What was it in the bush? A dog pack? Here…in the city suburbs? Yes, the grasses moved aside and differently fashioned ears came forward, pricked up at a voice of command somewhere in the thicket behind them, then lay flat as they awaited their master to reach them.
First came two black boys bearing long sticks. One had a bag speared to its end and lay across his shoulder like a runaway’s sack. The other prodded the dusty earth as if seeking hollows. They waited.
Through the long grass came a man. He walked hard upon the ground and smiled with the enjoyment of hunter’s blood. His questing eyes acknowledged mine and they spoke freely of his pack to me. They were no regular bunch: they held every breed and mixture. Some had been part of a household, but no homes held them now. There were large creatures which looked fondly for his command; there were the once fluffy pooches, now with a coat never to be untangled; and the wiry animals which had to be first at the prey. Even the loner dog found a place.
Their master had not asked where they came from. He had never questioned their endurance; he had not given them food to eat. He had blooded them, hunted with them, chased dassie, fowl, mole and rodent with them; caught and killed with them. They loved this. They were satisfied in blood. They forgot their past, remembered what they had been before. Now the hunt held them; quarry and kill gave pleasure to hunger.
Their noses were turned to the bearer’s sack. He pointed to its contents: a dune mole rat hung bulk and teeth from the bag – clean and dead. Its excitement for the dogs would bring food or money to the master.
The man flashed a smile as he moved on through the bush where lay the refuse and dumped metal of a suburb’s excess. New houses would soon stand there – fresh dogs in the yards. Now children from the nearby homes played along the firebreak where pylons were planted, their feet tusked with spiky grasses. Rodents and reptile lived here, under or in the earth, source of adventure for the young boys and girls who sought them. But they cowered to the hunter and died to his dogs. He gained a carcass and bore it to his township where they had to eat – and rodent was food.
The dog’s noses led them into the next thickets, the hunters with them, listening for their keening as they left the suburb and approached the outskirts where more meat abounded. He would always lead them by these routes. Any road open to the public were too dangerous for his pack.
By nightfall he would be in the township. Here the meat would be sold. His dogs would loll in the shadows. Perhaps they might be fed. Tomorrow the pack would go out again. Tonight they slept by their master.
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