‘We live by the same laws of the veld, Roff. Bosjesman takes what he can from the land by his nature, we take by the smoke in our guns. Both of us have to live.’

The farmers in the interior had their own way of communicating. If Gerhardt Brink up on the kopje received tidings of death, he would span in old Maduna and clip-clop over to the dominee’s wife at Oorlogsrivier, who in turn would relay the news to the Vissers, Steenkamps, and Jouberts until it reached old Pietie Retief in the valley. When word came at breakfast that Oupa Harman had bowed to the Will of the Lord, the horses were harnessed and by noon the path leading up to Kloot’s Nek accommodated five extra wagons belonging to mourners bringing potatoes, pumpkin, biltong and beskuit. Laid out in a black suit stiff with age, attracting a dark knot of flies, Oupa Harman looked irritated at the idea of being on display, the little white flowers at the head of the coffin adding to the sickly sweet smell pressing in on them in the closeness.

Willem Kloot stood dry-eyed among the Jouberts and Retiefs and announced that the dominee was away in Roodezand and that the burial would take place immediately because of the heat. The mourners paid their respects, and the men carried the coffin silently down the hill to the family plot.

Hennerik and Twa lowered it into the grave with rieme, then went to stand with Sanna and the other workers and their children behind the mourners. Willem Kloot read a verse from the Bible, his coat tails lifting slightly in the breeze. He said a few words about the courage and determination and trekgees that had possessed his father and brought him to the Hantamberge forty years before, and how Kloot’s Nek would be silent without him. Then he closed the Bible and threw the first handful of sand on the coffin.

Roeloff stood with David and Diena and Soela and watched Twa and Hennerik go to work with their shovels.

‘You can move into Oupa’s room now,’ David whispered.

Roeloff gave him a cold look.

‘I mean it, before Pa marries.’

Roeloff took the spade from Twa.

‘Let Twa do it,’ Willem Kloot said.

‘No.’ Roeloff didn’t want anyone else to do it, and not Twa. He wanted all of them to go away.

The farmers had heard of the Bushman who talked to himself, and Roeloff’s fascination with him. They watched to see if there would be confrontation, but Willem Kloot merely nodded at Roeloff to go ahead. Roeloff leaned into the mound of sand with the shovel and started to fill the grave.

Willem turned to the mourners who were watching his son and Twa. They all knew about his fire-loving Bushman and sometimes made reference to his strangeness, but knew nothing of his powers. Willem didn’t deem it necessary to inform them. Twice during the long drought Twa had been able to point out where to dig for water. It would strike up at him from the earth through the soles of his feet, he said, and Willem Kloot would kick in his spade in the earth at the exact spot where Twa stood, trembling. The power wasn’t always with Twa as it required huge concentration, giving him a pain in his head, and while Willem wasn’t selfish towards his fellow farmers—especially when it came to that most precious of commodities—he was afraid that Twa’s powers would get used up if everyone knew, and not be available to him when really needed. Willem had his own fondness for the little hunter (Twa had been his protector at one stage) and understood the friendship between Twa and his son.

‘Coffee and bread, people?’ he asked. ‘Let’s go back to the house.’

‘Come,’ David said to Diena and Soela.

‘I’m waiting for Roff,’ Diena said.

‘Me too,’ Soela added.

‘Stay, then, and get yourselves dirty.’

Roeloff knew the tone in his brother’s voice. Tomorrow or the day after David would take his revenge. Roeloff looked up briefly at the sisters in their blue dresses and starched kapjes. He hadn’t seen the outfits before and imagined Drieka had had a hand in fashioning them. He returned to scooping and dumping the dirt onto the coffin and Diena and Soela slowly followed the others up to the house. Alone with Hennerik and Twa who paid him no attention, Roeloff threw himself into his task with a vengeance, the tears running freely down his face in hot streaks onto the front of his clothes. He didn’t stop shovelling and dumping until Twa pulled at his arm.

‘That’s enough, Kudu, the hole’s filled.’

Roeloff didn’t go straight to the house, but sat down with Hennerik and some of the other Koi-na. When the last wagon had left and the lamp in the kitchen had been doused, he came out and joined Twa at his fire.

‘Your old father’s with his ancestors now.’

‘He’s in a dark hole, Twa.’

‘The shell he came in, not his spirit.’

‘My father never cried once. He has no feelings.’

‘He has, but he has to show you and your brother that it’s not a big thing, death.’

‘It’s big for the people who’re left behind. Who will I have now that he’s gone?’

Twa’s eyes twinkled in the firelight.

‘Me.’

Roeloff looked at him.

‘You?’

‘And all the trees and dassies and vygies.’

‘There aren’t any trees in the Karoo.’

‘There are, if you look. There are many things in this great silence. You’ll understand when you’re older.’

For Roeloff the days were punctuated by moments of aching loneliness. The riempie chair looked forlorn, and for weeks he imagined he heard the hacking cough in the house. He went looking for the box his grandfather had mentioned, but there was nothing in the barn, or under any of the beds, and he didn’t want to query its whereabouts.

A week before his father’s wedding, Roeloff went into the barn to shovel manure. There he found Zokho crumpled in a corner, crying. Her dress was torn, exposing a red smear on her knee.

‘Zokho, what happened?’

Zokho clasped her dress hastily about her.

‘Who did this to you?’

She wouldn’t answer.

‘Who, Zokho?’

‘You didn’t talk to me, so I let him talk to me. And he started to push me for things.’

‘What are you talking about? Who pushed you for things?’

‘It’s not my fault. I tried to be nice to him. I don’t want to be thrown off the farm.’

‘No one’s going to throw you off the farm. Who are you talking about?’

She looked up.

‘Who, Zokho?’

‘Your brother. I was in here fetching something for Sanna. He came in and forced me to play with him.’

‘Play with him?’

‘Now my leg’s bleeding and Sanna won’t believe me. I didn’t want to do it, but he forced me. He said he would cut my head off and feed it to the jackals.’