Read Online Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace - Free Book Online

photographs of white troops in combat gear, smiling and pulling V-for-Victory signs for the camera as they headed for the bush. In some I recognized a leaner, fitter Mr. Hascott with a bullet belt around his chest, a huge gun in one hand, and with a young Ivan riding on his shoulders.
    â€œI hate him,” Ivan croaked, making me jump slightly.
    I wasn’t sure if he meant his dad or Mugabe or Greet.
    The silence came back so I moved back to the door.
    â€œCheck you tomorrow,” I said.
    â€œ
Ja
,” he said.

NINE
    My eyes sprang open
. The soft predawn light stroked the curtains and I struggled to distinguish the strange shapes of Ivan’s brother’s room. I’d been dreaming that the war was still on and that the gooks Ivan had put into my head were crawling outside the house; only I was back at school in Selous and trying to run away to England, racing against lots of Nelsons wearing camouflage and carrying guns, and to my side, boys were cheering for their houses as they always did.
    â€œ. . . Come on, Willoughby . . .”
    â€œ. . . Go, Heyman . . .”
    â€œ. . . Show us that Burnett spirit . . .”
    â€œ. . . Selous is the
best, best, best
 . . .”
    Then I woke properly.
    Ivan was standing at the foot of the bed. He threw me a tracksuit.
    â€œHere. You’ll need this, it’s chilloes out there.”
    Outside, by the garages, he hooked a small rucksack onto hisback and asked if I’d ridden a motorbike before. I lied and said I had, so he nodded me to one of the off-road bikes in there.
    I copied what he did and kick-started mine into life, but then stalled it four times in a row. He turned his bike around and came back. I thought he was going to shout but instead gripped my clutch hand until it hurt then released it.
    â€œDo it slowly,” he said.
    We rode. Out of the gate and onto the farm roads. I felt a whole new exhilaration as the cold air blew into my face. The track was blood red and bumpy, on either side the fields remained obscure and uncertain as the sun struggled to breach the horizon, and by the time it eventually got there we must have gone miles.
    We turned a corner and headed up a steep hill toward a kopje as big as a house—rock balancing on rock like magic and looking like it could topple and roll down on us at the slightest puff of wind. How many people must have gazed with wonder and thought the same on first sight?
    We got off our bikes, and as night peeled away the ghostly landscape came to life under a golden mist: cattle, maize stalks, ostriches, blankets of tobacco leaves . . . Ivan must have seen this a million times but even he stayed quiet as it emerged into view. A Lourie bird began to screech its familiar cry of “G’way,” while above, the black and white of a fish eagle swooped low and then out to the almond-shaped dam.
    â€œI fucking love this place.” Ivan spoke perhaps more to himself than me. “I’ll never let them take it.”
    Then, nearby, a lone antelope emerged through the trees—a kudu, fawn in color with thin white stripes down its sides. Young and nervous, it paused with every step, ears twitching, scared by its own sounds. When it was twenty feet away, it suddenly became aware and stood rigid, looking right at us.
    Ivan had very slowly and very carefully taken off his pack and extracted a semiautomatic handgun. It glinted dully.
    He clicked the safety. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget the look on his face.
    The crack split the morning in two. It made me jump even though it wasn’t as loud as I’d expected, and to my relief the kudu was already springing away among the branches.
    Ivan was kicking his bike back into life.
    â€œCome on!”
    We hurtled down after it, twigs and thorns whipping my skin. I tried to keep up, but then a clearing came out of nowhere and I came