Coenraad de Buys

"Ek is nog hier, swaer!"

I sit under camelthorn trees older than memory. I’ve traveled worlds most people only dream about. The stories you’ve heard about me — they’re just fragments. Half-truths echoing in the wind.

You see – I never really left.

This country—its mountains, its bones, its very breath—still speaks to me. And I've been listening. Not for gold or glory, but for something far more precious: truth. And freedom. Two sides of the same coin.

I lived with the Bushmen and learned to sit still by the fire. I rode behind mules with a royal Hottentot. I married a Xhosa queen. I went to heaven and taught the Zulus. I crossed borders no map had drawn. They called me wild. A cattle thief. A troublemaker.

But I was just free!

I carry more stories than any book could hold. Some are old—from the Huguenot blood that runs in my veins. Others come from the veld—told by those who spoke in clicks and danced beneath the stars. And some are new—insights I've gathered from watching the world turn, still alive in the hearts of my children scattered across continents.

Yes... I'm still watching.

This space isn't a book or a museum. It's a lapa with a big, inviting fire—a living arena for those who still ask questions and have time to listen to the whole answer.

I may never get to tell it all. I've always been a man of few words. But if you listen with your heart and let your imagination run free, you can ride beside me to wild places, far and wide.

And if you have a story to tell, I'll throw another log on the fire, pour the witblits, and we'll kuier until the morning star winks at us.

When the wind shifts just right, perhaps others will hear us laugh. And when you're alone, working late into the night, you might feel my hand on your shoulder—and know:

I'm proud of you. Just like you should be. Because you were born of good stock.

My name is Coenraad de Buys
Outlaw. Wanderer. Witness to Life.

Welcome to my world.

Dag 1

Hierdie dag was ‘n absolute omwenteling in my lewe. Ek was skaars 10 jaar oud en het die drastiese stap geneem, om weg te loop, die berge in – weg van mense af.
Ek is oor die Witzenberge en my bewerige sprinkaanbeentjies het my gedra tot waar die plaas “Slangboom” vandag is. Soos die kraai vlieg, net 10 km, maar oor ‘n redelike hoë berg!

Daar onder die wildevye, aan die voet van die berg het ek, daardie aand, een van die ergste nagmerries van my lewe gehad.
Ek is eintlik ‘n man van min woorde, daarom gaan !Kaggen my help om die storie van my lewe te vertel.

Coenraad de Buys

Chapter 1: Sprinkaan

I was flying low that morning—not from mischief, for once, but hunger. The sun stretched lazily over the Witzenberg peaks, and I hadn't yet decided whether to be a mantis, a locust, or just a fine mist over my beloved fynbos.

The year was 1770, and as far as I could tell, everything was going fine in the Cape of Good Hope. Or as the locals would say one day: Die Kaap is Hollands—the Cape is still Dutch.

I weaved between pink watsonia and blushing bride, light as a morning breeze and just as unnoticed. Fynbos scents filled my antennae. I was contemplating a fat caterpillar for breakfast when a girl's scream shattered the morning quiet.

"Sprinkaan, come back! You can't leave me behind!"

Sharp and urgent—like a reedbuck's bleat of distress. Not anger or pain, but something rawer.

Betrayal, perhaps?

Sprinkaan? That could make a meal too.

Curious, I rose above the flowering shrubs, my compound eyes scanning, my three eyes focusing.

There he was, nearly on top of me—a slender boy with an oversized hat, just shy of ten summers.

He was walking with the fierce determination that only the very young or very desperate display.

He didn't look at me. No one ever does.

"I'm going," he said, voice low and swallowed by the fynbos. "You can come with me, or you can go back. I don't care."

The girl—his sister by blood and by the way her voice clung to him—stood barefoot on the sandy path. Her small fists were clenched white-knuckled at her sides, tears streaming down dust-stained cheeks.

"You can't!" Her voice cracked with desperation. "We don't know... we can't be sure Ma really did that."

Ah, I thought. Now this sounds like a story.

You must understand—I don't follow every child who runs from home. But something about this boy stirred the very air around us. The way he moved as if he'd already burned every bridge before crossing it. The way he didn't flinch, didn't look back, didn't beg forgiveness.

They called him Sprinkaan, I would learn. Locust-boy. A fellow insect. That amused me.

If you haven't figured it out yet, my name is !Kaggen. I can be everywhere and nowhere, depending on how I feel. The Bushmen call me a trickster god, though I prefer to think I help where I can—they just don't understand yet. I can see as far as I want into the past and pretty far into the future.

And I recognize this boy. I know where he comes from, and I have some idea of the man he could become. The trail-breaker they'll whisper about in borderlands. The outlaw. Maybe even a legend.

But I also know this moment—this precise heartbeat when his sprinkaan legs carry him, not just away from home, but into the wild shape of his own becoming.

Susanna watched him climb toward the hostile slope where the Witzenberg lifted its shoulder in defiance. Her brother's bare feet found purchase on sand and grit, his fingers clinging to rough sandstone flanks as he dragged himself up through bush and grass. Six hundred seventy meters of struggle over three short kilometers—is what he needs to climb.

"If the leopards don't get you," she cried after him, her voice breaking, "those wild Bushmen will kill you for sure!"

That made him pause. Just briefly—the kind of pause where silence swells and hope flickers.

She stood panting in the path below, her voice raw with fear and fury. "They will, Coenraad! And no one will be able to save you!"

But he only turned his head slightly—enough for her to see he'd heard—and climbed higher. Jakob's voice echoing in the back of his mind: "Follow the Antjes River that flows like blood from that wound in the side of the mountain."

Susanna stood alone as morning light caught the edge of her threadbare skirt, making it flutter like the tattered flag of a defeated army. She watched him disappear and reappear behind waboom bushes and massive boulders. Each time he vanished, her chest jerked with fresh pain, pushing out new floods of tears.With blurred vision and dark shadows filling the kloof, she could no longer see him.

She realized. He wasn't coming back.

She dropped to her knees in the sandy path, hands clasped tightly together.

"Heavenly Father... don't let the mountain eat him. Don't let him be swallowed by the earth like Cain. Please, Lord... let my brother come back to me... one day."

Even I stopped moving.

Not just the words but the urgency in her prayer—a powerful stillness—that I hadn't heard around a thousand campfires. It struck like an arrow through the heart of the earth. I felt it. Kou, the mountain felt it.

Sorrow, I think they call it. Yes. Even I feel it... sometimes.

From high above—where the Black Eagle soars and the air grows thin—she looked no bigger than an ant. A small girl in a hostile world where people, not animals, pose the greatest danger.

Sprinkaan scrambled up the ravine, his feet splashing as he crossed and recrossed the small stream.

The sandstone rose around him in strange shapes carved by wind and water: blocks and puzzle pieces that giants might play with. He pressed his palm against one such formation and spoke to his friend:

"Klip, ek hoop ek doen die regte ding." Stone, I hope I'm doing the right thing.

Some ancient spirits, still sleeping in the rock, stirred and took notice. The climb became treacherous, every twist in the path presenting new riddles. On narrow ledges, he had to press his body flat against the rockface to maintain balance.

"Stay close to the kranz and don't look down," Jakob had warned.

Several times, cold fright poured over his heart, as he nearly lost his footing.

"Klip, hou my vas asseblief." Stone, hold me tight, please.

If you're confused, as I was, Sprinkaan has an imaginary friend named Klip—Stone. He speaks to rocks with unusual warmth, touching them lovingly with his palm. Strange, I know. But then, there are many strange things about this boy.

And still he climbed.

I watched from the hollow of a sun-warmed rock while my daughter-in-law, Kou (the Mountain) herself—began to warm toward him.

"You think he'll make it, don't you?" I asked her.

In the soft wind through waboom leaves, I heard her reply: "I would love for him to make it."

Sprinkaan heard something too, for he paused and spoke to his stone friend: "What are you saying,

Klip? Do you think I'm going to make it?"

He was sensitive, this one. My curiosity grew by the hour.

Then Kou cleared the path before him, and the steep slope began to level as he reached the Witzenberg's summit. The air was crystal clear. He turned for one last look at David Senekal's farm—patches of cultivated land in the valley below, rows of vines and fruit trees, a wisp of blue smoke curling from the farmhouse.

With a stretch of imagination, he could see old Jakob waving from the barn door.

I felt sad for this boy. He'd tried so hard to belong on that farm, worked with desperate intensity. Yet David, a stocky short man, resented this much taller, handsome boy! His baby sister, Susanna, slept in the house with the family, but there was no place for him. He slept in the barn with Jakob and the other laborers. The promised buitkamer, outside room, never materialized. He ate sitting on the kitchen floor, and after David read scripture and prayed, he was dismissed to sleep in the barn like property.

He'd experienced that same throat-tightening feeling when he and Susanna rode on the back of the ox-wagon from Cogmanskloof to Drakenstein. He'd waited for someone to wave goodbye, but no one did. Before losing sight of the house, he'd waved anyway—perhaps someone would see.

Leaving Palmietfontein, his grandfather's wine estate, he searched the windows for a glimpse of his grandfather. Finding none, he'd waved anyway as they rolled through the impressive gates.

He'd been so excited about moving to his half-sister Gertruida and her husband David Senekal on the farm "Waterval" in the romantic-sounding "Land van Waferen." Little did young Coenraad de Buys know he was entering another cycle of hope, hard work, attempted belonging, and inevitable loss—a lesson he seemed doomed to repeat, over and over again.

But he had tried, truly tried, to make it work. To belong.

And here he was again. Exiled. Walking barefoot from the ruins of a broken home, carrying only a small rucksack, rolled blanket, water bottle, and his father's hunting knife—stolen and hidden a long time ago.

That familiar bitterness rose in his throat, but he removed his hat and waved at the farm below—at maybe no one. He wiped his brow, drank a sip from his water bottle, and turned toward a new future: The Bokkeveld, named for the abundance of game in the flatlands between mountains. He could not see it yet. He was on a gentle rise to the summit.

Jakob's voice, explaining in Bushmen detail, echoed in his mind: "Look for two big piles of rocks. If you see a marsh in front of you, go to the right. Follow the rheebok's path. They like to walk between those rocks and over to the other side."

There it was, just as his Bushman friend explained it, less than 500 paces of a gentle rise and he was on the summit.

Surprised by the "plateau" of grass that stretch out in front of him, he looked across to the mountains on the other side. There was no notch that he could see! Did he go wrong somewhere? He could see two valleys that met and when he looked carefully, he realized there were two mountain ranges behind each other.

Yes! There it was, the notch in the first mountain across the flatland. Jakob's voice came back strong: "Aim slightly right of it, and when you reach it, follow the easy road trending toward the sun."

There it was—a jagged cut in the distant Bokkeveld ridge. A passage into another world.

He descended carefully. The slope was gentler—only three hundred meters over two kilometers—but his legs had grown tired. Sandstone crumbled underfoot, around him big sandstone blocks weathered into strange shapes: sleeping faces, forgotten beasts, gates to vanished realms.

Excitement built as he stepped into this new, grass covered world, turned golden by the summer sun. The Bokkeveld spread out before him, wide and quiet, filled with promises not yet revealed. Soon he reached the valley floor, following white sandy trails left by countless animals.

He walked barefoot across five kilometers of rough, broken veld, his shadow stretching eastward toward his destination: the base of the next mountain. "Follow your shadow," old Jakob had once said, and it felt as if the Bushman walked beside him.

In the mean time the late afternoon sun stretched Sprinkaan’s shadow long and thin across the sandy path. Ahead, a stand of wabome—tall, ash-grey proteas with cracked, weathered bark—whispered gently in the breeze. Finches chirped nervously from somewhere within the clump. Sprinkaan had heard birds do that when an owl was sleeping nearby.

Beyond them, the sandstone walls of the Cederberg glowed gold in the fading light, their peaks burning quietly against the deepening sky.

Then a branch moved oddly!

He froze.

Two geelslange—Cape cobras—were entwined on the branch, locked in a slow-motion duel. Their scales flared like brass in the sun, wrapped around each other and the branch, like a twisted rope of koeksister. Bodies as thick as his arm writhed and flexed in deliberate combat. It was a mating duel—silent, ritualistic. Which one would win?

Sprinkaan stepped closer. The snakes, so intent on their struggle, paid him no notice.

Suddenly, one lost its grip.

It dropped.

Sprinkaan flinched as the snake hit the ground with a thud, twisted once in the dust, then shot off into the undergrowth, leaving a single winding track across the sand.

The victor remained a moment longer, tongue flicking, head lifted in victory, then glided along the branch and vanished into the grey foliage to claim his prize.

Sprinkaan stood still. His heart was quiet. He had come in search of freedom, but the veld had shown him something older—older than stories, older than memory, part of survival.

He stepped forward again, this time softer.

The path curved around a marsh shaped like a horseshoe, and crossed a narrow stream—too overgrown and shallow to drink from. He pressed on, looking for a better water.

Slightly to his right, at the foot of the mountain, a dense green bush caught his eye. There might be water there. There was a copse of trees standing among a heap of weathered boulders—great sandstone blocks, strangely out of place on the flat valley floor.

He looked up at a notch in the mountain and wondered, Why these rocks? Why here, right in front of that gap?

He reached a stream and knelt beside it—a friendly trickle of water that seemed to speak. Perhaps it did.

He plunged his hands into the current, holding them there for a long time. The cold, living water wrapped around his fingers. Beneath its surface, even his hands looked like strangers. He splashed his face, rubbed the back of his neck, and drank deeply with cupped palms.

Revived, he followed the animal path toward the rocks and the trees. He wondered what the creatures sought here.

He approached one of the larger sandstone blocks and gently placed his hand on its surface, it felt nice and warm – maybe it was alive.

"Klip, hoe het die rotse hier gekom?"

He stood in silence, waiting for a feeling—some trace of an answer.

Then, with a soft plop, a half-eaten fig dropped into the bed of leaves at his feet. He looked up. A flock of pigeons were feasting on the ripe fruit of the wildevy trees above him. The trees were full of figs, heavy and dark.

He smiled.

Dinner was sorted.

The bird-like screetch of a dassie’s warning, announced that something was on the move.

Funny how that triggered a memory in Sprinkaan's mind.

Jakob told him how everyone underestimates dassie. One thing about Jakob – he likes to tell these animal stories.

“She is !Kaggens's wife." Old Jakob said, with eyes widening into a subtle warning.

One day, the leopard called out, sarcasticly:

‘Dassie, come out of your hiding place and let me see that tail of yours.’

The dassie, cheeky as ever, replied:

‘Oh mighty leopard, my tail is weak and tangled—just look at your own! Surely you hold more magic than I ever could.’

The leopard growled:

‘If you speak so, then dance for me—you love dancing.’

The dassie began to shake herself on the rock—her bottom jiggling like a sack of sand. She thumped it against the stone in a funny, round dance.

The leopard, confused by the odd rhythm, tried to mimic her dance. But his body was too long, his paws too wide. He stumbled, his tail tangled in a crevice. His roar echoed—and the dassie leaped away laughing, her round rump disappearing into a safe crack in the cliff.

From that day, the leopard learned: even the smallest creature has its own magic. And the dassie? She still sits in the rocks, quietly smiling, living on her wits.”

Jakob winked at Sprinkaan.

“So remember, boy—never underestimate the clever sister. Even the claw of the sky can be tricked by her rump on the rock.”

Sprinkaan moved some branches and stones away from his big rock.

"Klip!-waar is jy? Ek wil daar by jou kom slaap."

Maybe he felt safer closer to his imaginary friend. There was no time to gather wood and he was too tired anyway. What he would learn in time is that stone absorb heat during the day and if you picked the right friend to sleep next to, you will sleep warm all night.

In the distance two jackals were telling everyone on the plateau, that they were so very hungry… But then everyone knows, never to trust a jackal, they are far to clever – just ask the wolf. Back then any kind of hyena was called a wolf. He hardly started to review the events of the day, when he fell asleep on a bed or wildevy leaves, next to Klip.

That night, beneath the bitter stars, the boy lay curled under his blanket, with his back close to the huge block of sandstone. In the dark, unseen by the boy, I was perched upon a branch nearby. My antennae twitching and testing the air, while I watched the sleeping child. Men are what they dream and I want to be nearby to learn more about this Sprinkaan and what makes him what he is. "And the dream is not his choosing. It is the mountain’s gift. Or its test." I thought to myself.

Let me share the dream with you just as I can see it play out in his mind.

Young Sprinkaan sat quietly just outside the little stone house on the farm at Wagenbooms River, nestled in the curve of Kochmanskloof, near what would one day be called Montagu. The late afternoon sun warmed his face and shoulders, and he let himself enjoy the simple stillness of the world. Sparrows chirped and fluttered in the corner where they were busy building a nest under the thatch, and turtle doves called softly from the branches of a wild olive just beyond the barn where his father was working.

He let his mind drift. He wasn’t thinking of anything in particular — just fragments of warmth, the touch of the sun on his skin, the smells of food and fire in the kitchen behind him.

Then, suddenly, a sharp cry broke through it all — a shout from the barn. He jumped to his feet.

From the barn, his father came tearing up the path toward the house. But behind him — less than a hundred paces away — was a huge male lion, running in a dead straight line, focused entirely on his father as if it meant to strike him down.

Coenraad froze for just one heartbeat. As if in slow-motion, he couldd see the lion’s mane shaking and blowing in the wind as it charged towards his father. Then came his father’s voice, loud and desperate:

"Kry die roer!” “Get the gun.”

With his heart pounding, he grabbed the gun from inside the house and ran towards his father. He rush outside and held the gun out towards his dad. His father did not even see him and ran straight into the house. The boy turned around to shoot the lion – nothing, no lion in sight. He ran back into the house and slammed the door behind them.

His father was lying on his back and standing over him, leaning forward, was – the lion! Impossible because the door was closed. While his eyes adapted to the light he was horrified to see a big brown creature bearing down on his father. Someone — or something — cloaked in a thick brown robe, the colour of the lions mane, was there with a deep hood pulled low over it’s face. The figure was silent. Still. Watching. His father looked terrified and helpless. And whatever light came through the small window, seemed to vanish inside that hood.

Coenraad squinted. Was it... his mother?

"Ma?" he called out.

At that, the figure slowly turned to look at him — and what he saw made his blood run cold.

There was no face beneath the hood. Only a black surface, like a mirror polished with ash, and the more he looked, the more it seemed to shimmer — as if behind that blankness was something vast and cold and ancient. Something that looked back. Slightly fogged, reflecting only his own frightened eyes. The boy stepped back. The woman raised her hand, as if to hush him away, and the mirror shattered into hundreds of razor sharp daggers — and they plunged like a storm of broken glass into his father’s stomach.

The daggers pierced his fathers abdomen. His father cried out — a deep, wounded howl — and curled into himself, hands clutched to his belly, legs drawn up tight in terrible pain.

Now the scene changed. He was running across the veld, bare feet over sharp thorns, chased by a cloud of black ravens, with daggers for beaks. He ran towards the rocks and shouted for Klip to open a door.

He stumbled and fell.

The earth beneath him opened like a mouth and swallowed him whole.

He woke up in shock!

In the distance we can hear a nightjar and on the other side of the valley, a round bellied moon, hovering just above the tall mountain ridge, pale and ghostly against the deep blue that still clung to the western sky.

I was still sitting on the same rock, also out of breath, blinking all my eyes and lowering my antennae. Thinking to myself:

"There is no wound so deep as the wound of being unwanted." I thought that, with no pity, only truth. The boy needs to deal with the loss of both parents, especially his mother, and the self he does not yet understand."

With the moon behind the mountains, the stars came out brighter but that was no consolation for young Sprinkaan. His face was tight and his legs were twitching beneath the blanket. He sat up with his back against the rock and pulled the blanket up to under his chin.

While we watched the dark slowly fade into dawn, I was thinking to myself, he really only had two choices with the cards that he was dealt with: He could allow the world to emasculate him or rebel against the events and blaze his own trail.