The Power of One Read Free Page A

gem squash, native spinach, and watermelons had grown under the big old avocado tree next to the slaughterhouse. Bundles of dried tobacco leaf were stacked up beside it and, separated by two large grass indaba or meeting mats, lay six scrawny kaffir chickens. These were mostly tough old roosters, four-hour boilers, their legs tied and their wings clipped. They lay on their sides with their thin, featherless necks and bald heads caked with dust. Only an occasional “Skwack!” and the sudden opening of a bright, beady eye showed that they were still alive, if not exactly kicking.
    One especially scrawny old cock with mottled grey feathers looked to me very much like my granpa, except for his eyes. My granpa’s eyes were pale blue and somewhat watery, eyes intended for gazing over soft English landscapes, whereas the old cock’s were sharp as a bead of red light.
    My granpa came down the steps and walked toward the big black Buick. He stopped to kick one of the roosters, for he hated kaffir chickens almost as much as he hated Shangaans. His pride and joy was his one hundred black Orpington hens and six giant roosters. The presence of kaffir chickens in the farmyard, even though trussed and clipped, was like having half a dozen dirty old men present at a ballet class.
    He greatly admired Inkosi-Inkosikazi, who had once cured him of his gallstones. “I took his foul green mootie, and by golly, the stones blasted out of me like a hail of buckshot! Never a trace of a gallstone since. If you ask me, the old monkey is the best damned doctor in the low veld.”
    We waited for Inkosi-Inkosikazi to alight from the Buick. The old medicine man, like Nanny, was a Zulu. It was said that he was the last son of the great Dingaan, the Zulu king who fought both the Boers and the British to a standstill. Two generations after the Boers had finally defeated his impis at the Battle of Blood River, they remained in awe of him.
    Twelve years after that battle, Dingaan, fleeing from the combined forces of his half brother Mpande and the Boers, had sought refuge among the Nyawo people on the summit of the great Lebombo Mountains. On the night he was treacherously assassinated by Nyawo tribesmen he had been presented with a young virgin, and the seed of the second greatest of all the warrior kings was planted in her fourteen-year-old womb.
    â€œWhere I chose blood, this last of my sons will choose wisdom. You will call him Inkosi-Inkosikazi. He will be a man for all Africa,” Dingaan had told the frightened Nyawo maiden.
    This made the small, wizened black man who was being helped from the rear of the Buick one hundred years old.
    Inkosi-Inkosikazi was dressed in a mismatched suit, the jacket brown and shiny with age, the trousers blue pinstripe. He wore a white shirt meant to go with a detachable starched collar, and the collarless shirt was secured at the neck with a large gold and ivory collar stud. A mangy-looking leopard-skin cloak fell from his shoulders. As was the custom, he wore no shoes, and the soles of his feet were splayed and cracked at the edges. In his right hand he carried a beautifully beaded fly switch, the symbol of an important chief;
    I had never seen such an old man. His peppercorn hair was whiter than raw cotton, small tufts of snowy beard sprang from his chin, and only three yellowed teeth remained in his mouth. He looked at us and his eyes burned sharp and clear, like the eyes of the old rooster.
    Several of the women started keening and were quickly rebuked by the old man. “Stupid infasi! Death does not ride with me in my big motor. Did you not hear the roar of its great belly?”
    Silence fell as my granpa approached. He briefly welcomed Inkosi-Inkosikazi and granted him permission to stay overnight on the farm. The old man nodded, showing none of the customary obsequiousness expected from a kaffir, and my granpa seemed to demand none. He simply shook the old man’s bony claw and