Dust Devils

by Roger Smith

  They were in a cave. The truck hidden on the plain below, behind a ridge of spiky rocks that rose like a ribcage from the earth. Dell sat with his back against the cool stone wall, staring into the gloom at the rear of the cave. His memory serving him up action replays of the moment he'd pulled the trigger back at the tourist village. Blood flowering on the big man's shirt. His legs giving way. The wet bumps as the truck drove over his body.

  Dell heard his father and the girl talking in Zulu. Goodbread crouched in the mouth of the cave, binoculars to his eyes. Scanning the parched landscape, rifle leaning against the rock at his shoulder. The girl sat beside him. Watchful. Goodbread gave the glasses to the girl. She lifted them and dropped them in shock at the sudden magnification. Goodbread laughed, said something and she lifted them again. He showed her how to focus them for her young eyes, then he came over to Dell. Sat down beside him. Offered his hip flask, hand unsteady. Dell shook his head.

  "Drink, boy. You just lost your damned cherry."

  Dell didn't respond. Goodbread sighed and took a long pull, teeth rattling against the mouth of the flask. "You saved your life by shooting that man. And my life, not that it's worth a good goddam. And the girl's."

  Dell stared at his father, saying nothing. Saw the blueness under his cheekbones. Heard him fighting for air. Looked across at the girl, squatting, binoculars fixed to her eyes.

  Goodbread spat a chuckle. "Girl's got the notion in her head that we're angels, sent by her dead mamma to save her from the hands of Inja Mazibuko."

  "What did you tell her?"

  "Hell, I'm not going disappoint the child. Plenty of time for that. Good thing is, we don't have to worry none about her running away."

  "So what do we do now?"

  "We wait, boy. For the dog to sniff us out."

  "And then?"

  The old man sighed. Coughed. Gasped. "Son, we left two dead men back there. Reckon that changes the game some."

  "You mean there's no going back? No riding into town with Inja Mazibuko tied to a horse, ready to tell the sheriff the truth that'll set me free?"

  "Don't reckon that's going to happen."

  "You knew it wasn't going to happen. From the start."

  The old man shrugged his bony shoulders. "It was always a possibility."

  "You're a dead man, what do you care? You're just looking to go out guns blazing. The legend of Bobby fucking Goodbread." Shaking his head at the old man who stared at him from under parchment-thin eyelids, saying nothing. "You don't have the balls to kill yourself, do you?" Saw his father flinch. "So, what is this? Assisted suicide?"

  Goodbread drank from the flask. Wiped a hand across his mouth. "You looking for justice, son?" Dell said nothing. "There's the justice you find in a courtroom, and there's the justice you find for yourself." Lighting a cigarette. A wet rattle in his lungs as he sucked smoke. "Yes, there's a good chance we're not going to walk away from this. But we can take Inja Mazibuko down with us. Reckon that's justice enough."

  "So we kill the dog?"

  "We kill the dog."

  "And what about his master?"

  Goodbread sighed. "Now let's not be overly ambitious, boy."

  Dell nodded. "Tell me how it's going to work."

  "We wait him out. Reckon he'll move in on us after dark. We're holding the high ground, should be able to take him down."

  "And that's your plan?"

  "Yes, son. That's my plan."

  Dell stared at his father. Then he held out a hand. "Give me that drink." He took the flask and drank long and deep, felt the booze burn its way down to his gut.

  Zondi drove along the dirt road, far from the town. Mile after mile of eroded badlands shimmering under a blazing sky. Years since he had been out here but nothing had changed. Women and girl children walked with water containers and bundles of firewood balanced on their heads, sliding glances at his shiny city car. Young men rose up out of the earth at the roadside, shirtless, sinewy torsos pale with dust. Staring after him with eyes dulled by weed. He waited for the crack of a weapon. An explosion of glass.

  Nothing.

  Zondi drove on, the BMW throwing a long shadow across the sand, and he saw himself at eighteen, standing over Jola, rock raised above his head. The youth's torso patterned with blood from the stab wounds, his eyes white in his dark face. Mouth screaming out a plea that Zondi couldn't hear above the beating of his own heart.

  Up ahead a mound of torn metal caught the sun, the light kicking off mangled car bodies piled high against the sky. A small cinderblock building with unpainted dung-brown walls hunkered down behind the car wrecks.

  Zondi pulled off the road and stopped next to a rusted wire gate that sagged off a wooden post. No fence. Just the gate, standing like a useless sentry. He stepped out into the heat. Passed the gate, followed a path that led through the car wrecks, toward the open door of the building. Went inside.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adapt to the windowless gloom. A room empty of furniture. Two men squatted on the cement floor, watching him. The hot embers of spliffs glowing in their mouths. The air heavy with weed and sweat and paraffin. A radio, somewhere out back, thumped Zulu pop.

  Twists of metal and hand tools lay scattered around the men. An anvil. A ball-peen hammer. A hand-cranked drill. Zondi didn't know what they manufactured now, but when he was a child this was an armorer's workshop. Where homemade rifles were fashioned from scrap metal. No call for those, now that stolen weapons flooded the area, arming the warriors for their feuds.

  The younger man stood. He was Zondi's age but no taller than a child. One shoulder rode up close to his ear, the other dragged low as if an invisible hand forced it down.

  The hunchback exhaled a plume of smoke. "And look at this, Father," he said to the man who stared up at Zondi. "Look at what has come home."

  The squatting man closed one nostril with his thumb and snorted a string of mucus onto the floor next to Zondi's shoe. Repeated the procedure with the other nostril. "So the coconut returns," he said, sniffing.

  That's how they saw him, these people: dark on the outside, white on the inside. Fuck them.

  The older one grunted and lifted himself to his feet. Dressed only in shorts. Barefoot. A powerful man with a hard gut and the scars of many battles etched into his skin. Zondi could see the light from the doorway shining through the empty holes in his uncle's earlobes, stretched so long that they hung almost to his shoulders. An outmoded Zulu ritual. The old man's ears had been pierced as a child and each year the lobes had been stretched with thicker sticks, until he had been able to wear bone earplugs the circumference of a Coke can.

  Zondi's father's ears had looked the same as he lay in his unlined pine coffin, dead after a faction fight. Stiff black suit. Starched white shirt. The ornate earplugs the only splash of color.

  "What are you doing here, son of Solomon?" his uncle asked. A formal greeting edged with sarcasm.

  "I need a gun," Zondi said. "I'll pay."

  The old man laughed, showing Zondi the few teeth he had left. Yellow and crooked, fringed by a beard of tight white curls. He had to be at least eighty. Looked twenty years younger. "And who, boy, are you going to shoot?"

  Zondi shrugged, "Maybe nobody."

  "Maybe Inja Mazibuko?" His uncle smiled. "The dust carries words in this valley, boy. You know that." Laughed. Shook his head, the lobes flapping like bits of silly putty. Then he stopped laughing, clucked, staring at Zondi but talking to his son. "He lights the fire in the wind, this one."

  Zondi was in no mood for this rural Amos 'n' Andy routine. "Tell me, Uncle, can you help me with a gun, or not?"

  The old man scratched at his beard, then he nodded. "Yes, yes."

  "How much?"

  "You're my brother's firstborn, how can I take your money?" Looking at Zondi's wrist. "Give me your clock." Holding out a hand, nails long and brown, hard as thorns.

  Zondi hesitated. Shrugged. Unclipped his Breitling and held it out to the old man, who snatched it
and turned the face to the light, grunted, then put it in his pocket. "Get him a gun," he told his son.

  The hunchback disappeared into the yard. Zondi's uncle stood in doorway, looking out at the road. Nodding at the dusty BMW. "That yours?"

  "Yes."

  "You can't drive around in that thing. Not if you make war on Inja Mazibuko. Take the Ford." He pointed toward an ancient pickup that sagged in the shadow of the building. Paintwork faded to the color of the sand. One mismatched door a pale blue. Front bumper gone.

  Zondi knew the old bastard was right. He was too much of a target in the Beemer. "And what do I have to give you for that?" he asked.

  The gap-toothed smile. "Nothing. You just leave your car keys. As deposit." He held out a hand again, palm upward. Zondi dropped his keys into the hand. Knew he'd never see his BMW again. What the fuck, he was insured.

  His cousin was back, carrying a pink plastic bag. Zondi took the bag, felt its weight, opened it to see a Z88 pistol and four boxes of ammunition. The sidearm used by the South African police. A cop had sold it to them. Or they'd killed him for his weapon.

  The old man spoke to his son, "He is taking the Ford. Start it up."

  The hunchback lurched out to the truck. Zondi went to his BMW to get his duffel bag. By the time he returned the pickup was smoking like a steam train, his cousin crouched up front, pumping the gas.

  Zondi waited until the twisted man slid out and got behind the wheel. The truck stank of gasoline and something rank. Like a body had decomposed in it and the fluids had soaked the upholstery and the carpets. He tried to wind down the side window. The winder spun and the glass fell like a guillotine into the door. He fed the rattling engine gas and bumped out of the yard, watching the men in the rearview mirror that was tied on with wire. His uncle laughed, shook his head and his cousin swung his hunchback from side to side.

  Zondi turned the wheel and headed back toward town. The stolen gun jabbed his ribs. He felt as if this place was reclaiming him. Inch by inch.

  Inja stood naked under a thorn tree, all scrawny shanks and dangling eggplant-colored penis. Smoke boiled around him as an obese woman in a bra and skins threw herbs onto a wood fire. Her face, made ghostly by white paste, was lost in the fumes.

  The woman bowed, handing Inja a clay gourd filled with shit-colored liquid. The smell burned his nose when he swallowed, the medicine as bitter as death. Immediately he felt dizzy and sank to his knees. A violent spasm seized his gut and puke spewed onto the sand. Sweat sprang from his body like morning dew and he spat strings of vomit. Fought for breath. Another spasm hit him and he heaved again. And again. Until he was empty. Purified.

  The smoke cleared for a moment and Inja could see an ancient man, as furrowed as the eroded earth, squatting outside a mud hut. The skins of a monkey and a snake pegged above the doorway. A frayed red flag, the sign of a witchdoctor, dangled like a tongue from a wooden pole rising above the hut. The sangoma, dressed in hide and beads, muttered in Zulu, blessing a butcher's knife with a long, flat blade. He stood, the knife hanging heavy from his hand, and made his way to where Inja knelt beside the fire.

  The sangoma sliced Inja twice, horizontally, across his bony chest. Shallow cuts, but blood ran down Inja's torso, pooling in his lap, dripping onto his thighs and knees. The witchdoctor chanted as he twisted open a metal shoe polish tin. Dipped his fingers into black paste made from charred herbs and animal fat. Battle medicine that could turn bullets to water, so they said. Smeared the mixture into the cuts on Inja's chest. Inja felt a sharp stinging, as if wasps were at his flesh.

  The sangoma shouted an order and two youths emerged from the smoke, dragging a protesting goat, paws tied with baling wire. They manhandled the animal toward the tree and slung it, kicking and twisting, over a low branch above Inja's head. He felt the scrape of the goat's threshing hooves on his shoulders. The animal released its bowels in a fall of sour dung. The woman was chanting now, a high-pitched keening, in a duet with the goat which screamed its fear.

  The old witchdoctor dragged the blade of the knife through the ash and used the blunt side of the steel to trace a black cross onto Inja's back. The woman's chant grew louder, her face swimming through the flame, eyes dipped back in ecstasy, yellow as gobs of fat. The sangoma grabbed the goat by its snout and exposed its neck. Slit its throat with one quick movement of his arm.

  Hot blood geysered down onto Inja, running over his head, dripping down his body. He turned his face up toward the dying animal and opened his mouth to receive the blood. He drank and was filled. Inja saw his father and his father's father before him. His ancestors guiding him back to the river of power. Entering him through the liquid, giving him strength for the battle ahead.

  At last the goat drooped lifeless over the branch. Bled out. Inja stood, his body crimson with gore, staring into the flames, the woman's chants louder and more frantic. Then her wails floated away with the smoke and she sank to the ground. Silent.

  Inja lifted his eyes from the fire when one of his gunmen entered the yard and prostrated himself.

  "Yes?" Blood caked Inja's tongue as he spoke.

  "Induna, she is found," the man said, his forehead in the dust.

  Sunday watched the old man with white hair coughing, his ribs heaving beneath his shirt as he crouched at the front of the cave. Rasping like a sick dog. His lips were drawn back in a grimace and she could see the blood on his teeth. Water dripping from his forehead, running into the deep grooves in his face. He lowered the binoculars and she looked into his faded eyes.

  Sunday found the plastic bottle of water and handed it to him. He fought for breath, the loose skin on his throat almost mauve in color. Drank from the bottle, coughed water and blood onto the sand between his shoes, drank again. Wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

  "Give me the glasses, grandfather," she said. He handed her the binoculars. "You rest. I will keep guard."

  "Girl, you call me if you see anything. Anything. You hear?" Speaking her language well enough for her to understand in a cracked voice foreign to her ear.

  She nodded and he sat with his back to the rock, the rifle cradled in his arms. The other man lay deeper in the cave. His eyes were closed but she knew he wasn't asleep.

  Sunday lifted the glasses, rotated the grooved focus ring, and the landscape jumped at her. The sudden magnification didn't shock her this time. She swept the barren landscape, seeing her life spread out beneath her. The hill where her parents had died. The hut where she'd lived with her aunt. The town, lying like a pile of bricks baking in the sun.

  Sunday moved the glasses over the sand road that led to the cultural village. Followed a taxi throwing up dust, thought she could hear the whine of its engine. She panned the glasses with a vulture as it hung in the air, almost level with the mouth of the cave.

  An omen, she knew. As she watched the bird hover, she heard the man cough again, and she felt a breeze on the nape of her neck though there was no wind in this sheltered cave. She didn't look back, not wanting to see the spirits crowding around the old man, ready to take him to the shadowlands.

  Zondi drove the rattling Ford over to the hospital. He parked near the entrance, not bothering to close the windows or lock the truck. Slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and went into reception. Asked for Dr. Lambert.

  The Zulu woman behind the counter looked him up and down. "You are a friend of hers?"

  "Yes."

  "It is her afternoon off. She's out by the pool."

  The woman directed him down a corridor and Zondi walked again through the ranks of the diseased, bodies withering away inside their striped pajamas, glazed eyes watching death approach with mute African passivity.

  Zondi exited the corridor and crossed a gravel courtyard toward a high wall and a gate marked SENIOR STAFF ONLY in English and Zulu. He went through the gate and found himself on a patch of dead yellow grass, ringed by aloes. Somebody's idea of a garden.

  A small kidney-shaped pool of blue water lay like a mirage
in the middle of the grass. He saw a dark shape under the water. As he approached the pool the blonde doctor broke the surface and stared up at him, wiping her eyes.

  "Disaster Zondi." No surprise in her voice.

  "I'm sorry to disturb you, Doctor. I need a favor."

  She pressed her hands down on the tiles and lifted herself out of the water in an easy motion. Walked across to the towel that lay on a plastic lounger. She wore a black one-piece Speedo. When the late sun caught a few tendrils of blonde hair escaping where the swimsuit cut high in her groin, Zondi forced himself to look away, over at the burning hills.

  The doctor dried her face. "Are you unwell?" she asked.

  Zondi looked back at her as she lifted the towel to her hair and he could see a shadow of blue stubble in her armpits. Jesus.

  "No. No. I'm fine. I just need access to the Internet. Maybe you can help me, Doctor?"

  "Martine." He could smell chlorine and sweat and tanning oil on her skin. She wrapped the green towel around her body. "And what am I to call you? Please not Disaster."

  He smiled. "Zondi will do."

  "Zondi. Okay." She lifted a beach bag from beside the lounger, a stylized yellow sun and the word DURBAN stitched below the straps. "I have the Internet in my room. But it is like a snail. Come."

  The doctor stepped into a pair of flip-flops and led him across the grass and into a low brick building, cool and dark after the heat outside. Wooden doors on either side of a polished stone corridor. She stopped at a door and unlocked it. Zondi followed her in.

  She dropped the beach bag on the floor. "Please excuse the mess."

  Mess was an understatement. He'd seen neater home invasions. Closet doors gaped, clothes spilled out like they were escaping their hangers. The bed an unmade tangle. Shoes, underwear, magazines, coffee cups and overflowing ashtrays littered the room.