Eye Brother Horn by Bridget Pitt

Author:Bridget Pitt
Format: epub

DANIEL

Their lantern has gone out. Daniel lies in the darkness listening to his brother’s fading footsteps, feeling a bruise swelling on his cheek. He remembers the last time they fought as if they really wanted to hurt each other, the day uMfundisi* gave him the gun. He stares up at the shadowy tree branches that meet above his head, at the heavily scented white moonflowers, gleaming above him in the faint starlight.

He gets up at length and walks slowly up the road. As he approaches the small fire that Dawid made by the ox wagon outside the Bakers’ house, he hears singing, punctuated with whistles and clicks. He pauses in the shadows. There are two figures clapping and dancing in the firelight—it takes him a few moments to realize it is Dawid and Moses. Moses never dances, not since that afternoon by the pigsty wall—not even the jigs and polkas that their father taught the missionary children as an alternative to what he calls “heathen high jinks.” But here he is—he has discarded his jacket and shirt, his shoes. His body flickers with the flickering flames, he has become a thing of spirit and light and wind. Dawid too is transformed from a stiff, grave man curled around some deep private grief into a joyful presence, darting birdlike with quick movements, uttering shrill grunts and clicks in a language Daniel’s never heard. The oxen lie quietly on the edge of the firelight, looking on with dark eyes.

Daniel stands in the shadows watching them, longing to join. He’s known both of them his whole life, but they suddenly seem beyond his knowing.

His suit lies heavy on his skin, seeming to grow into him, strangling him with its Englishness. Moses’ words echo in his mind…there is no us…if the cap fits…

He turns and walks softly away.

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