Zebra: Friends by Fate. Enemies by Destiny

1

Little Boy Who Never Cries

Champagne Castle Hotel, Drakensberg Mountains,

South Africa, 1954

Jock was free. He lifted his face to the sun, closed his eyes and breathed in the non-smoky, non-soapy air. His plan was to climb the leafiest tree and stay there in peace as long as he could.

Being four years old was a tough business. He didn’t need a team of babysitters. He needed to help his dad. Sitting quietly between branches and leaves would help him figure out how to make himself useful. Dad kept useful people close to him.

Aha! The perfect liquid amber tree. He wrapped his arms as far as they’d go around the hefty trunk, hugging it with his cheek flattened on the rough bark, and inhaling its rich woody smell. Yes. This was the one. His takkie found a knot in the trunk that was high enough to help hoist him up, and he moved nimbly into the camouflage of intricate branches and thick leaves.

Baboons barked. Their chattering sounds were louder than usual. Jock squinted through the foliage. The primates strutted back and forth on top of the small hill in front of the towering Matterhorn mountain. Two baboons cartwheeled gaily. Showing off, his dad said, was their way to scare off troops from across the valley who wanted to steal their home.

They were so noisy, one of the smaller ones on the sidelines stuck his fingers in his ears. Jock laughed. They were so humanlike. He’d love to play with them, but Dad said he was to stay far away because their mouths could open so wide, they could easily bite his four-year-old head off. Jock had laughed heartily until he saw his dad was serious. Serious meant trouble.

Oh, no! They were disappearing over the lip of the koptjie. He couldn’t see them anymore. Well, he’d just climb up the hill and watch from the top. But Dad said …

He climbed higher into the tree and found a perfect spot. At least he could listen and imagine.

There was so much barking. Sometimes they sounded like dogs.

Then he heard a cry. It was a high-pitched sound of agony and broke Jock’s small heart. It was coming from over the hill. But Dad said …

The sound again, pitiful. Jock pushed the sight of his dad’s face from his mind, slithered down the tree, and pumped his legs with all his might up the hill.

As he peeped over the ridge, his eyes were bigger than his bravery. Dad was right. Trouble.

Constance the laundry mistress reveled in her generous folds. She had more flesh on her bones than she had bones. Constance was a woman of substance, a supreme nurturer and in charge of this busy hotel laundry.

The laundry had three cylindrical stoves on which the irons leaned, always hot and ready. She and her female staff stoked and stroked all day and into the night in high season, so they could produce the whitest, most well-ironed sheets and pillowcases, tablecloths and serviettes in all of the Drakensberg.

Against the walls of the large room were cast-iron sinks and scrubbing boards. Bars of olive green, Sunlight soap, were everywhere. No excuse for dirt.

Constance wasn’t sorry to see the backsides of her last employers leave the hotel property. The new bosses were a young family with a small boy. She’d had very little interaction with them since their arrival two weeks earlier when all the staff lined up to greet these new owners.

Shortly afterwards, Nicholas, the Zulu voice of authority, gathered heads of all the departments together. Eteemot represented the outside boys; Constance the laundry girls; Billy Pillay the wine stewards.

Know your place and you’ll keep your jobs. They’ve never run a hotel before. Most important part of your job is training them. But they must never know. After you’ve shown them how and they make you do what you’ve just taught them, praise them for their good idea. But be smart because they are smart. Your livelihood depends on how well you teach them without them realizing it. If they don’t do a good job, we won’t have jobs.

Eich was said by many in sheer exasperation of having to teach white folks their jobs. Again. But the alternative, losing their positions, was too awful to imagine, so they went off to share Nicholas’s ground rules with their staff.

What Nicholas said was done. Nicholas was the law.

The parents were so busy with their new business, they had no notion of what to do with their young one. Nicholas suggested the laundry building might be the safest place for him till they could come up with a better solution. Only one door in and one door out. The umtwana couldn’t go anywhere. Nicholas gently suggested Constance’s added responsibility should be rewarded, and Inkosi, as their new chief was respectfully called, was quick to oblige.

So Constance took on the responsibility. When her staff went outside to hang the washing on the many lines, she dangled the fear of the ancestors over their heads to make sure the boy didn’t sneak out. He was sturdy and quick. She could tell by the looks of him he was a determined little thing. She could not afford to be in poor favor with Nicholas. Besides, it took a mountain of chocolate to sustain her voluptuous folds, and the additional Cadburys were contributing nicely.

Constance ruled with chatter. She ignited it and encouraged it. As long as her ladies were talking and doing their jobs, they didn’t know how hard they were working.

An introverted laundry woman, welcomed under Constance’s hot, soapy umbrella, was in less than a week airing her own dirty laundry for all to ponder, sympathize with and advise upon.

The umtwana spent most of the time with his hands over his ears. Every now and then Constance would feel the need to engulf him in her strong arms, and he resisted like a shrew fighting off a snake. Constance was undeterred and repeated the performance every couple of hours. He didn’t talk much, but his expressive face told its own story.

It was time. She left her ladies chattering and swept off to wrap her arms around her charge, thoughts of a slab of Cadbury’s fruit and nut making her mouth water.

She felt a niggle when he wasn’t found sitting with his back to the door, hoping for the chance for a quick getaway. She took a look around her turf and saw an open window behind one of the empty sinks.

Constance’s internal thermometer—always topping the red—plummeted to six degrees Celsius. She began to shiver.

Easy for a boy to climb onto that sink and out of the window.

The high-pitched keening sound that emitted from her mouth summed up the fear and panic that surged through her body.

Umtwana’s gone, she shouted, and it cut through the noise and created a rare silence that hovered ominously in the smoky, stifling heat. The severity of those words caused a paralysis in that laundry for five long seconds.

When Constance moved, fervent activity followed. Ladies abandoned washboards and irons and searched inside laundry baskets and in cupboards, then spilled outside onto the green grass, weaving between wash lines to inspect surrounding bushes and trees.

Constance shouted to her staff. Go! Find him. I must tell Nicholas.

Constance had a sudden image of bars of Cadbury’s being snatched from her as she ran, apron flying. She had no idea she could work up such a speed.

Why is there a wasp in your bosom before lunch, Constance? Nicholas’s voice boomed.

She stopped short, and the notion of confessing the loss of Little Boy Who Never Cries, as the waiters called him, sent fear-spears through her chest.

Nicholas glanced down at her apron. I see your babysitting allows you extra sweeties.

Guilt replaced the fear-spears as she looked down and saw the telltale shiny gold wrapper of her chocolate peeping out of her pocket.

She felt herself start to wobble from her legs up to her tummy, and she burst into body-shaking sobs and cried like she hadn’t since she’d been orphaned at seven. She heaved, blubbered and sniffed until the fear-spears pierced again during a deep breath and she was reminded of why she’d sought out Nicholas.

Nicholas hastily led her mucus-covered self away from prying eyes and flapping ears.

Tell me everything, he demanded.

And she did, in staccato sentences between sobs. Little Boy Who Never Cries is gone from my laundry! Lose my job. No more work for my ladies either. New bosses. My Cadbury’s … And then the wail took over and the tears flowed in earnest again.

Nicholas’s voice was firm and quite scary, really. You stop that now! Snot and tears will not bring him back. Call your ladies to the kitchen back door. Get word to Eteemot to bring ten outside boys. We will start the search—properly and in an orderly fashion so we know all the ground has been covered. NOW, Constance. Get your big self into gear!

Those harsh words rendered her hard-earned confidence nothing but putu pap, and she was a frightened girl once more.

Nicholas pushed her in the direction she needed to go, and she went. Dispatching messages and gathering her ladies, she shepherded them outside the kitchen’s back door.

In two years, she’d risen like a bar of Sunlight soap to the top of the sink to become head of the laundry. Without it, she had nothing. The kraal down the valley was her home, the only one she’d known since she was a girl. She couldn’t justify living there without a job.

She’d lost a boy, and her life was over. Her temperature plummeted again, and she shivered as she heard herself wail. Laundry ladies gathered around her with pats and rubs and comforting Zulu words.

When they were all assembled outside the back door of the kitchen, Nicholas appeared and stood facing the small crowd he’d summoned.

Nicholas spoke Zulu to the assembled employees. The Indian waiters understood the language because they had to. White men did not need to learn an African language. They were the bosses and the brown and black men, their servants. It was these servants’ mission to understand their boss, not the other way around. It was the way things were done. There were no grander expectations.

Nicholas was a big Zulu, both in size and in presence. He was broad in knowledge and in fairness. But he scared the manure out of all of them.

Umtwana is missing. The boss does not know. Nobody must know, especially not the boss. This lost boy is our secret. Find him, send word to me, but stay with him. He’s fast.

Nicholas looked into the eyes of each man and woman who stood before him, and under his glare, each shrunk at least two inches, just the way he expected.

Three outside men to the quarry—inspect every square inch. Five outside boys—down toward the stables. Pick up the horse boys on your way to help you search farther. Go wide and up, toward the mountains. The last two of you, go through the gum trees. Check where the rinkhals live and speak nicely to the ancestors as you go, because if the boy is there … Nicholas let the severity of that potential discovery linger in the ominous air.

Ten strapping Zulus peeled off to do as instructed.

"Constance, take all five bedroom-boys and search every rondavel. Go!"

Ladies of Laundry, check each and every square inch of the bowling green, the swimming pool, verandas, inside the dog kennels—he’s been there before—the tennis courts. Look up the trees and inside the bushes. All around the outside of the hotel. Ladies scattered.

Scullery boys, check inside the walk-in pantry, even the freezer. Then every square inch of the main hotel. Under couches. Behind chairs. Bars. Lounges. Game Room. Dining room—and quickly before I ring the bell for children’s lunch. Anyone asks, you tell them you’re looking for dirty glasses. Even Inkosi. You tell him the same.

Yebo, the two said in unison and disappeared.

With his posse dispatched, big Nicholas pulled the lapels of his smart jacket down, straightened his thin black tie and walked into the kitchen, which was in a pre-lunch flurry.

David Walsh, the missing umtwana’s father, smiled, and Nicholas flashed one of his finest and bowed slightly. Inkosi.

You were having a meeting? David asked.

Indeed, Inkosi. Making sure all parts of the whole make you proud of your new undertaking.

Well. David smiled. I certainly would have trouble knowing what comes next without you. We had no official handover from the last owners.

Your know-how will come, Inkosi. Until then it is my delight to assist in the process. Nicholas bowed again.

David said, Nicholas, I’ve never worked so closely with Zulus. You are an exceptionally courteous people. I know looking away from me is a sign of your respect, but I’m a man who likes to look into another man’s eyes. One can find truth there … or not.

Nicholas and David looked each other in the eyes until they both nodded. David was satisfied. Nicholas was guilty as hell and felt bad, in this case, that he’d mastered not letting another read what was behind his eyes.

David continued, So much to learn, it’s overwhelming. Thank goodness you found a safe place for Jock for the time being.

Nicholas felt a surge of dread and feigned an excuse to look inside the fridge so he could avoid those frank eyes of his new boss. He put on his calm face as he and Inkosi watched the pre-lunch organized-chaos: Thabo, the always-smiling head chef, effectively directed while assistant chefs executed. Waiters came and went through swing doors to the dining room, preparing for the lunch onslaught.

Inkosi said, Nicholas, you have the authority of General Montgomery and the size and wisdom of Winston Churchill, and he looked to Nicholas for a response. Having no clue what was expected of him, Nicholas smiled and nodded what could have been thanks.

Inkosi continued as if thinking aloud: One is so spoiled in the city. You switch on the light and think nothing of it. You run hot water without thought. Here, light only comes on if the weir is not jammed and the water flow is adequate to start the generator. If there’s no light, you have to find out why—remove dead frogs or snakes blocking the weir, repair the generator, and start again. Wood must be constantly chopped and dried for fires, which have to be stoked to provide excellent food, many hot showers and clean linens. Adequate paraffin must be hauled up the mountain to keep our fridges and deep freezes cool. Cows must be fed so they can be milked so the separator can be wound by two men to get the cream for the pudding tonight. Nothing just happens. It’s constant forward planning and massive manpower, all to make everything seem effortless to our guests.

It is so, Inkosi. Nicholas turned to David. It is time for me to ring the children’s bell for lunch. All is prepared.

Inkosi nodded, and Nicholas was relieved to get out of the kitchen. He wandered the grounds ringing his tinkling silver bell through the rondavels, through the main hotel and across the sprawling property so not a guest-child at Champagne Castle Hotel would have an excuse to miss their call to lunch. Where was the umtwana? His stomach did a flip.

As his bell tinkled, Nicholas checked in with passing search members. There was no need for conversation, just eye contact and a slight shake of the head.

Nicholas, who was not one to worry, began to do so. Yes, he was in good favor as his boss’s only link to understanding the hotel business. But Nicholas knew his worth could disappear in a flash when the boss found out his only son was gone. It was Nicholas who’d recommended the child be left in Constance’s care, so it was indeed he who lost the child. If the boy was never found, if he was maimed or if he was dead, Nicholas would be blamed. And rightly so. This couple relied on his advice.

Nicholas talked seriously to the ancestors. Though he smiled and waved at the excited white children, thoughts of Mrs. Inkosi finding out her only son was missing had unfamiliar panic nipping at his ankles.

The full force of the barrage of excited children on holiday entered the dining room. His waitstaff were ready to serve kids and impress mothers and fathers who tagged along. All looked as it should. No one could tell Nicholas was experiencing his first bout of fear since … since he became important.

Nicholas glanced at the clock. An hour and a half since they’d found umtwana gone. It took only seconds for anyone—let alone a helpless child—in these mountains to lose their way, lose their consciousness, lose their limbs or lose their life. Venomous snakes. Wild animals. Deadly spiders. Primal baboons. Crevices. Streams. Waterfalls. Dizzying heights.

He was staring out of the dining room discussing these issues with the ancestors when he saw a horse on the gallop toward the hotel. News. His knees buckled ever so slightly.

The horse was closer, and he could make out a bundle in a horse blanket in front of the young horse boy. A bundle, not a boy? His Gollaga-inja knees buckled again. Another quarter of an inch and they would have taken his big-self down in his own dining room.

Recovering, he found his most reliable waiter and whispered to him to take charge. In the kitchen, Inkosi was safely oblivious and thoroughly involved in the shuttling of children’s fare. Nicholas hightailed it out of the back door, and closing it behind him, he lifted his head to the ancestors in feverish prayer.

The horse boy’s face was hard to read from this distance. He steadied a bundle—too big for just a umtwana—between surprisingly strong arms that held the reins.

Why was there was no young boy sitting up straight, excited out of his wits by his first horse gallop?

Perhaps the boy was in pieces inside the bundle.

Gollaga-inja! No! NO!

His secret searchers had also spotted the galloping horse and were gathering for news.

At last, but yet too soon, Papin the horse boy brought the giant mare to a stop right in front of Nicholas. But where was this boy’s famous smile? The one that split his face so easily with pleasure? NO!

Papin swung his leg over and dropped to the ground with the big bundle in his arms and laid it gently down.

A squirm and a once-white, small face with big eyes popped out, covered in dirt and blood.

Praise the ancestors! Nicholas had never known such relief. He reached down to pick him up, but the boy pulled away, shouting in panic, Not me. Him! as he pointed to the fur-and-blood form lying inside the blanket.

A medium-size, medium-colored dog had a mass of blood where his rear extremities should have been. His leg was missing too.

Help, the boy cried, imploring Nicholas with those big eyes.

And the back door opened with a whoosh.

Nicholas felt Inkosi before he saw him. There was absolute silence around him as everyone froze in fear.

Dad, the boy called Help! Puppy is broken.

In seconds, Inkosi picked up his son for a quick investigation, noticed his one shoe-less foot, and put him down, Then, much more gently, he lifted the dog by the scruff of its neck to inspect it.

We need axle grease. Quickly, to the workshop. Inkosi took charge, and Nicholas sent one of the outside boys ahead with towels and another in search of the grease.

I need to know exactly what happened once we’ve all calmed down, said Inkosi to Nicholas, who was grateful there was no time for words and less still for looking into a man’s eyes.

Once inside, Inkosi gently laid down the dog on the towel-covered workbench, picked up Umtwana and plonked him near the dog. He looked at his son. You okay, Jock?

The boy nodded, his eyes never leaving the mangled mutt.

When Eteemot presented the axel grease in a mighty tin, Inkosi cupped a big handful, then very, very gently plastered the dog’s backside with it. The mutt whimpered softly, and Umtwana’s eyes were painfully sad as he softly stroked the dog’s snout.

Done, Inkosi wiped his bloodied, greasy hands on a towel. The boy looked up at his father with adoration and faith. A thousand words were spoken in that look, and Nicholas wished he’d had a son. This umtwana believed his dad could fix anything. Even this dying dog.

Nicholas leaned in. The weak little mutt was barely breathing. What hope did it have? It was missing half of its behind and a leg.

Inkosi? This dog was born with three legs ... or its leg was taken by a baboon long before his bum was taken today.

Their three heads converged on the dog’s rear. When he and Inkosi nodded their confirmation, so too the boy’s head went up and down as he grinned.

Good. Good. Then he stands more of a chance. Axle grease should kill any germs and seal and heal the flesh, if we can just get the dog through his shock. Nicholas, get me milk, sugar and a dropper from one of the first aid kits. Get a couple of tots of brandy from the wine steward on your own authority.

Inkosi was unquestionably in charge.

Nicholas left to do what was needed, all the while dreading to see Inkosi’s faith in him lost when the truth came out. This was no doubt his last day. He felt sad. He liked Inkosi, and this little umtwana was quietly worming his way into his heart. The thought of dealing with a lamenting Constance as they trudged down the mountain road in search of new jobs was a fate worse than death.

On his way to the workshop, Nicholas found the anxious horse boy and asked him for details of the rescue. He’d better know the full story before he was called upon to deliver it.

Back in the workshop, Nicholas filled a dropper of the hastily prepared muti, and standing next to the boy, he lifted the floppy little head and eased the dropper into the dog’s mouth, squeezing it in little bursts. At first, the liquid dripped out the side of its mouth. But Nicholas persisted. He felt the boy’s eyes studying his every move.

The softest little murmur came from the dog, and the boy’s face lit up.

His father’s voice was soft and kind. Don’t get your hopes up, Jock. He’s been badly bitten.

Nicholas said, I heard baboons at the bottom of the Matterhorn earlier. Their barks and chatter happen sometimes. Never a need for concern.

Don’t tell the dog that. They really did a number on the little mite.

Nicholas thanked the ancestors’ baboons for not doing to the boy what they’d done to the dog. Just then, he felt a tug at the end of the dropper.

In a minute, he pulled it out slowly. Empty. He drew in more mixture from the bowl and gave the dropper to the boy.

He covered the small hand with his own and guided it to the mutt’s mouth. He helped the umtwana squeeze just the right amount of liquid into the dog’s mouth, and when, once again, the dog’s natural suckling inclination kicked in, the boy’s face lit up with pleasure.

Inkosi ordered an old sheet and blanket, and Constance brought them in—still quivering.

Inkosi tore the sheet into strips. He bound the dog’s rear end to ensure the whole area remained covered in grease. Then he swaddled the dog in the blanket and carried it into the kitchen with Umtwana following closely and Nicholas behind them.

Inkosi made room in the corner of the scullery for the boy to sit, and once he was down on the cool slate, his father placed the limp dog in the blanket between his son’s legs. Nicholas handed him the full dropper, and the boy smiled his thanks and did as he’d been shown.

Inkosi, his clothes covered in dog’s blood and grease, called for Nicholas to follow him into the big walk-in pantry. Inkosi closed the door.

Nicholas looked around, and all of his senses came alive. The smell of flowers standing in a bucket, freshly picked to replace almost tired ones on the tables before dinner ... pungent, picked garlic hanging upside down in a dark corner of the pantry, rosemary, chives … perhaps it was the last time he’d see and smell all that was so wonderfully familiar.

Nicholas. What happened?

It’s my fault, Inkosi.

Just tell me.

Nicholas was not used to quiet, civil conversation where anger lurked. He found it to be more frightening than being beaten with ugly and insulting words. Nicholas had never been frightened. Of anything. Before today.

Inkosi, he was in the laundry, then he wasn’t. The girls found an open window above an empty sink. It’s very hot in there, Inkosi, but the girls know one of their jobs is to protect Umtwana and would not normally open a window unless they are working in front of that sink. I plan on finding out who is responsible, Inkosi.

Nicholas braced himself for the onslaught of abuse and reminders of his incompetency.

When they never came, he spread his legs to firm his stance against the new knee- buckling sensation this ordeal had uncovered and mustered every steel nerve in his body for the courage to look into the eyes of his new boss.

He took a deep breath and looked in the eyes of Inkosi, ready to take what he deserved.

He couldn’t believe the look on his boss’s face.

It was genuine grace.

Nicholas, it’s thanks to your exceptional organization, dispatch and follow-through that this little rascal was found at all. Nobody is to blame. It was an inadequate place to hole up a four-year-old. Renee and I should have known better. The responsibility on Constance was far too great. It’s smelly in there. If I were Jock, I would have hightailed it out of that hot laundry first chance I got.

Thank you, Inkosi, was as much as Nicholas could manage with tears threatening. He was a middle-aged man who men and women feared! What did he know of tears?

Nicholas, I am of British heritage. Stiff upper lip, you know. Men don’t hug men. Men don’t cry. Men are stoic. But I’ll tell you this. I’m a man ready to break good old British tradition, and all because of you. Thank you for finding my son.

They stood, these manly men, avoiding each other’s eyes because they were both grateful and embarrassed by the extent of their indebtedness.

How many people were involved in the hunt? asked David.

Thirty or so, Inkosi, Nicholas replied.

What can I give the staff as a thank-you, Nicholas?

Beer, Inkosi. They love Castle Lager.

So it shall be. How did the horse boy find him?

Nicholas was relieved he had the answer. He took Beauty and wove back and forth, back and forth up the small hill in front of the Matterhorn, Inkosi. Once he got over the lip of that hill, he found the umtwana cradling the dog and hiding behind a bush. He must have followed the sound of the dog’s cries and then not wanted to leave him to get help. He would never have heard us calling for him or seen the flurry of our search from where he was, Inkosi. Thank the ancestors the baboons had retreated, but they were still noisy and would have drowned out our cries to call him home. Papin, the horse boy, said the umtwana had wrapped his body around the dog to try and stop the bleeding. I think that helped to keep it alive.

David cleared his throat. Tell me about the young horse boy, please, Nicholas. Then bring him to see me.

David looked down at his son and reckoned the dog would be smothered by love long before the angry baboon bite healed.

Thank God Nicholas had spared Renee the agony of a missing child. And him.

Little bugger. David reached down and pushed a dark curl off his son’s forehead, more roughly than intended, and said, How the hell can I see if there’s anything wrong with your head when it’s all bloodied up? Go wash your face.

While Jock was gone, David reexamined the young dog. He’s as strong as the kid who found him.

Jock was back, sitting next to the dog. The mutt even opened his eyes when the little bugger returned. David smiled.

What shall I call him, Dad?

Well, since he’s only got three legs, how about Tripod? David demonstrated with three middle fingers.

Jock’s wet head nodded vigorously as he smiled.

Next to Nicholas, the rider of the horse stood before him. Tall and shy.

Papin? asked David.

The boy stepped forward. Inkosi. He kept his eyes averted.

How many years do you have, Papin? David spoke in very basic Zulu.

I have nine years, Inkosi, said Papin.

I hear you lost your mother when you were just two years old. David spoke softly.

I did, said the boy, his head hanging low.

I am so sorry, Papin. That’s hard for a small boy. David had run out of Zulu vocabulary and switched to English. Nine? That’s a good age to earn a better wage. Today… Nicholas, what’s the word for a naughty boy?

"Perhaps Tsotsi, Inkosi? But that’s more like a little devil," said Nicholas apprehensively.

That’s perfect! Tsotsi it is! Papin, today you saved this tsotsi! David roughly ruffled the unharmed, wet head of his son.

The father’s harsh-sounding way with his own boy made Papin look directly at him. Then quickly away.

Papin, look at me. Perhaps you would keep an eye on this boy of mine for me?

The boy did so, albeit tentatively, since it was impolite practice for Zulu people. The boy cocked his head, trying to understand what David meant by the last statement.

Your father, Sponon, does a wonderful job tending our cattle. He says you are an excellent horse boy, but you must learn patience.

It is so, Inkosi, Papin said softly, clearly ashamed of his shortcomings but too afraid to look away.

I can help. This tsotsi needs an expert who understands these mountains. One who can teach a small boy how to look after himself. This tsotsi needs Papin.

Papin looked directly at David, his face serious.

And then Papin’s eyes grew as big as a pair of full moons after too much native beer.

"So, Inkosi. This will be my tsotsi to teach?" Papin asked.

"Yes. You’ll earn more for each year he grows. As you manage to turn a tsotsi into a boy and then a man, you will get all the training you’ll need to be the most patient man in Zululand. You will make your father proud!"

Papin’s smile was big enough to power up the hotel generator. He looked down at his new charge, and though he spoke in Zulu, he demonstrated. Take off the one takkie you have left. You don’t need shoes when you are with me. I will carry your dog.

David watched as Jock hastily took off his shoe and Papin extended his hand and said simply, Come, Tsotsi.

As he watched the Zulu holding the dog wrapped in the soft blanket leave the kitchen, followed by his barefooted son, David felt immense relief. A sensation he hadn’t felt since his wife, Renee, Jock and he, three up on the bench seat of their old Chevy, drove 6,000 feet above sea level toward their new adventure at Champagne Castle Hotel.

But David’s relief was short-lived as realism wormed its way back in. He’d been a lone signaler in a world war. Life was fraught with challenges and the unexpected. Best he enjoyed this moment, because who knew what life would deliver next?

2

Africa’s Curse

South West Africa/Angola, 1977

Riding shotgun, Lieut glanced past a pair of brown, hairless legs, to the man—rather, the boy—at the wheel. He watched his corporal, nineteen-year-old Cairns, slow-dancing with the massive steering wheel, tongue out, like he was using his first pair of scissors. A Polaroid of a shy-looking blondish girl was tucked into the driver’s seat’s visor.

The sturdy army truck roared, revved, burped and bumped forward on the road, which was in fact a rugged path with fewer rocky outcrops than the rest of the arid, unforgiving terrain.

Between him and Cairns, Boesman—his team’s Bushman tracker—stood, balancing expertly using his gnarly, bare, terrain-conditioned toes as stabilizers, gripping the edge of the worn leather bench seat.

Lieut looked up, past the brown legs, the loincloth with deerskin waistband, beyond the naked, protruding belly, to Boesman’s head, which poked through the sunroof. A turtle standing on hind legs. Lieut smiled as genuine affection washed over him.

With two wars going at the same time—the Bush Wars and the Border War—as soon as you left the safety of camp, you were in a war zone. Boesman was their eyes and ears and their sixth sense. Lieut wondered if his guys had any idea how much more perilous each minute of their mission would be without him.

Lieut’s brief, as usual, was to catch and kill notorious terrorist Lwazi. But the elusive bastard was hard to track, except when he deliberately left an impression. Each of their days was based on the most recently extorted intelligence from Lwazi’s path of destruction.

Here we go again.

He turned to let the hot desert wind from the open window slap his face. The quick glimpse of a small herd of springbok was further evidence of the devastating drought. The slender, long-legged antelope bunched together skittishly. There were too few to protect each other. There was none of their usual pronking or jumping straight-legged six and a half feet into the air. Drought forced the scrawny springbok to merely amble in a tight bunch, parched skin stretched across bones like pelts across chunks of hollow trunks to make drums. Sadness overwhelmed him.

Nature is cruel. So is war.

Yissis, Lieut. You sound like a philosopher or something, man, said Cairns, his tongue pointing in the direction intended for the brute Bedford truck as he fought to conquer the oversize steering wheel with a will of its own.

Lieut looked at Cairns like he’d crawled out of a hole. He’d spoken aloud?

He forced himself to buck the hell up by looking beyond the sparse, sandy nothingness and into the earth, up to the sun, searching for animals, insects or any of nature’s hidden surprises.

Her peculiar marvels burrowed and buried from the relentless sun, fighting for a slither of shade. You just had to know how and where to look for her treasures to be able to appreciate them. A bed of scorpions, too big in number to fit under all the shade of a boulder, allowed a few sand-colored pinchers to catch the sun’s light.

Cairns, did you know scorpions have up to ten sets of eyes?

Like Cathy, my girl. She catches me doing all sorts of shit, Lieut.

Lieut chuckled, and a few miles later, in an odd-angled, leafless tree, he saw an eleven-foot gray and brown snake draped between thorns, warming cold blood in the relentless South West African sun.

Hey, Lieut! Is that a big freaking snake in that tree?

Yes. A black mamba. Probably three meters long.

It can’t be a black mamba. It’s not black.

Cairns, stop the truck and go have a good look in its mouth.

Cairn’s foot slipped off the gas, mistaking conversation for command.

Seeing Lieut’s grin, Cairns laughed in relief, and the Bedford roared.

You’d find the inside of that mouth as black as pitch and holding twenty drops of venom per fang. You and I only need two drops to look forward to fifteen hours of excruciating death.

Still studying the massive snake, Lieut continued: Look at it … one of the few fat things in this semi-desert. It doesn’t have to use its speed of sixteen kilometers an hour for prey. It can just hang around and grow fat on slow, thirsty mice. Poor little buggers.

Nature’s not for sissies, and neither is war. Lieut’s thoughts turned to Drought and her vicious favoring of the strong: the mostly lone-hunting cheetah easily outrunning a thirsty springbok, a young bush buck’s frantic search for water overtaking its instinctive caution for predators and becoming easy prey for a low-crawling leopard or crocodile at a sparse water hole.

These animal scenarios were as vivid as if they’d presented their desolate pantomime to Lieut on a giant drive-in screen.

Storing nature’s scenes was an excellent means of escape. One he’d been practicing for many, many years.

A cloud of dust swallowed the cab as the sturdy