No! No! H'ani fluttered her hands in extreme agitation. The child was so close to birth, to witness that moment was the last thing in her life that she still cared about. Not pale-skinned like you. She thought of the most horrific being in San mythology. They are big black giants who eat human flesh. Cannibals! Centaine was shocked.
Yes! Yes! That is why they pursue us. They will cut the child from your womb and-, Let's go, O'wa! Centaine gasped. Hurry! Hurry!'
O'wa, with the other pair of hooves strapped to his own feet, guided Centaine away from the ridge, walking behind her and creating the illusion of a zebra having left the rocky ground and wandered away into the forest.
A mile from the ridge he hid Centaine in a clump of thorny scrub, removed the hooves from her feet, reversed the pair upon his own feet and set off back to fetch H'ani.
The two San, each of them wearing hoof sandals, tracked back along the same trail and when they reached Centaine's hiding-place, discarded the hooves and all three of them fled into the east.
O'wa kept them going all that night, and in the dawn while the women slept exhausted, he circled back on their trail and guarded it against the possibility that the pursuers had not been deceived by his ruse with the zebra hooves. Although he could discover no evidence of pursuit, for three more days and nights he force-marched, allowing no cooking fires, and used every natural feature to anti-track and hide their trail.
On the third night, he was confident enough to tell the women, We can make fire. And by its ruddy wavering light he danced with dedicated frenzy and sang the praise of the spirits in turn, including Mantis and Eland, for, as he explained seriously to Centaine, it was uncertain who had aided their escape, who had directed the wind to carry the warning scent to them in the first place, and who had subsequently placed the zebra carcass so conveniently to hand. It is necessary, therefore, to thank them all. He danced until moonset, and the next morning slept until sunrise. Then they resumed the familiar leisurely pattern of march, and even halted early that first day when O'wa discovered a colony of spring-hare.
This is the last time we can hunt, the spirits are most insistent. No man of the San may kill any living thing within five days march of 'the Place of All Life', he explained to Centaine, as he selected long whippy saplings of the grewia bush, peeled them and lashed them together until he had a strong flexible rod almost thirty feet long. On the final section, he left a side branch that grew back at an acute angle to the main stem, like a crude fish-hook, and he sharpened the point of this hook and hardened it in the fire. Then he spent a long time carefully examining the burrows of the spring-hare colony, before selecting one which suited his design.
While the women knelt beside him, he introduced the hooked end of the rod into the opening of the burrow, and like a chimney-sweep worked it gently down the shaft, deftly guiding it around the subterranean curves and bends until almost the entire length was down in the earth.
Suddenly the rod pulsed strongly in his hands, and immediately O'wa struck, jerking back like a hardline fisherman who feels the pull of the fish.
He is kicking at the rod now, trying to hit it with his back legs, O'wa grunted, pushing the rod deeper into the hole, tempting the trapped spring-hare to kick out at it again.
This time, as he struck, the rod came alive in his hands, kicking and twitching and jerking.
U I have hooked him! He threw his weight back on the i k rod, driving the sharpened wooden point deeper into the El t animals flesh. Dig, H'ani. Dig, Nam Child!
The two women flew at the soft friable earth with their staves, digging down swiftly. The muffled shrieks of the '.
I hooked spring-hare grew louder as they came nearer to i the end of the long gaff, until finally O'wa heaved the furry creature clear of its earth. It was the size of a large yellow cat, and it leaped about wildly on the end of the pliant rod on its powerful kangaroo back legs, until H'ani despatched it with a swinging blow of her stave.
By nightfall they had killed two more spring-hare, and after they had thanked them, they feasted on the sweet tender roasted flesh, the last they would eat for a long time.
in the morning when they set out again on the final leg of the journey, a sharp hot wind blew into their faces.
Although it was taboo for O'wa to hunt, the Kalahari bloomed in a rich and rare abundance both below and above the ground. There were flowers and green leafy plants to be eaten as salads, roots and tubers, fruits and protein-rich nuts, and the water-holes, all of them brimming, were easy marches apart. Only the wind hampered them, standing steadily into their faces, hot and abrasive with blown sand, forcing them to cover their faces with their leather shawls and lean into it.
The mixed herds of fat handsome zebra and ungainly blue wildebeest with their scraggy manes and skinny legs standing out on the wide pans or on the grassy glades turned their rumps into the sultry blast. The wind ripped the talcum-fine dust off the surface of the pans and whirled it into the sky, turning the air misty, so the sun itself was a hazy orange globe and the horizons shrank in upon them.
The dust floated on the surface of the water-holes in a thin scum, and it turned to mud in their nostrils and grated between their teeth. It formed little wet beads in the corners of their eyes and dried and cracked their skins so that H'ani and Centaine had to roast and crush the seeds of the sour plum tree to extract the oil to dress their skins and the soles of their feet.
However, with each day's march the old people became stronger, more active and excited. They seemed less and less affected by the scouring wind. There was a new jauntiness in their step and they chattered animatedly to each other on the march, while Centaine faltered and dropped far behind, almost as she had done at the beginning.
On the fifth evening after crossing the ridge, Centaine staggered into the camp that the San had already set up on the edge of yet another open pan. Centaine lay on the bare earth, too hot and exhausted to gather grass for her bed.
When Rani came to her with food, she pushed it away petulantly. I don't want it. I don't want anything. I hate this land, I hate the heat and the dust. Soon, H'ani soothed her, very soon we will reach the Place of All Life, and your baby will be born. But Centaine rolled away from her. Leave me, just leave me alone. She woke to the cries of the old people, and she dragged herself up, feeling fat and dirty and unrested, even though she had slept so late that the sun was already tipping the tops of the trees, on the far side of the pan. immediately she saw that the wind had dropped during the night and most 0 f the dust had settled out of the air. The residue transformed the dawn to a kaleidoscope of flamboyant colour.
Nam Child, do you see it! H'ani called to her, and then trilled like a Christmas beetle, inarticulate with
