Unckle The Legacy

By Andrew Hutchinson

Unckle The Legacy is a fast paced action thriller with full blown African adventure that takes the reader on a full blown tour of the South African social and natural landscapes. The storyline is a fictional factual account of current day happenings in South Africa and the Indian Ocean. This is a must read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Hutchinson
• Release date: Jan 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224768264

Andrew Hutchinson

Andrew writes about modern day Africa and South Africa. International adventure and homegrown business experience within the informal sector. 

Book preview

01

ESCAPE

Pumlani Madoda put the crown of Kashmir on his head! Unckle was contorted and dead under a covering of five rand pieces that were a mix of old silver and glitzy gold wreathes of design. A forty-four-gallon drum of coins was the Pakistani's last place of rest - his brother, Barbar had split into the night heading for the freighter ship, the Hang Wei, in the East London docks and Madoda held the keys to the dead man's shop! The puppet master danced a jig on the dusty cement floor and his exposed ankles were bathed in a fine dust of crete ... white shins on black legs!

While Pumlani Madoda was doing his zebra impersonation and jiving to an imaginary jazz groove, the wife of Barbar and the old bush warrior, Rafiki Majosa, stumbled down Beaufort Street in the dark of the night. Majosa shouldered the .308 rifle and hauled the bloody and hacked-off horn of the poached rhino in his haversack. He was still on a trip from the heroin Barbar had injected him with at various waypoints along their getaway path as they fled from the Mpundulu encounter in the Lowveld. The Amaxhosa wife of the runaway Pakistani brother - Barbar, minced her buttocks as she catwalked down the filthy and littered strip of Beaufort Street in Grahamstown. Her inner thighs were uncomfortable as the yellow diamond rode its way in a rough reachupwards towards her crotch. Her ribs and distended pregnant stomach projected forward and her belly button had popped out like a piece of Liquorice Allsorts. The bruises and blood blisters upon her lower abdomen spoke of the visit from the Mpundulu! The scratches where the ancestral spirit bird had used its nails to attempt an early caesarean were long and pronounced. One could see how they wealed up from the stretched stomach. The handsome male seducer had shifted into Mpundulu mode just as Barbar's wife had been receptive to his ambitious attentions. As she lay wanting the seduction, the bird grew in height and strength, leaving its human form it kicked the shit out of her and attempted to score open pregnant her belly with its sharp claws!

As the two of them escaped into the dark, Majosa was a shade of his past strength and his current stature would offer little protection to the woman by his side as he weaved an attempt at stoic chivalry.

Taxi drivers hooted and swept past them with kwaito music blaring and multicoloured peephole lights flashed like ‘Fong Kong’ Christmas lights on the running boards of these transporters.

Barbar's wife was clear of mind, Majosa was not, he was only going through the motions, accompanying this woman with her big stomach, as they tried to evade the danger of Pumlani Madoda who was still occupied with his new sense of arrival that he paid no attention to the two that slipped away into the night ...

02

ON A LICK & A PROMISE

Pumlani Madoda ceased his jig of a homecoming dance on the shop floor of the assassinated Unckle and went down into the basement to double-check on the harvested mortality of the Pakistani brother whose brain had received the .38 special bullet. 

On the floor, next to the forty-four-gallon drum that housed the remains of the dead man, there lay evidence of a few splatters of blood and bits of debris that clasped a few silky hair follicles. 

Madoda pulled out the revolver and played out a few cowboy gunslinger moves as his fantasy world collided with the reality of the murder he had committed. He rolled the bullet chambers and kapow - kapow his way around the basement as he stopped here and there to look at all the goodies he had inherited by means of murder and extortion. Madoda had finally arrived! He would control every aspect of the Pakistani brothers' business ventures and he was convinced of the fortune that he would make! Madoda had caused a short circuit in the Chinese Human Resources Department ... but he would explain that away in no time, the yellow men would be informed of the treacherous and nefarious actions of the ungrateful Pakistani coalition while bringing his own value and stature to the fore. The Ministry of State Security in Beijing would be okay with that ... Just a bit of collateral damage, he convinced himself as he took in the wealth of drugs, money, rhino horn and captive minions that Unckle had caged up in the basement - minions from Pakistan; drug mules and bonded slaves! Madoda felt like a god.

Pumlani stalked towards the caged men at the far end of the basement, squinting against the fluorescent overhead tubes of yellow candescence, the dark side of the room held a murmur of voices and they were gathering in heightened sing-song and apparent panic! These captives had witnessed the end of Unckle at the hand of the African that was now advancing towards them as he played cowboy with the same gun that had delivered death to their Pakistani boss Unckle.

While Pumlani Madoda's mind enjoyed his fake status as a deity and he twirled around the universe, his old friend, the Bush War veteran and Barbar's wife were attracting the attention of ambitious taxi men at the organised taxi rank behind the hardware store in downtown Grahamstown.

Rafiki Majosa was flitting back and forth in his conscious nightmare of the Mpundulu bird attack and while he sweated a nervous memory, the stench of past body odour along with the combination of old blood upon his exposed forearms and upper torso, as it had melted through his ripped shirt, presented the old warrior as a proper skebanga! 

He shouldered the haversack that carried the amputated rhino horn in an uneasy manoeuvre and the .308 hunting rifle with the silencer attached to the end of the barrel hung low by his side, it brushed up against his wounds and tripped the switch of pain - on - off - on - off - ON.

Barbar's wife looked nervous and unsure and she walked about as if she had some sort of notorious fungi between her thighs. This woman was clearly uncomfortable and she sweated freely as the Mpundulu bird revisited her psyche. These two runaways were attracting attention for all the wrong reasons, they could feel the unwanted focus of the taxi drivers and the cavalier route - callers that governed the yawning openings of the side doors of the taxi vehicles and the ‘Fong Kong’ snake lights lit up the running boards as the open doors sucked in the homeward bound populace and their tariff monies were paid in rollicking style as if a magical turnstile was shepherding the travellers onto the mobile death traps; these vehicles were unroadworthy and in general, their status of repair was questionable. The rural roads with potholes and corrugations attacked these people carriers at every turn and the owners could not or would not take the time to effect general maintenance - time was money. Money governed the traveller's lives and many times money took their lives and relieved them of their presence on the planet while the taxi guys got insurance payments and new vehicles to fuck up and more business because they transported mourners to the many funerals! 

Rafiki Majosa was wasted and confused but he understood his mortality, he was not keen on boarding any of these rolling machines of recklessness. 

He took a chance and Rafiki chose to lead his Pakistani boss's wife away from the chaos of the taxi rank and together they placed a bet of favour with the future! 

Favour found them well, as I happened upon the two fugitives in Somerset Street; it was a fluke of a meeting! 

I was returning from a hunting trip and was running late; as one does when the hunting camp host won't let you go ...

As I drove down Somerset Street from the south side, I noticed the two stumbling figures and the load the man was bearing over his right shoulder. The shadowy activity attracted my eye and I peered into the darkness with curiosity. The familiar form of Majosa became a silhouette against the interior light being cast from Patels shopfront, slowing the vehicle down, I leaned out of the open window and called to Rafiki, the old chap responded with urgency and before the vehicle was at a standstill, both he and the pregnant lady were ensconced on the loading bay of my 4x4 hunting truck. Each of them had a spaghetti-noodle grip on the other and their wide eyes spoke of fear and terror, while the dilated pupils and free-flowing sweat off their bodies brought another message of concern to me.

I was a little worried by their demeanour and the open carry of the hunting rifle was a pulsating ruby-coloured warning! At this point, the rhino horn was concealed from my sight and there were only the seeped-out splodges of blood and the perceived weight of the bag for myself to hazard a guess at the contents - a poached animal or body part was the stock answer to my own questions.

Majosa said one word in English ‘Alicedale’ and then another in isiXhosa ‘fihla’ after which he promptly passed out. The amaXhosa woman with the distended belly just looked at me and nodded.

A huge rolling globule of liquid salt fell off the end of her nose and splashed onto the metal floor of the vehicle's load bed. I was looking at this unlikely pair when a white sedan, a product of Germanic automotive engineering in the East London IDZ, turned the corner from the taxi rank and accelerated towards us. The driver flicked the headlights too bright and the blinding beams made the situation at hand a stressful instant in time. Bright and powerful headlights illuminated myself and the apparent fugitives like a flash of a thousand-foot flare! It was a bright advance as the driver of the sedan revved the multi-valve motor and squealed the slick tyres with a flat foot on the accelerator! This driver was fixated upon the spectacle we offered up but I didn't stick around to make the person's acquaintance. Jumping into the driver's seat, the accelerator pedal of my vehicle's foot controls discovered the floor of the cab as my booted foot pushed hard against the bare metal of the pedal.

The tyres on my 4x4 purchased a stretch of the tarmac and the vehicle was swinging wildly about so as to avoid the potholes that peppered the surface of the roadway. We were not an easy target for a handgun cowboy but this guy punched the night air with bullets anyway! Azig-azag we went, flying uphill towards High Street and the hoity-toity Sunday eve parade of believers as they spilt out of the Cathedral and the Methodist church in the High Street. The good burghers of Grahamstown watched us flee and the exiting congregations from the Cathedral and Commem were astounded as the German car chased us up the hill and around the corner, the three-star circular badge of the iconic car maker living it large in my rearview mirror. Luckily the mounted cowboy had run out of bullets and no more shots were fired at us. We floored it towards the gravel road that traversed the Highlands en route to Alicedale! it wasn't long and the state of the road discouraged the powerful but low-slung car, the odd rock and the strewn-about broken bottles played havoc with the undercarriage and the low profile racing rubber that encapsulated the steel rims of this precision machine could not forge a relationship with the chopped up corrugated surface of the road.

Rafiki, myself and the wife of Barbar raced away into the night as we hightailed it for Alicedale leaving the Deutsche car behind us in the dust-filled beams of its headlights. The driver was blinded by the particles of gravel that our wheels kicked up as the full-strength beams of the chasing headlamps brought lighthouses of bright atmosphere to the bits hanging in the air. I drove on into the night heading for the tiny town of Alicedale, our escape held together by a lick and a promise! Nothing was certain and nothing would be the same again ...

03

FANG OF FWANG

Barbar scooted from Grahamstown! Madoda had allowed Barbar the chance to live, to leave his newly acquired wife and his unborn child, to leave his strange buddy-type relationship with Rafiki Majosa dangling in thin air and to navigate a passage to Madagascar with Captain Fwang evading death and creating release from his Chinese masters, as it was; Barbars commitment to his brother - Unckle had been rendered null and void by the government official and his revolver bullet.

Unckle had not been afforded that choice, Madoda's revenge had been calculating and swift, the man had taken Unckle's life as payback for the death of Pamela Modjaji and all the other embarrassing or compromising actions that Unckle had foisted upon the government wheeler-dealer that answered sometimes ... to the name of Pumlani Madoda!

The choice of exile had been extended to Barbar by Madoda as a form of torture, as a physiological sword of conscience, Madoda planned for a clouded veil of consequence and guilt that would hang over the Pakistani with the rising and the setting of the sun on each day of his extended life, a life that Pumlani Madoda had granted to Barbar while he played God in the basement of the brothers business premises in Beaufort Street Grahamstown.

Upon reaching the neutrality of the freighter ship - the Hang Wei - Barbar opened up to Captain Fwang who was the boss of the ship as well as a self-styled Indian Ocean commissar! If anyone could help Barbar set up another life in Madagascar it would have to be Captain Fwang ... especially with the value of the poached rhino horns that lay stashed away under the tarpaulin of the landcruiser.

Barbar had always been cut of a different cloth to Unckle, more amenable to suggestion and quite possibly naive in his association with life influencers, so as he sat in the captain's cabin and the two men negotiated Barbar's rate for a passage aboard the Hang Wei, along with the different guarantees that the good captain expected from the Pakistani once he had a footing in Antananarivo - Madagascar - Barbar found himself being wrapped up in a spider-web of debt, promissory notes that were hypothetical and a wrangle of threats with regards to actions from the Ministry of State Security, should the captain of the passagemaker - the Hang Wei, not receive a hero's welcome plus a tithe from Barbar every time the ship should put its bow into a Malagasy port.

The ‘elephant in the room’ continued to be the Canary yellow diamond that had left the Hang Wei, the captain wanted that stone, in fact, he demanded that the collective bunch of rare atoms be brought to him before his ship made for Madagascar!

Barbar developed a mild shake and a tremble that found energy in his fingertips and pulsed upwards through his hands, wrists and forearms, he sank his head into his trembling palms as he contemplated a return to Grahamstown and the possibility of meeting up with Pumlani Madoda. Barbar feared not the concept of death, it was the finality of the passing, the non-return policy that bugged the shit out of this man. The captain would be sitting pretty in his ship's cabin, while the Pakistani would be running with risk, attempting to secure his passage out of South Africa and away from the dark continent. The captain sat looking at Barbar while the shakes made a true manifestation within the runaway.

The round eyes of the captain managed a slitty shift of gaze as he broke his own rules and lit up a cheroot in his quarters. The cheroot transacted upon a pocket of oxygen from the atmosphere between the two men and the flavour of the smoke hung flat in the dead air current of the closed-up space that was the captain's cabin. 

The smoke changed in colour and shape as it found a filter in the tight box of air and the grey-coloured vapour sank down onto the armrests of the captain's highback chair and fumbled over the edge of the chart table heading towards the floor as the sucked up air particles lacked suspension for the expelled carbon monoxide.

The silence between the two men was full and buttery, neither man spoke, as they sought to avoid an unnecessary slip of the tongue! A broken promise from this moment in time could very well punctuate each of their respective futures with bullets as the other man would attempt to seek redress to repair the damage or fallout from this secretive meeting. These two pawns attempted to play king on their mini stage ... while the real king sat in Grahamstown and commanded his newfound army of immigrants to a programme of capture and control. Pumlani Madoda sent his footmen to all the rural areas to herald the news of his taking of the Pakistani realm. 

The cheroot slimmed down as the Chinaman sucked on the tasty end and the ash curled slightly in an asymmetrical angle as it was held in bondage just before the captain tippa-tapped the white waste into a heavy-based whisky glass by his side. Barbar cradled his head and flexed his toes over the leather sandals that were hidden beneath the lengthy robe of worship he had clothed himself with before entry into the captain's cabin ... The old Rakhwala’s dagger had a home, it was strapped to Barbar's waist patiently waiting for a set of curled fingers to signal