was stocky and solid, with broad thick shoulders and the same weightiness in his frame. This is private property, we don't want tramps hanging about. I'm not a tramp, Mark started, but the man cut him short with a snort of brusque laughter. You with the fancy clothes, and the Rolls parked at the door, you had me fooled for a moment there. My name is Mark Anders, he said. This land belongs to my grandfather, John Anders -He thought he saw something move in the man's eyes, a change in the set of his mouth, doubt or worry perhaps.
He licked his lips, a quick nervous gesture, but when he spoke his voice was still flat and quiet. I don't know nothing about that, all I know is this land belongs to the Ladyburg Estates now, and I am the foreman for the company, and neither me nor the company wants you hanging around here, he paused and settled on his feet, dropping his shoulders and pushing out his heavy jaw, and one other thing I know is I like to break a head now and then, and I haven't broken one for God knows a long time. They stared at each other, and Mark felt a sudden hot rush of anger. He wanted to take up the man's challenge, even though he realized how powerful and dangerous he was. He had the look of a killer, and the weight and the strength, but Mark felt himself coming into balance, his own shoulders dropping.
His tormentor saw it also and his relish was obvious. He smiled thinly, clenching his jaw around the smile so that the cords stood out in his throat, swaying slightly up on to the balls of his feet. Then suddenly Mark felt revolted and sickened by the presence of violence. There had been too much of it in his life already, and there was no reason to fight now. He turned away and picked up his boots.
The man watched him dress, disappointed perhaps, but ready for further confrontation. When he swung his pack up on to his shoulder, Mark asked, What's your name?
The man answered him lightly, still keyed up for violence. My friends call me Hobday, he said. Hobday who? Just Hobday! I won't forget it, said Mark. You've been a real brick, Hobday. He went down the steps into the yard, and fifteen minutes later when Mark looked back from the ridge where the Ladyburg road crossed on its way northwards, Hobday was still standing in the kitchen yard of Andersland, watching him intently.
Fred Black watched Mark come up the hill. He leaned against the rail of the dipping tank and chewed steadily on his quid of tobacco, stringy and sun-blackened and dry as a stick of chewing tobacco himself .
Although he was one of John Anders cronies, and had known Mark since he was a crawler, it was clear he did not recognize him now. Mark stopped fifteen paces off and lifted his hat. Hello, Uncle Fred, Mark greeted him, and still it was a moment before the older man let out a whoop and leapt to embrace Mark. God, boy, they told me you'd got yourself killed in France. They sat together on the rail of the cattle pen, while the Zulu herd boys drove the cattle below them through the narrow race, until they reached the ledge from which they made the wild scrambling leap into the deep stinking chemical bath, to come up again, snorting fearfully, and swim, nose up, for the slope ramp beyond. He's been dead almost a year, no, longer, over a year now, lad, I'm sorry. I never thought to let you know. Like I said, we thought you were dead in France. That's all right, Uncle Fred. Mark was surprised that he felt no shock. He had known it, accepted it already, but there was still the grief that lay heavy on his soul. They were both silent for a longer time, the old man beside him respecting his grief. How did he -'Mark hesitated over the word, how did he go? Well, now. Fred Black lifted his hat and rubbed the bald pink pate lovingly. It was all a bit sudden like. He went off to poach a little biltong with Piet Greyling and his son up at Chaka's Gate. Vivid memories crowded back for Mark. Chaka's Gate was the vast wilderness area to the north where the old man had taught him the craft of the hunter. Years before, back in 1869 it had been declared a hunting reserve but no warden had been appointed, and the men of northern Natal and Zululand looked upon it as their private hunting reserve. On the fifth day, the old man did not come back into camp. They searched for him another four days before they found him. He paused again and glanced at Mark. You feeling all right, boy? Yes, I'm all right. Mark wondered how many men he had seen die, how many he had killed himself, and yet the death of one more old man could move him so. Go on, please, Uncle Fred. Piet said it looked like he had slipped while he was climbing a steep place, and he had fallen on his rifle and it had gone off. It hit him in the stomach. They watched the last ox plunge into the dip, and Fred Black climbed stiffly down from the pole fence. He held the small of his back for a moment. Getting old, he grunted, and Mark fell in beside him as they started up towards the house. Piet and his boy buried him there. He wasn't fit to bring back, he'd been in the sun four days. They marked the place and made a sworn statement to the magistrate when they got back to Ladyburg.
Fred Black was interrupted by a cry and the sight of a female figure racing down the avenue of blue gum trees towards them, slim and young, with honey brown hair in a thick braid bouncing on her back, long brown legs and grubby bare feet beneath the skirts of the faded cheap cotton skirt. Mark! she cried again. Oh Mark! But she was close before he recognized her. She had changed in four years. Mary. The sadness was still on Mark, but he could not talk further now. There would be time later. Even in the sadness, he could not miss the fact that Mary Black was a big girl now, no longer the mischievous imp who once had been below his lordly notice when he had been a senior at Ladyburg High School.
She still had the freckled laughing face and the prominent, slightly crooked front teeth, but she had grown into a big, wide-hipped, earthy farm girl, with a resounding jolly laugh. She was as tall as Mark's shoulder and her shape under the thin, threadbare cotton was rounded and full; she had hips and buttocks that swung as she walked beside him, a waist like the flared neck of a vase and fat heavy breasts that bounced loosely at each stride. As they walked, she asked questions, endless questions in a demanding manner, and she kept touching Mark, her hand on his elbow, then grabbing his hand to shake out the answers to her questions, looking up at him with mischievous eyes, laughing her big ringing laugh. Mark felt strangely restless.
Fred Black's wife recognized him from across the yard and let out a sound like a milk cow too long deprived of her calf. She had nine daughters, and she had always pined for a son. Hello, Aunt Hilda, Mark began, and then was folded into her vast pneumatic embrace.
You're starved, she cried, and those clothes, they stink.
You stink too, Marky, your hair, you'll be sitting on it next. The four unmarried girls, supervised by Mary, set the galvanized bath in the centre of the kitchen floor and filled it with buckets of steaming water from the stove. Mark sat on a stool on the back veranda with a sheet around his shoulders, while Aunt Hilda sheared him of his long curling locks with a huge pair of blunt scissors.
Then she drove her daughters protesting from the kitchen. Mark fought desperately for his modesty, but she brushed his defence aside. An old woman like me, you haven't got anything I haven't seen bigger and better. She stripped him determinedly, hurling the soiled and rumpled clothing through the open doorway to where Mary hovered expectantly. Wash them, child, and you get yourself away from that door. Mark blushed furiously and dropped quickly into the water.
In the dusk, Fred Black and Mark sat together on the coping of the well in the yard, with a bottle of brandy between them. The liquor was the fierce Cape Smokewith a bite like a zebra stallion, and after the first sip Mark did not touch his glass again. Yes, I've thought about that often, Fred agreed, already slightly owl-eyed with the brandy. Old Johnny loved that land of his. Did he ever speak of selling it to you? No, never did. I always thought he'd be there for ever.
Often talked of being buried next to Alice. He wanted that. When did you last see Grandpapa, Uncle Fred? Well, now, he rubbed his bald head thoughtfully, it would be about two weeks before he left for Chaka's Gate with the Greylings. Yes, that's right. Held been into Ladyburg to buy cartridges and provisions. Pitched up here one night in the old scotch-cart, and we had a good old chat He didn't say anything then, about selling? No, not a word The
