by Sue Rabie
Everyone held their breaths.
‘There’s bugger all out there,’ blanket jacket told her scornfully.
‘Shut up, Jake,’ the tall one said. ‘I hear it too.’
The others sat up straighter as a distant rumble drifted towards them.
‘Thank God,’ someone said as one of the women began to weep. ‘They found us, thank God …’
There was a general sigh of relief and even some subdued laughter.
The men gathered at the door and someone turned on the lights. The rumbling immediately increased and soon a single diffused glow could be seen making its way through the thick snow towards them.
Miriam smiled down at the boy in her arms. He had slept for some time, dozing as she sang her hymns and lullabies, but now he was awake and was peering out as a dark mass of growling machinery drew up alongside the bus. ‘Look,’ she told him, ‘its one of those machines that scrape the roads.’
It was a yellow grader, a large rusted six-wheeler with the name Galion stamped heavily on its hunchbacked chassis. Only one headlamp worked.
The grader settled to a muttering idle, and the people at the door pushed forward to see who was driving, then shuffled back as they made room for him to get into the bus.
The man shook snow from his shoulders, then stood and stared at the occupants of the bus. Miriam could see he was cold, but she thought he would be a handsome man, had his face not been so pale. He was well built, his shoulders wide under the corduroy jacket. His brown hair was dark with melted snow, his eyes blue.
The people in the bus grinned at him and laughed and told him how relieved they were to see him.
Miriam watched as he nodded and folded his hands under his armpits and looked over his shoulder as another man climbed into the bus.
‘Is this everyone?’ the newcomer said. He was shorter than the first, older by ten years and better dressed in a thick bright-red nylon jacket.
The tall man in black answered. ‘There were more,’ he said. ‘But they left to find help …’
The man in the red jacket glanced quickly at the man beside him.
Miriam understood that look.
They hadn’t found help.
The man with the blue eyes nodded at the passengers in the bus. ‘We’ll get these people to safety first,’ he said, ‘then come back and look for the others.’
There were sighs of relief.
‘All right,’ the man in the red jacket called across the anxiously waiting group. ‘Let’s get you to the grader.’
Most of the passengers were secretly relieved and immediately began pushing for the door. Miriam, the two men and the boy were the last ones out. The man with the blue eyes helped her down from the bus and through the snow towards the idling grader. He was almost as tall as the man in black. He guided her and the boy to a horsebox, jury-rigged with a thick chain to the stern of the grader. Inside it were an assortment of blankets, enough for everyone to pull around them as they shuffled inside.
‘Siyabonga,’ Miriam said to her rescuer as he helped her and the boy through the small side door and into the horsebox.
He looked at her for a moment and then smiled.
It changed his face, his normally reserved expression softening.
But it was only for a moment.
He seemed to remember something and the smile faded.
‘You’ll be fine,’ he told her to cover his awkwardness. ‘Mark will take care of you. You’ll be safe and warm with him.’
Miriam smiled and then glanced up in surprise as someone pushed in front of her. It was the man in the blanket jacket.
‘What about our luggage? You just gonna leave it here?’ he asked.
‘It’ll be all right,’ the man with the blue eyes replied. ‘I can fetch it when all this is over.’
That answer didn’t suit blanket jacket. ‘Forget that!’ he almost yelled. ‘I’m not leaving it behind.’
Miriam saw the tall man with the dark eyes glance at his friend in warning, but the other man just shrugged. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘You stay here and look after it. I’ll pick your body up once the storm has passed.’
He turned and left, presumably to climb into the high cab atop the grader and start the trip home, so he didn’t see the expression on Jake’s face.
Miriam did.
She saw Jake reach into his inner pocket and began drawing something out.
‘Jake …’ The tall man gripped him by the wrist. ‘Leave it, Jake,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing we can do now. We’ll come back later and fetch it.’
Miriam watched Jake brush off the tall man’s hand. ‘All right then,’ she heard him say. ‘But he’d better do what he said, because if he doesn’t bring us back then I’m gonna fucking kill him.’
Four
❄
They made it back to the Werner’s farm in the middle of the swirling night. Anri was there to greet them as they clambered out of the horsebox and filed into the front room of the house. ‘Come in,’ she invited. ‘Sit by the fire.’
They crowded into the lounge, the fire roaring in the hearth wringing groans of relief from not only the passengers, but also from Mark as he too shuffled forward to find a place near the heat. ‘It’s damn cold out there,’ he said to his new guests as they stood staring at the fire. ‘You’re lucky David found you.’
David stood by the door. He was cold and numb. The search for the bus and the drive back had even anaesthetised his thoughts.
Someone pushed a warm cup of cocoa into his hands.
‘Drink this.’ It was Anri. She smiled at him and watched him have a sip before she began handing out mugs to the others.
The two-way radio hissed in his pocket. ‘David?’ came the call. ‘David, kan jy my hoor?’
David set his mug down and fumbled for the set. ‘I hear you, Du Plessis …’
‘Where the hell are you? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!’
‘We’re back at the Werner’s farm. We found them.’
‘Dankie, Vader! How many?’
‘Only half. Some of them left the bus and went for help.’
There was a moment of dead space.
‘You’d better get out there and start looking …’
Mark came over and took the handset from David. ‘We’ll start searching for them in the morning, Hannes,’ he told Du Plessis. ‘We’ve been out in the cold long enough and we’ve got enough trouble on our hands looking after the people we could find …’
Mark glanced at David who was staring into the flames.
‘All right,’ came the eventual reply. ‘Let’s just hope that by the time he’s ready to go out again they’ll still be alive.’
The radio crackled and went dead. ‘Sometimes I think he asks too much of you,’ Mark said angrily as he handed the set back to David.
David didn’t respond. He was watching Anri as she settled her guests and handed out homespun woollen blankets. ‘How’s the girl?’ he asked her when she came back to retrieve his mug.
‘Sleeping,’ she said. ‘Which is what you should be doing. You look dead on your feet.’
She handed him the last blanket and frowned as he shook his head at the offer of food. ‘You’ll need your strength if you’re going out again tomorrow,’ she said.
David knew she was right, but he still couldn’t bring himself to eat. ‘Those people will be dead by the time we find them,’ he said quietly to her. ‘Du Plessis is right, I should be out there looking for them.’
‘Then you’ll be dead too,’ Anri answered shortly. ‘You’re no good to anyone out there right now, David, not even to those ghosts you’re trying to run from.’
He glanced at her in surprise. ‘I don’t know what …’
‘You don’t know what I’m talking about?’ she answered for him. ‘I know. You men never do.’
❄
Jake Oberholzer struggled to sleep – even after the job in Durban, their narrow escape from the police and the long wait in th
e bus. He had been quiet enough while Anri made beds up for the women in the two spare rooms and then found mattresses from her daughter’s pyjama-party days for the men. He had even helped carry camping cots out from the garages. But as Jake lay in the lounge on a makeshift bed of cushions and blankets and waited for the dawn to break, he watched David Roth, trying to work out if the man was really sleeping.
‘Do you think he’s awake?’ Jake whispered to Alex Kyle lying next to him. ‘Kyle?’ he hissed, when no response was forthcoming. ‘Do you think he’s awake?’
‘Shut up,’ the man called Kyle breathed. ‘Go back to sleep.’
‘I say we should go now,’ Jake whispered to Kyle. ‘I say we should get the hell out of here and go and get the case. We can take the snowplough,’ Jake went on. ‘We can drive it the hell out of here and be done with this place.’
Kyle let his head roll slightly to the left. ‘The snowplough?’ he said, frowning at the term Jake had used for the grader. ‘Can you drive it?’ he murmured with lazy sarcasm. ‘Do you even know where the bus is?’
There was disdain in the question.
‘We can take the farmer with us,’ Jake muttered. ‘Or him. David. He knows how to get back there and he knows how to drive that thing. We can take him.’
‘Really?’ Kyle exhaled. ‘And you think he’ll come quietly?’
This time, Alex Kyle’s contempt was open. Jake was silent after that.
Alex Kyle turned away, thinking about the man who had saved them and who now lay at the far end of the room. He was quiet and reserved. Like me, Kyle thought, he hides something, something he doesn’t want his friends to know.
Kyle wondered what it was, wondered if it was something he could use, for although he didn’t like Jake, and hadn’t wanted to work with him, Jake was right. They needed David. They needed his grader and his knowledge of the countryside if they were ever going to get out of here with the suitcase.
Kyle lay thinking about David, about what he was hiding …
And, on the other side of the room, David lay thinking about Kyle …
He wasn’t asleep either. He had listened to the two men talking, unable to make out the words, trying to ignore them, but his mind was in turmoil.
What kind of man dressed that smartly yet travelled by local bus? And who was his foul-mouthed companion?
Where were the other bus passengers and how was he going to find them in the snow tomorrow?
His mind kept him awake with endless questions until eventually his body gave out and he fell asleep to the crackle and hiss of the fire as it settled in the hearth. It wasn’t an easy sleep. It seldom was. He had the dream again, saw the room with his daughter lying there begging him not to do it.
‘Daddy, don’t … please, don’t …’
❄
David woke to a dark figure kneeling over him. ‘Wha …?’ he stammered, suddenly awake.
‘Take it easy,’ came a whisper.
It was Mark.
‘You awake?’ he asked as he squatted beside David.
‘I am now,’ David breathed.
Mark held a cup of coffee out to David who pushed himself up onto an elbow. The others still slept – the room filled with deep breathing. The fire was out and only a dull red glow came from the very centre of the embers.
Jake was still asleep next to the hearth, but of his companion, there was no sign.
‘You ready to go?’ Mark asked as he stood up.
David nodded as he also began to stand.
He followed Mark to the kitchen, pulling the blanket around him and hugging the coffee mug to his chest as he pushed through the swing door.
There were four people already up, one of whom was Anri. ‘Ah, David,’ she said. ‘You’re awake. Do you know everybody?’
David shook his head.
‘This is Miriam Sikuza,’ Anri said, beginning the introductions.
Miriam walked across to David, and before he could object took him in her arms and hugged him. ‘Thank you for coming,’ Miriam said. ‘We would certainly have died out there if you hadn’t.’
David smiled awkwardly at the large woman.
Miriam let him go with a smile and stepped back so Anri could introduce him to another woman who sat at the large kitchen table.
He didn’t recognise her at first.
It was the girl from the car.
‘This is Michelle MacFarlane,’ Anri told him. ‘From Durban.’
She stood up slowly and David stepped forward to shake Michelle’s hand.
She smiled hesitantly at him, but her hand was warm and lingered in his. Her hair was a thick honey blonde, not the dark snow-matted brown of the day before. She seemed different, older now, less of a girl and more of a woman.
‘I just want to thank you,’ she said softly.
‘It was nothing …’ he said, struggling for words.
She shook her head. ‘It was my life, and I’m grateful.’
David nodded, then smiled awkwardly.
Mark was also smiling. He shoved a plate with a toasted sandwich on it into David’s hand as Anri introduced the last person.
‘This is Alex Kyle,’ she said.
David’s hands were full of sandwich, but it didn’t matter because Kyle didn’t make a move to shake his hand.
David nodded at the tall man and Kyle smiled back.
It wasn’t a warm smile.
The silence stretched uncomfortably. Mark cleared his throat and pointed to the sandwich in David’s hand. ‘You’d better eat it,’ he said. ‘Michelle made it for you.’
‘Are you going to the bus again? I mean, to find the others?’ Michelle asked.
‘Yes,’ David said, taking a quick bite of the sandwich.
‘Why don’t you take Mr Kyle with you?’ Michelle suggested.
David glanced at her in surprise.
‘After all, three pairs of eyes are better than two.’
‘Good idea,’ Mark said as he began gathering the last of the equipment that they might need for the search – two torches already stood side by side on the counter, as well as thermos flasks filled with hot tea.
David remained silent, unconvinced.
‘He can ride with me in the horsebox while you drive,’ Mark offered.
David dug for his gloves in his jacket pocket to hide his hesitation.
He didn’t really want the man along. There was something wrong about him, something dangerous, but he couldn’t really turn down the offer of help either. ‘All right,’ he said quietly and looked up at Anri. ‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Werner.’ He looked at Michelle. ‘And the sandwich.’
‘It’s nothing,’ Anri replied. ‘And you know its Anri, David.’
David smiled stiffly then started outside.
It was still snowing, the day too young to show the dawn through the morning fog and the night too old to keep it back. The layer of white on the ground was almost twice the depth it had been the day before. It rose almost to his knees and David cursed it silently as he struggled to start the grader’s engine again. He had to try it three times before it chugged into life.
He hadn’t spoken to Du Plessis that morning, and considered whether to contact him and tell him they were on their way.
Later, he thought, when they found the other passengers.
If they found them.
He let the clutch out and braced himself for another long, cold and uncomfortable search.
Five
❄
They spent most of the day tracing and retracing their own tracks, searching the area north of the bus as he and Mark had discussed. The wind had come in from the south-west and they presumed the group would have walked with the wind, rather than against it. They searched all the places where shelter might be found – the spare hay barn in the south section of the Van Rooyen farm, the small pump house at the side of the river, the bit of cover under the old bridge at the disused stockowners’ lots.
Nothing.
‘Perhaps th
ey went back to the bus,’ Kyle suggested, as they sipped hot tea and ate the chicken sandwiches Anri had packed for them.
David looked at him standing next to the grader. Despite his reservations, Kyle had helped them with the search, had even hiked through the deep snow to a boarded-up farm stall where someone might have taken refuge.
‘It’s worth a try,’ Mark said. ‘They might have circled back, might even have found the bus again and taken shelter in the hope that someone would come.’
So David drove back to the bus through the lightening snow. It might clear soon, he told himself, trying to decide if the momentary brightness was a break in the clouds or a figment of his imagination.
But the snow continued, unrelenting.
The bus, when they got to it, was almost unrecognisable. The once striking vehicle with the letters SRT on its aquamarine side now loomed darkly, almost buried up to its windows on the windward quarter.
David turned the grader off and sat listening to the deep silence after the throaty rattle. He climbed down from the grader and stood gazing over the vehicle for any signs of life.
The neat fields of white to either side of the road were undisturbed, the irrigation canals that ran beyond the fences now covered over by the smooth continuous mantle. The only thing that indicated a road was the fence, and even so, there only remained two thin strands of wire above the snow.
David started towards the bus.
Alex Kyle was already there, sweeping at the snow and moving alongside the vehicle to the cargo bays beneath. David frowned but continued on his way to the front door, Mark lending a hand when it proved to be frozen in its half-open position.
The interior of the bus was disturbing.
It was dark inside, the iced-over windows letting in only a small amount of dull, fractured light. During the night moisture had collected in frosted sheets of dew on any and every surface and beads of condensation had turned to small stalactites along the underside of the overhead lockers.
It was a hushed scene, a smothered stage from a dead world.
Dead …
If the other passengers hadn’t found shelter during the night they were sure to be dead by now. No one could have survived out in the open for this long.