When Joseth opened the passenger door of their government-issued bakkie and handed Rutherford a rifle and a bottle of water, Rutherford immediately checked that the rifle was loaded with ammunition. There had, after all, been two leopards and a lion sighted in this very stretch of bush. He took off his boonie hat and then poured a bit of water over his head to wet his hair and shoulders. This precaution would make his journeying under the scorching sun less insufferable. Joseth had no such ritual before venturing forth, and so he merely waited and watched Rutherford. He did not even take a few sips of water from his water bottle.

Rutherford and Joseth surprised each other when they collectively sighed before heading into the veld, which at their point of entry welcomed them with scrubs of clumped grass and thorn bushes. Nothing grew beyond knee-level here, and that was how the bush encouraged people to venture forth. Rutherford and Joseth stayed close together as their ears listened for every sound and their eyes scanned the horizon for any movement. The thorn bushes happily and eagerly nipped and pricked their calves through their pulled-up khaki socks. When the savannah grass began to reach their waists, their movements changed and they slowly started to rotate a full 360 degrees of ever-widening circumference.

It was in mid-rotation, when they were about five metres apart, that Joseth saw it – a brown, well-worn Stetson, lying on the ground not far away. Joseth understood many things: he understood that Rutherford and Emil Coetzee were friends, and that if any discoveries were to be made here, Rutherford would like to be the one making them.

It had been almost imperceptible, and would have been to the untrained eye, but earlier Joseth had noticed the slight tremor in Rutherford’s hand when he had handed him the driver’s licence. Joseth understood that although it had occurred to Rutherford that his friend had met a very sticky end, he had not, as yet, fully comprehended this possibility; which was why, in order to calm and reassure himself, his hand kept patting his breast pocket. Understanding all this and much more, Joseth allowed them to make another rotation so that it would be Rutherford who would discover the Stetson. But Rutherford did not, and therefore, after three more rotations, Joseth was forced to say, ‘I think I have found something,’ before going to retrieve the Stetson.