White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,68

water. Last night, he’d woken himself, crying out in his sleep. He couldn’t remember the dream, but he remembered the feel of it. Something important. Running across an empty tundra, arriving too late.

He went around to the road, away from the river, and sat on a stone. He imagined an impala arriving at a water hole, its slenderness mirrored in the surface, spreading its front legs wide before drinking. One animal. You could look at it forever. Something like wonder was what had first drawn him to rock paintings. As a boy, while sitting in the cold pews of a church (out of which he’d bolted the day he was old enough to outrun his mother), he’d seen people going through the motions of awe. A silver chalice lifted at an altar. A passionless hymn. It was fine for those who were there, he supposed, but for him, it was beyond bearing.

Ancient Bushmen pounded hematite for red paint, bound it with blood serum, shaped quills, feathers, or bones for brushes, and found the stillness in themselves to capture life as they’d felt it. You could see it in the paintings: they’d watched, they’d listened, they’d understood their own place in the universe, no greater and no lesser than the animals they painted. You could feel in these paintings how time whirled through them, how the infinite opened before them when they knocked at its door, spilling out its terrible glories.

Any fool would be happy poking around in the hills, he thought, making copies of paintings in a notebook, trying to puzzle out the lives behind the images. But only a handful of San people were now left in Botswana, whose very existence was threatened by these cursed fences. He imagined returning to the place he’d first gone with Alice, carrying proper tools this time, cutting the fence section by section. It wasn’t something he wanted to do. You’re not born to pull down things other men have erected. Nor did he look forward to the rotting carcasses he’d find on the boundary. But you know when something feels right by the way it sweeps through you. It’s no longer an idea but something that inhabits you.

He stood up, as though tonight was already too late. He thought he’d go find her, then he thought he’d leave it, then he thought he’d walk along the road and think a bit. He’d settled on a walk and was half a kilometer down the road when a battered Toyota pickup stopped. The dust settled, and a man got out. His gait was familiar. All at once, Ian recognized Roger, an old friend he’d met on his first trip to Botswana. It was Roger who’d taken him up to the Tsodilo Hills for the first time.

“Imagine meeting you here!” Roger yelled. Ian thumped him on the back. It had been a couple of years since he’d seen him. Although Ian wasn’t a small man himself, Roger was half a head taller, a huge, slow-moving ox, deliberate in every way. His parents were Rhodesian. He’d grown up in Maun, one of four brothers, and was the only one still left in Botswana.

“Where are you coming from?” asked Ian.

“Ghanzi. Had to see a fur trader.”

“Shaw?”

Roger nodded. “And you?”

“I’ve been on a trip,” said Ian. “Not alone. We got as far as Sehitwa, a little beyond.”

“Who were you with?”

“A guy from agriculture sliding around in city shoes, another guy from Ministry of Local Government and Lands, Will, the wildlife chap—you know him—a woman working on San policy, a few others.”

“What were you doing with that lot? Here, jump in.” He opened the passenger door, and Ian climbed in.

“Glorified sightseeing. The idea was to talk to people, try to understand the needs of all parties, and come up with a reasonable land-use policy, something that won’t screw wildlife and the San.”

“Good luck with that.” He drove up the road and stopped in front of Crocodile Camp.

“I’ve got a favor to ask,” Ian said. “You wouldn’t be heading toward Nata by any chance?”

“I’m leaving in an hour or so. Just have to grab a bite to eat and fill up with petrol.”

“I’d like to hitch a ride.”

“No problem. You want dinner first?”

“I’ve eaten.”

“About that woman you mentioned. Is she spoken for?”

“God’s sake, Roger. You never quit.”

“What does she look like?” They got out of the truck and went up the steps onto the porch. They lingered there a moment, looking in the direction of the truck cooling in the