Enthralled by the atmospheric skill of Annie Proulx’ stories set in Wyoming, of which
‘Brokeback Mountain’ is the best known, the writer tries her hand at a similar style of
gaunt, evocative tale-telling.
GOOD PRAIRIE GRASS
BARBARA DURLACHER
It had been a good summer. Plenty a rain, and the grass grown thick and high. Stockwas looking good. Jan le Roux felt a lot happier as he drove his ole skidonk across the
veld this April morning. Perhaps he would be able to get ahead of the Landbank for the
first time in years, put a little into his own account for a change.
Marti accusin’ him a sitting on his butt, “Never does a thing” she says, “always leaves it a
me – I’m sick on it. ‘Bout time he pulled his weight.” Her ‘Merican accent took on an
accusatory whine as she made eye contact and downed him with a glance.
“Bloody woman,” he thought, the taste of whisky sour in his throat as he negotiated
another dry donga, climbing out of the sand and rocks in a flurry of dust. “Pity I ever
married her.”
Their marriage was the result of an earlier trip to the United States when he, flushed with
triumph over a recent win at the Provincial stock-fair with his Brahman bulls, and rich
with his prize-money, had gone on a drinking binge that lasted a week. At the end of it,
he woke to find himself in bed with Marti; balloons and all.
Despite their difference in size, and their lack a common purpose, they got along,
although not without sand rubbing the pistons. Jake was the outcome of that brief
coupling, and Jan’s sense of honour was too strong to let him leave. So, they married,
and returned to South Africa, to the edge of the Little Karroo, where the plains stretched
far into the distance and the blue mountains made an unchanging frame to the view.
It was a hard land, drought and weather followed one another, and now, with the big
political changes there was the ever-present threat of stock-theft. Profits were lower and
slower, much of the land bordering the highways was unusable, nothing could be run
there for fear of poachers. They would come in under cover of darkness, corner a few
animals, slaughter and cut them and be out of it within a few hours, impossible to catch.
Appeals to the SAPS and Civil Defence fell on deaf ears. It was up to the farmers to
protect themselves.
Jake was a wonder with stock, had a real hand for it, never minded working all hours.
Useless with his numbers, sure ‘nuff, and reading remained a closed book. The tug
between father and son was strong. Jan sometimes wondered who’d be the winner.
Autumn turned to early Winter, the first frosts silvered the ground. “Stock’s looking good,
should make high prices this year, get through the rest a winter. Plenty a food in the
barns and dam levels high.”
Then, the radio warned of a huge cold front and a big blow. Farmers were advised to
move their stock to lower ground, to lift pumps from the rivers and streams. Snow was
forecast. Before the cold came the wind. It rampaged through the fields, blowing aside
the fences and the barns, scattering everything afore it.
Two days out, the stock was already suffering. “Goes on like this much longer, we’ll have
to start trucking feed and water, don’t know how long we can keep it up. Lucky the barns
are full of lucerne and good alfalfa to keep them going. Problem is, there’s a shortage of
diesel for the trucks. Frikkie says the fire-engines a standing dry.”
Twelve hours later the fires swept through, scorching the earth and destroying
everything. Blackened carcasses lay on the ground, the vultures picking them over. Jan
was wiped out, their farm gone, homestead a smoking ruin. All the result of two
picannins smoking stolen cigarettes on the sly. Confronted with their crime, they ran
away and Jan, exhausted and broke, had no further heart to pursue them.
“Looks like the end,” Marti crowed over his bowed head, as he walked slowly to the shed
full of burnt equipment.
“Ja, between you and the weather, you always win …” he sullenly agreed.
“Leaving now. I’ve got a job with the Provincial Roads Department. I’ll be cutting the new
road through to Stutterheim. Goin’ a give up the farm, nothing to try save, debt to the
Landbank’s too high for a man to manage.”
Jake lit out for the city. The casinos on the Wild Coast beckoned Marti. A high-stepping
croupier, she had many offers.
Later the minarets of Dubai engulfed Jake where he found his mark in oil deals.
It was the end of an old Afrikaner family, lived in the area for three hundred years,
wiped out by the carelessness of two kids.