251 CHAPTER 30
Upington, South Africa, 1906, four years after the end of the Anglo-Boer WarBlake was as far away from the rest of the world as he could be and still earn enough to be able to get a drink, a woman and a bath. And that was fine with him.
A bell tolled in the small tower of the Dutch Reformed Church, the oldest and most substantial building in the haphazard scatter of rough mud-and-timber single-storey structures that lined the red Kalahari sand and rock strip that was known as Schroder Street.
Blake led a mob of twenty horses, tethered nose to tail. The chains he used to hobble the animals each night were now draped around their necks and the metal links clinked with every step. The street was empty, all sensible humans and beasts hiding in the shade somewhere to escape th
