Читать книгу Like a Lily on a Mountain, Love Grows on Rocky Terrains - Thokozani S.B. Maseko - Страница 7

Chapter 4

Three heavyset men lugged crates and bags from one room to another in Big Bend Farm. Dudu gave orders to the men from her seat, too feeble and disinterested to worry which of their possessions went back west with them, and which were sent to the market or donated to the poor. She had already said to ‘Musa’, short for Musawethu, which things were important to her, and she wished that he would mind the rest himself and leave her to lament her son peacefully.

“Ma’am?” Thando, the senior herdsman of the farm, and one of Welcome’s favourites, came to her. In his hand was a gold pocket watch. He gave it to her and shrugged.

“Found this in his bottom drawer, Ms Dudu. Be a dishonour to lose it now, after all these years.”

She nodded but she didn’t bother to take the watch from her husband’s foreman. It sat in the man’s work-toughened palm the same way it had sat when Musa’s father had given it to him, and Musa passed it on to Welcome on his sixteenth birthday.

“Well, son,” he had said. “Guess this is yours, now.”

The picture of her son’s smile as he received the watch flooded her memory, the dimples which were her own disturbing the lustre flow of his plummy cheeks as he took the prised keepsake.

“Not too quick,” Musa said. “This belongs to you only in trust, son. You know what I mean?”

Welcome nodded seriously, but Musa elucidated anyway. That’s just the way Musa was. He needed to spell every letter out, he made a point to dot every i and to cross every t. That was why he still denied that Welcome was dead. No one saw him, only a hundred rumours, he’d say. But deep in her heart, Dudu was convinced. She hadn’t heard a word from her son for more than a year now.

And she was sure that his son wasn’t without enemies. His prowess in women allowed him to sneak up to more bedroom windows than Dudu liked to imagine. Husbands and dads and brothers all over the area muffled curses at him for messing with their women. “Ms Dudu?” Thando still stood in front of her, his arm still extended, the gold watch still on his palm.

“Take it out of my sight, please. I don’t want to see it. Put it away. Keep it,” she said, her voice a detached whine.

“I’ll keep it for him, Ma’am, if you don’t mind. He’d be deeply livid if he was to return home and never found it.”

Dudu shrugged.

“Thando,” she said quietly, shutting her eyes and leaning back on the chair, “He isn’t coming back. And if he would, he’d find us gone.”

“Aren’t you afraid that it might be a mistake? Won’t you wait a while longer as Musa says?”

“This weird place took everything from me,” she said. “Ripped me off my youth, my health, my children, one after another. Finally, it stole Welcome, the only one I had consoled myself with in seeing him grow up. Then Musa wants to stay? Well, let him. I’ll take the first train to Mpompota come next Friday, and nothing from this world will stop me.”

The squabble had fatigued her. It was obvious that she was dying, but Musa simply wouldn’t say it. It was one of his good intentions as always, to protect her. But he’d failed to stop all the deaths, and the pain and so he wouldn’t be able to stop her now. Doctor Kenny was absurd, too, saying that he understood all she felt and suffered.

She must be really failing her life. How else could she explain Musa’s affirmative to leave this place, the livestock, the horses, and the land? He contended that he left all this because he had no legatee, as if it had been for Welcome’s sake that he had built, from nothing, one of the best producing farms in the south.

Perhaps so, but it had also taken their son’s disappearance, for her husband to appreciate the depth of his love for the boy.

‘Perhaps he’d still be alive,’ she thought. ‘If his father had cared enough to teach him to walk on the right path while he was alive. Yeah, make hay while sun shines.’

***

A motherless baby. Hannah allowed her imagination to float with the wind as she held the Dlamini boys’ nephew in her arms. If only this was her baby; but she understood better than to fantasise herself in the world of ‘if only.’ She had squandered enough time in that world, and its payment had been appalling torture in the end.

Now, she had imprudently consented to keep an eye on the baby while her hosts attended to what they referred to as an important errand. What could she have done? The men were bereaved of their sister, and no one else could mind the baby; but she couldn’t afford to think of him as Mashwa. A baby as fine-looking as he was ought to have a nice name like Patrick, Pat. It had a nice ring to it.

Her thoughts were getting the best of her again, and she reprimanded herself. People rarely have a second chance in this world, and she was aware of that; aware of that better than everyone, maybe. If she couldn’t change the past, she’d better learn from it, at least. The baby in her arms grasped a fistful of her hair and shoved it into his mouth.

“No,” she said softly, unfastening his chubby fingers and kissing his fist in embarrassment. The baby turned to her breast, cuddling her and smacking his mouth as he searched for nourishment.

“No,” she cried again, but this time tears throttled her voice. She was aware how necessary it was for her to leave before this baby stole her heart; the heart she had sealed and locked many years ago. The moment his uncles returned, she had to leave.

She hoped they’d return with Musa. In their somnolent state, she was certain that she could successfully convince them that Musa belonged with his mother. It was a given for every child.

She wiped away a lone tear with the flipside of her hand and blinked back the rest that threatened. She was set to destroy Musa’s father with her bare hands for backing her into this corner to start with. What kind of a father could arrange to sell his own son to a place more backwards than any other on the face of the earth?

‘Even Melethi had TVs now,’ she thought.

Was there any other place here where they buried people outside of cemeteries? She recalled when she had run after Thembi’s babynappers into the Pigg’s Peak Plantations forests and mountains. But then, she’d been close enough to her car to alert the police. She recalled starring down a rifle and being told to ‘get lost’. The police had honoured her for saving Thembi’s life. Thembi was too young to remember her, but Hannah would never forget the hut she had found the baby locked in – dark, grimy, without lighting or running water. And behind the hut, the old family cemetery had stood, a clothesline had run above it, some evidence attesting to the idea that life goes on. But not here, she thought as she touched this, turned that, in the kitchen preparing something for the baby to eat. Here, someone expired; and the moment they returned, with Musa or not, she was leaving. The baby grinned at her as the potato mash in his mouth oozed out.

“I’ll have the police come back for you,” she assured him. “I can’t even imagine how a baby can live here.” She glanced down at the skirt and the top she had on. How Thandi had managed to withstand her brothers’ ludicrous, decrepit ideas was beyond Hannah’s imagination. Mandla had asked her politely not to wear the jeans she had arrived in around his brothers, and she’d obeyed, but what she could endure for a couple of days was quite different from what she would have to condone as a way of life.

The men didn’t even have a car, as far as she could see. They’d ridden off to town like cowboys, and when she’d asked to accompany them, they’d promised to take her to town as soon as they returned from their important errand. There, they assured her, she could telephone her office. And so, she had waited, and waited.

She and the baby were asleep when the men finally came home. She didn’t hear them coming in until their voices filled the house and the baby began to cry. For a moment she thought she was dreaming, like all the other nights when she had heard a baby crying out for her and had awakened in her empty room alone. This time the baby’s cry continued in the darkness, and she reached over and pulled him from his cradle.

“He said he wasn’t going to kill anyone anymore!” Thabani shouted. “He swore it, Mandla.”

“Keep your voice down,” Mandla reminded him. “I don’t want Miss overhearing any of this.”

“I didn’t mean to kill him, Mandla, honest. The gun just went off …”

“Again? The man can hit a tin from two hundred metres away, but he can’t keep his gun from going off by accident. Mandla, he …”

The room went silent when they noticed Hannah and the baby. She stood in the doorway, her heart pounded. She could not believe what she had heard.

“Go back to your room,” Mandla said. He stared at her, waiting for her to do as she was told.

“Who?” she finally asked, clutching the baby tightly as though one of them might try to take him away.

“You ever hear of the ‘Dlemza’ Gang?” Themba asked, the stupid smile she had seen so many times before lighting up his face.

“Who?”

“Shut up, Themba,” Thabani said. He opened his rifle, and her breath caught in her throat. He began stuffing a rag down one of the barrels.

“I will not,” Themba said. “I’m proud of who I am.”

“Go back to your room,” Mandla repeated, this time more ominously.

“I can’t,” Hannah said, her voice smaller than she would have liked. She sat down with the baby asleep in her arms. Maybe she had misheard. Maybe her ears were full of sleep, her mind still full of dreams. “You’d better tell me everything.”

“You ever hear of Philani Mbuli?” Themba asked, but before she could answer, Mandla was on his feet and in front of her.

“I said go back to your room,” he ordered between clenched teeth. This time he put one hand under her elbow and lifted her out of her seat. “It’s best if you get some rest, we can discuss all this in the morning,” he said, ushering her to her door without her consent.

“Themba is crazy, isn’t he?” Hannah said.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the scar that ran down Mandla’s cheek. It pulsed under her scrutiny.

Mandla shrugged. “Yeah, I guess that’s it,” he said, waiting for her to enter her room. “But you don’t have anything to worry about.” He shut the door behind her.

Hannah laid the baby down in the cradle and paced the room nervously, finally she sat on the rug beside the door with her ear to the floor, hoping to hear anything else that the brothers might reveal. She had some trouble understanding Mandla’s words, his deep voice rattling the floorboards beneath her.

“Great, Themba. Just great. Now Miss will want to leave.”

Themba must have shrugged or said, “So what.” It was Mandla’s voice that Hannah heard again.

“So, who’s going to stay home with Mashwa when we need to go out? Or were you planning to take him? Strap him to your back and jump onto the train, you idiot!”

She could hear the boom of Thabani’s voice, but she couldn’t make out the words over Themba’s footsteps and the jangling of his spurs.

“She wouldn’t find her way back here even if we drew her a map,” Mandla argued.

So, they’d gotten to the heart of the matter. She knew where they were. And if she left, she could lead the authorities back to them. Were they now trying to scare her with this bad guy talk so that she’d leave and forget about Musa? Or had Themba really killed someone? She heard footsteps and quickly dove to her bed. They stopped outside her door, and she heard the doorknob being turned. Through slits in her eyes she saw Mandla’s silhouette fill the doorway.

“Miss?” he whispered.

She didn’t answer.

“I hope you aren’t planning to go anywhere,” he said quietly; watching for a reaction. She gave him none, and he quietly shut the door, leaving her alone in the darkness. Hannah crawled further under the blankets. Suddenly she was very, very cold.

***

“I guess you’re a bit uncomfortable,” the man behind her said, and Hannah craned her neck around to glare at him.

The saddle’s pommel drilled a hole in her hip, and each step the horse took caused her agony. She still couldn’t figure out quite how it had happened. One moment she was down by the river, putting her basket of washing down and reaching in to pick the baby up, ready to make a run for it before Mashwa’s uncles realised that she was gone. The next moment she was tied up like a sack of potatoes and thrown over a neck of a horse, the size of a B-52.

“Look,” the man said, and it was clearly an explanation, not an apology. “I wasn’t planning to take you with me.” She grunted. It was the best she could manage under the circumstances.

“The idea was for me to grab the baby, but when you opened your pretty little mouth and started screaming, I saw that I really didn’t have any choice.”

He shook his head and then shrugged, shooing a fly away from Hannah’s face at the same time. At the mention of the baby, she was all ears. So, it was her little Pat who the man was after, and not her. Well, it was a good thing she screamed, then. And she wasn’t sorry about the biting and the clawing, either. She would never give up that sweet child without a fight. If she was willing to steal him away from his blood relatives, she wasn’t about to turn him over to some Scar faced aspirant.

“Leastwise, I got the baby,” he said, and Hannah wriggled herself around to stare at him through narrowed eyes.

A dirty bushy beard covered most of his face, but through it she could see a row of shiny white teeth. He was smiling, the idiot, as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

So, you belong to one of those Dlamini boys, don’t you? Or were you just watching the baby? not that it matters to me, mind you. I’m just curious.” He spoke in a voice just above a whisper, a soft voice that could calm a squirmy child or a feral animal, but it drove Hannah crazy. How could he be having a normal conversation at a time like this? The man had to be insane.

He went on pleasantly, as if everything was normal.

“Mandla, I think is the only one nearly human, although that might be sweetening it a bit; And he didn’t seem all that cosy with you at the river yesterday. Themba, now, he’s just insane. Been nuts since … well, since always, as I can recall. But I didn’t know that he was insane enough to allow you to go down to the river alone with Thabani. Which brings us to Thabani, who’s just grossly mean? Worse than a grizzly.”

It wasn’t easy for Hannah to have a good look at the man who rode behind her. It was hard for her to get a good look at anything but the stallion’s underbelly, a fancy gun with a jumping dog carved in silver just near the trigger, and the parched road, feeding her nostrils with dust. No place in the country was as dry as Big Bend – Lavumisa Mountains, and when she finally got Musa and returned home, she was going to relax the whole week in a cool tub with one cool drink after another.

After what I’ve been through, I have earned it, she thought.

Turning a bit, she tried to get more than just a glimpse of her abductor. He looked more formidable than the horse if that was possible. Maybe it was just her angle that made him appear colossal and terrifying; Or maybe it was the bleak contrast of the child’s smallness pressed against his chest in the makeshift sling. The man stared at his hand again, opened it and then clenched it into a fist as though he tested it.

‘For heaven’s sake,’ she thought. ‘It was a little nibble. It wasn’t as though she was rabid.’

She hoped it hurt him as much as this ride hurt her.

“I guess you could hold your own with old Thabani, after all.” He chuckled, putting his hand in his mouth and sucking on it.

Excellent, she thought. I hope it stings him like hell.

At least his hand in his mouth made him stay quiet for a while. Only the horse’s feet produced a harassing noise as they rode, higher and higher, up the mountain. The baby slept against the man’s chest, and Hannah waited to see what would happen next. The rocking motion of the horse was lulling her into a dazed trance when the man spoke again, startling her.

“You got a name?” he asked.

The effort of turning to look at what kind of an idiot would ask a question like that seemed too much. She stayed where she was.

“Want me to guess? I’d bet from the facial looks and that pretty little way you had of screaming at me that it’s Rosie. I think that gives a picture of a pretty girl a Zimbabwean, doesn’t it? Yup, Rosie is my guess.”

He paused for some reaction from her, but she gave him none. What was the point of screaming? She’d hardly gotten a word out before he’d clamped his hand over her mouth and shut her up. And she didn’t care how many of her relatives had said it. She didn’t sound anything like her mother when she was angry.

“No? Not Rosie? Then how about Hannah something? Hannah Ruth? Hannah Abigail? Hannah Precious? You Zimbabwean girls have more than one name.”

She grimaced, as much from the pain as from listening to the stranger who straddled the horse behind her. Her skin tingled where the firmness of his thighs rubbed against her side, despite the layers of clothing she wore. The gentle resting of his rein hand was an added indignity. If it wasn’t for his incessant chatter distracting her, she thought she might have gone mad.

“Well, if it isn’t Hannah something, it’s something Hannah, right? Close enough. So, Hannah Love, which Dlamini is it?”

She wretched herself sideways and probably would have fallen right off the horse if he hadn’t pulled her firmly against him. She had a choice: the saddle pommel or the inside of his thighs and what lay between them. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place. If she hadn’t been so terrified about what their captor planned for her and the baby, she might have found the thought amusing.

“Whoa there,” he ordered, and she wasn’t sure whether he was commanding his horse or her. He secured her squirming form, tucking the skirt she had borrowed from Thandi beneath his leg to hold her in place. “Don’t like talking about the Dlamini’s, then?” he asked, and he gave the horse a kick. “Too damn slow with all this weight.” Well, she surely hadn’t asked to come along. The first ripples of anger began to build within her, replacing the terror and giving her strength. “I don’t really blame you. I loved a Dlamini once myself, and with what outcome, a bum leg.”

He was silent a moment, and Hannah treasured the silence. She had noticed that his leg protruded at an odd angle for a rider. She had a good view of it, cast over the saddle the way she was. It was weirdly straight, as though he were a Halloween monk with only one knee. “A crippled leg and my son,” he added.

Hannah stiffened. So, this was it. He was the dead father who Thandi and her brothers spoke about. At least he probably meant no harm to the baby. As for her, well, time would tell.

She was pressed up against the saddle edge, and she found it difficult if not impossible to relax her body to ease her aching hip off the protrusion. Her captor’s hands moved her like a little doll once again, mildly relieving her discomfort. How long had they been on horseback? The sun didn’t shift more than a millimetre in the sky. It was still morning. She felt as if she’d been in this position for hours; days; forever.

The baby stirred, probably disturbed by the change in position. She felt the horse come to a halt, despite the fact that the man had not ordered it to. She refused to look behind her.

“Damn,” he muffled a curse, shifting in the saddle. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I suppose I can’t put this off forever, can I, Hannah Love? Or should I call you ‘Something Hannah’? Sweet Hannah? How would that sound?” He placed his hand on Hannah’s bottom, squeezing gently. She stiffened with fear. “I’m really sorry to do this,” he admitted, and she held her breath. “Particularly not even knowing your name, or anything, but I’m afraid I have no choice. I don’t think waiting would make it easier.”

He caressed her slowly down her hip and followed a line on her inner thigh. This was absurd. He couldn’t. Not with a baby tied to his chest, on a horse, out in the open. He reached the sole of her foot and he began to slightly pull her skirt up. Oh, God in heaven! He intends to! The audacity which had stood in such good stead over the previous week disintegrated as the cool air tickled her skin and sent shivers up her legs.

Hail Hannah, full of Patience, she prayed. I know it’s been a long time. She felt his warm hand just above her knee, and the breath caught in her throat. No! No! No!

His hand crept even higher, burning the path upwards until it stopped suddenly, and she heard the cloth ripping beneath his hands. All those years at St. Aidan’s School, and she couldn’t remember the words. She remembered nothing except for the memory of nights in the dark and groping hands. Hail Hannah, full of patience … Hail Hannah … Oh dear God!

She turned awkwardly and she stared at him with disgust tears threatening. The snotty-nosed numbskull looked at her, and he shook his head pityingly. She couldn’t believe it. Quickly, she looked away, faced back at the ground, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She could still feel him still busy behind her and pictured and imagined what he did. Just like the last time, she had to imagine and suppose in the dark. Granted, her knowledge of men and women was narrow, but she was certain he’d have to get her off the horse and put down the baby.

She shook all over. Even the stallion was aware of it as he stomped his feet disgruntled. Well, he’ll have to untie her to have his way with her, and then she could find her way out. She could run. She felt exceptionally stupid and helpless. Where could she run to? How could she defend herself? The man and the horse were in their element, doubtlessly; and she was at their mercy.

“Now there, sweet Hannah, it’s just fabric. Nothing to cry over. I’d offer to get you another, but I suppose we won’t be together all that long. Besides, my memory tells me that it isn’t even yours, is it? You couldn’t wait long before laying a hand on everything she had, did you?”

A soiled napkin hit the ground with a thud, its urine stink rose up her nostrils and choked her. Relief cuddled her body, and she slacked against the horse, surprised to find that she had been as stiff as a corpse.

“It’s fortunate we brought Sweet Hannah, huh son. Sweet Hannah and her supply of these fabrics looks like providence, and your mama’s going to provide just fine for you.”

The baby, unaware of everything going on but his own comforts, made happy baby noises. His happy screams reassured Hannah that the circumstances hadn’t harmed him, so far. For a fleeting moment, it came to her to warn their captor what was soon to happen now that the crisp April air bathed the baby’s little groin. But a string of muffled curses told her that she was too late, even if she had been willing or able to alert him.

“Damn!” the man yelled out, trying to aim the baby away from him, wetting her still uncovered leg in the process, dampening her satisfaction only slightly. “Ah! Little brat what are you …”

Hannah felt the shaking before she could recognise its origin. The horse flounced nervously beneath them, and the baby stopped the squirming he had begun.

Dear God, if he touches a hair on that child, I’ll rip his putrid eyes out of their sockets and shove them down his rugged throat! And then she heard it, quiet at first and becoming louder till it echoed all around them. He was actually laughing, a belly laugh that shook against her, nudging her sore side against the saddle edge.

“Well, I’ve dug a goddamn water fountain, haven’t I? Feel no remorse, baby. Same thing happens to your dad when the cold air hits his privates, too. Interesting to know we’ve got something in common already.”

Then Hannah felt the baby resting on her back, and she frowned. Nice of him to think of her as a table. So, she was to provide both the napkins and the changing table, apparently.

“Okay son. I admit I have no idea how to put this on you properly, so I guess this will have to do. Try to sleep again, and I’ll wake you up when there’s something for you to eat.”

Miraculously, the baby complied, and they rode on for a while in silence, Hannah tried to think despite the overwhelming nausea that being carried in this position produced. What she wouldn’t give to sit upright for even five minutes!

“Sweet Hannah? You asleep?” the voice was almost tender. She remained quiet in the hope that he would stop talking, but he shook her gently, instead. “Miss? I think I can let you go as soon as we reach that crop of trees. We’re far away from the river, and I can move faster without your extra weight. If you start going back now, you can reach the river before dark. I figure whichever one of the Dlaminis you’re attached to will be out looking for you, and you won’t have to walk all that far. I really am very sorry to drag you along like this, but I can’t see as how you leave me much choice.”

He planned to leave them here? What was the point in that? Unless he meant just leaving her and taking the child. Well, if that was what he meant, he’d have to think again, wouldn’t he? She wasn’t about to let go of her baby; not little Pat.

“Now, you can make this hard or easy,” he told her as they neared the bushes. “I’m going to put you down and untie your hands. I imagine you can do the rest.”

He lowered her off the horse and tried to set her on her feet, all without getting out of the saddle. She fell in a heap like a rag doll, the dust of the road rising around her in a puff. She scrambled about trying to right herself, aware of how close the horse’s hooves stood ready to stomp her beneath them.

“Damn,” Welcome sulked, getting down awkwardly from his mount. “Sorry, I should have figured you couldn’t stand like that.”

He rolled her onto her stomach and loosened the ropes on her wrists. Before he could even step out of her way, she’d pulled the gag out of her mouth, and after spitting several hours’ worth of road dust and wiping her lips quickly with the dirty handkerchief, she began to sputter at him.

“Of all the stupid, idiotic things to do. What the hell did you think you could accomplish by …”

At her shouts the baby began to cry. Welcome looked at him, mildly surprised, and then he turned to Hannah.

“Now look what your yelling’s done. Didn’t you learn anything from the last time you shouted at me?”

“And did it ever occur to you that he might be crying because you’ve stolen him, detached him from his family, stuck him on a goddamn stallion, and haven’t fed him the whole day? It’s not my yelling, it’s hunger, you idiot! Haven’t you got a canteen of water?”

“Of course, I have a canteen,” he bellowed back, but he made no move to fetch it.

“Give me the baby and get it,” she instructed and laughed at his hesitation. Pointing at her still bound feet, she asked him, “And do I look like I can run?”

He leaned over clumsily until a good portion of his weight was balanced on his hands and he pushed himself up onto his good leg. He seemed embarrassed by his efforts.

“What’s the matter with your leg?”

“Shot,” he said briefly.

There was a strained silence, which Hannah finally broke.

“And we’ll need another piece of my underskirt. Unless you brought a bottle and a nipple for the baby?” she stared at him, and he shrugged slightly.

“Your underskirt?”

“Yes, my underskirt. Did you use all you ripped off?”

“Oh, you mean your petticoat. ’Fraid he used it all, and then some,” he said, pointing towards the baby and the big wet stain on his shirt.

“Well, we’ll have to rip a little bit more.” Her hands were fully occupied with the baby, so she waited for him to do it.

When he brought her the canteen, she juggled the baby so that she could reach the petticoat herself. Then she waited for him to settle himself down, noting again the ignominy he showed with regard to his leg. She made no mention of it but simply handed him the edge of Thandi’s frilly slip and allowed him to rip it.

“Make sure this part is clean,” she warned him. “I need a long thin piece.”

He looked at her oddly, but he did what he was told. Then she soaked the rag with the water and let the baby suck on it, which quieted him immediately. While the baby drank, the man unbound her feet.

“You want to tell me what the hell is going on?” Hannah demanded. Untied, on solid ground, with the baby in her arms, she felt less frightened of the man, who couldn’t pry his gaze from the child she held. “If I’m not mistaken about them, I think this baby’s uncles are murderers, and they aren’t going to take too kindly to what you just did. We have to go to the police and tell them what I heard. I’m sure they’ll give you some kind of protection, and I can get the baby to Child Welfare and they’ll find a good home …”

He interrupted her. “Nobody’s finding a home for what’s mine.”

“You really are his father? They said that his father was dead,” Hannah said. She held the baby tighter to her, flexing her feet to get the circulation back.

“Why else would I have taken him, you little fool? I’m his pa, and he’s staying with me. Let the Dlaminis try to take him away. I’ll be ready.”

She noticed that he had brought the rifle with him to where they sat, and that he had another gun strapped to his hip.

“This is ridiculous,” she argued, placing the rag against the baby’s lips to remind him why it was there, and wrapping her skirts around him to keep him warm. “If the baby is yours, why didn’t you just sue for custody? You could have gotten a court order, now that Thandi is …” she stopped midsentence. Did he know about Thandi? Did he know that his wife was dead?

“… Dead? So who’s going to say whether I’m the daddy or not? Just my word. Besides, we’re talking about the Dlaminis. The law doesn’t mean anything to them.”

Hannah’s shoulders sagged. Her side ached and so did her head. She was bone tired and confused. “Look, we’ve got Mashwa. Let’s just find an inn, wash up, get some food and some sleep, and we’ll go to the police in the morning.”

“Mashwa? They named him Mashwa? Just shows they don’t have a loving bone in their bodies. His name is Musa, after my father’s name.”

Musa? Could wires have gotten crossed somehow? Had she been chasing some other child named Musa?

“Musa?” she said, blinking quickly as though that would make things clearer. “This is Musa? You mean to tell me that I’ve been chasing the wrong child?”

Welcome looked at the woman holding his son. He couldn’t really blame her for being upset. He hadn’t exactly treated her with the courtesy due to a woman. Of course, judging from her mouth, the way her hair was misarranged like she’d just gotten out of some man’s bed, and the fact that it wasn’t just some man but one of the Dlamini’s, she really didn’t deserve to be treated like a lady. Still, some kind of shock seemed to be setting in. Tears rolled down her face, but she was laughing.

“You mean to tell me,” she said, nearly gasping for breath, “that I fell from a goddamn cliff, nearly drowned in the river, walked across the desert in the middle of the night, had rifles aimed at me, watched a woman die in my arms, all for the wrong child?” She paused, and Welcome lowered his eyes out of respect for the mother of his son. When he looked up, she continued. “… I tried to run away with a baby, got babynapped, and spent a day across the front of a horse, and it was all a huge mistake?”

“The wrong child?” Welcome asked. He had no idea what she was talking about.

“I’m looking for Musa Shabalala. Light in complexion, eleven to twelve months old. Somehow my sources must have gotten screwed up.”

“Screwed up?”

“Do you repeat everyone’s words, or is it just me?”

“Repeat you? I’m just trying to understand you. I reckon the ride jiggled your brains loose.” He looked at the mess she presented, her hair every which way, her cheeks flushed, her blouse off one shoulder. “Reckon that wasn’t all that got jiggled.”

She looked down and straightened her clothes, embarrassment painting her cheeks deeper still. “Look, Mister. This is your son? Fine. Let’s take him to the authorities, and you can clear up everything with them. You can take me back to my car, and I’ll go back to look for Musa, my Musa, if there’s still a trail to follow.”

The baby caught a lock of the Hannah’s hair and put it in his mouth. She didn’t appear to notice, so Welcome leaned over and took it away. Up close the woman was covered with tiny freckles. For a moment he wondered if they were spread over every inch of her body. The freckles were the one thing he hadn’t noticed from a distance.

“You ever talk sense,” Welcome asked her. “Cause your talk’s harder to follow than a flea on a buffalo’s fair.”

“I’m hard to follow. Am I the one who came riding up on a horse, grabbing an innocent woman and dragged her across the stupid desert?”

“Innocent?” he asked.

She blushed and looked away, shifting the baby in her arms and wetting the rag again, then returning it to the child to suck on. He wondered what he would have done about giving the baby water without her. He’d have thought of something. He always did.

“You’ve an interesting way of putting things, sweet Hannah. And I like the twang, too.”

“I’ve no trace … I have no trace of my mother’s twang – end of discussion on that.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

Damned if she wasn’t red from her toes up to her hair. What an angry little cat he’d found, even if all her claws were hidden by her softness. He leaned back and let her anger burn out, only to be replaced by confusion.

“Okay. I can see how you thought going through the court would be an exercise in futility. But can you tell me why we had to spend the whole damn day on a horse? I realise that the Dlamini’s’ place is pretty inaccessible but …”

She rubbed at her hip again. She’d have a beauty of a black and blue mark there in the morning, he was sure. His own leg ached from the ride, and he lay nearly prone, placing his weight on his elbow while he studied something, but he had no idea what it might be. The Dlamini’s? He listened but heard nothing.

“I don’t think, sweet Hannah, I know. It’s April of 1973. I believe it’s Tuesday the third, but I was on the ridge a long time. It could be Wednesday, the fourth.”

She turned her head to him slowly. If he’d ever seen eyes that sad, he couldn’t remember them. She spoke to him like she was sort of in a dream, or one of those trances at a magic show.

“There aren’t any power lines. No wires. Not one car since I got here,” she said.

Welcome snickered and shook his head. “Listen to me,” he said, grabbing the woman and trying to get her attention. “Someone’s coming. No doubt, the Dlamini’s. I have to take off with Musa. You just wait here, and they’ll find you. It’ll be fine. Just give me the rest of the petticoat, just in case and then I’ll leave.”

She made no move to obey him.

“Sweet Hannah, I said give me your petticoat. Now let’s go.”

“It’s 1973?” she asked.

He nodded. He didn’t have much time.

“I have to go,” he said, deciding that he just had to do without her skirt. He took the last look at the woman. She shook her head, looking frantically around. Suddenly she turned away from him, and he could hear her heaving. He felt the bile rise in his own throat at the sound and he stood by helplessly until she had finished.

“Here,” he said, handing her the canteen. “Rinse your mouth.”

The woman took the canteen, but her hand shook so badly that Welcome had to help guide the container to her mouth. She drank and then spat.

“Now I really have to go, Sweet Hannah. Just tell Mandla the truth. It’ll be all right.”

She grabbed onto his sleeve, and he turned to her, cursing his stupidity for ever bringing her along. He should have just tied her up and left her there. He’d have gone twice as fast without her on the horse, and he wouldn’t be standing here now, knowing that the Dlaminis were on the way, and now he couldn’t leave her on her own.

“The truth?” she said. “The truth is that it can’t be 1973. That’s two decades ago. I can’t be here. I have a job, an apartment, a car with an airbag. It can’t be 1973; It can’t.”

Welcome thought about the first time he had seen this woman. He’d been intently watching the river and from nowhere, she appeared. A nagging suspicion crept slowly up his spine. Impossible. A year with the traditional healers, and he believed in legends. She simply had to be confused. She couldn’t be from 1993. That was ridiculous.

He felt the woman’s forehead. She had no fever, wasn’t delirious. The baby was fidgeting, no doubt hungry, and he knew that he had to get moving.

“I have to leave you, Sweet Hannah. I’ve got to go.” Still she held onto his shirt. He tried to take a step towards his horse, and she took one, too. “You can’t come along, Sweet Hannah, and I don’t have time …”

“Then are you going to waste it arguing?” she asked as if she’d suddenly come to her senses.

“No,” he said. “You aren’t coming.” He set her away from him, but when he got on to the horse, she was there.

“They’re murderers. Are you really contemplating to leave me with these monsters? And you need me, anyway. You don’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby.”

She put her foot gentle on the instep of his good leg. It set him off balance, and he leaned against her for a moment. For all her thinness, she was softer than he’d expected. She snatched the baby out of the sling and hugged him to her body.

“You need me,” she repeated, reaching out pushing him gently.

He nearly fell, but he caught himself against the horse, who shied away. If she hadn’t supported his foot and grabbed his arm, he’d have fallen, and he knew it. What a sorry excuse for a man he’d turned out to be. Before Thandi Dlamini, there weren’t ten men in the whole damn territory that would have dared push him, let alone a woman. Now some tiny wisp of a thing could knock him off his feet, but need her?

“Damn you! Don’t you know better than to anger a gimp?” He pulled away from her and grabbed the horse’s reins.

“And I’ll be riding upright this time,” she told him with that slight Zimbabwean accent to her voice.

She left her hand on his arm; with the other, she cradled his child. He debated the idea in his head for a moment, and then he put his left foot into the stirrup and hauled his stiff right leg around with a soft curse.

“Hand me up the baby.” She moved closer to the horse and then she hesitated. She held his son protectively, as if she could shield him from the element with her arms, alone. “You can’t get up here with the baby in your arms, now can you?” He raised his eyebrows.

“And if I give you little Pat, what’s to say you won’t just ride off with him in your arms and leave me here?”

“Little Pat? I thought you said that his name was Mashwa,” Welcome responded, thoroughly confused.

“I couldn’t stand it either,” she admitted, a girlish giggle escaping with the admission.

“Well, if you don’t hurry up onto this horse, all three of our names will be followed by ‘rest in peace,’ honey. Darkness is falling, let’s go.”

***

The sound of angry horses’ hooves echoed against the mountains surrounding them. Welcome reached down, grabbed the baby, and tucked him back against his chest. The woman stared intently at him, daring him to go back on his word.

Reluctantly, his hand went down and clasped hers. In one second she was seated behind him.

“You weren’t kidding, were you?” she asked. “About it being 1973?”

He shook his head. The land bridge had been right near where he had lain in wait. What was it the traditional healers called it? The Bridge of Safety?

“It’s 1973, Sweet Hannah,” he said.

“My name is Hannah,” she corrected.

He liked Sweet Hannah better.

“Welcome,” he replied, as if they were introducing themselves at some church social. The clatter of hooves grew louder still, and darkness was falling.

“If we can hear them …” Hannah warned in Welcome’s ear.

“Shit,” he replied. “Will you be able to keep him quiet?” Welcome whispered in the darkness.

Hannah nodded, and then she realised that he couldn’t see her, and she made a tiny affirmative noise. Fear sent goose bumps up and down her arms, and if she didn’t have the baby to cling to, she might have hugged herself until she was squashed between her arms. She felt Welcome’s arm go around her, guiding her against his warmth.

“You’re shivering.” He ran his hand up and down her arm, trying to warm her. “Put your hand in here,” he said, taking one of her hands and putting it inside his shirt.

Tentatively, she unclenched her fist and rested the palm of her cold hand against the warmth of Welcome’s chest. The warmth of his body drove the chill away.

***

They could see nothing in the darkness of the tiny room, hidden in the bowels of an English farmer’s ruins, all dry and cold and empty. Hannah followed Welcome down the ladder at the last moment, not wanting to be hidden in the dark basement any longer than necessary. Hundreds of years ago this had been an English man’s storehouse and a sacred place, used for preserving grains and for ceremonies.

Hannah could swear that the spirits still inhabited the room as she huddled on the floor, listening for human sounds. She heard instead the scurrying of a small animal and flinched instinctively. Welcome patted her arm gently, pulling her still closer against him.

“God, you’re stiff, woman,” he said. “I’m just offering you the warmth of my body.”

He reached across her to scoop her into him, and she felt his hand touch her naked legs. At the contact, she jumped away like a jackrabbit, banging her head against the hard stones behind her and gasping loudly. “No wonder you’re cold! What are you doing with your damn skirts up?” he asked, tugging at them to no avail and tracing them until he learnt that they were wrapped snugly around his son.

“Have you suddenly gone dumb?” he said through clenched teeth, barely controlling his temper. “He’s my son, and I can see to his needs.” He took his arm off her shoulder. Even in the dark she could tell that he removed his shirt. He tried to pry the baby from her arms, but she refused to let go. The baby was nearly asleep. Jostling him now could make him cry. Besides, she needed to keep him pressed tightly against her to keep her heavily pounding heart from breaking out of her chest.

With a sigh, he put his shirt over her legs and leaned back against the cold stones.

“Thanks …” Hannah began, but Welcome quickly put his hand over her mouth.

It tasted fairly salty, as she quickly closed her lips and nodded that she understood. He moved his arm around her and pulled her tightly to him. His body felt remarkably warm despite the coolness of their hiding place. His other hand moved to his side. She heard the gun slip quietly out of his holster, metal against leather, as if it had made that trip a thousand times before.

Boots on rock and wood floors made a hard, cold sound that echoed off the stone walls around them. In the room above them, a piece of furniture scraped against the floor, and footsteps stopped above their heads. Hannah inhaled sharply. Welcome smelled of sweat, the baby’s pee, and something indefinable. It was a sharp pungent smell but not all that unpleasant. Hannah buried deeper against him, and his arm tightened against her protectively. The tension in his body was overwhelming, and Hannah knew from the feel of his taunt left leg beside her that if he had two good legs, he’d have been up on them. Now, it was suddenly too late.

“Themba, what the hell are you doing?” Thabani Dlamini hollered. The words reverberating in the clay basement in which Hannah and Welcome hid.

“Look here,” he answered, and they heard a second set of boots cross over their heads. Once before, she had huddled in the dark with a man’s arms around her, waiting for voices to pass and leave them alone again. This man sat rigidly as the other one had. This one’s hand had covered her mouth, touched her leg, just as the other one’s had. She took shallow little gulps of air, fighting the rising panic within her.

In her head, voices rang from beyond a closed door: Have you seen Father Darien? Is anyone in there?

“I found myself a lady’s petticoat, Thabani. Think what her name is?” the voice belonged to Themba.

“All that stuff looks the same to me. The only difference is the woman in it.”

“Look, Thabani, it’s ripped. Do you suppose Mandla’s right, and it could be, and he got up into her underwear? Suppose they did it right on this floor?” He stamped, and Hannah felt dizzy and sick to her core.

Welcome sat rigidly against her.

“Mandla will be mad if she’s getting poked.”

“Well, if it is Welcome who’s got her, I’d be surprised if he could do much with her; but if he’s still alive, he might be willing to poke anybody who wants what’s left of him. I’d guess between her looks and his remains; it wouldn’t be much to see.”

“You suppose she’s got those freckles even where the sun doesn’t shine?” Themba asked.

The baby stretched in Hannah’s arms and made a sucking sound. Welcome tensed, and she felt his hand move by his side. Was that a click of a gun’s hammer being pulled back? The baby smacked his lips again, and she pushed her thumb against his lips. Accepting the substitute, he rubbed his sore gums against her finger noisily. It was the best Hannah could do. She just had to hope that the Dlaminis couldn’t hear it against the echoes of their voices.

Another set of footsteps joined the others. Mandla Dlamini’s voice filled the ancient ruins and echoed in the mouldy basement around the hidden threesome.

“From the looks of it outside, they were here. I’d guess Welcome isn’t taking off his boots behind no pearly gates, Themba. I found this,” he said, and Hannah wondered what he showed his brothers.

“A.M. And that was her hair, all right,” Thabani agreed.

She could feel Welcome nodding in the dark.

“And look here,” Themba said, apparently showing him the petticoat.

“And it’s ripped, too.”

“With Thandi not even cold in her grave. I thought that you gelded him at least, Themba. Is that what you said?”

“I guess I should have aimed better when I ran him off. If Thandi wasn’t screaming so much about how sorry she was, I’d be sure to get him in the balls. Still, I must have done him good. Isn’t nobody caught him with their woman since I found him between Thandi’s legs …”

Hannah could feel the heat rising from Welcome’s body, despite the fact that she leaned away from him. His body was taut, and his breathing controlled. She shivered, but he was lost in the moment, his face rigid in the face of danger.

“What are we going to do now?” Themba asked.

“We’re going to rescue Mashwa and Miss,” Mandla answered friendly. “Then we’re going to cut off what is left of Welcome’s sausage and feed it to Topsy.”

“Yeah!” shouted Themba, his voice covered the second of Hannah’s retching. “Let’s go get them.”

They waited for the clatter of horses’ hooves before Welcome threw back the trapdoor. Light and fresh air streamed into the basement, and Hannah gulped in big breaths of it. Upstairs, Welcome cleaned up a cup with a whisk of the forgotten petticoat and filled it with water. He handed it to Hannah, who took it gratefully with both hands.

“Drink it slowly,” he warned her. “I don’t know where the next drop will come from.”