Jackal's Dance by Beverley Harper Page B

developed a crush on the girl next door and she returned his affections. Four months into the relationship their petting had turned serious. Dan and Julie lost their virginity to each other. Three short months after that, she was dead. Her bruised and abused body was found in a shallow grave on a beach near the holiday resort of Hermanus, about one hundred and thirty kilometres almost due east of Cape Town. Dan had been the police’s number one suspect. He’d been locked up and interrogated for seven gruelling hours.
    Although it had been proved conclusively that Dan couldn’t possibly be guilty, shit sticks and the stigma stayed with him. He was nearly seventeen, grieving for Julie, trying to hold up his head while all those around looked at him with accusing eyes, unable to cope with the coroner’s findings that the love of his young life had been repeatedly gang-raped, sodomised and had been two months pregnant with his child.
    They were never found. Out there, to this day, two or more men walked free having robbed Dan of his love and his child. He recovered in time from the deep grief but he never got over his rage. Nor did he allow any close personal friendships to develop.
    The Penmans watched, helpless, as their happy, gregarious and socially well-adjusted child startedto self-destruct. Dan turned inwards, loudly resenting any attempt from family or friends to reach him. He finished school, a solitary, bitter boy who saw life through the eyes of a cynic. The day after leaving school, Dan packed a single suitcase and, without leaving even a note, left Cape Town.
    He had never returned.
    Fortune bestowed on Dan a small smile that day, although he didn’t know it at the time. From Cape Town he hitched a lift to East London, a thousand kilometres along the coast. The driver, an Englishman in his mid-forties, saw an intense sadness in the quiet boy and managed, by avoiding prodding and personal questions, to learn that the lad had no idea where he was going, or even why. Norman Snelling and his wife had never been blessed with children, which was a pity since both of them would have loved their own. Norman, particularly, had a natural affinity with the young. Troubled teenage offspring of friends often took their problems to him, sensing that here was one adult who actually listened and did not lecture.
    As soon as Dan accepted the lift, Norman’s infallible instincts told him the boy was in trouble. He wondered, though did not ask, what could have gone so wrong in the life of one this young. Sensing that Dan was running away from something more than just discipline or an unhappy home, he knew that the young man would reject anything perceived as sympathy. The groundwork was laid with skilful care.
    â€˜I love this country.’
    Dan looked at him.
    â€˜I mean, look at it. It’s paradise.’ They were inland from Port Alfred, about two hours out of East London, driving through open rolling country. Norman indicated a dirt road off to the right. ‘Got a farm over there. Just on a thousand morgan. Plan to retire there one day.’ He frowned. ‘If there’s anything left of it by then.’
    Dan remained silent.
    â€˜I’ve had three managers on the place. The first was okay but he dropped dead of a heart attack. The second robbed me blind and the one I’ve got now is a lazy, good-for-nothing drunk.’ Norman sighed. ‘I’ve got the transport business operating out of East London. It’ll be ten years at least before I can retire. I’d give anything to find someone reliable so I don’t have to spend half my life running backwards and forwards checking up on things.’ He glanced sideways at Dan. The boy was staring out towards the distant hills. ‘I’m not asking for much. Just a reliable person who’ll take the day-today decisions and do what I ask. Think I can find someone? Can I, hell! I’ve advertised in
Farmer’s