He sank to his knees, to rest. So did Morel. It was companionable of Morel to do that. He was worse off than Morel, closer to being unable to contribute, a drug on the market, someone to be attended to. He was sorry. And he was sorry that his knee was not allowing him to rest, his bad knee. He hauled it up. He was unsteady. Morel steadied him.
Kerekang was walking toward them and dropping things on the way without realizing it, like the maps and something else, a watch or a compass, more likely. It was fatigue. People were picking the dropped items up for him.
Kerekang said, “Rra, we have to clear out. We have little time. Look behind you, you’ll see why. The fire is revealing where we are.”
Ray made himself look fully at it. He hated the sight. It was undoubtedly all the exotic wood used in putting the place together that accounted for the fury of the blaze. There had been objections at the time to timbering operations near Kazengula, but by the time that had been stopped the people behind Ngami Bird Lodge had gotten all the wood they would need.
“I understand…”
“You see, once they have us marked, koevoet can come over by helicopter from SouthWest or from Caprivi where they still have a camp, Omega.”
“I understand, but… we must cover that old man.”
Ray saw that the dressing on Wemberg’s chest and side had been lost in the last phase of dragging his body back and forth. There were his wounds. How he had been able to walk around wounded as he was Ray would never be able to understand. He had bled to death and there was no way, with those injuries, that anything could have been done. Your pubic hair is going to be white someday too, if you’re lucky, he said to himself. It was going to happen. He hoped he would be with someone who wouldn’t mind. He would never see his wife’s thatch go white. Someone would.
A disordered negotiation ensued. Ray could barely contribute. Someone had given him a cup of water, but he wanted more. Morel’s Land Rover had been destroyed. He wanted to reclaim Ray’s Land Cruiser. He wanted to drive the Land Cruiser back to Gaborone, taking Ray, and Wemberg’s body. But Kerekang wanted the use of the Land Cruiser. There were wounded to transport. He wanted to get away to a place of safety in the bush. Morel and Ray would have to accompany him, at least for a day or two. They could safely bury Wemberg in the bush and mark the place. Then they could separate from the group and depart for Gaborone, taking the Cruiser.
Morel wanted to know why his Rover had been destroyed, while the Land Cruiser had been spared.
Kevin had an explanation. “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what I think is that Quartus wanted to keep the blue Cruiser to himself. You know how it is, we like these Toyotas.”
Ray was feeling heavily proprietary toward his vehicle. It had served him well. It was still nicely provisioned, unless the villains had raped it. He could get into it. He could drive it. He could drive it in rough country. The idea that Quartus might have wanted to drive his Cruiser away forever into Namibia for his own use was enraging. There was also the question of who was going to be liable for the vehicle that had been assigned to him if he went home without it. But that was sordid, or was it. He was going to have to sign papers unless he could bring it back alive. He wasn’t prepared for this. He had assumed his good vehicle had been destroyed in the general destruction. But it was there in front of him, the engine running.
The witdoeke were swarming over the Cruiser. They were delighted with it. The petrol drums were full. They had topped everything up in Gumare. There was plenty of water.
“How did you get it started? I have no idea what they did with the key,” Ray said.
Kevin answered, “Rra, it was in the pocket of their captain, the ugly man. He had keys of all kinds. We had taken his vehicles and burned them, but he had put your vehicle aside, it was not with the others.”
Morel was almost rebellious. Ray understood it. Before the appearance of the Cruiser there had been only the difficult choice of going deeper into the bush to some unknown fate or striking out down the road toward the main route, where there might be nothing happening once they got there. This part of the country had been sealed off. There were a thousand ways to die hoping for something that was no longer available. And the Cruiser was there, humming and promising a way out for the two of them.
Morel wanted to be with Iris at the earliest possible opportunity and to warn her, this was burning in Ray’s mind,
His enemy Morel was very strong, and would try to get there first before Ray could look into the face of hell himself, first, his wife’s beautiful woman’s face, his wife’s face saying it was true what she had done, admitting it. He had to be there for it, and without Morel. He had to be there before Morel could confuse things.
“We should go and get into the Cruiser, be on the Cruiser. We have a right to be there, through me,” Ray said.
He was trying to convey something important. The Cruiser was going to be a luxury vehicle, compared to the two battered bakkies they might be trying to find a place in or to the two huge lumberous Bedfords that apparently constituted the rest of the witdoeke fleet. He was trying to convey that there was a tide in the affairs of men and that they had no choice but to swim along with it.
And there was the question of what would happen to Kerekang if koevoet caught him. He would be dead, and this fight was going to end in defeat for Kerekang and his cause. Because this… revolt, this effort to tear up the status quo, had been doomed from the start. But maybe Kerekang could be preserved to fight another day, and to achieve that would take special skills, extracting him, getting him out, getting him away from what he had been caught in, a subject his wife’s boyfriend would know nothing about.
“Everybody is going to want to be on the Cruiser,” he said to Morel.
“Come on,” Ray said to Kerekang. He was trying to push, to create a moment, a feeling they should all get aboard.
“Kevin, my man, help me with Comrade Wemberg, please rra,” Ray said.
Kevin looked to Kerekang for instruction. Kerekang nodded. That was good. He was approving what Ray wanted.
There was another thing. Ray wanted Kerekang to be on board, on the Cruiser. If he could arrange that he could relax. He could sleep. He could lie back someway and wait, asleep, for the next place they were going to, but he could sleep knowing that when they came to a halt Setime, his friend Kerekang, would be there. There would be a campfire and they would be able to sit down and talk.
Kevin had summoned help and Wemberg was being stowed less tenderly than Ray would have liked in the back of the Cruiser, along with three wounded men, walking wounded, they would have to be called, who were joining Wemberg there.
He was going to volunteer to ride in the back, out in the truck bed. He thought that they might not allow that because they would want him inside in comfort to show their appreciation. But either way would be all right, either in the cab in the rear seat or in the sun and jolting around. The sun was not at its worst in any case and there would be twilight soon, and then blackness and stars.
He was yawning too much, thinking of rest. And it was catching. Kerekang was yawning.
Ray said, “Rra, let’s go together in my Cruiser. And the doctor, of course.”
There was a frenzy going on. Canned goods were being tossed into the bed of the truck. The wounded men were shielding their heads with their arms. Labels on the canned goods were charred and falling off or absent altogether. People were being profligate with the water drum. They were crowding around to drink from the spigot projecting over the side and they were wasting water. It would be a lottery with the blank cans. Some would get pilchards and some would get lichee nuts.
“I want to talk to you,” Morel said to Ray.
“We can’t, man. We have to go,” Ray said.
The cab was occupied or almost. There were two witdoeke in the back seat of the cab already, and there was the driver. Ray wanted Kerekang to be in the Cruiser. He said so to Kevin. He said it urgently. He knew what he himself was going to do. He was going to climb into the bed of the truck and wedge himself in, lying down as best
