Two Hangmen, One Scaffold Book II: In The Hangman�s Shadow

Chapter 25

243 C Chapter 25 he passage of four years hadn’t blurred Bomani’s face in Binga Jochoma’s mind. As he trudged in the woods and underbrush of the western outskirts of Patchway Mine, Bomani’s face kept flashing on his mindscape, but he brushed it aside with thoughts of Peza and reminded himself his son was the issue, not the devil of devils. Reverting to Peza spurred him on with thoughts of valour; otherwise, his reflections of the brute unleashed shivers in him. Moving in a wide arch northward, the portrait of his enemy intermingling with that of his son, he feared the Gule Wamkulu practitioner could be spying on him from a vintage point, and he was walking into an ambush. Unbelievably he was in the lawless eastern part of the mine two weeks ago when he ventured underground, which provoked him to think of Gillian and the money he squandered. When he relived the moment Matipa gave him the bowl with his girlfriend’s name in it, he nearly suffered palpitations. It was strange that through the prophet Matipa had known about Nomathemba and the university student. As he walked, Binga scolded himself for detracting himself with impertinent thoughts. The area was a wooded expanse of flat land broken here and there with unfenced maize fields, efforts of the locals at urban farming. His progress was painfully gradual, but he liked it that way; otherwise, he could foolishly hurry to his death. The areas where he had to look were easily identifiable, pieces of red cloths flying from tall trees marked them. The materials warned members of the public or rival Gule Wamkulu participants to keep away. To some places, the distinct drumbeat of the mystic dancers attracted him. Because he was sweeping the area thoroughly, he moved stealthily in the woods, at times crouching, at times crawling where the shrubs were low or the area was almost bereft of vegetation. The T 244 camps were numerous and dotted in the bush. But he spied on all he saw or heard, in some cases finding masked men rubbing elixirs on themselves amid graves, in others spying on them while they were lost in the throes of frantic dancing and drumbeating. Some he found asleep. In one camp, he saw no one but a collection of fiery wooden masks hanging on the bough of a tree. Below the masks were fowl feathers and blood. He kept an eye for snakes; such outskirts were home to banded cobras, black and green mambas. As he zigzagged, crept, crouched and crawled, he recaptured his commando spirit. If any camp discovered him spying, they could detain and torture him, if they had the strength to apprehend him. His captors could forcibly initiate him into their secret society. Binga wished he had brought his pair of binoculars, equipment he forgot because of Matipa’s sneering and inconsideration for his life. He begrudged her for behaviour he found unbecoming of a married woman towards her breadwinning husband. Perhaps it was out of anger and frustration that she had developed the coldness towards him. Perhaps the demons that had maddened her prophet were also upon her to some extent. He had no certain answer. He hoped once he presented Peza to her, she would welcome him again into her life and be affectionately his again. He continued northeast, somewhat an unmasked ninja one with the greenery and the ground. His wristwatch showed 12:35 pm. By now, he should’ve long met the crocodile tracker because he was less than twenty minutes from where Jasper parked his car and started. Was it excitable Jasper had searched counter-clockwise in an arch too wide for them to meet? Could he have failed to see the significance of the red clothes high up the trees? Binga had a hunch something was wrong. From the time they left Sakis Mine, he had a firm premonition Jasper would be slaughtered. The thought that Jasper in Bomani’s custody would be a lump of fat in an inferno was tormenting him when he looked to the left of 245 the headgear, the mine’s icon. There was a cluster of indigenous and eucalyptus trees about five hundred metres from the mine’s northern perimeter fence. A red cloth flew on the tallest local tree. In the sky above the area circled about a score of noisy black...