Devil's Valley
much for me; besides, I couldn’t afford any further expense. That was how I started thinking about taking the ashes to the Devil’s Valley. Kind of pilgrimage. Also, it was as good an excuse as any.
    I dug up my notes abandoned thirty years ago, on the Seer’s trek into the Swartberg, stowed in a dilapidated old box in the dust and cobwebs and mouse shit and silver moths and cockroaches in my garage. I added to it the cigarette box from my night of cheerless carousing with Little-Lukas, and then began to sort out the confused memories of our meandering conversation.
    There wasn’t much sense to be made of it; and most of what returned to me through the remembered fearful swell of OB was hedged in by question marks. Any report slapped up out of that whore’s crotch of notes and recollections would have seen me fired on the spot. But frustrating as they were the memories kept haunting me. In the messy business of my life it became a single constant spot of reference. The reassurance of a few small hard facts: this and this and that I knew, this and this and that was certain, unshakeable by wind or weather, adversity or time.
    I went to see my editor on the question of accumulated leave; he seemed singularly happy to let me go. From an adventurous colleague I borrowed a rucksack, purchased what was necessary in the line of provisions, added my tape recorder and my camera, plus flash and tapes and film, and set off for the Little Karoo to feed the long-starved rat. In Oudtshoorn I spent a day on enquiries until I found a helpful garage man who agreed to take me into the mountains in his four-by-four, as far as the beacon from which I would have to strike out on foot. That was the Wednesday, a tranquil day in late April, in the afterglow of summer.
    Or For Worse
    I’d counted on a week, but the garage man persuaded me to stretch it to ten days.
    “Saturday suits me better, you see,” he said. His name was Koot Joubert, a solid block of a man, as heavy as a Bedford truck, if one can imagine such a vehicle with sideburns. “I’ll be coming back from Prince Albert next Saturday. Round about noon, I think.”
    High up in the mountains where he dropped me we confirmed the time.
    “I’ll be right here at the beacon,” I said. “If I’m not here, don’t wait for me. That’ll mean that I decided to stay longer.”
    “Don’t think you will.” With a rumbling laugh like an old engine starting up. “The people down there is a strange lot. Judging from the ones who sometimes turn up in town for shopping, that kind of thing. They’re a wild bunch, man.”
    “See you next Saturday, Koot.”
    “No, right, okay.” He offered me a hand the size of a gearbox. “Hope you come back alive.”
    I could think of several questions I’d still have liked to ask, but decided to wait and see for myself. I refused to be discouraged in any way. I’d bloody well waited long enough to get to the brink of this tract of history that had tantalised me for so long. For better or for worse, so help me God.
    At the side of the gravel road I remained standing until Koot Joubert’s dust had settled among the rocks. Then I turned towards the Devil’s Valley, with a huge curving slope straight ahead; I felt like a mole on a woman’s tit.
    One last time I checked the contents of my rucksack. The provisions. The tape recorder and notebooks and ball-point pens. The two cartons of Camel, four hundred, plus a few loose packets stowed in my pockets. Enough for ten days, if I rationed myself carefully. The White Horse safely ensconced in the box containing Little-Lukas’s pinkish-grey ashes.
    Now here I was at last, and behind me a voice was saying, “So there you are.”

Usual Places
    I T’S DAMN HOT here in the dry riverbed where I’m crouched waiting. There is still time, but not much. If she doesn’t come soon, I’ve had it. And there’s such a lot still to untangle in my mind.
    The others are about their business among the ruins. In my

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