It’s high noon for the magnificent five

BENT low over the black stallion’s head, he sped like the wind over the waving, green grass of the beautiful plain. He pulled up in a quiet forest, letting the stallion graze while he drank from his canteen of Perrier water. All in black, he might have been one of the silent shadows that peopled the quiet grove.

He flexed his fingers, then drew in a blur of movement. Four SMS messages sped out as one. “Long ride ahead, Home Affairs”, he murmured to the stallion as he remounted.

Mo was the first. Barely moving from the lotus pose he had learned during his passage to India, he sent the long knife thudding into the dirt between the rider’s boots. “Haven’t lost your touch”, the rider chuckled. Mo grunted: “We ride?” “We ride”, he answered.

Not even a wisp of smoke curled from the chimney of Faith’s cabin in the dense woods but the riders waited, leaning back in the saddle in the easy Mzansi horseman’s posture. “You can come down off the tree,” the rider called. “We’ve got work to do and a long way to ride.” With the grace of a dancer, she came down on her toes, rifle easily balanced on the crook of her arm. “Three of us?” she asked.

“We stop for a bite at Mokonyane’s,” the rider answered, lowering the brim of his black Stetson. “Got two lambs on the spit. Then we ride for Dlamini’s.” A broad grin split her handsome features. “The five of us again. Just like old times,” she said, tightening the cinch on her saddle.

The sun was beginning its slow descent as the five riders splashed through streams, climbed green, rolling hills and ate the dust of old, dry trails. They rode through quiet villages, the only sound the rhythmic drumming of their horses’ hooves. Villagers watched silently. Some crossed themselves.

Even the children sensed that something momentous was afoot. The last rays of the setting sun caught the gleam of leather and steel. Then the darkness enfolded them.

The magnificent five were back.