‘Was the ceremony successful?’
Toma didn’t respond.
‘We will know tomorrow, if the healer takes on her sickness,’ Koerikei said. ‘If not, we’ll try again with the new moon. Come, let us sit with Limp Kao at my fire. You have come on a good day; we have killed an eland.’
The arena cleared quickly and people returned to their hearths. He sat with Koerikei and Tau and Limp Kao at their fire and shared the meat the hunter handed him on the end of a stick. The leg was roasted to perfection, falling off the bone. He was so hungry, he would have eaten pofadder if it were offered. He noticed the manners of his host, the calm of the others. Koerikei offered first, taking the smallest piece for himself. Roeloff wondered at the harmony of these people, living so closely together. He had questions, but felt it intrusive to speak. After the meal, Tau handed around an ostrich egg container and they each had a swallow of muddy water.
‘I haven’t eaten this well in a long time,’ Roeloff said, meaning it. ‘Thank you.’
Koerikei busied himself with the small branches of wood at his hearth and tried not to show how much this pleased him. They were sitting on opposite sides of the fire. Roeloff studied him. His feet were cracked and dirt-ridden like Twa’s, but Koerikei was many years younger, his finely-muscled body glistening in the firelight. Roeloff was impressed by his modesty. Koerikei had kind words for his wife, and seemed to weigh things carefully in his mind before speaking. A good trait, his grandfather would have said. A man who blusters along like the wind makes a lot of unnecessary noise, but one who measures his words is sure to have something important to say.
‘You have given us much to talk about around our fires, Eyes of the Sky,’ Limp Kao said at last. ‘We have not met anyone like you before.’
Koerikei smiled. He agreed with the old father.
‘We talk always of the one with the wind in his eye and the rain in his heart; how, after everything that had happened, he still left us one of his father’s sheep. We said he was clever. And just. The white man has not treated us kindly. Every day he pushes us farther and farther to the sun. We are not selfish about his taking a piece of our land, but he wants the fruit of the soil, and the animals on it, and doesn’t want us to have anything. Look how high up we are. This was all ours before he came here with his guns. Where does he want us to go? The gods bring water, they bring animals, but they are not growing any more land. Soon we will fall off the edge of the earth.’
Roeloff took out a piece of tobacco and crumbled it on a dry leaf which he flattened and folded. He lit it and passed it to the old man.
Limp Kao drew the smoke deep into his lungs.
‘We’re a people with nothing, and ask only to live in peace. We wouldn’t survive without understanding. Sharing. If you have a buck, I eat with you. Tomorrow, when you have nothing, you eat with me. You said once that borrowing is taking with permission. Afterwards, you give it back. We have talked about this among ourselves. I ask you, Eyes of the Sky, who is the true lender of things? Who takes it back? It’s easy to talk with a full belly, but what would you do, if you were the owner, and we the intruders coming to rob you?’
‘I would be true to myself.’
Limp Kao considered this. ‘To be true to yourself with a gun pointed at your heart, is dangerous.’
‘It is, but you can’t change who you are. My grandfather spoke to me once about freedom. He said to beware of one who says he can give it to you. When he says that, he’s talking only of a new way to put you in chains.’
Limp Kao nodded.
‘He was wise, your father’s father. Freedom comes from in here,’ he touched his chest. ‘Without it, you die.’ He took a last pull on the tobacco, and handed it back to Roeloff. ‘Now we must talk about Zokho. You have come a long way. What will you do when you find her?’
‘Ask my question and leave.’
‘What is your question?’
‘Why she did it.’
‘The answer will not please you, Eyes of the Sky. Zokho has lost favour with the gods, her spirit is tainted. But if she did it, she did it to protect herself. Our way is hard for others to understand. A mother who gives birth to two must choose between them if one’s to survive. A child with a deformity, is buried to spare him. The law of the veld demands it.’
‘What would justify leaving a child while his father is not there to protect him?’
‘Nothing. I don’t know why she did it. A jackal doesn’t understand the laziness of a python, but he stays out of its way nevertheless. Forget it, and forget Zokho. Take your father’s father’s advice.’
They sat for a long time in silence. By some unspoken agreement, several people got up from their hearths and congregated in the centre of the circle of huts to build a fire.
‘They will put on a show in your honour,’ Koerikei said. ‘The hunters will entertain us with their stories. Toma and Gau killed this eland, they will be first. You will hear how Toma almost got pierced by his horns. He’s the best storyteller, and has many scars to prove it.’
Roeloff sat with his hosts at the fire, caught up in the merriment. The tales were acted out with dancing and drama to mimic the frightened animals, hunters throwing themselves flat on the ground, writhing in agony. The festivities continued into the early hours of the morning with children running back and forth between hearths.
The next day he woke up with the heat on his back, lying between Limp Kao and Koerikei.
‘I have to thank you, Koerikei and old father. I must go before the sun gets too high.’
‘You will not join in the hunt?’ Koerikei asked.
‘I have people waiting for me. But, I have one last question.’
The hunters waited.
‘Do you know who might have stolen sheep …’ He calculated quickly the distance on foot to the Cederberg. ‘… about five days that way?’ he pointed south.
‘Our people are between the Hantam and the big river. It is not us.’
‘I know. But do you know where I might look? Are there Sonqua down in that area?’
Koerikei’s face pleated into a warm smile.
‘Sonqua is everywhere, Eyes of the Sky. Sometimes you’re standing right in front of him and don’t even know that he’s there.’
Roeloff knew the hunter’s concern.
‘I won’t harm them, Koerikei. I’ve never harmed your people. I just want the sheep back.’
Koerikei looked down at his feet, then looked up slowly.
‘We know of a group on the red mountains.’
