You’re right. It’s too much for one man, says Arend.
He is silent. Then, suddenly cheerfuclass="underline"
Probably no point in giving up now. We should have done it years ago.
My feet are swollen. I can’t get the shoe off my foot.
Goddammit, stop your jabbering and help me with the damned thing.
We were men of renown, there in the beginning. Now it’s too late. They won’t even arrest us. They’ll shoot us and leave us lying in the veldt like those bones over there.
I tug at my shoe.
What are you doing?
I’m taking off my shoe. You’ve never experienced such a thing?
You should take off your shoes every day. How many times must I tell you? You won’t listen.
Help me.
Does it hurt? he asks snidely.
Does it hurt? The earless Caffre wants to know if it hurts.
Yes, nobody ever suffers except His Excellency Buys.
Does it hurt? I mock him.
Arend pushes two index fingers into his ear apertures.
The pinkfoot-Boer wants to know?
Every tug at the shoe sets off a sharp stab of pain at the back of my head. I manage to take off the damned shoe, look into it, turn it over, shake it, look on the ground to see if anything fell out; feel inside again.
Well? Arend asks.
Nothing.
He takes off his hat, rubs the sweat from his stubble-scalp. I scratch between my toes.
One of the thieves was saved. At least that’s half, the skull-head mumbles.
What?
Supposing we repented. Confessed.
Confessed what?
Never mind.
I smack the back of his head. Above us the bark of the young branches is smooth and reddish brown, but the trunk against our backs is deeply grooved and grey.
Dammit, Arend. What is it now?
Two thieves, crucified on either side of the Messiah. One…
The what?
The Messiah. Christ.
I’m leaving.
I get up. Arend sighs, twirls a twig after an ant lion in his tunnel. I flop down next to him again.
If you want to chatter about the Bible, then rather the Old Testament. The deserts, the wars and the women. The gangs with the countenances of lions.
You should become a psalmist.
You should bugger off.
I’m just thinking, he says. The apostles, all four of them were there by the cross. And only one reports a thief saved. Why believe him rather than the other three?
Who believes him?
Everybody. That’s the story.
People are baboons.
I get up, limp away from his chatter, gaze into the distance with my hand shielding my eyes, gaze in the other direction. Arend peeks into my shoe and drops it and spits. There is nothing here. Nobody is on his way. A giraffe sticks its neck over the horizon and then sinks down again into the other side of the world.
Well, should we get going? he asks.
Yes, I think so, let’s get going, I say.
We don’t move.
Two-inch thorns grow in pairs from the trunk and branches. At the base they clump together, thick and gnarled. The big Caffre walks to the ribs towering up out of the sand. He breaks off a rib, examines the dry marrow.
Where do all these corpses come from? he asks.
These skeletons.
You tell me.
That’s true, I tell him.
He walks to and fro and kicks the sand, tracing a spoor behind him with the rib.
We should have thought first. Thought what we were getting ourselves into. All the shooting and fleeing. All the dead.
At the very beginning. Then I thought, and weighed things up, yes.
Arend sits down. The afternoon sun bakes the flowers so that the sweetness cloys the air.
Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do with all the money? he asks.
What money?
The money we’re going to get in the Colony for all the ivory. How many tons haven’t we gathered, gathered and bartered for guns and gunpowder to shoot more elephants. What are you going to do when you’re a rich man?
Buy more guns.
No, Buys, I mean when we’ve done hunting and looting.
His eyes mist over with gazing into the mirage.
I can see it, he murmurs. I’m going to buy a farm. In the Cape or Tulbagh or Stellenbosch, any place with mountains and vineyards and shade. A new hat with a red hatband stuck with ostrich feathers. A suit of clothes that glitters when the sun catches it. First of all I’m going to build a pantry and stuff it full of kudu loins and legs of mutton and sweet potatoes and pumpkin; tobacco and biltong in the rafters. Then a wine cellar under the house to keep the wine cool. A dam full of brandy. Then a stoep on which I can sit and smoke and talk. Then a bedroom large enough for three white maidens and me in the middle.
His gaze sharpens into focus again.
And you, Buys? How big a bed are you going to build? What are you going to buy first of all?
Buy more guns. Buy more horses. More gunpowder. More lead. More flints. More guns.
But what are you going to do with it all?
Loot more cattle, shoot more elephants.
I stuff a plug of tobacco into my cheek and start chewing vigorously.
You’re a difficult person to get along with, Coenraad.
So let’s go our separate ways, I say.
You’re always saying that, but you come and sit by my fire every night.
The conversation evaporates like our sweat in the sand. Each one sits thinking of the last man he shot, the last wound he stepped on. A breeze I don’t feel on my body stirs the feathery leaves around us. I lick my finger and stick it in the air. The tree feathers are still immediately.
Voices of the dead, I say.
I remember the stories of my childhood. On these plains you have to keep talking if you don’t want to think.
They rustle like wings, he says immediately, almost as relieved as I to escape his memories.
Like leaves, I say.
Like sand, he says.
Like leaves, I say.
For just a moment the draught moves through the branches again, but now also over my face. Then it’s gone. We remain silent together and separately.
They’re all talking at the same time, Arend resumes after a few moments.
Each to himself, I say.
They whisper.
They rustle, I say.
They murmur.
They rustle, I say.
Silence.
What are they saying?
They are talking about their lives, I say.
To have lived was not enough for them.
They must talk about it, I say.
To be dead is not enough for them.
It’s not enough, I say.
Silence.
They rustle like feathers, he says.
Like leaves.
Like ash.
Like leaves, I say.
Long silence.
Say something, will you.
I’m trying, I say.
Long silence.
Specks appear on the horizon and we load our guns and dig ourselves in and wait for what we hope is the farmer. The specks grow into people. It’s not the farmer. It’s four runaway slaves who almost trip right over us. They’ve escaped from their owners and ended up on the same wagon trail as Landdrost Stockenström – Andries, the son of Anders – and his retinue. Who are on their way here. We thank the slaves for the forewarning and offer them horses and a safe escape and get out of there. My swollen feet cramp in the stirrups and my fingers cramp around the reins and God damn the farmer who was late.