The covenant - James A. Michener [267]
One traveler, standing at the door to Saltwood's hut, avowed that he could 'see north to portals of heaven and west to the gates of hell without spotting a human being.' He was, of course, wrong. In various nooks and secret places families had their huts. Behind the flat-topped hills there were whole villages whose residents hunted small animals for their hides, great ones for their ivory tusks. Others traded to the north, crossing the Karroo to where substantial numbers of people congregated. And others, with remarkable diligence, actually farmed the areaone hundred and fifty acres to feed one sheepand found it profitable. One man mended wagons for customers as far distant as a hundred miles.
But everyone in the Karroo shared in one miracle, and joyously. When spring rains came to this arid land, usually in early November, the rolling plains exploded with flowers, millions of them in a sweeping carpet of many hues. It seemed as if nature had hidden here her leftover colors, waiting for the proper moment to splash them upon the world. In one of his sermons Hilary Saltwood said, 'The stars in heaven, the flowers on the Karroo, they're God's reminder that He stays with us.'
His duties were many. It was he who marked with ritual the passages of life: to christen, to marry, to bury. He served as arbitrator in family brawling. He taught school. His wife was general nurse to the scattered community. Messages were left at his rectory, the hut by the water pan, and he counseled with all who sought advice on anything. He helped at brandings, attended slaughterings in the hope that he might come home with a leg of something. And he participated in extended hunts when food was needed. He was a vicar of the veld.
But most of all he conducted services, in the open, beside the stream, with the five hills looking down. He read from the New Testament, lingering on its revolutionary messages of social justice, equality and brotherhood. In simple terms, devoid of cant, he talked with his people about new fashions of living in which all men would share responsibility, and he bore constant testimony to the fact that black and white could live together in harmony:
'That the white man is temporarily in a position of command because of his gun, his horse and his wagon is as nothing in the eyes of the Lord, or in the passage of history. How brief is the life of man. A hundred years from now it may be the black man who will be in a position of authority, and how little that too will matter in the eyes of the Lord. White man up, black man up, the perpetual problems remain. Where do I get my food to eat? How do I pay my taxes? Am I safe at night when I go to sleep? Can my children learn the lessons they need? It is answers to those questions that we seek, and it matters not who is powerful and who weak, because in the great rolling away of history, all things change but the fundamentals.'
Whenever he spoke like this on Sunday morning, he spent Sunday afternoon wondering about the education of his own children. He and Emma now had three dark-skinned rascals, with their father's height and their mother's flashing white teeth. They were bright children, masters of the alphabet at five and their numbers at six. With others in the area, they studied with Emma and took their catechism from Hilary; some of these children were instrumental in bringing their parents to the mission, encouraging them to go through the motions of worship, and all participated when Reverend Saltwood organized a picnic with games and songs and food.
Then the young ones, twenty or thirty of them, of every shade, would venture outside the five hills and play on land that reached forever. A dozen kinds of antelope would watch from a distance, and sometimes lions would move close to listen and then to roar with chilling thunder.
Adults always sought permission to