Dust Devils (29 page)

Zondi slumped behind the wheel of the Ford, on a ridge overlooking Inja's compound, parked so the low sun didn't flare off the truck's windshield. He waved away a fly, drawn to the sweat that ran down his face and pooled beneath his armpits, gluing the shirt to his back. His own stink mixing with the vapors rising from the Ford's torn upholstery.

An image of the doctor floated in from nowhere, her full lips pouting as she sucked on the cigarette. He forced himself to imagine those lips in twenty years' time, no longer plump, etched with deep furrows, her beauty a faded memory. It didn't work. He wanted her. Simple as that.

Zondi sighed and shifted in his seat. He looked down at the
kraal
wishing he had a pair of binoculars. No movement since two vehicles had driven in and parked outside the main house a half-hour before. He watched the sun sinking ever lower. Knew that once darkness fell his plan would be useless. He laughed.
What fucking plan?

When he left the hospital and found this vantage point, he'd convinced himself that Inja would lead him to the girl. The dog would have men all over the valley, searching for Goodbread and Dell and their captive. They were hidden somewhere around here and they would have been seen, the way everything was seen in this valley of spies. All Zondi would have to do was follow Inja. But in the dark he'd need to use the Ford's headlamps and that would make him a perfect target.

Zondi sat up. Three cars were on the move. Inja's Pajero and two trucks. The warlord and his army, bumping away from the compound toward the gravel road that circled the low hills like a frayed belt.

Zondi started the Ford. It moaned and spluttered, finally caught in a smoky rattle. He took hold of the steering wheel. Jerked his hands away. The cracked plastic was baked hot as a brick in a kiln. Cursing, he grabbed the wheel again, gritted his teeth, and set off after the convoy.

The Pajero drove along a cattle track on the fringes of the valley, where the poorest scratched a living from the plundered land. Inja sat up front, heard the wheels drumming on the sun-baked soil. Two gunmen in the car with him. Another six in the vehicles ahead and behind.

Inja hadn't washed since the ritual. His body, under his clothes, was caked with dried blood. It stank. Rich. Metallic. He held out his hand, fingers spread. Felt the blood cracking as his skin stretched. He wasn't shaking. He was strong again.

He fired up a spliff, sucked in the smoke. Held it until he thought his lungs would burst, then he let it explode from his mouth in a fragrant cloud. Felt it infuse his blood. Focusing him. His fingers touched the amulet at his throat. A string of beads and dried roots. From the
sangoma.
For protection. To give him power over the enemy who awaited him. The white men.

The track died and the cars negotiated boulders and ditches until they came to the base of a hill of stone. One of Inja's men sat on a rock, AK-47 resting across his knees. Guarding an old, emaciated man, in torn khaki overalls and tire sandals, who squatted on the ground, hunched in on himself, empty earlobes brushing his shoulders.

Inja cracked the door and stepped down, ordnance clanking as his soldiers joined him. Inja's gunman stood, head bowed in greeting. The old man didn't move, stared off into the gathering gloom. Inja heard soft scuffs as a trio of skinny sheep appeared, searching the barren soil for feed.

"What did he see, this old one?" Inja asked, nodding at the shepherd.

"
Induna
, he says he was grazing his sheep down near Bourke's Cutting and he saw a truck. Two white men and a young girl. One of ours. They hid the truck and climbed up to a cave."

"Stand, old man," Inja said.

The shepherd stood. The old bastard couldn't meet Inja's eyes. "Is this true? What you saw?"

Nodding, head bowed. "It is true,
Induna
."

Inja pointed at the sheep. "These are yours?"

"Yes,
Induna
. They are mine."

"You have more?"

"No,
Induna
. Only these."

Inja drew his pistol and shot one of the sheep in the head. The animal toppled to the ground and the old man sighed. A sound of infinite suffering.

"Tell me the truth, grandfather. What else did you see?"

"I saw nothing more,
Induna
."

The other two sheep had scattered at the shot, one of them trying to find shelter under the Pajero, its tick-infested ass sticking up to the sky as its hooves scratched at the sand. Inja shot it in the rear and the sheep screamed and tried to burrow deeper under the vehicle. He shot it again and it sagged to the earth. The third sheep bolted.

Inja said, "Fetch that animal." Two of his men ran off in pursuit. Inja turned back to the shepherd. "Where do you live?" The old man lifted an arm and pointed up toward a mess of mud huts on the slope of the hill. "Did you speak to anybody else of what you saw?"

"No,
Induna
."

The soldiers returned with the sheep. One of them dragged it by the tail. The other had hold of the loose skin at its neck. The sheep bucked and twisted.

"Let it go," Inja said.

The men stepped away from the sheep and Inja shot it in the eye. It fell on its side, kicked twice and lay still. The shepherd looked at the dead animal without expression.

Inja said, "Speak of this and it will be your stinking old backside I shoot next. Understand?"

The old man nodded, staring off into the darkness that seeped in over the valley. "I am silent,
Induna
."

Inja laughed to himself as he holstered his pistol. Yes, now the old bastard was quiet. But when Inja was a runt of a boy, men like this had scorned him. Mocked him when he fell on his ass during the stick-fighting contents. Called him a mongrel dog. Said that only incest could have resulted in such a poor specimen of manhood.

Inja walked back to the Pajero and one of his men held the door open for him. The SUV sat low as his soldiers joined him. "Let us go hunt us some white meat," Inja said.

The driver started the Pajero and they bumped across the rutted land, the other vehicles falling in behind. Inja saw the fat moon inching its way up over the hills. A wedding moon. At its fullest tomorrow night. The night of his nuptials.

Dell lay with his eyes closed, trying to bring the faces of his wife and children into focus, but they remained at a distance. Blurred. Instead he saw Ben Baker's thick white hands on Rosie's brown body.

He felt a nudge and opened his eyes to darkness. Barely made out the shape of the girl crouching over him. She handed Dell the binoculars and pointed toward the entrance of the cave, the rocks haloed by silver moonlight.

She crossed to his father who lay slumped against the wall, the rifle at his side. Dell could hear him fighting for breath and knew things were bad when he saw the old man's lips weren't wrapped around a cigarette. Heard him moan and mutter.

The girl tore a strip of cloth from the hem of her dress and wet it with water from the plastic bottle. She wiped Goodbread's forehead, wiped at the blood and mucus that clotted his mouth. The girl spoke softly in Zulu, soothing the old man. Dell heard a word he understood.
Tata
. Grandfather. Goodbread grabbed at her wrist and he tried to fight her for a second, then he sank back as she whispered to him.

Dell went to the mouth of the cave. Crouched down with the glasses and scanned the landscape made bright by the moon that rose big as a soup plate.

Burning up. Like the flames of hell were licking at his flesh. A face coming at him. Black skin, silver light on the high cheekbones. A mouth speaking that language of clicks.

No longer in the cave, Goodbread rushed a kicked down door in a ghetto house outside Johannesburg. Surging with the squad of Zulu killers. Another door opened behind him. He spun and fired, hearing the familiar conversation of the AK-47. A black girl, stepping out of a room, holding a baby. Trying to speak around blood. Couldn't. Folded. The baby fell on its back onto the stone floor, pedaling its yellow-brown sausage limbs. Howling.

Goodbread shouting, "Hold your fire!" Reaching down for the naked, bawling infant.

But one of the Zulus beat him to it. Picked the baby up by a leg and swung it, pulping its brains against the wall. Goodbread shot the man in his laughing mouth.

Chaos.

A clusterfuck of photographers and news crews fought their way into the house. Flashbulbs detonating in Goodbread's face as he and the Zulus fled in an unmarked truck.

Goodbread struggled, strong hands gripping his wrists. "Shhhhh, grandfather. Be still." Felt cool water on his forehead.

But still back in 1994. A few months before the South African elections. The last kick of the dying mule that was apartheid. Faceless Afrikaners, working in secret – politicians, cops, military – to destabilize the country. Knew their days were numbered if Mandela came to power. Conspiring with the Zulus who had long collaborated with them. A squad of men brought up to Johannesburg from a faraway valley. Men who were birthed into blood. Goodbread led them in the attack on a house full of youth leaders and comrades. The old enemy.

But no enemy. Just women and a baby. A goddam media ambush. Afterward the Afrikaners and their Zulu allies knew there had to be a sacrifice. To shut the media up. Goodbread had shot one of his own men, and what the hell, he was a foreigner. A glorified goddam mercenary. So they threw him to the wolves.

The prosecutors, the new guard – blacks and Jews – offered him a deal if he named his superiors. He declined and they sent him down for life. A pimply kid from the U.S. consul came to see him in a Pretoria prison. Told him he was a disgrace to his country. Goodbread laughed in his face and demanded to be taken back his cell. Reckoned it was right and just that he rotted away for the rest of his Godgiven days.

Goodbread heard a voice calling his name. His son's voice. Goodbread coughed. Clawed his way back from the past. Felt his lungs tear and burn like they were aflame. Puked a mouthful of warm blood down his shirtfront.
Old man. Useless goddam old man.