Roeloff looked at her. Despite his father’s threats that she would work outside with the other Koi-na, she was back in the house, and he talked to her only in front of others, avoiding situations where they might be alone. But he missed her; their nonsense chatter, her childlike laughter. Everything in him screamed out for her. She was different from Soela and Diena. And very beautiful. Sitting there, with the torn dress pulled about her dust-streaked knees, a delicate flower among the stones, he wanted to touch her, taste her again in his mouth. His father had curbed his behaviour, but not how he felt.

‘Go to the house. I’ll tell Sanna what happened.’ He got up and left to look for David. He found his brother at the water trough washing his face.

‘What did you do to Zokho?’ He fitted a stone into his sling.

David was tall and thickset. A smile curled his lips at one corner.

‘Don’t try it, Roff, I’m warning you.’

Roeloff swung the sling in a circular motion over his head. The stone zinged through the air and smacked into David’s kneecap.

‘Aieee! I’ll kill you for this!’ David grabbed his knee, hopping around on one foot. ‘Pa!’

Willem Kloot heard the commotion and came out.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Roeloff broke my knee with that sling!’

‘Tell him what you did, you swine! Tell Pa you forced yourself on Zokho!’

David collapsed to the ground. Willem came over to inspect the kneecap. The stone had shattered the bone.

Three pairs of eyes watched as wagons and horses passed within inches of the thorn bush behind which they were crouched. They had the patience of a predator awaiting the slow approach of its prey, and had come in the greyness of dawn, sitting all day in the heat, witnessing a parade of visitors to Kloot’s Nek.

‘You’re sure this is the place?’ Koerikei asked.

‘Yes,’ Toma answered.

They sat hidden until darkness, listening to the muted sounds of merriment drifting from the house.

‘Get her and bring her to where we arranged,’ Koerikei gave the go-ahead. ‘Kabas and I will go for the sheep.’

‘What about paying them back for Balip?’ Toma asked.

‘No. If we take a life they’ll come with their fire sticks. Limp Kao has agreed, it is best. For now.’

‘Limp Kao’s too old to make these decisions for us. We should set fire to the house and take the sheep.’

Koerikei looked at his nephew in surprise.

‘You’re disputing the wisdom of one who has seen.’

‘Maybe he’s right,’ Kabas said. ‘Limp Kao doesn’t see so well any more with those skins over his eyes. If we burn the house we can take the girl and all the sheep. They’ll be too busy to come after us.’

Koerikei looked at his brother.

‘We agreed, Kabas. It will take us days to get back. And look how many people there are here, how many horses. They’ll find us in no time.’

Up at the house, Roeloff watched old Pietie Retief stab at his fiddle, playing a spirited vastrap. Dancing was in full swing in the front part of the house, Willem Kloot leading Drieka in a twirl of skirts, raising a cloud of dust from the floor. Roeloff had never seen his father engage in any kind of frivolity, and he watched with interest, amazed as always by the power of the peach brandy Willem brewed in a big pot and which everyone seemed to have had too much of. In one corner Manie Steenkamp was trying to hold onto his twin brother, Frederik. In another, Retief’s grandson Hennie, who couldn’t squeeze ten words out of his mouth on the best of occasions, was actually telling a joke.

Giggling behind him made Roeloff turn. His brother, dressed in brown pants and a white shirt, was standing between Soela and Diena. He’d scrubbed himself all afternoon, using a bucket of water for the event. It was obvious from his smile that things were progressing well in his pursuit of one of the sisters.

‘Will you take me for a dance, Roff?’

Diena, who was thirteen and had breasts straining at her bodice, wore a collared dress wholly unsuitable for her round frame.

‘I don’t dance, Diena,’ he said, although he could. No one was watching and he was on his second mug of his father’s brew. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to dance with Diena, he didn’t feel like it just then, and the brandy, whatever was in it, was making his shoulders and legs feel awfully strange. He was afraid he would lose control on the floor.

‘We’ll watch the others, and follow. It’s easy.’

‘Maybe Roff will dance with me,’ Soela broke in, walking away from David.

Soela had thinned out over the hips and had left her long hair down for the occasion.

‘David will,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘He knows how.’

‘Where are you going?’ David laughed. ‘To your bosjesman? Roeloff’s not interested in Africaanders,’ he added for the benefit of the girls.

Roeloff closed the door behind him. He hated his brother. What David had done to Zokho left no room for Roeloff to consider him any better than an animal; but then an animal wouldn’t have done what he had done. And his father had done nothing except tell him to keep his hands off the Koi-na. Nothing! He didn’t feel at all sorry that David limped.

It was dark outside and he walked slowly in the direction of the huts. He found Twa at his fire, arguing with something that only he could see in its flames.

‘What you doing out here, Sonqua?’

‘I’m not Sonqua.’

‘You are,’ Twa laughed. ‘Our Sonqua.’

‘You’ve been smoking dagga again.’

Twa waved Oupa Harman’s pipe under his nose. Roeloff had given it to him after his grandfather’s death.

‘Try it,’ he laughed. ‘It’ll take you to your ancestors. Do you know your ancestors, Kudu?’

‘They came with a ship to this land. They were the first people here.’

‘The first?’

‘A hundred years ago, yes.’

Twa’s eyes closed as he laughed.

‘My people came with the locusts and bees. They’ve seen thousands of droughts. They’re the first. They, and the Koi-na.’

‘Why don’t they have their own flocks, then? Why do they take from us?’

‘That’s the fault of a foolish old man at the beginning of the world when people were still animals,’ Twa sighed. ‘If I tell you how stupid he was, you will laugh. He came upon some cows in the field and without questioning how they could be useful, he stupidly showed them to the black man. Have you seen a black man, Kudu? He comes from the place where the sun comes up, and is dark as a wildebeest, very strong, the size of two Sonqua. The black man saw the importance of the tame cows and drove them into a kraal. When he’d milked one of them, after tying the hind legs with a thong, he took some of the milk to the old man who, if you can believe it, told the black man to drink first and let him lick the pot. That’s what he said! ‘You drink first, and let me scrape what’s left off the sides of the pot!’ So what do you think happened? The black man drank, and the stupid old man licked the pot. Then the black man took the thong and told him to pull the other end. They pulled and pulled and the black man, being the stronger, pulled it out of the old man’s hand. He gave the old man a piece of string and told him that he had nothing he needed to tie up with leather thongs, and from that day on, the black man became a herdsman, and we were left snaring guinea fowls.’