Jacob’s Dream

By Jack Jerome

In 1965, in South Africa, an Afrikaner teen sets out in search of his father while a Zulu hunter returns home to his four-year old son. The encounter between the fathers scars the sons in different ways and incites an act of revenge that will haunt them both forever. In 1993, in Banner, Texas, three men die in a seemingly unrelated robbery.

In 1996, Banner is visited by an extraordinary man from South Africa seeking the truth behind a nightmare that has haunted him since child-hood. His quest disrupts the placid lives of Professor Cholly Bracker and wife, Kate, and draws them into a perilous intrigue. When they discover a link between the visitor's quest and the death of Cholly's brother--one of those who died in 1993--their interest becomes deeply personal.

Given reason to suspect Banner's most influential citizen in a decades-old conspiracy that has already claimed more than twenty lives, they discover that pursuing the truth may have put their own lives in jeopardy. Seeking evidence to protect themselves, Cholly and Kate are forced to take dangerous risks and in doing so they learn there is much more to the conspiracy than a legacy of hate. Before they can act on their discoveries, the Brackers learn the "whole truth" is even more shocking than what they had come to believe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Feb 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781480869295

Jack Jerome

Jack Jerome retired from a successful career in financial services and management. Having spent years writing professional articles and training manuals, he now writes fiction. After his Readmeastoryplease book, The Elf Who Betrayed Santa Claus, his first adult novel was Jacob’s Dream. He hopes you also enjoy Hits & Mrs. He and his wife, Diane, live in Venice, Florida.

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Part I

Fathers & Sons

A man’s dying is more the survivor’s affair than his own.

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

One

1965: Transvaal Province, South Africa

The open jeep rolled roughly but steadily across the pre-dawn veldt. Under a waning moon sixteen-year-old Christiaan Bach trusted his headlights to find the more precarious mounds and depressions before his tires did.

Having disregarded counsel to wait until daybreak, the young khaki-clad Afrikaner was now an hour out of camp as he brought the vehicle to a stop atop another modest kopje. Reaching up with both hands, he grasped the top of the windshield and pulled himself up to stand on the torn brown leather seat. With an upward sweep of his right hand he pushed his safari hat back across his thick blond hair to let it slide down to the middle of his back and stared into the darkness beyond the spray of his headlights. Once again he hoped to see the lights of the other vehicle or hear its engine in the ghostly silence of the savanna and once again was disappointed.

His attention was suddenly drawn to the east where a long, thin line of shimmering orange peaked between the distant peaks of the Drakensberg Escarpment. He was encouraged and grateful. The morning sun was about to offer its aid in the search for his father.

Roetger Bach left night camp two hours earlier. After celebrating a successful hunt too long and too well, he had taken one of the Land Rovers and another bottle of Dutch brandy, and set off to savor another of his favorite intoxicants: the exhilaration of braving the nighttime savanna alone.

Knowing he had done so before without harm greater than a bad hangover and a mood to match eased the young Bach’s concern only slightly. Venturing out alone on the savanna at night was a risk never to be taken lightly—even for a living legend like Roetger Bach when sober. And, by now, he had surely forfeited that advantage.

The young Boer tried to assuage his concern by entertaining the possibility his father had already returned to camp. He mused that perhaps their roles were even now reversed and it was the father who worried for the safety of the son. But that was not a possibility to take seriously. The notion that he would concede to so selfless a sentiment was wishful thinking to the point of fantasy. Thus far, being his son had never earned him special consideration. Deference, it seems, was not a birthright. The Great Man’s respect came only after proven worth, and for Christiaan the bar had been set especially high.

Born of parents who lived separate lives in separate worlds, he and his younger brother, Melwin, began their lives in their mother’s Pretorian world. Their pre-adolescence years were spent enjoying not only the comforts of city life in the South Africa capital, but also the biased respect of an Afrikaner community loyal to the legacy of their father’s Boer predecessors. When she died following a carriage accident four years ago, only their father’s harsher, more adventurous world—the world of big-game hunting and often surreptitious expeditions—was available to them. Though his desire to include them in his world was less than enthusiastic, he had no other viable option to offer them—at least not one that didn’t require compromising his life style; and that was something he was not open to considering.

Too young to accompany his father on safari, Mel was relegated to completing his elementary education at a white mission school near Kroonstad. Christiaan, however, while only three years older, successfully argued that he was ready to face the same challenges his legendary father was said to have faced at that age.

After spending the last four years hell-bent to earn his father’s respect, he was still waiting for some acknowledgement he had done so. Since entering the rugged and often perilous world of Bach Safaris, being the Great Man’s son had earned him no special privileges among the staff, and clients were never even apprised of the relationship. His father’s wishes in that regard were made quite clear the day he arrived, and, unfortunately for Christiaan, the wishes of Roetger Bach carried the weight of dogma. With few exceptions, the only time he had heard the word son in a sentence with a reference to his father was as indodana in isiZulu or mwana in Swahili. At least the native help thought it prudent not to forget who he was.

Though he tried to understand his father’s motive, he was not untroubled by it. He was, after all, the Great Man’s eldest son. Surely he was entitled to more respect than that offered a hired-hand. But there had been no evidence of that, so he was forced to tolerate his duties without it.

Tolerating overt disrespect, however, was a different matter. Three years ago, for example, he overheard part of a conversation between Kinny Jous, a Belgian driver, and the British couple he was counseling about an upcoming expedition. All he heard was "Bach’s ‘something’ son." But, when the Brits glanced at him and rewarded Jous with hearty laughter, Christiaan perceived the comment as having been ridicule. Later that night, Jous found a puff adder beneath the blanket in his cot. While he survived the bite, by the time he reached a medical post and was treated with the appropriate anti-venom, the cytotoxic necrosis had corrupted enough of his calf muscle to require amputation below the knee.

Irrespective of his personal musings, the possibility that he and his father had passed each other in the darkness was highly unlikely anyway. This part of the Highveld—the wettest and most fertile portion of the Central Plateau—was fairly flat and sparsely treed. Had his father returned by a route as much as two miles east or west of the one he set out on, his headlights or campfire would have been easily seen. So, the Great Man was still out there somewhere, farther north across the immense rolling grassland.

Dropping back down to the seat, Christiaan pushed the gear shift forward. The instant it found the drive notch, he stomped on the gas pedal and the jeep charged forward once again, carrying the anxious youth down from the rise and once again out across the South African veldt.

_____

Mnetheti Otumba paused when he reached the familiar hillock. Pushing the springbok from off his shoulders and raising his right arm to stand his two spears on the ground, the tall Zulu in a loin cloth and brown cotton shirt stood still and erect staring out across the rolling plain that would lead him to his umuzi (homestead). He strained to see the glow from his family’s morning campfire. Though he knew it was still too distant to be seen, his heart insisted on the effort anyway.

Ubusuku (the night) had not yet returned dominion over the veldt to Ilanga (the sun), and Mntheti lifted his face skyward to marvel at the countless points of light that still filled the sky. Mindful that the time was near when Ilanga would chase them all from view, he lowered his gaze and peered eastward in anticipation of his appearance.

He was rewarded almost immediately as a long thin line of shimmering orange peeked between the distant peaks of the uKhahlamba (Drakensberg Escarpment). The day was awake and the grateful hunter offered a single nod in appreciation for Ilanga’s faithfulness.

Laying his spears on the ground, he lifted the eighty pound antelope and draped it on his shoulders again like a legged shawl. Reaching down to retrieve his spears, he stepped forward to begin the final leg of his three-day absence.

His hunt had taken longer than expected, having even threatened to be unsuccessful. But then, barely two hours before nightfall, the well-fed springbok he had been following finally succumbed to the poison on his spear tip. And, though the burden of its weight had been increasing with each mile, it now seemed lighter. For Mntheti, this was not a phenomenon in need of explanation. The promise of a warm welcome and the smile and embrace of his wife, Jomann, would lighten any burden.

He imagined that greeting now. As always, the children would be the first to greet him.

Rushing out at first sight, they would race up the gentle grassy slope toward him and their enthusiasm would warm him more than the morning campfire. As usual, his two older boys would reach him first and vie to relieve him of the burden on his shoulders and for the pride of delivering it to the rest of the family.

Last to reach him would be his youngest son, Jacob. Though he would run hardest of all, he would be handicapped by four-year-old legs. When he did arrive, he would hug his leg and look up at him with that wide sweet smile. Then Mntheti would lift him up to seat him on his shoulders to become a new burden—but one far more precious than the springbok—and he would carry him all the way down to the gate where Jomann and the others waited with smiles and words of respect and appreciation.

His pace quickened at the thought of such a welcome and he smiled in anticipation of it. Though he was the leader of his village, the umnumzana, Mntheti Otumba was feeling the simpler pride of a father.

_____

In the distance, the guttural, staccato roar of a male lion pierced the silence and reignited the young Bach’s fear—not for himself, but for his father. The nighttime savanna was ruled by the predators. Dawn would find some having failed to make a kill, and hunger would make them less discriminating.

He tried to persuade himself that, while concern for his father’s safety was reasonable, fear for it was unnecessary. After all, the Great Man had already faced every challenge this hard land had to offer and had long ago claimed the rights of a conqueror. He had earned the right to travel it as he wished, and all its residents—men and beasts—played their roles at his pleasure or in irrelevance.

His father was a fourth-generation Bach to be born here. His great-great-grandfather was a trekboer, one of the first White South Africans to join other Voortrekkers in the Great Trek. Bach blood and sweat had helped oil the civilizing of this undisciplined land for more than 150 years, and that heritage alone made his claim a worthy one. To his adoring son, Roetger Bach was not merely his father. He was his exemplar.

_____

In the distance, the guttural, staccato roar of ingonyama pierced the silence and reminded Mntheti that his was not the only hunger in need of sating. If the lion’s pride had not made a kill last night, it might challenge him for his springbok. If challenged by a single lion, he would defend the prize as he had done before. But if challenged by more than one, he would be forced to surrender it, hoping they would be satisfied with an easy meal and ignore him. He stopped to test the breeze and was encouraged. Faint and at his back, it would not send the scent of his kill back to the pride. He increased his pace nonetheless.

As he lengthened his stride, he remembered a time when the bravest of the young men would answer the challenge of such a roar. They would seek out the maned lion to prove their manhood in his charge. If successful, they would eat his heart and eyes, believing that doing so would help them overcome fear. Some would not return, of course, but that was the way of it. Whether to the lion or leopard, or to sickness, or to war, young men had always been lost. This was less of a sad thing because it was certain thing, a thing to be accepted. To do otherwise was to be a fool.

That thought invited another—one not as easy to accept. Zulu families now faced an even greater predator of the young men. Many more were being lost to the hollow promise of the cities and the factories and the mines. There was no coming-of-age tradition excusing their departure and no ceremony or family blessing to bid them farewell. The young men would simply go off one morning as others before them had done. And, like the others, most would not return. Whether they would not or could not Mntheti did not know. He knew only that this relentless caller of young men was a predator more ravenous than ingonyama.

Mntheti’s sons were not yet of an age to have been lured away, but he learned of these things at the indaba (meeting place). Men would say simply that the young men go because other young men had gone, and now nearly half of the Zulu sons dwelt in those stifling sepulchral places. Mntheti accepted their words because he saw no mystery in them. Is it not easy to understand, he would say, that young men will seek that place where most other young men dwell? And would they not be discouraged from returning to a place where few young men remain?

Understanding this matter did not lessen his concern for it: "But should the young men continue to leave, who will protect the women and the children? Who will tend the cattle and the goats? Who will make the babies? These are things old men cannot do forever." These worrisome thoughts did not abate as he walked.

_____

The jeep’s right front tire found a meerkat mound and the jolt nearly bumped young Bach from his seat. Regaining control, his mind returned to the thoughts of a worried son and there was some guilt in that. For a son to fear for his father’s safety was an honorable thing, a thing to be appreciated by most men. But Roetger Bach was not most men. He would find insult in such concern. He would perceive it as distrust, and showing distrust in the Great Man in anything was unforgiveable.

Christiaan knew he had already sinned against his father by the simple act of searching for him. No outcome would lessen that offense. It might even exacerbate it. If the Great Man returned safely to camp, learning that his son had been out looking for him like a lost child would earn Christiaan a harsh and public rebuke. But, if he found him actually in need of aid or rescue, his father’s hubris might estrange him forever.

Roetger Bach had never depended upon anyone for anything other than menial services, and he had earned the reputation that nothing of importance to his world was beyond his control. Even matters of life and death seemed to be included in his purview. That was a lesson Christiaan had learned in his first year with him.

His father had returned injured from a hunt, and when the doctor described the injury as life-threatening the twelve-year-old began to weep.

Rising quickly from his bed, his father slapped him across the face, having somehow mustered enough strength behind the blow to send the boy hard to his backside. "Death can come to me only when I bid it to come! Do not dare to presume otherwise, boy!" he yelled louder than anyone thought possible for his condition. Ten days later, he led a leopard hunt.

In spite of the absence of even a hint of a normal father/son bond, Christiaan believed that being the eldest son of Roetger Bach demanded a special fealty undeterred by circumstance or consequence. So, in spite of his fear of him, his fear for him urged him forward.

_____

The sun had fully escaped the horizon and chased away not only the darkness but the fear of whatever threats it might hide. Closer to home now, the more familiar landscape was also reassuring.

Pausing atop a modest rise, Mntheti raised the springbok off his shoulders enough to lay his spears beneath it so its weight would hold them fast across his back. He then raised the water-skin that hung from his left shoulder by a leather strap and drained what little remained inside. Staring into the distance, he was once again visited by thoughts of home and family and was reminded of the burden of decisions.

He recalled a time when the most serious of matters were for the inkosi to decide. But, now, the king was too busy with White men’s politics to be concerned with village matters—even matters as serious as the loss of the young men. So it was for each umnumzana to stem this terrible tide. But, not all village leaders were dutiful or wise. As the leader of his village, Mntheti considered his counsel to be wise, but believed it was his role as father that earned the love and respect of his sons. As he could think of no matter more important than the loss of Zulu sons and surmised that every one that stayed was one less for another to follow, it occurred to him that perhaps to be the father was more important than to be the king. He doubted he would offer such an opinion at the indaba, but he would try to remind himself of it more often.

_____

Aided now by full daylight, Christiaan’s jeep continued its journey north. There were no roads to lead him and no familiar geography to suggest that one direction might lead to a better somewhere than would another. Earlier, even in the pre-dawn darkness, the jeep’s headlights found tire-flattened grass, but those tracks had ended several miles back. Now, even as the risen sun aided the search, there was no trail for it to light. The generous grasses had given way to a stretch of dry and hardened soil and the night wind had erased whatever tracks a vehicle might have left. The terrain had also become less flat and was busied with more trees and patches of bush. Nonetheless, it was still unlikely that his father had passed him unseen.

As the young Boer fought a drain of confidence, he was revisited by guilt and recalled a familiar campfire boast: "The Great Man can follow tracks even across the wind!" the bearers would say. Though he knew the boast to be a fanciful one, he had little doubt that were their roles reversed his father would not have lost his trail.

Reasoning that the absence of sign offered no reason to believe his father had altered his course, it seemed prudent to assume he had not. So, the young Boer continued north.

_____

As Mntheti strode a steady pace on shoeless feet accustomed to such journeys, his thoughts about the duties of a father brought his youngest son to mind again. Jacob was only four. There was much for him to learn. While Zulu tradition gave children great freedom and the raising of them was more a village matter than a parental one, it was the duty of the father to teach the boys the skills needed for hunting and combat. Jacob had already tried his hand at the isiphapha and assegai, although he treated throwing the spears more like a game than a serious exercise.

It was also his duty to teach him the Nguni and Zulu traditions. Many of the old ways were gone forever, of course. The days of great kings like Shaka and the glory of countless Zulu warriors rising from the floors of the shallow valleys to line the hilltops as far as the eye could see, beating their short, long-bladed stabbing spears against cowhide-covered shields in staccato unison and chanting as a single voice, Zooloo! Zooloo! Zooloo! was a time that would not return. And the days of the great Zulu herds that filled those same valleys was also a time that would not return. He, of course, had never seen such a time, but his father and his father had spoken of it proudly—as they should. It was, after all, a proud time, and was not pride a father’s most important example?

That such things were gone forever was a sad thing. But for them to be forgotten would be to erase the past and blind the future. So, his sons must know of these things, and he would teach them as fathers have always done.

_____

The jeep’s tires once again rolled onto savanna grass, and Christiaan braked the vehicle to another stop. Standing on the cracked leather seat, he pulled a soiled handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead and the lining of his wrinkled hat. Returning the hat to his head to shade the sun, he retrieved binoculars from the passenger seat and scanned in all directions. At first, the only movement came from the airborne dust his own tires had loosed behind him. Then, through the powerful lenses, he noted movement to his distant right. A mile and a half to the northeast, a lone giraffe was feeding from the top of an acacia tree. He was surprised to see the slender giant this far south.

_____

As Mntheti continued his steady march toward home, less than half mile to the west, he spied a lone giraffe feeding from the top of an acacia tree. Without altering his stride, he offered a bemused smile and said to the sun, "This humble hunter walks nearly three days to kill only a springbok while indlulamithi visits me at home to tempt me with a thousand times more meat. But it does not matter, Ilanga! A small meal in the belly is more filling than a feast that will not permit approach."

_____

The young Afrikaner lowered his glasses. Having already come farther than anticipated, he considered his options. He could drive east for a short while and then return twice that distance west in hopes of finding new sign, but feared that either direction would take him too far from the northerly course he believed his father was still on and waste valuable time.

Then he noted a long sloping rise not more than a mile due north. From there, he reasoned, he might command a view for as many miles as he would yet think to travel. Dropping to the seat, he put the jeep back in gear and sped forward once again.

_____

Having reached the top of a long sloping rise, Mntheti could now see his umuzi in the shallow valley below. From this vantage point he could see the thatched roofs of the family huts above the outer fence and even the cattle kraal inside where his family’s pride and wealth—the livestock—were penned. Seeing the kraal empty reminded him that the welcome he had imagined was not to be, as the men and older children were away tending the livestock. The small herd of cattle would already be in the east valley where the grass was new and sweet being tended by Jomann’s older brother and their two oldest sons. The goats would also be enjoying richer grass somewhere under the dutiful care of old Kmassa and the younger of his wife’s brothers. Only the women and younger children would be there to greet him. But he felt no disappointment in that. Theirs were always the warmest welcomes anyway, especially those of Jomann and Jacob. Anxious to return to home and family, Mntheti proceeded down the gentle slope.

_____

Christiaan stopped when he reached the crown of the long low hill. Standing once more on the jeep’s seat, he raised his binoculars and scanned the forward terrain. A mile straight ahead he spied a small Zulu homestead. Straining to see signs of life, he saw someone approach the settlement. It was a tall Zulu man with what looked like a small antelope draped across his shoulders and spears extending from underneath it.

Perhaps this returning hunter had seen his father or signs of his passing, he thought. As he watched him approach the outer fence, he saw where a section of it had been flattened and was suddenly blinded by a flash of light. The sun’s rays were reflecting off something metallic. Adjusting the glass’s focus, he inhaled sharply as he recognized the source of the flash and the damage. Just inside the breach sat his father’s Land Rover.

Dropping to his seat, he slapped the gear shift hard and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The jeep’s wheels ripped into the grassy soil and threw the vehicle forward and down the long slope.

_____

Now within a hundred yards of his homestead, Mntheti saw Wamma, Jomann’s brother’s wife, and her younger sister, Spewah, standing just outside the gate and watching him approach. Waving at them and expecting an enthusiastic greeting, he received only a solemn stare.

Why are they not glad to see me? he asked aloud. And where are the children? Do they not know I have returned? Have they not been told? Why do they not come to greet me? And where is Jomann?

As he drew nearer to the two young women his apprehension grew. They now stood as one, tightly embracing each other and unable or unwilling to hold his gaze. Then Spewah buried her head in her sister’s shoulder and Wamma lowered her head to stare at the ground.

Something was very wrong. What could it be? What terrible thing had happened in his absence? Had a lion invaded the kraal during the night? Had livestock been taken? If so, wouldn’t they be even more pleased by his return? Instead they appeared afraid. Or was it sorrow? Had someone been killed or lie dying of sickness? His thoughts turned to Jomann and Jacob and he was fearful.

Pushing the springbok from his shoulders together with the spears held underneath it, he quickened his pace to the two cowering women and saw the breach in the outer fence and the vehicle parked inside it. His fear was no longer of marauding beasts, but of men.

Turning away from the women, he stepped quickly to the Land Rover. The open door showed it was empty, and the heavy smell of alcohol explained the cause of the crash. Reading the writing on the door was not possible for him, but the logo of Bach Safaris was familiar. Warned about the conduct of the men of Bach from others at the indaba, his fear became heightened.

While Mntheti’s eyes searched the inside of the compound for the intruders, his mind was muddled with thoughts of what he would do when he found them. The lodges appeared undisturbed and there was no one else in sight. Perhaps Jomann, her mother, and the children were huddled together in one of the lodges, he thought. But where were the men of Bach?

Fearing the worst, he turned to retrieve his spears when he saw that Wamma and Spewah had followed him to the breach and Wamma was pointing at the largest of the huts. It was the roundavel lodge of the village leader. It was his lodge.

With more fear than he had ever felt facing a lion, Mnethti raced headlong towards his lodge terrified that he might be about to discover the reason for Jomann’s absence.

Reaching the short door of woven sticks, he pulled it open and ducked quickly inside. Jomann was laying crumpled on the dirt floor against the curved wall to his right. Her marriage hat lay beside her and her beads were scattered about. Her hair was matted with blood and a streak of dark crimson ran down her cheek. Bounding to her side and dropping to his knees, Mntheti feared the worst. But when he lifted her head, her eyes opened to find his and she released a low moan. She appeared only injured.

Relief was only momentary as motion more sensed than seen ripped his attention to the left where two figures stood facing him. Jmani, his pretty daughter of ten years, stood naked against the wall staring back at him with pleading eyes and sobbing. Beside her stood a large barrel-chested Afrikaner. Naked below the waist, his erect manhood was wet with virgin blood.

With a scream releasing more fury than he had ever known and arms raising fists, Mntheti charged at his daughter’s defiler. The man’s heavy, tanned forearm flew forward to meet the assault and caught Mntheti across the side of his head, knocking him backward to the dirt floor. As he fell, he heard Jmani scream and saw her collapse to the floor. The instant he landed, he was already scrambling to rise again. Struggling to get to his feet on unsure legs, he watched the same arm that sent him to the ground reach its hand down to the holstered black and chrome handgun sitting atop the khaki pants that lay crumpled on the floor behind him.

As Mntheti’s right hand reached to the floor to brace his rise he felt the rounded hilt of a machete. Minutes earlier, Jomann had tried to defend herself with it, but dropped it when she was struck. Now it was in his hand and rising with him. As he watched the Ruger being pulled from its holster, Mntheti lifted the large broad-bladed knife high behind him. Though all too aware that a more powerful weapon was already pointing at his chest, his fury would not concede to its threat and every muscle in his body was in accord with that commitment. As his outstretched arm began its determined path he came forward in a sideways lunge that began rotating his shoulders to face his target. The Ruger discharged and a .45 slug slammed into his left shoulder with a force that abetted his spinning turn to the left and accelerated the path of his hinged wrist and right arm. Still obedient to the demands of his fury, his arm stretched the machete’s blade in uncommon speed and force until the whetted steel found the neck of Roetger Bach and cleaved his head cleanly.

_____

Christiaan’s jeep skidded to a stop just outside the breach in the fence. Jumping out, he climbed over the flattened section of reed-woven sticks and stepped up to the empty Land Rover. The crude barricade had offered little resistance to the heavy vehicle assuring him that his father, though obviously inebriated, left the scene uninjured. His thoughts of continuing his search were again mixed. How would his father react if discovered by his son in a degrading situation? And such a scenario seemed more than likely.

Spotting the spears and antelope on the ground, he raised his eyes to see the man who had carried them rushing into the largest of the huts surrounding the kraal. Reflexes took over and he strode off in pursuit. Hesitant at first, his pace quickened as his anxiety grew. Suddenly, a man’s full-throated scream of anguish came from inside the hut followed by the shrill shriek of a young girl, and his anxiety turned to fear.

Stopping just outside the hut’s open entrance, he saw the Zulu inside. Struggling to rise from the floor, his face was bloody and ripe with rage and his hand was raising a machete high above his head. Then he sprang forward, his shoulders turning to draw back the heavy steel blade for added thrust. The target of his fury was hidden from Christiaan’s view by the hut wall, but he imagined a man standing on the other side bracing to receive the attack and knew that man was his father.

Unable to react to what was taking place, he watched the enraged Zulu charge past the doorway and disappear into the left side of the hut. A gunshot boomed inside and a pink splash of blood and tissue flew back across his line of vision. A split second later he heard the sound of steel cleaving tissue and bone followed by the sound of bodies falling to the ground. He knew that both bullet and blade had found their targets.

The teenager stood frozen, staring through the doorway of the now eerily silent hut, afraid to step inside and confirm what he feared. But he didn’t have to move. The answer came to him when his father’s head rolled into the path of sunlight reaching into the lodge’s entrance.

He stared in choking horror as his father’s open eyes looked up at him. For several surreal moments those eyes and his were locked in an uncredulous stare. Not yet able to accept the crushing impact of what had just happened, his muddled mind imagined that his father was admonishing him: "You just watched it happen!" his eyes said. "You could have stopped it! You failed me again, boy! You don’t deserve to be my son!"

Recoiling in revulsion, he staggered backward on rubber legs and fell hard to the ground. Unable to look away from the ghastly visage chastising him from the doorway, he tried too quickly to stand on still unsteady legs and sat down hard again. Twice more in quick succession, he tried with the same result, managing only to scoot himself backward in the dirt. His mind struggled to deny what his eyes testified to be true: the Great Man was dead. The reality of that was even more shocking than the manner in which he died. Pulling his gaze away from the scolding face of his father, he turned his head and began to retch.

When the nausea had run its course and he was finally able to lift his head and look up from the soiled ground, he saw a small boy sitting in the dirt some fifteen feet to his right. Barefoot and wearing only long brown shorts, the young Zulu was staring at him intently.

As their stare lengthened in the heavy silence, Christiaan’s mind filled with distracting questions. Had the boy been sitting there long enough to witness what had happened? Did he know why the man was so enraged? Was he old enough to comprehend something like this, or was he merely curious about the strange antics of a White teenager inside his homestead?

He remembered the scream of a young girl. She was inside the hut with his father when the man entered, and he, too, had screamed. Had his father …? He chose not to complete that thought. Was this boy the Zulu’s son? And what about the gunshot? His father fired his weapon and it had found its mark. He had seen the bloody mist. Was the Zulu also dead? If he was only wounded would he emerge from the hut? And what would he do if he did?

The bewildered teenager finally looked away from the boy and found his father’s cold stare once more. Suddenly, the answers to his questions didn’t matter. He didn’t care about the boy. He didn’t care about the man. He didn’t care about the girl. All that mattered was that his father was dead, truly dead. And while the manner in which he died should be of lesser consequence, it wasn’t. The Great Man would go to his grave mutilated.

Young Christiaan Bach had seen a man torn apart by a lion. He had seen what was left of the bodies of a woman and a small boy half eaten by hyenas. Killing and carnage were common to the veldt and judging them cruel was naive. But this was not that. This was not an act he could accept or forgive. To kill a man as great as his father in such a way was profane. It was a sacrilege, a sin, a great sin.

While their fathers lie in blood and dirt inside the Zulu hut, the two young strangers sat in solemn silence in the dirt outside. A teenage Afrikaner