The covenant - James A. Michener [210]
'I am,' and before the others could ask if they should turn back, he added, 'But we must wipe out this farm, or it will oppose us always.'
It was he who led the charge down the eastern hill, coming first to the cattle byres and the other small buildings, and it was here that the Xhosa met their punishing taste of what real trekboers could do in defense of a farm. From crannies that the blacks could not have anticipated, gunfire snapped at them, cutting and killing until they had to retreat. No invader even came near the house.
On the hillside, surveying what amounted to the first trekboer fort, Guzaka and his men consulted on what to do, and their leader reminded them: 'I told you this would be different.' He did not yet know that his father's friend, Adriaan of the Van Doorns, occupied the stone house, nor would he have recognized the name had it been spoken, but he carried in the back of his mind stories his father had told of that compelling meeting with the white man and of the man's capacities. Guzaka understood that there were degrees in manhood and that the futile defenders of that first farm stood rather low on the rod of measurement. The men in this house resembled more the one that Sotopo had encountered.
'Shall we turn back?' his men asked.
'No. Then they would think it was too easy to defeat us. We will attack from two quarters.' And he devised a plan whereby one group would come down the eastern hill, while a larger body would swing in from the south.
In the stone house Adriaan said, 'They're not stupid. This time they'll come at us from two directions.' Looking at the hills and the position of the stream, which though small would prove difficult to ford under gunfire, he concluded that they would have to come in from the south, so along that wall he stationed three of his guns.
'But they'll try the east again,' he warned. 'Just to test us.' So he alone went to the byre, satisfied that the number of eastern invaders would be smaller than before.
When Guzaka saw that his own groups were in position, he gave the signal and dashed for the outlying buildings; to his delight, there was no gunfire, so with a wild yell he urged his men on to the house, but when they were abreast of the cattle byre, a deadly fusillade struck from the flank, and two of his men fell.
Then from the south wall of the house, gunfire erupted, and that invading contingent was also thrown back.
When the Xhosa regrouped on the eastern hill it was obvious that this farm could not be taken. Turning away from that stronghold, the blacks forded the stream well east of the house, rounded up such cattle as grazed in the far fields, and retreated through the northeast opening.
'They'll be back,' Lodevicus warned. 'Not today, but they'll know that ours is the kraal that must be reduced.'
'Kraal?' Adriaan asked.
'This refuge enclosed by hills,' and from that time on the farm was called De Kraal, the protected place.
The trekboers, having lost none and slain seven, should have celebrated, but they didn't, for old animosities between Seena and Rebecca continued to smolder, always ready to burst into flame. Usually the brawls involved religion, with Seena ridiculing her daughter-in-law's stern devotion and Rebecca complaining of her mother-in-law's agnosticism. No compromise seemed possible, and when the old folk were alone, Seena resumed her pestering: 'Let's leave and build a little hut where we can live the way we used to. I'm tired of having the Bible thrown at me.'
'It's being thrown at your father, too,' he said, referring to the rumor that a military expedition had been sent to eliminate Rooi van Valck's outlaw empire. Some even claimed that Rooi had been hanged.
Seena doubted this: 'They'd have to catch him first. And then they'd have to get a rope around his neck. Not many at the Cape would like to try.'
'If you'd be more patient with Rebecca,' Adriaan began, whereupon his wife gave him a lesson on the future of South Africa: 'She'll never let up. With her quiet manners she'll press on and on. The way her father did.'
'What do