Mma Ramotswe sighed. 'This has been a long trip, and I am thirsty. Do you have water, my sister?'
'Yes, I have water. You can come and sit in the house while you drink it.'
IT WAS a small room, furnished with a rickety table and two chairs. There was a grain bin in the corner, of the traditional sort, and a battered tin trunk. Mma Ramotswe sat on one of the chairs while the woman fetched a white enamel mug of water, which she gave to her visitor. The water was slightly rancid, but Mma Ramotswe drank it gratefully.
Then she put the mug down and looked at the woman.
'I have come for something, as you know. But I have also come to warn you of something.'
The woman lowered herself onto the other chair.
'To warn me?'
'Yes,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'I am a typist. Do you know what that is?'
The woman nodded.
'I work for the police,' went on Mma Ramotswe. 'And I have typed out something about your husband. They know that he killed that boy, the one from Katsana. They know that he is the man who took him and killed him for muti. They are going to arrest your husband soon and then they will hang him. I came to warn you that they will hang you also, because they say that you are involved in it too. They say that you did it too. I do not think they should hang women. So I came to tell you that you could stop all this quickly if you came with me to the police and told them what happened. They will believe you and you will be saved. Otherwise, you will die very soon. Next month, I think.'
She stopped. The other woman had dropped the cloth she had been carrying and was staring at her, wide- eyed. Mma Ramotswe knew the odour of fear-that sharp, acrid smell that people emit through the pores of their skin when they are frightened; now the torpid air was heavy with that smell.
'Do you understand what I have said to you?' she asked.
The witch doctor's wife closed her eyes. 'I did not kill that boy.'
'I know,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'It is never the women who do it. But that doesn't make any difference to the police. They have evidence against you and the Government wants to hang you too. Your husband first; you later. They do not like witchcraft, you know. They are ashamed. They think it's not modern.'
'But the boy is not dead,' blurted out the woman. 'He is at the cattle post where my husband took him. He is working there. He is still alive.'
MMA RAMOTSWE opened the door for the woman and slammed it shut behind her. Then she went round to the driver's door, opened it, and eased herself into the seat. The sun had made it burning hot-hot enough to scorch through the cloth of her dress-but pain did not matter now. All that mattered was to make the journey, which the woman said would take four hours. It was now one o'clock. They would be there just before sunset and they could start the journey back immediately. If they had to stop overnight because the track was too bad, well, they could sleep in the back of the van. The important thing was to get to the boy.
The journey was made in silence. The other woman tried to talk, but Mma Ramotswe ignored her. There was nothing she could say to this woman; nothing she wanted to say to her.
'You are not a kind woman,' said the witch doctor's wife finally. 'You are not talking to me. I am trying to talk to you, but you ignore me. You think that you are better than me, don't you.'
Mma Ramotswe half-turned to her. 'The only reason why you are showing me where this boy is is because you are afraid.
You are not doing it because you want him to go back to his parents. You don't care about that, do you? You are a wicked woman and I am warning you that if the police hear that you and your husband practise any more witchcraft, they will come and take you to prison. And if they don't, I have friends in Gaborone who will come and do it for them. Do you understand what I am saying?'
The hours passed. It was a difficult journey, out across open veld, on the barest of tracks, until there, in the distance, they saw cattle stockades and the cluster of trees around a couple of huts.
'This is the cattle post,' said the woman. 'There are two Basarwa there-a man and a woman-and the boy who has been working for them.'
'How did you keep him?' asked Mma Ramotswe. 'How did you know that he would not run away?'
'Look around you,' said the woman. 'You see how lonely this place is. The Basarwa would catch him before he could get far.'
Something else occurred to Mma Ramotswe. The bone-if the boy was still alive, then where did the bone come from?
'There is a man in Gaborone who bought a bone from your husband,' she said. 'Where did you get that?'
The woman looked at her scornfully 'You can buy bones in Johannesburg. Did you not know that? They are not expensive.'
THE BASARWA were eating a rough porridge, seated on two stones outside one of the huts. They were tiny, wizened people, with the wide eyes of the hunter, and they stared at the intruders. Then the man rose to his feet and saluted the witch doctor's wife.
'Are the cattle all right?' she asked sharply.
The man made a strange, clicking noise with his tongue. 'All right. They are not dead. That cow there is making much milk.'
The words were Setswana words, but one had to strain to understand them. This was a man who spoke in the clicks and whistles of the Kalahari.
'Where is the boy?' snapped the woman.
'That side,' replied the man. 'Look.'
And then they saw the boy, standing beside a bush, watching them uncertainly. A dusty little boy, in torn pants, with a stick in his hand.
'Come here,' called the witch doctor's wife. 'Come here.'
The boy walked over to them, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him. He had a scar on his forearm, a thick weal, and Mma Ramotswe knew immediately what had caused it. That was the cut of a whip, a sjambok.
She reached forward and laid a hand on his shoulder.
'What is your name?' she asked gently. 'Are you the teacher's son from Katsana Village?'
The boy shivered, but he saw the concern in her eyes and he spoke.
'I am that boy. I am working here now. These people are making me look after the cattle.'
'And did this man strike you?' whispered Mma Ramotswe. 'Did he?'
'All the time,' said the boy. 'He said that if I ran away he would find me in the bush and put a sharpened stick through me.'
'You are safe now,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'You are coming with me. Right now. Just walk in front of me. I will look after you.'
The boy glanced at the Basarwa and began to move towards the van.
'Go on,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'I am coming too.'
She put him in the passenger seat and closed the door. The witch doctor's wife called out.
'Wait a few minutes. I want to talk to these people about the cattle. Then we can go.'
Mma Ramotswe moved round to the driver's door and let herself in.
'Wait,' called the woman. 'I am not going to be long.'
Mma Ramotswe leaned forward and started the engine. Then, slipping the van into gear, she spun the wheel and pressed her foot on the accelerator. The woman shouted out and began to run after the van, but the dust cloud soon obscured her and she tripped and fell.
Mma Ramotswe turned to the boy, who was looking frightened and confused beside her.
'I am taking you home now,' she said. 'It will be a long journey and I think we shall have to stop for the night quite soon. But we will set off again in the morning and then it should not be too long.'
She stopped the van an hour later, beside a dry riverbed. They were completely alone, with not even a fire from a remote cattle post to break the darkness of the night. Only the starlight fell on them, an attenuated, silver
