by Peter Rimmer
A voice from outside the house called his name 'Arthur' and Arthur wiped the stains of the sick from his mouth. Who would call his Christian name if they came sent by the bank? Maybe the shares had rocketed up as quickly as they had fallen down and he was still the man about town. Getting up off his bottom he avoided the puddle of sick and straightened his coat. Again, the man outside called his name and Arthur walked out of the small room to the top of the stairs.
"Just coming," he shouted turning into the bathroom to wash his face.
From suicidal fear to desperate hope, Arthur trod the red staircase down to the front door of his house, fixed a smile of confidence on his face and opened the door.
"May I come in?" said Henry Manderville.
"My man was out when you rang."
"Bollocks. You're bankrupt Arthur. The Charter shares went down another shilling this morning."
"Then why are you here, esteemed father-in-law?" said Arthur sarcastically. "Last I heard you were sunning yourself in Italy on our money. You haven't by any chance seen my wife?"
"I know where she is and who she is with." Henry pushed past Arthur and walked into the morning room.
"So you're part of the kidnapping," shouted Arthur, slamming his front door shut and following his father-in-law into the morning room.
"My first instinct is to knock your block off but then you would be of no use to me. You know better than me there was no such thing as a kidnapping, that young Harry is Seb's child not yours. In the first place we were both wrong agreeing to an arranged marriage. Sometimes they work, quite often in fact the flights of young love wither with familiarity. But to charge your own brother with a capital offence and have him arrested! That's murder."
"He kidnapped my son."
"She ran away with their son. Sebastian became a man and claimed what was his."
"The law is on my side."
"Yes, it is which is why I am prepared to repay your overdraft with the bank in exchange of you withdrawing your complaint…You didn't consummate your marriage, did you Arthur?"
"She wouldn't let me."
"Good, then the marriage can be dissolved. By the twisted luck of fate you are going to be able to go back to your life of debauchery."
"I want the whole two hundred thousand," said Arthur thinking on his feet, the light of dawn flashing in his eyes.
"Yes, I rather thought you would and frankly I don't care. You can keep both Hastings Court and your money but you can't have my daughter or my grandson."
Arthur began to laugh, quietly at first and then hysterically.
"Do you agree?" asked Henry.
"Of course. You sure you can give me the money?"
"My solicitor is certain and he drew up the agreement."
"Father will spit blood."
"He may even come to his senses. After all, Sebastian is also his son."
"My father is as hard as nails. All he wants to do is come up in the world and he don't care how we do it."
Puzzled by the break into north country dialect, Henry gave Arthur the address and time to meet in the solicitor's office.
"You won't be late," he said.
"Not this time."
Outside the closed front door Henry Manderville shuddered as if someone had walked over his grave.
Book 3 – The First Chimerenga
Chapter 1: September 1895
For some months before his nineteenth birthday (the date given to him by Emily to celebrate) Tatenda had been yearning for his own people. Without a word to anyone, he left in the night and began his journey north from the farm on the banks of the Mazoe River. He headed north guided by the four stars of the Southern Cross, dissecting the pointer stars through the bar made by joining the two bright stars that never left the proximity of the cross. Careful that south was always kept at his back he began the long walk back to his people, the Kalanga, one of the smallest tribes that made up the Shona speaking people.
Four years before, they had left Cape Town the day after Sebastian was freed from jail and taken the train to Kimberley. When Sebastian drove the lead ox wagon over the Limpopo River at the new crossing east of Tuli and stated loudly that he would never leave the country the white men were calling Rhodesia, Tatenda felt the first shiver of fear for his people. These white people who had saved his life had come to stay and stay as masters, never as equals. And when six months after they first arrived in Salisbury the man who said he was Emily's father joined them, Tatenda knew the days of freedom for the tribes of the Shona were over. The father they called Sir Henry had brought a friend from England and the friend from England had bought a new wife, and this man they called Gregory Shaw told everyone he was going to have ten children and a farm so big that not one of his neighbours would see his chimney smoke.
They had settled on the farm on the banks of the river twenty miles from Salisbury that the new government had given them and the trees had come out of the ground, ploughs had gone into the soil and as the game ran from the felling trees the white men shot them for fun and only sometimes took the meat into Salisbury for sale. And then the first house went up and the first fences and the first white policemen in uniform visited the farm they were calling Elephant Walk and a few of the Shona people came out from hiding away from Lobengula and were given jobs on the farm with each week a ration of maize meal, a cup of salt, a bag of beans and as much meat as they could eat with a place away from the white man on the river to build a hut and plant some pumpkins. After generations of fear the people thought it was paradise. For most people their freedom was worth giving away for food and shelter and protection from the stabbing spears of the Matabele, the Zulus of Shaka who had raped and pillaged their way north to the ancient lands of Monomotapa.
Wherever possible, Tatenda had followed the game trail that took him north through the long dry grass that was often higher than his head and dotted with treacherous anthills hidden in the grass and tall Msasa trees that traced their newborn leaves against the black heavens. When the moon went down the millions of stars in the heavens were not enough to show him the way and he stopped under a tree and listened. The warm spring night whirred with the constant call of insects and frogs and far away a lion roared and made him shiver and clutch the puny protection of Harry Brigandshaw's .410 shotgun that he had stolen before he left Elephant Walk. Over his shoulder was a full cartridge belt with everything from number six bird shot to the heavy buckshot that if he got close enough would kill a duiker or a klipspringer. The guilt of stealing Harry's precious gun was his only sorrow mingled with the deep fear of loneliness and the fangs of wild animals. The late September sky was clear and layer upon layer of stars domed above his head deep into the black heavens and he prayed to his ancestors to intercede with God to protect and take him home. Then as the lion roared nearer and was answered by another animal farther to his right he prayed there was a home that some of his people had escaped to from the Matabele terror. Not even once did he think of the new God Sebastian's Reverend Brother had made him swear to follow. The lions were too close for pleasing other people and other gods and before the night was out he was calling to his ancestors and fear, his voice thin and shaking. Only with the light of day did he stop his shivering and remember he was a man going to join his people. Gathering his wits he went using the sun's position to guide him north; with the night stars he would check his position accurately the way Tinus had taught them to walk through the bush.
The new leaves on the msasa trees were russet brown and the red of ox-blood mingled with the pale green and yellow of limes. Birds were calling for their mates, telling them where they were in the new day of courage. A buzzard rose on the warm thermals up into the new blue sky calling plaintively with aching sadness to the new day below. Alone he watched the bird turn and turn higher calling with the same sad sound of melancholy that filled his heart. It was the first time in his life he had been alone and he looked back to the south from whence he came and he saw his warm bed and breakfast on the ta
ble and seven-year-old Harry, nearly eight, calling out to find some new excitement in a small boy's world. Almost he went back.
The years of good food and the hard training of Tinus Oosthuizen had turned the thin boy into a strong man who came as high as his teacher's shoulders. His thick black hair was cut short to his skull and his face in the white light of morning was aquiline and spoke of some Arab slaver in his ancestry. His eyes were coal black, his lips thin for a Kalanga and his small ears almost as pointed as a lynx. The strong forehead sloped back to the short cropped hair and his head was domed at the back like a calabash. Using the hunting skill of the Boer, Tatenda worked his way through the long elephant grass and pushed the long barrel of his .410 through into the clearing and shot the small impala grazing beside the safety of its mother and the bush echoed with the shot and birds and animals scattered from the powerful sound. Quickly, Tatenda cut the half-dead animal's throat with the knife given to him on his eighteenth birthday by Sebastian. With skill and concentration he skinned the buck, placed a haunch over the coals of his new fire and cut the rest of the meat into strips to dry in the sun and fill the single saddlebag that thumped against his thigh as he strode the bush. In the far distant heat-haze, he could see the foothills of the mountains to the north. Having eaten and filled his bag with half-dried meat he went on his journey.
Tatenda found the elephant trail that had been used for thousands of years on the third day of his flight and even the burden of 'north' was taken from his mind. The annual migration of the herds moving one behind the other took them south out of the Zambezi River valley a month or more after the end of the rainy season depending on the grazing in the valley. The great bull led the mammals up the escarpment to the high ground and then down to the well-watered plains that stretched to eternity. The journey back was 'north' and the rugged outcrops that sloped up to form a high ridge looking down into the distant valley. Among the great outcrops there were many places to hide and pockets of fertile soil scooped into the rocks to grow millet and pumpkin away from the scavenging impi of Lobengula. The afternoon of the first day of his longer stride on the beaten trail he heard the horsemen far enough away to hide himself behind an anthill in the tall grass off the trail. He watched the four well-armed men ride south down the trail with a purpose. They were prospectors by the picks and shovels strapped to the horses' rumps but they were not looking at the ground. Their backs were straight and they laughed as they went on their way unaware of Tatenda twenty yards into the bush clutching his puny shotgun. The next morning he was forced off the trail again by two horsemen, white policemen in the uniform of the British South Africa Police, one of whom he recognised as the man in charge of the open bush to the far north and to three miles south of the Mazoe River and Elephant Walk. It was this man's job to keep the peace and he was heading south with the same purpose as the prospectors. That afternoon two more white men cantered past looking neither to left nor right.
On the seventh day he reached the foothills and followed the winding trail of the elephants through and around the outcrops of granite. Some of the boulders were hundreds of feet high, thrown down as he knew by the gods in anger when the tribe of man was sent away in wandering bands sacrificed to the mercy of beasts. Now his people had gone back to the place of the desolation and his search began as he climbed higher and higher watched by eagles and vultures from their nests. The trail swallowed him and he went on and round. Whole trees grew from splits in the mighty rocks searching down with their roots for soil and sustenance. Leopard watched him from ledges high in the broken outcrops, so far away they looked the size of Harry's cats, basking in the late September sun only retreating to the cool interior of the lairs when the colour of the sun in the morning changed from white to yellow and waves of heat rose from the bald heads of the giant boulders. With the heat of the day and rising thermals the clouds built in the rainless sky only to fade in the colder night. Rock rabbits scurried again in the cool of the morning and they reminded him of the plight of his people. By the end of the tenth day when he was approaching the top of the mountains that ranged away to west and east he had seen no sight or trace of his people, only the white men moving south on their horses.
That evening he stood next to a small stream that had found its way out of a cleft in the mountain and plunged in gentle fury out into space and down to the canopy of trees two thousand feet below on the floor of the Zambezi Valley that stretched as far as he could see. Despondent, he sat on his haunches and wondered if all the people of his tribe were dead. To his right, down a gentler slope to the valley floor he could still see the elephant trail. As he sat and looked down into the great distance he caught the first whiff of fetid breath, the first smell of foul air trapped for centuries. Facing him as he turned to find the source of the sickening smell was an old, gnarled, tangled tree not ten feet from his face. Leaving the stream behind him to continue its endless plunge over the cliff he found the small opening to the cave behind the tangled roots of the wild fig tree. Pushing his saddlebag and gun ahead of him he squeezed his way into the cave disturbing a small rock that dropped inside and echoed its way deep into the bowels of the mountain. For half an hour he waited until his eyes were accustomed to the dark. Small light found its way into the cave that spread into the darkness thirty feet below his feet. He was on a ledge and to his right crude steps were cut into the rock leading down to the bone-strewn floor of the cave. However much he wrinkled his nose to catch the smell there was no telling of fresh dung or living cat and he climbed down into the cave to see where it went, convinced the steps had been cut by his people.
The witch had watched him stand. All the time she stroked the soft fur of the crouched leopard, the yellow eyes fixed on Tatenda standing on his ledge, the predator waiting for the witch to let him go. The animal's stomach rumbled with his excitement. The witch felt the leopard's tail twitch against her back and smiled in the dark in deep anticipation. The distance between the leopard and the man, as the man took the crude-cut steps to the cave's floor was eighty yards. The man's movement made the tail thrash and still the witch stroked the leopard's head, calming the deadly instinct. The witch was waiting for the light and when the ever rising sun high outside the mountain that encased the cavern reached the small entrance to the hole hundreds of feet above the cavern floor a bright white light beamed clarity on the ancient bones and the witch let go of the leopard to find the brief light that the witch used to terrify her people. In the shaft of light the leopard stopped, commanded by a click from the witch's tongue.
In the moment the leopard showed its face it spoke, the yellow eyes fixed on Tatenda.
"This is the ancient home of Kalanga," spoke the leopard. "Who are you?"
The light and leopard disappeared at the end of the sentence leaving Tatenda rooted to the spot. With fear savaging his brain he did not hear the double-click of the witch's tongue calling back the leopard, her throat sore from her ventriloquy that had thrown her voice to talk from the leopard's mouth. As silent as the leopard the witch withdrew further into the cavern listening for the terrified departure of the stranger who had entered their sanctuary. When it came, a long moment after the sun passed over the hole in the roof, she smiled with toothless satisfaction.
The moment of pure fear honed by thousands of years of superstition, made Tatenda shiver in the heat of the sun, his rigid hands still clutching the gun and saddlebag. The wind had come up and blew into his face taking away the smell of ancient death. A black eagle circled soundlessly ignoring the man on the road below. Taking a down current, the great bird dropped vertically to the face of the escarpment searching the jutting rocks for prey. The wind made a thin whistle, passing through a rock cleft above Tatenda's head and the sound of the normal wind soothed his shivering and stopped his need to run out and dive to the eagle soaring down below met by the spray that was all that was left of the plunging stream. The sound of silence so high above the valley floor surrounded the whistling of the wind. Dropping to his k
nees the ancient man within him now dressed in European clothes called for his ancestors to intercede with God and take the terror from his mind. He plunged his head in a running stream thirty feet from the lip of the escarpment crawling further into the water that dragged him slowly to the plunge, the water gentle with its balm, the rock floor smoothed by the years of rushing water. Luxuriously as he faced his ancestors, Tatenda turned on his back still floating inch by inch to his death at the end of the stream, his body bumping the bouldered floor of the riverbed. A man was standing on the last rock beside the plunge with the saddlebag in his left hand and Harry's shotgun in his right, the belt of cartridges crossing his chest. A jackal skin hung from his waist and hid his genitals.
"You better come out of there," he said in Shona. He was about Tatenda's age.
"You spoke to the leopard," he said as a statement. "I have been following you for two days. The white men are leaving the country. It is time for the struggle. You are Kalanga or the leopard would not have spoken."
"Those things are mine."
"Where did you get them?"
"From the white man."