Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight_ An African Childhood - Alexandra Fuller [40]
“Mum!” I shout, genuinely frightened.
Burma Boy throws up his head at my alarm.
“It’s okay,” I say shakily, crying and running my hand down his wet neck. “It’s okay.”
I start to imagine that perhaps Mum, Caesar, and the dogs have been caught by terrorists themselves. Maybe Mum is lying in a bloody puddle, eyelidless and lipless, with the dogs licking helplessly, lovingly at her lifeless hands. I will be brave at Mum’s funeral. The Umtali Post will write an article about me, lost and alone in the bush, while my mother lay dead surrounded by her faithful dogs and loyal horse. I turn Burma Boy around. “Do you know the way home?” I ask, letting him have his head. But he, after looking around for a few moments, placidly puts his head down and starts to eat again.
It feels like a long time during which I alternated between quiet, dry panic and noisy, copious weeping before I hear Mum and the dogs coming through the bush. Mum is singing, like the herdsmen taking the cows to the dip, “Here dip-dip-dip-dip dip! Dip, dip-dip-dip-dip dip!” And in front of her there are a dozen multicolored cows, running with heads held high, wild and frightened, their eyes white-rimmed, their long, unruly horns slashing at the bush. Burma Boy throws up his head, startled, and shies. I pull up the reins. Mum says, “Get behind me.”
I start to cry with relief at seeing her. “I thought you were lost.”
“Out the way,” she shouts, “out the way! Get behind!”
I pull Burma Boy around.
“Come on,” says Mum, riding past me, “let’s herd this lot down.”
I say, “You were so long.”
“Catch the cows as they come through.”
But the cows are not used to being herded and are unwilling and frightened participants. They break loose frequently and Mum has to circle back to bring the herd into order. She has identified the leader, a tall-hipped ox with a very old, almost worn-through leather strap around his neck that once must have held a bell. All the cows are dripping with ticks: their ears are crusted with small red ticks and their bodies are bumped with the raised gray engorged adults, which look ready to drop off. Mum says, “If we can keep the leader going, the rest might follow.” But it still takes us more than an hour to move the cows less than half a mile. I start to cry again.
“What’s the matter now?” says Mum irritably.
“I’m thirsty,” I cry, “I’m tired.”
“Well, you go on home, then,” says Mum. “I’m bringing these cows down.”
“But I don’t know the way.”
“Fergodsake,” says Mum between her teeth.
I start to cry even harder.
She says, “Give Burma Boy his head, he’ll take you home.”
But Burma Boy, given his head, is content to follow Caesar and graze happily at this leisurely pace. “Look, he won’t go home.”
“Then ride him.”
I kick feebly. “I’m thirsty,” I whine.
Mum is unrelenting. “So let’s get these cows home. The sooner we get these cows home the sooner you’ll have something to drink.”
We ride on for two more hours. I slouch over in my saddle, letting myself rock lazily with Burma Boy’s tread. I make no attempt to herd the cows.
Mum scowls at me with irritation: “Ride your bloody horse.”
I flap my legs and pull weakly at the reins. “He won’t listen.”
“Don’t be so bloody feeble.”
Fresh tears spring into my eyes. “I’m not being feeble.”
Mum says, “If you would help, we’d get home a lot sooner.”
We ride on in hostile silence for another half hour or so. Then I say, “I think I have buffalo bean.” I start to scratch fretfully. I am so thirsty that my tongue feels dry and cracking. “I’m going to faint, I’m so thirsty.”
Mum circles back to catch a stray cow.
“Mu-uuum.”
She isn’t going to listen. It is no good. It is clear that I am not going to get home until the cows are safely fenced up in the home paddocks. I pull Burma Boy’s head up and circle him back to the lagging cows, straggling at the rear of the herd. “Dip, dip-dip-dip-dip