Kujana Farm, Hluhluwe, South Africa
12:30pm
Buffel hated being disorganised.
He hated spur of the moment decisions without planning.
Taking Shilo in front of everyone had been one of those moments.
If only that farmer and Shilo hadn’t chased him.
He’d only gone to the auction to check the information he had was correct. Then he was going to stake out their ranch and learn the routines.
He wasn’t ready for a confrontation.
He had been spooked when they had recognised him in the tent and given chase. His impromptu kamikaze escape had almost worked. Except Shilo had taken him by surprise when he charged him by his bakkie. He didn’t think Shilo had it in him to take him on, in hand-to-hand combat. Shilo knew his strength, and even at sixty-three he was a stronger man than most.
He had underestimated Shilo’s determination and rage. Grabbing a stick from the back and knocking him out had been his only choice. But then he had thought that if he had Shilo, then the farmer would follow, and that he would bring Tara with him.
He would get his Butterfly for Impendla.
So he had lifted Shilo into his bakkie and driven away.
The only place he knew that the man would follow and bring The Butterfly was Kujana Farm. He already knew the way there. He had stopped on the side of the road and tied Shilo up by both his hands and his feet before moving him to the front seat. Shilo had started to groan and wake while he was tying him tightly to the passenger seat.
He cursed that Shilo was too big to fit in the hidden compartment under the back seat where he’d smuggled his little butterflies through the border posts.
He began the drive towards Kujana Farm.
Shilo groaned again.
‘Shut up, quit moaning like that!’ Buffel said.
‘Shit, Buffel, you son of a bitch. What the—’ Shilo surfaced enough to realise he was tied up. Tight. ‘You fucking lunatic. Untie me. Let me go!’ But as he struggled, he hit his head on the headrest, and groaned at the pain.
‘I should have hit you harder across that thick head you savage good-for-nothing kaffir. Then I wouldn’t have to listen to your voice,’ Buffel muttered.
‘Any harder and I would have been dead,’ Shilo said as he attempted to move against the rope that held him to the chair.
‘You might still get your wish. Stay still, man. Wriggling is not going to loosen that rope.’
‘Fuck it, Buffel! Get these bladdy ropes off me. I know what you do with people you take hostage. No fucking way are you doing that to me!’
‘I remember it like it was yesterday! Now shut up before I shut you the fuck up!’
‘Buffel, stop this bakkie and let me out. You can’t do this, people would have seen you at the auction, the police will get involved. This can’t end well for you. Think, man, this is not the type of thing you do, you plan things. Untie me!’
‘I just want The Butterfly. Then Impendla can cross over and be with his ancestors. He will bring her with him to save you.’
‘The Butterfly? Tara? You can’t still be after her all these years?’ Shilo asked.
Buffel rocked in his seat as he drove. ‘The Butterfly. I need her to set Impendla free.’ He looked across at Shilo.
‘Who is Impendla, for God’s sake?’
‘He was taken. The Karoi, she killed him. She hung him …’ Buffel’s voice dropped off as if speaking the words pained him too much to talk.
‘Buffel, you can stop this, you can end it. Let me go. Piss off back to Zimbabwe. I haven’t broken my oath. All these years, I haven’t talked. I never told anyone your name. No one needs to know, just leave me here on the road. Let me go!’
‘But you might. You still might. Now stop talking,’ Buffel said, ‘before I stuff something in your mouth to shut you up or better yet, I can stop and get the tranqs from my hunting bag.’
Buffel thought about the tranquillisers, how he might need to adjust the dose for Shilo. The shots he gave the girls when he took them to accompany Impendla would be too weak.
The first girl he had given the tranquiliser to in Cape Town had died too quickly, and he had learnt to decrease the dosage, keeping the girls barely alive, silent and immobilised as they were hidden in his bakkie beneath his seat, with the sheep he was transporting covering any noise or smell they made, until he could take them to his shrine. Only there could he spill their blood. Only where it was sacred for Impendla.
He had learnt that a child couldn’t have as much of the chemicals as a wild animal.
Soon he might need to give a similar amount to Shilo. He didn’t want to kill him just yet.
He wanted Shilo alive.
‘Why are we going towards my farm?’ Shilo asked, breaking into Buffel’s thoughts.
‘He will bring The Butterfly home,’ Buffel said.
There was a long silence. Then Shilo spoke, ‘No. Buffel, listen to me. Wayne is a Recce. A true fucking Recce, an operative, not a desk jock. You know their reputation. They are legendary for being fucking psychos. Do you seriously think that he will let you get away with this? He will never let Tara go, you won’t get her. Stop the bakkie. Don’t try and fight Wayne for Tara. It won’t work. He will kill you!’
Buffel stopped the bakkie again on the side of the road. He grabbed a rag out of the side panel in the door as he got out and walked around to the passenger side. He climbed in the back, and put the rag over the top of the seat, and against Shilo’s mouth.
Shilo clamped his teeth together.
Buffel attempted for a moment to saw the material backwards and forwards against the obstruction.
‘Open now or you get a tranquilliser shot!’ Buffel said, and Shilo opened his teeth a little. Buffel pulled the rag tight and fastened the gag in place behind his head.
Coming up to the turn off of Kujana Farm, Buffel smiled. There were signs that counted down the kilometres to the entry. He should have expected a flash entrance like it had, the place was a game farm, and by the looks of it, and from what he had got out of the locals, a prosperous one.
Buffel turned in and drove over the extra wide cattle grid. ‘He doesn’t mess around with his entrance, does he?’ he said as he raced down the farm road through the trees that lined the sealed road.
He could see what appeared to be a farmhouse nestled among the old tall trees to the left, but he needed somewhere more quiet to work on Shilo, to set a trap.
To collect his Butterfly and have an escape route out again.
He continued down the road and saw the perfect dwelling.
Behind the sheds there was a house tucked away. It was surrounded by tall, neatly trimmed hedges. He drove to the front gate, and through it. Not bothering to open it, his bull bar on the front caused it to shudder as it sprang back and opened towards the four-string barbed wire fence that hid inside the hedging. He went through the gate and drove slowly up the road towards the front door.
No dogs came running and barking at him. It was a good sign.
He looked around. No one was running to tell him he was in the wrong place for the safari farm experience. Good.
When the road turned to a single separate garage that was attached to the house, he left it and took the thinner concrete path to the front door. He drove over the rose bushes and flowers that lined the pathway. Soon he was as close to the door as he could get without driving up the steps.
He stopped and climbed out of the bakkie, taking his keys with him as he walked up the front steps and tried the front door. It was locked. He ran his finger along its edge, finding that it opened inwards.
He took a step back then he lifted his foot and kicked at the lock. The door didn’t open, but it did give a little. He stepped backwards again, and slammed into the door with his shoulder.
This time the lock splintered the softer wood on the inside of the door.
He called out into the house. ‘Anyone home?’
No one answered him, and no one tried to shoot at him. He poked his head through the open door. Then he turned back to the bakkie and went to fetch Shilo.
He wasn’t old, but he was getting older. Shilo was a large man, and he huffed and puffed now as he manoeuvred him through the front door.
He dumped Shilo on the white leather couch in the lounge area. He cut a cord from the curtains and he tied it into the rope that already bound Shilo’s arms and legs. He tied Shilo to the metal feet of the sofa before taking a look around the house.
It was definitely empty, no one at home. No one hiding in a bedroom or anything.
The house belonged to one classy lady, based on the furnishings. From the white and red harem-styled main bedroom with the huge sleigh bed, to the fancy pink handtowels in the kitchen, the house smelt of expensive perfume.
He returned to the bakkie. Shouldering his duffel bag, he pulled his rifle from under the seat. Walking inside, he set both down on the white full pile carpet. But not too close to Shilo, just in case.
He needed to barricade the house and fortify the front. He also needed to ensure that he had a clear escape route planned. He knew that the farmer would come.
He knew that the police might come, but he needed to know from Shilo how much he had told them. He needed to try to trade Shilo for The Butterfly, and, maybe the boy too. He needed to complete the final ritual as close to the original as he could. Four males and two females. Only this time, The Butterfly would be sacrificed, and this time he would save Impedla. The children’s voices crying out in his head would be silenced as she walked them all through the light.
He hated that this part was not meticulously planned. It meant there was always an element where something could go wrong.
He kicked Shilo as he passed him and pushed a bookcase against the window near where the TV cabinet was.
This mess was all Shilo’s fault.
If he had just kept out of his business in the first place, it would never have come to this.
He lowered all the blinds, and pulled the curtains closed. He moved every piece of furniture that he could to either barricade a door or block a window, except the kitchen door at the back. He left that free of clutter as an escape route.
While he was moving things, he walked into a study, and there he found a CB radio station. He reached for the power button.
There was silence.
No chatter on the airwaves, but he wondered about the presence of a radio in the house, and the whereabouts of its owner.