Before Rutherford could utter a word, Joseth said, not looking at him, ‘It is getting cool. It will be dusk soon. It is probably best to head back.’

Rutherford realised that he had not needed to apologise in order for Joseth to think less of him. Joseth, in suggesting that they return to the bakkie, had shifted the balance of power between them. He had spoken carefully and calmly, thinking he was giving nothing away, but Rutherford knew that not all power struggles had to be violent.

Rutherford was certain that a few months, a few weeks ago even, Joseth would have said ‘sir’ at the end of every statement or question. He wondered, as he followed him back to the government-issued bakkie, if Joseth was attending meetings, seminars and conferences run by people who believed that they ‘knew the European’ and encouraged men like Joseth to remove words like ‘sir’, ‘baas’, ‘picaninny’, ‘baas’ and ‘madam’ from their vocabulary because such words no longer had a place in their workplace lexicon.

When Rutherford and Joseth arrived at their bakkie, they found the village headman, the two mujibhas and several other villagers waiting for them.

‘Emil Coetzee go into the bush without weapon, sir … These two boys, they are seeing it.’ The headman addressed Rutherford directly and all but ignored Joseth. As he spoke, the two mujibhas and the gathered villagers nodded in solemn acquiescence. ‘He go into the bush like one … like so … like this,’ the headman said, putting up his index finger to stress the aloneness and the vulnerability of the man who had walked into the bush. ‘He is not having any weapon to protect himself. He just go like one … like so … like this. These boys they are seeing him … and we are waiting a long time for him to come back. We are waiting and waiting and waiting and he is not coming back and he is not coming back and he is not coming back … He is not coming back, sir. He go like one … like so … like this. These boys, they are seeing him do this thing.’

Rutherford and Joseth left, having promised the villagers that they would return early the next morning with a larger contingent of men. They would come to investigate in full what had happened to the white man who had walked into the bush without a weapon. The villagers were ordered not to tell anyone else that they suspected that the white man was Emil Coetzee. They were strictly forbidden to go into the bush until the investigation was over. They were reminded, as though they were not the ones who had made the discovery in the first place, that there were at least two leopards and a lion in that bush.

For good measure, Rutherford told the villagers to beware. He pointed particularly at the two mujibhas and said, ‘Basopa, you hear me, you two—’ He had been just about to say ‘bobbejane’, but even though this particular word had not been brought up in the meetings, seminars and conferences, Rutherford strongly suspected that with the country gearing up for majority rule, it would not do to call black boys baboons. But what else did one call them? Not knowing what else to say, Rutherford let his warning hang in uncertainty.