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-“
“A medicine man?”
“No … I cannot explain.”
“You mean a shaman?” Max asked.
“I do not know that word.
“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
