Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  Though nothing untoward happened, the six hours it had taken them to get to the gorge had been very difficult for Tandia. They'd stopped for ten minutes every hour and reaching the gorge they had taken half an hour for lunch. Tandia had by this time just about had enough. Peekay removed her shoes and allowed her to bathe her feet in the icy mountain stream before he examined them for blisters. In choosing sand-shoes for her to wear he'd shown his experience. Tackies are the best walking shoes for this kind of country, they're comfortable, don't need to be broken in, are soft enough not to cause blistering and will accommodate swollen feet simply by adjusting the laces. To his surprise, though her feet were swollen, the skin wasn't broken. He smeared her toes in vaseline before putting on a pair of fresh socks for her. Peekay knew that if her feet could last, she could, though clearly she was close to a state of collapse. They had two hours' climbing to go and Geldenhuis would be closing in fast. The twins too were tired; they'd put on a fair bit of weight over the years and while they often went into the mountains this was serious climbing for anyone. He noticed that Dee was limping as she walked to the water to fill their water bottles and discovered she'd cut her foot when she'd slipped on a section of miner's blue shale when they'd passed an abandoned mine digging; she'd jammed it against a sharp outcrop of rock. She'd continued on, ignoring the cut and not wanting to delay their progress. Peekay cleaned the rather nasty three-inch wound, picking the tiny bits of shale out of it with a pair of tweezers and finally dousing it with iodine to kill any infection. The iodine stung horribly and tears ran down Dee's cheeks, but she never said a word, simply biting her lip. Dum suffered with her; tears also ran down her cheeks and she stood by her sister biting her lip as well, seeming genuinely to be experiencing the same pain Dee felt. Peekay padded the wound thickly with gauze and wrapped it tightly, using almost the whole spool of two-inch wide elastoplast. Though Dee limped slightly he knew she wouldn't let her foot slow them down, and she refused to lighten the burden on her head.

  Peekay made his calculations. If they could cover the slope ahead in two hours, a climb which usually took a little over one hour from the gorge, they'd be over the top at half past two, half an hour ahead of Geldenhuis and his men. It wasn't much of an advantage, but it would be enough if he was careful.

  Halfway up the slope was a place where he could stop and see into the valley approaching the gorge below them, where the three good paths to the gorge began to converge. Anyone coming along any of them would be clearly visible through the binoculars. If the valley was empty, he knew they were in trouble. Geldenhuis would have made it through the valley and into the gorge. The maximum pace he could expect from Tandia wouldn't get them over the top; the police trackers would reach them twenty minutes before they could achieve their goal.

  They set out once again to climb out of the gorge and onto the final slope, the twins in front with Tandia just ahead of Peekay so he could steady her. Despite the cold her body was soaked with perspiration and she was forced to stop every twenty feet to gain her breath. Though nothing was said Tandia was conscious that they were losing ground rapidly and that Geldenhuis couldn't be too far away. But her legs simply wouldn't carry her more than twenty paces at a time and sometimes far less. Her chest hurt terribly and on several occasions she was sure she was going to have a heart attack. At first she'd cried softly, but soon she didn't even have the energy for that and became convinced that every step she took would be her last.

  Halfway up the slope to the top and more than an hour after they'd left 'the gorge Peekay halted them. Focussing his binoculars he pulled the valley beyond the gorge into focus. He saw almost immediately that it was empty and his heart sank. Geldenhuis had made it into the gorge below, they were finished.

  Then Peekay caught a tiny glint of metal on the edge of the vista' contained within the glasses and he swung the binoculars to his right. He gasped as his eyes adjusted to the sudden movement. Then he started to laugh, his laughter building until it echoed against the hills about him. Finally he turned to the three women, his face creased in a huge grin, 'God is good, children, if we can just keep on our feet we're going to make it. The opposition, God knows how, has become confused!'

  Peekay had seen the police trackers coming down a valley parallel to the one which worked its way to the entry of the gorge. Ten years before there had been access between the two valleys through a second narrow gorge but it had been filled with a massive rock slide. In about ten minutes Geldenhuis and his men would find it impossible to continue. Though the two valleys were less than half a mile apart a sheer cliff face separated them and it would take nearly two hours for the men to retrace their steps. He couldn't believe his extraordinary luck; the path to the mountain slide was well known locally, a favourite destination for hardened climbers. It was common knowledge there was no longer a way through to the big gorge and he couldn't imagine how such a mistake could be made, unless it was deliberate.

  Greatly cheered, Peekay talked Tandia up the slope, sometimes it seemed by inches. Nearly two and a half hours later they sat within fifty feet of the top. 'The last bit is tricky, so we'll rest for half an hour before crossing, Tandia. It's a bit windy up top so we'll stop here.' Given the choice, Peekay would have liked to cross, just to know that they would be out of immediate danger where they had more than one option. But the final fifty feet was almost sheer and he was doubtful Tandia would make it without a rest. The luxury of the extra two hours they'd gained on Geldenhuis made it an easy decision. He chose an overhanging rock that cut into the side of the mountain as shelter. There was room under it to spread a blanket where Tandia could lie.

  Tandia was crying softly, her courage completely exhausted. The fact that she was fifty feet from the top meant nothing; it might as well have been a mile. Peekay removed her shoes and her jeans; lying her on a blanket, he began to massage her legs. She cried out in agony at the touch of his hands against the knotted quads and calf muscles. Peekay continued to work on them for nearly an hour, a lot longer than he'd hoped to stop. But he realized that if he couldn't get her moving again they'd be trapped anyway. The mistaken path taken by their pursuers had most certainly saved them from capture and possibly saved their lives.

  Captain Julius Dube led the Nelspruit police patrol right up to the rock slide, gasping in pretend horror when they'd come around a corner path and faced the mountain of rubble. 'Haya, haya!' he'd exclaimed, holding his hands to his head. The disaster was immediately apparent to them all and Julius had prepared himself for the thrashing he was about to receive. The men were tired and had been pushed at a hard pace by him as he'd deliberately attempted to wear them out.

  'Jesus! What happened here!' Sergeant Maritz shouted.

  The rock slide, though a decade old, had torn most of the side of a mountain away. The rock fall had been much too calamitous for vegetation to have taken over and the slide they looked at seemed as though it could have happened the day before yesterday. But the men from Nelspruit, who were not even local Nelspruit guys, most of them transferred from all over the place, knew nothing of this and even less of the way of mountains, where it might take a thousand years and a million rainfalls washing silt into the rock to cover a fall like this one with grass and bush. Maritz, though plainly exasperated, judged the predicament they found themselves in to be an honest mistake and Captain Julius Dube began seriously to believe that the hand of the great Somojo was apparent in all of this. Everything he'd done with the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi had turned out successfully, as well as being very profitable. He also knew that the great makhosi, Somojo, had blessed the white man with the special gifts. He, Julius Dube, was having the one great day of his life which the spirits promised to every man who lives on this earth.

  Maritz, trying to contain his exasperation in front of his men, took a swig from his water flask and, rinsing his mouth, spat it out. 'How far back is it to get onto another path?' he enquired of Julian.

  'Haya, baas,
it is very, very, far. I think two hours also!'

  'Fok! Ons moet nog twee ue loop tot die groot kloof! Still two hours from the big gorge!' he said in dismay to his tired men, who'd already had about as much time in the mountains as they felt they'd ever need.

  The men all groaned and Shorty Bronkhorst observed, 'John Wayne is going to have to hold the fucking pass alone.'

  No one thought this was very funny. It was half past one and they still had three hours to go to the top. Peekay and his kaffir girl would be in Swaziland drinking a second cup of tea by then, Maritz thought to himself. 'We'll stop for fifteen minutes,' he said, 'it's not going to make that much difference now.'

  Geldenhuis had waited nearly six hours for the helicopter to arrive from the army base at Komaatipoort and he was getting worried. He wanted to be well in place to ambush Peekay and Tandia when they came over the top and it was nearly three o'clock already. He was cursing himself; the men would be closing in and he wasn't in place. He wanted Peekay and Tandia for himself. He hadn't yet decided whether he would kill them, but he wanted the option to do so before the men arrived so that he could claim they'd made a run for it. He was nearly crying with frustration when he heard the beat of the chopper's blades and five minutes later it landed. But then the pilot had to refuel and go through an entire checking procedure before they took off.

  The pilot was a colonel himself so Geldenhuis couldn't pull rank, which was the usual procedure when the police and the army worked together. It's deliberate, he thought to himself, these army bastards don't like to take orders from a cop, they've deliberately sent a fucking colonel to checkmate me! What's more the shit is a rooinek! He felt like hitting somebody, but there were no kaffirs handy.

  The pilot had introduced himself simply as Robin Winter, not observing his rank but not saluting as well, so that the police colonel knew from the start they were quits. He spread a map on the grass and Geldenhuis explained their destination. Winter was far from impressed, looking up from the map into the mountains as though he was making an instant judgement. 'The up-draughts in that range are notorious, Colonel. A chopper like this one can drop two or three hundred feet with no prior indication. Landing on top of Saddleback could be suicidal.' He checked the windspeed averages marked on his flying map. 'The winds up there are gale force.' He looked at his watch and then back at the high mountains. 'At least there's no cloud, though I expect it will come up soon.' He seemed to be making up his mind. 'We've got time for only one pass. After that I'm out of there, old son,' he said cheerfully, but Geldenhuis knew he meant it.

  Geldenhuis wanted to hit the pompous bastard; almost six hours to get up from his base at Komaatipoort and he wasn't even guaranteeing he'd put him down on the top of Saddleback. Fuck it! He'd make the bastard do so at gunpoint. 'Thanks, Colonel Winter, let's go, man,' he said keeping his voice even; it was fifteen minutes past three.

  Ten minutes later Peekay saw the helicopter approaching.

  They'd just prepared themselves to leave. The helicopter circled once above them at about five hundred feet and then disappeared. It came around again half a minute later, this time lower, and he could see Geldenhuis at the open door with his rifle pointed at the pilot. The chopper disappeared from view and they heard it faintly above the howl of the wind as its engines went into a higher pitch. Then they lost its sound, but it returned, the blades whining at an even higher pitch. Moments later the chopper passed low over them, banking sharply with only the pilot in it. They were only ten minutes from the top, fifty lousy feet. Peekay could see the panic in the eyes of the twins and Tandia looked at him. 'It's all over isn't it, Peekay?'

  Peekay's mind was working too rapidly to grasp the despair they felt. He turned to the twins. 'Go over now. When the policeman stops you, he will ask if you have seen us. Tell him we are just ten minutes ahead, that you saw us ahead of you as you came up from the gorge. He will come after us, thinking we are ahead. Now listen carefully. The path divides into a fork on the other side. Tell him the one going to Swaziland is the right-hand path, then take the left one yourself. Wait for us after one mile of walking. Hide in the bush in case he comes.'

  Dee and Dum picked up their bundles and balanced them carefully, though with the wind they had to hold onto them with one hand. Now that Peekay had told them what he wanted they were not frightened. They turned to leave and Peekay walked over to them and kissed them both. The last time he had kissed them he was five years old. Dee and Dum's faces lit up into a brilliant smile, for that's what it seemed like, a single smile on two faces, as though the smile came out of both of them. 'You are our heart-blood, Peekay,' they said together.

  Geldenhuis was surprised to see the two women coming across the open ground towards him. He was still searching for the path when they suddenly emerged over the top fifty yards from where he stood. They appeared not to see him and he shouted. 'Buya lapa, abaFazi! Come here, women!'But his voice was torn from him by the howling wind, which was now buffeting the women's skirts as they used both hands to steady the bundles on their heads.

  Geldenhuis ran towards them, covering the fifty yards fairly quickly, though it was difficult against the wind. He'd jumped from the helicopter six feet from the ground and Winter had put everything into the blades to get himself out. He stopped beside them now, panting. Both women looked amazed at seeing him, the whites of their eyes huge in their faces. They pulled back from him afraid.

  'Do not be afraid of the gun, I am a policeman,' he shouted.

  'We are afraid, Inkosi!' Dum shouted back.

  'I won't harm you, I am in a hurry.' Geldenhuis was not conscious of the irony of this remark. 'Tell me, have you seen two people? One a white man? Maybe ahead of you?' He'd turned his back to the wind, standing parallel to the two women so that he could talk quite normally.

  The two women turned to each other, talking rapidly in a language he couldn't understand.

  'What is that you are saying, hey?' Geldenhuis said.

  'We have seen him, 'Inkosi,' Dee said.

  'He is with a woman, Inkosi,' Dum added.

  'How long ago?'

  The twins seemed to be thinking. 'I think not so long, Inkosi.'

  'I think twenty minutes.' Each twin held up ten fingers. Geldenhuis grinned; then his expression changed and he looked at them strangely. 'Are you two twins?'

  'Yes, Inkosi,' the twins said together.

  It explained the hands going up together. He'd heard of that happening with twins. 'Which way is it to the Swaziland border?' Geldenhuis asked.

  'We will show you, Inkosi,' Dee said.

  'Did you hear any men coming behind you?'

  'No, Inkosi, we did not hear,' they both said.

  It was amazing, Geldenhuis thought, they seemed to have one mind. They turned back into the teeth of the wind and set out for the other side of the plateau. Geldenhuis was jubilant. Peekay and Tandia would be exhausted and he was fresh; they couldn't be more than a few hundred yards away and the trackers hadn't caught up. He had them to himself.

  When they got to the edge of the plateau and dropped over the side the wind seemed to stop. Fifty feet further on the path divided and the two kaffir women stopped. One of the women pointed to the right-hand path. 'It is this one, Inkosi.'

  'To Swaziland? This path goes to Swaziland?' Geldenhuis repeated.

  'Ja, ja, it is this one, Inkosi,' the second woman said. They had nice manners, Geldenhuis thought, these bush kaffirs, not like the cheeky black bastards in the city. He was amazingly relaxed. He knew he'd come up to Peekay from behind.' If he'd seen the helicopter he'd know it couldn't land in the wind and would have seen it flyaway again. He set off down the path the two women had indicated. He wouldn't run, there was plenty of time.

  Dee and Dum took the path to the left. Too afraid to stop and hug each other, they moved forward as quickly as their tired legs would take them, fearful that the policeman with th
e gun might return, fearful also of Peekay crossing in case the man came back. But they'd always done as Peekay asked and now they hurried to where they would anxiously wait for him.

  Peekay and Tandia climbed to the edge of the plateau and watched as the twins reached the other side with Geldenhuis and disappeared. Peekay waited another minute before they set out. It took them nearly ten minutes to cross in the gale-force winds.

  But by that time Dee was dead.

  Geldenhuis had followed the path at a steady trot, covering a couple of hundred yards along the rocky descent in as many minutes. His mind was concentrating hard, but there was something nagging at him. He knew from past practice to listen to it. This was an instinct that was never wrong. He scratched at his mind, even stopping once to try to think the concern to the surface of his consciousness. A little later he passed a patch of soft sand, smoothed by the previous night's rain; it would have been impossible to avoid it if one were walking along the path, yet there were no footprints. He came to another a little further along and it too was virginal. Then it happened! Shit! African twins are very rare. Twins are regarded as bad muthi, bad medicine, and, even today, the weaker of the two twin babies is left outside the village. It was not uncommon to find a small black infant on a rubbish dump in the townships, a twin left to die. Then it hit him like a thunderclap! The two black women were Peekay's twins. It was in his file. He'd grown up with black twins! Geldenhuis turned and retraced his steps down the path. Turning down the second pathway he ran steadily until he saw the twins. 'Stop!' he shouted. Dee and Dum saw him and panicked. They dropped their bundles and started to run. Geldenhuis ran after them, not even seeing the bundles which had rolled off the path. He lost sight of them and then saw them ahead of him again, still on the path. The stupid women hadn't run into the cover of the bush. He stopped, went down onto one knee and, taking quick aim, fired. The bullet tore into Dee's back, killing her instantly.