Shooting Butterflies by T.M. Clark Page B

tell no one a black man had helped her because he had sworn her to secrecy.
    She wanted the big man in camo clothes caught.
    She wanted him to pay with his life for her father’s and uncle’s deaths.
    She wanted justice.
    But deep inside, she was being torn apart by a promise she was finding it harder and harder to keep. She’d told the police about everything else that day – the ride, the shootings, the running away – but she’d said that she had been the one to open the gate. Not that she’d had help from Shilo.
    She’d lied.
    She knew that if the police had a good tracker, he might have seen Shilo’s footprints in the sand.
    If she told the police about Shilo, he might be able to help identify the killer. But then he would be dead, and his blood would be on her hands. She knew she’d be responsible for taking his life, and he’d saved hers. Having blood on one’s hands was a reminder about the balance of life.
    Tara remembered the moment the year before when she had shot a duiker, and it hadn’t been a clean kill. The animal had cried like a human baby, a sound forever etched in her head. And as she’d slit its throat and it gurgled its last breath, the duiker’s large amber eyes had looked into hers, pleading with her to stop the pain. Not knowing that she was the cause of that pain in the first place. Some people would say she was putting an animal out of its misery, but she couldn’t come to terms with the fact that she’d been the cause of that misery in the first place.
    She didn’t want the blood of a human being on her conscience too.
    Because even if she never pulled the knife across Shilo’s throat herself, someone else would. He’d told her that, and she believed him. He’d made her promise. She wondered if, when he saved her life and extracted the promise, he knew she would then own his life? If she talked, he’d die, and as long as she was silent, he’d live. Being responsible for a human life was exceptionally harder than hunting and killing an animal.
    She accepted that if she said nothing about Shilo helping her there was a chance her father’s killer might not be caught.
    He would go unpunished.
    Until she was old enough to find Shilo alone, without the police tagging along, and speak to him. To follow up on what he’d said. One day soon, she’d go to Buffel’s farm and find Shilo. It wasn’t that justice would not be done, it just had to wait. She was sure her dad would understand.
    Tormented, she put her hand on her dad’s throat and traced the uneven skin. ‘I’m so, so sorry, Daddy.’
    She turned away and walked out of the room, tugging at the skirt she’d worn after losing the argument with her mother that morning. Her father didn’t care what she wore when he was alive, why would he care now when he was dead? She was told that the skirt and new shoes with a small heel on them were not for him, but for her mother. Tara had worn them for Maggie, because in the end arguing with her mother wasn’t something she wanted to do, the day was for her father, and Uncle Jacob, for goodbyes.
    Tara walked through the connecting door from the viewing room and into the main hall, and stopped. There was no solitude in the packed space of the crematorium’s hall where the service was to be held. Hundreds of people were gathered and more still were arriving. The murder of the twins had been headline news. Everyone was there. A soft murmur of conversation could be heard but a voice broke through it.
    â€˜Tara, come over here,’ Aunty Marie-Ann said, beckoning Tara to sit in the front seat next to her.
    She ignored her aunt and instead looked for a familiar face. A friendlier face. She searched for Gabe but he wasn’t sitting in the front row, nor the second.
    Her aunty got up and came and took her forcefully by the arm. ‘Your mother wants you to sit in the front