The covenant - James A. Michener [206]
'Vrijmeer!' he cried one day. 'Swarts, this is the lake where everything that moves has freedom.' That night he could not sleep. Restlessly he stepped across the inert body of his hyena to stand in moonlight as undisciplined thoughts assailed him: I wish I were young again ... to bring a family here ... to live beside this lake . . .
It was not easy for Adriaan to admit that he was growing lonely. He had never talked much with Dikkop, nor looked to him for intellectual companionship. He was not afraid of traveling alone, because by now he knew every trick for avoiding dangers; he sensed where the kraals of the black people lay, and he swung away from them; he slept where no lion could reach him, relying upon Swarts to alert him if unusual developments occurred. The hyena was not really a good watchdog, he slept too soundly on a full belly, and with his master's constant hunting he had a good supply of guts and bones to gorge upon; but he had a marked capacity for self-defense, and many animals that might have attacked Adriaan sleeping alone would think twice before risking a hyena's great jaws and flashing teeth.
The loneliness came from the fact that he had seen Africa, had touched it intimately along the mountains and the veld, and had reached the point where there were no more secrets. Even the fact that a majestic waterfall lay only a short distance to his northwest would not have surprised him, for he had found the continent to be greater than he had imagined or Dr. Linnart had suggested.
Again the vagrant thought struck, this time with pain, and he said in a loud voice, 'God, Swarts, I wish I were young again. I'd cross the Limpopo. Go on and on, past the Zambezi all the way to Holland.' He had not the slightest doubt that given a good pair of shoes, he could walk to Europe. 'And I'd take you with me, little hunter, to protect me from the dik-diks.' He laughed at this, and Swarts laughed back at the idea of anyone's needing protection from the tiniest of antelopes who leaped in fear at the fall of a leaf.
Perhaps this recurrent loneliness was a premonition, for as they came down off the spacious central plateau to cross the Great River, he saw that Swarts was becoming restless. The hyena was two and a half years old now, a full-grown male, and as they came into territory where other hyenas hunted in packs, Swarts became aware of them in new ways, and sometimes at dusk gave indications that he wanted to run with them. At the same time he knew deep love for his human companion and felt a kind of obligation to protect him, to share with him the glories of the hunt.
So he vacillated, sometimes running toward the open veld, at other times scampering back in his lurching way to be with his master; but one night, when the moon was full and animals were afoot, he suddenly broke away from Adriaan, ran a short distance into the veld, stopped, looked back as if weighing alternatives, and disappeared. Through his sleepless night Adriaan could hear the sounds of hunting, and when day broke, there was no Swarts.
For three days Adriaan stayed in that area, hoping that the hyena would return, but he did not. And so, with regret almost to the point of tears, Adriaan set out for the mountains that protected his farm, and now he was truly alone, and for the first time in his life, even afraid. From the latitude of the stars he calculated that he might be as far as three hundred miles north of his destination, afoot, with a diminishing store of ammunition and the necessity of covering that expanse of open country when he was not quite sure where he was.
'Swarts,' he shouted one night, 'I need you!' And later, as he lay fitfully sleeping, he heard the sound of animals, many of them, trampling near to where he was hiding, and he