The covenant - James A. Michener [355]
When Tjaart returned to the Kerkenberg he found the place deserted except for one boy shepherding a flock left there for utilization by chance travelers. He said that Mijnheer Bronk had prevailed upon the group to complete the descent into the valley of the Blaauwkrantz River.
Tjaart was at first angry that Bronk should have made such a bold decision alone, but when he saw the new site he had to admit that it was an improvement on the aerie in the hills. Kerkenberg had been for resting; the Blaauwkrantz was for living. It had ample water, good drainage, and a promise of the fine pastures which the Voortrekkers would occupy for the remainder of their lives. Tjaart went to Bronk and said, 'You have chosen well.'
In December 1837 new arrivals struggling down the Drakensberg brought the Voortrekkers an unexpected Christmas present: 'We have defeated Mzilikazi. He's fled north of the Limpopo, gone forever.' And three men who had participated in the final running battle elaborated: 'We caught him in retreat and kept at his heels. Overpowered him. Four thousand of his men dead. Two of ours.'
Brave beyond the demands of normal warfare, these black troops without guns or horses had tried to combat a white army that had both, and the day had come when the Great Bull Elephant had to face the fact that his regiments could no longer dominate the vast area they had delineated for themselves, and his kraals could not hold out against the Boer and Coloured horsemen who came thundering through the huts at dawn. As one of the arriving Boers said, 'Like an enraged elephant, he thrashed about the veld, then slowly withdrew.' He crossed the Limpopo, passing that grand and gloomy collection of ruins at Zimbabwe and establishing his permanent kingdom of the Matabele in the western reaches of that olden empire. For Mzilikazi, the great odyssey of his people, which had left such a trail of blood, was ended.
But even as Jakoba heard of this victory, she shared with Tjaart her apprehensions over the way things had been going ever since Balthazar Bronk had led the Voortrekkers to lower ground: 'I don't feel safe here. We've worked so hard to come this far, and I think it's all wrong.'
'What do you propose?'
'We should go back to higher ground.'
'We can't move all these people back to the Kerkenberg.'
'I mean all the way back. To the plateau where we belong.'
Tjaart was astounded. 'You'd go back up that mountain?'
'I would. Right now.'
'We'd never get our wagon up.'
'Leave it. Let's go back to Thaba Nchu and join some other group moving north.'
The idea was appealing. Tjaart had not liked what he saw at Dingane's Kraal, for if the Zulu king controlled that number of well-trained men, what would keep him from acting like Mzilikazi if he became angry? And why had he been so nervously concerned about the defeat of his arch-rival in the early skirmishes if he were not applying that experience to himself? Surely, if the Voortrekkers had heard of the Bull Elephant's final expulsion, Dingane must have heard too, and must be wondering whether a handful of Boers could do the same to him.
'I fear the English missionary may have been correct,' he confided to Jakoba. 'I think Retief might do well to avoid that kraal.'
'Warn him.'
'He listens to no man. Never has.'
'Tjaart, I think we should leave here. Let Bronk command. Did you know that during your absence he expelled Theunis from the Kerkenberg?'
'He what?' Such graceless behavior in the name of religion nauseated Tjaart, and he sought the sick-comforter to assure him that many of the men in the company, those who had faced death repeatedly and had not run away, appreciated his spiritual assistance: 'Theunis, when a man faces odds of a thousand to one, and when the cattle have been stolen and the horses stampeded, he needs God's assurance. On this trek you have been more important than four guns. Stay close to us, for I fear that