Free Silent Valley by Malla Nunn Page A

shook her head. ‘Amahle mentioned him one time. Never again.’
    ‘Was it in the winter or now in the spring time that she spoke of him?’ Emmanuel asked. In the country, the seasons told the time. At the turn of each season, the men working in the gold mines of Jo’burg returned home to plough the fields or hand out modern marvels like aluminium cooking pots, lengths of brightly printed cotton, and cash.
    ‘It was on the day the Dutch farmer burned the edges of the field by the river. I remember that my sister came home after dark and our mother was angry with her.’
    Farmers lit firebreaks in winter. The memory of stinging smoke and black ash embedded in his skin and hair for weeks was still vivid in Emmanuel’s mind. Tilling the fields and harvesting crops for six years alongside his adopted father had destroyed any romantic notion he might ever have had of living off the land.
    ‘I understand,’ Shabalala said. ‘Your sister was with this Mr Insurance Policy and paid no attention to the sun going down. That is why she came home late.’
    ‘No, inkosi .’ The girl’s lips pursed to a perfect rosebud. ‘Amahle was left behind in the town by accident and it took many hours to find and return her to the kraal . It was on that night when she couldn’t fall asleep that she whispered his name and said, “He is the one that I have waited for . . .”’
    Emmanuel leaned closer to the girl and initiated eye contact. ‘Tell me everything that Amahle said about this man, little sister.’
    ‘Amahle did not speak of men often. She said they were like stepping stones, to be skipped over lightly until you reached the other side of the river.’
    It was deeply cynical attitude for a teenage girl and one that might have led to her death. Emmanuel knew that being ‘skipped over’ by a young beauty was enough of a motive for murder for some men.
    ‘Did your sister say what was waiting for her on the other side of the river?’ Shabalala asked.
    ‘Life,’ the little girl said.
    Twigs snapped and stones rolled loose from the approach path as a calf stopped to nibble grass. The noise startled the girl, who was up and flying across the field before the word ‘wait’ left Emmanuel’s mouth. He stood and watched her weave between the orange mountain aloes like a little springbok, the outline of her body soon absorbed into the landscape. Fleet as she was, she’d never be able to outrun the future. In three or four years she’d likely be married off in exchange for a herd of long-horned cattle.
    ‘I can catch her but . . .’ Shabalala cleared his throat, uncomfortable with having to explain his lack of action.
    ‘Let her be.’ Emmanuel adjusted the rim of his hat. ‘She risked a lot by leaving the kraal without her parents’ permission. I don’t want her punished for helping us.’
    He did not want her punished either for having the heart of a lion – just like the girl his mother had requested.
    *
    They swung by the Dlamini kraal and found a ransacked hut and two white-haired goats nibbling corn spilled from a broken clay jar. Chickens roamed the yard and a skinny cat dozed in the afternoon sun. Philani Dlamini and his mother were long gone.
    Emmanuel reread his notes out loud. ‘The mother told Chief Matebula that Philani didn’t come home from work on Friday. That’s the same night Amahle went missing. It can’t be a coincidence.’
    ‘We must find the gardener before Mandla and the impi do,’ Shabalala said. ‘They think this man is guilty of murder and they will kill him.’
    ‘What if he pays a fine of twenty cows?’
    ‘It is too late for an exchange of cattle, Sergeant,’ Shabalala said. ‘Only blood washes blood.’
    ‘Great,’ Emmanuel muttered. Was there one country, just one on Earth, that did not demand blood for blood? Before striking out for the path leading down to the river he paused to study the terrain. A deep valley cut through a string of towering mountains covered in alpine