you plannin’ to brain me with that bird? Where’s your weapon, boy?”
Keilin felt his legs wobble under him. The jewel was cold on his chest. “Please,” he stammered, “I just wanted a coal . . . just something to start my own fire and cook my supper. I promise . . . I haven’t even got a knife!” To his intense shame he felt a tear trickle down his cheek.
It might have embarrassed him, but it plainly eased his captor’s mind. “Sit down, boy, afore you fall down,” the old man said with rough kindness, lower­ing the spear, “and don’t start blubbering now. I don’t mean you any harm, son. Just that a man’s inclined to be suspicious o’ strangers out here, especially when folk try and sneak up on you. You’re welcome to a piece of my fire, if you wants it, and welcome to cook your fowl here if you like.” He cast a knowing look at Keilin’s nervous upturned face in the firelight. “You don’t have much to fear from old Marou, boy. And iffen you don’t have the means of makin’ fire and you don’t even have a knife I’m willin’ to bet you don’t have the faintest idea how to cook the bird either.”
“I do!” said Keilin, stung. “I’ve cooked heaps of pigeons and gulls. You pluck them, gut them, and cut them up, and broil them!”
“What’s gulls? I’ve et rock pigeons though,” said the old fellow, sitting down, his spear across his knees, “Besides, what was you going to cook it in? And it sounds like turrible way to spoil a good sand grouse. No. You just give it to me, sonny, I’ll show you how to do it right. Then when we’ve had a bit of a feed, you can tell me just what you’re doin’ with nothin’ in the middle o’ nowhere. It’s sounds like it might be a interestin’ tale. It gets a mite lonely out here, and I’ve a fondness for a good story.”
He pointed at the fire. “I’ve a nice plump goanna roasting under them coals, so I won’t have to deprive you, sonny. You look short a good few meals, though heaven knows why. It’s seldom I’ve seen the land lookin’ so fat.”
Mutely Keilin handed over the bird. The deft old hands began plucking, and within a few minutes it was plucked, drawn, had salt rubbed into its skin, had been split, and was grilling on a blackened, battered grid above the