‘Now, you must take your evening meal with us and rest so that you can start out early in the morning.’ He turned to Roeloff. ‘I met a Kloot once in the Cape, about ten years ago. Treated his daughter for snakebite. I remember him because he couldn’t find anyone to come to the house, but I don’t think there’s a connection.’
‘My late grandfather has a brother in the Cape, Krisjan.’
‘Krisjan?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is a coincidence. The old man’s name was Krisjan, but it can’t be your relative. You see, the reason he couldn’t get help was because he’d married a slave, and his daughter was dark-skinned. Not a caffre, mind you. Her hair was straight, you couldn’t stand a pin up in it, and she had features like yours and mine, but black as the night nevertheless. A handsome woman.’
‘Krisjan Kloot’s wife was a slave? Are you sure?’ He remembered Oupa Krisjan’s visit to Kloot’s Nek in his absence.
‘That’s what they said. From Ceylon, came to the Cape on a ship. What set the others against him wasn’t only that he’d taken up with this woman and had children by her, but that he’d abandoned his own Christian teachings and followed her strange practices. But, as I said, that was ten years ago, there’re many Kloots in the Cape, and Krisjan’s a common name.’
‘Was he known for anything in particular? Was he a farmer?’
‘He was a man of letters, I believe. Wrote books.’
Roeloff started to laugh.
‘Roff?’ Neeltje looked at him with concern.
‘It’s all right, Neeltje,’ he said, still laughing. ‘I think we should do as the doctor suggests, and turn in now for an early start.’
The elephants shuffled slowly along, stopping as one at a cluster of rocks. The cows, agitated and weary from having to outrun their pursuers, stopped further away, their calves trumpeting hoarsely as they tried to keep up. Three bulls watched, particularly interested in a young female in oestrus. They grazed patiently on the branches of a few scraggly trees then, without warning, one of them broke away, making straight for the young cow. The cow saw him coming and bolted, stirring up clouds of orange dust as she galloped flat out for open ground. Faster than the male, she put distance between them, then slowed down and walked rapidly in a circle to meet up with her family who came rumbling up, trumpeting, locking tusks and rubbing their heads affectionately against her. She had hardly had a chance to rest when she was chased by another bull, and so the game continued with different bulls taking turns, the distances getting longer, and the cow managing each time to outrun her pursuers.
Roeloff and Neeltje had stopped earlier on the other side of the rocks to rest the horse and to have something to eat. They watched the game from their hiding place.
‘They have strange rituals,’ she whispered. ‘Look at that. The bulls are all on one side, the cows on the other. That young cow knows she’s safe for the time being.’
Then suddenly there was a low rumble from somewhere to their left and they noticed the excited behaviour of the cows and the alarm of the bulls. The sound drew nearer, then a sharp, acrid odour was upon them and minutes later a towering bull, in full rut, appeared through a gateway of rocks, a viscous fluid oozing down the sides of his massive head, his sheath covered in scum, leaving a trail of urine behind him. His left tusk was broken, and he came trampling towards them with flapping ears, making straight for the cows.
‘Broken Tooth!’
Neeltje stiffened beside him.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ he took her hand. ‘We’re downwind.’
‘You know him?’
He could feel the pulse in her hand throbbing into his.
‘He’s the one we let go, Twa and me.’
‘He seems very excited.’
They watched as the cows jostled and rumbled and rubbed their heads against the bull’s hindquarters, urinating profusely to welcome him. Broken Tooth had no interest in them, and headed straight for the young cow. Now the cow acted differently. She started to leave the group, running with less determination than before. Broken Tooth picked up speed, his penis dropping from its sheath, until it was only inches away from scraping the ground. He caught up with her, reached his trunk over her back, and she came to a stop. Moving his head and tusk over her hindquarters, he placed his front feet on her rear, and leaned back so that most of his weight was on his hind legs. His penis changed from an arc to an S-shape and, finding the vulva, he hooked it in, thrusting up, jamming four feet of muscle into the cow’s vagina. They stood locked together for a time, then he disengaged from her in a gush of sperm.
The cow gave a deep bellow and her family came rushing up, waving their trunks in comfort. She smelt the sperm on the ground, then emitted a series of rumbles. The females rallied round to calm her down, then she left the group to stand alongside the bull.
Standing with her hand locked in his, Neeltje was suddenly aware of the throbbing of Roeloff’s pulse, the power of his body. Then the pressure of his grip changed and he turned to look at her.
‘Neeltje …’
‘It’s not necessary to say it.’
‘I must, I want you to know how I feel. I’ve developed feelings for you, but I’m promised to Zokho. I’ve feelings for her, too, and she will bear my child. I would be your husband if I could. You need a husband, Neeltje, someone to care for you, to give you children.’
Neeltje had dreamt of such words, but never thought she would hear them.
‘You wanted me to know you had feelings for two?’
‘I wanted you to know how I felt. That I care greatly for you. The two of you mean different things to me.’
‘Different things? A man can want two women?’
‘Not at the same time. But he could be with one, and want another.’
‘It would have been better not to have said anything.’
‘I just wanted you to know. Zokho and I have been together on Kloot’s Nek, we …’
Neeltje could listen to no more. Without thinking, she ran from their hiding place out into the open. Her scent drifted on the wind and there was a loud trumpeting as the matriarch of the herd sounded the alarm and one of the young bulls broke loose.
‘Neeltje!’
She ran blindly on.
Roeloff grabbed the gun, feeling cold fear in the pit of his stomach. He fired a shot in the air, and the elephant, already on Neeltje’s heels, turned at a lumbering speed. For a moment he thought it was all over for him, then the bull joined the herd and they stampeded off in a hurricane of dust.
