The Devil's breath

10

The night brought ghosts.

Silver shadows flickered through the bony limbs of trees, making the dry grass flicker like will-o’-the-wisps. The moonlight played with the breeze, teasing Max’s imagination as he sat diligently on guard duty. The boys were vulnerable to night predators, so while one slept the other kept watch. Max yawned, opening his eyes as wide as he could, and stretched away the fatigue that clawed at him. The moving shadows were enough to frighten him into wake-fulness for a while, but even fear must ultimately yield to exhaustion. However, his drooping eyelids flew open again when a jackal’s high-pitched, wavering call came from somewhere nearby. The slight breeze brought the twittering cries of a distant pack of wild hunting dogs. Perhaps they had made a kill somewhere.

Max’s senses had been sharpened by enduring the wilderness. He now noticed small things, like a change in the breeze, where shadows offered some concealment and where there might be a sipping hole for water. Animal smells would carry on the faintest movement of air and he had learned to distinguish the different trails of antelope, hyena, mongoose and wild dogs. At every opportunity!Koga had shown him the tracks and scratch marks the animals made, though Max knew that, no matter how hard he scoured the ground, he was never going to be an expert like!Koga, who could recognize different species of birds from imprints in the sand. The Bushmen hunters could identify everything, from an ant’s track upwards. And it was no textbook learning.!Koga knew things because he had seen them, touched them, tasted and smelled them, just as Max had learned to climb mountains and kayak the white water. As he had come to understand the lethal danger and dizzying fear of a rockfall and the smashing, intolerant water that held him under when it flipped his kayak, so had!Koga spent every day of his young life in touch with this wilderness.

Now, like!Koga, Max faced each waking hour in survival mode. No one else in the world existed except for the two of them. Thoughts of his father were like heat-haze mirages, an illusion. They would become reality only when Max saw and held his father. “Live for today” took on a completely new meaning when life was so precariously balanced every hour.

“!Koga!”

Max heard the stampede start out of nowhere. Panic. Beasts in turmoil. Then he smelled the dusky odor of the animals and was momentarily uncertain where they were coming from because the deceptive light obscured their direction.!Koga knew instantly. The small herd of buffalo, maybe twenty or thirty of them, was confused, first charging in one direction and seconds later churning the dirt in another.

“Lions!”!Koga yelled and pulled Max away, running on a parallel course to the charging mass. “They split herd!”

It was like a kind of madness. The grunting, heaving buffalo, themselves deadly and now terrified, and the boys running in the choking dust. Buffalo crossed their path, almost trampling them. They dodged and weaved,!Koga’s voice being drowned by the thunder of hoofs. Max lost sight of!Koga, then saw him again, over on the right now, skirting the heaving mass. Max tried to reach him; the other boy had turned, still running, looking back for him. Max raised a hand but doubted whether!Koga could see it. “I’m here, keep going! Keep going!” His voice impotent, his throat dry.

A buffalo was suddenly alongside and barged against Max, its tough hide rubbing his arm for only a fraction of a second. It was going so fast that it was past him before he could evade the shove. He twisted, falling into the sand, but rolled instinctively, praying that he wasn’t in the path of another beast. Disorientated, he searched desperately in the darkness. The moonlight now sat on top of the mini dust storm, an eerie half-light that drew a line between earth and sky. No more than fifteen meters away, a lioness seemed to surf the silver wave as she rode the haunches of her victim and then sank below the surface again as she pulled it down. The herd came together again, moving on in another direction. The sounds of the kill faded and the stench of offal that had momentarily filled Max’s nostrils was behind him somewhere in the darkness, and the yelping hyenas took their place in the hierarchy.

Max ran as best he could between the low-hanging branches and then he saw!Koga. The boy sat, nursing the back of an injured leg, looking as though he had been spilled out of a cement mixer.

“You all right?” Max asked when he got to him.

“I fell.”

“Me too. Is your leg broken?”

!Koga shook his head. “A buffalo stood on me.”

“That was bloody clumsy of you,” Max said as he hauled!Koga to his feet. The boy carefully tested his weight. Nothing was broken, but it was very painful-several hundred kilograms of buffalo using you as a doormat, even if it pressed you into deep sand, was going to hurt for a while. What caused!Koga more distress was his broken bow. His pouch, the quiver, all had been smashed. Only the spear remained and!Koga used it to help balance himself.

Max put his friend’s arm over his own shoulder and supported him as he hobbled along. His eyes scanned around them, watching for any shadow that might change into something more tangibly dangerous than his imagination. “I hope your family haven’t gone on their hols or anything, I could do with a bacon sarnie, or some beans on toast, even a Big Mac wouldn’t be a bad idea….”

“Why are you talking stupid things?”!Koga smiled.

“Because I’m fed up of being scared to death and eating lizards.”

!Koga said nothing. They kept going, putting the lions’ bone-crunching sounds far behind them.

Max had survived another day. One day at a time. Each footstep. Each thought. Closer to finding his father and his secret. He was confident he would win through. If all was fair in the world, he would have a decent crack at pulling it off. But nature did not understand fairness any more than!Koga comprehended a Big Mac.

No matter how skilled or lucky Max had become in his survival, nature always struck when least expected. It would not be a crushing buffalo or the steel-like claws of a lion that would plunge Max into death.

Nature was sneakier than that.

As daylight came!Koga seemed to be moving more easily, and although their pace had slowed, they made good progress, leaving the mountains shimmering in a heat haze.

“There is a water hole-small, enough for us. I know where. We must go there. We must drink.”

They had filled the small canteen at Baboon Hill, as Max now thought of it, but they had already drunk most of the water.!Koga was right, they must find water wherever they could.

A couple of dozen meerkats stood watching their progress from a safe distance, uncertain about the two upright apes that scuffed through the dust. Deciding to play it safe, the meerkat whose job it was to warn of danger squeaked his alarm and they all turned tail, showed their backsides to the intruders, and ran for safety to their sand burrows. Max had been mooned before, but never by so many at once. He couldn’t help feeling it was one for the record books and a story the boys at Dartmoor High would enjoy. It was hard to imagine life back home right now. He could not allow his mind to drift either, wondering if Sayid was trying to contact him, or whether the triathlon team had been chosen, or whether Mr. Peterson was still at the school or had done a runner, once Max had evaded him and his people. He had to stay focused on where he was. Lack of concentration could have serious consequences.

After a few hours!Koga muttered something and gestured towards the horizon. Max searched the distance but whatever!Koga had seen eluded him. “I don’t see anything,!Koga.”

“Behind those trees, by the boulders. You see?”

Max scrunched up his eyes once more against the glare. Once, when his father had taken him on a trek through a German forest into the hills, he had taught him to find the way forward by looking at something in the near distance, then to find another further on, and further on still, then the eye identified distant objects more easily. Max let his eyes settle on a gully about three hundred meters away, then a clump of thorn trees at five hundred where the ground rose, and finally settled on a ravine marked by an untidy rock formation.

Vultures.

They hunched on the boulders, barely moving. Waiting.

Another two hundred meters beyond that, he saw a movement. Two long, pointed, symmetrical horns were swaying towards him, an animal’s distinctive black-and-white face beneath them. “Gemsbok,”!Koga said.

Max knew it was a big antelope, but it seemed too tall, in fact its head must have been almost two meters off the ground.!Koga smiled but said nothing, and he began limping towards it. Max looked again, his hands cupped around his eyes to shield them from the glare. He waited patiently, just as!Koga had taught him, and then he realized that there were men carrying meat and the antelope’s skin. It was a hunting party returning home.!Koga’s family.

Within an hour Max and!Koga reached a settlement. Beehive huts were being built by women, and children played and laughed in the sandy enclave of grass, shaded by giant camelthorn trees and half enclosed by the gnarled white stems of smaller shepherd’s trees with their bushy green leaves. These half-dozen temporary shelters would serve as home for as long as the Bushmen wished.

The hunters had already arrived and the butchered carcass was being hung in chunks and strips on poles to dry. As!Koga and Max moved into sight, everyone stopped what they were doing. An old, prune-faced woman, wrinkled by more than half a century of living in the harsh sunlight, called!Koga’s name, as if announcing him to everyone else. Max stayed where he was as!Koga went forward and was greeted, first by the men and then by the women. But everyone’s eyes were on Max.!Koga was nodding and smiling as he spoke, and he turned and looked at Max. Then they fell silent. Max hated being the new boy at a party.

“I’m Max Gordon,” he said. But no one moved, spoke or even smiled. Then an old man, skinny as a rake, puffing away on a carved wooden pipe, rubbed a leathery hand across his stubbled head and said something. A murmur went around. A couple of kids had started to play again, but the women gathered them into their arms. Something important had just happened and Max was not certain what it was. The old man moved up to Max, stood in front of him, nodded, as if he knew him as an old friend, then placed a hand on Max’s shoulder and spoke gently. Max felt embarrassed, but the old man continued to talk, keeping his hand in place. After half a minute Max felt calmer, almost as if his mind had latched on to the soothing words without needing to know what was said. The old man took Max’s hand and led him like a child towards the group.

!Koga said, “You have seen the dream paintings. The old man is”-he searched for the words-“BaKoko … he can cure sick people.”

“A medicine man?”

“No … I cannot explain.”

“You mean a shaman?” Max asked.

“I do not know that word. BaKoko. He can see the dreams. He can change into animals. Leopard. Eagle.”

“A shapeshifter?” Max said. He had seen enough films and read enough stories to know that humans do not change into animals without someone else’s imagination. “OK, he’s a shaman. He is respected. I understand that.” Max decided diplomacy was better than disbelief.

“He knows the cave. He has seen the dream,”!Koga said.

Max almost groaned aloud. How could he tell them the cave paintings had been made by his dad to show him which direction to take, to find whatever it was he had to find? He could not bring himself to shatter their illusion. It was probably one of the few hopes these people nurtured.

They settled Max by a small fire, as guest of honor. The fire’s ashes had long settled in the sand, but embers still smoldered. A group of men squatted nearby and!Koga sat opposite him. Tensions ebbed, the children played again, and the women returned to their hut-building. A woman was beckoned. She carried an ostrich egg. She knelt down and scraped away the top embers of the fire and fitted a narrow reed into a small hole in the top of the egg, then, pushing and turning a small blade into the base of the egg, blew into the straw. The yoke bubbled out into a battered tin bowl that the woman held beneath it. She then eased the slithering yellow into the embers of the fire. In a few minutes she turned it and cooked the other side. It looked like the big, fat naan bread Max used to order at his local Indian restaurant, about the size of a large dinner plate. He was suddenly ravenous. The woman broke the big omelette, which was quite firm, and handed half to him and half to!Koga. Max hesitated. His mouth was watering from the smell, but he did not want to deprive others of their food. This was definitely some kind of treat. He noticed, though, that!Koga was scoffing the food as quickly as he could. Max waited no longer. Being guest of honor had its compensations. He’d tell them about the cave paintings later.

Another half-dozen hunters entered the camp. They carried only small game caught in snares, but the older man at their head, who was warmly greeted by!Koga, looked towards Max. A woman gave the hunter something to drink, but the man never took his eyes off Max.

A small delegation formed: the shaman, this new hunter,!Koga and a few others. They came towards Max, who stood, respectfully, and waited. They shook hands, formally.

“I am this boy’s father,” the hunter said, touching!Koga’s shoulder. “I have sent him so he might bring you to us.”

“You helped my father.” Max felt a quiver in his stomach-he was standing before the man who might have been the last person to have seen his father and who could help him.

“He is gone,” the hunter said.

“Where?” Was he being given hope?

“It was a place of death.”

Max felt his heart might burst out of his chest. Did the hunter mean his father was dead?

Max waited, barely able to stay silent. The hunter said something to!Koga and the others. They seemed to be in agreement.!Koga’s father touched Max’s arm, suggesting he sit in the shade. The men squatted and Max cushioned himself on the sand. The hunter asked a question of!Koga, placing his left hand beneath the elbow of the other, his fingers dangling like legs, making an image of an animal. What was the word that described that animal?

“Giraffe,”!Koga answered.

His father nodded. “We tracked giraffe and in the place where the earth bleeds we killed him. It was a long chase, our poison took a long time, and then,!Gam, one of our best hunters, he pushed his spear into its heart.”

“Is that the place of death?”

The hunter shook his head and indicated the camp.

“Four days from this place our people”-he showed six fingers-“they die.” He put his fingertips into his mouth.

“They drink. And they die.”

“Was my father with them?”

“No. He saw our people die. He saw the men.”

“What men?” Max asked, sensing the danger lurking in the hunter’s story.

“White men, black men … far away. Your father followed, but he gave me the book of papers. I put them in a skin, we take them to a white man we trust. Many days. Many.”

“Was that van Reenen?” Max prompted him.

“He is known as van Reenen.”

“So where is my father?”

The man fell silent, either unable to answer or uncertain how to do so. Max pulled out the folded map. It was even more worn than when he started out from Kallie’s farm. He pointed, just wanting them to look and, hopefully, to understand.

“Was it here? Here? Where? Can you tell me?”

The map meant nothing to any of the Bushmen. In the past there had been those among them who had been induced by promises of payment, liquor and food to help in the white men’s war. They had gone to track and help kill an enemy the Bushmen did not know. They would have understood the story of the map, but they had long since died.

The hunter shook his head. He cut the air with the edge of his hand, showing direction. “Four days from this place. The earth bleeds.”

Max did not understand.

“It is a place where there is water if you dig,”!Koga explained. And he confirmed what he said to his father and the others. So, it was a kind of watering hole or underground water supply, Max reasoned.

“Your father, a good man. He was afraid.”

“Afraid? My dad? I don’t think so.”

“He was a brave man, but he was afraid. When he saw our people.”

So Dad was tracking down men who had killed Bushmen. Was that it? Max asked himself. What had he seen that scared him?

“Was my father on foot? Did he walk?”

“No. A truck, with the other white man.”

“There was someone else with my father?”

“Yes. I do not know him.”

Max knew that whenever his father had worked in southern Africa previously, he had engaged the services of Anton Leopold. That must have been the man with Dad, he realized.

The old man had barely stopped talking and!Koga listened for a long time before translating, speaking as if he were the voice of his father. “Your father had an injured leg. But he was strong. He and the other man, they went away together after he gave me the papers which I brought to my son, who is young and who could make the journey, and who could speak to the whites. He took them to van Reenen. That is all I know. But we were told you would come.”

Max gazed down at the map. The best he could hope for was to determine just where he was and the direction traveled that brought him there. North from Kallie’s place, then pushed eastwards by the gunmen. After that they had moved north-northeast to the cave, and then east again from his dad’s drawings. Given that he and!Koga had not gone in a straight line, the direction seemed clear on the map. Another four days’ walking would take them to where the Bushmen died. There was nothing on the map to indicate where that might be. The Bushmen had their own names for places. So if he continued on this heading, it might eventually lead to his father. Or to further clues.

!Koga’s father reached his hand out to touch Max’s face. Max didn’t flinch. The hunter’s hand caressed his cheek for a moment, and he gazed at him. He whispered something barely audible, but everyone heard and muttered some kind of agreement.

Here we go again, Max told himself. This had something to do with the cave paintings, he was sure of it.

“Is this about the cave?” he asked!Koga, who nodded.

“Look … maybe it’s not as it seems,” Max said tentatively.!Koga did not understand. “I mean,” said Max, “perhaps those drawings were done by someone else. Like … my dad, maybe.”

“Your father?”

“Yeah, like a message.”

“Your father could not have done those things.”

Max looked at the hunter. “I think this has gone far enough,” he said. “My dad did those pictures to try and show me where to go.” His voice was edgy.

None of the Bushmen showed any reaction. Then the hunter took Max’s hand and held it between both of his. He seemed very sad, as if he was saying goodbye. The group turned away, but!Koga had reacted to the gesture from his father and said something that sounded angry. Throughout their whole ordeal so far, Max had never heard!Koga sound so upset. The men stopped, spoke to!Koga, soothing him with their words.

What the hell was going on? Max could only stand and watch their body language and listen to the tone of their voices. Once again!Koga raised his voice, but the old men just shook their heads and, with a final, almost pitying glance towards Max, went back to the others.!Koga stayed, kicking the dust, venting his own frustration. Then he too turned away.

“Hey. Hang on a minute,” Max said.

!Koga turned to face him, and Max saw there were tears in the boy’s eyes. Max went to him.

“!Koga, what’s up? Did I say something to upset everyone? If I did, I’m sorry.”

The boy shook his head.

“What then?”

“It is not for the telling,”!Koga whispered.

Now Max knew he must have made an almighty blunder. “!Koga, you’d better tell me ‘cause I’m going to need help here. I’m going to need your father to take me to this … this ‘place where the earth bleeds.’ ”

!Koga shook his head and turned away.

Max grabbed his arm. “Tell me!” He loosened his grip. The two boys stared at each other for a moment.

“They say it was known you would come,”!Koga said, and then he paused before averting his eyes. “And they said it was known that, when you came to us, then that was the time you would die.”

Max couldn’t quite take that in for a moment.

“I’m going to die? Well … we all have to die. And we’ve been close a few times these last few days…. Oh, come on,!Koga. You can’t always believe in that stuff.”

!Koga interrupted him, touching his arm, gesturing to the encampment. “Here. You will die here.”

Max took in the scene. It was probably the safest place he could be. A domestic gathering of huts, food being cooked, children playing, the sound of laughter. He was amid the gentlest and happiest people he had ever experienced. He was safe here.

“They’re wrong,” Max assured him.

“No. They said you would die here.” There was a different look in!Koga’s eyes. “And that I would kill you.”