The Devil's Breath (7 page)

She gazed at him, searching his face, and he felt the blood ease into his cheeks as he blushed, like the darkening sky. He looked away. There were so many questions he wanted to ask her—about herself—but that too was probably ill-mannered.

“Why are you here?” Kallie asked.

“What do you mean? Because of my dad. Why else?”

“I don’t know.” She looked out across the dry grassland. “This country kills a lot of people, Max. Maybe you should expect the worst.”

“I like to take a more positive outlook on things. I think my dad’s alive.”

“Fair enough. Y’know, it was because my father had always done what he could for the Bushmen that one of them brought those field notes here. He left his family out there to do that. My father was the only white man they could trust. That’s the only connection we have with whatever has happened.”

“And I appreciate your help in bringing me here.”

She looked away, and after a moment he followed her gaze. The old woman had taken a lantern and gone into the willow trees by the water, where she beckoned someone there to join her. A Bushman boy of about thirteen stepped out. He was slightly built, with an open, appealing face which smiled easily. He dipped his head in respect for the old woman. The only clothing he wore was a loincloth, embroidered with simple red and blue stitching. He carried a
quiver of pencil-thin arrows and a short hunting bow over his shoulder, and in his hand a spear. He nodded as the old woman spoke to him, and then he looked up to where Max and Kallie were sitting.

“He was the one who brought your father’s notes, four weeks ago. Long before Mr. Farentino contacted us. He’s been here ever since.”

“Here?” Max asked. “Does he work here now?”

The boy stood, unmoving, silhouetted against the enormous moon. Max watched as its soft glow embraced the boy and encircled him protectively.

“No. You don’t understand,” she said. “He’s been waiting for you. He says it was written you would come. You’re some kind of ancient prophecy.”

The Bushman boy’s name was !Koga, pronounced by drawing the tongue away from the roof of the mouth—at least that’s how it sounded to Max.
Cl
oga was the best he could manage; he thought it sounded as though he was clucking at the hens, back at the school’s farm. There is no history of writing for the Bushmen so Kallie wrote
!Koga
—showing Max that the ! was the European way of expressing one of the many click noises used in the Bushman language. “He speaks some English,” Kallie told him. “His family helped a geologist for a couple of years.”

Max shook hands with the boy, who glanced away shyly. “He told my father there were rock paintings in the caves,” Kallie continued. “I don’t know where, but I reckon about three hundred k’s from here. No one I know has ever been there. The paintings, so he says, show your arrival. He wants to help find your father.”

!Koga remained silent, his eyes watching the horizon. Max was uncertain. This could be a wild-goose chase. The middle of nowhere was a dangerous place to be chasing flights of fancy.

“Look,” he said quietly, hoping not to offend the boy, “pictures of me on cave walls sound a bit dodgy. Maybe my dad told him I would come, maybe !Koga or his family drew them—y’know, part of their storytelling folklore or something.”

Kallie pulled a face. “I wish that were true, but the !Kung Bushmen don’t have a history of rock painting. The last ones discovered were a thousand years old.” She nodded to the boy, who turned back towards the cool shade of the trees by the water hole. “Don’t ask me how they know some of the spooky things they know—but I trust whatever it is they’re in touch with. Call it ancient wisdom; call it spirits of their ancestors—whatever it is, a lot of Bushmen have got it. He’ll take you as far as he can, back to his own people, wherever they are. Anyway, they’re the ones who last saw your dad.”

Max only wanted to save his dad; cave paintings and prophecies felt as though they were going to get in the way. But could he afford to risk not going along with the very boy who had delivered his father’s notes?

As he crawled under the mosquito net that night, his father’s face was the last thing he saw as he tumbled into fitful sleep. At first he was troubled by images of being chased, of being cornered in dark passageways, of being held under water, suffocating—all reflections of the day that his unconscious mind interpreted in its own way. But gradually he slipped past the monsters and settled into a deep and restful slumber.

When he awoke, the first shards of light were breaking up the sky. Stretching away the sleep, he realized he was feeling great. And he was starving. He could smell coffee and fresh bread. It was predawn cold so he pulled on a lightweight jersey and made his way to the kitchen table.

The old woman nodded at him, unsmiling, and said something he did not understand, so he nodded back, and within minutes a hot tray was taken from the old wood-burning stove’s oven; corn cakes and sausage were slid onto a warm plate and then the sizzling sound of three eggs being fried filled the kitchen. In less than a minute the plate was put in front of him. Not exactly the kind of health-conscious breakfast he was used to, but out here, he guessed, you ate what you could.

By the time he had wiped the plate clean, the sun was dazzling the windows. Kallie came in and poured coffee into one of the tin mugs. “You ready to go?”

He nodded, uncertain what she had in mind. “I’d fly you on further, but I can’t. I’m going up to see my dad, he needs supplies. He’s extending his safari, that’s northwest from here.” She picked up her coffee and went back outside. He realized she meant him to follow her.

An ex-military, long-wheelbase Land Rover stood ready in front of the farmhouse. Its bodywork still sported a faded camouflage pattern. Two shovels were strapped to the bulkhead, a canvas cover was stretched across the skeleton frame of the vehicle; a dozen jerrycans were secured in the back, with another two in special holders on each side of the
headlights, and a whip aerial’s three-meter length quivered in the barely noticeable breeze.

“Most kids out here can drive round the farms by the time they’re ten or eleven, what about you?”

Max nodded. His dad had taught him when they were on one of their holidays, but that was in a small, battered old car. This brute of a 4×4 might be beyond his skills. “Sure,” he said, “but I’ve never driven in the desert before.”

“It’s mostly scrubland. If you hit soft sand you drive slowly; if you get stuck you deflate the tires. That’s the low-ratio gearstick for when it gets really tough.” She leaned across the Land Rover, pointing out the equipment. “There’s a foot pump, shovels and these sand channels.” She patted two metal runners, a couple of meters long and half a meter wide, strapped on the side of the Land Rover. “My guess is you’re heading for grassland and then maybe the mountains. This thing’ll take you anywhere, just don’t tip it beyond thirty degrees or you’ll roll it. There’s water in those jerrycans and diesel in these.” Max took all this in, determined to put a brave face on the daunting task. Twenty meters away, !Koga waited, squatting on his haunches, watching.

“I’ve packed a few days’ dried food, but you won’t starve.” She looked towards !Koga. “Not with him.” Kallie gave him that look again. Gazing right into his eyes. This time the blood didn’t rush to his face. He felt confident. No point kidding himself or anyone else, he decided, not out here.

“I lied when I said I was nearly seventeen. I’m not. I’m fifteen,” he said.

“I know. I checked your passport when you were asleep.

Sorry about that, but I wanted to make sure you were who you said you were. You’re crazy, you know that, don’t you?” she said.

He nodded.

“But if it was me … I’d be doing the same thing.” She smiled. And for Max that was warmer than the sun already climbing in the sky.

“Time to go,” he said.

Max wrestled the steering wheel. Over the past few hours he had tested the engine’s power, had made a mess of the four-wheel-drive settings, got it sorted, pushed himself and the machine and was bombing along a semblance of a track, red dust chasing him. !Koga sat next to him, a firm grip on the dashboard, smiling at the thrill of it. Kallie had told him that !Koga spoke some English, but so far the boy had not said a word. Maybe he was as caught up in the moment as Max. Heat, speed and a humming engine were intoxicating.

Max eased off the accelerator: this was still what they called a road out here, but a surface of loose stones on a hardcore base was giving way to off-road conditions. Low scrub began to obscure the way ahead. As keen as he was to strike out and find his dad, he had to make sure he got there safely, and that meant he had to use his brain as well as his muscle.

Before he left the farm, Kallie had spread out an old, creased and sweat-stained map, showing him landmarks along the way to Skeleton Rock—of which there were precious few. Buffalo Boulder, Snake River—a twisting
dried-up riverbed; Dancing Grass Valley—where a permanent breeze from the mountains swayed feather-topped savannah grass; Lightning Tree—the remains of a giant bao-bab, blackened but still standing after a mighty storm had rolled across its arid valley.

Grid references and map bearings would be his lifeline and he could plot a course using the fixed compass clamped to the dashboard.

“You see rain anywhere—on the horizon, in the mountains—you take extra care,” she warned him. “We get flash floods that’ll tear you and that Land Rover to bits. One minute it’s a dry, safe place, and the next there’s a wall of water roaring out of nowhere.”

As if Max didn’t have enough to worry about, now a rainstorm could kill him.

Fear can destroy a man
, his dad told him once,
but knowledge dispels fear. Equip yourself with as much information as you can, lessen the odds against you and then you have a chance. Don’t give in to fear. It’s all in the mind
.

Words, echoing.

OK. He had done all that his dad had taught him. This wasn’t a jaunt across Europe or America, where he could tap a number into his cell phone and get help; there was no phone signal out here. Kallie had given him her radio frequency, explaining that most of the farmers used radios to help each other across these vast distances, so if he got himself into trouble at least there was a chance of summoning help. Though how long it would take to reach him was anybody’s guess.

The sun was at its zenith, beating down fiercely. Mirages
appeared on the horizon: illusions of upside-down mountains, trees that weren’t there and broken ghost images of animals. Nothing moved. The furnace-hot air whipped across the top of the canvas cabin, trapping them. Time to stop.

Max eased down a couple of gears and bumped through the scrub and into the dry, waist-high grass. He eased the Land Rover under shade-giving branches, pushing aside low-growing acacia trees. Within moments of switching off the engine and getting out to stretch, a shadow swooped low overhead. For a second he thought it was a bird of prey, but as the darkened shape slipped across them the sound of an aircraft engine broke the silence. It must be Kallie, he thought, on her way north. But instinct warned him not to raise his hand and wave. The plane banked away. It was a different type of aircraft from Kallie’s, and in a tight turn it circled to fly over the area again.

Whoever it was, they were looking for him. The old Land Rover’s camouflage blended easily into the tangled acacias and high grass. Max and !Koga moved deeper into the shade and squatted together as another growling roar passed over their heads.

He cursed himself. It was probably his own stupidity that had brought his pursuers on to him so quickly. He had been showing off, driving the Land Rover to impress nobody but himself and maybe !Koga. The dust trail could have been seen for a hundred kilometers from up there.

The plane turned again, clockwise this time—from the east—watching for shadows that shouldn’t be there. Max did not move and the rush of noise went by again. He was
certain there was nowhere for the plane to land, so perhaps they were spotting for men on the ground. Yes, that made sense.

Once the plane was far away towards the horizon Max grabbed a pair of binoculars from the cab, clambered onto the top of the Land Rover and balanced on the steel roof supports. He could see across most of the landscape. The plane had not swung back again. Was it looking for a landing place? He traversed the horizon. Nothing. A couple of kilometers away, a small herd of giraffe were feeding, their thick tongues rolling out to eat thorny branches from the higher trees.

A small kick of dust alerted him. Was that a rhino pushing through the bushes and grass? Sweat stung his eyes. He squinted through the glare and heat haze. Then one of the giraffes swung its neck and started galloping with its awkward gait. The others followed. It was no rhino that had spooked them. A pickup truck, with half a dozen men in the back, rolled and jolted slowly across the difficult ground. And the men were armed.

Max ducked involuntarily. Then, realizing that the plane could not have spotted him, otherwise the pickup truck would be heading straight for them, he peered again through the tinted lenses. The truck was several kilometers away and was moving obliquely away from them. Max slithered down and checked the map. His dust trail must have told the pilot his direction of travel. The armed men would be in a position to cut him off if he stayed on his intended route.