The covenant - James A. Michener [187]
'How did you hear of me?'
'The smous. In what way are you crazy?'
'I like to wander. I study the animals.'
'Eh, Seena! Kom hier, verdomde vrouw.' When she came to him, he rumpled her hair and said, 'No question she's my daughter. Look at that hair! I don't have to worry the smous got to her mother.'
When Adriaan blushed a deeper red than Rooi's shock of hair, the renegade tossed his daughter in the air, catching her under the arms. 'If you get her, you're getting a good one,' he cried. And again he snatched her up, throwing her far into the air, but this time she fell not back to his arms, but across the open space into Adriaan's. The first time he touched Seena, really, was as she came flying at him.
'She's yours, son, and don't go wandering too much, Crazy Adriaan, or the smous will catch her when you're not looking.'
'Shut up, damn you!' the girl cried, making a face at her father. 'If Adriaan was bigger, he'd thrash you.'
With a huge hand, Rooi reached out, grabbed Adriaan, and almost broke his collarbone. Shaking him like a dog, he said, 'He better not try. And, son, you treat this girl right, or I'll kill you.' It was obvious that he meant it, but to Rooi's surprise, Adriaan broke loose, swung his fist in uncontrollable fury, and smashed the huge man on the side of his face. It was like a monkey swatting an elephant, and Rooi roared with delight.
'He's a spunky one, Seena. But if he tries to hit you, kick him in the stomach.' And with a sudden swipe of his right boot, he aimed a shot at Adriaan's crotch. Perhaps the fear of the awful pain that impended activated the young man, for deftly he sidestepped, caught the up-swinging foot, and toppled the big redhead.
While still flat on the ground, Rooi lashed out with a swinging leg, caught Adriaan at the ankles and brought him down. With a leap, the big man fell upon him, wrestling him into a position where he could gouge his eyes with big knuckles. As Adriaan felt the man's superhuman strength and saw the dreadful knuckles coming at him, he thought: I am wrestling with the devil. For the devil's daughter. And he jerked his knees up to smite the evil one in the gut, but Rooi fended off this last attack.
'I'll teach you,' he grunted, and he would have done so had not Seena grabbed a log and struck him on the head, knocking him quite silly. When he recovered, blinking his eyes and spitting, he roared, 'Who hit me?' and Seena said, 'He did.' And there stood Adriaan, fists clenched, waiting for what might come next.
'By God!' the huge redhead shouted as he raised himself to his knees. 'I do believe Seena's got herself a good one.' And when he hoisted himself back onto his feet, still groggy, he embraced Adriaan in one huge arm, Seena in the other, and dragged them into his hut, where he broke out a jug of brandy.
They drank through the night, and toward four in the morning, when Adriaan was almost insensible, Rooi insisted that the bridal couple be given a hut to themselves, so children were swept out of the hovel occupied by the Malayan wife, and onto her filthy pile of straw the young pair were thrown. At first Adriaan wanted only to sleep, a fact which was circulated through the camp by youngsters who watched from a peephole, but Seena certainly did not propose to spend her wedding night in that manner. So, as the children shouted to the elders, she roused him from his stupor and indoctrinated him into the duties of a husband.
'That's good, that's good!' Rooi van Valck said when the children reported to him. 'I think Seena's got herself a man to be proud of. He's a little crazy, that's obvious, but he's quick with his fists, and I like that. What's his name again?'
'Adriaan,' the children said. They knew everything.
Sotopo's achievement of manhood did not come easily. As his brother Mandiso had predicted when the matter of the boy's joining the exodus to the Fish River was discussed, the new settlement had no guardian to supervise the circumcision rites, no other boys to share it, and