As my eyes swept around the farm, I caught sight of one of them: Lady, grazing between two of the greenhouses.
“There!” I exclaimed.
The farmhouse seemed dead, and there was no answer when we hammered on the door or squinted through the windows, so we crossed the yard, climbed the fences, and made haste to where Lady stood. She looked in good health, her eyes bright, her ears alert. She had the same sheen to her chestnut coat and did not seem to have lost weight.
I called out to her. For an instant, she spooked, as if she might hurtle off. Then she turned and came toward us. Though there was little ground to cover, the greenhouses rising tall on each side to make a narrow canyon, she broke into a trot. Exuberant, she pushed her nose into my shoulder. She whinnied softly.
“It’s good to see you, too,” I said. I can hardly describe the feeling of relief that she looked so well; my mind had been filled with images of what had happened to Grey.
We found Duke and Fleur by the foot of the same greenhouse, while Duchess and Marquess emerged, one after another, from the awning at the end of one of Rob’s long tunnels. There was little room to draw them together, but Pat and I fussed around each one, inspecting their eyes and teeth, and especially their hooves.
One of Rob’s own horses, a beautiful roan, appeared from the same tunnel. We walked on, Lady and the other Two Tree horses falling into line behind us. It must have looked a curious procession, for none of the horses were roped together. We weaved through greenhouses and tunnels, breathing in the scents of cut flowers, the aroma of those only just coming into bud.
Pat nodded, happy but somehow disturbed. “Rob’s looking after them, but for how long?”
Lady ambled past me and dropped her head to drink at a trough.
“I was thinking the same thing when we were on Braeside last night. We were with Grey, in his stable. His hoof’s almost healed, but just in time.” Pat hesitated. “I don’t think they can stay up there for long, Mandy.”
“No?”
“Now that Rory and Lindy are gone, you can barely call Braeside a farm. It’s a dozen farms now, parceled up and cut up and . . . butchered. We’ve left them up there too long already. Last night, Charl and I were returning from the farm. There were flies swarming over an animal carcass in a ditch. Just slaughter, for no reason, not even for meat. I can’t leave Grey and Deja Vu up there for much longer.”
“Then what?”
He did not mean to bring them here. Of that I was certain. Rob Flanagan’s farm was slowly being eroded by settlers. This was no land for horses. It was time, I sensed, to bring them together. It would be a mismatched herd, made up of horses from a dozen different farms, but they—and we—would be safer together than apart.
“I think it’s time we started thinking . . . don’t you?” Pat ran his fingers along Fleur’s muzzle, his cheek pressed to her, listening to the rhythm of the heart deep in her chest. “About moving on,” he said. “It’s the way Charl’s been talking. He doesn’t want Resje living through this. If this is Zimbabwe now, he doesn’t want Charl-Emil living it, either.”
“Leave for where?” I asked. “Out of the country?”
Pat’s face erupted into the most glorious smile.
“No,” he said. “This is my country.” He paused, standing tall at Fleur’s side. “Besides, what would we do with this lot?”
“And the rest,” I whispered, remembering the calls that kept coming in.
“So,” Pat said, “I suppose we’d better find a place. We’d better make a plan.”
On our return to Chinhoyi, I put myself to work.
“Pat,” I said, trying to control the trill in my voice, “I think I’ve found it.”
It was almost dusk. We had been back in Chinhoyi for several days, and since then I had done nothing but sit in front of the phone, dialing number after number, any old friends and contacts I could dredge up, hoping that something might turn up.
In the safehouse, Pat prowled the edges of the room.
“Found what?” he asked.
“Do you remember,” I began, “Fred and Janey Wallis?”
Fred had gone to school with Pat, in a world that now seemed very far away. He and his wife, Janey, lived on a farm about twenty kilometers from Chinhoyi, overseeing the construction of a gargantuan new dam, and Fred had been among the now infamous “Chinhoyi 24,” all farmers incarcerated without conviction when they rushed to the aid of a neighbor beset by a baying war vet mob. Though Fred had spent three crippling weeks behind bars, emerging malnourished and ridden with parasites and a bronchial cough that would not go away, he and Janey had refused to give up on Zimbabwe just yet.
“They have a house, Pat, sitting empty.”
Pat arched an eyebrow. “And?”
“And it’s ours, if we want it. Land enough for all of the horses, too . . .”
Now I knew I really did have Pat’s attention.
“War vets?” he said softly, those two words so heavy with meaning, for us, for our future, for the horses. For the country.
“Not yet,” I replied. “It would be a home, Pat. It would be somewhere.” I paused. “We could go there tomorrow, if we had to. What do you think?”
I could see the idea blossoming behind Pat’s eyes: land enough for the entire herd; somewhere safe for the children; and, shimmering in the distance, the fresh waters of a dam, so that the horses might never again go thirsty like Grey had.
He nodded, sharply and once only. It was all that I needed. Soon, we would be on our way.
That night, the safehouse gathered for dinner. In the downstairs dining room it felt just like one of the dinners we had shared on Crofton and Two Tree. In the middle of the table, a big side of beef billowed with aroma, and, as Pat set to carving it apart, Charl and Tertia gave thanks for the meal we were about to share. Their faith, already strong, seemed to have strengthened since that day on Two Tree. Every time I heard them pray, I could not stop myself from picturing Tertia, holding tightly to Resje and Charl-Emil in the heart of the farmhouse, waiting for the mob to descend.
At the end of the table, Kate played with Charl-Emil. It was time, I decided, to break the news.
“Everybody,” I began, “there’s something Pat and I have got to say . . .”
A hush descended.
“We’ve known for a long time that this wasn’t forever.” I threw Tertia a grin. “Our refugee camp in the middle of town! And with the horses so divided, it’s been preying on our minds—how to bring them back together, how to make a life for ourselves in the middle of this chaos. So I’ve been searching for somewhere we could go.” I paused. “All of us. The horses included.”
“Mum?” Kate ventured. “Is everything . . .”
I gave her a nod. “Everything’s going to be fine, darling. You see, we have somewhere to go to now. There’s an empty farmhouse on Biri Farm. A place we could set up a home again. A place we can take Deja Vu, Grey, Lady, and all the rest. There’s a dam as big as at Two Tree, and riding trails that run all over the farmland. Janey and Fred Wallis have said we can stay there as long as we want.”
“Mandy,” Tertia chimed in, “that’s such great news . . .”
She reached across the table and took my hand. Yet the way she squeezed told me that something was wrong. I thought I understood.
“Tertia, Charl,” I said, trying to mask my smile. “We want you to come with us.”
Charl and Tertia shared a strange look. They held the pose for a second. Then Tertia took her hand from mine and reached out to fold it over Resje’s. Resje shifted in her seat, and silence settled across the dining room, broken only by a sudden cry from Charl-Emil.
“Mandy,” Tertia began, “there’s something we have to tell you as well.”
“It won’t come as a surprise,” added Charl. “We’ve been thinking of it for some time.” He hesitated. I saw Pat’s expression change and understood, in that moment, what Charl was about to say. “This isn’t home,” Charl went on. “Not
anymore. We didn’t come back to Two Tree just to see it taken away. We’d thought . . .” Words seemed to fail him, as they had been failing so many of us for so long. “We’d thought it would be paradise. Like it was the first time I worked there. A paradise for Resje and Charl-Emil. A part of the country to charm my city girl’s heart . . .”
At this, Tertia smiled.
“Not anymore,” she said. “Mandy, if it was just us, well, maybe we’d stay. Maybe we’d find a way to make a new life here. But it isn’t just us. There’s Resje and Charl-Emil, too. I don’t want them to have another day like that day on Two Tree. How could we ever feel safe here after that?”
“It was paradise for a little while, wasn’t it?” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
Charl nodded.
“But a paradise lost,” he said. “Pat, Mandy, we’ve made up our minds. We’re going to New Zealand.”
Throughout, Pat had not said a word. Slowly, he stretched out his hand and took hold of Charl’s.
“Of course,” said Charl, “there’s the small matter of . . . Lady. Fleur. Grey. Duchess, Duke, Marquess, and the rest.”
“No there isn’t,” said Pat, holding Charl’s gaze. “There never was.”
“We can’t take them with us.”
“You don’t need to. Two Tree, Crofton . . . It always felt the same thing to us. I’ve known those horses as long as you. I was there when you pulled Lady out of Lady Richmond. I was there when that Arabian stallion came through. We’ve watched those horses grow from foals. They’re as much family as Deja Vu, Imprevu, and the rest up there. They’re as loved as Frisky ever was.”
Charl nodded. Nothing else needed to be said.
Except perhaps:
“I think we’re going to miss you, Tertia,” I said.
Around the table, we all raised our glasses. First Pat, then Charl, then Tertia and me. Resje and Kate lifted theirs too, and, in his high chair, even Charl-Emil seemed to know something was happening. His face broke into an absurd grin, and he seemed to pump his little fist too, eager to join in with the toast.
“To old friends,” said Charl.
“Absent friends,” I added.
“And to the end of all this,” Pat interjected.
We drained our glasses, talked of Crofton and Two Tree, of rides by the dam, of the Arabian stallions, of Frisky and Lady Richmond, of all the horses who had lived and died there and not had to know the chaos that was engulfing their country.
We drank long into the night, and, with the children fast asleep around us, we said our good-byes.
Chapter 8
PAT AND I stood at the fences of Biri Farm’s new, hastily erected paddocks, the first lights of dawn beginning to spread. We were here to see the horses come to their new home.
It had been a long walk from Braeside, as driving the horses through farms already ceded to war vets and party officials would draw too much attention, but the grooms had reached us at last. They led the horses through the paddock gates. It was a mismatched herd, but with Charl and Tertia gone it seemed strangely fitting that the Crofton and Two Trees horses should have come together. Grooms had walked the horses off the remnants of Rob Flanagan’s farm, too. Here were Grey and Deja Vu standing together, Fleur with Lady, Imprevu with Duke. Duchess and Marquess were the last to come through the gate, and as they settled in, we clambered over the fences to run our hands across their flanks and make sure they had reached their new home without any harm. Grey’s hoof seemed to have healed perfectly, though we were still uncertain how much weight it could bear.
“It’s going to feel strange,” Pat called, “living with them again.”
It was going to feel strange living anywhere, I thought, but perhaps it would feel more like home with the horses nearby. For the first time in what felt like an age, we could try to build some semblance of normality into our lives—and the first step on that road was to take a long ride around Biri Dam.
Once the horses were rested, Pat and I saddled up and set about exploring our new home. Biri Dam, completed only recently, was developed jointly by the farmers (for irrigation) and the government (for water to Chinhoyi). Fred had been employed to manage the finishing touches to the dam and to control the water. All of this seemed so absurd now. The land here had been pioneered long before our own, its contours less jagged and wild than the ones we had hewn out at our own farm. On the slopes above the fields the crowns of bush did not grow as densely, and the air hung heavy with the tang of the citrus groves along the shores of the dam.
We set off around the farm, not knowing exactly which way the paths would lead us. I had chosen to ride Grey, while Pat had chosen Imprevu. The earth did not have the same vibrant redness as at Two Tree and River Ranch, but the land was of a similar quality, hard and unforgiving, laced with the same scree that forbade farming without a careful cultivation of the soil. Here the land had been given to tobacco and, in its fallow years, long grasses for the cattle who still roamed here.
We found a bush trail, steep and punishing for the horses, and followed a switchback to its top. Here, we could look down on the waters of Biri Dam. In the east the great dam wall loomed, while on the farthest side farms much older than our own had been resettled long before. Ten kilometers away, east of the dam wall, stood Avalon, a farm that belonged to Nick Swanepoel, while in the west, along the line of the dam, Biri was bordered by Portland Estates, a cattle ranch belonging to John Crawford. The dam stood, a formidable blue scar in the green land.
We looked down on the houses where the dam’s construction workers had once lived, concrete shacks for their foremen and huts of poles and thatching grass for the other staff. In the past few days, those old workers of ours who had been clinging to their homes at Crofton had made the journey down to be with us again. As we rode through, I was glad to see familiar faces: Charles and Albert. For the moment, they would be free from the scourge of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF.
The farmhouse in which we lived was next door to the house belonging to Fred and Janey Wallis. As we rode back to our new paddocks, Fred, shaved bald to get rid of the lice from his recent imprisonment, with spectacles perched on his nose, was sitting on the step, as he often did. He called out, and we brought Grey and Imprevu around.
Physically, Fred seemed to have changed little since he and Pat were at school, but the signs of the three weeks he had spent in prison were visible. His eyes did not seem to settle, he moved with the jittery air of a scarecrow, and the cough that had set in during those weeks inside still plagued him.
“Settling in?” he asked.
I threw a look backward. Lady had bounded over to the edge of the paddock and was studying me carefully, greedy as ever and desperate to be doted on.
“Well, Fred, there’s a lot to settle in . . .”
Fred rolled his eyes. I think he remembered something about Pat from their schooldays: endless stories of the chicken and cattle he was collecting on his father’s farm. It must have been an absurd sight for two people like Fred and Janey, to suddenly have their home invaded not just by Retzlaffs but by a random collection of rescued horses, too.
“I suppose you’ll have to talk to John,” said Fred.
“John Crawford?”
Fred’s eyes lit up, as if he was daring us with a practical joke.
“Didn’t you know?” he ventured. “John’s finally having to leave. He doesn’t have much time left. But he has a Retzlaff kind of a problem . . . fifty horses, stuck out there on his farm. I think you’ll be receiving a call.”
We knew when we hit the boundaries of the Crawfords’ farm, some way west of Biri, for we could see their cattle ranged before us, hundreds of heads watching dolefully from the fields. John’s was a good old-fashioned cattle ranch of the kind the first pioneers in this part of the world had kept. We rode in on Grey and Deja Vu. There were horses in the fields, too. A big gray mare, as strong as any stallion, tracked us with her eyes while, around her, two foals tentatively pushed their muzzles at each other
. The smaller of the foals held itself much like the gray mare, with the same strong-set shoulders. Most telling of all, both the mare and the foal had two white feet, a mark that they were surely mother and son. These, we would soon learn, were Jade and her foal, later to be named Brutus, two horses I will never forget.
John Crawford was waiting for us at the farmhouse. John was a lovely, soft-spoken man, approaching thirty years old. Pat and I had known his father well, for he also bred cattle and we had often seen him at shows and auctions.
“It’s been two years since they appeared,” John explained as he helped us water Grey and Deja Vu in front of the low, sprawling farmhouse. “We could ignore it at first. It was only a little thing. A few faces at the gates, a few men at the sides of the roads. It got worse.” He paused. “There started being parts of the farm we couldn’t touch. Then those sections started growing. They built their huts, brought in their cattle. Brought distemper with them. It killed my dogs. Ticks got into the cattle.” He ran his hands along Grey’s flank. “A year ago, they told us it wasn’t our farm anymore. We stayed. I can’t count the number of times we’ve been told we have to leave.”
John led us into the fields where his cattle were grazing. There, we walked among his horses. Some of them, we could see, were strong cattle horses. There were foals as well, six or seven younger than a year old.
Every one of them seemed to spook at our appearance. I watched as a ripple seemed to move through the herd. Mares turned as if to protect their foals, while a dark bay gelding turned tail and kicked into a trot.
“They’re wild,” I said.
“I can’t remember how long it’s been since we could work these horses. They know, Mandy. They get a feeling when something’s wrong. It doesn’t take many months for wildness to set back in.”
My eyes were drawn to the big gray mare we had seen upon approaching the farm. Up close, I could see that she wore a great scar on her left flank. At first I took it for the mark made by some marauding war vet, too stoned or drunk to know what he was doing. I asked John.
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