One Hundred and Four Horses

by Mandy Retzlaff

  The engine fired, and the horses shifted up back, as if readying themselves for the trip. They must have been used to riding in trucks by now.

  “You’ll call me when you get there?”

  Pat shook his head. “I’ll be calling you on the way, every half an hour,” he said. “You’ll be sick of the sound of my voice.” He paused. The door closed between us and, for a second, it was as if Pat was already gone. “You’ll let me know how it goes here. If I have to, Mandy, I’ll be back on the road . . .”

  “It’s four hundred and fifty kilometers from Chimoio . . .”

  Pat shrugged. “It’s a straight highway.”

  I stood watching until the truck had disappeared. Then, breathing in sand and stinging dust, I turned back to the riding school. In the paddock, Shere Khan stood out from the herd, a full hand taller than the horses crowding her on either side. She seemed to have craned her neck to watch Pat leave.

  “You’ll have to put up with me now, Shere Khan . . .”

  I wandered across the yard and propped myself at the fence. In the field, Brutus and Tequila stopped grazing to wander over. From between them, Princess approached. As I ran my hand along her neck, she suddenly cringed away, her withers still tingling with sensitivity where her wound had healed. I was reminded, starkly, of the ringworm eating its way through the herd; Fanta standing bald in her stable stall, rasping desperately in the heat; Philippe with his rotted eye; and all the other ticks and parasites, so alien to Zimbabwe, that had taken to our horses.

  Somehow, I was going to have to get them through it, while at the same time juggling our debts and navigating a route to the other side. A route, I was determined, that would one day take us all along the same road on which I had just watched Pat depart: to Vilanculos, and the Indian Ocean.

  There was much to do, but for now it would have to wait. I would have my hour of peace before I walked willingly into the chaos. I called for Albert to help with a saddle and girth and stepped into the paddock to rope Benji, one of my favorite horses and one of the stars of the riding school, who always cheered me up when I felt down.

  I hoisted myself into the saddle and Benji carried me out of the paddock, across the riding school, and onto the road along which Pat had traveled. We would follow him, if only for a little while, out to the town limits and the bush beyond. And one day, we would all follow this road—every last one of us—and never look back.

  I was sick of new starts. We had had too many.

  “This time,” I said, hand entangled in Benji’s mane, “this time will be our last.”

  Chapter 13

  THE HEAT OF CHIMOIO was vicious. Dust clouded the road. A stray dog stopped to consider me from a mound of grass on the far side of the street. I was on my way back to the stables, and my heart was heavier than it had been since the moment Pat left. In my hands, I held a contract I had just signed with one of the town’s moneylenders. With nowhere left to turn, I had drawn on him to repay some of the outstanding farming debts. Now that there was a figure to put to our desperation, I felt both depressed and elated: depressed because I could guess how long it might take me to claw back enough money through the horses to repay the debts and go to join Pat; elated because, in Africa, elation in the face of utter madness is sometimes the only way of getting out of bed in the morning.

  By the time I had reached the riding school, the dust caked the side of my face. In the ring, Aruba was tacked up and ready for riding. Beyond him, Vaquero was having his feet inspected by one of the grooms. He seemed to be looking around mischievously, waiting for the moment to kick out or slink away. I made a mental note; we would have to watch out for that tricky brute.

  Albert appeared at my side. “Is everything okay, madam?”

  I nodded. “I hope so.”

  “And Mr. Pat?”

  “Good, I hope.”

  It had been only a week since Pat left for Vilanculos, but it might as well have been an age. Those kilometers were the whole world. His voice sounded tinny in my ear whenever he called, and I could not stop myself dwelling on how long it would be before I could follow. By my best guess, it would take me almost a year.

  On the first day Pat had arrived in Vilanculos, he had staked the horses in a roped-off ring of grassland by one of the lodges overlooking the coast and woken up the next morning, not knowing where to go or whether any work would come his way. He felt a strange mix of relief and trepidation, then, to learn that a group of three travelers staying at the lodge had seen the horses and wondered whether they might go for a ride. In Black Magic’s saddle, with Jade, Squib, and Lady following behind, Pat had taken the travelers along the beach. Not knowing any trails, he had followed his nose, rising up sheer sandstone escarpments, blazing a trail where it seemed men had not gone since the coming of the first Arab traders so many centuries before. What he found sounded more beautiful than I could imagine, stuck here in dry, dusty Chimoio: the azure waters of the sweeping bay, the islands of the Bazaruto archipelago hanging on the horizon, everything between them just sea and golden sand. When he called me that night, he was buoyant; perhaps there was a future in Vilanculos after all. Yet I went to sleep alone in Chimoio at night and woke alone in Chimoio in the morning.

  “What have we got today, Albert?”

  “Lessons this afternoon.”

  I nodded sharply. I would have to get the horses ready; selling rides and lessons was the only way I could raise enough money to make it to Vilanculos myself. Shaking those dark thoughts away, I stepped into the ring and approached Shere Khan. She considered me with mild reproach, perhaps even blaming me for sending Pat away, before she dropped her head and deigned to nibble at my hands.

  “We’re in this together, Shere Khan. The sooner we can pay this off, the quicker we can get to Vilanculos. The quicker we can get to Pat . . .”

  Shere Khan looked up, her eyes alive with dark knowing.

  In the morning I woke early, long before break of day. My bedsheets were tangled around me, and somehow I had even kicked my mosquito net free. I lay there, thinking of Pat, so far away.

  The next thing I knew, slivers of daylight had worked their way into my room. It was time to get up, but I buried my head in the pillow, silently pleading for some kind of sedation. What snapped me from my wallowing was the ringing of my mobile phone. Thinking it might be Pat, I scrambled out of the strangling sheets and snatched up the phone.

  “Miss Mandy?”

  Not Pat, then.

  “Denzia?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Miss Mandy, you must come quick. It is horrible.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “It is better if you just come. Meet me at the paddocks?”

  Remembering how the crowd had bayed for Grey’s meat, I scrambled into some clothes and hurried off into the still Chimoio dawn. At the riding school paddocks, Albert and Jonathan were already up, mucking out the stalls and inspecting the horses. Denzia was waiting at the gates, her arms wheeling like a mad old buzzard.

  “It is the Veterinary Department,” she exclaimed. “Miss Mandy, they have found horse meat at market.”

  “Horse meat?”

  “They are quite sure. They called me themselves.”

  An image of Grey and Treacle lying in the road while the locals swarmed around them like flies hit me. Mozambique was not a hungry country like so many others in Africa, but sometimes a free steak was still a free steak.

  “Come on, Denzia, let’s find out who . . .”

  We hurried around the paddock, saying hello to Nzeve’s young brother Echo, along with Brutus, Vaquero, Pink Daiquiri, and the others, but a quick head count convinced me that nobody had rustled a horse away from the riding school in the dead of night.

  “What about Zimofa?”

  Even as I said it, it barely seemed credible. Zimofa Farm was thirty-five kilometers away. It seemed madness to think of a man rustling a horse and riding her all that way to market.

  “Denzia,” I said, “I
can’t deal with this . . .”

  “They have the woman in custody.”

  “The woman?”

  “From the market.”

  “They arrested her . . .”

  “Miss Mandy, we have to identify her.”

  The sun was climbing, spilling golden light over the riding school. There would be lessons today. Rides. A way to keep limping on until I could get back to Pat.

  “You go, Denzia,” I said. “Do whatever they ask, and get back here fast.”

  When I got home to ready myself for the day ahead, the bed seemed too inviting, and I crawled back under the covers. Fastening my mosquito net tight, I promised myself I would just lie down for a few minutes. Half an hour later, I still wasn’t asleep, but there was something comforting in burying my head in the pillow and pretending that the day didn’t exist.

  Then, as was its wont, the phone rang again, and I had to face reality.

  “Miss Mandy, it was Timot.”

  I barely acknowledged the name. “Timot?”

  “It was his wife in the market,” said Denzia. “She has confessed. It was Timot who took the horse.”

  I sat bolt upright. “Wait a minute . . . Timot?”

  There had been a local man named Timot who had worked for us until just before Pat left for Vilanculos. Against all the odds, we had found in Timot a man with substantial knowledge of horses, and we had been sad to see him go. I still saw him around Chimoio sometimes, in the company of an Indian man named Aslam who was now his employer.

  “But why?” I asked.

  “He went out to Zimofa, cut the fence, and led a horse back to Chimoio. It was his wife chopped her up for market.”

  Perhaps I was only just waking up, for suddenly the horror sank in. I pictured this horse, whoever it was, blindly following a man she knew out of her paddock, only to make a long ride through pitch darkness to meet her slaughterer’s blade.

  “Do we know who?” I whispered.

  “Miss Mandy, the commandant here at the station, he wants to see the meat.”

  I kicked out of the mosquito net, abandoning all my hopes of snatching another hour’s sleep. “The meat?”

  “He must inspect it.”

  Denzia had put so much emphasis on the word that implicitly I understood what she meant. The commandant wanted nothing other than to take the meat for himself.

  “Where’s the meat right now?”

  “In market. We must get it to the commandant . . .”

  On the wall, the clock began to chime. The hours seemed to be whirling by. In only an hour, I would have to be back at the riding school to take out a group, young tourists who were staying at one of the lodges on the edge of town.

  “Phone for the abattoir, Denzia. They’ll have a truck. They can take it from the market to the commandant . . .”

  “Miss Mandy, there is one more thing . . .”

  In spite of myself, I snapped back, “What is it, Denzia?”

  “The commandant, he is hopelessly drunk.”

  “Of course he is. It’s Mozambique.” I stopped. “Denzia, do what you have to do and get out of there.”

  After I had put the phone down, I took a few moments to splash some water over my face. I looked at myself in the mirror. It was, I decided, not a very pretty picture. Then, on the way out of the door, I dialed Pat’s number.

  “Mandy?”

  “Pat . . .”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Oh, you know,” I said, nonchalantly, “just everything. How about you?”

  “I’m going on a ride.”

  “Me too.” I hurried down the Chimoio thoroughfare, in the direction of the riding school. “Pat, something happened out on Zimofa. Timot came back and cut the wire and . . .” My voice trailed off and I noticed that there was only static coming from the other end of the line. “Pat, are you there?”

  “Mandy,” came Pat’s broken voice, “I’ll have to call you back. The guests are here . . .”

  When I got to the riding school, Albert and Never had brought out the horses for our ride. Brutus and Mushy were already saddled, while Viper, Texas, Gambler, and Philippe were being prepared. Philippe glared at me accusingly with his one remaining eye, as if insulted that he should still have to work to pay his way. There was still a half hour until the riders would arrive, so I took the opportunity to look in on Princess.

  I was there, stroking Princess’s muzzle and telling her how I longed to one day get in her saddle, when my phone rang again. For a second I just let it ring. Only when Princess rolled her eyes at me did I pick it up.

  “Yes?” I snapped.

  “Miss Mandy, they’ve impounded the truck . . .”

  I swirled around, passing the phone from hand to hand. “Denzia, what do you—”

  “It is the commandant. As soon as the truck came with the meat, he decided he had to impound it, because it holds the evidence. They are accusing us . . .”

  “Accusing you of what?”

  “Aiding the slaughter . . .”

  “But it’s my horse!”

  “Miss Mandy, the commandant, he is very drunk . . .”

  “Get out of there, Denzia. Just get back here fast.” I was about to go on when Albert appeared at my shoulder. Whirling around, I could see our riders for the day lingering at the edge of the paddock, cooing over Brutus, their hands full of horse cubes to palm into his mouth. He looked so startled to see them that their hearts must have gone out to him. If only they knew what a mischievous sort he was under the saddle. I nodded firmly at Albert and turned back to my phone call. “Denzia, the riders are here. Just tell them no. Drive out of there if you have to. Drive through them . . .”

  I hung up, straightened myself, and looked Princess square in the eyes. “Sometimes,” I said, “I think a bullet through the neck might be preferable to all this.” Princess gave me a withering gaze, as if she did not appreciate the joke. “Just a few more months, a few more rides, and we can get out of here for good. How does that sound?” She blew through her nostrils disparagingly, and I turned on my heel to leave.

  I met the riders at Brutus’s side. There were four of them, two married couples, and they seemed raring to go.

  “So sorry to keep you waiting. Beautiful morning for a ride, isn’t it?”

  Well, it was a beautiful morning, if what you wanted was searing heat and choking dust, and horses who would much rather be dipping their heads into a trough in some cool stable. I put my hand on Brutus’s flank, begging him to be good.

  “Can everyone ride?”

  There are people who can really ride, and then there are people who say they can ride, and then there are those honest enough to admit that having gone on a few pleasure rides in some seaside resort does not really constitute riding. To my relief, the four tourists I would be riding with today belonged firmly in the last camp. I decided I would introduce them to the horses one by one and share a little of their history.

  “This young troublemaker’s name is Brutus. I’ll be riding him today.” I looked over the tourists, my eyes settling on the biggest one, a six-foot-tall Englishman with short-cropped red hair and skin that clearly did not like our African sun. “You’ll be on Gambler. Treat her properly—she’s very sensitive . . .”

  I was about to show Philippe to one of the girls, relating the story of his mysteriously missing eye, when I heard the roar of an engine and, in a ball of churning smoke and dust, a van came spluttering into the riding school.

  I turned to face it and saw the markings of the local abattoir up and down the van’s sides. Denzia was hanging out of the window, gesticulating wildly. I took tight hold of Philippe’s reins and watched as the van slewed first left, then right, skidding around just on the other side of a fence.

  As the van stopped dead, the back doors flew open. Three big black bags exploded out of the doors and landed in a heap in the sand, spilling their contents.

  With horror, I looked down to see meat piled high.

  Den
zia leaped out to snatch up the bags, but she was too slow. The first toppled to its side and, out of its black opening, something rolled.

  Handing Philippe’s reins to Albert, I crossed the dusty expanse and looked at where the bags lay. Among them, her glassy eyes staring up as if in petition, was the head of a mare I had known for so long.

  What was left of Deja Vu stared back at me.

  I bent down and took her head by the strands of mane that still cascaded down. As I brought it level with my own face to gaze into her black, lifeless eyes, I could see the four riders ranged around me. Their faces were masks of terror, but they were nothing compared to the expression I could see, stained forever across Deja Vu’s death mask. Shreds of her spinal column dangled from her neck. I found it difficult to imagine that this had been the very same foal born on Crofton, the very same foal whose leg had been entangled in wire outside our home, who Pat refused to put down, who Kate loved and nursed until, scarred but not defeated, she could run and ride once again.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  In that moment, I hated Mozambique. I hated the sun and sweltering heat, the disease, the laws in which we had become entangled, the farmers who had robbed us blind. We had come so far, brought so many with us, but one by one they were falling by the wayside. First Grey—and now Deja Vu.

  Albert was at my side. Softly, I handed him Deja Vu’s head.

  “I think you must come to Zimofa. It really won’t wait.”

  I was, I thought as I looked into the mirror with a toothbrush dangling out of the side of my mouth, getting far too used to this kind of phone call. This time the summons was coming from one of the local grooms we had employed to look over the half of the herd out on Zimofa Farm.

  “Is it really so urgent? There are riders coming this afternoon . . .”

  “I think you must come straightaway.”

  I checked the time. Forfeiting any business at the riding school was out of the question; it was only the money that came from taking tourists on rides that kept the moneylender from my door. If I was going to go out to Zimofa, it would have to be now.