The covenant - James A. Michener [490]
It was customary now to speak of three men at the farm, because Detlev was growing into such a hefty young fellow that he was assigned a position in the forward line at rugby, where his weight and more than ordinary strength would prove an advantage. Several times his father had said, 'Detlev, you're built just like your grandfather Tjaart. He was a strong man.' There had been a photograph of the old man, with belt and suspenders, tight-trimmed beard from ear to chin, flat black hat, staring straight ahead; it had gone in the flames, but Detlev could remember it and hoped that one day he would look the same.
Venloo had now fallen solidly into place as the prototype of a small Afrikaner community: it had in General de Groot its hero of past wars; in Piet Krause, a fiery teacher who wanted to remold the world; in Dominee Brongersma, a charismatic predikant who could both instruct and censure; and in Detlev van Doorn, the typical young lad of promise. At times it seemed that all the forces of this community conspired to make this boy more intelligent, more dedicated.
At the moment his brother-in-law, Piet Krause, had the greatest influence, for Detlev tended to see society through this vibrant young man's eyes. Once, coming over the hill, Piet stopped their carriage, looked ahead at the broken farm occupied by General de Groot, and began to rant: 'Never forget that scene, Detlev! A man who led us in battle living like the swine, forgotten, unloved, a castaway.'
'He wants to live that way,' Detlev explained. 'Every year Father asks him to move in with us. He says he likes the old place, the old ways.'
'But look at him, a great hero forgotten.' When the teacher spoke like this to De Groot, the old man laughed. 'Detlev's right. I like it this way. You should have seen how we lived on the trek.' He told of his family on that last evening when he elected to stay with the Van Doorns, and thus escaped being killed by Mzilikazi's men. 'Halt the wagon. Spread some blankets. Draw a canvas out from the wagon. Three poles to form a kind of tent. Go to sleep, and have your throats cut before morning. That's how we lived.'
'General,' Krause said with brimming emotion, 'Johanna and I want you to come in town and live with us.'
'Oh, no! You two would be arguing with me all the time. I'm happy where I am. If I get hungry, I come over to Jakob, here.'
The Vrymeer farm, with no white woman in attendance now that Johanna was married, faced problems which were solved when Micah Nxumalo and two of his wives moved back from the old general's place. This did not leave De Groot bereft, for two younger black women looked after him. Five rondavels existed again at Vrymeer, looking much as they had for the past fifty years, and they were occupied by some twenty blacks, half of whom had drifted up from Zululand. They worked at the farm, but it was Nxumalo who remained in charge.
With Van Doorn's encouragement he had patiently coaxed a herd of blesbok, more than sixty of them, to lodge permanently beside the three lakes. A stranger coming to the farm would see these handsome animals, white blazes gleaming in sunlight, and think that they had wandered in from the veld, but as day waned and they stayed fairly close to the house, he would realize that they lived here. How beautiful Vrymeer was, with the blesbok and the fattening Herefords and the eucalypts attaining enough height to form tall hedges, and sunlight falling across the lakes.
Four or five times a year Van Doorn harvested one or two of the older blesbok, turning the meat over to Nxumalo's wives for making biltong, and this seemed to help the herd rather than hurt it. Van Doorn usually shot unwanted bucks, but with such care that the other members of the herd scarcely knew that a shot had been fired. Certainly he never stampeded them, for he loved these beasts and felt that they helped tie him and De Groot more tightly to the soil of their ancestors. Nxumalo felt the