A yellow haze hid the kopjes.
A lonely farmhouse on the arid veldt baked in the heat.
Madge sighed. Too hot and still, as hours gnawed away at the blistering ranch.
She could smell the dust.
No rain. Another drought.
Too familiar, the ground was cracked, the sad garden insulted her. Dry futility. She tried to wait patiently, to force coolness over her, to wait for Ted, to relax with him on the veranda, to have their drink.
Just to sit. There would be very little to say. The air was too heavy, like the day.
[…]
The shadows cut the corners of the kitchen. His foot tapped something on the floor, something solid. He looked down. Her rifle. Ted felt a terrible silence, felt a stranger.
He edged into the gloom. No movement, no noise.
‘Hssst!’
The dogs stopped barking.
He looked over to the window, into the shadows. Swept his eyes across the dining room table and froze. A figure slumped over in the chair, head drooping. Frightened to believe, he strained forward, and touched her, tenderly lifted her heavy head. A slow trickle of blood oozed from her mouth, dripped from her chin. He hugged the inert form, calling out her name in terse whispers, unbelieving.
The first shot exploded, hit the back of his leg, crumpling him against the table. Grasping for his rifle, the next shot took away his arm, knocking the rifle against her broken foot.
‘Try to hit me now.’
Hondo walked out of the shadows.
He laughed, pushed at the stump of the farmer’s arm. He flipped up the corner of the dead woman’s dress.
‘She was good.’ Ted lunged, to get at the devil’s throat, and fell to the floor. Hondo’s rifle aimed at Ted’s groin.
‘Get it over with,’ a pinched voice, taut with pain.
Then Ted saw a look of bewilderment flash across Hondo’s face as his chest collapsed in blood and bone. The cordite of the shotgun hung in the air.
Ellis lifted her gun again and blew Hondo’s body to shreds.
Tears creased the ashes on his cheeks.
Ellis heard his name weakly from the floor. The big man was down, pumping blood across the red carpet.
The dogs whined to get inside.
Ellis lifted the rifle to the man’s closing eyes.
The temple flower breathed a sick sweet smell near the gate.
A soft wind blew up, crackling the leaves, breaking up shadows creeping on the house, blowing against the open back door. The dogs whined.
Then silence.
—–
Image: Annabel_P Pixabay cropped