reflected light, the gleam of a tooth, utterly still. She tried to peer through the bushes
but could see nothing. The crunch of boots behind, a low word.
‘Dear God,’ she said aloud. ‘Please help.’
And the soul of the woman flared up into the sky, a smooth, stretching stream of
soul-light, at its tip a silver pearl. It wavered, hanging in the air above the hillside, the
shape of a single flame. Slowly it began to separate, to cleft in the middle. Ingwe drifted
closer. Between the two long petals a shimmering space appeared, blue and fresh and
empty, and with a sigh she swept down.
She set off at a crouch, hands waving to catch the sharp branches, her teeth gritted
against the pain of her ankle, her face numb, a scary feeling. She wondered how bad the
damage was this time. Seemed to be able to see a lot better now. She dripped with
sweat, slippery in the chilly air. Some impulse, some instinct showed her a path, a
tunnel under the acacia, and she ran through, bowed over. Then dead ahead, the men
shouting:
‘Go around! No around, dammit! Okay, there. Grab it!’
The kitten yelped.
239
‘Got it! Aaah! Shit, she scratched –’
She started forward, into a face-full of leaves – a twig snatched at her cheek, ripping
across the claw-scratches. Eyes watering, she peered up at the branches of a tree above,
one branch reaching down over the long wall of thicket bush between her and the men.
She stretched up, pulled herself into the tree, and crept carefully along the branch.
‘Feisty li’l bitch.’ Skeet’s voice, low and chuckling, beneath. ‘Daddy’s gonna teach
baby some manners.’
‘Shadd up.’ Bob whispering. ‘Girl’s still there. Let’s get the hell outa here.’
‘Here, hold it. Fuck. Ow. Here. Hold the mouth. I’ll look.’ And he lifted up his night
vision straight into the eyes of the mother-leopard, blazing hate above him.
Bob saw the shape at the same moment and his cop training, his buddy instinct,
reached out and slapped the rifle aside with one awkward-stretching hand. His back
locked with abrupt, grinding pain, and he stumbled and dropped the cub, then froze in
upturned shock at the sight of Ariel, leaping through the air at them, hands clawed
against the stars.
Skeet whipped the rifle back and fired as she fell to the earth.
‘Hola! What was that?’ Churchill pushed aside his plate and strode to the window.
‘Rifle,’ said Kay.
‘By the road? Sounded damn close.’
Kay reached for the phone. ‘I’m calling the cops.’
Ingwe landed hard and went down, ripping gunsmoke into two tattered wings, then
thrust up fast from her crouch, tearing her claws at Skeet’s neck. He staggered back, and
in one agile flurry Ariel clamped a hand on his gun and drove her knee deep into his
groin. He screamed and jerked forward and she head-butted him sweetly on the nose.
240
Blood burst and the gun clattered from his flopping, nerveless hands and he was down.
She crawled over him, kicking and clawing, hands-and-knees towards the cub.
Bob backed off, hands up, barrel up. She crouched with death in her eyes, gathered
her child to her belly and with a snarl leapt away.
Sounded like a herd of buffalo were coming from below, smashing through the bush.
Bob peered back into the dark, scratching his head, then clicked his tongue and picked
up Skeet’s rifle. The gun was slimed with spots of blood. He pressed the stock to his
cheek with a grimace.
Stephi, stumbling, waving a pistol blindly around. And behind her, lurking, careful,
Mosh.
‘Wait, girl. Slow down.’
‘Bob? You piece of shit. What’s happening?’
‘Under control. Calm down. I’ve got his gun. Everything is settled.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Who?’
‘Ariel, dumbnuts. Whoa. Someone handed this guy a beating.’
‘Yeah, she did. Justified. Self-defence. She took the cat. I witnessed.’
‘So where is she? C’mon Bob. Hurry.’
‘Gone. I dunno. That way.’
‘Let’s go.’
‘ No, have to take him to hospital. Private doctor! Oh God, Kay! This is Kay’s place.
Sssh! ’
Stephi took a step back and squinted at her lover, trying to make him out in the
darkness. He held both rifles, barrels up, arms aside as if lightly crucified. She darted
forward into his space, into his face, sniffing, whispered, ‘Lover, you look like a dork,
with your toys. I could put a bullet in you so quick <’
241
He grinned down at her and inclined a toothy face at kissing angle. Skeet coughed.
‘C’mon baby,’ said Stephi. ‘Let’s just go.’
‘< y’lissen,’ said Skeet.
‘No, Steph. I have to get this guy out.’
‘Who, this guy?’ she danced forward and swept a casual boot into Skeet’s gut, hard.
He whimpered and rolled. ‘Seems fine to me.’
‘Enough! What’s wrong with you?’ Bob strode forward to Skeet to pick him up, but
his hands were filled with guns. He glared at them, then at Skeet, then at the guns
again, then thrust them at Stephi. ‘Here, take these!’
‘No thanks.’
‘No-? Fuck! Mosh! Take them.’
Silence from downhill, then a mutter, mumble mumble something job description.
‘C’mon Steph. Please help. I must get him out. Please?’
‘Wait.’ Skeet’s voice came like the underdog from down below. He rose from the dirt
on one elbow, head held high. ‘Ah’m < nod < done < yed! Fair chase. < the cad is
mine. We go on. Y’hear me?’
‘Where is she, Bob?’ Mosh, from the dark.
‘Ran off that way. Towards Kay’s.’
With a swirl of leaves he was gone.
Kay put her hand on the back of Churchill’s shoulder, just below the starchy collar,
and leaned over him to peer out of the window. The diamond mesh of the fence
suddenly jumped, down at a bushy corner beyond the stretch of lawn where the light
grew dim. The fence shivered along its length.
‘Some animal. Can’t get through.’
‘The hunters must be behind.’
‘We must go and–’
242
‘Wait, Kay. We are directly behind it. In the line of fire. If we go out <’
‘Damn! How dare they?’
‘< and we might scare it back. Towards them. You phoned the police. Sit tight.’
Ariel crouched down at the border of light and dark, peering through the wire at the
pretty little house nestled amidst trees and walled by a fractured outcrop of rock, the tip
of the small plateau. The ridge behind was washed by light. Her eyes focused with
amazing clarity. Places to hide in those rocks, behind the house. She sat, undecided.
Fragments of dark voices from below littered the soft wind. No time, no time. She shook
the fence again, and then dropped her eyes.
The cub lay still, her eyes darting everywhere, uttering little throaty sounds and
snuffles, her whiskers twitching in the diamond mesh light, as if she were talking. Her
mother smiled down in delight, cradling her child in her lap.
243
10
The stars circled above like spots from a mirror ball. His nose throbbed and his balls
burned and his jaw was sore and his gut ached, but Skeet couldn’t bel ieve how lucky he
was. To survive a full-frontal attack from an adult female leopard, here in darkest
Africa – wait ‘til they heard ‘bout this back home! He cupped the liquefied gristle of his
nose – musta bin clash o’ heads, is all? - as he forced himself to his feet, and began,
already, to graft it, molding it in his memory; maybe he had held the big cat by the
throat, wrassled it, kicked it or somethin’? Maybe a bush-knife deep into its heart? He
patted himself all over, puzzled. No bite marks, no serious injury that he could feel, no
scratches beyond a sticky trace of fire around his neck. Talk about lucky!
As he rose he tried to utter a primal roar, a gut-wrenchin’ yee-hah, to show he’s one
tough cowboy, to let the nigger know - gone up ahead, brave boy, probably trackin’ the
cat for him – that he would join the hunt soon. Alive, yee-hah, alive.
But the cry crawled out strangled and odd from the bloody hole of his mouth, the
voice of a wild thing long accustomed to captivity and torture. It twisted discordant in
on itself and jumped high, as if repelled by the life-force that webbed the hillside, a leap
from hell into nothing. Bob and Stephi shrank away and towards each other, staring
through the darkness.
A whiff of their fear. Time to take control.
‘Righd, Dodhill. Gimme mah gun.’
‘< you mad?’
‘Finish the hund. W’all musd hund id down. Kill id. Ged the gub. Now!’
Bob and Steph exchanged horrified glances. ‘ Bosbefok, ’ she muttered.
‘She got the cub fair and square, sir,’ said Bob. ‘It’s over. Let’s go.’
244
‘Bud whad iv id injuz someone? D’gub’ll staarrve. Id’s our responsibilidy.’
They stared at him.
‘C’mon! Gimme mah gun!’
‘You’re irrational, sir.’
‘No, wait, wait <’ said Stephi. ‘He’s confused. Haha! Thinks the leo pard took him
out.’
‘Oh? Oh right. No, you’re mistaken, I’m afraid. She’s still dead. Ariel did this to you.’
‘Y’got your ass whupped by a girl!’ said Stephi, mock-American, grin gleaming in
the starlight, the glint of her pistol hanging casual at her side.
They couldn’t see his face in the dark, or the snaking glow of his soul-rage, the sick
fury as realization sank in. Betrayed, betrayed again. Anger ignited and swirled within
him, feeding power to his flesh, but his body stayed stooped. He remembered two
truths now; woman leopard woman leopard. Betrayed again, why? Why? She had lied
... bitchfuckin’bitch! He glared at Stephi ... that kick, remember. And Bob, that punch.
Balls and belly ached. Jaw was sore. Payback was definitely due. He trudged hopelessly
towards them while he schemed.
‘A-ariel?’ he quavered.
‘Yeah. Don’t you remember?’
‘Bud how?’
‘Now that’s a question.’
‘She doog the gub?’
‘Yeah. Sorry.’
‘No, no, ids prob’ly for tha besd.’ He smiled weakly up at the giant with a rifle in
each hand. ‘Id’s sorda beaudiful, y’gnow? Habby ending.’
‘Uh, yeah. Sure. Listen–’
245
‘No.’ in one smooth move Skeet reached out, snatched the pistol from Stephi’s hand
and flashed it up into Bob’s face. ‘ You listen.’
‘WO!’ Bob took a step back.
‘Safety’s on,’ said Stephi.
And Bob did a silly thing. Instead of clubbing this creature, he tried to put his right
hand to the trigger of the gun in his left hand, but his right hand was holding a gun. He
crossed and clattered, barrels jabbing at the sky. While he wrestled his armful of guns
Skeet slid over to Stephi, the little pistol to her temple, safety clicking off.
‘Drob ‘em.’
‘Okay, okay.’ The rifles thumped onto the dark grass.
‘Now sdand dogether.’ He fumbled in his little backpack with one free hand and
pulled out a roll of zip tape.
Ingwe shivered, growling as she realized her host’s intention. She didn’t want to
climb this fence. People on the other side, humans, watching, waiting. The twitch of a
head at the window. But to the right lay the farm - and to the left the road. Through the
fence, beyond the woman-smell house, lay wilderness, pervading this mist of faint
human senses. She grasped in sorrow that she couldn’t live there now. She squirmed
inside the tight false skin chafing real skin strangely slippery naked, no more no more
summer breeze through her fur < and marveled at her fingers, so long and clever and
intricate in her kitten’s fur. She worked her jaw, too weak to carry ... drifted awhile <
glanced up at the fence and listened to Ariel.
But how could she climb? The fence was high, the top twisted Y-shaped wire thorns.
One arm to carry her kitten < even with these fingers, this monkey body, couldn’t do it,
could she?
Sound from behind, feet through grass.
246
She hissed and stretched out with one hand, rising up, the cub’s hind legs swinging
awkwardly at her hip. The fence warped and bent out along its length towards her,
poking wire thorns at her face. She dropped back into a crouch and broke into a
cautious, limping run. The farm it must be, then.
‘There! It’s running.’
‘What is it? Tall. See the head –’
‘Jeez, look. Look. It’s a person, not an animal. Long hair. A woman. With a baby?’
‘Then this is murder.’ He stood up, bumping Kay’s chin with his back. She stumbled
backwards and caught him, regaining her balance. ‘Sorry. Y’know, this makes the
situation even more dangerous.’
‘Yeah, but now we have to get involved.’
‘Ariel! Hey! Wait!’
Her fighterlover. Her blue-skinned beauty. She stopped and stalked back, a snarl
rumbling in her ragged, panting breath.
His shape came striding, fighting branches with swats of its arms. ‘ Eish, woman!
How y’move so fast?’
‘Run. Hide.’
‘Hey, don’ worry, honey. It’s over. Whew. You did a number on him, hey?’
She blinked down the hill. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Ja, ja. Bob’s got it under control. Whassis in your hair? This is Kay’s place. She’ll
help–’
Then from down below came a long, terrible, wailing scream, a woman’s voice – take
it off take it off take it off – breaking into sobs. It was underscored by a deep, harsh
grunting, fading to nothing.
247
‘Let’s switch off all the lights,’ whispered Churchill, crouching at the open doorway.
‘Equal terms?’
Skeet wiped his hands and set off, moving fast over the ground, pausing only to
snatch a glance of infra-red. The lights ahead blinked off, bathing the hill in black. He
grinned blood-etched teeth, not breaking his stride.
In Ariel a shriek of conflict, a tearing between fight and flight. The awful echo of
Stephi’s screams lingered in the sudden dark. She staggered, limping, down the hill
towards it, gasping as her ankle twisted a flare of pain. The cub squirmed in her aching
arms, bristling and chirping. A branch bumped her head and she jerked back.
Mosh followed. ‘KAY! SWITCH ON THE LIGHTS! Wait, Ariel! Don’t go, shit, he can
see in the dark! KAY?’
‘Mosh oesh?’ His father’s voice. ‘Is that you?’
‘Wait father, wait. Ariel, come,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Come!’ He leaned to her, to
the pale, floating ghost of her face - and the bullet spat past, ripping thunder through
the air where his head had been.
He dropped boneless to the ground.
‘No.’ Ariel ran forward. He stared wide-eyed into a pair of dark feline eyes, fierce
and tragic in the starlight.
‘I’m okayGO! GO GO! ’
Skeet jerked in response to prey behaviour, tracking Ariel’s back as she ran - but no,
the dream of love and slavery would end, now, if he fired. The cross-hairs dropped
back to the buck-nigger struggling to his feet, and he giggled in mad glee as his finger
tightened on the trigger.
248
Churchill ran swift and low across the lawn. Kay kept her finger on the light switch
of the outside spots and pressed as he dived behind a tree. Light flooded the garden. He
squirmed into position, bobbing his head out and in, then pointed the revolver and
fired four quick shots through the fence, sparking the gleaming wire. A shriek and a
crackle of undergrowth came from beyond, then two rifle shots, spitting splinters of
bark just above Churchill’s withdrawn head. He pumped the gun empty, hand over
root, unsighted. Shocked silence fell over the hillside, then the sound of boots through
undergrowth, legs and arms crashing through branches, away down the hill.
The fence shook and bent in, and Kay hugged Savannah closer as the woman rose
above it, a leopard cub – Kay saw with astonishment – squeezed in the crook of one
arm. She thrashed forward over the top, screaming as the wire ripped under her arm
and along her side, catching her jeans as she toppled over. Kay caught a glimpse of face
through the nest of sticks and black hair; deathly red mud-streaked pale, teeth bared,
eyes like black fire ... utterly insane.
‘ Mom! A LEOPARD!’ Savannah’s fingers bit an instant bruise into her mother’s arm,
and she lunged forward to the door. With a grunt Kay jumped, and tackled her to the
floor.
By the time they both got up, the crazy leopard-lady had disappeared.
Alone in the darkness of her small servants-quarter room cowered Blessing,
clutching a quaking blanket over her head. She listened, then whimpered at the sound
of uneven footsteps, heavy breathing, outside her door. The door rattled and then burst
inwards; splinters showered the bed from the shattered lock. She screamed and
screamed into the blanket and felt something thump onto the bed beside her, something
growling and then strong hands, seizing her arm, pulling her up. Then she was thrust,
squealing and stumbling, outside.
The door slammed shut.
249
And slammed open again, and a creature from her nightmares stepped out, a thing
of mud and leaves, murmuring a string of soft alien sounds back into the dark room as
it gently closed the door. A water-reed entwined wild hair and arcane patterns of earth-
red decorated its pale, inhuman face. Blessing swam backstroke along the passage. She
collided with the wall and screamed again. The witch-creature shuffled forward,
limping, one hand stretched out.
Kay’s head popped out of the kitchen window, a cell phone to her ear. ‘Yes. Got it.
Hurry.’ She snapped the phone shut. ‘Good evening! Blessing, shut up.’
‘Hullo. My name is Ariel.’
‘Kay. Shut UP, I said. Where’s the cub?’
‘In there,’ she pointed. ‘Sorry for breaking the lock. I’m in a hurry – my friend <’
‘You have a reed in your hair. Wait there.’
Ariel fumbled at her hair and pulled lumps and strips of mess out with her fingers,
then shook like a wet puppy, flinging fragments and a spray of rusty drops. She stared
downwards, breathing deep. A jumble of grunge-splattered plastic pipes dropped into
an open drain at her feet. It burped a dank stink of mould and rotting food. Clean this
first. Lots of disinfectant. Get a cover, some paint … but what … this cave … cave? This room
… is already taken.
Blessing cowered as the creature slowly raised dark eyes at her. A faint snarl hung
unmistakably in the air.
‘Ariel?’ Kay appeared at the corner. ‘Come. This way. Bring the cub with, if you
wish. You’re both safe now.’
‘No, I must go. My friend was screaming.’
‘I know. Come.’
‘Wait.’ Ariel turned and limped back down the passage to Blessing. ‘Please go away.’
250
Gnawing her knuckles, Blessing nodded. Ariel coughed a short, dry laugh, and
weary dismay passed over her face. ‘Please. I mean you no harm. I’m sorry. Why are
you so frightened of me?’
‘Take a check in a mirror,’ mumbled Kay.
Ariel noticed a child, huddled up behind her mother’s legs, staring fascinated eyes at
the door. She stepped forward to block her view. ‘Would everyone please go in side,’
through gritted teeth, hovering within leaping distance of the door, eyes fixed on the
dark, silent bush beyond the fence.
‘Come,’ said Kay quietly to the children, rounding them up with her arms. ‘We leave
the leopard be, for now.’
‘But ma <’
‘Quiet. Ariel? You know Mosh?’
‘Yes.’ Ariel lagged behind as they turned into the glare of the lawn and ran up the
stone steps to the stoep. ‘He and I are < you know.’
‘Oh, it’s you! I see. Pleased t’meet ya. Please come inside. He’s gone with Churchill,
his father, to get the bakkie with the spots and his rifle, and the shotgun then they
gonna go round by the firebreak and up to where your friends are. They know the
terrain. So we wait. Okay? Blessing? Make tea, please.’
‘What is bakkie?’
‘Huh? Light < you know, you know, truck! Anyway, we must wait. Mosh said so.
Said it was your friend out there. And someone else, he wouldn’t say who.’ Kay
frowned, disturbed by the memory of evasion in his voice.
‘My friend, Stephi. And her lover, Bob.’
A chill passed through the room, and Ariel glanced up at the mother and child, as
still as portraits. ‘What?’
‘Did you say < Bob?’
251
‘I KNEW IT!’ Savannah screamed, startling everyone. ‘I knew it. He’s dead, Mama.
He’s dead.’ Tears dropped from wide-open eyes. She ran at her mother, arms wide.
‘No. Of course not.’ Kay gathered her. ‘Stop it! We don’t know < y’sure Bob? Big
guy, nice? Blonde hair, a bit bald?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.’
‘Fuck this!’ Kay swept the revolver from her waistband and strode over to the door.
‘Blessing, Sav, stay! Do not move! Y’coming, Ariel?’
‘Yes. Let me lead. I can see in the dark.’
The police van prowled past on the road, idling along in first, sand and stone
crunching. A torch flashed by over Skeet’s head. He squatted in the shadows, his face
resolutely imitating actors imitating soldiers, the soldier he never was. Chased away by a
nigger with a hand-gun, boy, sneered a voice. His father. Loser. The cops rolled out of sight
around a bend. He waited, listening.
Something, something big, moved behind him, the crisp sigh of something brushing
against the leaves. His spine spawned a rash of goosebumps, and he turned slowly,
breath catching, squinting into the dark.
The cops swung a u-turn, and headlights washed over the hill. Skeet saw the outline
of a big bird, big-eyed stoopid upright head like a periscope. Motherfuckin’ turkey! He
brought the rifle up in fury, and the bird squawked and clattered away. With a bite and
shake of willpower he withdrew his finger from the trigger, hunkering down as the
cops drove past, then listened with surprise as the engine-noise moved away, crested