The Covenant: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  On 13 June 1836 wagons of the Van Doorn party rolled into Thaba Nchu, where five or six hundred earlier arrivals were waiting for their leaders to reach some decision, and they rested there, and there was time for new friendships to develop. Especially active was young Paulus de Groot, who ran with boys twice his age and wrestled with them, too. He talked little, was savagely protective of his rights, and seemed to prefer the companionship of Tjaart van Doorn above that of his own father, and this was understandable, for the lad showed signs of growing into the kind of man Tjaart was: solid, cautious, devout. When young Paulus said his prayers his large squarish face glowed with religious fervor, for it seemed to him that God was listening.

  Despite this natural inclination toward devotion, Paulus disliked Theunis Nel, the self-appointed representative of religion, for the boy sensed the ridicule in which the sick-comforter was held. One morning, when Tjaart suggested that Paulus start learning his letters from Theunis, the effect of Tjaart’s sponsorship was destroyed when Minna came out of her tent screaming at her husband, calling him disrespectful names and conveying to the boy the community’s reaction to the cockeyed fellow. No man could discipline a strong-minded boy like Paulus de Groot if he could not first discipline his own wife.

  Tjaart, hoping to see this promising lad grow into a leader of men, took it upon himself to teach the alphabet and instruct in numbers, and one morning he was seated on a log drilling the boy when Lukas de Groot came past, taking offense at the idea of another man’s instructing his son: ‘He don’t need to read. I don’t read and I do all right.’

  ‘All boys should learn to read.’

  ‘Your boys didn’t.’

  ‘That’s right. They were to live at De Kraal all their lives, and it didn’t signify.’

  ‘Why does it signify now?’

  ‘Because we’re moving into a new world. Your son may be needed as the leader of a great community. If he can’t read, the leadership goes to someone else.’

  The discussion might have become ardent had not Minna wandered by to inform her father that he must go out to shoot antelope, for the supply of biltong was depleted; and as she stood speaking to the two men, they saw that of a sudden her face changed from its normal sullen expression, and a frown gave way to a smile of broadening radiance. They turned to see what effected this change, and De Groot spoke for both men: ‘Look who comes to join us!’

  Among the newcomers to Thaba Nchu were sixteen families who had joined the main stream of Voortrekkers just south of the Orange River, and in the lead way Ryk Naudé, the handsome young farmer, and his pretty wife, Aletta. For Minna Nel, the return of the one man she could love was prophetic: God had used this exodus to bring them back together; for Tjaart, the arrival of Aletta meant that his tormented imaginings were given life. She was even more enticing than he had remembered, older now and more the woman, and his eyes would never leave her.

  Wherever Aletta Naudé moved in these days when the leaders were trying to reach decisions, Tjaart endeavored to place himself so that she would have to see him, and after a while she became aware that he was doing this. It irritated her. She was nineteen years old and happily married, while he was forty-seven, with a second wife and a grandchild. He looked silly when he mooned at her, and one afternoon when he had succeeded in interposing himself between her and her tent, she said sharply, ‘Mijnheer van Doorn, you’re making yourself ridiculous,’ and this so embarrassed him that he kept away from her for some days, but then the terrible fascination manifested itself again, and once more she had to avoid him.

  The arrival at Thaba Nchu of so many new emigrants caused other troubles. Ryk Naudé and and wife announced that they had decided to cross the Drakensberg and go down to Natal, and this encouraged Lukas de Groot to choose the same option, which meant that Tjaart would be separated both from the girl he loved and from his long-time associate. With profound seriousness he contemplated relinquishing his idea of settlement in the north so as to remain with people he preferred, and he might have surrendered to this temptation had not the affair of the lion skin shown him what fearful temptations threatened his family.

  Minna had been less discreet than her father. She was overjoyed to meet with Ryk again and was not ashamed to display her affection. She did everything but embrace him in public, and when he told the clustered emigrants that he and some friends were moving east to see if they could shoot some lions for their skins, she openly ran to him, imploring him to be careful, and when he was gone she moped. This so irritated Jakoba that she told Tjaart, ‘You must speak with her. She’s becoming a Jezebel.’

  So Tjaart took his daughter aside and gave her blunt warning: ‘You’re married to a good man. He cherishes you and little Sybilla, and you owe him a decent respect. Minna, behave yourself.’

  ‘But Ryk promised me. In the new land, somehow he will be set free.’

  ‘You’re married forever. In the eyes of God. Before the predikant at Graaff-Reinet. Obey your vows.’

  Tearfully, but with stubborn determination, she said, ‘Father, if Ryk and Aletta were separated. Somehow. In God’s wisdom. How happy you and I would be.’

  Tjaart was stung by her probing of his secret, by her shrewd connivance in bringing it out. What he replied was ‘They’re heading east over the mountain, we’re going north over the Vaal—and we’ll never meet again.’

  But when Ryk came back to camp with four lion skins and gave Minna one of them, she was certain that this proved his devotion to her, and she convinced herself that he was as hungry for her as she was for him, and at night, when others were asleep, she crept to his tent and quietly, lest Aletta hear, called him out, and coaxed him beyond the wagons. There she poured out her love, and helped him to undress, and encouraged him to join with her three times. It was an explosion of love unlike any he had ever known with Aletta, beautiful as she was, and an invitation to endless future repetitions.

  In the days that followed, even Tjaart, who was not quick to perceive nuances, became aware that something gravely wrong was occurring in his family, and one evening he followed Minna, and from a hiding spot, saw with astonishment his daughter’s brazen conduct. Shame prevented him from breaking in upon the lovers, but next morning, after the cattle were tended, he went to his daughter’s tent, told Theunis to go teach his class, and then confronted Minna.

  ‘I know what you’re doing. I saw you behind the wagons.’

  ‘I can’t live without him, Father. I’m going down into Natal.’

  The possibility that a child of his should be guilty of disobedience was more than he could tolerate; a red haze flooded his eyes, and he recalled instructions from the Bible: ‘If a child be disobedient, he shall be killed. If a woman commit adultery, she shall be stoned to death.’ In his befuddlement he knew not what to say, so with a wild sweep of his arm he knocked her to the ground, then stormed at her, calling her names from the Old Testament, threatening to drag her before the public to be humiliated.

  When his rage subsided, and some kind of sanity returned, he lifted her from the earth and held her as she trembled from the fury of his blow: ‘Minna, God has tempted you and me. We have both been guilty of great sin. Tomorrow we go north to prevent the destruction of our souls. And tonight you sleep in my tent, because you are precious to me and I cannot bear to lose you.’

  Next morning, 6 July 1836, Tjaart van Doorn, Theunis Nel, Balthazar Bronk and four other families not in the original group formed a new unit to cross the Vaal River and start a fresh community dedicated to the rule of God, and proper relationship between master and servant, and the strict separation of races. It took them eighteen days to reach the river, and with each tramp of the oxen’s hooves, Minna Nel and her father felt more and more desolate, for they would never again see the persons they loved.

  Only once did either of them mention the mournful separation; Minna said as she walked beside her father, ‘My heart seems to break at every step. I realize now that he is gone. I heard a trekker describe th
e Drakensberg. Once a man crosses those mountains, he will not come back.’

  Tjaart, desperately hungry for someone to talk with at this crisis in his life, confessed: ‘Because of what you saw, you will find this hard to believe. But my heart yearns for three people. Most of all, little Paulus de Groot. I should love to watch him grow into a man. His possibilities are endless. And I will miss Lukas, too. And after them, Aletta, in a different way.’

  ‘We’ll never know.’ And that was all she said, plodding her way toward the Vaal.

  When they reached the river they found it swollen by an unexpected flood, and were forced to camp on the south bank, where they found several other parties also waiting for the water to subside. At first Tjaart was vexed by the forced delay, but one day the assembled Voortrekkers saw a heavy cloud of dust to the south, and as it approached they discerned four wagons accompanied by the complement of Coloureds, blacks and cattle.

  It was Lukas de Groot, hurrying north to overtake his friend, and when the two men met, there was unspoken apology, silent acceptance. ‘When I thought about it,’ De Groot said, ‘I knew my fate was to the north.’ He did not add, ‘With you,’ but the joy his son Paulus displayed at being reunited with Tjaart spoke for the entire family. It was a happy, sensible reunion, and not even when De Groot spoke thoughtlessly of the Ryk Naudés—‘They’re heading into Natal, fine pair’—was there any recurrence of the earlier irritation.

  Indeed, when the river lowered and the seventy-odd Voortrekkers completed the crossing, Lukas easily consented when little Paulus asked, ‘Can I stay with Tjaart tonight?’ The Van Doorns camped much farther to the west than the De Groots, so that late at night when frenzied messengers galloped in from the northeast, they reached the latter family first.

  ‘Where’d you come from?’ two dusty, tired men shouted, scarcely halting to rest their horses.

  ‘Thaba Nchu,’ De Groot replied.

  ‘Go into laager immediately. Kaffirs on the rampage.’

  Before Lukas could interrogate the men they disappeared, spurring their horses westward and leaving the De Groot family with a difficult decision. They had nine wagons, not enough for a proper laager, and even these were well scattered. To assemble them would necessitate much maneuvering, and there was no certainty that blacks would come their way. Besides, the hurried trek up from Thaba Nchu had tired the men, so it was decided to wait till morning.

  When the messengers took a last look back and realized that the Voortrekkers were not protecting themselves, they were appalled; reining in their horses, they returned to shout, ‘Damnit, go into laager—now!’ But again the De Groots ignored the warning, for as Lukas pointed out, ‘Those men are not our friends. They’re Englishmen, and they’re trying to scare us into turning back.’

  In disgust the messengers galloped westward along the Vaal River until they came to the Van Doorn encampment: ‘Go into laager at once. Kaffirs.’

  ‘What Kaffirs?’ Tjaart shouted back.

  ‘Mzilikazi!’

  It was a name to strike terror among those acquainted with the north, and although the Van Doorns had known no one who had contact with the Bull Elephant, as he was now called, they had heard around the campfires at Thaba Nchu reports of his annihilations. One hunter who knew the area north of the Vaal had said, ‘Mzilikazi was the shrewdest of the Zulus. Three times they came after him and three times he beat them off. To protect himself he has cleared an area, maybe two thousand square miles. Killed everything. Men, women, cattle, wild animals. Only thing I saw in fourteen days’ travel—hyenas, jackals, a few small birds. I’ve spotted his scouts south of the Vaal, not far from here. He’s watching us every day, the Great Bull Elephant.’

  ‘Is that the Mzilikazi we were warned against?’ Tjaart asked.

  ‘The same. He has twenty thousand warriors.’

  ‘Good God! If they all come at us …’

  ‘They’re spread across the area. It will be only a small detachment.’ The two Englishmen, who had been hunting in the north, accepted a drink of water, and asked, ‘Any other companies of you Dutchmen?’

  ‘Three others. Farther west.’ So off the two messengers went, spurring their horses.

  Even before they were gone, Tjaart had started bringing his eleven wagons into an abbreviated laager, and this consisted of jamming the front of one against the rear of the one ahead, guiding the disselboom almost completely under the front wagon and fastening it with the trek chains, then lashing the wheels together and sending children out to gather thorn bushes, which the boys cut and the girls carried back to their mothers, who wove the prickly wood into spokes and wheels and each crevice along the outside perimeter. When they were finished, no enemy could sneak up to the laager and force his way either through or between or under the wagons, for he would face a wall of wood and canvas and thorn. One small opening was provided, and for it a gate of thorn was hastily built. Nine of the sixteen Coloured servants were sent back toward the river with the cattle and sheep; the other seven would fight alongside their masters.

  Two people watched the construction of the laager with keen interest: Tjaart van Doorn and little Paulus de Groot, too young to help cut the thorn branches, not old enough to herd the cattle. What he did was stay at Tjaart’s heels, running errands for him. Later he would carry lead to the women so that they could swiftly reload the rifles. Each adult man needed three guns, because as soon as he fired one it was useless, and he would have to pass it with his left hand to his daughter, while reaching out with his empty right hand to his wife. ‘Give!’ was all he would say, and the loaded second rifle would be slapped into his hand for the next shot. Tjaart’s two women could load the guns just fast enough to keep one of them ready, and little Paulus could run bags of powder to them.

  Dawn came without any sign of Mzilikazi’s men, but toward nine Tjaart heard a dreadful hissing sound to the east and then the ominous stamping of heavy feet on the earth, and a deafening cry of ‘Mzilikazi!’ followed by a titanic rush of near-naked soldiers and a flight of deadly spears.

  ‘Do not fire!’ he ordered the thirteen trekkers and the seven Coloureds. ‘Let them come closer … closer.’ And he heard the hissing sound again, the stomp of many feet and the same cry ‘Mzilikazi!’ Also, he heard one lonely voice inside the laager praying: ‘Almighty God, we are few, but we wear Your armor. We are not afraid, for we have tried to be righteous men. Almighty God, they are many but You are with us. Guide us in this battle.’ It was Theunis Nel, gun in hand, waiting for the charge.

  ‘Mzilikazi!’ shouted the warriors, rushing at the small concentration of wagons, expecting to overrun it.

  ‘Fire!’ Tjaart cried, and twenty guns blazed directly into the face of Mzilikazi’s men.

  The carnage was horrendous, but after the first ranks fell, wave after wave replaced them.

  ‘Fire!’ Tjaart cried again, and then the Voortrekker men passed along their empty guns, reaching back for the next loaded one.

  ‘Fire!’ Tjaart cried again and again, but still the intrepid enemy kept rushing at the laager.

  ‘Tjaart!’ a boyish voice called. ‘Under the wagon!’ But before Paulus could attract his captain’s attention, Jakoba had chopped at the head of a black crawling into the laager, cleaving his skull.

  For ninety terrible minutes the assault continued, with every man holding his position between the wheels of the wagons, continuing to fire while women loaded the rifles.

  When the Matabele warriors slowly retreated, a few infuriated veterans of other battles refused to believe that this handful of trekkers had been able to stand them off. Enraged by their defeat, they re-formed at a safe distance, shouted for the last time ‘Mzilikazi!’ and dashed right into the muzzles of the guns. They died with their hands touching the wagons, but none broke through.

  At dusk Tjaart went out with little Paulus to find the dead and count them: ‘One hundred and sixty-seven. On our side, none.’

  Theunis Nel, hearing these figures, called upon t
he entire party to kneel, and as they did he intoned an impassioned prayer, rocking back and forth, daubing his left eye now and then with his fingers. He reviewed the godliness of the Voortrekkers, the loyal faith of their grandfathers, their heroism in entering a strange new land, and he concluded:

  ‘Almighty God, when we looked across the veld and saw those dark and fearful forms, more than the mind could count, against thirteen of us, we knew that victory would be possible only if You were with us. The victory was not ours, but Yours.’

  And every man and woman and child listening, even the seven servants not included in the prayer, knew that what Theunis was saying had to be true.

  But when the final tally was taken, the Voortrekkers had gained no victory. Not at all. Of the two companies camping to the west, one had been overrun, the other had not been annihilated but had lost four men. And at the De Groot camp, which had refused to go into laager, all fifty-two people were slain—children, Coloureds, former slaves—and all were horribly mutilated.

  ‘You mustn’t go there, Paulus,’ Tjaart said, tears in his eyes at the horror of the massacre. ‘Your father and mother and sisters are dead.’

  ‘I want to go,’ the little survivor said, and he rode back with Tjaart and the gravediggers to see what was left of his family. He recognized them, and did not vomit at the sight the way some of the adults did. He walked solemnly along the line of their eight bare feet, for they were stripped naked, and saw the manner of their deaths. Not a tear came to his eyes, and as the shallow graves were dug—just enough to keep the hyenas away—he placed a stone upon the chest of each person he had loved.

  The rampaging of Mzilikazi’s regiments forced all Voortrekkers to change their plans. The few like Tjaart who had ventured north of the Vaal River had to retreat hastily well beyond the south bank, and all along the line of advance the emigrants took stock of their perilous state as they awaited the Great Bull Elephant’s next move.