and turn around and ride down the road again to the other end from which I came. The moon droops low and depleted.
I’ve just galloped past the last house when I see a small group of men walking into the veldt. In the distance I see fires. I follow the men, join them. They don’t talk much among themselves. They walk fast. They say they’re going to watch the fight. Somewhere in the darkness I hear something that could be singing. Who in God’s name would stand serenading the veldt at this hour of the night? We walk in silence until the singing subsides. Then the conversations start up again. A while later a rider trots past, back to town. By his hat I recognise the damn schoolmaster. I ask the men if our master is coming from the fight. They laugh and say No, Master Markus wouldn’t let himself be caught there. I ask them why the piece of misbegotten misery is so uppity. They look at me askance. They say he’s quite a good sort; he simply keeps to himself. I ask them whether it was he who was caterwauling like that in the darkness. They say they don’t know and what business is it of mine.
Arriving at the kraal, we find a few men waiting next to a wagon with animal cages covered with hessian bags. Fires are burning in the corners of the kraal. Twenty or thirty men are dawdling around, laughing and telling jokes, most of them are drunk. Three men are standing to one side where the fire doesn’t reach. Two bull-baiting terriers, seasoned and raddled fighters, and a massive German mastiff. They are standing well apart from each other. As soon as the dogs come within range, they leap and snap at each other. A man with bandy legs and long arms summons two Caffres. They lift one of the cages from the wagon, haul it over the kraal wall and place it in the middle of the kraal next to an iron pole hammered into the ground. The bandy-legged man drags a chain from the depths of the cage and locks the chain to the pole. One Caffre stays behind in the shallow pit of scuffed mud and straw and sawdust. There’s a shout and suddenly everybody presses up to the kraal wall. The men jostle each other to have a better view. The Caffre rattles the bars of the cage and something grunts and bumps in there. The faces around the kraal seem bizarrely distorted and inhuman in the shadows of the flames. I see the smith and the owner of the inn in his absurd velvet suit and farmers and builders and everybody laughs and drinks and gobs. Somebody tosses the Caffre a spade. He picks up the spade and scrambles onto the cage and knocks out the peg locking the cage and jumps from the cage and swears in his language and runs to the wall. The men jeer at him and nothing happens. Then a big baboon comes walking out of the cage with a chain around its neck. He runs as far as the chain permits, the chain tightens, jerks at his neck and pulls him off his feet. He falls on his arse and the men guffaw and gob. A man with new shoes climbs onto the wall and walks all around it waving his arms and his hat and asking for bets. As soon as his hat is full, he climbs down. As if this were a signal, the men with the dogs climb over the wall. They release the three dogs. The dogs charge the baboon. Creatures human and animal go berserk and blood flows. From the direction of the wagon other shrieks from the throats of what could be baboon and leopard and hyena and jackal and other animals that no human has contemplated for long enough to name.
The baboon utters a hoarse bark, fights furiously until it sees the dogs are drawing strength from its fury. It goes onto its hind legs, extends its arms to the younger of the terriers and screams. The dog charges at the baboon, leaps aside and feints and leaps again. The dog’s fur is marked with the scars of previous bouts. He won each encounter because see, he’s alive. The dogs shiver and yelp, but keep a wary eye on the length of the chain, stay out of reach of the baboon. See the dogs dancing around the baboon. One goes straight for the baboon, then jumps back from the fangs. If they can’t get hold of the baboon, they snarl and snap at each other.
The baboon has been fighting in the veldt from infancy, because see, he too is still alive. When a dog comes close, he jumps up in the air, but the curs are clever enough not to be trapped under him. Sometimes a sudden cuff with the arms, or a more surprising grab with the back legs. The ape tightens its circle, the chain slack enough for a leap. The dogs know these monkey tricks. See, they’re tiring him out.
In the kraal there are no orderly formations; the fatal circle becomes a universe where soil and skin and straw and teeth and hair and blood blend into new terrifying creatures that suck everything around them into a sinkhole. Surprise attacks, then moments that expand into ghastly silences before the teeth find one another once more. The baboon rips open the mastiff’s throat, chucks it aside with a human hand, the graceful animal instantly a limp heap of skin and meat.
The terriers charge when the baboon tries to climb up the pole. The biggest dog gets hold of the ape’s hind quarters and rips him open from below. The baboon’s hands let go and the other dog is on top of him and digs into the innards and tugs at the guts. The ape is hanging between the throttling chain and the dogs that each has hold of a length of gut. The gaze and the screams of the baboon, like those of somebody on a rack, floundering between forces tearing him apart from three directions, are unbearably human.
A man vomits and his friends laugh and gob. Somebody bumps into me and I look around into the beggar’s face and he looks away.
The baboon grabs the nearest dog and brings the animal’s face up to its own. Do they know how much they look like each other? With the ravishing jaws that decorate many a farmhouse, it tears off the face of the fighting dog, who until recently resembled the proto-wolf from which all dogs are descended.
I rub my thumbs and index fingers together until I can feel a static crackling. The remaining dog keeps tugging at the guts. The baboon curls up against the carcase next to him and there is a tremor in one hand and something like a yawn and I see something in his eyes and then he is dead.
Money is exchanged; the panting young terrier’s tongue is hanging out. He tries to shake off the blood. He stamps his paws. His ears are drawn back. His eyes dart to those of his owner and then to the baboon. His owner puts on the chain and takes him home. The two Caffres throw the dead animals over the wall and bury them. I stand watching until the kraal is deserted. Young men my own age try offering me spirits, try telling me about the most accommodating girl in Graaffe Rijnet, try talking about anything else.
I ride back to our camp and find Windvogel and Gert Coetzee the half-caste Hottentot by the last embers of the campfire. They don’t talk, each thinking his own things.
A star shoots across the length of the Milky Way. I see the wonderment of the two men.
God has chucked out his old milk again, I say. It’s beneath him to drink clabbered milk. He only scoffs sacrificial lamb.
Master mustn’t blaspheme like that, says Gert.
Some or other preacher put all sorts of things into the Hottentot’s head. Gert has never been able to tell me who the man was, one of the wandering prophets criss-crossing De Lange Cloof in donkey carts hoping to come across lost souls. According to Gert the man’s name is Master and when I ask Master who, then the reply is Master Master, Master.
That’s the backbone of the night, up there, says Windvogel. It keeps the sky up in the sky.
That’s no bone, it’s the Lord bringing light to our dark land.
Oh, bugger off, Gert!
You don’t know the Lord, Vogel. I shall smite thee by God! Ishall devour thee by God!
How do you know the Lord, Gert? I ask.
Master told me about him. We were all in the garden together, don’t you know, and then we had to get out and then everything got buggered up.
And when were you in that garden, Gert?
No, Master, don’t you know, it was before Jan Rietbok came to plant vegetables here.
