was a new world, a place of endless mysteries and unexpected delights, an enchanting mixture of woman and child. She supervised the domestic routine with deceptive lack of fuss. With her there, suddenly his clothes were clean and had their full complement of buttons; the stew of boots and books and unwashed socks in his wagon vanished. There were fresh bread and fruit preserves on the table; Kandhia's eternal grilled steaks gave way to a variety of dishes. Each day she showed a new accomplishment. She could ride astride, though Sean had to turn his back when she mounted and dismounted. She cut Sean's hair and made as good a job of it as his barber in Johannesburg. She had a medicine chest in her wagon from which she produced remedies for every ailing man or beast in the company. She handled a rifle like a man and could strip and clean Sean's Mannlicher. She helped him load cartridges, measuring the charges with a practised eye.
She could discuss birth and procreation with a clinical objectivity and a minute later blush all over when he looked at her that way. She was as stubborn as a mule, haughty when it suited her, serene and inscrutable at times and at others a little girl. She would push a handful of grass down the back of his shirt and run for him to chase her, giggle for rates at a secret thought, play long imaginative games in which the dogs were her children and she talked to them and answered for them. Sometimes she was so naive that Sean thought she was joking until he remembered how young she was. She could drive him from happiness to spitting anger and back again within the space of an hour. But, once he had won her confidence and she knew that he would play to the rules, she responded to his caresses with a violence that startled them both. Sean was completely absorbed in her. She was the most wonderful thing he had ever found and, best of all, he could talk to her. He told her about Duff. She saw the extra cot in his wagon and found clothing that was obviously too small for him. She asked about it and he told her all of it and she understood.
The days became weeks. The cattle grew fat, their skins sleek and tight. Katrina planted a small vegetable garden and reaped a crop from it. Christmas came and Katrina baked a cake. Sean gave her a kaross of monkey skins that Mbejane had worked on in secret. Katrina gave Sean handsewn shirts, each with his initials embroidered on the top pocket, and she relaxed the rules a fraction.
Then when the new year had begun and Sean hadn't killed an elephant in six weeks, Mbejane headed a deputation from the gunboys. The question he had to ask, though tactfully disguised, was simply, Did we come here to hunt, or what? They broke camp and moved north again and the strain was showing on Sean at last. He tried to sweat it out by long days of hunting but this didn't help for conditions were so bad that they added to his irritability. The grass in most places was higher than a mounted man's head, its sharp edges cut as he passed through it. But the grass seeds were the worst: half an inch long and barbed like an arrow they worked their way quickly through clothing and into the skin. in the humid heat the small wounds they made festered within hours. Then there were the flies. Hippo-flies, greenheaded flies, sand-flies all with one thing in common they stung. The soft skin behind the ears was their favourite place. They'd creep upon him, settle so lightlyy he wouldn't feel it, then, ping with the red- hot needle. Always wet, sometimes with sweat, other times with rain, Sean would close with a herd of elephant.
He would hear them moving in the long grass around him and see the white canopy of egrets fluttering over them, but it was seldom he could get a shot at them. If he did he had to stand in the centre of a storm of blundering bodies. Often they would be following a herd, almost upon them, when Sean would lose interest and they'd all go back to camp. He couldn't keep away.
He was miserable, his servants were miserable, and Katrina was happy as a bird at daybreak. She had a man, she was mistress of a household which she ran with confidence and, because her senses were not yet as seasoned as Sean's, she was physically content. Even with Sean's strict adherence to the rules, their evenings in her wagon would end for her with a sigh and a shudder and she would go dreamy-eyed to bed and leave Sean with a burning devil inside of him. The only person Sean could complain to was Thief. He would he with his snout buried in Sean's armpit, with at least his share of the blankets over him, and listen quietly.
The Zulus could see what the trouble was but they didn't understand it. They didn't discuss it, of course, but if one of them spread his hands expressively or coughed in a certain way the others knew what he meant. Mbejane came closest to actually putting it into words. Sean had just thrown a tantrum. It was a matter of a lost axe and who was responsible. Sean lined them up and expressed
doubts as to their ancestry, present worth and future prospects , then he stormed off to his wagon. There was a long silence and Mubi offered his snuff-box to Mbejane.
Mbejane took a pinch and said, It's a stupid stallion that doesn't know how to kick down a fence! It is true, it is true, they agreed, and there the matter rested.
A week later they reached the Sabi river. The mountains on the far side were blue-grey with distance and the river was full, brown and full.
The next morning was fresh and cool from the night's rain. The camp smelt of wood-smoke, cattle and wild mimosa. From one of the ostrich eggs that Mbejane had found the day before, Katrina made an omelette the size of a soup-plate. it was flavoured with nutmeg and chunks.
of mushroom, yellow and rich. Afterwards there were scones and wild honey, coffee and a cheroot for Sean.
Are you going out today? Katrina asked. Uh huh. oh! Don't you want me to? You haven't stayed in camp for a week. Don't you want me to go?
she stood up quickly and started clearing the table. Anyway you won't find any elephant you haven't found anything for ages. Do you want me to stay? It's such a lovely day. She signed to Kandhla to take the plates away.
, If you want me to stay, ask me properly. We could look for mushrooms. Say it, said Sean. All right then, please!
IMbejane! Take the saddle off that horse, I won't be using him Katrina laughed. She ran to her wagon, skirts swirling around her legs, calling to the dogs. She came back with her bonnet on and a basket in her hand. The dogs crowded round them, jumping up and barking. Go on... seek up then, Sean told them and they raced ahead, circling back barking, chasing one another. Sean and Katrina walked holding hands. The brim of Katrina's bonnet kept her face in shadow, but even then her eyes when she looked at him were bright green. They picked the new mushrooms, round and hard, brown and slightly sticky on top, fluted underneath delicately as a lady's fan.
In an hour they had filled the basket and they stopped under a manda tree. Sean lay on his back. Katrina broke off a blade of grass and tickled his face with it until he caught her wrist and pulled her down onto his chest. The dogs watched them, sitting around them in a circle, their tongues hangin out pink and wet. There's a place in the Cape, just outside Paarl. The mountains stand over it and there's a river... the water's very clear, you can see the fish lying on the bottom, said Katrina. Her ear was against his chest and she was listening to his heart. Will you buy me a farm there one day?
Yes, said Sean. We'll build a house with a wide veranda and on Sundays we'll drive to church with the girls and the little ones in the back and the bigger boys riding next to the buggy. How many will there be? asked Sean. He lifted the side of her bonnet and looked at her ear. It was a very pretty ear, in the sunlight he could see the fine fur on the lobe. Oh lots... boys mostly, but a few girls Ten? suggested Sean. More than that. Fifteen? Yes, fifteen. They lay and thought about it. To Sean it seemed a fairly well-rounded number. And I'll keep chickens, I want lots of chickens Alright, said Sean. You don't mind? Should It? Some people mind chickens, some people don't like them at all, said Katrina. I'm glad you don't mind them.
I've always wanted them. Stealthily Sean advanced his mouth towards her ear but she felt his move and sat up. What are you doing? This, I said Sean and his arm shot out. No, Sean, they're watching us. She waved her hand at the dogs. They'll understand, said Sean and then they were both quiet for a long time.
The dogs burst out together in full hunting chorus.
Katrina sat up and Sean turned his head and saw the leopard. It stood fifty yards away on the edge of the thick bush along the river bank watching them, poised elegantly in tights of black and gold, long and smallbellied. It moved then, bluffing with speed, touching the ground as lightly as a swallow touches the water when it drinks in flight. The dogs went after it in a pack, Thief leading them, his voice cracking with excitement. Back, come back, shouted Sean. Leave it, damn you, come back. Stop them, Sean, go after them. We'll lose them all. Wait here, Sean told her.
He ran after the sound of the pack. Not shouting saving his wind. He knew what would happen and he listened for it. He heard the tone of the hunt change, sharper now. Sean stopped and stood panting, peering ahead. The dogs were not moving. The sound of their barking was steady in volume. The swine has stopped; he's going to take them He started running again and almost immediately heard the first dog scream. He kept running. He found the dog lying where the leopard had flung it, the old bitch with white ears, her stomach was stripped out. Sean went on.
The tan ridgeback next, disemboweled, still alive and crawling to meet him. He ran on; always the hunt was out of sight ahead of him but he kept after it. He no longer stopped to help the dogs that had been mauled. Most of them were dead before he reached them. The saliva thickened in his mouth, his heart jumped against his ribs and he reeled as he ran.
Suddenly he was in the open and the hunt was spread out before him. There were three dogs left. One of
