White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,56

out a couple of teaspoons of pepper into the palm of his hand, and threw in the grains.

They let it sit for a quarter of an hour so that the grains could settle and plug the hole, brewed tea by the side of the road, and started up the vehicles again. The gauge went down and stayed down for an hour or so, but then began climbing again. They arrived in Sehitwa close to nightfall, and Sam went looking for a mechanic. It turned out the only one around was away for the week up near the Caprivi Strip. “We can stay here and wait for the guy to get back,” said Will, “we can take a chance and go on, or we can limp back to Maun. I’d say we go back. There are too few vehicles on the road if we get into trouble. The good Land Rover can follow the other.”

“Trip’s over,” Haddock said, with something close to satisfaction.

“Trip’s not over,” said Alice. “That leaves one vehicle.” She’d wanted to get to the Tsodilo Hills ever since coming to Botswana. She’d seen pictures of San paintings on red rocks, the strokes of their ancient brushes capturing mystery. She could picture the lonely hills, the overhanging cliffs that protected the paintings. She knew Ian had been there dozens of times, had copied each panel of drawings into a notebook, had studied them stroke by stroke.

“It’s probably best to call it a day,” said her boss.

She looked at the Chevy truck, its willing snout, its sturdy wheels sitting in the sand, and thought it could get her there. The moment felt like a microcosm of her whole life—near misses, giving up too soon. It made her want to scream, standing there in the heat, eyes stinging with tears she had no intention of shedding.

“Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m going off to pee. Avert your eyes.” She walked behind the truck, pulled down her pants and squatted. A small dribble was all there was. She pulled up her pants and stayed behind the bed of the truck and whispered, Fuck! Fuckfuckfuck! She was wrong about the tears, which came without her bidding. She’d understood through Ngwaga that the !Kung San were still living forces, their world existing beyond the comprehension of people like her. She felt she’d been close to perceiving that mysterious, incomprehensible world, that she would have touched it beyond Nokaneng and Gomare, in the hills rising from the plains.

21

Isaac went to the small grocery store in the Old Village to buy bread one morning, and read the news on the front page of the paper.

South African security forces attacked two houses in a poor neighborhood of Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, early today, killing seven people and wounding three. A car with South African registration plates was seen in the neighborhood of one of the houses shortly before gunfire interrupted the predawn quiet.

According to government officials, two men were killed by gunfire at one site, while at the other site, two men, two women, and a child lost their lives. The incursion touched off fears of a renewal of cross-border attacks by South African forces against African National Congress guerrillas. The Botswana government has deplored the attacks against its citizens and called upon the United Nations for condemnation.

The couple who ran the store were South African, talking to a white customer when he came in. “They used loudspeakers,” the wife said, “and told people to stay in their houses. The South Africans had no choice really. They have to take care of this violent fringe before they kill any more innocent people.”

The white customer said, “What about the two women and the child?”

“Those women were connected to the ANC. They were connected. The child couldn’t be helped.”

Isaac bought a paper and went outside. A dove sat in a tree on the corner, singing her song. He didn’t buy bread. He would never buy from those people again. He intended to read the rest of the story, but he knew in his knees, in his gut what had happened and where it had happened. White Dog followed him, her tail low. Isaac took her back to the house, gave her food and a bowl of water, told her to stay, and walked up the road toward town. He was not sure, but he remembered that Amen was going to teach a training course in Angola. He had not spoken ten words to him since they’d fought. Unless Kagiso was