by Willem Anker
We pitch camp outside the town. There are plenty of dry thorn trees around to lug together into a makeshift kraal for the oxen. Towards evening fires are lit and my Heathens hunker down, each lost in his own dream. I saddle Horse and ride into town. I ride down the main street and peer into lighted windows and sometimes a hand waves at me. Horse carries me past dark vegetable patches with trailing shadows. When I pull up I hear water dripping from the leaking canal into the parched soil. I’ve heard many stories of the carousing in the Cape, but in this Colonial backwater only the treetops dance in the breeze. I stop a passer-by and ask him if there are women to be found anywhere in this town and the man says Nothing to rent, here you have to marry or buy, Mijnheer, and he laughs and I ride on as far as the last building and turn around and ride down the road again to the other end from which I came. The moon droops low and depleted.
I’ve just galloped past the last house when I see a small group of men walking into the veldt. In the distance I see fires. I follow the men, join them. They don’t talk much among themselves. They walk fast. They say they’re going to watch the fight. Somewhere in the darkness I hear something that could be singing. Who in God’s name would stand serenading the veldt at this hour of the night? We walk in silence until the singing subsides. Then the conversations start up again. A while later a rider trots past, back to town. By his hat I recognise the damn schoolmaster. I ask the men if our master is coming from the fight. They laugh and say No, Master Markus wouldn’t let himself be caught there. I ask them why the piece of misbegotten misery is so uppity. They look at me askance. They say he’s quite a good sort; he simply keeps to himself. I ask them whether it was he who was caterwauling like that in the darkness. They say they don’t know and what business is it of mine.
Arriving at the kraal, we find a few men waiting next to a wagon with animal cages covered with hessian bags. Fires are burning in the corners of the kraal. Twenty or thirty men are dawdling around, laughing and telling jokes, most of them are drunk. Three men are standing to one side where the fire doesn’t reach. Two bull-baiting terriers, seasoned and raddled fighters, and a massive German mastiff. They are standing well apart from each other. As soon as the dogs come within range, they leap and snap at each other. A man with bandy legs and long arms summons two Caffres. They lift one of the cages from the wagon, haul it over the kraal wall and place it in the middle of the kraal next to an iron pole hammered into the ground. The bandy-legged man drags a chain from the depths of the cage and locks the chain to the pole. One Caffre stays behind in the shallow pit of scuffed mud and straw and sawdust. There’s a shout and suddenly everybody presses up to the kraal wall. The men jostle each other to have a better view. The Caffre rattles the bars of the cage and something grunts and bumps in there. The faces around the kraal seem bizarrely distorted and inhuman in the shadows of the flames. I see the smith and the owner of the inn in his absurd velvet suit and farmers and builders and everybody laughs and drinks and gobs. Somebody tosses the Caffre a spade. He picks up the spade and scrambles onto the cage and knocks out the peg locking the cage and jumps from the cage and swears in his language and runs to the wall. The men jeer at him and nothing happens. Then a big baboon comes walking out of the cage with a chain around its neck. He runs as far as the chain permits, the chain tightens, jerks at his neck and pulls him off his feet. He falls on his arse and the men guffaw and gob. A man with new shoes climbs onto the wall and walks all around it waving his arms and his hat and asking for bets. As soon as his hat is full, he climbs down. As if this were a signal, the men with the dogs climb over the wall. They release the three dogs. The dogs charge the baboon. Creatures human and animal go berserk and blood flows. From the direction of the wagon other shrieks from the throats of what could be baboon and leopard and hyena and jackal and other animals that no human has contemplated for long enough to name.
The baboon utters a hoarse bark, fights furiously until it sees the dogs are drawing strength from its fury. It goes onto its hind legs, extends its arms to the younger of the terriers and screams. The dog charges at the baboon, leaps aside and feints and leaps again. The dog’s fur is marked with the scars of previous bouts. He won each encounter because see, he’s alive. The dogs shiver and yelp, but keep a wary eye on the length of the chain, stay out of reach of the baboon. See the dogs dancing around the baboon. One goes straight for the baboon, then jumps back from the fangs. If they can’t get hold of the baboon, they snarl and snap at each other.
The baboon has been fighting in the veldt from infancy, because see, he too is still alive. When a dog comes close, he jumps up in the air, but the curs are clever enough not to be trapped under him. Sometimes a sudden cuff with the arms, or a more surprising grab with the back legs. The ape tightens its circle, the chain slack enough for a leap. The dogs know these monkey tricks. See, they’re tiring him out.
In the kraal there are no orderly formations; the fatal circle becomes a universe where soil and skin and straw and teeth and hair and blood blend into new terrifying creatures that suck everything around them into a sinkhole. Surprise attacks, then moments that expand into ghastly silences before the teeth find one another once more. The baboon rips open the mastiff’s throat, chucks it aside with a human hand, the graceful animal instantly a limp heap of skin and meat.
The terriers charge when the baboon tries to climb up the pole. The biggest dog gets hold of the ape’s hind quarters and rips him open from below. The baboon’s hands let go and the other dog is on top of him and digs into the innards and tugs at the guts. The ape is hanging between the throttling chain and the dogs that each has hold of a length of gut. The gaze and the screams of the baboon, like those of somebody on a rack, floundering between forces tearing him apart from three directions, are unbearably human.
A man vomits and his friends laugh and gob. Somebody bumps into me and I look around into the beggar’s face and he looks away.
The baboon grabs the nearest dog and brings the animal’s face up to its own. Do they know how much they look like each other? With the ravishing jaws that decorate many a farmhouse, it tears off the face of the fighting dog, who until recently resembled the proto-wolf from which all dogs are descended.
I rub my thumbs and index fingers together until I can feel a static crackling. The remaining dog keeps tugging at the guts. The baboon curls up against the carcase next to him and there is a tremor in one hand and something like a yawn and I see something in his eyes and then he is dead.
Money is exchanged; the panting young terrier’s tongue is hanging out. He tries to shake off the blood. He stamps his paws. His ears are drawn back. His eyes dart to those of his owner and then to the baboon. His owner puts on the chain and takes him home. The two Caffres throw the dead animals over the wall and bury them. I stand watching until the kraal is deserted. Young men my own age try offering me spirits, try telling me about the most accommodating girl in Graaffe Rijnet, try talking about anything else.
I ride back to our camp and find Windvogel and Gert Coetzee the half-caste Hottentot by the last embers of the campfire. They don’t talk, each thinking his own things.
A star shoots across the length of the Milky Way. I see the wonderment of the two men.
God has chucked out his old milk again, I say. It’s beneath him to drink clabbered milk. He only scoffs sacrificial lamb.
Master mustn’t blaspheme like that, says Gert.
Some or other preacher put all sorts of things into the Hottentot’s head. Gert has never been able to tell me who the man was, one of the wandering prophets criss-crossing De Lange Cloof in donkey carts hoping to come across lost souls. According to Gert the man’s name is Master and when I ask Master who, then the reply is Master Master, Master.
That’s the backbone of the night, up there, says Windvogel. It keeps the sky up in the sky.
That’s no bone, it’s the Lord bringing light to our dark land.
Oh, bugger off, Gert!
You don’t know the Lord, V
ogel. I shall smite thee by God! Ishall devour thee by God!
How do you know the Lord, Gert? I ask.
Master told me about him. We were all in the garden together, don’t you know, and then we had to get out and then everything got buggered up.
And when were you in that garden, Gert?
No, Master, don’t you know, it was before Jan Rietbok came to plant vegetables here.
And then you had to get out of Eden?
Yes, Master. And then the flood came, don’t you know. And everybody drowns and we sail that ark.
Gert is silent for a minute, lost in thought.
I still remember that pigeon.
I start spluttering. Windvogel erupts in a fit of laughter implausibly violent in a body as thin as his.
What’s Master laughing for, and you, you good-for-nothing Bushman?
It’s quite a story, Gert. Master Master taught you well, I placate him.
Master thinks it’s all just stories. What does Master believe?
The Caffres say that smear of stars is the hair bristling on the back of a fierce dog, I say.
Does Master believe it?
That as well, yes. Come on, you must get some sleep, we’re moving on tomorrow.
The two men walk off, jostling each other, to where they made their bed under the wagon. I remain sitting. Later I add more wood to the fire and watch the dry wood surrendering to the reborn flames.
The next morning the men start loading the wagons. I walk off into the veldt. In the distance I see a dog-like creature darting from a bush. It could be a wild dog, or a jackal caught short by the sun. The animal is far away, all I can see is the red-brown stain skimming over the level ground. The creature is on its way somewhere, or simply gone. I watch the animal becoming a piece of running grassland, how it disappears into the grass and then leaps out from the brushwood again. As if it’s playing. As if there’s enough velocity to allow for play as well. As if velocity is itself a game not needing anything else.
I walk on, the wagons get smaller and disappear.
I clamber on top of a large anthill. I look around me. It is grassland as far as I can see, in front of me as far as the Graaffe Rijnet mountains; behind and next to me the flatness stretches as far as the eye seeks a point to focus on and finds nothing. The horizon is not a point, it’s where everything perishes. I look around me:
Red dog!
Then as loudly as I can:
Red dog!
I look all around me.
Later I climb down and walk back to the camp. Windvogel sees me and comes running to meet me.
Buys, where have you been? he shouts.
He comes to stand in front of me, out of breath, hands on the knees.
We’ve done packing. The men are waiting just for you.
You must stop calling me Buys when the others can hear. They think you’re trying for white.
Yes, Master, he says mock-deferentially.
Bugger off, man. Tell that lot to have done and start moving on. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.
As you say, Master.
I’ll thrash the hell out of you, you cheeky Bushman, I shout and take off and chase my only friend on earth through the scrub back to the wagons.
In the camp I think my thoughts and the lot leave me alone. I saddle Horse, roll up a hide blanket behind the saddle, fill my powder horn, throw a few lead pellets into my jacket pocket and take my rifle. I also take one of the Hottentots’ rifles and a Caffre’s short assegai. I push the extra rifle and assegai into the rolled-up kaross. Windvogel fusses around me again.
Do you need a hand?
You stay with them, see that the lot keep to the road.
What are you going to do?
Make trouble.
I ride back to Graaffe Rijnet. The people out and about talk about the Bushmen who are attacking families at Bruyntjeshoogte and the commandos that are useless and aren’t shooting enough of the creatures. People talk about the rain that no longer listens to prayers. People tell how a crow pecked out the eyes of a baby the previous week. The veldt is empty and dry and soft flesh is scarce.
When the moon is drifting discarded in the sky like a dented tin plate, I lie in wait at the kraal for the men and their dogs and the doomed zoo on the wagon. It is weekend, there are more people here tonight. The wagon with the cages comes trundling along. Tonight’s dogs are standing in wait already. The young bull terrier is back, its wounds not yet healed. Its comrades for the evening a greyhound and a mongrel, a solid chunky animal without a tail and the eyes of a true believer. There are four cages on the wagon. They lift one of the cages down and open it for a large hyena with an outsized muzzle over its snout. The hyena is calm, used to people. It’s also been here before.
The men howl at the moon like ruttish backyard curs. The wind is keen and bleak; the only cloud in the sky is covering the moon’s shame. The two Caffres drag the hyena on its chain over the low stone wall, the hind legs dig in on this side until the neck can take no more and the animal stumbles over into the pit. The Caffre removing the muzzle gets nipped and the men roar with laughter.
Outside the kraal the dogs are barking more loudly. The hyena shrinks back into itself and tugs at the chain. A drunk stumbles over the wall and staggers and kicks at the hyena and turns around to the onlookers with his hands in the air and laughs. Behind him the animal leaps forward until it’s checked by the chain, just short of the drunken sot’s mug. The man gets a fright and his friends laugh at him and gob. I walk up to the wagon. With the short assegai I aim lightning-fast jabs at the soft pelts in the three cages until all sound ceases. I drop the wet assegai and walk in among the crowd with the two rifles over my shoulders and nobody looks at me and to everybody I’m just another face with something in the eyes and a clenched mouth that has something to bite back.
The hyena trots along the circle circumscribed by the length of the chain, then hunkers down next to the iron pipe. It looks at the people, then at the dogs and then at the fires. It lies down. It gets up when the dogs scramble over the wall after their handlers. The chains are slipped off; they make for the hyena. The hyena barks and howls from the depth of its throat. They snap and bark and embrace each other on their hind legs with the front paws around each other’s necks. The open mouths seek each other out like those of hungry lovers. The greyhound grabs hold of the hyena by the snout. The hyena shrugs itself free and bites the dog across the back with the mongrel also already upon him from behind. He shakes the mongrel off and bites. The bull terrier is keeping to the sidelines, still sated with last night’s blood. The hyena pins the greyhound to the ground and bites at the throat and misses and bites again and adjusts its grip and bites deeper.
Somebody asks me about the hyena in the middle.
It’s not my hyena.
The man looks confused, asks me how much I’ve got on the hyena. I say I did not bet anything.
On whose side are you? the man asks.
A windbag with a sack for a shirt scolds and hisses and apes the fight in a farcical mime. When the hyena pounces he and a henchman grab each other in the same grip as that in which the hyena and the dogs are tearing at each other. His mouth gapes open when the hyena barks, his teeth gnash when the dogs growl, as if he’s the puppet and the dogs the ventriloquists.
The hyena retreats, its mouth stretched open, a sharp yelping. The dogs circle. The hyena leaps, first at one dog, then the other. The greyhound lies bleeding. The bull terrier has an open gash across the back, the mongrel’s snout is in shreds. The hyena is red all over except for the white sinew dangling from its paw. The animals fight without surrender, as if they’ve fought and died a thousand times in other bodies in other arenas.
The men around the kraal are now talking more to each other, bored with the bloodbath. They’re staying for the bets, but the fervour has dissipated.
The firelight finds the hyena’s eyes. I once again see the same thing I saw in the baboon. A pure thing, something that I have onl
y seen this close up in animals in traps.
I make my way through the wall of shoulders, firmly push aside those who don’t give way. The mongrel is in tatters and has no chance any more but does not stop charging. Its owner climbs over the wall, tries to get the chain on his dog again. The dog bites him and the man curses and his friends echo his curse raucously. I look at the men on the other side of the kraal, some of them with spatters of the fight on their faces. They shout and bark and gob and wipe the blood from their eyes and how can they not see it? I step back, suddenly afraid that the hyena’s chain will snap, and then I hope the chain will snap and I smile and then I’ve already swung the one flintlock from my shoulder and aimed it at the hyena and pulled the trigger. The powder ignites and while I have to keep the rifle aimed at the target for an eternity while the powder burns and launches the bullet out of the barrel, the men around me all of a sudden stand struck sober and stupid. The hyena crashes down. I already have the second rifle in the foul face of the drunken lout next to me and I open up a passage through the crowd and have to smack one pipsqueak with the butt of the rifle and then I’m on my horse and gone.
Some distance along I hear somebody calling after me. A rider follows me and shouts about the value of the hides and how much I owe him and you can’t just shoot another man’s animals. I gallop on and the man carries on shouting after me, but never tries to catch up with me. A few hundred yards along he adjusts his pace to mine. He hollers until his voice is raw and the words are mere sounds and the shouting just a shouting and he gives up and turns back to his pals.
At daybreak I wait for the men to wake up while I boil water. We travel back to Brandwacht. I sit silent in my saddle and wonder why wagon trails always wind even though everything is flat and straight in front of you and nobody asks me any questions but they talk among themselves.
On the second day out of Graaffe Rijnet we notice the dogs in the underbrush again. A red one trots out in front of Horse. It’s not the one-eared dog that I wrestled. This one has a fresh mark across the snout; both ears are erect. He is broader and darker and younger than old One-ear, his eyes wilder. The pack leader is dead, long live the pack. What happened to old One-ear? Tick bite? Old age? Did he have to defend his position with his teeth and was he too old? Was he bitten to death or did he wander into the wilderness, a defeated loner? Life surges on, the pack lives for ever. The dogs have a new captain and I have a new shadow.