by Linda Ihle
Angela had heard it too and she ducked, involuntarily, then started to scrabble her way on hands and knees across the stones and dirt to where Devin now had resumed her squat. Devin gestured at her to move faster and then crawled into the southwest path. Paper thorns lodged in her palms and she realized that she was empty-handed for a reason: The kerosene can of water stood in the middle of the path leading to the fork, abandoned, dully glinting in the late afternoon sun. The knife lay next to it. She grabbed Angela’s shoulder, raised her finger to her lips, then shoved her into the long grass on the side of the southeast fork. She shooed her with her hands, and Angela, understanding, took off at a remarkably rapid crawl. Crouch-running, Devin sped back into the broad path, snatched up the kerosene can and knife and ran back to where she had last seen Angela.
Gdonk. Gdonk.
Oh, god, please, shut the hell up, shut the hell up! She shoved the can into the long grass, and the knife into the back of her panties and followed the twisted, broken-blade trail Angela had made into the bush. Moving largely on her belly now, Devin suppressed whimpers of pain as the stones and thorns ripped at her naked belly and thighs. Within about 30 yards of what she had now dubbed the low road, the terrain began to fall and the grass became sparser. Flattening herself even closer to the ground, she slithered now, head down and found herself on a sheet of rock that sloped suddenly and then fell precipitously into a deep donga. Angela cowered at the bottom, where she had wedged herself behind a thin mopane sapling.
“Get up the other side! Get out of here!” Devin whispered, again shooing her with her hand. Angela obeyed immediately, scrambling up the east wall of the depression, clawing at wayward roots and pulling herself up and over the edge. She reached down and pulled Devin up and they both immediately flattened their bodies into the hot earth again, before slithering back into the long grass. They made their way thus toward a small mopane forest, crawling into the shade of the trees before stopping to look back. Devin judged the distance between them and the low road, at about 75 yards. “Lie down flat,” she told Angela who was making motions as if to sit up. “Lie on the gun so it doesn’t reflect the sun.” There wasn’t much chance of that – the weapon was filthy – but Devin had no idea who they were dealing with. She slid her own AK-47 off her shoulder and rolled onto it.
They lay still in the soil, rocks and grass at the base of the mopane and stared, panting shallowly through open mouths, back toward the path from the river, seeing nothing more than the tall brown grass around them and the tops of the scattered wag’n’bietjie thorn trees. Far off, a “go-away” bird called plaintively. Rain was coming. The chattering of vervet monkeys to their right drew her attention and she nodded to them, pointing with her nose as her father had taught her, showing them to Angela. Please don’t give us away, she silently importuned the creatures. They swung and chattered in the top branches of the largest tree. It was alive with mopane worms. The brightly coloured caterpillars wound in shifting iridescence around the upper trunk. Shocked, having always believed that monkeys were herbivorous, Devin watched as one of them reached down, grabbed a caterpillar and bit down on it. She turned slowly away from them and cautiously raised her bark and hibiscus clad head to survey the area they had just fled.
Suddenly, a head appeared above the burnishing grass. It bobbed, a wayward balloon, disembodied, making its way unerringly toward the low road they had chosen. It seemed to be wholly concentrated on the path ahead of it. No head turns to the right or the left did it make. It appeared to belong to a very light-skinned black man. He too sported a Castro-style cap perched quite jauntily atop unruly curls. Visible to the women, sticking up alongside his left ear, was the barrel of an AK-47. Another loner? Devin wondered. This is getting weirder.
The monkeys continued their shrieking and squabbling in the mopanes, oblivious to the presence of the guerilla. Maybe they pass this way quite often? Maybe they don’t kill the monkeys for food, at least not members of this rowdy, cocky troop? The man continued his forward march, not even glancing in their direction. He seemed to be looking more at the ground right in front of and to either side of himself. As the realization dawned as to what he was probably seeking, Devin’s blood ran cold: land mines. Shit! We could have walked right into land mines or claymores or whatever the hell it is they call them. I never even thought about that!
He slowed, then stopped, where the two women had made their dash into the bush, and peered down at the obviously disturbed grass. He bent and they lost sight of him, then rose again and stared toward the donga, which was now off to their right. Devin whispered, “Don’t move.” Angela was transfixed, staring, eyes wide, across the bush at that head. At that instant, the man raised a hand pointed back the way he had come. He was telling someone to wait, stay, don’t come this way just yet. “There’s more,” Devin whispered. “Stay absolutely still.” The man returned his gaze in the direction of the donga, then began to move into the bush toward it. There is no way he won’t see the path we took. Shit!
He moved slowly, cautiously, eyes trained upon the grass, flicking up to peer at the area of the donga. To the west of it, off toward the river bank they had so recently negotiated, dappled with the shadows cast by the still, wilting leaves of a nearby, stunted msasa, loomed a miniature pyramid, a brownish-red termite mound. Castro-cap stopped suddenly and turned slowly to look at that mound; he had obviously heard or discerned something the women could not. He reached back with his left hand, pulled the rifle off his back and brought it up to his shoulder. At that moment, Angela and Devin heard what he had heard: a rustling and crashing in the supine haze of mid-afternoon. The man seemed to relax slightly. He’s probably thinking only a village idiot or a pig would make that much noise in the face of his own mortality. Devin took the opportunity while the man’s gaze was averted to slowly, inch-by-inch pull her own rifle out from under her. She brought the flesh-warmed metal up to cheek and shoulder, aimed the weapon at Castro-cap, and slid her forefinger inside the trigger guard. She nodded for Angela to do the same and she began to oblige. As she gingerly pulled her rifle out, Castro-cap crouched and they lost sight of him again. He had been making his way toward the anthill. Now what? Goddamnit! Devin reached out and pulled Angela’s arm. “Come,” she breathed, nodding back toward the tree where the monkeys still wrangled and played and dined.
The two women belly-crawled backwards the 10 yards or so to the larger tree and pulled themselves behind it, all the while watching the area where Castro-cap had vanished. As they prostrated themselves behind the tree and resumed firing positions, they heard him yell, “Aiee, mai-we! Nyoka!” At the same time, the crashing and thrashing in the bush around the anthill intensified, now accompanied by outraged squeals and grunts. Castro-cap appeared halfway up the anthill, holding on with one hand, the other clutching the AK-47. He was looking back, down behind him, slipping and struggling for purchase with his boots on the slick red soil. The grass on either side of the anthill swayed and bent and danced, marking the progress of the group of pigs, probably warthog, probably a mother with her young, judging by the tone and pitch of the squeals. One squeal was, though, different. It had the cadence of terror and rage and despair, of something being killed, dying, as the screams of a young kudu clutched at the throat by a crocodile. There’s a nyoka all right, Devin thought, and he’s a big bastard. Python most likely. Got a piglet. Agh, shame, hey. She shuddered. But if its mouth is full, why is that terr halfway up the anthill?
She returned her full attention to him. He had managed to get a little higher, but barely, and was now aiming downward with the rifle. Will he waste a bullet (and risk discovery) on a python that’s already feeding? He must be pretty poop-scared of snakes or an ignoramus. Maybe both. Those stupid ones are most dangerous though. Keep an eye on him, she warned herself, blinking moisture back into her burning eyes, when all of a sudden, Castro-cap lost his tenuous grip on the anthill and began to slide down. He dropped his rifle so he could use both hands to hold on and they heard t
he dull thud as it hit the ground butt first followed instantly by the crashing staccato shots as it fired off about ten rounds by itself. Castro-cap stared down at the area around the bottom of the termite mound then yelled toward the river.
Devin could not fully understand him, picking out only a few words she could translate into English, but it appeared that the gist of it was that he was all right, for, seconds later, a group of about seven heads, single-file, appeared above the grass line, heading toward the southeast path. Above one of those heads, she could make out the profile of an RPG launcher. Instinctively, she shrank back and patted the ground for Angela to put her head down. Castro-cap was working his way around to the other side of the anthill, his boots kicking and scraping against its sides, scrabbling for a foothold, an opportune rill of erosion. He failed to maintain his hold as he reached the west face of the anthill and slid down, falling out of sight behind the long grass. They heard the thud of his landing and watched as he ran and hopscotched back to the low road, the southwest path, where his comrades sniggered and nudged each other.
Their reunion was brief and furious with accusations and denials and great hilarity among those who had not faced down what was purportedly (judging by gestures) a giant nyoka and a pissed-off mother warthog. Castro-cap slung his rifle back over his shoulder and again resumed his scouting position, heading off along the path at a much quicker gait, yet still watchful. The rest of his squad waited, letting him get ahead by 25-50 yards or so, before following in silence.
Angela and Devin finally dragged their gaze away from the sight of the seven heads moving away, getting smaller and smaller as their owners marched onward, and looked at each other. They both burst into laughter, giggling uncontrollably, hand over mouth, until Devin was rolling on the ground beneath the mopane. Looking up finally, hiccupping with suppressed laughter, she spied a monkey staring quizzically down at her. He scratched at his head as if underlining his puzzlement and set her off again. Angela looked up and noticed their audience. “He’s cute,” she said making a move toward him, hands raised, as if to pat him, whereupon he bared his teeth and began to scream at them both.
“Um, no, they’re horrible, actually,” Devin remarked wryly. “Watch he doesn’t poop in his hand and throw it at you. They’re little bastards.” She moved out from under the canopy of the mopane, out of poop-throwing range, and examined her belly and thighs in the sunlight. “Gimme some of that TCP, Angela, please.” She took it, poured a small amount into her palm, winced because that was abraded too, and began to rub it into her cuts and scrapes. She handed the bottle back to Angela. “You might want to clean up a bit,” she said, “if you have any open cuts or sores. I’m gonna walk over there to the anthill and see what it was that scared that terr so much, and I need to retrieve our water.”
“Be careful,” Angela cautioned as she began her own skin inspection. She found a small blackish-brown tick, already embedded, feeding in the soft flesh of her upper thigh and decided to wait for Devin to get back before asking what to do about it. She could not imagine the depth of curiosity that would take this woman back toward the area where the guerrilla had been so obviously terrified. She watched the thin, bony back and thighs, long tanned and scraped, filthy legs, shaded by the ridiculous, hibiscus-festooned bark hat, as Devin edged into the thick bush near the termite mound.
The mother pig and her young had disappeared into the bush toward the river and she was unconcerned about them – what she wanted to see was the snake – it should still be there. And it was as Castro-cap had described – huge. The rock python had to be at least 12 feet in length, khaki and green and cream it stretched its full length around the east side of anthill. The huge bulge in its throat confirmed her suspicions that it had sneaked into a hole in the anthill, seeking shade in the middle of the day, seeking lunch, perhaps, and found the latter in the form of a fat piglet. It sensed her (probably had heard her coming) and reared slightly, hissing. The sound stilled the chatter of the monkeys and the cry of the birds, and she recoiled, backing away from it.
So, he wasn’t lying. That is one big nyoka. She grinned and turned from the scene, then ventured back along their flight path to fetch the kerosene can before making her way back to the shade, to Angela.
24.
Devin stood for a moment in the shade of the big mopane, tapping her lower lip with a filthy forefinger. “I dunno which way to go now,” she said. “We can’t get too close behind those terrs,” she gestured in their direction, “and we can’t go back into the gorge – there’s no shelter there for the night. Maybe…” She turned and dropped her rifle and clambered up one of the smaller mopanes. Her right hand landed on a cluster of worms and she shrieked, snatching her hand away and nearly falling. “Agh, I hate those damn things!” She laughed and blushed as Angela broke into giggles again. Climbing as high as she dared on the fragile limbs closer to the top of the tree, she parted the foliage and surveyed the surroundings.
Far to the west, a bald rock kopje loomed out of the savanna. South of that, only scrub. No huge, climbable trees were visible. Devin looked to the east. She could make out another kopje about two miles away, and beyond that, a thin column of grey smoke split the horizon. Probably the kraal or PV. She looked down to see if she could make out the low road the guerrillas had followed and suddenly realized that she could still see them. There they were, seven heads surreal in the haze, bobbing along, well behind the leader, the mine seeker. “Come up here, Angela. Help me decide which way to go.”
Angela followed her up the tree, the soles of her sneakers slipping on the bark. She avoided the cluster of caterpillars and soon was swaying gingerly clutching twigs next to Devin. “Can you see them?” Devin asked her, pointing with her nose at the troop of heads. Angela picked them out and ducked involuntarily. “They’re not looking for us,” Devin said. “Shit! Look at this now!” Just to the left of the path the guerrillas followed, a little way ahead of the scout, something glass or metal glinted heralding a brief flurry of movement in the grass, then stillness, as if a covey of quail had suddenly danced for a split second, in camouflaged synchronicity. “They’re walking into an ambush!” Devin whispered. She relaxed her grip on the frail, thin limb to her right and grabbed Angela’s arm. “Man! How can we get the guys’ attention without them killing us too?”
“I don’t know…I don’t know.” Angela returned her horrified gaze to the scene about to unfold before them. Grandstand seats at a killing.
“Hey, if you don’t want to see what’s going down there, man, you have got to get down the tree,” Devin whispered, eyes wide, bloodshot, sunburned. “I don’t want you freaking out and falling down the tree, but…..” She was interrupted by the thud of an exploding claymore, then another, spewing a deadly hail of ball bearings, and they both stared back at the kill zone. Screams punctuated gunfire. Devin watched as the scout, who had obviously passed through the KZ ahead of his squad, ran southwest off the path. A single shot heard above the ghastly clamor and clatter, and his head disintegrated in a red mist.
In less than a minute, it was all over. Silence fell upon the scene and for a moment nothing moved. Then, a single soldier rose like green and grey smoke from the long grass alongside the path and made his way in a crouching trot up the slight slope and into the contact zone. The women watched, breathless, as he appeared to make his way among the bodies they could no longer see. From the movement of his head and shoulders it seemed as if he were moving them, testing them with his feet. His voice carried across the bush as he called down to the rest of the stick and they emerged as he had out of the long grass and cautiously approached the KZ.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Devin whispered, bending wobbly legs to begin her descent down the tree. “Let’s catch up with them. We can get home. C’mon!” But Angela remained frozen in the treetop. She stared down at Devin. “I’m black,” she said. “What if they shoot me?”
“Agh, Christ, they’re not gonna shoot you just ‘cos you’re black, yo
u ninnie! Come on!” Devin reached up, grabbed her arm and tugged. The limb Angela was gripping snapped and she slipped down crashing into Devin and larger, solid branches, before tumbling head over heels all the way to the foot of the tree where she landed on her back. She lay still, eyes wide. “Crap!” Devin hissed. “Are you OK?” Angela gave no response. Devin leaned over her. She was breathing, her heart was beating. She grabbed the knife and poked the tip of into the woman’s calf.
“Ouch!” Angela hissed, glaring at Devin and pulling her leg away. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. Devin ignored her and poked at the other calf, receiving the same response. “Good,” she said, “you’re not paralyzed.” She grinned at the woman, then reached over and pinched her hard on the back of the neck. For perhaps the first time in her life, Angela swore. “Dammit!” Angela reached out to smack at Devin’s hand, but she had retreated out of reach. “No, I am not paralyzed,” Angela hissed. “I just had all the breath knocked out of me.” She pulled herself up slowly, moving her neck this way and that, testing her legs, ankles, feet, before rising and dusting the dirt off the back of her shorts.