Out in the Open Read Free Page B

peered round the cactus plant, trying to get a better look at the man. Something pricked his arm and he drew back. The buckle on his knapsack clinked. The dog immediately opened its eyes and pricked up its ears, then got to its feet, sniffing the air in all directions. The boy kept a firm grasp on his arm, as if the treacherous limb had a life of its own and was again about to hurl itself against the cactus spines. The dog began to move towards him, keeping close to the goatherd at first, then widening the radius of its search and slowly getting nearer to where he was standing. Watching the dog approach, the boy did not think it seemed terribly fierce, but he knew that one can never trust that kind of dog. In the village, people called them
garulos:
mongrels, which, through years of cross-breeding, had grown ever smaller, any distinctive racial characteristics now an unrecognisable blur. When the dog was just a few feet away, it stopped and focused all its senses on the clump of prickly pears. It again sniffed the air, and then, for some reason, relaxed and walked all around the intruder’s hiding-place, wagging its tail and clearly curious. When it discovered him, it showed no alarm and did not even bark. On the contrary, it went over and licked the placatory hand the boy had held out to keep it from barking. With that gesture, the boy’s fear of betrayal evaporated. It was as if the smells of earth and urine with which he was impregnated brought him closer to the world of the dog. He grabbed its head in his two hands and stroked it under the chin. For a while, the boy kept the dog quiet with his caresses, the time it took to decide whether or not to cover the few yards separating him and the bag lying at the man’s feet.
    He opened his own knapsack and took out the remaining half-sausage – all he had left. Leaving the dog busily gnawing at the dried meat, he emerged from his hiding-place and began to creep towards the bag. The light from the fire cast a gothic shadow over the prickly pears behind him.
    As he approached, he felt afraid and would have liked to go back where he came from, to withdraw to some safe place and wait for daylight in order to reconsider his options. However, behind the prickly pears, the dog was devouring the only food he had and he knew there was no turning back.
    He returned to his first plan, as simple as it was terrifying. He would go over to the bag and gently drag it towards him by the strap amidst a surrounding chorus of bleating. He would definitely not attempt to uncover the man’s face, because that would be both wrong and provocative. Apart from the food that the dog was now eating, he had never stolen from an adult and was only doing so now because he had no alternative. At home, the very stones of the walls were the guardians of an ancestral law according to which children must keep their eyes firmly fixed on the ground whenever they were caught doing something they shouldn’t. They must present their executioner with the back of their neck as meekly as if they were sacrificial offerings or propitiatory victims. Depending on the seriousness of the crime, a slap on the back of the neck might be all the punishment they got or, equally, it could merely be the preamble to a far worse beating.
    Standing very near the man now, he was again gripped by doubt and even considered not stealing the bag. He would simply wait by the fire until the man woke up. Then he would reveal himself to him as he was: a defenceless, unthreatening child. With luck, he thought, the man wouldn’t be from around there, but had come in the hope of finding some stubble for his goats. Accustomed to solitude, he might even be grateful for some company. The man would offer him a little food and something to drink, then each would go his own way.
    Suddenly, he heard a snort immediately behind him and was petrified. He didn’t move. All his strength vanished into the void that fear had opened