognise him at all?’

  Jamison stretched up his arms above his head and as he yawned, he bent backwards and glanced over his shoulder to the left. Slowly he turned his head back to Wayne and brought his hands down. He didn’t have a bidder’s card so he didn’t need to worry about the distraction to the auctioneer.

  ‘It is him,’ Jamison said in a voice just above a whisper.

  Wayne felt the adrenaline surge through his body. He let go of Tara’s hand and flexed his fist.

  ‘What is it, Wayne?’ Tara whispered. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘You and Josha stay with Gabe and Moeketsi, no matter what happens,’ Wayne said as he bent towards her and kissed her mouth. He stood up as Jamison did, as if to shield Jamison with his body from Buffel’s view, then together they made their way down the aisle of white plastic chairs, and up the passage on the right-hand side. Wayne allowed only his eyes to move to check if the killer was still there, and as he checked, the man ducked out the flap of the tent.

  He broke into a run.

  Jamison right beside him.

  Wayne stopped as he exited the tent, looking left towards where the man had gone, but he saw nothing. Jamison ran to the flap and immediately dropped to his knees. Trying to decipher which footprint belonged to him.

  He picked one, and began moving fast, towards the outside of the boma. He motioned to Wayne to split up and head along the other side.

  As Wayne obeyed his hand signal, Jamison followed the spoor around to the gate area.

  The man was running, the imprint of the footprints were no longer clear and sand was flicked from the front of his foot towards the back.

  Jamison increased his pace.

  He heard the screaming before he got to end of the long boma.

  The shouts of people warning of a danger. Then the sound of hooves beating the hard ground.

  He rounded the boma, and could see chaos in front of him as people clung to the sides of the temporary fencing, up out the way of panicked animals. People streamed out of the tent, like ants from a burning log, running to get out of the way. He could see the back end of the herd of sable as it had been funnelled between the boma, and the car park, and directly into the tent.

  The sable were unpenned and they were making a break, running for their freedom.

  The auction attendees were running for their lives.

  ‘Jamison,’ Wayne’s shout carried above the noise. He homed in on him as he jumped down from the boma. Wayne pointed towards the car park area.

  Jamison ran for the car park.

  Wayne ran towards the tent.

  Tara head the screaming and the shouting and suddenly there were black buck tearing through the tent. Sable antelope, she realised as one reached the end of the tent where the auctioneer stood and turned around. It hesitated for only a moment before putting its head down and charging to the right, towards an open air flap, and disappeared out the tent. The others followed, some jumping over people who sat on the edge near the aisle between the seats. Farmers and patrons threw themselves to the middle of the seating, giving the beasts room to run freely down and out the other side.

  Women screamed.

  Men shouted.

  One sable stopped halfway down, almost opposite where they crouched on the ground. Gabe had his arm over both her and Josha and somehow Moeketsi had jumped from his seat near Gabe and now shielded her with his body from the side where the sable was.

  Tara screeched as it looked like it was about to charge at them.

  Someone came barrelling over the chair next to them as the sable started to run, and at the last moment Moeketsi saw the man. He sprung upwards to try to deflect him away and over the top of Tara, tried to help pull him over them, so that he didn’t land on her, but the man’s boot kicked her in the chest.

  Solid steel-capped leather connected with breast bone.

  For a moment Tara saw stars as pain shuddered through her whole body. Radiating out from her chest, through her neck up and down. Heaviness pressed in on her.

  Moeketsi pushed the man totally off her, and he was apologising and thanking them at the same time, but Tara lay still. Plastic chairs went flying as the sable hooked one onto its horns. Spooked by the white chair, it turned towards the crowd trying to leave. But the men threw their arms in the air, shouting, and the buck snorted and unusually chose flight over fight. It turned around and fled after the rest of its herd, out the top end of the tent, the chair still stuck like a crown above its head.

  Slowly people got up off the floor, and dusted themselves down.

  Gabe knelt over Tara. ‘You okay? Tell me you are okay.’

  ‘Oww,’ she said. ‘Man that hurts.’

  ‘Oh thank God!’ Gabe said.

  ‘Mum!’ Josha called as he threw himself down in the dirt next to her.

  ‘Josha, I’m okay. I’m okay. I just feel like something huge is sitting on my chest. Are you hurt at all?’

  ‘I’m good, Mum,’ he said and he clung to her.

  Wayne burst through the crowd that had begun to mill around. ‘Tara! Josha!’ he shouted.

  ‘Here, we are here,’ Josha said jumping up. ‘Mum’s hurt. Some guy scrambled to get out the way of the buck and kicked her in the chest.’

  Wayne pushed past the people filing out and eventually got to her. ‘Shit,’ he said, as Moeketsi moved out the way so he could kneel next to her.

  ‘I’m fine, just a bit sore, that’s all. It’s going to be a bruise from hell but I can breathe again so I should be okay. Just bruised.’

  He hugged her, mindful of her sore chest, and he reached for Josha and hugged him too. ‘Oh my God, I was terrified that you guys would be caught in a stampede. What the sable could have done to you …’

  ‘One got a chair caught on his horns, and eventually ran out the other side after the rest,’ Josha was saying. ‘It looked like a crown, but he was as mad as a snake!’

  ‘What happened?’ Tara asked, looking at Wayne.

  ‘It was him. Buffel. He was here, he let them out. He’s seen you and definitely now knows where you and Josha are.’

  ‘Dad, I can’t breathe,’ Josha said, ‘you are squeezing me in tight here.’

  Wayne let Josha and Tara go. He sat down on the plastic chair.

  Moeketsi asked. ‘Baas, where is Jamison?’

  ‘He followed Buffel into the car park—’

  ‘We must hurry to help him,’ Moeketsi said, ‘I know where his bakkie is parked and he can get out fast.’ He began
running away, dodging the crowd.

  Wayne was torn, to stay with his family, or to go and help Jamison. He knew that in that second, he had to choose because he couldn’t do both.

  But inside the tent with Gabe and with the crowd, they were safe. Buffel wouldn’t try to come back in. Tactically it made sense that he could leave them. But that didn’t make the decision any easier.

  ‘I have to go. Jamison needs me,’ Wayne said to his family. ‘Stay here where there is a crowd. Gabe, don’t let them go out of this tent, stay within a crowd!’

  He ran after Moeketsi, saying ‘excuse me,’ to dazed patrons as he passed.

  ‘We will have a short half-hour break, then we will be right back with the auction.’ The auctioneer was speaking into his microphone, but Tara didn’t think that anyone was listening.

  She sat on the chair, and put her head in her hands.

  Buffel was here.

  They were in immediate danger and Wayne had just rushed out to help Jamison.

  Jamison was in danger too.

  Gabe asked, ‘How sore on a scale of one to ten is your chest, Tara?’

  ‘Eleven and counting,’ she admitted, ‘but I think I’ll be okay, Gabe. I don’t think the animals are supposed to get out and run through the auction. Seriously, when last did you ever see such chaos—’

  ‘Until you got kicked in the chest it was running into the home video’s funny rank, but I agree with you on the chaos theory,’ he said, as he sat down next to her.

  She watched Josha as he put his backside on the chair in front of them and he rocked, and bounced the chair. ‘You sure you’re okay, Josha?’

  ‘I’m good, Mum, you’re okay, so I’m good.’ He wiggled and put his feet up on the chair in front of him.

  She took a few deep breaths. ‘Gabe, did you hear Wayne?’ she asked quietly, trying to make it so her voice didn’t reach her son.

  ‘About Buffel being here. I heard him. I’m staying close, keeping you guys inside the crowd.’

  ‘He’s really here at the auction. He’s really the one after me. Even after Jamison wouldn’t speak his name. You said it, and I still couldn’t believe it was him.’ She looked around wildly. But people milled around aimlessly, standing to vacate seats as they grouped together to natter and some filed out into the sunshine.