The Witchdoctor's Bones

by Lisa de Nikolits

  Kate, am NOT happy bout this. Call me 2day soon as u can

  I will I prmse, at namutoni, don’t worry tho. But is v ugly

  b safe. Talk soon, be safe xo

  Betty arrived with Jono. “Where are Sofie’s bags and documents?” he asked.

  “In my tent, I’ll show you,” Kate said shortly. She had not forgiven him for not standing up for her. She marched off to the tent and placed Sofie’s things outside the door. “There you are,” she said to Jono.

  “Kate …” he pleaded, but she ignored him and climbed back inside her tent.

  Kate packed her things and took down her tent. She carried her bags to the bus but did not go in, wanting to avoid Rydell as much as possible. Then she remembered something, how drugged he had been the day she had rejoined the group in Walvis Bay; how he had drooled and slept and she realized that he must have meds with him. She climbed inside the bus. Rydell was sitting in his usual spot and he looked frightened to see her.

  “Rydell,” she said sternly, “mommy wants to know where your medicine is? Show mommy your medicine now.”

  Rydell obediently reached into his bag and brought out a three large amber prescription bottles. Kate read the labels and had no idea what any of them were. Take as prescribed.

  “Rydell, mommy wants to know, which of these must you take to make you sleepy?”

  Rydell pointed to the Alprazolam. “Rydell must take two if he feels bad,” he said. “Then he will sleep for a long time and he will feel much better.”

  Kate shook out two of the pills and pocketed the bottle. “Rydell, mommy wants you to take two, right now.”

  “But why,” he whined, “I don’t feel bad mommy, I don’t feel bad.”

  “You’ve been a very BAD boy,” Kate said and he flinched. “Even if you don’t feel bad, you must take two, now, while mommy watches. Then you will be a good boy.”

  “Good boy, good boy,” he sighed.

  “Here’s your juice,” she handed him his water.

  She watched him carefully and he swallowed the pills.

  “Open your mouth so I can see they are gone,” she said.

  He opened his mouth wide.

  “Good boy,” she said, “and now, Rydell must sleep.”

  “Hungry,” he said, “very hungry.”

  “Okay,” she said, “you stay here, mommy will bring you breakfast. Be a good boy now, Rydell, and stay here.”

  She climbed off the bus and went to get him a bowl of cereal. By the time she got back, the drugs had started to work.

  “Mommy?” he slurred, and the milk dripped down his chin.

  “Yes, Rydell, what is it?”

  “I didn’t kill the jackal, mommy, I was only trying to make you scared and pretend I did, but I didn’t. I’m sorry I made you scared. I’m going to be a good boy now, you’ll see and then you won’t have to be dead anymore.” And with that he fell asleep.

  Kate took the bowl from him, puzzled. She wouldn’t have to be dead anymore? What was that supposed to mean? That he wouldn’t have to kill her anymore? He must mean that. Or was he talking about Rosalee Khumalo? Or his real, dead mother? She resolved to keep him drugged at all times.

  Kate took his bowl to the bucket, remembering that she had told Betty that she would the dishes. She stopped in front of Helen. “How about you clean up breakfast, Jasmine and Ellie do lunch, and I’ll do supper?”

  “Sounds good.” Helen leapt to her feet.

  A long black hearse pulled up slowly. The driver got out and looked around, at a loss.

  Jono waved a greeting and approached him. They spoke and Jono pointed to Lena. They walked over to her; she had been warned by Gisela of their approach.

  “We need you to sign a release,” Jono said gently.

  “Is he in there?” Lena’s mouth was pressed tight and she nodded in the direction of the hearse.

  “Yebo,” Jono said. “They are taking him to Windhoek and he will fly home from there and his brother has confirmed that he will meet him.”

  “He is in a coffin now?” Lena asked.

  The driver did not seem surprised by her questions.

  “Yes, Madam, he is.”

  “I want to see him,” Lena said.

  “That is not advisable, Madam, the bruises, the head wounds…”

  “He’s my husband, I want to see him,” Lena insisted.

  “Sign these papers, Madam and I’ll show him to you,” the driver acquiesced.

  Gisela took the papers and read them carefully. She nodded approval and passed them over to Lena who signed them, and gave them back to the driver. They walked over the hearse, and the driver opened the back. He went around to the front and activated the mechanism that slid the coffin out.

  Just as he was doing that, a small bubble helicopter approached, hovered and looked for a place to land. It descended and showered the onlookers with sand and they all ran for cover, except for Lena, who remained motionless beside the coffin. The driver of the hearse looked perplexed and once the helicopter had landed, he brushed the dust off his black suit, clearly unimpressed.

  The helicopter blades spun slowly and finally came to a stop. The pilot emerged, and scanned the group. A second man got out of the helicopter with a doctor’s bag. Jono ran up to him, explained at length with many hand movements and pointed to Sofie. The pilot went back to the helicopter to get a stretcher while the doctor approached Sofie.

  “Madam,” the driver of the hearse said to Lena, “I would like to leave soon, Madam, forgive me.”

  Lena lifted the lid slowly with the help of the driver.

  “Hold it up for me, please,” she said, “I need both hands.”

  The driver held the lid up while Lena tugged off her wedding ring. She looked at it for a moment and she peered in at Stepfan. Then she threw the ring into the coffin and walked away.

  The driver shut the coffin without comment, got into the hearse and drove off.

  Meanwhile, the doctor gently questioned Sofie but he did not receive any answers. Sofie continued to sing quietly and gaze into the distance.

  “Is she going to be alright?” Kate asked. She could not help but think what a rough lot they must present to the dapper little doctor. They all looked worse for wear one way or another with only Lena her usual elegant self.

  “She’s suffering from severe emotional trauma due to shock,” the doctor said. “Will there be anybody who can fly out to be with her in Windhoek?”

  “She listed her boyfriend as her emergency contact,” Jono said, “and I called him. He said both him and Sofie’s sister would get on a plane today.”

  “That’s good,” the doctor said. “Time, medication, the love of her family and a lot of support and she may recover. But it won’t be easy and won’t be quick.”

  He moved out of Sofie’s sight and filled a syringe then he patted Sofie’s arm, gave her the shot and applied a Band-Aid.

  “She will soon sleep,” he said and even as he spoke, Sofie slumped against him. He and Jono laid her on the stretcher and strapped her in. Two of the security guards from the camp picked her up and carried her to the helicopter. “There’s a good chance she’ll never remember what happened,” the doctor said “but it would of course, be helpful for me to know, so that I can help her. Can anybody tell me anything?”

  “She saw something she shouldn’t have…” Kate said slowly.

  Helen rounded on her. “How do you know that?” she demanded.

  “Because she told Mia, Richard and me last night. She didn’t say what, but she said she was worried she might be killed because of what she had seen.”

  “But do you know what she saw?” the doctor asked and Kate shook her head.

  “Doctor, a man fell from the tower yesterday,” Jono admitted uncomfortably. “There is perhaps a chance she witnessed that.”
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  “Good God,” the doctor was shocked. “That could have done it for sure.”

  “It was his hearse that drove off,” Jono pointed.

  The doctor stared at the ground, thinking. “It would not have been good for her to have seen that,” he said, “but it’s too late for that now.” He looked around. “Can anybody add anything else that might be helpful?”

  The group shook their heads.

  “I’ve got all your contact information,” the doctor said to Jono “in case I have any other questions.”

  He walked off neatly holding his black bag at his side and climbed into the helicopter. The blades slowly started turning and the bubble took off in a whirlwind of hot stinging sand.

  Too late, Kate wondered if the doctor had seen the jackal and she realized that she should have told him about it. She decided she would visit the hospital when they arrived in Windhoek.

  “Everybody, are we ready to leave?” Jono asked.

  “Are we bloody ever,” Richard exclaimed. “Never been more ready in my life.”

  They packed the bus and climbed on board. Rydell was fast asleep with saliva gathering on his chin.

  “The delights of self-medication,” Richard commented. “Delights for us, that is.”

  Kate looked through the window for the jackal’s corpse but it was gone. She dug into her bag for the plastic bag with the bloodied rope and studied it surreptitiously, wondering who it belonged to. She thought about what Rydell had said about not killing the jackal and she wondered if someone else had done it to send Sofie over the edge. Sofie had hinted that she had seen something up at top of the tower, before Stepfan fell, and Kate wondered if this latest atrocity was designed to send Sofie further into shock and deeper into silence. Kate came up with a list of possible suspects: Gisela, Lena, Jasmine, Ellie and Helen, but she could not figure out anything further. She stared at the stark burnt earth flying by and she moved to the front of the bus to ask Jono a question. “We’re still going to stop at the Etosha Pan, aren’t we?”

  “Ei, do you really want to?” Jono sounded doubtful.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Jono sighed and turned down a road. “Good timing,” he said. “We nearly drove past.”

  The early morning sunrise had been ruby red but the sky quickly turned dark, with large storm clouds forming on the horizon. The Etosha Pan itself was vast white salt lake with a domed ceiling of roiling purple anger.

  “You have fifteen minutes,” Jono announced loudly and pulled to a halt.

  The group rushed off the bus.

  “No wonder they used this a backdrop for 2001: A Space Odyssey,” Richard said, for once awed by something. “It’s prehistoric … it’s like the bleached bones of a thousand disintegrated dinosaurs…”

  “Listen to you, waxing bleedin’ lyrical and all that,” Mia mocked him. “When you stop talking poetic, run out into the middle and Jazzer, you take a picture, so it looks like he’s standing on the palm of my hand.”

  “Eight million years and all she sees is a practical joke,” Kate said to Betty who was standing next to her. “But you know, I mustn’t get bitter, each of us has our own ways of doing things.”

  Betty grimaced in reply.

  “Time to go, everybody,” Jono shouted out the window, and he started the bus.

  “A bit speedy, there, eh?” Mia puffed in her haste to get to the bus. “Oy, that was a good bit of fun.”

  They turned down the road and drove directly towards the threatening clouds. Lightning flashed in the distance and dust devils whirled towards the bus.

  Kate thought they had been lucky to escape wet tents thus far, but she feared their good fortune in that regard was coming to an end.

  “No lunch. We are driving straight through, I am worried about the storm,” Jono yelled through the cab hatch.

  “No lunch?” Ellie complained. “But I’m hungry.”

  “Here,” Richard got up and opened a bag of supplies. “Chips, chocolate, all the junk food you could possibly want and more.”

  Ellie’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, lovely,” she said and she, Jasmine, Richard and Mia tucked in.

  Lena was fast asleep on Gisela’s shoulder and Rydell was out cold.

  Helen stared out the window, her chin on her hand.

  Jono stopped briefly to point out a watchful large male lion under a tree, guarding a dead zebra, but for the most part the ride was focused on getting to Fort Namutoni and they arrived in the early afternoon.

  “The last campsite,” Jono said in an undertone to Betty. “And thank God for that, or I might have killed them all myself. Only one night left.” He smiled at Betty who patted his knee.

  “Only one night left, Jono,” she repeated.

  The group quietly and efficiently set up camp on the patchy lawn. The tents were scattered haphazardly, and the only tree, a thin, scrawny acacia, was next to the bus, with the fire pit and concrete picnic tables nearby on the bare soil. The usual jackal-raided bins lay on their sides, with the garbage spread around.

  As soon as her tent was up, Kate called André and told him what had happened.

  “I can’t wait to see you,” he said, after he had listened to the whole story. “Take it easy tonight. I guarantee there’ll be some good old white mischief because you know they’ve got nothing to lose. Be careful and stay out of their way.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Kate said and they said goodbye.

  Her phone call made, Kate considered how to while away the time. She strolled down the blood-red road towards the old castle-like fort and watched a large warthog snuffle on the bright green grass while the threatening purple sky hung low and heavy. Like the other campsites, Fort Namutoni was deserted; the poolside was spotless and silent and the only sound came from the subdued rustle of the palm leaves.

  Kate slipped into the fort’s courtyard and found a large, closed restaurant and a souvenir shop that was open for business. The tourist shop offered some unusual and eye-catching wares but she was disinclined to shop. She was anxious. There was a long way to go before she would be safe in Windhoek with André.

  She thought about Rydell, fast asleep back at the campsite. Kate and Jono had put up his tent and arranged him inside with his belongings. Kate had made him take another pill and she planned to keep him drugged and harmless the entire way to Windhoek. Once they were there, as far as she was concerned, he was Jono’s problem.

  Kate examined a basket fashioned out of twisted wire and decorated with Coke and Sprite bottle tops but when Helen, Jasmine and Ellie came in, she quietly slipped out. She climbed the stairs to the deck overlooking the waterhole which was little more than a muddy man-made pond surrounded by a swampland.

  “Hardly a waterhole, is it?” Helen piped up, suddenly next to her.

  “More like a mini golf course gone wrong,” Kate agreed. “The only wildlife I can see it attracting is mosquitoes.”

  Helen laughed. Jasmine and Ellie bounded up the stairs, followed by Richard and Mia. Mia’s arms were full of beers and vodka.

  “Aha, the gang’s here. Come on, y’all,” Richard said in an imitation Western drawl, “we’ve come to the arse-end of our weird and certainly less-than-wonderful magic carpet ride through Namibia and if you ask me, it’s time to get wasted off our faces.”

  “As if a dozen beers and a bottle of vodka will do it,” Ellie laughed.

  “Never fear young lassie, there’s a lot more where that came from.” Richard said. “Ladies, I propose we get absolutely hammered from now until sunrise. What the hell, let’s party like it’s the end of time.”

  “Woohoo! We can finally have our trance dance.” Mia raised her arms to the sky and skipped a few dance steps. “Tonight’s the night. No one’s allowed to be a soggy old blanket. I’ve got brill music, the place is deserted, the setting’s bleedin’ perfect, let’s do i
t. All in favour, raise your beer.”

  “I’m in.” Jasmine gave Mia a high five. “But does anyone have the mind-altering chemicals?”

  “I am, shall we say, an expert shopper in all things local,” Richard smiled. “Anyone for a little wacky tobaccy, the old evil weed?”

  “You are good,” Ellie said. “I’m impressed. When did you get it?”

  “Acquired it along the way,” Richard waved a hand.

  Helen turned around to see what Kate would say but she was gone.

  “Forget about her,” Mia said, reading Helen’s thoughts. “She’s a damp squib if ever I saw one. Come on, HellsBells, let’s get this party started.”

  She threw a beer at Helen who cracked it open and took a quick, reluctant sip. She was on her guard though. Mia would not get her drunk again, she would keep up social appearances, no more. She hated beer, hated the taste, the smell, the associations. She hated the way people spoke about drinking beer as if they were actually doing something, watching a movie, reading a book, having a beer.

  Having a beer isn’t doing anything, she thought, and there was no way she was smoking pot either.

  She sat down primly on the bench and put her sandaled feet up on the white railing, dourly surveying the scene in front of her and trying to ignore the enthusiastic party erupting beside her.

  Jono arrived at the top of the stairs. “Supper will be early tonight,” he announced shortly. “Please check your tents are tightly closed because we are going to get some heavy rain tonight.”

  He left as abruptly as he had arrived and Helen rushed after him, leaving her beer behind.

  “Old Jono’s got his knickers in a right knot, hasn’t he?” Mia observed.

  “I’m going to get some chasers,” Richard said. “I’ll be back.”

  “You’d better.” Mia wiggled her bare toes on the railing, leaned back and sighed with contentment.

  The courtyard was a lonely queen with no courtiers. Beautiful wooden tables sat on brickwork paving, tall palm trees waved in the hot wind and rich red geraniums bloomed in large earthenware pots. But Helen noticed none of this as she ran through the courtyard and out of the fort, trying to catch up with Jono who had carried on walking despite her calls. “Jono,” she caught up with him, slightly breathless, “you know Kate’s André?”