One Hundred and Four Horses

They did not welcome him home. That could wait. They simply told him to follow and led him to the back of the farmhouse.

Here, Bridle was in his paddock with two of the family’s other horses. Pat ventured to greet his father’s old horse, but, before he got there, he saw a new mare, a stranger come to the farm. She was small, fifteen hands high, a skewbald mare with beautiful markings and a willful look in her eyes. Pat stopped short, looking between his mother and father.

“Her name’s Frisky,” his mother told him. “Well, go on!”

Pat rushed over, stopping a few yards away from the horse to approach her more gently. She had already been tacked up. He put a hand on her muzzle and let her nibble at his hands. Her ears twitched as she became accustomed to this strange boy. Pat draped his arms around her, threw a look at his parents.

“She isn’t saddled up for nothing,” his father intoned.

His left foot went into Frisky’s stirrup. Then, swinging his body over, his right found the stirrup on the opposite side. He lifted the reins in one hand, in the way he always rode, and started talking to her. It is a special moment, he knew, when a boy climbs into a horse’s saddle for the very first time, even more special when it is his very first horse. Frisky walked slowly forward, to the edge of the paddock, where Pat looked down on his mother and father.

“Be careful with her,” Pat’s mother began. She had a tone that verged on the ominous, and Pat wondered if there was a story hidden here, something buried in Frisky’s past of which he was not aware. He looked down at her, judged her to be ten or twelve years old. Hardly a foal, she must have had owners before, ­people who loved her like he knew he would.

“Well,” his father said, “what are you waiting for?”

Pat brought her around. Across the farm, there were antelopes such as the tiny duiker or huge kudu to chase. He ran a hand through Frisky’s mane. She was, he knew, going to love this.

Duiker on the left, kudu on the right. Frisky would rather chase the tiny duiker, but today she was happy to indulge Pat and they set off toward the kudu. Soon, the small herd scattered, and Pat and Frisky were through them, following a dirt track into the bush. The msasa trees were low here, and Frisky banked, first one way and then another. They were on the tail of some bushbuck when Pat ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch. He timed it badly, smashed into the bough. Beneath him, Frisky cantered on. Momentarily Pat grappled with the branch. Then, he fell. When he hit the ground, all the wind was expelled from his lungs. He lay there and heaved. Blackness came over him.

When Pat looked up, Frisky’s face was all that he could see. She was standing over him, nosing forward, as if to make sure he was all right. When he began to stir, she walked away and turned slightly, presenting her saddle.

Get up, Pat, she seemed to be saying. We haven’t got time for lounging around. That bushbuck’s already got away …

When they reached home, Pat tried to hide the fact that he had fallen off—but his mother had already raised two other sons, and somehow she just knew. It was time, she told him as she dusted him down, for a story.

Frisky had once belonged to the relation of a local farmer, a gift for their young daughter. She had been the daughter’s pride and joy, and she had spent long hours being ridden and groomed, doted on by all members of the family.

It was on a ride through the bush that tragedy had found Frisky. Startled by some smaller creature shooting out of the bush, she had shied away and the girl in her saddle had been thrown. Like Pat had done, the girl lay in the dust; but unlike Pat, she would never get back up. Stricken with grief, the girl’s parents could no longer look at Frisky. Their daughter’s death hung heavy about them, and Frisky was a symbol of it. She would have to be sent away, or else destroyed.

Two weeks later, she arrived at Pat’s father’s farm.

“So you must be careful,” Pat’s mother concluded.

After the story, Pat did not stop to get changed. Instead, he went back to the paddock, where Frisky was waiting. He spent the night checking over her hooves and grooming her. Whatever happened in Frisky’s old life, it was not her fault. In the years to come Pat would come off Frisky many times—a hole in the ground that she did not see, the assault of a low-hanging branch—but not once would he be thrown. All he ever had to do was remember the way she waited for him as he lay, winded, in the dust, and he knew: Frisky would look out for him just as much as he would look out for her.

That night in 1976, talking to this strange man in his ill-fitting and bloodstained suit, I was suddenly transported back to memories of my own childhood horse. I had longed for a horse like Frisky, one who would be my best friend and protector and in whose saddle I could lose myself for days at a time, but I was not as blessed as Pat. The horse I remembered was named Ticky. He was a fiery little piebald pony and threw me from the saddle more times than I can remember—but I loved him more than anything else.

I was eleven years old when Ticky entered my life. I was attending school in Johannesburg, and a new girl was enrolled in my class. Her name was Erica, and she lived on a small farm just outside the city, where her parents kept a whole herd of horses. When I was finally invited to stay with Erica for the weekend, it was a dream come true. We spent long hours brushing her horses’ manes and combing their tails. We would both jump onto her horse and canter bareback for hours around the farm. Every time I returned home from Erica’s, the only words that came out of my mouth had to do with horses.

On one of my weekends with Erica, we stopped fussing over her mare and watched as her father drove into the farmyard, pulling a horse box behind his truck. With a silent nod, he unloaded a small piebald gelding, perhaps only twelve hands high and with a very slight stature.

“His name,” Erica’s father told us, “is Ticky.”

Ticky looked at us balefully, but Erica and I were not deterred. We circled him, trying to get close enough to brush his hair and comb his tail as we had the rest of Erica’s horses, but he just stared at us with a malevolent twinkle in his eyes. Every time we came close, he swished his tail dismissively, shuffled away, and went back to grazing.

Nevertheless, I was obsessed.

When my father came to collect me, I squeezed his hand and begged him to ask Erica’s father if Ticky was for sale. Unconvinced, my father suggested I should try and ride Ticky first, before we made any rash decisions. At last, a date was made, and I returned to Erica’s farm, determined that Ticky should fall in love with me the same as I had fallen for him. Beautifully tacked up, Ticky awaited my arrival with that same baleful stare. All the same, I stroked his tangled mane and whispered sweet words to him. In reply, he bared his big yellow teeth, rolling his eyes.

Confident that as soon as we were riding we would form an unbreakable bond, I hoisted myself into the saddle, grinning at my father as I did so. Yet, before I could even grab the reins, Ticky took off, tearing down the driveway and out onto the open veld. In seconds, I had lost my balance, tumbled from the saddle, and landed flat on my back, all the wind knocked out of me.

By the time I looked up, Ticky was already headed for home. I trudged back alone. Once again, I hoisted myself into the saddle and, this time, was swift enough to snatch up the reins. I gave Ticky a gentle kick, and off we went.

Suddenly, Ticky put his head down and executed a buck. Unable to stop him, I soared through the air and landed headfirst on the road.

By the time the blurriness was fading, my father was standing over me. He looked down, his face swimming in and out of focus, and reached out to help me to my feet.

“Are you sure you want this horse?” he demanded, face creasing with anxiety. “It looks uncontrollable to me.”

Dazedly, I nodded. There was no going back, no matter how wicked this little pony really was.

All these years later, listening to Pat talk about his own childhood horses, I wondered if Ticky might have been the sort of horse he would have liked: strong, willful, but intelligent beyond measure. My parents quickly learned to detest Ticky. I spent my nights protesting, declaring my unwavering love for the nasty little horse who would pin me against his stable wall, lunging for his bucket, but somehow I knew they could not be convinced. No matter how many times he bit, no matter how many times he kicked out, my resolve only hardened: Ticky was the horse for me. He was going to love me like I loved him, or the world would surely end.

One day, some months into my struggle with Ticky, we entered ourselves into the bending race at a local gymkhana (an equestrian meet). At Erica’s farm, we cornered Ticky, fitted him with his bridle and saddle, and walked—or perhaps dragged—him to the club where the competition was to be held. As we approached, I could hear the cries of a huge crowd of excited children and eager parents and the neighing of all their horses.

I had already spent long hours brushing Ticky, and his coat gleamed in the morning sunlight. I was convinced: Today was going to be the day that Ticky would prove his true worth. Out there, on the track, we would come from behind to win, triumphant together; Ticky would know what we had achieved, and all of his nastiness would simply evaporate away.

At last, my name was called, and Ticky and I took our place along with six other riders. A red flag was waved, and Ticky and I were off.

We were not even halfway to the first bending pole when Ticky took flight. Making a dramatic turn, he charged at the fence, scattering spectators. Though we cleared it, somewhere in the air I lost my balance and toppled to the side, crashing down from Ticky’s back.

Indignant, Ticky came to a stop, gave a kick of his hooves, and, without a look at where I lay, headed for home.

On the grass, I lay alone, my riding hat askew.

“That’s it,” I heard my father cry. “We are selling that damn horse!”

It was the last time I ever saw Ticky.

“I have to admit,” I said to Pat, the sounds of the birthday party fading around us, “I haven’t ridden since.”

“Well, I suppose we’ll have to do something about that.”

He kissed me for the first time that night—and, one week later, I packed my bags, said good-bye to my little room in the hotel, and moved in with Pat.

We were married in 1978.

In Rhodesia, the bush war still raged. The country’s white farmers, isolated and not well protected, were targeted by the so-called freedom fighters. The rebels’ guerrilla tactics of attacking suddenly and then disappearing into the bush kept army patrols busy across the country. All the same, there was only one place in the world that Pat had ever wanted to get married: the town of Enkeldoorn, close to his childhood farm, a place that occupied so many of his memories and thoughts. I had heard so much about the town and the land across which Pat and his beloved Frisky had cantered that I felt as if I knew it already; now, it was time for the formal introduction.

Pat’s father’s farm was every bit the paradise he had told me about on that very first night. After the ser­vice, the wedding party moved there in convoy, and, not for the first time, I noticed that many members of our party were carrying weapons, their eyes fixed on the horizons and intersecting roads. Rhodesia, I had to tell myself, may have looked perfect, but it was still a country at war.

At the farmhouse, we were met with a feast fit for a king. I stepped down from the car and felt a little kicking in my belly; our firstborn son was already well on the way. I wondered what he would have made of all this. Tables dressed in white damask cloths groaned under cured hams and other delights. Champagne flowed. The laborers of the farm had decked themselves out to join in the festivities and kept glasses full. My mind whirred, seeing these same men who watched the horizons with such steely eyes throwing back champagne and roaring with laughter. There was something about Rhodesians, I decided, that made them look at joy and disaster with the same eyes. It must have had to do with living under the shadow of war for so long and still preserving all that is good about life. I found it exhilarating, I found it absurd, I found it frightening and life-affirming all at once. In the years to come, I would come to know this feeling by one simple word: Rhodesian. I felt the kicking again and the thought hit me: my son—he was going to be a Rhodesian as well.

It was time for the speeches. Happy under the effects of the champagne, Pat’s father stood and made his way to the center table.

“When Pat first introduced me to …” He hesitated, seemed to be wetting his lips. “I’ll start again,” he continued. “When my son Pat first introduced me to …”

“Amanda!” somebody shouted.

“Amanda,” Pat’s father repeated. “Of course. When Pat first introduced me to Aman—”

In that instant, the wedding party fell silent. Pat’s father’s eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance, and, as one, the men at the party turned to follow his gaze. I stood. Out there, a vehicle moved, thick, choking black exhaust fumes behind it. It seemed to shimmer in the heat, banking along the same farm roads over which the wedding convoy had come. It was, it appeared, heading straight for us.

Nobody said a word. Nobody had to. All the men at the wedding simply stood and hurtled for their cars.

“What is it?” I asked.

Pat stood. “Terrs …”

Terrorists: the Rhodesian name for the black insurgents making war on the ruling government. The vehicles we had traveled in were all wheeling around, sending up flurries of dust, as men piled inside and checked their weapons. Pat ran to join his father’s car, stopped, and hurried back to where I was standing.

“Here,” he said, “take this.”

I found a gun pressed into my hands. Though I took it, I had no idea how to hold it. Pat told me it was an LDP, a submachine gun that only Rhodesians ever wielded. After UDI there had been so many international sanctions against the country that importing almost anything had been impossible. This had given rise to industries in which Rhodesia had never before operated, and, with the outbreak of guerrilla warfare in 1966, one of those boom industries had been in weaponry like this. The gun I was holding was nothing less than a Rhodesian imitation of the infamous Uzi.

“What do I do with it?”

“You just point and shoot,” Pat said. He turned and began to lope after the other men. Then, absently, he looked over his shoulder. “But only at the terrs,” he added. “Don’t point it at us …”

I had never held a gun before—though, in the years to come, I would receive training in all kinds of weaponry, just as all Rhodesian women would, in case we too found ourselves caught up in war.

I was sitting, slumped over the bridal table with the submachine gun in my lap and an empty glass of champagne in my hand, when the men returned. Looking up, I saw Pat striding back to the wedding table.

“Terrorists?”

Pat shook his head. “It was only a bus.”

“Is this what life is going to be like?” I asked. “Too much drink, guns, chasing after terrorists through the bush …”

Pat could not have known what was in store for us twenty years from that day, when we would find ourselves having to leave the country I had come to love, but today he threw me a rakish grin and helped me to stand.

“Probably,” he said.

I put down the gun. If this was the man I was going to love, I supposed I had better love his absurd, wild country as well.

“Then we’d better get on with the speeches.”

Our first son, Paul, was born in Pietermaritzburg five months after the wedding. I was twenty-three years old, Pat twenty-one, and we were ready to start our family life together. As soon as Pat graduated from university we prepared to return to Rhodesia permanently and forge a life there. There was only one complication: like all men of fighting age, on his return Pat would be called up to join the army. Members of the South African government had tried to persuade him to remain and commit his new training in animal sciences to the nation in which he had studied, but Pat was Rhodesian at heart, and Rhodesians never die. His country needed him, and I followed him into a country at war. Like all young Rhodesian men, Pat joined the army and was stationed at a barracks in the capital, Salisbury (now called Harare), while Paul and I lived close by.

In 1980, the bush war drew to a bitter, negotiated end. Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party won a landslide election in March, and white Rhodesia began its transition into Zimbabwe. A sense of defeat hung over Pat and his compatriots, and across Rhodesia many families made preparations to leave and find some new corner of the world. For many, the thought of living in a country governed by one of the terrorists they had been fighting was too much to bear. Australia, South Africa, and Canada were richer countries for their leaving. Pat and I talked about finding a new life in Australia, somewhere for Paul and the brothers and sisters who might follow him, but I knew that, in his heart, Pat belonged in Rhodesia. And since Rhodesia was no more, Zimbabwe would have to do.

We sat together, late at night.

“I want him to have the life I had,” Pat said, bouncing baby Paul on his knee. “I want the same sort of childhood for him. Somewhere he can ride with game, go wild in the bush, be surrounded by dogs and cattle and duiker and baboons. If he can have just ten years of a life like that, it has to be worth it, doesn’t it?”

I looked at the way Paul gazed up at his father. That, I decided, was the life I wanted for my children as well. If they could look back on their childhoods with as much vivid nostalgia as Pat did his own, we would have given them the best possible start.

“What do you think, Paul? Do you want to be a Zimbabwean?”

Paul looked at me, then at his father. Stoutly, he nodded.

“The master has spoken,” I said.

So Zimbabwean we were, and Zimbabwean we would stay.

It was those thoughts that returned to me as, ten years later, we unloaded our packs at Crofton to begin our new lives. As I watched Pat swing into the elderly Frisky’s saddle, and Kate and Jay tumble out of the barren house that would soon become our beloved home, I was thinking of the baby Paul, of those first days after Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, of the hopes and dreams Pat and I had shared long into the night. We had spent the last ten years living in various places across Zimbabwe—the agricultural research station where Pat first worked, the rugged farm Lonely Park, where Pat’s brother kept one of the nation’s biggest dairy herds—but the land around us was finally ours. It was a place we could mold, a place we could pour ourselves into and live until our lives were done. Ten years before, in one of our earliest homes, we had buried a baby, Nicholas, only a few weeks old when he died, and the feeling of leaving him behind was not one we wanted to live through again. Here, this new land on which we now stood, could be a place to put down roots, a place to live a good life and never leave anything behind again. It was scrubby, untamed, with low jagged hills crowned in bush and red earth that seemed impenetrable to the eye—but Pat brought Frisky around and, as he gazed into the distance, I knew already what he was thinking. Here, he would build barns; here, he would build workshops; here, the irrigation channels; here, the grading sheds for our tobacco. Behind him, Jay’s eyes were on the hills. He listened for the sound of baboons and searched the shadows between the trees for antelope or signs of leopard. Kate reached up and wrapped one arm around a lower bough of the mango tree. She was scrabbling to pull herself up when Paul appeared behind her and gave her the lift that she needed.

In front of me, Frisky snorted softly. She turned her head against Pat’s reins, as if all she wanted to do was look me in the eye. She too must have been considering the land. It dawned on me that this would be her final home, just as I wished it would be mine.

The land was ours. One day it would belong to our children, and our children’s children. Our new life had finally begun.

Chapter 2

OPENING UP THE bush to set up a farm is like riding a horse; you cannot command the land to do your bidding—you can only ask it. Like a horse, the land has its own character. It can be willful. It can be defiant. But it can give great joy as well, unveiling its secrets for you as you come closer and learn to work together for a greater good.

As we gazed out over virgin bush, Pat and I shared a daunted look. The land was rugged, scrubby lowlands out of which grew the wild, rocky hills we called koppies. Though the farm was bordered by two rivers, one a perennial stream and the other flowing north into the great Zambezi, the soil on which we meant to farm was fertile yet difficult to handle, being very hard and compacted, the kind of land that was impossible to cultivate without heavy machinery and careful management. The thought of driving back the bush and seeing fields of green tobacco, acres of tomatoes, and the rich glow of Mexican marigolds was enough to buoy us for the moment, but there was no use denying it: this was land into which only somebody as determined as Pat would dare to pour his life. There is no doubt that my husband is the most determined and optimistic man I have ever met. Were he not that way, our lives today would be very different.

The land we had bought had been a farm once before, during the Rhodesian tobacco boom of the early 1960s. For decades, though, no crops had been cultivated here; only cattle had roamed from river to river. In their fields, the mfuti trees with their long feathered leaves grew tall again, and the bush had crept down from the hillsides. For all its wildness, the farm was exactly what Pat had been dreaming of: a place where we might test ourselves like the first African pioneers, somewhere he could use all his years of study, a place we could shape and leave for our children.

All the history books had the same wisdom to share. It was not the pioneers who benefited from the years they did battle with the land; it was those who came after: their children.

“Where to begin?” I asked. Paul, Jay, and Kate gathered behind us.

“It begins,” said Pat, “with tomatoes.”

This land could not be tamed by Retzlaffs alone. In the days that followed, we hired more than 250 workers, who began to build their homes here, too. Never and his wife, Mai Never; our driver, Charles; our gardener, Oliver; and Kate’s nanny, Celia—only once we were all together could we begin. Farms in Zimbabwe often had whole villages of workers living on the land, with their own farm schools and medical clinics, and our farm was to be no different. We would have a core of workers who lived here, and, with the harvests, more would join us as seasonal contractors.

All over Crofton the rooms were dominated by big contour maps and plans Pat had drawn up: where best to build the grading sheds for some future crop of tobacco; how best the roads might run so that they were protected from natural erosion; how much of the land could be irrigated without resorting to building a dam. It was a broad, holistic approach to farming, a scheme Pat had been dreaming of since the first years of our marriage. To see it come to fruition was the culmination not only of a dream, but of decades of hard work.