Swimming with Horses

by Oakland Ross

  In that moment, or in the moment that followed, Muletsi remembered something he had read somewhere, or maybe it was something that someone once said. You do not hear the shot that kills you.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Hilary

  South Africa, Winter 1962

  HILARY WAS SO COLD she could barely control the movement of her hands. She thought she would perish from exposure if she didn’t drown first. Meanwhile, South Wind struggled with the current, pacing against the river’s flow. Somehow, he’d got his head swung out to the side, got his nostrils clear of the river’s flow. In brief, frenzied snorts, he managed to breathe the only way that horses can breathe, through the nose. Meanwhile, he kept striding sideways through the water’s rush, and it worked. By God, it worked. Gradually, stroke by stroke, he managed to shoulder his way through the surging water. But it was hard going. Southey could barely breathe, and it was a good question how long he could keep his head twisted around like that. He was bound to tire before long, tire and then drown.

  By now, Hilary had got her left hand around the noseband on Southey’s bridle. In her other hand, she clutched his mane. Numb though she was, she fumbled at the buckle, tried to release the noseband, tried to free the martingale so that Southey could raise his head clear of the water. Damn. Damn. Damn. She couldn’t bloody well move her fingers, and she could get no purchase, cold as she was, borne downstream with only a horse’s mane to hold on to. Oh, Southey. Oh, you poor beautiful boy. He coiled his shoulders and damned near performed a cartwheel in the water before flopping again onto his belly, his head again beneath the roiling surface. He thrust his shoulders up again, freed his muzzle, and shrieked into the cold air, a sound she’d never heard a horse make before, a wail of panic or of anger. Sever this frigging leather. Remove these fetters from me. That was what he was trying to do. Tear these leather straps that dare to restrict my glorious head. He jerked and thrashed, sprayed spouts of frigid water that arched through the grey daylight. But he could not hold his nostrils clear. She knew it, and somehow he must have known it, too. Still, he kept kicking through the water, even as his muscles burned, even as his neck began to weaken and wilt.

  Hilary realized they were advancing almost to the banks on the far side of the river. Before long, she felt her shoulders brushing against the low, drooping boughs of trees. She thought she might be able to grasp one of those branches, and possibly pull herself to safety. The idea raced through her head like a phantom, like a thought that wasn’t really there. In that same instant, she remembered the gun, the one they’d got from Nelson Mandela. She stopped struggling with the martingale. She knew she could never work it free. Instead, she thought of the gun. She frigging well needed that gun. She released her grip on Southey’s noseband. She swung herself around, still gripping Southey’s mane. Somehow, despite the crazy trembling of her fingers, she managed to yank the weapon from the saddlebag and then shove the pistol in its waterproof cover into a side pocket of her parka. The riverbank rushed by, and she caught sight of a tree branch racing toward her, just overhead, bending low over the water. Without pausing to think, without actually making a decision, she thrust out her right arm. Oh, Southey. Oh, my splendid one. She snagged the branch with her raised arm and then hurled herself up, wrapping both her arms around that blessed limb, praying it would hold. She wasn’t sure South Wind even knew what she had done. He would never know that she had betrayed him in the end, left him to drown after he had saved her. She caught a last glimpse of that wondrous beast, dwindling with the current, his head still flailing from side to side, his shoulders yawing, his neck lowering in what must have been a state of monstrous exhaustion, and she never set eyes on him again.

  Inch by inch, she shimmied along the tree branch, like some waterlogged hybrid of human and sloth, until she could hold on no longer, and so she fell, fully expecting to be plunged into the river again. Instead, she landed on the bank itself. At once, she patted the side of her parka, to make sure the gun was there — the first thing she thought of. For several moments she just lay where she had fallen, panting for breath and wondering what in God’s name had ever possessed her to make this infernal trek. Then she remembered.

  She raised herself to her knees and climbed to her feet, surprised that she was whole and that she could actually stand. She glanced around herself, trying to get her bearings. That done, she set out on foot, tending back the way she had come. She kept as close as she could to the river’s edge. Either Muletsi and Welshman were in the water by now or else they were still stranded somewhere back on the southern side. At first she failed to notice how cold she was, but it wasn’t long before the trembling and the chattering took hold. Never mind. Never you bloody well mind. She kept on going, keeping to the river’s edge, picking her way through thickets of trees, mostly yellowwoods, ash, and stinkwoods.

  Keeping close to the trees, it turned out, was a stroke of luck. As a result, she could easily see without being easily seen. And what she saw, before long, was dear old Welshman poking through the bush on her side of the river. Where was Muletsi? Nowhere that she could make out. For his part, Welshman seemed distracted, not bothering to graze, breaking into a trot every now and then, moving clumsily among the trees. She noticed he’d got the reins looped around his near foreleg, which worked almost as a hobble.

  She was about to whistle for him and call out his name, but something stopped her, some sixth sense — and a damned good thing. She peered beyond Welshman and caught sight of a slump-shouldered man mounted on a shaggy grey pony. The pony was loping along a footpath, down toward the river, with the massive heights of the Drakensberg soaring to the north, like a wall of churches. She figured the man must have ridden down from those heights, and then it struck her like a kick to the head. It was Jack frigging Tanner. All this time she’d been expecting him to show — and now here he was, and she hadn’t even recognized him, not at first. She surely recognized him now.

  The next thing she saw was Muletsi himself, about a hundred yards away. He was perched on his knees, which was probably why she hadn’t located him before now. She could tell he was soaking wet, and he was staring up at the man on the pony. He probably wasn’t able to make out very much, on account of his missing glasses. Still, he wasn’t quite blind. He would be able to see enough. She watched as Jack Tanner halted about a half-dozen yards from Muletsi. Even from this distance, she could tell that her old nemesis was in a bad way, just pathetic, lop-shouldered, flumped in the saddle, awash with what looked like blood smeared across his face. He must have suffered a crack-up of the worst kind. But that wasn’t what most caught her attention. What most caught her attention was his right hand, a slow movement of his right hand. He reached down, so that his hand vanished from her view. When the appendage reappeared, it was holding a gun. Seconds later, as if obeying orders, Muletsi staggered to his feet.

  Just then, she sensed some disturbance on her right, and good Lord if it wasn’t Welshman, come to snuffle at her pockets, hoping for an apple or a lump of sugar, neither of which she possessed. “There’s a good man,” she whispered, thinking for the umpteenth time how much she loved horses. There isn’t a good turn they won’t do, if only they know what that good turn is. South Wind had saved her life — and now this. She hunched down and nudged Welshman’s foreleg up, to work the reins free. Without needing to think, she looped the lengths of leather over his head and neck and swung herself up into the saddle, suddenly knowing exactly what she meant to do.

  She meant to ride up the way Jack had come, keeping under a cover of trees. When the time was right, she would swing around into the open, to approach Jack from a blind spot, from behind. Judging by his doleful appearance, she thought he might be less than fully alert. His guard might be down. Besides, he seemed focused on Muletsi just now, which was no surprise, considering what had gone on between them. She expected he would stretch these moments out. Jack was like that — not one to rush events. He liked the feeling of power, the sensation of control.r />
  That was lucky for her, or it was now.

  After weaving through the trees for a distance of a hundred yards or so, she swung Welshman out into the open, reversing direction. She kept him to a walk, stalking through the grass, avoiding the worn surface of the footpath, where a careless hoof striking a rock might give her away. Here, all was quiet. She was pretty sure Muletsi could see her now, even without his glasses. He’d have identified Welshman. He’d have identified her.

  She was alert — aroused without being anxious. Her breathing was steady. She did not feel the cold. Now she reached down into the side pocket of her parka and eased the Makarov out. With her free hand, she managed to remove the gun from its wrapping. She hoped the cover had kept the weapon passably dry, but she had no control over that. Either it would fire or it wouldn’t.

  She kept her eyes fixed on Jack’s shoulders, which were rounded in a way she had never associated with him before. Usually, he sat straight as a lord in the saddle. Say whatever else you might say about him, he could surely ride a horse. Everything she knew about these glorious creatures, he had taught her — he alone. A monster in most other ways, he was as gifted an equestrian as she had ever encountered, although you would not have guessed it now. He must have suffered at least a couple of broken ribs, to be sagging the way he was. She felt almost sorry for him and realized at once she should not be thinking this way. These were not the kinds of thoughts to be troubling herself with now. And yet she couldn’t seem to help it. She had known the man so long, even loved him for a time, back when she was merely a girl. Bad as those years were, they were what she knew. They had fashioned her into the person she had become. She was starting to feel that same misery again, that bedraggled sorrow that always overcame her around Jack. She was now just a dozen yards or so from the rump of the grey pony, and she heard Jack speak. She could not make out what he was saying, but she saw that he was raising his gun.

  That was that.

  She released the safety on the Makarov, urged Welshman into a canter for three quick strides, and stopped dead beside Jack Tanner.

  “Goodbye, Jacko,” she said.

  She raised the weapon, she aimed, and she squeezed the trigger — a long, slow pull. The gun recoiled, the hammer recocked by itself, and she fired again.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Hilary

  Basutoland–South Africa–Canada, Winter 1962

  FIRST, THEY HAD TO dispense with Jack’s body. Hilary helped Muletsi drag and then roll the thing into the river. Off it went, headed east. It was awful, just awful, but to be honest she was too cold to think about what she had done only minutes earlier. Killed a man. Two bullets to the head. That was bad, a mortal sin no matter how you looked at it. But she didn’t look at it now. They were in a perilous way, she and Muletsi, no doubt at all. They were drenched and in danger of perishing from the elements. They might very well die out here, and this entire adventure would count for nothing.

  It was around then that they heard the first warble of a cowbell, followed a few seconds later by another and then another. They peered off to the east, and within moments they saw a pair of Basotho herd boys striding down along a faint trail, guiding their charges — a half-dozen bony cattle, plus a smattering of goats. Both of the boys were barefoot, enfolded in thick blankets draped over their shoulders. Neither of them looked to be more than thirteen years of age.

  “We heard shots,” said one, speaking in laboured English. “That was you?”

  She said it was.

  The other boy frowned. “Your clothes are wet. Like this, you will die.”

  In broken English, the herd boys said they were both heading for a place where they customarily sheltered for the night. It wasn’t much, a derelict stone-walled structure that had an old tarp for a roof. Their sister was up there now, they said, tending the fire. “Come with us.”

  Hilary and Muletsi agreed, of course. What else could they do? Muletsi rode Welshman while she straddled the Basotho pony, its dense grey coat now matted in places with Jack Tanner’s blood. She didn’t think of that or of what had been done. All she thought of was how cold she was. Her hands and feet were the worst. They felt ready to fall off.

  “Do this,” said one of the boys. “Watch.”

  One of the cattle had just defecated, and now the youth made straight for the steaming pad of muck. He plunged his bare feet into the thick of it, howling with pleasure at the sudden warmth.

  “Primo!” he shouted. “Primo!”

  Where did they get these words?

  She swung her right leg over the pony’s head and slid to the ground, shuddering at the twin stabs of pain when her feet hit the dirt. She yanked off her boots and socks. When the opportunity arose, she did just as the herd boy had done, buried her feet in cow shit — disgusting but heavenly. It was just processed grass, after all.

  Soon, Muletsi did the same.

  They spent that night with the two herd boys and their younger sister, all wrapped in blankets and huddled near the fire in the tumbledown stone hovel they used as a shelter. Their clothes — Muletsi’s and hers — were stretched over rocks to dry. The following morning, hungrier than cold, they said their goodbyes and set out on a steep, winding ascent of the Drakensberg.

  Muletsi rode Welshman, and she contented herself with the Basotho pony previously ridden by Jack. She kept shifting around to peer behind them, thinking that some sound she heard might be South Wind, magically restored to their company. But she was mistaken each time. Drowned and dead, her father’s finest horse. Late that afternoon, she and Muletsi straggled across an invisible border into Basutoland, near the lofty mountaintop village of Qacha’s Nek.

  Here they made a gift of Welshman and the Basotho pony to a man they met — a baldpated individual who said his name was Yul Brynner Dlamini, strangely enough. The following morning they rode in the bed of a smoke-spewing bakkie down to Maseru, the main city in that land. It was not long before they made contact there with some of the men Nelson Mandela had named, ANC officials living in exile. Comrade revolutionaries that they were, these men welcomed Muletsi with open arms. But Hilary was a woman — what was more, a white woman, and the daughter of a government minister to boot. They wouldn’t have her, flat out refused. Mandela had been right, it seemed, when he’d said her prospects would be difficult. Evidently, it didn’t matter that she’d shot a man in the name of the struggle, shot him twice. They didn’t say so, not in so many words, not to her face, but it was clear they did not believe her. As likely as not, she’d simply made that story up. They needed proof, and she had none. Muletsi debated with them, debated with her, but it was no use. Their paths had diverged, hers and his. She saw it, and he would come to see it, too. She had only to convince him.

  “Look at it, man,” she said. Whereas he himself was where he belonged, she, quite evidently, was not. It took a good while and much draining effort for her to counter Muletsi’s many objections, but in the end she won out, if you could call it that. She left him in Maseru and returned to South Africa on her own on a bus, meaning to remain in the country only for a time, only for as long as it would take to turn her life around.

  She told her father an outright lie — insisting that Jack Tanner had killed Muletsi Dadla and then absconded for parts unknown. Maybe he believed her. Maybe he did not. Either way, what Daniel Anson most feared was scandal, which explained why he sent her packing. First he shipped her off to England, to serve her penance at a boarding school in Kent, a place called Cobham Hall. For months, she bided her time, plotting her escape. At last, she got it sorted. Toward the end of term, she cabled her father to say she meant to spend that summer in Canada, of all places, rather than dwell beneath the thumb of some distant family connections they had in London, as previously planned. She had a reason for this — the Canadian man with the Liverpool accent, the one named Quinton Vasco, inventor of massive guns — but she kept all this to herself. Of course, she did. By actions, not words, would she be judged. The ANC would
learn to set greater store by her name than it had so far done. In the end, her father relented, probably because Canada was even further away than Albion.

  In her suitcase she packed the Makarov pistol, the very weapon she and Muletsi had received from none other than Nelson Mandela. By this time the great man was locked away in a South African jail. She also packed a box of nine millimetre by eighteen millimetre shells that she’d purchased at the shop owned by Henk Viljoen, the pot-bellied gun merchant in Mooi River. All these long months, she’d kept them a dark secret — the gun, the munitions.

  A week later, thanks to the money wired to her from Canada, she boarded a Trans-Canada Air Lines Douglas DC-8 that landed in Toronto on Thursday, June 6, 1963. The man she knew only as Colonel Martin Barker met her at the airport, dressed in riding breeches, desert boots, and a green military-style jumper. He wore a patch over one eye. They were not related to one another in any way and, in fact, had never met before. She had simply responded to an advertisement he’d placed in Horse & Hound, looking for an English girl to work as a groom for the summer at his estate in Kelso County, Ontario. Hilary wasn’t English, of course, but Colonel Barker was happy to make an exception in her case. She was of the empire, after all.