The air vibrated and the sky was elemental blue and had the unyielding perfection of a proof. It eyed us all, ants beneath. We became narrow eyed and slow and walked barefoot until the ground burned, and the heat filled my skirts until they felt like a kite that might lift me right up into that sky. The trees and shrubs and smaller plants drew back what moisture they could from their leaves until everything appeared shrunken, as skin draws close to bone with age. The smaller sucks dwindled to staring salt-rimmed eyes of luminous pink and finally there was nothing for it but to open the fenced sucks to save the sheep. Papa had to go to the expense of having a deep well dug for our use. It filled quickly with sweet water. Billy and George (whose true names Papa could never remember and which I never heard), the two natives from long ago, approached Papa one day and he went with them. ‘Very agitated, they were,’ he said. ‘It was the loss of their sucks. But what could I do?
