Nuage and tears sprang into her eyes, but H'ani was clapping and uttering little shrieks of encouragement.
Die, oh bull that we revere, die that we may live! O'wa blundered in a wide circle, his horned head too heavy to carry, an he sagged to the earth and went into the final convulsions as the poison coursed through his blood.
It was all so convincing that Centaine was no longer seeing the little San, but rather the bull that he was portraying. She did not for a moment doubt the efficacy for the sympathetic spell that O'wa was weaving over his quarry.
Ah! H'ani cried. He is down. The great bull is finished, and Centaine believed without question.
They drank from the egg-bottles, and then O'wa broke a straight branch from one of the dead trees and shaped one end to fit the spearhead made from the thighbone of a buffalo which he carried in his pouch. He bound the spearhead in place and weighed the heavy weapon in his hand.
It is time to go after the bull, he announced, and led off across the plain.
Centaine's first impression was correct. They had passed beyond the dune country, but the plain that lay ahead of them was every bit as forbidding, and the strange shapes of the dead forest gave it a surreal and otherworldly feeling.
Centaine wondered how long ago the forest had died, and shivered as she realized that these trees might have stood like this for a thousand years, preserved by the desiccated air as the mummies of the pharaohs had been.
O'Wa was following the tracks of the gemsbok herd, and even over the hard pebbled expanses of the plain where Centaine could see no sign of their passing, the little San led them at a confident unwavering trot. He paused only once to pick up the shaft of his arrow, lying at the base of the dead tree upon which the bull had brushed itself. He held it up and showed it to the women. See. The barb has struck. The head of the arrow was missing. O'wa had deliberately designed it in two pieces with a weak section just at the back of the poisoned barb so that it would break away.
The light improved swiftly, and H'ani, trotting ahead of Centaine, pointed with her digging stick. At first Centaine could not see what she was indicating, then she noticed a small dried vine with a few parched brown leaves lying close to the earth, and the first sign of living plant life since they had left the coast.
Because she now knew where and how to look, Centaine noticed other plants, brown and blasted and insignificant, but she had learned enough of this desert to guess what lay beneath the surface. It gave her spirits a small lift when she noticed the first scattered clumps of fine silver dry desert grass. The dunes were behind them, and the land about them was coming alive again.
The morning breeze that had aided O'wa in his stalk persisted after the sun had cleared the horizon, so the heat was not as oppressive as it had been in the dune country. The whole temper of the San was lighter and more carefree, and even without H'ani's assurances 'Good now, eat, drink soon', Centaine was sure that they had passed through the worst stage of the journey.
She had to screw up her eyes and shade them, for already the low sun sparkled in dazzling points of white light from the mica chips and bright pebbles and the sky was aglow with a hot soapy radiance that dissolved the horizon and washed out all colour and altered shape and substance.
Far ahead of them Centaine saw the humped shape lying, and beyond it the four gemsbok cows lingering loyalty but fearfully by their fallen liege bull. They abandoned him at last only when the little file of human shapes was within a mile, and they galloped away into the shimmering heat haze.
The bull lay as O'wa had mimed him, panting and so weakened by the poison of the arrowhead that his head rolled and his long straight annulated horns waggled from side to side. His eyes glistened with tears and his eyelashes were as long and curved as those of a beautiful woman, yet he tried to rise to defend himself as O'wa faced him, and hooked with those rapier horns that could impale a full-grown lion, swinging them in a vicious flashing arc, before sagging back.
O'wa circled him cautiously, seeming so frail against the animal's bulk, waiting for his opening, the clumsy spear poised, but the bull dragged its semi-paralysed body around to face him. The arrowhead still dangled from the wound beneath his ear, and the lovely black and white pattern of his face mask was smeared with dark coagulated blood from the poisoned wound.
Centaine thought of Nuage again, and she wanted the suffering to end quickly. She laid down her satchel, loosened her skirt and held it like a matador's cape and sidled up to the stricken bull on the far side from O'wa.
Be ready, O'wa, be ready! The bull turned to her voice.
She caped the bull and he lunged at her, his horns hissed in the air like a swinging cutlas, and he dragged himself towards her, kicking up dust with his giant hooves, and Centaine leaped nimbly aside.
As he was distracted, O'wa rushed forward and lanced the bull in the throat, driving the bone spearhead deep, twisting and worrying it, seeking the cartoid artery. Bright arterial blood sprayed like a flamingo feather in the sunlight, and O'wa leapt back and watched him die.
Thank you, great bull. Thank you for letting us live.
Between them they rolled the carcass on to its back, but when O'wa prepared to make the first cut with his flint knife, Centaine opened the blade of her clasp knife and handed it to him.
O'wa hesitated. He had never touched that beautiful weapon. He believed that if he did it might cleave to his fingers and he would never be able to give it up again.
Take, O'wa, Centaine urged him, and when he still hesitated, staring at the knife with a timid reverence, Centaine with a sudden intuitive flash realized the true reason for O'wa's antagonism towards her.
He wants the knife, he is lusting after it. She almost laughed but controlled it. Take, O'wa, and the little man reached out slowly and took it from her hand.
He turned it lovingly between his fingers. He stroked the steel, caressing the blade, and then tested the edge with his thumb.
Ai! All be exclaimed as the steel sliced through his skin and raised a beaded chain of blood drops across the ball of his thumb. What a weapon. Look, H'ani! He displayed his injured thumb proudly. See how sharp it is! My stupid husband, it is usual to cut the game and not the hunter! O`wa cackled happily at the joke, and bent to the task.
