White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,66

told him to wait. They were searching for a car to take him across the border. He sat on a bench wearing handcuffs, beyond hunger. His head hung low. He counted on his fingers the days before madam would be back. Five days. White Dog and Horse and Mr. Magoo would die. The young tomato plants and pepper plants would wither and die. She would think that her trust had been misplaced. He imagined her returning, finding the animals dead, the vegetables dead, the kitchen untidy, his bed unmade. He would have made everything nice before she returned. He thought of his mother and Nthusi and his younger brothers and sister. Of Boitumelo whom he was to marry. He thought of his mother’s employers who had been so kind to him. He would disappear the way his father had disappeared.

And he thought of Kagiso. His heart was full of grief. Kagiso had woken in terror and known enough to cover Ontibile’s body with her own.

23

Alice’s trip was over. She was next to the window, looking out. Her frustration was electric, like the spikes of an aloe. As the group scrambled for vehicles, Ian found his way into the middle seat of the Chevy beside her. A small part of him was amused, but the larger part wanted to be driving her wherever she wanted to go.

As Sam climbed into the driver’s seat and the truck got under way, Ian said to her, “I thought you were going to throw a wobbler back there.”

“I don’t know what a wobbler is.” Her voice was curt.

“I thought you might deck Haddock.”

“He’s just a frightened old has-been.”

He looked at her. “You feel sorry for him?”

“Imagine living your whole life like that. It would be like living a prison sentence. Did you see his shoes? They’re so slippery, he can hardly walk.”

“Like a vulture with no toes,” said Sam.

It came out of the blue. Ian pictured those lappet-faced vultures with their raw, featherless necks, huge bills, and gimlet eyes. Alice started laughing and couldn’t stop. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“A vulture,” said Sam again.

“Oh god, Sam, stop,” she said, fighting for air. She settled down, but then she started up again.

“Are you okay?” Ian asked.

“No, I can’t stop.”

His asking seemed to sober her up enough to speak. She grabbed his hand furtively and said, “I had a roommate once. She had the loudest laugh in the world. We were in a bar one time. I said something she thought was funny, and her head went back and she stopped breathing. I’d never seen anyone do anything like that before. I thought she was choking. She opened her mouth, and this explosion came out. And then on the intake, she snorted almost as loud. I was young. So mortified, I thought I’d just crawl out the door.”

“I knew someone who sneezed like that. The first AHH! was like a scream. And then she said Choo.”

“Was she a romantic interest?”

Her question startled him. “Why do you ask?”

“I just wondered.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I was bonkers over her. But we had huge rows. We were sloshed a lot of the time. When I stopped drinking, which wasn’t for long back then, I saw the light.”

“Her sneeze stopped being so cute?”

“It never really was cute.” He wasn’t thinking about that woman. He needed to say something. They’d soon be in Maun. The next day, they’d be in Nata. She’d be going back to Gaborone. He’d pick up his Land Rover and drive back the way they’d just come, up to the Tsodilo Hills. Don’t go, he wanted to say. Come with me. But he’d be a right bastard to put that proposition to her, especially with her not knowing his whole story.

The road was rough, and Ian’s head bounced against the roof of the truck. The convoy got stuck in the sand twice on the way to Maun. The radiator of the Land Rover needed filling up a dozen times before they returned, but it held until the vehicle was able to limp into town.

The group stayed that night at Crocodile Camp on the banks of the Thamalakane River, and everyone but Arthur Haddock gathered on the veranda, drinking bad beer, watching the river turn into a ribbon of blackness. The hippo voices sounded like the bellow of a huge cow. Before the dark swallowed everything, there were their two enormous heads, their eyes and rounded ears and great wide-spaced nostrils just above the water in the