Stones for My Father (5 page)

“Shiny, black-green skin, with whiskers as coarse as elephant hair.” I smiled. “Most of it had dried up completely. One of the men thought it might have been a whale, but they had seen whales before and this wasn’t the right shape. Another man said it might have been a large python, but no one had seen a python of this size before. Then a little boy — the youngest son of one of the fishermen — noticed something very strange …”

I stared off into the undergrowth on the opposite bank, trying to decide what the little boy could have noticed about the creature. A golden tooth? The remains of some other animal deep inside its belly? Something else rising out of the water? And then, just as I had decided on the perfect twist, I saw him.

The black-haired man.

He was dragging something through the bush, breathing heavily from the exertion. Noticing my silence, Gert turned to look at me and then followed my gaze. We both watched, too frightened to move, as the soldier lumbered toward us.

There would have been time to run — the man was on the other side of the riverbank, after all — but the
sound of something so heavy being pulled across the ground made a hundred gruesome thoughts rush into my head. Perhaps it was a body — the dead body of a Boer woman whose house had been gutted by the khakis. Or perhaps it was one of our men, a commando who had fallen in battle or been murdered in his sleep. Perhaps the soldier was going to hide the body, or throw it in the river, or worse —

“Look, Corlie!”

When the deadweight shape came into view, I had to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from making any noise.

It was a springbok — male, judging by the short, thick antlers, but quite young. Its golden tan coat was glossy and smooth, but its white belly was stained with blood. It was difficult to see where the gaping tear ended and the dark brown stripe of fur began, but it was clear that the animal was long dead. The soldier was hauling it by the legs, so the animal’s silky neck lolled to one side. For a brief moment, it seemed to stare at me with one wide, black eye.

“Come on, Gert,” I whispered. “Be very quiet. Get up, slowly, and follow me …”

It was too late. As soon as the rustling ceased, I knew that the soldier had seen us. For an instant, the black-haired man looked almost as scared as we felt. Then he smiled, and pointed to the dead springbok.

“Lions got him,” he said. “He must have been heading down to the river for a drink — just like I was — when they
attacked him.” Although I couldn’t understand his words, I knew that he was speaking English.

“Don’t say anything,” I told Gert. The soldier didn’t appear to have any gun, and the river formed a safe barrier between us: we could still outrun him.

The black-haired man’s smile faded. “Lions,” he said again, pointing to the ugly gash that ran across the springbok’s belly. Then he stopped, as if realizing who we were, and squinted up into the sun, thinking hard.

“Leeu,”
he said at last. “Lions.”

My brother fixed me with a terrified look. “Lions, Corlie,” he said. “Ma didn’t say there were lions about —”

“Sh!”

The black-haired man gently lowered the animal’s legs to the ground, and then he stood up straight, in full view. He eyed me up and down, wiping his hands on his trousers.

“I’ve seen you before,” he said, pulling the back of his hand across his brow. He wore a wide-brimmed hat that looked a bit like the kind our men favored, different from the English soldiers’ domed helmets. “You’re the little girl from the farm back Amersfoort way.”

Gert looked up at me. “What’s he saying, Corlie?”

“I don’t know.”

The black-haired man knelt by the water and began to wash his hands.

“Boer kids, are you?”

Gert nodded at the word
Boer
, and I thumped him.

The black-haired man smiled. “You’ve walked a long way,” he said. “What are your names?”

We stared at him.

“I’m Corporal Malachi Byrne,” he said. He pointed one finger at himself. “Corporal Byrne.” He pointed at us. “And you?”

“Gert Roux,” blurted Gertie, understanding the gestures. And, before I could stop him, “
en
Corlie Roux.”

“Corlie Roux.” The black-haired man said my name slowly, drawing out the vowels. “Well, pleased to meet you, Corlie Roux. That’s a mighty big coat you’ve got on.” He drew his hands up and down his sides, then pointed at my father’s coat. When I realized what he was saying, I drew it more tightly around my shoulders.

“Don’t get me wrong — it’s a nice coat,” continued the black-haired man. What had he said his name was?
Corporal Byrne
. He stroked his mustache with the finger and thumb of one hand, looking thoughtful. “Are you kids hungry? ’Cause there’s no way I’m going to haul this fellow all the way back to camp.” He pointed to the springbok and mimed eating.

Gert tugged at my side. “The lions will follow him, Corlie. He shouldn’t drag it around like that.”

Corporal Byrne drew a small knife from his belt and began to cut away at one of the haunches. The flesh was tender and yielding, pink. Suddenly, I was very hungry. “This isn’t so different from the deer we get
back home,” he said. Then he stopped, and looked up at me. “On my farm,” he said.

Farm. I knew that word.

“Engeland,”
I said, to show him that I knew. I said the word as if it made a rotten taste in my mouth, just in case he had any doubt as to what I thought of his country.

But Corporal Byrne just laughed — a full-throated laugh, with a smile that opened up his whole face — and shook his head.

“No, not England,” he said. “Alberta. Canada.” He pointed to the badge that I had noticed before. “See this? It’s a maple leaf. A leaf —” He pointed into the treetops, and I nodded. “Canadian Mounted Rifles.” The smile faded as he returned to work. “But you’re right, we’re giving the Tommies a hand out here. King and Country, and all that. Seems a little crazy, now that I think about it. I’ve never even been to England, you know — and here I am, fighting for the English king.”

We watched him deftly slice a lump of glistening flesh from the animal’s side before withdrawing a handkerchief from his pocket. My brother looked up at me, gauging my reaction. At that moment, we both would have done anything for a taste of juicy buck. After days of heavily salted biltong and dry pot-bread, the thought of fresh meat was almost too much to bear.

Corporal Byrne wrapped the lump of haunch in the handkerchief and fastened the cloth together with the pin that had attached the badge to his lapel. The badge he slipped into another pocket.

“I’ll tell them it fell off in the bush,” he grinned. “You kids look hungry. Can you catch?” He mimed tossing the bundle across the river. “Are you ready? You, Gert — will you catch this?”

Gertie nodded.

Corporal Byrne slung the wrapped haunch through the air, and my brother lunged for it, cradling it to his chest with a grunt.

“You’d make a sharp wide receiver, Gert,” smiled the soldier.

I decided that Pa would have liked Corporal Byrne. Maybe that’s why, as I watched him start to gather the springbok’s legs to haul him off once more, I shouted, “
Laat dit vir die leeus!
” Leave some for the lions. I knew that they would return to finish off their kill — and if they caught a human scent on it, they’d track Corporal Byrne all the way back to his camp.

He turned and stared at me. “What’s that, Corlie?”

I made a growling sound, swiping at the air as if my hand had become a paw. “
Leeu
,” I said. Then I pointed at the ground.

Corporal Byrne looked down at the springbok and back up at me. At last, a look of comprehension dawned across his handsome face.

“Oh, I see,” he said. “You’re a clever girl, Corlie.” He contemplated the springbok and withdrew his knife once more. “I guess it’ll be just a couple of chops for supper, then.”

We watched him butcher a leg before returning the
carcass to the bush. “Let’s hope the lions don’t mind my borrowing some.” Then he tipped his hat at us and raised one hand in farewell. “Take care, you two. Be sure to cook that meat good and proper.”

And then, just as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone.

I
told Gert to get rid of the handkerchief and the pin so that Ma wouldn’t know we’d been given the meat by a khaki.

“We’ll tell her that we found the buck ourselves,” I said. It was clear that my brother was just as impatient as I was to bite into a hot roast. “We can say that we cut it up with the fishhooks. If she hears we spoke to a soldier, she’ll use the
sjambok
.” And then, just to be sure that he understood, I added, “Otherwise, I’ll tell her that you were the one who gave him our names.”

“I won’t tell, Corlie — promise.”

Ma’s mouth dropped open when I presented her with the dark red lump of haunch meat.

“Where’d you find this?”

“Lions must have got him, Ma. We left the rest so they wouldn’t follow us.”

My mother took the flesh in both hands, feeling the fine white hairs on the side that Corporal Byrne hadn’t bothered to skin.

“We’ll have
sosaties
tonight,” she said. “There’s still some ginger jam for a sauce … and the last of the peaches …” For the first time in many weeks, I detected the glimmer of a smile on her weather-beaten face.

I couldn’t remember when last I’d done something to please my mother, but that night she seemed almost happy. She told Gert she was proud of him, and although she did not say as much to me, I felt sure that I had also won some approval. I basked in her good favor all evening.

After dinner, lying beneath the wagon with Gert curled up against one side of me and Lindiwe cradling me with her body on the other, I wondered if Corporal Byrne had eaten as well as we had. Before taking my first mouthful of tender meat, it occurred to me that perhaps the buck had been poisoned, that Gert and I had fallen prey to a khaki trap. But the springbok had tasted exactly as it should: lighter than kudu or ostrich meat, and slightly sweet. I couldn’t remember ever having feasted on anything so delicious.

Then, another thought: what if Corporal Byrne told his comrades about us? What if, even now, a group of khakis was scouring the riverbank for traces of the two children sighted casting for fish? Surely Gert wasn’t old enough to be considered a threat; we obviously hadn’t been part of any guerrilla commando. But what if they
tracked us back to Ma — what would become of Sipho and Lindiwe?

These were the questions that troubled me as I drifted off to sleep, lulled by a lavender breeze and the distant cries of a lone bush baby.

“Corlie! Corlie, wake up!”

The blurry shape of my brother’s arrowhead swung to and fro against a pale blue sky. I rubbed my eyes and raised myself onto my elbows, grumpily pushing Gert aside.

“What is it?” Had Corporal Byrne betrayed us after all? Were the khakis on their way?

“Sipho has found the
laager!
”

He’d sighted it a mile upstream, heading south. Apparently one of the men had recognized him as Bheka’s son and told the others not to shoot.

When my mother saw Oom Sarel emerging from the bush, she let out a cry that cut through the still morning air like a jackknife.

“Sarel!” Ma flung both arms around the old man’s leathery neck and planted a kiss on his cheek. I had never seen her look so happy in my life, and suddenly I realized just how frightened she had been.

“What have you been doing all the way out here, Maria?” His puckered mouth quivered into a smile as he took in the details of our feeble camp. “Surviving on flies and dew, by the looks of it. Get your boy to pack
up the wagon, and I’ll take you back to the
laager
. Minna will be relieved to see you.”

“Minna?” My mother’s hand shot to her mouth. “She’s with you? And the boys?”

“They caught wind of a British column near the farm with only minutes to spare. She keeps saying she’d never forgive herself if the devils got to you. Apparently they destroyed everything.” The old man spat at the ground. “Khaki scum.”

“God be praised — He heard my prayers!” My mother smoothed her hair with trembling hands. “Corlie! Gert! Don’t just stand there like a couple of
domkops
. Help Lindiwe with the mule, get your brother into the wagon, put out the fire — we’re leaving this place.”

Oom Sarel showed us the point at which we had diverged from the
laager’s
course, about two miles from where we had set up camp. “We’ve been keeping near to the river, where it’s sheltered by the forest. We didn’t want to risk pitching up by the open water,” he said. I stole a look at Gert, whose forehead had puckered in thought. I could tell he was thinking about Corporal Byrne.

There were about twenty people in the
laager
, living out of four covered wagons garrisoned by a line of ebony trees. It was the largest gathering of
Boere
that I could remember seeing for many months. When Tant Minna saw us, she gathered Hansie in her arms and covered Gert’s golden head with kisses. Her sons, Danie and Andries, poked their heads from their
wagon to eye us warily.