The night was warm, a calm breeze stirring small dust devils in the parched farmland soil. Newly strung power lines brought much-needed electricity to the surrounding townships. In the distance, a shimmering oasis of light hung over the horizon as the ground released the day’s blazing heat.
It was in moments like these that one felt the sheer scale of a population swollen by recent waves of illegal immigration. Stray dogs loitered along the roadside, scavenging scraps from passing vehicles and darting aside at the last moment, tails tucked, eyes catching the headlights.
The farm settled into evening with the high-pitched cry of a bush baby and the distant barking of dogs carrying across the air from nearby smallholdings. Then, faint at first, headlights tore through the tall buffalo grass that blanketed the outlying property. A bakkie jolted along the dust road, its driver’s silhouette bouncing in the cab as it clattered over buried komatiite rock. The vehicle halted by the back porch of the main house. A security lamp snapped on, throwing light across swirling dust as the driver stepped out.
The dogs erupted. They blinked against the glare, tails wagging furiously as they bounded forward. Their expressions were endearing, almost human in their stubborn will. A thin smile tugged at the driver’s lips. Man and beast relished the game—tails swishing, bodies colliding, the smaller ones puddling the ground in their excitement. Shona, the Rottweiler bitch, led the pack.
Elias, the gardener, would spend his mornings muttering in Zulu as he collected after them, baffled at how much mess such creatures could produce. They preferred his freshly cleared flowerbeds and newly mown patches, as if in mockery. When the master watched, they slunk into the tall grass, then exploded out again, kicking their back legs with feigned innocence. And always, with their wanderings, they carried back ticks. Canine tick fever was a constant threat.
No fence enclosed the property. Instead, acacia trees and their long white thorns, together with the dreaded wag-’n-bietjie—aptly named for how long it took to free oneself from its barbs—formed a natural barrier. Giraffes favored these trees, deft tongues avoiding the spikes.
The commotion subsided. The house lights glowed, and the dogs padded indoors, curling around their master as he settled into the sofa. Remote in one hand, whiskey in the other, a cigarette between his fingers—he drew and exhaled the day away, mind already drifting.
Adjacent to the house stood a modest three-bedroom cottage that I shared with Steven and Jo. I was asleep when a sound roused me. Lifting my head, I tried to place it, then drifted off again, thinking it was probably the dogs.
I dreamed of Shona licking my toes, as she often did in the morning. But this time the touch was rougher, insistent. My foot was being shaken. A voice cut through the haze. I opened my eyes to a silhouette at the end of my bed.
I kicked out, bolting upright. In panic I grabbed for the bedside lamp, toppled, rolled, but managed to flick it on before it smashed against the floor. Jo stood in the sudden light, his eyes bloodshot, his speech ragged. He looked as if he had been on another all-night bender.
“Christ, Jo! You scared the shit out of me.”
Tears welled in his eyes. His voice cracked.
“Charles is shot.”
I stared at him, the words refusing to take shape. He pressed himself against the wall, shaking.
“Get up. Get up!” he shouted.
“What?” My thoughts tangled, my body unwilling to believe. The bedside clock, fallen to the floor, read somewhere around 2 a.m.
“Charles is shot!” His voice broke again. “Come on!”
I scrambled into my trousers, fastening nothing, and chased Jo down the hallway. “What do you mean, Charles is shot?”
I expected carnage—splattered walls, tangled sheets, the grim evidence of crime scenes on television. But Charles’s room was immaculate. The bedding folded back, the corners tucked as neatly as a soldier’s cot, pillows fluffed. Empty.
For a moment I thought this was some sick joke the guys might stage after a night of drinking. But Jo’s face hadn’t changed. My stomach clenched. Something was wrong in the natural order.
Andrew’s bedside drawer stood open. My breath caught and would not release.
“Where is he, Jo?” I demanded, my chest tightening, my body trembling on the edge of collapse. Jo grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the living room. I stumbled along the wall until my eyes adjusted, colored spots swimming across my vision.
We reached the front door. Outside, the moonlight cast everything in lifeless shadow. I stepped onto the cold cement patio, bare feet pressing against its chill. For an instant, the sensation soothed me. Then a rush of emotions hit all at once—fear, hysteria, ecstasy, anxiety. It was the same wild surge I remembered from the firing range as a recruit: the thrill of squeezing off single rounds, the delirium of switching to automatic fire. Overwhelming, intoxicating, terrifying.
And there was Charles.
His head rested against a pillar of the thatched roof, shoulders slumped, one arm flopped across the patio edge, the other bent awkwardly by his side. His legs sprawled as if he had dropped mid-stride.
For a heartbeat I thought he was breathing. I bent closer. His body slid from the pillar, head striking the brick paving with a dull crack. I stumbled back, shaking.
“He’s gasping for air,” I muttered, my own voice strange in my ears.
Blood leaked from a wound in his head—the substance of his intellect, of everything people admired in him—sliding down his face. I couldn’t bring myself to touch him. Was he suspended between here and somewhere else?
The wine of life, dark in the moonlight, was splattered across the pillar and seeping into the cracks of the concrete. Behind his skull, the exit wound gaped—a ruin of flesh, hair, bone, and blood.
“Call the doctor,” I said hoarsely. “I think he’s still breathing.”
The gun lay beside him, winking in the moonlight.