Dust Devils (38 page)

Zondi steered the Ford out onto the road and hit the gas. Time to catch that chopper in Dundee. Get back to Jo'burg, where hungry blondes, crack whores – and even the possibility of parenthood – didn't seem that much of a threat after these last days out here on the torn edge of the world.

They drove for maybe twenty minutes, the Ford laboring up the hills, then they escaped the valley and hit the plateau. Grass and trees appeared when the sun ran yellow as egg yolk over the low hills. Dell could see cows grazing. Distant huts almost picturesque against the green ridges.

He sat in the rear of the Ford, his back to the cab, wearing one of Zondi's shirts. The kind of thing he wouldn't have been seen dead in, in his old life. An honest-to-god Lacoste, powder blue, the little green alligator looking like it wanted to take a bite out of his left nipple.

The crisp shirt jarred with the rest of him. Matted hair, face and arms still streaked with boot polish, white skin peering through in leprous patches. His dead man's khakis a Jackson Pollock of blood. His father's blood. Sheep's blood. The blood of the man who lay unconscious in the bed of the truck, naked beneath the silver space blanket, his wound taped closed and bandaged.

A drip bag, suspended from the Ford's roll bar, fed into Inja's arm. He cried out and his eyelids guttered like blown fluorescents. Then he lay still, eyes closed. The girl turned and looked back. Framed in the rear window of the Ford, in her tribal clothes, like a snapshot from another time.

They came to a town, bigger than Bhambatha's Rock but still tiny. Not Dundee. A few stores and a taxi rank. A phone container. Traditional healers' iron shacks. The Ford rattled into a gas station. Three pumps. No convenience store.

A pair of minibuses were attached to two of the pumps, their passengers milling around the forecourt. Members of an African Christian sect, men and women wearing long white robes with green trim. Headgear emblazoned with stars and crescent moons. Dell had glimpsed people like these since his childhood, praying under trees at the roadside, or singing hymns within circles of rock in the veld.

Zondi stopped the Ford at the empty pump, behind one of the taxis. A man in a soiled overall crossed to the driver's window. Zondi spoke to him in Zulu and the attendant nodded and clanked the nozzle of the pump into the side of the Ford, shooting a glance at Inja lying under the blanket. Looked at Dell. Quickly lowered his gaze to the nozzle.

Dell caught a chemical hit of the gasoline and his eyes burned. He felt for Inja's pulse. Faint. Irregular. But the man's heart was still beating.

Dell jumped off the truck and wandered across to where the church people were buying corn on the cob from an old woman. Cooked on an open fire in an empty lot next to the pumps. He ignored the curious glances and the muttered Zulu comments. Looked up to see Zondi walking over to him.

"Go back to the truck," Zondi said. "You look like hell."

Dell didn't move. "How far to Dundee?"

"A half-hour or so."

"Then why're you filling up?"

"In case the chopper aborts. It's unlikely, but . . ." Letting it hang.

"And this chopper? Who's laying it on, exactly?"

"A faction that wants change."

Dell found a smile. "A force of good?"

"Good has nothing to do with it." Zondi shrugged. "They want to take the minister down. For that to happen, Inja needs to talk."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Don't worry. He'll talk." Zondi impassive.

"What happens to me, when we get to Jo'burg? I broke out of jail. Killed a man."

"A hitman. A low-life."

"Still."

"It'll be spun, Dell. Like a top. That's what these people do."

Like you're spinning me
, Dell thought. "So you're telling me there's a future?"

Zondi shook his head. "No. I'm telling you there's tomorrow. And the day after. That'll have to do until the future gets here." Zondi's eyes moved back toward the truck, where the girl sat still as carved wood in the front seat.

The church aunties in the taxi in front of the Ford sang a hymn, their voices high and haunting, spiraling out into the early morning. It was a hymn that Sunday's mother used to sing when she carried her around on her back, and for a moment her mother's warmth and scent enveloped her like a blanket.

Sunday wondered about her mother and the tall man. She sneaked a look to where he stood with the white one. Quickly turned her head away, not wanting him to see her staring. Thinking about going to Johannesburg with him. Excited and frightened at the same time. Thinking that all this had come about because of the wounded dog who lay in the bed of the truck behind her. She couldn't suppress a feeling of joy, a sense of wonder that something good had come out of something so bad.

She sat watching the aunties rocking the parked taxi as they swayed side to side, clapping their hands. A few men came over carrying firecooked corn and they joined in the harmony, their voices low and deep. For a moment Sunday let the music take her far away.

Then she was aware something at the very edge of her hearing. A low throb. Somehow familiar. She saw a windshield flaring and the sheen of blue paint. A car coming toward her, along the main road. A blue car. A pink blur behind the windshield, something swaying, moving slow as reeds in water. Pink dice.

Sunday wanted to scream a warning. Reached for the door handle. Heard the smack of gunshots and glass shattering.

Zondi sprinted for the truck, pistol in hand. Men shooting from the blue car. The singing in the taxi cut like a blade sliced across a throat. Then screams.

He saw a man running from the street, in a low crouch, firing bursts from an AK-47. Some of the bush Christians went down, red splashes on their white robes. The gunman reached the back of the Ford and aimed down at Inja. The rifle bucked, spitting spent cartridges. Zondi fired as he ran. Missed. Fired again. The gunman brought the snout of the rifle toward him, then pitched forward onto the oil-streaked concrete.

As Zondi reached the Ford the face of the pump exploded, raining glass over him. He dived behind the wheel. Turned the key, hearing rounds smacking into the door of the truck. The engine caught and he threw the Ford into reverse. Another man coming from the road. Firing.

Dell tugged the pistol from his belt, fumbling for the safety catch. Saw the truck reversing away from the pump, the nozzle springing free and rising like a snake, spraying gasoline into the air. A black man in a yellow Kangol hat blasting at the Ford with an automatic rifle.

Dell heard his father's voice:
just point your finger
. Did. Squeezed the trigger and the man dropped. Dell sprinted and caught up with the Ford just as Zondi found first gear. Dell dived for the truck, landing hard in the flatbed beside Inja, who was bleeding from the face and the chest.

The truck bucked its way over the rocky sidewalk and Dell grabbed hold of the roll bar to keep himself aboard. The right fender of the Ford caught the side of the blue car. The impact threw open the tailgate of the truck and as Zondi floored the Ford, leaving rubber and smoke, Inja flew from the rear. The space blanket floated to the earth and the naked man landed in the spreading pool beside the pump.

The arcing nozzle threw a jet of green-blue gasoline onto the old woman's cooking fire. The fuel ignited in a trail of flame that ran low to the ground, zigzagging like an animal. Hunting Inja. Dell, clutching the roll bar, watched as the naked man disappeared in an explosion of black and orange flame.

Sunday looked back as they sped away. Saw the dog burning. There was a heat in her head, like she could feel the flames that ate Inja. She touched her fingers to her temple, brought her hand away red with blood.

She heard a torrent of voices, as if all the radios in the world were playing at once. Then Sunday heard only her mother's voice, sweet and true. Welcoming her home.

Zondi sped into a curve, fighting the oversteer, nearly losing the Ford. He took the truck off the road onto gravel, scattering traders and chickens and goats as he barreled between shacks of tin and wood. Hearing screams and curses.