Shooting Butterflies (10 page)

Tara shoved the anger and resentment deep inside.

‘You okay?' Maggie asked.

‘Will be,' Tara said as she put the bracelet around her wrist. ‘Thanks.'

She took a deep breath. And she looked at her mum and sister. They were still together, not scattered across different countries like Gabe was from his family. They had a place they could call home again. That was enough for now. There were new roots beginning to be put down. And for the first time since her father was shot, Tara felt the first stirring of hope that she might not lose her whole family along with him.

That maybe they might not get taken away from her too.

6

The Butterfly Theory

Piet Retief Farm, Zimbabwe

July 1982

Buffel rocked backwards and forwards in his armchair. Sleep eluded him, despite his exhausted body. Sleeping in his chair was becoming a necessity. He found it easier to wake up from his nightmares in his chair than in his bed, and even if he couldn't sleep, not sleeping at all was better than the nightmares.

He knew that peace was coming eventually. The butterfly dream had shown him that so many months ago.

Peace for Impendla.

Peace for his own conscience.

He just needed to be patient.

Mwari
had showed her plan to him.

She hadn't sent a Karoi to tell him, instead she'd entered his nightmare and shown him the way to peace.

In his dream, the angel had taken Impendla's hand and walked with him, crossed over to the other side, and helped him on his
journey to his ancestors. And all the butterflies had come from the bush from miles around and flown around them like confetti, to celebrate the release of the children's souls from their cocoons.

If Impendla's soul could be saved like the
Karoi
had saved those people who cast a stone in the deep blue water of Sinoia caves, then his dream of the angel in the cocoon was the path he needed to take.

The angel's blonde hair was so white it shone like a halo. He'd seen it in the dreams that started the very night after she visited him with her mother.

She was the key to helping Impendla's soul cross over.

She was the perfect age to be the sacrifice for Impendla.

Perfect.

The perfect angelic cocoon.

But he'd missed the shot.

He rubbed his hand, fisted it and looked again at where his fingers should have been.

For so long he'd learnt to compensate for the loss of them, and yet just a slight wind, a little excitement at once more taking a human life, and he'd missed the girl.

His dream had shown him that he needed the angel to be part of the ritual. But the beautiful butterfly-in-training from next door had got away.

Shooting the overprotective father and uncle had been a small compensation.

He remembered how the police had crawled over everything at the farm next door and the road on his property near the river bed where the killings of the brothers took place. They had asked everyone about what they had seen. He'd told the police he had been in the house, having a sleep.

Shilo had backed him up, saying that he was in the house snoring.

His
kaffir
-boy hadn't let him down. They had been together during the Rhodesian Bush war, and were bound together by the blood spilled during their time in the PSYOPS unit.

He smiled. It was good to have someone you could trust working for you. It allowed you to pursue alternate interests.

Buffel looked down at his own disfigured hand. Before the war started, he had sacrificed his fingers, saving four other men from certain death during a routine blasting that had gone wrong at his quarry. Those same men had recognised not only his above-average strength, his tenacity and sheer stubborness not to give up, but also his temper that had ultimately given him the physical power to cut his own fingers off to free his hand, and give him time to clear the blast area, and survive. But they had also been privy to his irrational insistence that they try to find the pieces of his fingers. They had spent hours searching, but to no avail. His fingers were gone, and all that the hospital could do was neaten the amputation up, offer condolences, and praise him for saving his workers, one of whom was an ex-South African. From then on they all referred to him as Buffel.

He looked at the two fingers he'd taken from the men who had protected the angel that day. And he remembered the sight. In death the brothers had looked like he did, incomplete.

Collecting tokens from them had been an unplanned bonus.

He'd pinned them with dress pins to a piece of kaylite to dry, then he'd put them with the other trinkets he collected to decorate his cocoons. He'd get to use them one day. He'd have that butterfly moment in real life, not just in his dreams. But sometimes, like tonight, he would dig them out from their hiding place, and he would touch them, as if touching the father would bring him knowledge of where the daughter now was. As if perhaps he could lead him to her in South Africa somewhere.

One day he would get to decorate the angel with their bones, hang them around her neck as a decoration to take with her into the spirit world. She would appreciate having her father and uncle there to guide her, to be with her, as she guided Impendla and the other boys towards the light.

He tipped his head backwards and rocked again.

Perhaps one day,
Mwari
would reward him for his sacrifices, and his dedication, and he would allow Impendla's soul to be saved, as it had been in his dream. Allow his friend's spirit to fly like the butterflies they used to watch down at the dam when they were just kids.
Allow him to fly free and join his ancestors in the light, instead of remaining an eternal child in a cocoon state.

Where they had been. Never to hatch. Never to know the sense of freedom and the gift of flight.

He still knew that his friend rested in a dark place.

Only now he understood he needed to appease
Mwari
, to allow Impendla into the light. To cross over and go to his ancestors.

His minister father had always claimed that Impendla was an innocent child and God forgave and welcomed the innocent into his heaven, but Buffel wasn't so sure about that. He believed Impendla had paid incorrectly.

It was he who should have been taken.

It was he who had disturbed the
Karoi
's magic and invaded her area. It was he who had angered the
Tokoloshe
and yet it was Impendla, who had warned him of the dangers, who had paid the ultimate price.

For a moment, he shuddered at the thought that he'd already sold his own soul to try to save Impendla's. The concept didn't rest easy within him, even all these years later, his Christian upbringing and the expected morals that came with it like a megaphone in the back of his head.

But in reality, this was his punishment to bear.

He'd done nothing at the time to save his friend.

And that rested heavy like molten lead in his conscience.

The feeling of sadness lifted, and he knew that
Mwari
was giving him guidance. He closed his eyes, holding his trophies in his hand as the TV flickered. Its black and white images broadcast out to no one as Buffel fell asleep, still in his armchair.

He moved slightly in his sleep, grunted, and plunged into his dark recurring nightmare. The one that he had stopped having for a while, but had lately returned. The one he avoided sleep to escape from.

The bald-headed vultures circled, riding the hot air currents, gathering like dark clouds above the mission station. Soaring on the
wind, they eyed something way below them, waiting for the opportune moment to drop from the sky and devour whatever carrion they could. Human or animal, they didn't care, meat was meat and death meant a meal.

It was their way of life.

They glided lower, then rose in height again, as if they knew that although there was food they were as yet unable to gather it.

Buffel peered upwards at them through the thick green bush, knowing he was almost as invisible as his horse, Benga, who was decorated in the same green and brown foliage that surrounded them, even though his black fur already provided natural camouflage in the dense bush. ‘Scavengers. Never a good sign,' he whispered.

Slowly he edged his horse forward, trying to glimpse the mission they knew had come under attack as recently as two hours before. The team was uncertain if they would be able to approach, if it had been abandoned or if there were still survivors they could rescue. A weight sat in his stomach, a dread.

Death had visited, that he knew.

‘Check for trip wires,' Corporal Mike Mitchells instructed.

Together they dismounted and signalled for the four men with them to do the same.

Buffel handed Mike his reins. ‘I'll go.'

He edged out from their position, methodically checking the ground for signs of landmines, or trip wires that would set off concealed claymores tied to trees. Those built to maim, with explosives that drove fragments of metal with maximum impact ripping through human flesh.

He held his breath, expecting the explosion that could end his life at any moment. He studied the leaves on the trees to see if anything had been tampered with, and his eyes darted to the ground beneath. Nothing appeared out of place. His trained eyes returned to the trees, his trained eyes searching deeper into the shadows to check if anything looked suspicious.

Nothing. It looked just as the African bush should.

Slowly, he walked the final fifteen metres to the clearing around the mission. Ahead of him was the mission's eight-foot security fence. Without the modern wire fence, the property could have been the mission he had grown up on. The architecture of the whitewashed building might be different, but it looked similar in that it invited those inside to find peace within its walls. The unit of six Grey Scouts had already navigated through the orchard and fields where food was grown to feed the hungry that came to worship here, and the familiarity squeezed his heart.

A different time. A different mission.

It had been many years since he'd thought of the mission where he'd grown up. He'd been happy to leave there when he was just sixteen to forge his own way in life. Away from the tyrannical rule of any God.

He needed to concentrate on his surroundings. He needed his wits about him to stay alive. His whole focus. Once more, he looked at the ground for any signs of traps or anti-personnel mines laid there.

It looked clear.

He dropped to his stomach and used his binoculars to search the buildings.

Once whitewashed and proud, the Dutch gabled building was scarred black from mortar fire, and red brick showed through where the building had taken a direct hit, crumbling under the modern explosives. The old mission walls had fallen in, despite being made of solid local grey stone and double bricked. The cross that had once stood proudly lay face down on the ground in pieces. It now looked more like a peace sign than something you would crucify someone on.

‘Two friendlies deceased on the mission steps,' he relayed the information to Mike behind him. ‘Two more against the wall of the church to the right.' He could see the splatter of red against the whiteness, and he knew they had been executed.

He'd seen this exact scene before. Almost duplicated.

This was the second mission to be attacked in a month. But it never stopped hurting his heart to see the death, the destruction. The barbaric cruelty.

‘I doubt we have any survivors here.'

Mike nodded and handed him back his reins as he remounted, and signalled into the bush for the other scouts to join them.

They rode in silence into the mission, gathered together in a defensive knot, weapons aimed in all directions. The horses packed tightly together, noses flared as if they knew the danger they were heading into.

A lone white goat with a brown head and long ears bayed as it ran out past them, its tail clamped between its legs.

They let it run.

‘Something's still here to spook that goat,' Zack said.

‘You bet,' Mike replied, ‘let's flush them out. We don't ride these demon horses for nothing.'

Henny sniggered.

‘Its not a joke, Henny,' Mike said, ‘the reputation of our horses being able to run through fire and enter any building is legendary, and one day fear of these horses will be the only thing that stands between you and certain death. The superstitious tales of our horses with glowing red eyes will save you from that death as some
ter
craps in his
broekies
when he sees them. Don't underestimate the black mind that believes in magic.'

‘I know, Corporal, but to me, it's still silly that they believe in demons—'

‘You are young. You'll learn there is more to life than what you know at nineteen. Now you and Zack stay here,' Mike instructed the two youngest of the group. ‘If anything happens to us, get the hell out of here, and keep riding until you get back to the trucks. Don't look back!'