‘You know very well what other things.’
‘You had our baby. You left him unattended. Anything could have happened to him. What kind of mother does that?’
Defiance crept into her eyes.
‘What is your complaint? You want the white man’s daughter, you can have her now. Zokho wasn’t good enough to marry.’
‘If you were angry with me, that’s one thing. Didn’t you care about him?’
‘I don’t want him! And I left him the night he was born. Under a tree for the jackals! Your cripple saved him from death!’
The words struck at his heart and he flinched. ‘Jackals? What are you talking about?’
‘Ask Twa. He’ll be happy to tell you how he brought the baby back to life the next day.’
Roeloff looked at her. He was stunned. The Zokho he knew was playful and innocent, there was no evil in her. He got on his horse. What there had been between them died there in the veld, by her actions, her words. What she’d done amounted to the same as stopping his heart beating with her hands. No law could make it right. Not the Sonqua’s, not anyone’s. She was out of his hands. Even if any part of him felt sorry, he could not do anything.
‘I’ve hurt you now. Are you satisfied?’
He was too stunned to respond.
Zokho pulled her kaross about her and stepped past him to continue her journey.
He sat in the saddle and watched her, a solitary steenbok who knew her way in the veld. That was the difference between them. Not that she was Sonqua, that her gods were not his, but that she could walk away. Unhurried. Free. The old father was right, he didn’t understand. He didn’t want to.
‘Goodbye, Smoke in the Eyes,’ he said softly to himself.
The kaross grew smaller and smaller in the distance. When she had become one with the veld, he turned and rode steadily into the wind, letting it dry his eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
Neeltje waited six days for his return with the sheep and ten more for him to emerge from his quarters after a sickness that bore no physical evidence other than silence. She knew from Twa, who had come back two weeks before, that Zokho had left and wasn’t returning, but she didn’t press for details. Twa knew more than he was saying, having met Roeloff on his way back from the Hantamberge, and she could see for herself that Roeloff was torn by some private pain.
She was in the kitchen holding Harman, keeping an eye on her father who was sitting in a chair near the door cutting out a pair of veldskoene for himself out of animal hide. The paralysis had weakened his limbs and he couldn’t stand up for long, but he had regained his speech and had recovered all his strength in his arms. He was using this time to make shoes, oil his guns, mend the tears in the wagon’s canvas top, and generally to fix things for which he had no time when he was up and about.
‘Pa, are you strong enough to hold Harman? I see Roeloff out there, I want to talk to him. I also want Twa to slaughter a chicken for supper. Our chickens have increased, we have more now than we have sheep. I can put Harman down if you don’t think you can manage.’
‘I can manage.’
She put the infant in his arms and watched for a moment. She had not thought her father so soft-hearted; what with Harman a baster and not even family.
‘Tell him I want to see him.’
‘Not now.’
‘Why not?’
‘He hasn’t even come to see his own son. I want him to come when he’s ready.’
‘I want to talk to him about the sheep he’s lost.’
‘It will have to wait.’
‘Zokho’s not coming back?’
‘I told you.’
‘What about Harman?’ he looked at the child in his arms. ‘Will he grow up without a mother? When’s his father coming to see him? He looks just like Roeloff. There’s nothing of Zokho in him.’
‘There is. His mouth and his eyes. The eyes are slanted like hers.’
‘His hair and colouring’s a Kloot. He’ll be strong, this boy. The way he cries, he wakes up the devil.’
‘You’re sure you can manage, Pa? I’ll come in soon to take him.’ Straightening her apron, she tucked the loose strands of hair into the side of her kapje, and went out. Her father didn’t have all his strength back, but there was nothing wrong with his mouth except for a slight slur. He could talk, and he had many questions. She had had to tell him about the raid when Roeloff and Twa came back separately with forty of the sixty sheep. They’d never found the party going east; only the band Twa had gone after and the ones Koerikei had said would be found at the end of the red mountains. She’d also had to tell her father about Zokho, why Harman was in the house with them and why she was looking after him. But she had no answers for why Roeloff hadn’t come to see his son. She knew from Twa that he asked after Harman, but that was all.
It was the beginning of summer, and she caught a whiff of the scent of flowers growing down by the stream. It was late for sowing, but it was a beginning of sorts to see him out there. She’d only caught glimpses of him during the past week.
She walked down to the kraal and stood with her foot on the wooden post of the gate as she studied him, planting seeds a few hundred feet away on the other side. He had grown thinner, his gait telling of his grief. Presently, sensing someone behind him, he turned.
She waved.
He waved back, then continued with his work.
She was disappointed and walked slowly to the henhouse to choose a chicken for supper. Then she became angry. She walked to where Roeloff knelt, tamping down seeds in the field.
‘Roeloff Kloot.’
He turned.
