Neels spit.
“This is your family. Your bliksem family.”
His curse cast a stalemate over them. Not far outside their circle, the gray drone lay tilted in the dirt, leaning as if listening for a decision on its fate. The bush simmered, the shadows had begun to shorten. Wally’s hands worked at his sides while he searched for what to say. LB stayed quiet, unable to defend Promise.
Big Karskie stepped forward, easing between Neels and the girl. He glanced left and right at them, making sure they were in separate corners.
During the night, before they fell asleep under the acacia bush, the big boy had talked a lot. He wanted to know about pararescue, the Guardian Angels, if the South African military had anything like it, what were the qualifications? He claimed to be a fit athlete not long ago, a strong swimmer. Wally encouraged him to look into it. LB, who every year spent a month at Indoc eliminating nine out of ten candidates, did not.
Karskie asked Promise, “Did Juma shoot Wophule?”
“No.”
“Do you know the one who did?”
Promise’s face clouded more. “His name is Good Luck.”
“But you say Juma has the missile?”
“He took it.”
“Do you know where?”
At this question, Wally inched away from LB’s side. This information was what he needed to hear.
“Yes.”
“Tell us.”
“On one condition. I go with you.”
Neels waved this off with a sweeping gesture, as if warning Wally away.
“Nooit.”
He pushed Karskie aside, lunging at Promise.
“You don’t make conditions. I’ll kill you. I’ll leave you for the jackals. You understand?”
Neels hoisted the rifle to his shoulder. For the second time, he trained a weapon at Promise. The girl seemed to consider letting Neels just end it.
LB moved, expecting Wally to stop him, but he did not. LB stepped beside Neels, reaching a hand to the raised weapon without touching it. The old ranger’s cheeks flushed, his eyes bulged behind the barrel. Neels would shoot the girl, LB had no doubt.
“Man, come on. That’s not going to settle anything.”
“Shut your mouth, Sergeant. Go blow up the drone.”
“We will. But lower the gun. Let’s talk it out.”
“You have no jurisdiction here. The girl’s a poacher.”
“She knows where the missile is.”
“No worries, I’ll get it out of her. Now mind your business.”
LB opened a hand at Wally, who returned the gesture, both stymied. LB puffed his cheeks.
“I fucking hate this.”
He sidestepped between Neels and Promise, blocking her from the black eye of Neels’s rifle.
“We really don’t do the jurisdiction thing.”
Neels did not lower the gun. At that, with LB threatened, Wally had no choice. Two-handed, he raised the Beretta, snapping an order.
“Back it off, Neels. Right now.”
“You siding with her?”
“We don’t stand around while people get shot.”
Promise moved from behind LB. She would not hide. Neels swung the gun at her. LB didn’t react, letting her face Neels. Seething, jutting his jaw with an eye on Wally’s combat stance and raised pistol, the old ranger lowered the rifle.
“You’re finished, girl. Now or later. Doesn’t matter.”
Promise nodded, accepting.
Neels spun on Wally, who’d tucked the Beretta into his belt.
“If she runs. If she screws us up. I’ll kill her. You try to stop me again, it’s you and me. Right?”
Wally unfolded the sunglasses from his vest to slide them on. He answered by letting Neels see his own glowering reflection before he motioned to the girl.
“Promise. Where’s the missile?”
“Juma said Macandezulo.”
“Is that far from here?”
Karskie had kept himself at bay while anger and weapons were raised. He stepped forward, patting the air at Neels to calm him.
“Across the border in Mozambique. Eight kilometers. It’s in the Limpopo.”
“What’s that?”
“A transfrontier park. Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa are trying to create a giant wildlife preserve. They’re taking down fences, relocating the locals, turning it over to the animals. It’s a good idea, except for one thing.”
“That is?”
“Poaching in Mozambique is just a misdemeanor. Not even enforced. There’s almost no wildlife left on that side of the border. That’s why the poachers come into the Kruger.”
Neels growled across his turned shoulder.
“With fokken rangers guiding them.”
Karskie grimaced, apologizing but not ashamed for Neels. Wally pressed on. The morning warmed, and Torres was expecting a report.
“What’s Macandezulo?”
“An abandoned village. If Juma’s moved in there, it makes sense. No one around. Close to the border. A few generators and he’s in business. A poaching haven.”
Big Karskie didn’t lack for answers, with a quick wit. He seemed protective of Neels. LB couldn’t guess where the boy stood on what to do with Promise.
LB asked, “Can we find it?”
Neels treated the question as an insult.
“Of course we can bloody find it.”
Promise had not left LB’s side. He needed to walk away, to figure out with Wally what the next steps would be. LB faced her, reluctant to judge but needing to. She’d gotten her partner murdered. She’d taken down a rhino with a knife and her bare hands, for money. She’d dishonored her oath, lied to her superiors. Yet she could have run off at any point in the night and did not. She’d stayed with him and Wally, helping them when she didn’t have to. She sat until daybreak next to Wophule’s corpse, beside Neels who might ruin, even execute her outright. She insisted on going to Macandezulo, to do what? Promise couldn’t make everything right; her partner’s body and the carcass of a rhino somewhere in the bush saw to that. Promise was guilty as hell, and she was going to stay that way.
She probably owed LB her life; Neels was going to gun her down. And still could. But nothing in the girl’s posture or face hinted she was even grateful, or that she would try to escape.
Promise was going to Macandezulo to keep some other oath.
Chapter 21
Allyn awoke on a grass-filled mattress tick. Dawn gilded a window frame. The small room was empty of all but the bedding, a jug of water, Allyn, and a black woman asleep beside him. He sat up, naked and cold. The bed lay sheetless, the woman slight and without warmth. Allyn shook his head at himself. His clothes lay in a jumble on the floor. He rose gingerly to avoid disturbing the woman, a habit from life with Eva, a late riser.
He grabbed the gallon jug of water, gathered his clothes, and stepped outside. The dead village had not awakened, but a generator rumbled somewhere up the weedy street. Allyn moved into the slanting light, warming up, and poured half the water over his head, brisk and reviving. He scrubbed with his bare hands, then poured the rest. Allyn stood in the dirt street, in the sun, stripped and dripping until he felt dry enough to dress. He checked in pockets for his phone and wallet, found them both unmolested, and walked into Macandezulo.
The village had been deserted by its former owners but not by the bush. In two years of abandonment, the one-story shacks had begun to lose their balance; only a few stood straight. Sag and rot pecked at the place, while the bush laid a green claim everywhere, in kitchens and parlors, pushing up through floorboards, flowering on the roofs of homes, the small school, the rain gutters of a motor shop, under the dusty porch of a store. A single unpaved lane cut through the center of the village, flanked by smaller paths, all connected by alleyways. The stench of human piss and bowels fouled the alleys. Windblown trash cartwheeled down them. The garbage and stink and the hum of the generator belonged to Macandezulo’s new residents.
Allyn walked down the center of the road, wishing he’d brought a hat and sunglasses. He headed toward the rumble of the generator, the power of Juma. Macandezulo had been partitioned into quarters; Juma assigned his Mozambican workers their housing by profession and desperation. In the tumbledown hovels on the eastern outskirts lived the poachers, twelve poor men accustomed to squalor. On the north side of the main street, four drug dealers lived in pastel houses closest to the well. Juma kept his four guards south of the road, in a dwelling of tin walls. Beside them, in the two-room schoolhouse, a pair of cooks lived and worked barbecue pits in the rusting playground. To the west, on the ground floor of a two-story cinder block structure with working windows and doors, once the village town hall, Juma made his lodging. The generator was for him to run his computer and modem, charge his phones, cool his beer. Juma stored weapons in the basement, with a henchman always stationed outside the building. Juma allowed only himself and his guards to be armed in Macandezulo. Those few officials in local governments who might cause him concern were on his payroll, and because he was fair and generous, rival gangs did not attack him. Any impimpi (informant) in the villages was rooted out and sometimes necklaced—murdered by being forced to wear a petrol-filled burning rubber tire around the neck. Eight young women from the border towns occupied the second floor of his blockhouse while they became addicted to drugs and turned into whores. Macandezulo had belonged to no one, and the animals did not want it, so Juma had taken it. Everything he brought here, and everyone, was for sale.
Several pickup trucks were parked haphazardly about the village. Each appeared ready to fall apart at the rivets from dents and hard use. A large machine gun had been welded to a pivot in the bed of the bakkie outside Juma’s building. In the throb of the generator, Allyn rapped on the building’s door, then sat in the lawn chair he’d gotten drunk in last night. A dozen cans lay about. Allyn took a swallow from one half-full can but spit out the flat beer. He spit again to erase the taste. Hunger and a rancid thirst made him knock again.
Behind the door, Juma’s big, bare feet padded. He opened up wearing a shimmery, blue silk housecoat, holding a mug of water. Allyn sent him back inside for another.
Juma returned and joined Allyn outside, taking the second lawn chair. They sat as they had until midnight last night, except this morning Allyn was dressed in the clothes he’d arrived in, while big Juma sipped in silk as if he were at the Savoy. Last night, Allyn had been a little manic about being in Macandezulo among cutthroats, poachers, and whores. He wasn’t accustomed to beer, did not respect it, and drank too many too fast. Allyn wanted to know about everything around him, Juma’s syndicate, how it worked, who the shadowy people were. He felt entitled because he’d financed much of this. Juma told him as much as he could until Allyn began to lean. He sent Allyn off to a house with one of the girls. Allyn had staggered once in the street, she’d caught him, and he did not recall her letting go.
Juma scratched his chest beneath the silk, leaving his hand to rest on the platter of his great belly.
“I despair, Allyn. What we have made of you.”
“Do I look that rough?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a change of clothes?”
“Yes. In Maputo, where I will send you after we finish our business.”
A willowy girl in white pants and a pink bra drifted out of the building. Her black skin held no luster. Her eyes buttery, she stood behind Juma with a hand on his meaty shoulder. She asked nothing, needing silently. He patted her hand and nodded. The girl left without acknowledging Allyn, heading for the pastel houses in the sunrise.
Juma finished his water.
“I’ll have the cooks roused. We have meat. I make it a practice not to ask what it is.”
Allyn asked if he might see a rhino horn. Juma had none at the moment, but he intended to send a team into the Kruger tonight. Allyn wanted to stay another night, he had no one in Jo’burg waiting for him. Juma hedged.
“We’ll see, shamwari.”
Allyn was not used to this Juma, either, the one who may or may not grant his requests. The man commanded here, a king among thieves in Macandezulo. Juma’s people had only what rights and protection he allotted. Allyn wondered if this was how Eva had felt.
While he and Juma waited in the lawn chairs to be fed, the main street of Macandezulo took on a shambling morning activity. Dark, tattered men in short pants, unbuttoned shirts, and sandals shuffled for the well or to relieve themselves in the alleys. Juma gave Allyn the names of the men he did not last night, their home villages, their crimes. “This one sells heroin, this one dagga and stolen pharmaceuticals. That one is blind in one eye but has a big family and will do anything. That one likes boys. This one is shy. That one is a killer.”
More girls filtered down out of the block building. In the sharp morning they seemed unsure on their ebony feet, floating like wraiths. They wore sheer nightclothes, some immodest. Juma uttered each name as the girls trailed past: Marvelous, Beauty, Light, a tall one named Angel. Some touched Juma, and none, like the first, noticed Allyn.
“How do you find them? Where do they come from?”
Big Juma shrugged, as if to say where the women had been before Macandezulo was of no importance.
“They find me. These girls, the men”—Juma swept an arm across the street scene, his resurrected place—“they are all the same. The girls can’t hunt, and no one would pay these men to fuck. They have no work in their villages, no skills. You and I were poor boys, too, we were born in shacks like them. But we were fortunate, we had the mines and each other. I pay the men better than they can earn doing anything else. Drugs, horn, doesn’t matter. I could cheat them if I cared to. But I don’t, so they stay. The women can’t afford the drugs I make available to them. They stay until I place them into a village to work for me. If there are deaths, I pay the families. I provide for them all, no one goes wanting. I treat everyone well.”
Breakfast arrived served on fan-shaped fronds, the leaves of a lala palm. Antelope meat had been browned and spiced, chapati bread served to scoop it up. The boy who brought the food was the one Juma had called shy, named Hard Life.
“Is it?” Allyn asked the boy before he turned away.
The boy stopped, not looking up from his dusky, bare feet.
“What, sir?”
“Is it hard? Your life?”
Hard Life would not reply, holding still until Juma gestured for him to speak.
“No, sir.”
Allyn held out the palm leaf and breakfast to the boy.
“Take this. I can get some later.”
The boy looked around, as though he’d heard someone calling him away. Eyes downcast, he left.
“Did I say something wrong?”
Juma motioned for Allyn to bring his offering back to his lap. Hard Life, just as the young women had, seemed to blow away like the refuse in the alleys.
“You misunderstand. These people do not take charity. They are poor, but only to you and me. They do not see themselves that way. They are poachers, whores, and dealers. But they work. This is their mine, shamwari.”
The meat was strongly seasoned, smoky with cumin and nutmeg. The chapati tore easily, freshly baked. Eating, Allyn pondered what his name might be if he were one of Juma’s people. Lush Life. Or maybe Alone.
The girls trailed back to the blockhouse, including the one Allyn had awakened next to. He didn’t ask Juma her name. Before she passed he took from his wallet a thousand-rand note. He held it between fingers for her to pluck. She did, then, following the girls inside, dropped the bill into Juma’s lap. Juma returned it to Allyn.
“I’m confused.”
Juma stood, belting his long silk jacket.
“Which is why you should not have come. We’ll go into the basement. You’ll see our missile. We’ll decide what to do. Then I will have you driven to Maputo and a hotel. You may fly home when you like.”
Allyn rose, too. Down the street, one of the m
en in the pastel houses cranked a bakkie to life and drove away south, an early start to the day. Cook smoke curled from behind the schoolhouse, and several poachers shambled that way.
“No.”
Juma had already turned on his slippers for the house. He didn’t register Allyn’s answer.
“I said no.”
Juma halted with his broad, shiny back still to Allyn. He drew in a large breath, swelling with it, before rotating back to Allyn.
“What, shamwari?”
“I’ll stay. Another day.”
“Why would you do that? Even I don’t want to stay here.”
Because there was a great, empty house with more echoes than sound, more shadows than light, and an unchanging, starry lake. A mine that did not need him.
“I slept well last night. It’s been a while.”
“You were drunk. And with a whore.”
Allyn would give Juma more money, for a guesthouse here in Macandezulo.
Allyn waited outside in the lawn chair while Juma washed and dressed. Morning insects in the scrub and weeds chirruped even louder than Juma’s grumbling generator. Along the main street, black, glistening men came out to sit on stoops, set elbows to knees, and puff cigarettes or dagga. No one approached Allyn, though he was plainly Juma’s important guest. Like the bugs, the men went through their routines and prepared for their daily tasks. Inside the blockhouse, the women waited to be used, sold, or further addicted to cocaine or crystal meth, called tik because of the sound it made burning in a pipe. Juma’s people did have a hard life, a shell they had no means to break out of.
Juma emerged in a fresh linen tunic, cool cotton trousers, and leather brogans. He presented himself like the parent of the new children of Macandezulo. Four years older than Allyn, one and a half times his size, Juma thrived like a great tree, spread wide and rooted, luxuriant.
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