Plains, Land
Illus. Tom Wänerstrand

Plains, Land
Illus. Tom Wänerstrand

Plains, Land
Illus. Tom Wänerstrand

"Maaaa," Seven of Ten protests.

"Yes, I know," I sigh. "You are too stupid to blame. You are a goat, and I am a goatherd. This lonely herdsman, he takes the blame."

"Maaaa," Seven of Ten concurs.

"It is windy today," I note. "The sky is as a bruise on a child's white palm. I remember a day like this. I was half a man's height then, and my father, he would not let me go outside. But I drew to the doorflap, and saw the air glisten with light and darkness. Then the sky roared like fifty lions, and Rika's hut was gone, and Rika too. But today is another day, and--Say, goat, what do you make of that?"

I expect a "Maaaa" in response, but none comes. My goats look up at the sky. The bruise has drawn a black line down to the ground. After Rika's house blew away, the elders said that if such a line slants to your right foot, it goes to the right. If it slants to your left foot, it goes to the left.

They did not say where it goes if it does not slant at all.

The horizon fills with a swarm of locusts--or are those trees uprooted by the line of wind? The earth starts to boil, and the line gets wider. Now there is a roar as of a hundred lions.

I stake my goats' leading pole into the ground, and uproot Chouri into my crossed arms. They all would prefer to run, but there is no cover on the plain. So we will choose our ground, and let the gods choose theirs. I hope I am not smart enough to choose as the gods do.

The goats bleat and pull at their leads. Seven of Ten grits his teeth, and his wool becomes a carapace of thorns. He breaks his lead rope and leaps on Eight of Ten and Nine of Ten, who cry out in alarm.

And then it is quiet, and the wind stops. The air glistens, and the sunlight becomes the green of a dying leaf. We must be safe. I count my goats to make sure none have run: One of Ten, Two of Ten, Three of Ten, Four of Ten--

Ba-WHOOOSH! Pook! Pook! Pook!

The world shatters. I have never heard such a sound, one such as to wake my ancestors. Trees, bushes, and the earth itself swirls in circles, pelting me and my animals with debris. And then it is quiet, and the bruise on the sky heals.

--Five of Ten, Six of Ten, Seven of--no wait, that's Ten of Ten. Where Seven, Eight, and Nine of Ten stood, only a torn patch of earth remains.

And such a sight! Everywhere the earth is freckled white like my sister Okulu; Mother calls her the Moon Child, for her skin has white craters where there should be black. Here a tree stands, there one is flinders on the ground. Stout bushes are sheared, like rows of wooden warriors called to war. And the mitab fruit, which we wait till Wildsun to peel, is husked and ready to eat. The wind has saved us the husking, but has taken three more of my goats.

This day is cursed, as the wise woman under the monkeytree will tell me. No kinsman of mine will let me herd a goat again. I am too much the fool, and not enough the herdsman. And--

"Maaaa!" "Maaaa!"

The wind has taken but one of my goats. Seven of Ten and Nine of Ten stand atop a btumu tree a hundred paces away.

Somehow I must get them down. I do not like this day.