The Great Karoo

by Fred Stenson

  “You’re probably wondering why we are still here,” said Brooke. “I’ve had fever. Allan rather blames me for it, because instead of hastening through the low country between Delagoa Bay and the high veldt, I wanted a bit of hunting. The weather was hot and muggy. Steamy rain, bugs, and so on. I’ve been paying the price since, without benefit of quinine. We didn’t get a lion either, though one roared in the night while I was sizzling and wishing I could die. At any rate, I’m better now.”

  Mrs. Kleff re-entered. She was carrying a full basin from which steam rose and had a towel and washcloth over her shoulder. She set the basin down beside Frank with a clump, rinsed and wrung out the cloth, and started rubbing hard at the hurt parts of his face. She also dabbed into his hair, which caused his headache to worsen.

  Brooke watched the process for a while, then spoke.

  “Now, Frank, I’ve noticed you tell us how you got here, as in how you found your way, but you’re avoiding why. Where is your battalion? Why are you not with it? What does that mess on your head signify?”

  Frank saw that he could not avoid the truth. He started by explaining how the shell had exploded beside his Cossack post, the wall blowing in on him, the rocks knocking him out. He described thinking he was blind and had lost an arm, then finding the dead Australian. Taking his horse down the animal trail and starting for here.

  “You’ve deserted!” roared Brooke, slapping the table with the fiat of his hand. He folded his torso over the table so his beard was in the steam from his coffee cup. He focused on the sugar dish, chopping a spoon into it until the grains splashed.

  Allan Kettle tilted toward Frank. “I’m wondering if you have some amnesia? Do you remember how you felt when you woke up after the explosion?”

  Frank understood that Kettle was trying to provide an alibi. “I felt sick. I wanted to leave.”

  “But do you know why?” Kettle asked. “Does it have to do with the dead men? Your Canadian friends who died earlier. Maybe you weren’t thinking clearly.”

  In panic, Frank realized he was about to cry. He jumped up and ran out the door; ran all the way to the kopje and around it, to where he had tied the ridgling to a tree. The pinto had been jerking the rope and the knot was the size of a walnut. His eyes were red and hostile.

  Frank came slowly. He talked while he pried the knot. He told the ridgling what had happened and about the horses he had seen on the farm. He asked the horse how they were going to prevent him from damaging Lionel’s stud.

  Finally, the fit of tears passed. Embarrassed or not, Frank knew he had to return to the house. He led the ridgling to the buildings and found an empty pole corral behind the barn. When he re-entered the dining room, the others were eating and there was a plate heaped with food beside his cup.

  “Your coffee will be cold,” said Brooke, waving his fork airily, “but the breakfast is only just served. Chicken eggs. I bet it’s some time since you’ve had a breakfast of those.”

  Frank sat but did not eat. He had been thinking what to say.

  “Ovide Smith was my best friend. My horse, Dunny, was stolen and I want to go find her.”

  “You do understand that desertion is a court-martial offence.” This was Allan Kettle.

  “Yes.”

  “What Allan means is they might execute you if they find you,” said Brooke.

  “I know.”

  “You have another choice,” said Brooke. “Before your head heals, you can go back. As Allan is hinting, you could claim that your memory went and you lost your way.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Well, then. In a few more days, we’ll leave here. My goal is to find Christiaan De Wet. I guess you could come with us. But, if we encounter British army or Canadians—which is probably inevitable—the story will be that we found you wandering with a lump on your head, unable to remember where you came from. If they are not satisfied, or if they ask questions and find you out, all we can do is express shock. You’ll be on your own. Does that seem fair? Clear?”

  “Fair and clear.”

  “Then, please. Eat your breakfast.”

  By the time Frank left the house, the day had begun to warm. Discounting the headache and occasional dizzying nausea, he felt good. Young Sam took charge of him and led him to the horse barn. They climbed the ladder, and Young Sam showed him where his own and Jimmy’s bedrolls were spread. Frank rolled out the blanket Mrs. Kleff had given him.

  When they came down, Jimmy Whitford was untying horses from the rail and leading them outside. He said they were going to hunt, and that Frank should come. Frank explained that his pinto was a high flanker, and an extreme case. He would likely be fine with Jimmy’s mare but might go after Young Sam’s gelding—or Century, if he could get at him.

  Jimmy considered this for a second, then led his mare and Young Sam’s gelding toward the pole corral where the ridgling stood alertly watching. Jimmy led the two horses around the outside of the corral, past the ridgling’s nose, three times. Then he opened the pole gate and took the two horses inside, again leading them around out of reach of the ridgling’s hooves. The ridgling did not try to kick, just kept moving his head and ears to take them in.

  Then Jimmy let his mare go, and she pranced in the middle of the round corral. She was a snuffy horse with a high-and-mighty bearing. She looked at times like she was going to attack the ridgling, but for now it was show. Then Jimmy set Young Sam’s gelding loose. He was more timid and kept the mare between him and the new horse.

  “You mind if your horse gets bit a little?” Jimmy asked.

  “I guess not,” said Frank.

  “Let him loose, then.”

  With misgivings, Frank untied the ridgling. The horse did what Frank expected: sweet-talked the mare and threatened the gelding. But the mare kept dodging back and forth, pivoting on her back legs. The ridgling tried harder to get at the gelding, and the mare met the challenge with her teeth. She bit the ridgling twice, drawing blood both times. The second time, he let out a squeal. Retreating to the far side, he pressed himself against the rails.

  Jimmy said, “That’s it. Saddle him and let’s go.”

  The Kleffs had a well. Frank raised a bucket of cold water and washed the ridgling’s wounds. Neither bite was where the saddle or bridle would rub, so he went ahead and tacked him.

  Starting into the prairie, Jim went first and Frank last. Young Sam was in the middle. The ridgling was the kind of horse that would ordinarily try to go first. It was unusual to see him in the drag and content. He never once tried to bite the gelding, and his eyes never left the haunches of Whitford’s mare.

  They rode south onto billowing sheets of prairie, crossed and edged by distant ridges. They saw the blue-gum trees of another farm but bent past it. They saw no animals except the little ones called meerkats, who, like gophers, stand upright by their holes, their forepaws delicately curled to their narrow chests like tiny store clerks.

  Whitford aimed them at a low, flat-topped hill, and when he reached a blowout on the near side of it, slid off his mare and tossed the reins to Young Sam. Jim unsheathed his rifle. He pointed at Frank’s Mauser, and beckoned him to follow. Together they climbed the cutbank sand. Where the sand met grass at the top, the edge was shaggy. They parted the grass, and Frank could see nothing but more grass and low brush. Whitford poked his rifle through, snake slow, took his time sighting, and shot. Just the once. Then he stood up and climbed over the lip to see what he’d done. He took off quickly across the flat and Frank had to trot to stay with him.

  They were almost there by the time Frank saw the grey-brown shape that was not grass but feathers. As it was dying, the ostrich must have tried to get up. One short wing was still raised, with white plumes hanging underneath. The bird’s long neck was laid out flat on the ground before it. The beak tightly closed; the eyes staring.

  Jimmy handed Frank his still-warm rifle. He grabbed the wing and spilled the giant bird on its back. As the body rose, a treasure of giant eggs
appeared.

  “A hen, then,” said Frank, not wanting to seem ignorant.

  “Maybe not,” said Whitford. “Both kind sit the eggs.”

  This begged the question of where the other might be, and, just then, Jimmy yelled, “Look out!” He gave Frank a violent shove and Frank careened and fell. With his carbine raised, Jimmy danced backwards. Frank turned his head and saw a wide-open beak on a whipping neck, a huge body pounding toward him, stubby wings flashing. The rifle fired twice. The beak lost aim and grazed Frank’s cheek. Then the body hit him like a freight. The ostrich collapsed on top of him and died.

  Frank fought to get his head out of the smother of feathers. His legs were locked down by the bird’s weight.

  Jim Whitford saw Frank’s head emerge and the sight made him sit down laughing. Young Sam found them and, while the horses did their dance of fear at the two corpses, he laughed too. Frank could not see the joke.

  “Look like a big chicken, you,” Young Sam said.

  “Help me out of here, damn you guys.”

  So they hoisted the ostrich enough to free him, and Frank climbed out and dusted off. He was itchy all over, as if the bird was lousier than he was.

  Whitford chopped the heads and necks off both birds. They worked together to raise the first one, the cold-killed one, onto a rock so it could bleed. None of them had dealt with a two-hundred-pound bird before, so they based their plan on a turkey. With a turkey you would bleed it alive, but that was not an option here.

  They managed to get five ostrich eggs into their saddlebags and hay sacks. As for the ostriches, they decided to drag them behind their horses. They skated them along on the ground, which worked until the feathers wore off and the exposed skin started to tear. Then they flipped them over and skated them on the other side. That did not last long either, and they were forced to leave one. They tarped the other and packed it on Young Sam’s gelding. It took all three of them to lift it and two to hold it while it was tied. Then Young Sam climbed on the mare with Jimmy, and Frank rode the ridgling close and balanced the load. It was amazing to Frank that the ridgling could work so close to Young Sam’s gelding and not cause trouble. The pinto was so afraid of Whitford’s mare it was now trying to get the gelding’s approval: to be an emissary between them.

  At the farm, Mrs. Kleff was angry when she saw the maimed ostrich. They guessed it had something to do with the ruination of the feathers or the tearing of the skin. Or maybe it was for bringing an ostrich, when she wanted mutton or antelope.

  Same with the eggs. They had foreseen giant omelette breakfasts. But after shaking and listening to the eggs, she threw them on the ground. Evidently they were too advanced for breakfast. The eggs bounded around like polo balls.

  Preference aside, the two women were soon scalding and plucking; then rooting out the innards and cutting the bird into parts small enough for the oven. Jimmy took the opportunity to examine the contents of the stomach. The ostrich had been eating an unlikely assortment of things, woody matter included. He found little quartz stones, made smooth by the tumbling action of the bird’s gut. The three hunters divided the stones and pocketed them as lucky.

  When their horses were rested, they went back for the second bird. They had to drive a family of jackals off it, then cut around the areas where the scavengers had fed. With an axe, they split this bird in half so it could travel on two horses.

  Back at the Kleffs’, Lionel had a discussion with Mrs. Kleff about the birds. The decision was to eat whatever they could tonight, then make the rest into biltong. After they left, they could live on the dried meat when no fresher food was available.

  The actual meal late that night was an anticlimax. There was something slippery about the meat that Frank’s mouth did not care for; a raw texture when cooked. Still, he had eaten worse things and had higher hopes for ostrich biltong.

  Next morning, the women started preparing the ostriches for the smoker. They got rid of their bonnets and donned old work dresses with shorter sleeves. This was the day Frank fell in love with Alma Kleff, in part because he could see her. Her face was beautiful and full of character for a girl of sixteen. Her arms were strong, and her sure movements with a knife seemed artful and graceful.

  Jim and Young Sam were sent to hunt antelope, while Frank was assigned to help with the heavy work in the cutting room and smokehouse. Because Frank was helping Alma, Mrs. Kleff was free to supervise her black servant girls, Little Alma and Tia, in a thorough cleaning of the house. Except for Isaiah, the farm’s white-haired servant, who was tending the smokehouse fire, Frank and Alma were alone.

  Frank’s job was twofold. He had to help Isaiah chop wood and feed the fire and, beyond that, he was to wield the heavy cleaver and cut the ostrich breast and leg meat into slabs. Off these slabs, with her small, keen knife, Alma carved strips that she jerked and folded over the smokehouse racks. The cutting took place in a separate building, one that was in the shade for part of the day. It was supposed to be a cool room, but at this time of year was not cool at all. Whenever Mrs. Kleff put in an appearance, it was to tell them to hurry before the meat spoiled. Sweat poured down both Alma’s and Frank’s faces as they worked, but even with salt in his eyes, Frank could not help but look at her.

  He tried not to stare, because Alma obviously did not like it. But, between one self-admonition and the next, he would forget and find his eyes tracking her every movement.

  In the late afternoon, Jimmy and Young Sam brought back a killed sheep for supper. They butchered it in the yard, and the Boer women and black girls prepared it and cooked the meat in an outdoor oven. When the torturing sun went down, it seemed as if the house got hotter, and while they ate the men mopped their faces and drank draught after draught of cool, sweet well-water. Mrs. Kleff brought a lantern, placed it on the table, and lit it for them: a sweet tulip leaf of fire.

  The evening meal finished with little pastries, some with icing, some not. Nothing like this had passed Frank’s lips for months, and he treasured each morsel. He even closed his eyes in delight, and when he opened them, saw Alma peeking from the kitchen door. She disappeared, and he heard laughter between her and her mother. It was a shocking sound. He had hardly seen either woman smile.

  After this dessert, Lionel Brooke went to the bedroom he shared with Allan Kettle and came back with a brandy bottle, half full. He set it on the table and looked in a cabinet where glassware was kept. He returned them with his fingers stuck in five small glasses. He poured a little drop for Young Sam, Jim, and Frank, and larger measures for himself and Kettle. He had two cigars sticking out of his shirt pocket. These he cut for Kettle and himself. He lit a match with a long stroke down his trouser leg.

  “How much longer, Lionel?” Kettle asked, puffing his cigar to bright pink life.

  “How would I know, Allan? I have not seen a newspaper since Pretoria. What would you have me do? Pick a point on the compass and plunge forth like Don Quixote?”

  “So you are waiting for Mr. De Wet to make a house call?”

  “Don’t nag me, Allan. I will go to Middelburg tomorrow or the next day. I would prefer a less hot day than today. We’re nearly out of supplies. Tobacco and brandy are low. I’ll take Jimmy. You can come if you like, but if we have no luck with newspapers, we must continue to Pretoria. That could easily stretch to a week. With luck, there’ll be something in the papers to suggest where De Wet is. Or, as a reporter, I’ll ask around. I’m betting on De Wetsdorp, the village named for his father. As I may have mentioned—”

  “You have mentioned it countless times. What rather amuses me is that you came here saying your concern was for black South Africans. Now you’ve simply reverted to winning the Empire’s war, like a good patriotic Englishman.”

  “That is entirely unfair! Untrue, as well. Britain abolished slavery in the Empire long ago. The blacks in the Boer republics are, in my opinion, still enslaved. The dismantling of the Boer republics will free them.”

  “Will it?”

&
nbsp; The two fell into silence. After a moment, Lionel yanked his cigar from his mouth and waved it as near to Allan as he could reach.

  “At least I have an objective,” he said. “You strike me as still sitting on the fence.”

  “I told you at the outset I would make up my mind based on evidence. Because of your leisurely approach, I have mainly learned how Boer vrouws keep house. I’m not quite ready to enter into an assassination scheme.”

  Brooke took frantic puffs at his cigar. He was rewarded with a great plume of smoke that wreathed his head.

  “What if you wind up on the Boer side, Kettle? What will you do then? Grow a long beard? Smoke a pipe? Then, after the war, settle down in the veldt growing mealie corn? Maybe with a nice fat frau?”

  “Very funny, Lionel.”

  Just when Frank thought a fist fight might develop, Kettle and Brooke laughed. Lionel leaned forward and poured them more liquor. The two sat back contentedly sipping and smoking.

  Taking advantage of the silence, Frank got up his nerve and asked Kettle a question he had been saving.

  “Do you really climb mountains?”

  “Mostly, I did climb mountains. I climb one every once in a while still, but just for fun. No more new summits or famous old climbs. Nothing difficult.”

  “Allan climbed the Matterhorn,” said Brooke, “back when not many had.”

  Frank’s face was blank. Kettle noticed and said, “Swiss mountain, on the Swiss-Italian border. A spire. Looks rather like your Mt. Assiniboine, which no one has conquered yet. Edward Whymper’s group were the first to climb the Matterhorn and four men died. That added to the legend. I climbed it later, but it was still a notorious thing to do.” Kettle caught himself on some point. “Let’s just say there were some who were surprised I could manage it.”