Free Dust Devils by Roger Smith

blanket. Stinking. He struggled, heard the car door open. He was propelled forward and landed on the floor of the car, wedged between the front and rear seats. The engine cranked. He fought to lift himself.
    Felt a hand push his face down onto the floor, heard the man in the rear speak. "You just be still now, boy, or we'll be obliged to lock you in the trunk."
    The voice that had been in his head right before the nightmare began. The voice of his father. Earl Robert Goodbread.

 
    First his cell phone signal went missing in the hills. Then the pine forests were strangled by dry veld, and the wide road – white lines vivid on the smooth black asphalt – gave way to a narrow track of cracked tar and potholes. Finally the blacktop dwindled to nothing and the tires of Zondi's BMW drummed on sand corrugated from drought, a cloud of dust pursuing him.
    He pulled off the road, left the air-conditioned cabin and stepped out into heat so dry that when he inhaled it seemed to microwave him from within. Looked out over the valley spread below him. Once he had called it home.
    This place, with its red hills and craters of erosion like axe wounds in the flesh-colored soil, reminded him of a corpse. The corpse of the boy Zondi and Inja Mazibuko and the others had killed, in sight of where he now stood.
    Zondi had left the valley not long after the boy's death. Made his way up to Johannesburg where he had found himself in other mobs that had dispensed street justice to suspected informers and collaborators. But he'd always stayed at the rear, an observer, feeding on the rush, but never striking the killing blows. And he'd been back here only once, to bury his mother. Sixteen years ago.
    And what the fuck are you doing here now? he asked. Got not reply.
    Zondi saw a man pushing a bicycle up the hill. Part of a car fender, mangled and twisted, lay across the saddle and handlebars. A boy of maybe ten walked behind the bike, supporting the weight of the metal, stopping it from dragging on the ground.
    The man, in a torn brown shirt and old suit pants, was sweating, urging the boy on. The child was shoeless and Zondi remembered when his own feet had been immune to the heat of the sand and the sharpness of the rocks. He saw the boy's hands were bleeding from the sharp metal slicing into his flesh. The child kept his head down, following his father without complaint.
    The man pushed the bicycle up to where Zondi stood. Stopped, sweat patterning the dust on his face. He leaned the bike against a thorn tree and approached Zondi with his hands cupped.
    "A cigarette please, brother."
    Zondi told him he didn't smoke. The boy looked at him, taking in the BMW that pinged as it cooled. Taking in Zondi's city clothes and Diesel sunglasses. Zondi reached into the car and came out with a plastic bag containing fruit and two cans of Coke. He didn't normally drink the stuff but he'd felt tired on the road and had used the caffeine rush to stay awake.
    He held the bag out to the boy, who looked at his father. The man nodded. The child wiped his bloody hands on his shorts and approached Zondi with his head bowed, not looking him in the eye. The boy extended his right hand, gripping his elbow with his left hand in the African way, and took the bag. He muttered his thanks and retreated, never showing his back to Zondi.
    "When last did it rain?" Zondi asked the man.
    The Zulu laughed. "Can a dry old woman remember her wedding night?"
    These fucking people , Zondi thought. Everyone a poet .
    The man said, "Are you going through to Greytown, brother?"
    Zondi shook his head. "Bhambatha's Rock."
    "You are with the government?"
    Zondi opened his car door. "No. It is my home."
    The man said nothing but Zondi could see the disbelief in his eyes.
    Zondi started the car, thought about throwing a U-turn and getting the hell out of there while he still could. But he released the brake and drove down toward the jumble of small buildings and sprawling huts, iron roofs