The Sunday News
Short Story Jonathan Matsunge
TWELVE-YEAR-OLD Letwin in soiled grey skirts and even more soiled pink blouse sat under the mupangara tree shelling maize. With the red soils of the Nyamandlovu area there was no other way. She then heard the sound of a car: her uncle arriving. Sunsets were his time; he came everyday from his base in town. Even if he had nothing really to do he still came; even if it was just to bring one pint of chemical to spray on his herd.
At the sound of the car the two skinny dogs had their tails up. Well, Chenjerai Hove missed it when he told us that if you want to see how rich a man is just look at his dog. Here were skinny dogs belonging to a man who had raised 100-plus cattle proving Hove’s theory unfounded.
To the herdboys the cloud of dust was the announcement of his arrival. Today they were by the borehole just outside the yard doing some minor maintenance. The cattle, as usual, were grazing in the field where maize had recently been harvested.
As soon as he disembarked from his Isuzu double-cab Letwin was all over him with hugs and hugs and more hugs. The dogs squirmed and went back to their bunkers where they lay watching proceedings with wagging tails, erect ears and wide-open eyes.
When he made towards the kraals, Letwin hung onto him the way baby baboons hang onto their mothers. With Mr Mloyi’s slender frame she was a big load indeed but she was not mindful of that neither did he complain. Then he whistled — a sharp, long whistle — and the cattle trooped to the kraal.
“Where is Majoyi?”
He paused, looking around.
“And that steer, Pound?” he looked around again.
“And Mountain? Should be the one I saw as I turned the corner at the main road.”
Lizwe and Lewis did not have answers, except “maybes”.
“Maybe they joined Mr Nkomo’s herd,” Nkomo was a neighbour. He had a herd of 11.
“Maybe we left it in one of the thick bushes.”
“Maybe it will soon arrive.”
Lots of “maybes.”
“Let’s see Chimurenga’s back today,” Mloyi was craning and eventually climbed the kraal and then spotted Chimurenga. To get to it he literally weaved his way. With their big heads, hooves and horns these beasts still made no attempt to gore him.
“It’s coming up, it is responding,” Mr Mloyi was pouring into the cows behind.
“Maybe we add more of the chemical,” suggested Lizwe.
“It’s fine but let’s do it tomorrow, not today.”
Meanwhile, after the cattle had assembled there was no more Letwin nearby. She stood behind a fowl run and everyone knew why. They knew her sins.
It was Mloyi’s routine to climb the musasa tree at the centre of the kraals so as to have a bird’s eye view of his herd. On this day he missed a branch as he was going up and tumbled onto the dung. Letwin saw it and found herself charging to rescue her dear uncle.
A Brahman called Mhlope, very white in colour, was such a nuisance when it was brought in sometime about a year ago. When Letwin came to the farm around the same time Lewis and Lizwe had used her to discipline the cow by way of gory, intimidatory tactics like covering her face with a lion mask and then charging towards it whenever it violated norms and regulations. That got into Mhlope’s nerves and Letwin was blacklisted.
Mhlope was not very far from where Mr Mloyi had fallen. As Letwin fought her way to uplift her uncle nobody saw Mhlope which then took the chance and threw her against the tree. Lewis and Lizwe were quick to avert further trouble. But the two finally carried a Mloyi with a painful back and a Letwin with a broken arm into the Isuzu.
