Stumpy jabbed me awake early on the morning we were to cross the Limpopo River. It was almost as if he knew the coming day would be long and difficult. All around me people were sleeping under the makeshift shelter, but with Stumpy’s constant complaining, I couldn’t lie still another moment. I smeared the yellow ointment over my stump, gently massaged away the night’s stiffness, and tried to mentally prepare both of us for the crossing into South Africa.

I packed away my ointments and moved outside the shelter. The morning was still dark and quiet. I crutched my way toward the clearing where Innocent was sitting by the embers of last night’s fire. He glanced up as I approached and made room for me on the log beside him.

“This is my Bix-box,” he said. “In here I have everything I will ever need.”

“Good morning, Innocent. Can’t you sleep?”

He shook his head, his fingers lightly tapping the lid of his box, and then, as if he had suddenly thought of something, he turned toward the noise of the river. “Are there crocodiles in the water?”

“There might be a few, but none where we will cross.”

“Patson, why do you have to go across the river?”

“I have to find my sister. She is somewhere in South Africa.”

“How old?”

“Nine.”

“What’s her name?”

“Grace.”

Innocent fluttered his hand above his head, as if he had caught a memory in midair. “The Ephesians said that you are saved by grace through faith,” he stated, proudly. “That’s what Amai taught me. She also said I have to look after Deo. He’s my little brother. He’s fourteen. I have a picture for you, Patson.”

“For me?”

“Yes. In my Bix-box,” he said, nodding his head and smiling shyly at me.

“Well, can I see it?”

“I collect things. I don’t know why I wanted this picture, but now I know,” he said. “It was meant for you.”

He opened the cereal box and placed the lid on his lap. His long, slender fingers disappeared and I heard things rattling around inside the tin.

“You said you can’t run on one leg. This man runs with no legs. You should ask him how he does it.”

Innocent handed me a piece of newspaper folded into a tight square. It was a photograph of a man wearing a pair of orange sunglasses, a running shirt, and shorts. Both of his knees were connected to J-shaped, black space-age prosthetic blades. His whole body was clear off the ground, flying down a cinder track, and his face was a picture of perfect concentration.

“I bet you that one day you will run faster than him,” said Innocent, closing the lid of his Bix-box. “Because you’ve got one good leg and he’s got no legs.”

There was something compelling about the man running with no legs. It didn’t seem possible that he could be flying so effortlessly down the track and yet he was clearly running very fast. I couldn’t argue with Innocent’s reasoning; one leg had to be better than no legs at all. I had never imagined myself ever running again and yet here was someone more handicapped than I making it look so simple. “Thank you, Innocent, that’s quite amazing,” I said, handing him back the clipping.

“But that’s your picture now. I gave it to you,” he said, smiling. “You’ll see. One day you’ll run fast too. Just like that man.”

I folded the photograph and slipped it between the lattice of my peg leg and Stumpy, hoping it might offer him a bit of encouragement.

“There will be no crocodiles where we cross,” Innocent said to Deo as he walked over with mugs of tea and slices of buttered bread. “Patson says so.”

Above the tallest trees in the clearing a glimmer of light hinted at sunrise. People moved out of the grass huts and made their final preparations. Other men lifted the bamboo poles onto their shoulders and disappeared down the path toward the river. I caught Deo looking at my leg.

“My father will have to carry me some of the way,” I said, aware of his skeptical expression. “He promised Mai Maria that I would not hold up everyone.”

“We leave in ten minutes,” one of Mai Maria’s helpers announced as Boubacar walked over to the fire carrying our bags. He looked tense and serious.

“You’re ready, son?” he asked, putting out his hand to help me up.

“Ready,” I replied, throwing the last of my tea into the fire.

We moved out of the clearing and down a steep path to the Limpopo River shrouded in early-morning mist. Every minute we were not moving forward gave Commander Jesus more time to find us, and Grace would be farther and farther away. In front of us thirty people walked single file, slowly toward the cold, gray river in the shadows below. The path was filled with loose rocks and I struggled silently on my crutches, until Boubacar swung his backpack in front of him and lifted me onto his back. We had figured out that if Boubacar held my crutches firmly and flat behind him, I could sit and balance on them without having my arms so tight around his neck. Mai Maria was sitting calmly on a rock beside the river when we arrived.

“Across the river is South Africa. On the other side there will be others who will lead you through the park. Listen to them carefully. Your life may depend on it. They have done this many times. You will need to do it only once.”

The river was wide and fast moving; crossing it would not be easy.

“It looks deep, Deo,” said Innocent nervously. He told me last night he didn’t swim. “Where’s the bridge that bites?”

Innocent made me smile, but I knew exactly how he felt. I didn’t know how to swim either and suspected that neither did Deo. If only we could have walked across Beitbridge.

“There is no bridge here, Innocent. You’ll be fine,” Deo answered.

“Each of you will hold on to the stick with your right hand,” Mai Maria instructed, as her helpers divided us into groups and demonstrated how we should grip the rope knots tied to the poles at regular intervals. “Do not let go of the pole!” she barked. “If you do, you will be swept away by the river toward the crocodiles you saw on your way here. Keep your feet on the riverbed and drag yourself through the water. If you lift your feet too high, the water will take you.”

Deo, Innocent, Boubacar, two men who joined our group, and I stood back and watched the first border jumpers enter the river. Water splashed around their legs and one of the women cursed as she slipped and disappeared under the water.

“DON’T LET GO!” bellowed Mai Maria.

The last man on the pole pulled her out of the water, and she came up spluttering and coughing. They continued into the middle of the river, and one by one other groups entered the water and made their way to the other side.

“Give me your phone, Patson. I think we’re going to get wet,” Boubacar said as he stuffed my phone into a plastic bag in his backpack. Beside me Innocent was shivering violently.

“No, Deo, Innocent doesn’t want to do this,” he stammered. “Let’s go home. This is no good. No good at all.”

His panic was understandable, and I saw doubt on Deo’s face as he looked from the swirling water to his brother and then back to the safety of the path.

“Innocent, will you help me?” I held out one of my crutches to him. “My father has to carry me on his back. It is the only way. I cannot get across without your help.” I turned to Deo. “Deo, don’t leave now. You can make it. I know you can. Look.”

I pointed to the first group, which had almost made it to the other side. Innocent grabbed my crutches and stumbled forward. “I can help you, Patson. You must get across. You must find Grace.”

“Come over here, Lennox!” Mai Maria shouted to the strongest of her helpers. “I want you to look after these three boys. No trouble for them, hey? The Ghuma-ghuma can take the first lot, but these three—you look after them.”

Lennox quickly took my crutches from Innocent, lashed them to the bamboo pole, and held it out behind him and over the water. Boubacar lifted me onto his back, waded into the river, and gripped the knot on the bamboo pole. I wrapped my legs around his waist and clung to his neck and shoulders. Behind us, Innocent and Deo gripped their knots, and behind them, the two men did the same. The last of Mai Maria’s helpers held the end of the pole until we were all in the shallow part of the river. Then the eight of us moved slowly forward into the deeper water.

“HEY, SOCCER BOY, WHEN YOU GET INTO THE PARK, DON’T STOP RUNNING. YOU HEAR ME? NOT FOR ANYTHING!” yelled Mai Maria, waving from her perch on the rock.

The water splashed up Boubacar’s thighs, into my face, while I tried my best not to strangle him.

“Nobody must let go!” shouted Lennox from the front. “The water may pull you, but you must not let go of the pole.”

The water clawed higher up Boubacar’s body and I felt myself slipping from around his waist, but was determined not to let the river sweep either of us away. Then behind me Innocent went down into the fast-flowing water.

“Don’t let go!” shouted Lennox.

“Let him go! He will take us all down!” bellowed the man at the back of our pole.

We stopped, and without thinking, I reached out to grab Innocent, who was trying to hold on to his Bix-box and the bamboo pole at the same time.

“No, Patson!” shouted Boubacar. “Hold on to me.” Innocent was thrashing about, trying to grip the pole. Only his face broke the surface and then a wave covered him again. Even if I could grab him, I knew I was not strong enough to pull him upright, and if he held on to me, we would both go tumbling downstream toward the crocodiles. Lennox shouted at Boubacar to hold the pole as he moved around him and furiously jerked Innocent to his feet. With one hand Boubacar held me, and with Lennox’s help they kept the bamboo and the rest of us from being swept away.

“I’ve got him now,” shouted Lennox. “Patson, hold on to the pole!”

I went under, and swallowed a mouthful of cold river that took my breath away. My hands groped for the slippery pole just as Boubacar pulled me back from the force of the water. Somehow I gripped his belt, coughing and spluttering, when my foot found solid ground in the shallower water. Unexpectedly, the river had released us. Together we scrambled up the bank, wet and exhausted. We had made it across the Limpopo; we were in South Africa.

“Hurry! No rest now,” shouted Lennox. “The Ghuma-ghuma will come. The danger is not over.”

Lennox ran up the riverbank, carrying our bamboo pole with my crutches toward the nearest bushes.

“Wait!” shouted Boubacar, pointing to my crutches. “My son needs them.” He caught up to Lennox and struggled to untie the wet knots, leaving me collapsed on the riverbank. The two men who had crossed the river with us ran after Lennox, leaving me behind, and Mai Maria’s other helper waded into the river back to Zimbabwe.

“In my Bix-box,” Innocent shouted to Boubacar. “In my Bix-box.”

Innocent stumbled over the rocks with Boubacar and handed him a pocketknife. Boubacar quickly cut my crutches free, and I somehow managed to get myself upright. Then with my crutches and peg leg sinking into the sand, and with the help of Boubacar and Innocent, I hopped my way to where Deo and the others were waiting in the bushes. Most of the groups that had crossed ahead of us had disappeared into the bush. The first group, however, rested beside the river, the men smoking cigarettes, the women wringing out their clothes as if they were having a picnic.

Then, with no warning, eight men broke through the bush dressed in thick coats and woolen hats, carrying heavy sticks and machetes. One was carrying a rifle.

“Ghuma-ghuma,” whispered Lennox. “Hurry! They must not find us here. Big trouble. Come!”

“What do they want?”

“Everything you have,” he replied.

“Come on, Patson,” urged Boubacar, grabbing me from the other side and dragging me into a nearby thicket.

We scrambled through the bushes and ducked out of sight. Behind me I heard a woman scream. I bellied my way back to where Lennox and Boubacar lay, to see one man desperately trying to run away only to be caught and beaten. The others cowered on the ground as the two women stood shivering in their bras and panties, wailing and pleading for mercy.

“Who are they?”

“Robbers. They steal everything they can from border jumpers or anyone stupid enough to be found sitting on the riverbank,” muttered Boubacar.

“Lie still! Not a word. Keep quiet or they will find us,” hissed Lennox, pulling Boubacar deeper into the bushes. “And you,” Lennox said, pointing at Innocent. “Shut up or I will cut off your balls.”

A few of the Ghuma-ghuma were still searching the ground near where we had stood only a few moments ago. Behind them strolled the man holding the rifle, wearing the all-too-familiar pair of mirrored, silver sunglasses.