One Hundred and Four Horses. Mandy Retzlaff

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СКАЧАТЬ and Tertia had had their own experience with war vets settling around their farmhouse—and though that crowd, like ours, had dissipated without violence, it had propelled Charl to thinking about their future. Tertia had just given birth to their son, baby Charl-Emil, and foremost in Charl’s mind was how he might protect his wife and children. Some farmers had already sent their families away, anticipating worse to come, and at Two Tree that day Charl admitted that he was thinking of doing the same—not just for his family, but for his horses as well.

      Lady, Fleur, Grey, and the rest were loose in their paddock when we walked through the farm. Lady hurtled over as we approached, responding to the quiet burr of Charl’s voice. There was only one other animal that responded to him in the same way, an eland brought to Two Tree during the droughts. Em was perhaps the tamest of all wild creatures I had ever known. Fifty inches tall at her shoulder, with the eland’s two distinctive spiral horns, she seemed to have fallen in love with Charl. Whenever he was out on the farm, Em would somehow know where he was and canter over. Tertia was of the opinion that Charl, too, was a little bit in love with the eland. She had caught him, more than once, with Em’s head lying contentedly on his shoulder, Charl rubbing her gently between the eyes—and, whenever Tertia approached, Em would come to attention and push her aside, as if to say: Charl is mine; this is my time with him now.

      “Where would you send them to?” I asked, my hands pressed against Grey’s flank.

      “Do you know Rob Flanagan?”

      I nodded. Rob Flanagan was a mutual friend, a horseman who also farmed outside Chinhoyi about thirty kilometers away. A polo player, he belonged to the same club where we would often go to watch matches. Charl had run into him only recently, at a farmers’ meeting in Chinhoyi. So far, Rob’s farm had not been affected by the roaming bands of war vets—and Charl, mindful that Two Tree was so close to the resettlement area, had begun to wonder: might there be room with Rob for some of his horses, if the worst came to the worst?

      “There’s too many of them,” Charl said, looking into the distant bush where the war vets had begun to assemble their traditional huts. “And …”

      Charl had cause to worry for his horses for, in the past, he had not spared the animals belonging to the men who came poaching on Two Tree land. Often, having chased the poachers away, he found himself compelled to shoot their dogs. It was a grisly business, for it was not the dogs’ fault that they were being used to kill game, but there was often no other choice. The idea of these men returning to Two Tree in force and meting out their revenge was all too easy to imagine.

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