Chapter 88 Running!
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He softly presses Koko's small hand while she is smiling at him with an affectionate look in her eyes. "I had to clarify with her and discuss the implications before I could convey the news to you. She concurs and understands the position in which she will be placed. However, she believes she was chosen."
Hannes now becomes impatient. "Okay, we understand, Boeta, but get to the point. What is so important?"
"I must tell you the whole story. How we met and landed up here together. Then you will understand everything."
Even Donovan airs his impatience: "Please, tell us now …"
~*~*~
Boeta Paljas is walking with bare feet and a bare upper body back to the farmhouse carrying a bloody, slaughtered gazelle hanging over his shoulders with his homemade bow and arrow. His shirt is in his carry bag to prevent it from becoming smeared with blood. His bag, in any case, is stained with old blood spots.
Boeta is an exquisite hunter, a real hunter who only kills to eat. He hates the scoundrels with their cabs who blind the animals at night and shoot them. He despises the villains who kill only for their pleasure to satisfy their false idea of manhood. He loathes the low rubbish because he does the right thing. For the past few days, he has roamed the woods on the lookout for just the right piece of meat. With his hunting skill his arrow pierced the gazelle, he cut its throat and has carried it back to the farm for his family to savor.
Martie, his lovely mother, will be pleasantly surprised with his present catch. Nothing will go to waste. Even the skin and intestines will be processed and used. It is how his parents raised him here on this game farm. He now emerges from the woods and is entering the open yard at the farmhouse.
He walks up the wooden steps, opens the back door, and proceeds to the washing room next to the kitchen. "Mother!" he calls. "Come and have a look what I've brought home."
The carcass he hangs very carefully on a hook above the sink, puts the plug in, and opens the tap. First, he will skin the gazelle and then prepare it before it goes into the freezer. Later on, he will saw up the frozen meat easily in useful portions with the meat saw.
"Mamma ..."
He wonders where his mother is. He hasn't seen her at the washing line. Maybe she is sleeping. He closes the tap and walks along the corridor looking for his parents. He wants to get a shower to wash the blood from him and his clothes but before that, he wants to tell them proudly of what he brought.
The house is silent and he discovers no one in the quiet home. He peeps through the sitting room window. Their cab is parked in front. So, they haven't gone somewhere. Worried he showers quickly, clothes and all, and washes the most blood and sweat out of the clothes before he, as usual, strips naked and continues washing the clothes by trampling on it. He climbs out, walks to his room without clothes, and dresses himself in a T-shirt and shorts.
All the time he has been nagged about the whereabouts of his parents. With bare feet, he walks out of the house to search for them outside. He hopes trouble hasn't emerged from the squatter camp nearby. Although it is a way off, on the other side of the national road, you may never know what kind of elements to expect. Where are his parents? Where must he search for them?
He listens carefully and again hears a noise but can't make out where it originates. He jogs to the bushes in the direction of the noise. Between the trees, he can make out someone in ragged squatter camp clothes running, and then he sees his parents. It seems they are chasing the person.
"Mum ... dad ... what is going on?"
His mother is hot on the heels of the running person but his father stops and looks at him. He jogs nearer. There is something terribly wrong with his father. His face and his shirt are full of blood and his eyes are wild and stare at him strangely. He sees his mother vanishes into the bushes as she still pursues the person. When he looks back, his father rushes at him.
"Dad?"
His father doesn't answers and only makes odd, growling sounds like that of a wild animal. He instinctively knows there is something seriously wrong with his father and that he must get away. He shoots to where his mother disappeared in the bushes with his father hot on his heels. When he comes out in an opening in the bushes, he sees his mother still chasing the person. Suddenly the person trips. The next moment his mother jumps on the person. It looks as if she bites and scratches the person while they are wrestling furiously.
The person manages to wriggle out from under his mother, kicks her away with the feet, plucks loose, and runs away. Shock rocks his heart when his mother looks back and like a wild animal makes the same sounds like his father. With a bloodied face she charges and grabs wildly at him. He sidesteps her and races past her with his parents following him. Terrified the person looks back. He sees it is a young, black girl. Her face is not full of blood and she looks normal. Why are they chasing her? What is wrong with them?
The girl is now running in a footpath down a decline. Boeta realizes this is the path that leads to the gorges. It has been raining hard yesterday, so the stream will be in flood. They are in a cul de sac.
While he races behind her, he tries to shout a warning in Xhosa: "It is a dead-end ahead! The stream is in flood!"
She doesn't call back and only increases her speed. Suddenly the water is in front of them and they both desperately jump into the stream. Boeta only sees brown in front of him while the strong stream washes him along. He feels a stump against his shoulder and grabs it for life or death. With immense effort, he pulls himself to the surface and eventually gets his head above and blows out his breath and the inhales sharply. The girl is right in front of him holding onto the same stump for dear life. Suddenly they are washed in the direction of a tree that has landed across the stream and there is not enough space for the stump and both of them to pass under it.
They let go of the stump and hang in the stream that threatens to pull them down and wash them downstream. For life and death, Boeta struggles with brute force against the water with his right knee. Eventually, he manages to place his knee at the front end of the stump where the water presses it against the stump. It helps him to hook his leg over the stump so that he with utter effort manages to pull him up against the stump. Eventually, he succeeds to get out of the water and on the stump. He looks back at the terrified girl clinging to the stump but the water will soon overwhelm her. He gets hold of her under her armpits while he attaches himself with his legs to the stump and helps her in her savage battle with the relentless flood.
Slowly but surely, she comes up until he eventually helps her onto the stump. They creep along with the stump over the stream to the other side where they climb on the bank and look back, relieved. Boeta is amazed to see his parents with a group of lunatics on the other side. They are moving to and fro while staring frustrated at them. They seem to be determined to cross the stream, come forward just to stand back as if they are afraid to endeavor to cross the stream over the stump to follow them.
Boeta grabs the girl's hands and they look at each other terrified while he explains in her language: "They are too afraid to cross the stream and get to us. They don't even want to cross over the stump. Come with me. I think we must leave the woods. I think I know the right place where we can swim across a wide pool surrounded by vertical cliffs. I think we will be safe once we've crossed the pool."
She nods and he asks. "Are you okay?"
She nods again. He sees blood streaming from her right arm down to her hand. He pulls up her sleeve and finds an ugly wound where his mother's nails cut her and it is bleeding profusely. There are also bruises and teeth marks on her skin where she was badly bitten.
"Oh, no. Shame! How could she do this to you? What the hell is going on?"
He takes his T-shirt off and with brute force tears it into pieces. She meekly allows him to bandage her arm.
