Huberta's Journey. Cicely van Straten
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air, still hoping to catch their familiar scent or hear their distant rumbling voices on the wind.
As the first birds trilled at dawn, she sought shelter in a small patch of forest in a valley.
Her belly was heavy with fodder. She pushed deep under a thicket of bushes, flopped down and fell asleep. While she slept her legs twitched, her ears flicked. In her mind rose images of the river where she had been born.
The memories that haunted her sleep were of a sand bank in a wide brown river. A herd of hippo cows and their young lay basking in the early-morning sun. They had grazed in the hills all night and now they slept with heads on one another’s necks, their calves beside them.
Ox peckers hopped along their grey backs, nipping ticks from behind ears and in neck folds, but the cows slumbered on. In the river around the sand bank, the bulls of the herd floated, alert for signs of crocodile.
When the sun grew fierce at midday, the cows rose and lumbered into the cool water, calling their calves with the “hom-hom-hom”’ that sounds like laughter. Calves ducked under them to suckle, or butted heads as they swam.
As the sun sank and the fig trees cast shadows over the bank, the cows and calves emerged from the water to lie once more on the warm sand. When dusk fell the bulls called and led them up into the hills to graze.
All night they clipped the lush grasses with their horny lips while the bulls guarded them, ever watchful for signs of leopard or python. Their booming voices, deep as a lion’s, kept predators at bay and signalled that all was well.
When dawn flushed the sky, the bulls led their groups back to the river. The bull, Mzamuli2 stopped by the reed beds and discharged dung with rapid swishes of his tail to mark his territory, while his cows and calves swam across to the nursery on the sand bank.
But one morning Novikela3, Mzamuli’s oldest cow, did not follow the others. She trotted away, restless with sudden pain in her belly. She lay down in the shallow water near the reeds and twisted her great body in the mud. Then she rose and plunged into the reeds, circling and trampling them into a flat bed.
At last she gave a low moan and barged into a deep pool. Her round flanks heaved and she uttered a long, sighing snort. From under her tail a tiny calf slipped into the water. Its short legs paddled desperately as it tore loose from the cord that bound it to Novikela.
She turned swiftly and with her great muzzle she lifted the calf out of the water while it took its first breaths and gave a faint bleat. Novikela answered it with deep grunts until it lay quiet and opened its eyes.
The cow and her new-born calf hung in the water for a long while. Novikela’s ears swivelled and her nostrils dilated, taking in all sounds and scents. She was alert for any sign of predators, ready to attack anything that threatened her calf.
When the soft dripping notes of Kombazana the wood dove told her that all was still on shore, Novikela swam into the shallow water and lowered her calf. She nudged it gently as it took its first steps and led it to the bed of flattened reeds. Here she stood over it and gomphed softly, nosing it from head to tail as it stumbled between her legs.
The calf sniffed and nuzzled her great brown underbelly, then found the teats in her loins. Nudging upwards, it suckled while creamy first milk seeped from the corners of its mouth. The cow, eyes half closed in pleasure, answered it with a sigh.
Soon the little calf sank down and fell asleep.
As the sun climbed, the cow kept watch. Later, when cicadas shrilled in the hard sunlight, her sensitive skin prickled in the heat. Novikela nudged the calf awake and led it back to the water. Keeping her little one always at her left shoulder, she steered carefully downstream into a secluded bay.
It was a quiet place shaded by an umbrella thorn. In this secret backwater she would guard her calf. Here they were safe, withdrawn from the herd and the quick-tempered bulls.
Three
Each day Novikela led the calf into the river and swam slowly beside her. When the calf grew tired she climbed on her mother’s back. When she was hungry she dived to suckle under her belly.
Fish darted beside her, nibbling the algae that clung to Novikela’s hide. Sometimes Ntini the dog otter swept past. Entranced by the silver bubbles in his whiskers, the calf would leave the udder to chase him.
Most days, when the intense heat of midday had passed, Novikela left the river to lie in the sun beside her calf. Now and then the cow heaved to her feet to stand over the calf and salivate a layer of moisture over its tender skin. Then she sank down again with a sigh and dozed in the gentle afternoon warmth.
Novikela did not go with Mzamuli’s cows to graze on the hills. She grazed near the river, close to the safety of the water. Here she cropped grass while the calf suckled or trotted beside her.
There were lessons Novikela had to teach her calf before she joined the herd. The first was never to venture far from her mother’s side.
As the calf grew stronger and more adventurous, Novikela had to discipline her. One day the calf’s attention was drawn by wild duck on the water. She swam away from her mother’s shoulder and struck out on her own.
Novikela lunged forward, opened her mouth and scraped the calf’s side with her tusk. The little one rolled in the water, bleated in pain and surprise and then clambered onto her mother’s back, bleeding. She did not leave Novikela’s side again.
One moring as they floated in the backwater under the thorn tree, a purple heron rose from the reeds with a hoarse “Kaaark!”
Novikela swivelled and saw the gliding gold-flecked eyes of two crocodiles. She shot spray from her nostrils in warning and gaped to display her tusks. Undeterred, the crocodiles slid towards them.
The cow veered left, keeping her body between them and her calf. But the crocodiles separated, one to her right and the other circling towards the calf. They knew Novikela could not fight them on both sides.
Suddenly the calf bellowed and was pulled under. Blood spurted from a rush of foam. With an anguished roar the cow lunged. Her huge jaws gaped and closed on the body of the crocodile. Immediately the thorny vice on the calf’s leg loosened.
In a sweep of red spray Novikela tossed her head upwards and the crocodile soared into the air. Then its body smacked into the water, bitten clean in half. Blood spread in bright-red feathers as the severed halves floated downstream.
The cow lifted her injured calf over her broad muzzle and carried her to their bed in the reeds. For days afterwards the little one limped, but her wounds healed fast under her oozing sweat.
The calf did not forget the terror though. From then on she always pressed close to the shelter of her mother’s shoulder.
Four
One morning at dawn, Novikela led her calf to Mzamuli’s territory at the edge of the reeds. Soon the bull would be leading his cows back to the river after the night’s grazing. The cow waited, listening.
Before long she heard their soft grunts approaching. She turned to face them as they entered the path through the reeds. She lowered her head and grunted.
Mzamuli stopped still. Then he snorted and came slowly towards her.
Novikela stood very quiet and lowered her head again, keeping her body between the calf