The covenant - James A. Michener [148]
The seventeen horsemen found a substantial spoor to follow, the trail of five or six Bushmen dragging cattle parts back to camp, and for several days they narrowed the gap between the two parties. On the fourth day Andries Boeksma saw signs which satisfied him that the Bushmen must be close at hand, hiding perhaps behind low rocks: 'They know we're after them, so they won't lead us to their camp. That proves this bunch are scavengers, and we can kill them all.' This was agreed upon, even by those who had defended them: the little things might in principle be human, but this particular group were cattle thieves who must be slain.
So the commando, practicing extreme caution, since everyone feared that terrible flight of thin arrows which brought agonizing death, moved toward the rocks that could be hiding the thieves, and when Boeksma saw twigs move, he shouted, 'There they are!' and his followers cheered as they swept down on their target.
There was so much gunfire that none of the Bushmen had any chance of escape, but as they fell, one man maintained control and calmly aimed his arrow at a specific rider, launching it just before he collapsed with four bullets through him. The arrow struck Marthinus van Doorn in the neck, lodged deep within, and broke apart.
By nightfall he felt painfully dizzy and asked Andries Boeksma to cut the arrowhead out, but the big Dutchman said, 'I can't do it, Marthinus. I'd cut your throat.' So the agony increased, and at dawn Marthinus was again pleading that the arrow be cut out, but the men agreed with Boeksma that this was impossible. They built a litter and slung it between two horses, hoping to get Van Doorn back to the apotheek at Stellenbosch, but by midday the poison had spread furiously, and in the late afternoon he died.
'Shall we bury him here?' Boeksma asked Hendrik. 'Or would your mother want him at Trianon?'
'Bury him here,' Hendrik said. The Van Doorns had never feared the veld. So the men of the commando broke into two groups, one to dig a grave, one to gather stones that would mark it, and when the hole was deep enough to keep away hyenas, Marthinus van Doorn, forty-three years old, was buried. Andries Boeksma, as leader of the commando, said a brief prayer, then tied the bridle of Van Doorn's horse to his and started homeward.
Hendrik would never forget what happened at Trianon when the mournful procession rode in to inform Annatjie of her loss. It was not what his mother did that shocked him; she was resolute, as he had expected a tall, gaunt woman of fifty-one, with rough hands and deep-lined face. She nodded, started to cry, then pushed her knuckles into her eyes and asked, 'Where did you leave the body, Andries?'
'Decently buried . . . out there.'
'Thank you,' she said, and that was all.
Nor was it her impersonal reaction that appalled young Hendrikhe knew that she was not the wailing kindit was what happened after the commando had ridden off. No sooner had the horsemen left Trianon than Paul de Pre hastened over from his house, crying in a loud voice, 'Mon Dieu, is Marthinus dead?'
'Why do you ask?' Hendrik said.
'I saw the empty horse. The way the bridle was tied to Boeksma's.'
'And what did you think?'
'I thought, "Marthinus must be dead. I must go comfort Annatjie." '
'He's dead,' Hendrik said. 'Mother's inside.' And he saw the avidity with which the Huguenot hurried through the door. Hendrik should not have listened, but he did, hearing De Pre say with great excitement, 'Annatjie, I've heard the dreadful news. My heart is pained for you.'
'Thank you, Paul.'
'How did it happen?'
'Bushmen. Poisoned arrow.'
'O mon Dieu! You sorrowful woman.'
'Thank you, Paul.'
There was a silence which Hendrik could not interpret, and then De Pre's voice, urgent and nervous: