Dark Intent (6 page)

Moses Shozi’s house

Ngubane’s route to their destination was the shortest and he arrived first, approaching through thick bush that lay alongside the stream. The house was nearly 300 metres away on level ground, and he peered at the curtained window of the upstairs room where he expected Shozi to be fast asleep.

For an hour he rested on the bank of the stream, every now and again checking the buildings.
Then like an alien in a deserted land a tall man left the rear quarters and strolled to the house. He disappeared and a little later Ngubane saw the curtains of the room drawn and a man appear. He had never seen Shozi before but the heavy figure could only be the gangster and he craned his neck to get a better view. For a while Shozi stretched in the window, luxuriating in the tender warmth of dawn and then he had gone.

Ngubane leant on a tree, the picture of the man he had come to hate fuelling his resolve to see him dead.
He had what he wanted, confirmation that Shozi was at home.

Over the next half-hour other men emerged from the quarters.
Ngubane counted twelve and they sat on mats in a circle round a big pot of porridge one of them had carried from a detached outhouse, chatting noisily as they helped themselves. When they finished they were joined by the tall man, who came from the house. For a few minutes he spoke rapidly, periodically pointing over the hills in the direction of Umbali, a large township further up the Edendale Valley. After clearing their remains they returned to their rooms and a little later five of them headed for the grass.

For most of the morning Ngubane watched the house from his position on the bank.
The remaining guards stayed in their quarters and there was no sign of Shozi or the tall man, who he assumed was the gangster’s lieutenant. At a quarter to twelve he left the bank and took a circuitous route round the
kopje
and between the rocks that bordered the stream further up. He finally rejoined the path from Malakazi and steadily made his way to the spot where he had agreed to meet the others. He stayed near the track until they arrived then the three hid themselves in the bush, eating a meal of dried meat and bread, stuffing the food into their mouths between brief accounts of the morning’s work. From their vantage points behind the outhouse Nofomela and Ngwenya had not seen Shozi and became exited when they heard of his presence.

‘We must
take a chance he is still there and kill him tonight.’ Ngubane scratched the bristle on his cheek, his belly full. ‘There isn’t time to get the guns from Umbali and we don’t need them.’ He went to a small sapling and urinated against it, grossly splashing the yellow liquid up and down the thin stem.

Startled by the statement Nofomela and Ngwenya appraised his narrow back.
Ngwenya was the first to speak. ‘How can we kill him without guns?’ he asked, frowning. ‘His men are never far.’

Nofomela nodded.
‘We can have Kalashnikovs by tomorrow. We must wait.’

Ngubane fastened the buttons on his fly, shaking his head.
‘We might have to wait hours, days, for a decent shot. When Shozi doesn’t hear from the youth he’ll go crazy and come looking for us. He’ll take in Dhlamini, torture his family and then kill them. It would’ve been different if he didn’t know about us but he does.’

‘We’ll have to enter the house,’ said Nofomela, mindful of the way Zulus treated their captives.
‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘There’s no alternative,’ said Ngubane grimly.
He gazed down the hill to the valley, welcoming the unremitting breeze. ‘I’ll do it alone. I’m the only one with a knife.’ He grinned, a straight line. ‘But first we must get our things from Dhlamini’s room. From now on we live in the bush. The flames of hell will seek vengeance when Shozi dies.’

Moses Shozi’s house

As the three guerillas left for Malakazi
, Moses Shozi reclined contentedly in the lounge of his house, replenished by a fill of low-grade stewing steak and a vegetable mash. Setlaba, his large angular frame equally recharged by the meal, lingered dutifully nearby.

‘The boy should’ve shown by now,’ said Shozi irritably.
‘It was a simple job.’ He scowled, bowing his head in thought.

Setlaba was pleased when Shozi’s anger was elsewhere, when an accusing finger could not be directed at him.
‘He’ll be back,’ he said sagely. ‘Movements of men like that are as unpredictable as a woman’s love.’

Shozi propped a cushion behind him, clearing phlegm with an angry cough.
‘Where’re the men?’

‘I se
nt some to Umbali. The rest are cleaning the rooms.’

‘During the night I want one of them behind the house,’ said Shozi after a while.
‘Not knowing exactly where these guerillas are makes me nervous. Their type never lies down.’

‘They’re scum,’ said Setlaba.
‘The ANC military arm, Umkhonto we Sizwe, is finished.’

‘Not yet,’ replied Shozi.
‘Some of them haven’t got what they want. Mass conflict on our natural territory between us and the Xhosa has subsided from the exchanges a year ago, but elements in their military are as virulent as ever. If these men succeed they’ll have what is ours by birth.’

Moses Shozi’s house

In the early afternoon with the sun past its peak the three guerillas reached the room in Malakazi.
They gathered their bedrolls and spare clothing and were again in the bush retracing their steps to Shozi’s house. When they reached a point near where the youth lay in his grave they left the trail and settled.

‘After Shozi’s dead we’ll hole up here,’ said Nguban
e, lying on a bed he had shaped for himself. ‘When the dust is no more, we’ll go to Umbali for the guns.’

Nofomela and Ngwenya also spread themselves out on the earth after clearing patches in the grass and they were soon asleep, shaded
from the sun by the leafy branches of a tree. They slept soundly until the late evening then built a low fire from dry sticks and roasted a chicken they had caught in the township.

Shortly after eleven o’clock
they cleared the site, scattering the fire and stuffing their belongings under the rocks. They resumed their journey, keeping to the track for most of the way until they began their descent into the gangster’s valley.

There were no lights on in the house and quarters as they came from beyond the
kopje
and to the bank of the stream. Ngubane studied the house while he toyed idly with the hilt of his knife. Then he went into the grass followed shortly by the others at intervals. When he was in line with the house he parted from his comrades and ran up to the end wall, stopping flat on the roughened surface. He held back a minute before feeling himself along to the corner. Diagonally across the yard he saw Ngwenya appear from the bush next to the quarters and then closer, over a bit, Nofomela.

Cautiously he looked round, squinting to pen
etrate the dark more easily, and could see the outline of a porch. He was about to move when Nofomela waved urgently, pointing ahead. Signalling that he had seen him Ngubane looked into the shadow, meticulously taking in every inch. He saw nothing and went carefully down the wall. He was beginning to think Nofomela had gone mad when he saw a man squatting next to a voluminous earthen pot, his head hanging so his chin touched his chest.

Ngubane watched the figure for a while.
He thought about trying elsewhere but decided the guard was still a threat. He was five metres away and he judged how quickly he could cover the distance. For seconds he stood poised then he went in, unsheathing the knife. He was nearly on the squatting figure when the man came awake, reflexively grabbing for a stick leaning on the wall. But the Zulu was not fast enough and Ngubane bowled the weapon to the ground, stabbing with his knife, the steel sinking unhindered into the soft gut.

The guard’s eyes bulged as th
e knife went in to the hilt. His expression was vacant, staring helplessly at the quarters, mutely calling his friends to his aid. Ngubane sliced the knife through the stomach wall, smothering his hand hard over the mouth to stifle sound. He drew out the knife and stabbed again, rotating the blade, then quickly extracted it as the dying man collapsed at his feet, the blood flowing from the mutilation onto the stone slabs.

Wiping the knife on the man’s shirt Ngubane studied the door.
When the steel was clean he moved to it, testing the handle on the varnished wood. It held fast. There was a lock and he wondered if there was an internal latch. He went to the corpse and dug into the pockets of the baggy shorts. Stifling a triumphant cry he removed a key and went to the door, eagerly inserting it. It went in unhindered and was the right one.

As if walking on broken glass, he went through the kitchen and into the lounge.
Visibility was poor, external light mostly shut out by heavy drapes on the windows. The luminous hands of his watch showed twenty to twelve and he thought of the dead man. At some point the guard would be changed.

He saw the stairs and after assimilating the dark went to them and began his ascent.
On the first floor he calmed himself before going to the room that was sure to harbour the gangster. There was only quiet and he eased the door inwards, slipping through until he was just inside. Near the window he made out a wide bed and he listened, hoping to catch the breathing of Shozi deep in sleep. His heart pounded and he pulled up the knife, changing his grip, certain now that the gangster was there for he could see the shape of a body lying on the bed.

Ngubane went nearer and then
the room was bathed in the light of a table lamp. Standing, encased in a sneer, was Shozi, his Webley pointed at Ngubane’s heart. ‘You took your time,’ he said, lazily. ‘I saw you killing my guard. He must have been asleep.’

The taunt penetrated Ngubane like the sting from a
wasp but he kept his attention on the gangster.

‘You’re one of the guerillas,’ continued Shozi, looking at Ngubane as if he was a leper.
‘I thought you’d come sooner or later. You must have killed the youth.’ He removed the sheet from a pile of blankets and grinned wickedly. ‘I knew you’d use a knife. That must have looked tempting. I suppose your comrades are outside. They’ll die as well.’

‘No’ said Ngubane.
‘You will die. It will be the end of a heinous reign. The house is surrounded.’

Shozi blinked, a hint of doubt
, and Ngubane took his chance. Lifting the knife with the craft of a juggler and taking the end of the blade he threw it with a scream. ‘Die you monster.’

The knife spun lethally in the crisp air and for a second Ngubane felt victory was his.
But Shozi was already going down, all the while keeping the gun unerringly on his foe. The knife flew by and certain of the guerilla’s death he fired. The slug hit Ngubane above the heart, driving him back like a stickman caught in a wind, his body corkscrewing in a contortion of flying arms and gangling legs. He landed on his hip, expecting the second shot and acutely conscious he had to keep moving. He rolled and came to his feet.

At the second shot Ngubane leapt like a running deer as the bullet cut into his calf.
He got to the door, projecting himself through onto the landing. Excited voices out the back spurred him on and he hopped and skipped to the stairs, blood inseminating his clothes, a powerful dye.

Incensed that the guerilla did not go down, Shozi shouted with rage, the thought of his enemy escaping too much to bear.
He sprinted through the door, yelling for his men, threatening them with a cruel death if they failed to stop the man who had dared think he could take his life.

Ngubane half-fell half-slid down the narrow flight of stairs, clutching the balustrade for support, expecting Shozi’s men to burst through the kitchen at any second and block his path.
He felt naked without a weapon and longed for a cold Kalashnikov in his hands. When he reached the ground floor he turned from the kitchen hoping he could get out through the front. In several hops he was at the curtain covering the French windows and he drew it aside, relieved when he saw the dark night. Grabbing an iron ornamental cow he smashed it into the glass, breaking the membrane into shards that rocketed away. Behind him he heard the guards enter the kitchen, driven on by the screeching gangster above and he lurched through the glass onto the porch. Partly crippled he went across the slate into the grass that came up to the house, doubling over, knowing the men would soon be on him if they could get sight of him.

Moments later Shozi appeared on the porch firing wildly at a figure he could not see, cajoling like a trooper and commanding the men behind him to take to the grass.

Motivated by the thought of a slow death at the gangster’s hands Ngubane kept going until he came to the
kopje
, gulping for air, the blood on his shirt expanding concentrically, the petals of a morning rose. The ache in his shoulder was growing and he felt himself getting weaker as he lost blood. Behind him he heard Shozi’s men brushing through the grass in pursuit and at times he glimpsed them against the white house. He thought of his friends and was sure they had escaped. To tackle superior numbers when they did not know how he had fared would have been folly. He huddled amongst the rocks, concentrating his senses to determine the whereabouts of his pursuers and trying to stem the flow of blood from his wounds. A few of the lights downstairs in the house came on and after a while there was no sign of Shozi or his hoard. He did not think the gangster had joined his guards in the chase and he mourned the loss of his knife.

After twenty minutes squatting amongst the rocks, his wounds urgently needing to be dressed and bound, Ngubane moved to the stream
, desperate to reach his hideout in the valley beyond. His progress was dogged and slow and on occasion he picked up the voices of the men, but he passed through the night undetected, finally coming to the crest of the hill. He breathed more easily, confident he had shaken them off.

Within 100
metres of the hideout, Ngubane left the track and dropped into the grass. His strength was near its end but he lifted himself on his elbows and cupping his hands together mimicked the hooping call of a night owl, calling four times. There was only the murmuring of the gentle breeze and he called again, this time grateful as an answering cry came to him from a little up the hill.

In minutes Nofomela and Ngwenya were by him and they carried him the last stage down the slope to their resting place.
With nimble fingers they sliced the cloth from the wounds and used a kit they always carried in the bush to treat ruptured tissue. When at last they laid him on his makeshift bed Ngwenya spoke.

‘If only we’d had weapons,’
he lamented. ‘They’d have fallen and choked on their own blood.’

‘We’
re not wanton killers. Shozi was the target.’ Ngubane breathed deeply, arranging his frame into a more comfortable position. ‘I failed. The Zulu saw me killing his guard.’ He sighed weakly. ‘Tomorrow his men will be all over this area.’ He spoke to Nofomela. ‘Before dawn go to Umbali and get the guns. We can’t save Dhlamini but we can still kill Shozi.’