He cut that afternoon’s fish into long thin strips, enough for him and the dogs to eat for the next couple of days, then hung it over a green wood fire overnight. The smoke and dryness would stop the strips spoiling.
He covered his campfire with dry bones, and then big logs, damp from the swamp. The coals should stay slowly burning for days, but with almost no smoke — he didn’t want the strangers to see it till he knew more about them.
The strangers’ smoke still lazily spiralled into the sky. He headed towards it, the dogs padding at his heels.
The dogs stayed with him all day, skirting around rainwater lakes covered in water lilies, keeping to the high ground where the grass was shorter and the going easier. Clouds of birds flapped into the sky as they passed. I’ll need to be careful, he thought. The birds’ alarm might give him away.
He climbed up onto a hill, away from crocodiles. The strangers’ campfire smoke was close now, possibly only a few bends along the river that curled below them. But no one would find him here. People stayed by their campfires at night, unless they were ghosts, nightwalkers roaming the shadows …
No ghosts! he told himself firmly. And if they were … he could make a raft and paddle along the coast where the ghosts wouldn’t find him. But would the dogs follow him onto a raft? What if they jumped off and tried to swim to shore?
Little Boy and Little Girl might let him tie them up. But the dog was too wise to be tricked. Nor did he want to do it: you didn’t trick your friends.
All at once he knew how much the dogs meant to him. They were his family, his clan, his hunting partners. Had anyone ever had a friendship with animals like this before?
He didn’t know. But he couldn’t part with the dogs now.
The dog stood up in what could have been a signal. Little Girl and Little Boy stood up too. The dogs vanished into the shadows, returning almost immediately with a long-necked bird each. The younger dogs dropped their birds at Loa’s feet. They sat obediently while he plucked them. He waited till they’d rolled over, then let them sit up and gave them back their birds, eating the smoked fish himself.
Darkness gathered like a woven basket across the sky. The moon rose, soft looking and silky. The darkness turned to shadows in the moonlight.
He stood and signalled the dogs to be quiet. It was silly to sign to dogs, he knew — they didn’t know the hunting signals. And they always were quiet! But it felt right.
He trod carefully down the hill, then walked along the river, trusting the dogs to scent crocodile or snake. He could smell campfire smoke now and the fatty scent of charred hopper. The dogs lifted their noses. He was glad they’d just eaten. He thought they’d be wary of strange humans, just as he was, but at least they wouldn’t be tempted too close by hunger.
He looked at them, his shadow companions, almost the same colour as the moonlit grass. What if the strangers speared his dogs?
Suddenly he was more scared for them than himself. The dog knew that humans could be dangerous. But Little Boy and Little Girl had known only him. He imagined Little Girl bleeding in the grass; or Little Boy with a spear through his side. He could hardly explain the dogs were his friends if he didn’t know the strangers’ language.
All at once he wanted to gather the dogs to him, to carry them away where they’d be safe. If only he hadn’t brought them with him! Though in fact the dogs had brought themselves. Dogs went where they wanted to, even if they came when you called them — most of the time. He had no way to make them stay.
Please, he thought, stay with me now. Don’t go near the strangers, no matter how interesting they smell. Stay.
Flames rippled around the next bend, the fire reflected in the water. Another few steps and he could see the fire itself, and then the figures around it.
‘Sit,’ he whispered, soft as a breath of wind. Little Boy and Little Girl sat. The dog looked at Loa, then at her puppies. She didn’t sit. But she didn’t leave his side either.
He let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, then looked at the strangers more closely.
They were as human as himself. Not ghosts. No tails either. A few wore strange breechcloths or necklaces, but others were naked.
They could almost have been his own clan, only taller and more long-legged, though maybe that was the effect of the leaping shadows from the flames. A few grandfathers and grandmothers, younger women with babies, children already curling up to sleep near the fire. A couple of men rubbed fat into their spears. They were longer and thicker than his weapons, he thought.
Something cold nudged his leg. It was Little Girl, trying to get his attention. She looked at him and then at the camp, as though to say, ‘Are we going there?’
The dog looked at him too. She seemed as wary of the strangers as he was. Did she remember being tied up by the cooking pit? He shook his head at Little Girl, though he didn’t think she understood the gesture. But they understood when he began to creep away. They stayed at his side, as quiet as the moon.