‘You could have been killed!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t you know how dangerous that was?’
She realised the stupidity of her actions and, shaking with fright, she turned so that he wouldn’t see her crying.
He looked at her trembling back, the plait of hair reaching down to her waist. He threw down the gun and spun her around.
‘Neeltje.’
Neeltje spluttered all over his face and buried her face in his shoulder.
‘Neeltje, Neeltje, oh God …’
He stood there with her for a long time, stroking her hair, feeling the curve in her waist, the strength of her shoulders. Then Zokho’s face, glistening and catlike, flashed before him.
‘I’m sorry. I had no right.’
Neeltje trembled under the most intense feelings she’d ever experienced. Roeloff’s sudden withdrawal left her feeling cold and rejected. She watched as he turned and resaddled the horse.
‘We have to get back. Your father’s waiting for us.’
She stepped meekly into his cupped hand and mounted. Roeloff got on after her and sat in front. Burying her nose in the sweat of his back, she cried soundlessly into his shirt.
Chapter Twelve
Twa was squatting at his fire in front of his hut heating a tin mug of water to make coffee when he saw Zokho come out of her quarters clutching her stomach. He was about to shout after her when he noticed her slow and limping walk as she headed for the bush at the back. Was she having the baby already? He’d had a feeling that it would happen when no one was there. She’d slept all day, giving him nothing to eat when he knew there was meat for him in the kitchen pot. He wondered if she’d checked up on the oubaas in the house. He was reluctant to do so himself. Whatever it was that had caused the oubaas to turn into stone, he didn’t want his disease.
Lately, after squatting, Twa had to walk slowly for a while before settling into his regular rhythm. He got up, rubbing the kinks out of his leg.
‘You’re getting old, thin man. Soon you’ll join your ancestors.’ He chuckled. ‘And what will happen to Kudu? He wants to be fair to the hare in his trap while wanting him for his supper. When will he learn one’s got to be sacrificed for the other?’
A sudden bleating in the kraal made him look up. His first thought was baboons. He picked up the gun and fired a shot in the air, limping slowly towards the kraal. But everything was in order. Looking at the lambs, he had an idea. What did they expect, anyway, leaving him dependent on someone like Zokho to fill his belly? He would starve if he had to depend on her laziness. The oubaas had many sheep, and Roeloff wouldn’t notice right away. He selected one of the lambs and led it out of the kraal to a spot far from the house. He dug a hole in the ground, and holding the lamb over it, pushed the knife deftly into the vein in the neck. Soon the soft-fleeced animal was lying on its side. He hacked and sliced, buried the entrails, and returned to his hut with the meat draped over a stick. There he scooped out a shallow pit and made a fire. He laid out half the meat on the coals and hid the rest. Three hours later, drowsy with dagga, his stomach distended, he was fast asleep in front of his hut.
The next morning he was awakened by a pain in his leg, and knew the moment he opened his eyes that something was wrong. It was too quiet. He felt for the gun next to him and hobbled quickly over to the kraal. He was not prepared for the shock. The gate was open and all the sheep were gone except for an old ewe, lying dead on its side with half a dozen arrows sticking out of the stained coat. He couldn’t believe it. The whole kraal! They’d left one to show their audacity. An urgent need to defecate reminded him of his own crime. He would have to get rid of the bones. But what was one lamb in the face of so many? If only he could get back the sheep.
He remembered the oubaas alone in the house. Had they killed him, too? Zokho? Why hadn’t he seen her? Where was she? He didn’t know what to do first.
He ran to her quarters and banged on the door.
Zokho took several minutes to answer. He saw immediately from her decreased size that she had given birth.
‘Something terrible has happened!’
‘With me, too,’ she moaned softly.
‘What?’
‘There’s no baby.’
‘No baby?’ He had big things to worry about, he didn’t have time for her nonsense. ‘What do you mean there’s no baby, where is he?’
Zokho sat down on the bed. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Dead? I don’t believe it.’
‘I’ve lost him,’ she started to cry. ‘I know from in here,’ she pointed to her heart, ‘he’s not mine any more.’
‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Eyes of the Sky. He’s not coming back.’
‘You’re talking nonsense, you foolish girl. Of course he’s coming back. Where else should he go? And what does the baby have to do with it? What do you want? Isn’t it enough that you live with him?’
She cried louder.
‘Stop it! Where did you put the child?’
‘I don’t know.’
Twa had never struck a woman, but before he knew what had happened, his hand slapped her face and she fell off the bed.
‘Where?’
She was instantly alert.
‘At the back.’
‘Show me,’ he pulled her up, the sheep momentarily forgotten.
Zokho was naked except for the duiker flap, and went out with him in the cold to the back of the house. They came upon the infant wrapped in a scrap of sheepskin, near the stick in the ground marking the grave of Neeltje’s mother.
