Short Writings from Bulawayo

Mtagati Mkulu

111 Mtagati Mkulu Derek Huggins The camp was on the bank overlooking the river. A tent was stretched between two stout poles and suspended with canvas loops from a cross-member, and pinned out at the edges with wooden pegs. Outside, there was a fireplace, a canvas chair and a wooden table. A horse was picketed nearby under an acacia tree. Greg Stanyon rose at first light while it was still cool and pulled on his britches. Sitting on the edge of the stretcher-bed, he knocked his boots on the ground and finding them without scorpion or spider, put them on and laced them up. He clipped on his brown leather leggings at ankle and knee and buckled them. Going outside he saw the sun appear over the horizon and the golden light spread across the veldt. He tended the fire, gently blowing away the ashes, and dropped grass on the embers until they ignited, and stoked it with twigs. Drawing water from a five-gallon drum, he filled the kettle and put it on the fire. He poured off more water into a canvas basin and washed, rinsing water through his hair and let it run down over his chest and back. Shaving with the aid of a small square mirror he felt his skin become tight and smooth as it dried. Going inside his tent he put on a grey, starched shirt and a leather belt and brace. He returned to the fire and made coffee in a tin mug, pouring in condensed milk and two spoons of sugar. He squatted by the fire and sipped the scalding liquid until it was finished. Then, going to his horse and opening his hand, he let it lick off the sugar until his fingers were no longer sticky. He groomed the horse and picked the dung from its hooves. Returning to the tent he took an armful of blanket, and the saddle and bridle, and carried them to the horse. After introducing the bit, and securing the bridle, he checked that the blanket was free of grass and thorns, folded and quartered it carefully and slung it over the horse’s back, quickly followed by the saddle; pulled up the surcingle gently, put the stirrups over the saddle and walked the horse to the pool in the river and let it drink before tethering it under the tree. Making another cup of coffee, Stanyon drank it slowly, then 112 kicked dirt over the embers of the fire. In the tent, he straightened his bedding and looked for mosquitoes trapped inside the net, and squashed them. He gathered and folded the net and tied it in a big knot, and, looking around the tent, was satisfied. He walked to his horse, tightened the straps, dropped the stirrups and mounted. The horse bucked several times before it settled into a canter across the veldt and on to the dirt road which crossed the settlers’ farms. The gracious white-washed houses, with their big cool verandahs and green or red painted corrugated roofs, stood on the hillsides where they received the breeze along the valley. Before he had gone far, a young man came running towards him, and signalled him to stop. “Please come to Mhlanga’s Kraal near Sun Up mine. A mombe has fallen down the well,” he gasped. Stanyon rode for Mhlanga’s Kraal. It was a deep well. It had been sunk many years before by the prospector Johannes Van Vuuren, who had become bad tempered when he had to blast more than fifty yards through the rock to reach the water. Afterwards, when his trenches no longer revealed promising samples, he had left his claim and gone in search of gold elsewhere. Now, the wooden windlass, stark against the flat expanse of the veldt, leant off the vertical. A collection of pole and dagga huts with smoke-steeped thatched roofs stood nearby. Dogs were bellied down in the shade of baked mud walls. Frequently, they would start up on their front legs and lunge around, lips curled and teeth exposed, to snap at the flies or nuzzle at mange sores. Under a tree, near Van Vuuren’s old shack, nearly naked children squirmed irritably around the women who sat, legs straight out and barefoot, on the ground. They looked into the landscape towards the well through squinting eyes. Sunlight pulsed into the settlement, bouncing off the shell of a derelict Chevrolet truck and beating into the earth...