Stones for My Father by Trilby Kent

Author:Trilby Kent [Kent, Trilby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-77049-260-8
Publisher: Tundra
Published: 2011-03-22T04:00:00+00:00

I woke up in the back of a high-sided cart, flanked by my brothers. As soon as he noticed that I was conscious, Gert shuffled closer.

“The apie, Corlie,” he whispered. “He’s still in the jockey box.”

“What do you want me to do?” I snapped. My temples pounded; my tongue was so dry that it felt as if it had cleaved to the back of my mouth. Gert shrank back, biting his lip.

It served him right: imagine fretting about a wild animal when Sipho — a person, our friend — might face hanging in a faraway town? And what about Lindiwe, without whom we would never have survived those perilous days on the open platteland? I couldn’t allow myself to think of the terrified vervet huddling in its box while battle raged outside, then discovering itself abandoned and alone in the eerie silence that followed — for what was to be done? At times like these, if we didn’t harden our hearts against the little things, we would never survive.

There were twelve of us in the cart — all women and children. I noticed Tant Minna standing up at the front, straight as a rod, gripping the side of the wagon with white knuckles.

“Where are Danie and Andries?” I asked.

“With the men,” said Ma. She was standing, like the other women, steadying herself against the side of the cart as we rattled over the rocky ground. She eyed me with disdain. “What happened to you, then, eh? Fainting like a princess. What did you think you were doing, drawing attention to yourself like that?”

“You should have said something, Ma. You could have saved them —”

Ma raised her hand. “Don’t you speak to me like that, Corlie Roux. All that fuss over an idiot boy with sticky fingers …”

In an instant, my grief spun into fury. “You killed him, Ma! You didn’t say anything, and now they’re going to have him hanged —” I hauled myself to my feet, fighting against the lurching of the wagon. “I hate you!”

She slapped me so hard my head hit the side of the cart, making the others jump. My mother pressed her face toward mine, her breath hot against my skin.

“Don’t talk about things you can’t understand,” she hissed. “You’d have us locked up with a murderer, would you? There’s enough evil in our midst as it is, my girl …”

She left me slumped in the corner, cupping my head in my palms. The rocking of the wagon had already begun to make me feel queasy.

When we arrived at Standerton soon after, the soldiers herded us like cattle off the cart and into a boxcar that was waiting on a remote strip of rail tracks. It was difficult to see where we were going, and there was no time to gauge our location. Before I knew it, we’d been corralled from the cart into a dark, black box. The only light came from a couple of vents in the roof. When we were all inside, one of the soldiers slammed the door to the boxcar, making the entire thing shake.

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