The Boston Snowplough

by Sue Rabie

  He marvelled at its magnificence.

  Going further didn’t seem to matter any more. Finding shelter didn’t seem that important.

  But he kept on.

  The murky dawn of earlier had given way to morning, the brightness of it almost blinding him. They struggled on for another half an hour before May fell. One minute she was beside him, his arm around her and most of her weight against him, and the next she was face down in the snow. He tried to pull her up by the arm, to keep her out of the snow so she wouldn’t get wet again, but instead he found himself on his knees beside her. Her weight was too much, the effort too great.

  ‘May?’ he gasped as he rolled her onto her back.

  She was still breathing, her cheeks and throat bright pink but her nose white and her lips blue. He knelt there for a moment, unable to decide what to do. A tear escaped from beneath her lashes and froze halfway down her cheek.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

  He pulled her to his chest and pressed his cheek against hers to try and warm her. He couldn’t let her die out here, couldn’t let her go like he had let Janey go.

  ‘I won’t do it …’ he said. ‘She asked me to, you know,’ he told May, as he unzipped the jacket he had given her and took her arms out of the sleeves. ‘She was five, but she knew what she wanted, and she asked me to do it.’

  He folded her arms across her chest and rezipped the jacket. He didn’t want her arms hanging down if he was going to carry her, didn’t want her hands dragging unprotected in the snow behind him.

  ‘I did it in the end … I did it, and she died, and nothing has been the same since.’

  He sat her up and tucked his shoulder into her stomach and then eased back. It took a lot of effort to get her off the ground, took an even greater effort to stagger to his feet.

  ‘She had leukaemia … her body was so weak …’

  He stood there for a moment trying to recover from the strain, then adjusted her position slightly before striking out again.

  ‘So I ended it for her … ended her pain and suffering …’

  He carried her like that for five minutes before he stumbled, catching himself just in time and rocking to a stop to catch his breath. Euthanasia … he thought, is a crime in this country … it’s murder.

  Just a few more steps, he said to himself. He staggered on, stumbled again but didn’t stop. It would stop snowing soon, he told himself. It would clear and people would come and save them – paramedics in helicopters and police with flashing blue lights. Just a few more steps. They would find him and May and wrap them in warm blankets and feed them soup. They would catch Kyle and Jake and whisk Mark away to the hospital where they would fix him like new.

  The hospital seemed to waft in and out of his thoughts. It was the same one he had worked in, the same corridors he had walked on a daily basis. He was on the fourth floor looking for door number six. He knew it was the fourth floor because there were Disney characters cut from polystyrene stuck on the walls, and instead of the dull institutional green the doors were painted every colour of the rainbow. The corridors were bright and sunny and warm, and for the first time he was unafraid of being there, unafraid of walking into room number six.

  He came to a sudden stop as he found it right there in front of him.

  The door opened and David held his breath.

  She was sitting cross-legged on the bed with her dolls around her. He could remember every one he had brought her, could even remember their names: Sally, Raggedy Ann, Princess and Miss Grace. None of them had any hair. It had been a game. The doctors thought it would be better to cut Janey’s hair short rather than have it fall out with the chemotherapy, and David and Charlene had agreed. Giving the dolls a hair cut had helped soften the blow. But in his dream Janey’s hair was long.

  It was the same length as it had been before the chemo, and her skin was pink and healthy, her eyes clear and her lips smooth and moist.

  Not like she had been after the drugs, when she was so thin and pale that he could actually see the veins beneath her skin.

  Now she was beautiful, like her photos, like in the holiday videos they used to watch.

  She was beautiful. God, she was so beautiful.

  And then she smiled at him, and spoke. ‘Daddy, please, don’t …’ she said.

  David gasped and pulled back.

  The shock of his daughter’s plea halted him, the blow stopping him in his tracks.

  He blinked.

  In front of him, at his feet, were strange bits of black and odd circles on the ground.

  He struggled to focus, then almost lost his balance as he lurched backwards.

  He was standing on the edge of a cliff, and the black bits were bare rocks that protruded from the snow far below.

  David gasped as he almost stumbled.

  He had walked right up to the edge of what looked like a fifty metre drop.

  And he had nearly taken May with him.

  David blinked against the creeping blackness that seemed to be filling his vision. He didn’t know how long he stood there before he began to make sense of what he was looking at. The blackness wasn’t just rocks, and the odd patterns weren’t just random marks in the snow. They were distant paths circling rondavels and tiny square huts against the opposite slope.

  Elandskrans.

  They were there … they had made it.

  The blackness swirled in front of him, the white of the snow suddenly sharper.

  He sank to his knees.

  All he had to do now was get May down there, all he had to do was find a way down the cliff.

  Nonsense, they were right there. He tried to reach out his hand to knock on one of the little doors and ask someone for help, but May was precariously balanced on his shoulder and he was afraid that if he let her go she would fall.

  He tried to shout instead.

  What came out of his mouth was a foreign language.

  ‘Uyaphi?’

  He tried again, with the same result.

  ‘Yeah! Wenzani?’

  He realised it wasn’t him making the noise. Someone was behind him.

  He turned and looked into the barrel of a gun.

  It was a shotgun, an old one.

  He looked up at its owner.

  Inga Ngubane. He was staring angrily at David.

  ‘Wenzani?’

  But Inga’s anger meant nothing to David, nor did the threat of the gun, because the swirling blackness that had begun to cloud his vision was slowly winning. It got darker and darker until all that was left in front of him was the gun itself, and then, with May still over his shoulder, David Roth slowly toppled sideways into the snow.

  Nineteen

  ❄

  Phiwe woke up knowing something was wrong. For a moment he imagined he heard the grader’s engine over the moaning of the wind outside, but then he realised that was impossible, it was probably just the generator. He sat up, trying to tell what was different, what had woken him, what was wrong.

  He had heard something, and it hadn’t been the generator.

  The generator wasn’t working.

  Usually they could hear it, could feel its muffled throbbing, but now there was nothing.

  He stood, looking around for Malan or Du Plessis in the faint glow from the still warm coals.

  They hadn’t slept in the cots that had been left empty for them, and Phiwe felt slightly ashamed that he had slept at all.

  He had only meant to lie down for a moment, and now he wished he hadn’t lain down at all. He was supposed to be helping, was supposed to be paying closer attention. He glanced around the room. Everyone was asleep, even Mark. Thembi dozed beside him.

  Where was May? She should have come back from speaking to David ages ago.

  He found the torch beside his cot and made his way to the kitchen. The trap door to the basement was open. He flashed the light down into the cellar hoping to find Malan.

  Instead
a mess of loose wiring dangled from the generator’s motor.

  Someone had pulled them out, had done it on purpose.

  Sabotage.

  He backed away.

  Where was Malan? Where was Du Plessis?

  He found them in Malan’s office, the beam from his torch starkly outlining firstly Du Plessis’s slit throat and then the terrible image of Malan with the knife sticking out his back.

  ❄

  ‘Wake up!’ Phiwe hissed as he shook first Owen Dlamini and then Mr Mollard from their sleep. ‘You have to come with me.’

  They must have seen something in his expression, because they both got hurriedly to their feet without question.

  Phiwe led them back to the office and shone the torch on the horrors, hoping that it had been a bad dream and the bodies he had found weren’t real. But they were.

  The reaction from Owen Dlamini and Mr Mollard almost echoed his. They backed away, refusing to believe what had been done.

  ‘We should wake the others,’ Mr Mollard whispered. ‘We have to get everyone out of here!’

  But by then Phiwe had recovered enough to think clearly. ‘Where will we take them?’ he asked. ‘Where will we go?’

  Mr Mollard was silent.

  Phiwe shone the torch around carefully, this time making sure no one else was in the room. The light skimmed across the silent radio and then back.

  ‘We have to radio for help,’ hissed Mr Mollard, edging into the room.

  Phiwe stopped him. ‘The generator is broken,’ he told Mr Mollard. ‘And the radio won’t work without the generator.’

  Mr Mollard stared at him. ‘What do you mean it’s broken?’

  ‘Someone has pulled all the wiring out.’

  Mr Mollard’s mouth hung open.

  ‘Who would do such a thing?’ Owen Dlamini asked quietly in Zulu.

  Phiwe shook his head.

  ‘Well, someone must fix it,’ Owen Dlamini said. ‘You’re a mechanic?’

  Phiwe shook his head again. ‘I can fix cars, but wiring …’ Phiwe stopped in mid-sentence. ‘David,’ he breathed. ‘He will know what to do.’

  Before either of the other two could respond, he was out of the office and down the passage heading towards the storeroom.

  The storeroom was open, the light from his torch revealing nothing but an overturned stool.

  Real fear slammed into Phiwe’s gut.

  ‘Where is he?’ Owen Dlamini asked as he peered over Phiwe’s shoulder.

  Phiwe didn’t know.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ Owen Dlamini asked Phiwe.

  Phiwe stood outside the empty storeroom trying to work out what to do.

  They had to keep calm. He had to think clearly.

  ‘We can’t move the bodies,’ Mr Mollard warned him. ‘The police will want to examine the evidence.’

  Phiwe didn’t want to remind him that Du Plessis was the police.

  ‘We will cover them with blankets,’ Phiwe told him. ‘We will lock the door to keep the others from seeing them and to preserve the evidence.’

  ‘Why did he do it?’ Mr Mollard’s question shot spears of alarm through Phiwe.

  The knife sticking out of Malan’s back was the same one David had taken from Du Plessis, the same one David had used to operate on Mark with.

  No, Phiwe didn’t believe it.

  ‘It wasn’t David,’ he told Mr Mollard firmly. ‘He wouldn’t do something like this.’

  ‘Well, if he didn’t do it, where is he?’ Mr Mollard asked.

  Phiwe hurried to the side door to see if the grader was there. It had been parked at the front of the club, but he still would have been able to see the horsebox protruding around the edge of the building.

  It was gone.

  ‘He’s taken it. He’s the only one that could have,’ Mr Mollard muttered.

  Phiwe didn’t want to consider it at first, didn’t want to believe it. ‘You can’t say that it was David,’ he told Mr Mollard as the three of them stood at the side door and stared at the place the plough had been parked. ‘Maybe it was one of the others.’

  ‘What others?’ Mr Mollard asked. ‘Everyone is sleeping. Who else is there?’

  Phiwe didn’t react to his anger. It was important that they all remain calm. ‘You two find out who else is missing,’ Phiwe instructed. ‘But say nothing. Do not tell anyone what has happened.’

  Mr Mollard frowned. ‘Why not?’

  ‘We don’t need more panic and fear. It’s best to tell only those that need to know. The others have gone through too much already.’

  Mr Mollard seemed dubious, but Owen Dlamini agreed.

  They went on their way, and Phiwe was left to find two blankets to drape the bodies with. It was a gruesome task. He didn’t want to look at the faces of the men he had known, didn’t want to look at their wounds and the blood that splattered the walls and floor.

  He was grateful when he was eventually able to lock the door and walk away.

  ❄

  Owen Dlamini and Mr Mollard were waiting for him when he stepped into the main hall.

  ‘Alex Kyle and Jake are missing,’ Mr Mollard reported quietly, so that the others, still sleeping, would not wake.

  ‘And so are the constable and Miss May,’ Owen Dlamini added.

  Phiwe felt his worry deepen. May? May was gone?

  Why would she have left? Where had she gone?

  And where were Kyle and Jake?

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ Mr Mollard groaned.

  He wanted answers, and so did Phiwe, but dawn was close, and there were other, more important things to do first.

  They needed to create some semblance of normality when the others woke, they also needed to think about feeding everyone, and keeping them warm.

  And busy.

  ‘We can’t afford to worry about where the others are,’ Phiwe told them. ‘Or what happened in Malan’s office tonight. What we have to do is take care of the people here.’

  He turned to Mr Mollard with his first instruction. ‘Can you organise the food?’ he asked. ‘Ask Mrs Perryman and Hetty to make breakfast.’

  It would have to be a cold breakfast, of biscuits, bar snacks and tinned beans and corn.

  It would be Owen Dlamini’s job to organise the heat. He would take teams out to the shed to retrieve wood, set up rosters to keep the fire going. He would also ask if anyone had any experience with generators.

  There were other jobs to do to keep the people busy. He would also encourage everyone to make their beds, to tidy the hall. Some of the other passengers would be asked to help wash and dry the dishes, to stack them away in the cupboards and sweep the kitchen. The steps would be swept of snow, the side door that led directly to the bar would also be cleared. Lunch would be prepared and served from the last of the bar snacks and the rest of the tinned goods.

  Owen Dlamini and Mr Mollard went willingly about their duties. Phiwe watched them, his concern for David and what he might have done clawing at his gut all the while.

  What had actually happened? What was going on?

  It had something to do with Mark and the shooting. But what? Where was May? And where were Kyle and Jake and Potgieter?

  And the helicopter?

  As soon as the helicopter came it would be all right. They would bring doctors and radios and everything would be explained.

  Yes, Phiwe thought, as soon as the helicopter arrived everything would be all right.

  Twenty

  David woke slowly. It was difficult opening his eyes.

  There was a dull orange glow to the right.

  He concentrated on it, on its soothing warmth, as it slowly came in view.

  A heater?

  He was in a room – the air warm and fragrant, the sheets soft around him.

  He moved his head on the pillow and regretted it instantly. His neck ached. It felt like his whole right side was on fire.

  He groaned as he came fully awake, then stifled the groan as so
meone beside him moved.

  It was a woman … a girl.

  He must be dreaming.

  He shut his eyes against the confusion, against the dull ache in his head and the sharper, more unpleasant ache in his body.

  ‘Welcome back,’ someone said.

  The spell was broken and he opened his eyes once more.

  He could still see very little, but he realised it wasn’t because of his eyes – it was because it was very dark in the room. He wasn’t lying on a comfortable bed covered in silk sheets as he had first thought – he was lying on a grass mat, a towel as a pillow and a selection of blankets over him. There was no heater in the room, it was a fire, and the fragrant aroma was wood smoke. He was in a hut, and sitting by the fire on a small hand-carved stool, was an old man.

  M’Kathle Ngubane.

  David sat up slowly. ‘What time is it?’ he asked the old induna in a strained whisper.

  He didn’t know why he asked that question first, didn’t know why the time was so important when he felt so goddamn awful.

  ‘It is the middle of the day,’ M’Kathle replied.

  David looked up at the only window in the room. It was covered on the inside with a canvas sheet, but through a slit on one side he could see thin, murky daylight.

  He looked back at M’Kathle. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

  The induna shrugged. ‘Four hours,’ he said solemnly. ‘You were very tired, and very cold. My youngest wife kept you warm.’

  David glanced across at the young woman as she began to get up.

  He looked down at himself.

  He was naked.

  Completely.

  He tugged hurriedly at the blanket that the young woman had left behind. ‘Where …’ He had to stop to clear his throat. ‘Where are my clothes?’

  M’Kathle grinned at him, his teeth catching in the light from the fire. ‘Drying,’ he said, pointing to a line that was stretched across one corner of the room.

  The line was full of clothes, and not just his, someone else’s too.

  For the first time David noticed that there was another person asleep in the room.

  David leaned across and pulled the blanket away from the figure’s face.