The covenant - James A. Michener [340]
'All boys should learn to read.'
'Your boys didn't.'
'That's right. They were to live at De Kraal all their lives, and it didn't signify.'
'Why does it signify now?'
'Because we're moving into a new world. Your son may be needed as the leader of a great community. If he can't read, the leadership goes to someone else.'
The discussion might have become ardent had not Minna wandered by to inform her father that he must go out to shoot antelope, for the supply of biltong was depleted; and as she stood speaking to the two men, they saw that of a sudden her face changed from its normal sullen expression, and a frown gave way to a smile of broadening radiance. They turned to see what effected this change, and De Groot spoke for both men: 'Look who comes to join us!'
Among the newcomers to Thaba Nchu were sixteen families who had joined the main stream of Voortrekkers just south of the Orange River, and in the lead was Ryk Naude, the handsome young farmer, and his pretty wife, Aletta. For Minna Nel, the return of the one man she could love was prophetic: God had used this exodus to bring them back together; for Tjaart, the arrival of Aletta meant that his tormented imaginings were given life. She was even more enticing than he had remembered, older now and more the woman, and his eyes would never leave her.
Wherever Aletta Naude moved in these days when the leaders were trying to reach decisions, Tjaart endeavored to place himself so that she would have to see him, and after a while she became aware that he was doing this. It irritated her. She was nineteen years old and happily married, while he was forty-seven, with a second wife and a grandchild. He looked silly when he mooned at her, and one afternoon when he had succeeded in interposing himself between her and her tent, she said sharply, 'Mijnheer van Doorn, you're making yourself ridiculous,' and this so embarrassed him that he kept away from her for some days, but then the terrible fascination manifested itself again, and once more she had to avoid him.
The arrival at Thaba Nchu of so many new emigrants caused other troubles. Ryk Naude and his wife announced that they had decided to cross the Drakensberg and go down to Natal, and this encouraged Lukas de Groot to choose the same option, which meant that Tjaart would be separated both from the girl he loved and from his long-time associate. With profound seriousness he contemplated relinquishing his idea of settlement in the north so as to remain with people he preferred, and he might have surrendered to this temptation had not the affair of the lion skin shown him what fearful temptations threatened his family.
Minna had been less discreet than her father. She was overjoyed to meet with Ryk again and was not ashamed to display her affection. She did everything but embrace him in public, and when he told the clustered emigrants that he and some friends were moving east to see if they could shoot some lions for their skins, she openly ran to him, imploring him to be careful, and when he was gone she moped. This so irritated Jakoba that she told Tjaart, 'You must speak with her. She's becoming a Jezebel.'
So Tjaart took his daughter aside and gave her blunt warning: 'You're married to a good man. He cherishes you and little Sybilla, and you owe him a decent respect. Minna, behave yourself.'
'But Ryk promised me. In the new land, somehow he will be set free.'
'You're married forever. In the eyes of God. Before the predikant at Graaff-Reinet. Obey your vows.'
Tearfully, but with stubborn determination, she said, 'Father, if Ryk and Aletta were separated. Somehow. In God's wisdom. How happy you and I would be.'
Tjaart was stung by her probing of his secret, by her shrewd connivance in bringing it out. What he replied was 'They're heading east over the mountain, we're going north over the Vaaland we'll never meet again.'
But when Ryk came back to camp with four lion