Текст книги "Rage"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 53 страниц)

The story she told was harrowing.

She and her parents had been on a journey to see her grandparents at the river village of Shakawe in the south, a trek on foot of hundreds of miles. Carrying all their worldly possessions, they had taken a short cut through this remote and deserted country when they had become aware that a lion was dogging them, following them through the forest – at first keeping its distance and then closing in.

Her father, an intrepid hunter, had realized the futility of stopping and trying to build some sort of shelter or of taking to the trees where the beast would besiege them. Instead he had tried to keep the lion off by shouting and clapping while he hurried to reach the river and the sanctuary of one of the fishing villages.

The child described the final attack when the animal, its thick ruff of black mane erect, had rushed in at the family, grunting and roaring. Her mother had only time enough to push the girl into the lowest branch of the mopani before the lion was on them. Her father had stood gallantly to meet it, and thrust his long spear into its chest, but the spear had snapped and the lion leapt upon him and tore out his bowels with a single swipe of curved yellow claws. Then it had sprung at the mother as she was attempting to climb into the mopani and hooked its claws into her back and dragged her down.

In her small birdlike voice the child described how the lion had eaten the corpses of her parents, down to the heads and feet and hands, while she watched from the upper branches. It had taken two days over the grisly feast, at intervals pausing to lick the spear wound in its shoulder. On the third day it had attempted to reach the child, ripping at the trunk of the mopani and roaring horribly. At last it had given up and wandered away into the forest, limping heavily with the wound. Even then the child had been too terrified to leave her perch and she had clung there until at last she had passed out with exhaustion and grief, exposure and fear.

While she was relating all this, the camp servants were refuelling the jeep and preparing supplies for the journey to Rundu. Shasa left as soon as this was done, taking the boys with him. He would not leave them in the camp while there was a wounded man-eating lion roaming in the vicinity.

They drove through the night, recrossing their jerry-built bridge and retracing their tracks until the following morning they intersected the main Rundu road, and that afternoon they finally arrived, dusty and exhausted, at the airstrip. The blue and silver Mosquito that Shasa had left at H'am Mine was parked in the shade of the trees at the edge of the strip and the company pilot and the doctor were squatting under the wing, waiting patiently.

Shasa gave the child into the doctor's care, and went quickly through the pile of urgent documents and messages that the pilot had brought with him. He scribbled out orders and replies to these, and a long letter of instruction to David Abrahams. When the Mosquito took off again, the sick girl went with them. She would receive first-rate medical attention at the mine hospital, and Shasa would decide what to do with the little orphan once she was fully recovered.

The return to the safari camp was more leisurely than the outward journey, and over the next few days the excitement of the lion adventure was forgotten in the other absorbing concerns of safari life, not least of which was the business of Garry's first kill. Bad luck now combined with his lack of coordination and poor marksmanship to cheat him of this experience that he hungered for more than any other, while on the other hand Sean succeeded in providing meat for the camp at every attempt.

'What we are going to do is practise a little more on the pigeons,' Shasa decided, after one of Garry's least successful outings.

In the evenings the flocks of fat green pigeons came flighting in to feast on the wild figs in the grove beside the waterhole.

Shasa took the boys down as soon as' the sun lost its heat, and placed them in the hides they had built of saplings and dried grass, each hide far enough from the next and carefully sited so that there was no danger of a careless shot causing an accident. This afternoon Shasa put Sean into a hide at the near end of the glade, with Michael, who had once again declined to take an active part in the sport, to keep him company and pick up the fallen birds for him.

Then Shasa and Garry set off together for the far side of the grove. Shasa was leading with Garry following him as the game path twisted between the thick yellow trunks of the figs. Their bark was yellow and scaly as the skin of a giant reptile, and the bunches of figs grew directly on the trunks rather than on the tips of the branches. Beneath the trees the undergrowth was tangled and thick, and the game path was so twisted that they could see only a short distance ahead, The light was poor this late in the afternoon, with the branches meeting overhead.

Shasa came around another turn and the lion was in the game path, walking straight towards him only fifty paces away. In the instant he saw it, Shasa realized that it was the man-eater. It was a huge beast, the biggest he had ever seen in a lifetime of hunting. It stood higher than his waist, and its mane was coal-black, long and shaggy and dense, shading to blue grey down the beast's flanks and back.

It was an old lion, its flat face criss-crossed with scars. Its mout was gaping, panting with pain as it limped towards him, and he so, that the spear wound in the shoulder had mortified, the raw ties crimson as a rose petal and the fur around the wound wet and slicke, down where the lion had been licking it. The flies swarmed to th wound, irritating and stinging, and the lion was in a vicious mood sick with age and pain. It lifted its dark and shaggy head and Shas looked into the pale yellow eyes and saw the agony and blind rag, they contained.

'Garry!" he said urgently. 'Walk backwards! Don't run, but ge out of here,' and without looking around he swung the sling of the rifle off his shoulder.

The lion dropped into a crouch, its long tail with the black bust of hair at the tip lashed back and forth like a metronome, as il gathered itself for the charge, and its yellow eyes fastened on Shasa.

a focus for all its rage. ú Shasa knew there would be time for only a single shot, for it would cover the ground between them in a blazing blur of speed. The light was too bad and the range was too far for that single shot to be conclusive, he would let it come in to where there could be no doubt, and the big 300-grain soft-nosed bullet from the Holland and Holland would shatter its skull and blow its brains to a mush.

The lion launched into its charge, keeping low to the earth, snaking in and grunting as it came, gut-shaking bursts of sound through the gaping jaws lined with long yellow fangs. Shasa braced himself and brought up the rifle, but before he could fire, there was the sharp crack of the little Winchester beside him and the lion collapsed in the middle of his charge, going down head first and cartwheeling, flopping over on its back to expose the soft butter-yellow fur of its belly, its limbs stretching and relaxing, the long curved talons in its huge paws slowly retracting into the pads, the pink tongue lolling out of its open jaws, and the rage dying out of those pale yellow eyes. From the tiny bullet hole between its eyes a thin serpent of blood crawled down to dribble from its brow into the dirt beneath it.

In astonishment Shasa lowered his rifle and looked round. Beside him stood Garry, his head at the level of Shasa's lowest rib, the little Winchester still at his shoulder, his face set and deadly pale, and his spectacles glinting in the gloom beneath the trees.

'You killed it,' Shasa said stupidly. 'You stood your ground and killed it." Shasa walked forward slowly and stooped over the carcass of the man-eater. He shook his head in amazement, and then looked back at his son. Garry had not yet lowered the rifle, but he was beginning now to tremble with delayed terror. Shasa dipped his finger into the blood that dribbled from the wound in the man-eater's forehead, then walked back to where Garry stood. He painted the ritual stripes on the boy's forehead and cheeks.

'Now you are a man and I'm proud of you,' he said. Slowly the colour flushed back into Garry's cheeks and his lips stopped trembling, and then his face began to glow. It was an expression of such pride and unutterable joy that Shasa felt his throat close up and tears sting his eyelids.

Every servant came from the camp to view the man-eater and to hear Shasa describe the details of the hunt. Then, by the light of the lanterns, they carried the carcass back. While the skinners went to work, the men sang the song of the hunter in Garry's honour.

Sean was torn between incredulous admiration and deepest envy of his brother, while Michael was fulsome in his praises. Garry refused to wash the dried lion's blood from his face when at last, well after midnight, Shasa finally ordered them to bed. At breakfast he still wore the crusted stripes of blood on his beaming grubby face and Michael read aloud the heroic poem he had written in Garry's honour. It began: With lungs to blast the skies with sound And breath hot as the blacksmith's forge Eyes as yellow as the moon's full round And the lust on human flesh to gorge Shasa hid a smile at the laboured rhyming, and at the end applauded as loudly as the rest of them. After breakfast they all trooped out to watch the skinners dressing out the lion-skin, pegging it fur side down in the shade, scraping away the yellow subcutaneous fat and rubbing in coarse salt and alum.

'Well, I still think it died of a heart attack,' Sean could suppress his envy no longer, and Garry rounded on him furiously.

'We all know what a clever dick you are. But when you shoot your first lion, then you can come and talk to me, smarty pants. All you are good for is a few little old impala!" It was a long speech, delivered in white heat, and Garry never stumbled nor stuttered once. It was the first time Shasa had seen him stand up to Sean's casual bullying, and he waited for Sean to assert his authority. For seconds it hung in the balance, he could see Sean weighing it up, deciding whether to tweak the spikes of hair at Garry's temple or to give him a chestnut down the ribs. He could see also that Garry was ready for it, his fists clenched and his lips set in a pale determined line. Suddenly Sean grinned that charming smile.

'Only kidding,' he announced airily, and turned back to admire the tiny bullet-hole in the skull. 'Wow! Right between the eyes? It was a peace offering.

Garry looked bemused and uncertain. It was the first time that had forced Sean to back down, and he wasn't able immediately grasp that he had succeeded.

Shasa stepped up and put his arm around Garry's shoulders. 'E you know what I'm going to do, champ? I'm going to have the he fully mounted for the wall in your room, with eyes and everythin he said.

For the first time, Shasa was aware that Garry had develope hard little muscles in his shoulders and upper arm. He had alwa, thought him a runt. Perhaps he had never truly looked at the chi] before.

Then suddenly it was over, and the servants were breaking camp an packing the tents and beds on to the trucks, and appallingly th prospect of the return to Weltevreden and school loomed ahead c them. Shasa tried to keep their spirits jaunty with stories and song on the long drive back to H'am Mine but with every mile the boy were more dejected.

On the last day when the hills which the Bushmen call the 'Plac, of All Life' floated on the horizon ahead of them, detached from th earth by the shimmering heat mirage, Shasa asked, 'Have you gentle men decided what you are going to do when you leave school?" I was an attempt to cheer them up, more than a serious enquiry. 'Who about you, Sean?" 'I want to do what we have been doing. I want to be a hunter, or] elephant hunter like great-grand-uncle Sean." 'Splendid? Shasa agreed. 'Only problem I can see is that you are at least sixty years too late." 'Well then,' said Sean, Tll be a soldier – I like shooting things." A shadow passed behind Shasa's eyes before he looked at Michael.

'What about you, Mickey?" 'I want to be a writer. I will work as a newspaper reporter and in my spare time I'll write poetry and great books." 'You'll starve to death, Mickey,' Shasa laughed, and then he swivelled around to Garry who was leaning over the back of the driving seat.

'What about you, champ?" 'I'm going to do what you do, Dad." 'And what is it ! do?" Shasa demanded with interest.

'You are the chairman of Courtney Mining and Finance, and you tell everybody else what to do. That's what I want to be one day, chairman of Courtney Mining and Finance." Shasa stopped smiling and was silent for a moment, studying the child's determined expression, then he said lightly, 'Well then, it looks as though it's up to you and me to support the elephant hunter and the poet." And he ran his hand over Garry's already unruly hair. It no longer required any effort to make an affectionate gesture towards his ugly duckling.

They came singing across the rolling grasslands of Zululand, and they were one hundred strong. All of them were members of the Buffaloes and Hendrick Tabaka had carefully picked them for this special honour guard. They were the best, and all of them were dressed in tribal regalia, feathers and furs and monkey-skin capes, kilts of cow-tails. They carried only fighting-sticks, for the strictest tradition forbade metal weapons of any kind on this day.

At the head of the column Moses Gama and Hendrick Tabaka trotted. They also had set aside their European clothing for the occasion, and of all their men they alone wore leopard-skin cloaks, as was their noble right. Half a mile behind them rose the dust of the cattle herd.

This was the lobola, the marriage price, two hundred head of prime beasts, as had been agreed. The herd-boys were all of them sons of the leading warriors who had ridden in the cattle trucks with their charges during the three-hundred-mile journey from the Witwatersrand. In charge of the herd-boys were Wellington and Raleigh Tabaka and they had detrained the herd at Ladyburg railway station. Like their father, they had discarded their western-style clothing for the occasion and were dressed in loincloths, and armed with their fighting-sticks, and they danced and called to the cattle, keeping them in a tight bunch, both of them excited and filled with self-importance by the task they had been allotted.

Ahead of them rose the high escarpment beyond the little town of Ladyburg. The slopes were covered with dark forests of black wattle and all of it was Courtney land, from where the waterfall smoked with spray in the sunlight around the great curve of hills. All ten thousand acres of it belonged to Lady Anna Courtney, the relict of Sir Garrick Courtney and to Storm Anders, who was the daughter of General Sean Courtney. However, beyond the waterfall lay a hundred choice acres of land which had been left to Sangane Dinizulu in terms of the will of General Sean Courtney, for he had been a faithful and beloved retainer of the Courtney family as had his lath Mbejane Dinizulu before him.

The road descended the escarpment in a series of hairpin bend and when Moses Gama shaded his eyes and stared ahead, he so another band of warriors coming down it to meet them. They we many more in number, perhaps five hundred strong. Like Mose party they were dressed in full regimentals, with plumes of fur an feathers on their heads and war rattles on their wrists and ankle The two parties halted at the foot of the escarpment, and from hundred paces faced each other, though still they sang and stampe and brandished their weapons.

The shields of the Zulus were matched, selected from dapple cowhides of white and chocolate brown, and the brows of the wal riors that carried them were bound with strips of the same dapple hide while their kilts and their plumes were cow-tails of purest whit They made a daunting and warlike show, all big men, their bodie gleaming with sweat in the sunlight, their eyes bloodshot with din and excitement and the pots of millet beer they had already downec Facing them Moses felt his nerves crawl with a trace of the terra that these men had for two hundred years inspired in all the other tribes of Africa, and to suppress it he stamped and sang as loudly a his Buffaloes who pressed closely around him. On this his weddinl day, Moses Gama had put aside all the manners and mores of th west, and slipped back easily into his African origins and his hear pumped and thrilled to the rhythms and the pulse of this horst continent.

From the Zulu ranks opposite him sprang a champion, a magnificent figure of a man with the strip of leopard skin around hi, brow that declared his royal origins. He was one 'of Victorin Dinizulu's elder brothers, and Moses knew he was a qualified lawyel with a large practice at Eshowe, the Zululand capital, but today he was all African, fierce and threatening as he swirled in the giya, the challenge dance.

He leapt and spun and shouted his own praises and those of his family, daring the world, challenging the men who faced him, while behind him his comrades drummed with their sticks on the ravhide shields, and the sound was like distant thunder, the last sound that a million victims had ever heard, the death-knell of Swazi and Xhosa, of Boer and Briton in the days when the impis of Chaka and Dingaan and Cetewayo had swept across the land, from Isandhlawana, the Hill of the Little Hand, where seven hundred British infantry were cut down in one of the worst military reverses that England had ever suffered in Africa, to the 'Place of Weeping' which the Boers named 'Weenen' for their grief for the women and children who died to that same dreadful drum roll when the impis came swarming down across the Tugela river, to a thousand other nameless and forgotten killing grounds where the lesser tribes had perished before the men of Zulu.

At last the Zulu champion staggered back into the ranks, streaked with sweat and dust, his chest heaving and froth upon his lips, and now it was Moses' turn to giya, and he danced out from amongst his Buffaloes, and leapt shoulder-high with his leopard-skins swirling around him. His limbs shone like coal freshly cut from the face, and his eyes and teeth were white as mirrors flashing in the sunlight. His voice rang from the escarpment, magnified by the echoes, and though the men facing him could not understand the words, the force and meaning of them was clear, his haughty disdain evident in every gesture. They growled and pressed forward, while his own Buffaloes were goaded by his example, their blood coming to the boil, ready to rush forward and join battle with their traditional foe, ready to perpetuate the bloody vendetta that had already run a hundred years.

At the very last moment, when violence and inevitable death were only a heartbeat away, and rage was as thick in the air as the static electricity of the wildest summer thunderstorm, Moses Gama stopped dancing abruptly, posing like a heroic statue before them – and so great was the force of his personality, so striking his presence, that the drumming of shields and the growl of battle rage died away.

Into the silence Moses Gama called in the Zulu language. 'I bring the marriage price!" and he held his stick aloft, a signal to the herdboys who followed the marriage party.

Lowing and bawling, adding their dust to the dust of the dancers, the herd was driven forward and immediately the mood of the Zulus changed. For a thousand years, since they had come down from the far north, following the tsetse-fly-free corridors down the continent with their herds, the Nguni peoples from which the Zulu tribe would emerge under the black emperor Chaka, had been cattle men. Their animals were their wealth and their treasure. They loved cattle as other men love women and children. Almost from the day they could walk unaided, the boys tended the herds, living with them in the veld from dawn to dusk of every day, establishing with them a bond and almost mystic communion, protecting them from predators with their very lives, talking to them and handling them and coming to know them completely. It was said that King Chaka knew every individual beast in his royal herds, and that out of a hundred thousand head he would know immediately if one were missing and would ask for it with a complete description, and not hesitate to order his executioners with their knobkerries to dash out the brains of even the youngest herd-boy if there was even a suspicion of his negligence.

So it was a committee of strict and expert judges who put asi the dancing and posturing and boasting, and instead applied the selves to the serious business of appraising.the bride price. Ea animal was dragged from the herd, and amid a buzz of cornroe and speculation and argument, was minutely examined. Its lien and trunk were palpated by dozens of hands simultaneously, its ja were forced open to expose the teeth and tongue, its head twisted that its ears and nostrils could be peered into, its udders stroked or weighed in the palm, its tail lifted to estimate its calf-bearing histo: and potential. Then finally, almost reluctantly, each animal w declared acceptable by old Sangane Dinizulu himself, the father the bride. No matter how hard they tried, they could find no groun( for rejecting a single animal. The Ovambo and the Xhosa love the cattle every bit as much as the Zulu, and are as expert in their judgement. Moses and Hendrick had exercised all their skills in makin their selection, for pride and honour were at stake.

It took many hours for every one of the two hundred animals to b examined while the bridegroom's party, still keeping aloof from th Zulus, squatted in the short grass on the side of the road, pretendin indifference to the proceedings. The sun was hot and the dust aggra voted the men's thirst, but no refreshment was offered while th, scrutiny went on.

Then at last Sangane Dinizulu, his silver pate shining in the sun but his body still upright and regal, called his herd-boys. JosepI Dinizulu came forward. As the senior herdsman, the old man gay the herd into his care. Although his exhortations were severe and he scowled most ferociously, the old man's affection for his youngesl son was ill-concealed, as was his delight at the quality of the stock which made up the marriage price. So when he turned and for the first time greeted his future son-in-law, he was having great difficulty in suppressing his smiles, they kept shooting out like beams of sunlight through cloud holes and were just as swiftly extinguished.

With dignity he embraced Moses Gama, and though he was a tall man, he had to reach up to. do so. Then he stepped back and clapped his hands, ' calling to the small party of young women who were sitting a little way off.

Now they rose and helped each other to settle the enormous clay pots of beer upon each other's heads. Then they formed a line and came forward, singing and undulating their hips, although their heads remained steady and not a drop slopped over the rims of the pots. They were all unmarried girls, none of them wore the high clay headdress or the matron's leather cloak, and above their short beaded skirts their bodies were oiled and stark naked so their pert young breasts joggled and bounced to the rhythm of the song of welcome and the wedding guests murmured and smiled appreciatively.

Although deep down old Sangane Dinizulu disapproved of marriage outside the tribe of Zulu, the lobola had been good and his future son-in-law was, by all accounts, a man of stature and importance.

None could reasonably object to suitors of this calibre, and as there might be others like him in the bridegroom's party, Sangane was not loath to show off his wares.

The girls knelt in front of the guests, hanging their heads and averting their eyes shyly. Giggling in response to the knowing looks and sly sallies of the men, they proffered the brimming beer-pots, and then withdrew swinging their hips so their skirts swirled up and pert young buttocks peeked provocatively from beneath them.

The beer-pots were so heavy that they required both hands to lift, and when they were lowered, there were thick white moustaches on the upper lips of the guests. Noisily they licked them away and the laughter became more relaxed and friendly.

When the beer-pots were empty, Sangane Dinizulu stood before them and made a short speech of welcome. Then they formed up again and started up the road that climbed the escarpment, but now Zulu ran shoulder to shoulder with Ovambo and Xhosa. Moses Gama had never believed he would see that happen. It was a beginning, he thought, a fine beginning, but there remained to be scaled a range of endeavour as high as the peaks of the Drakensberg mountains which rose out of the blue distances before them as they topped the escarpment.

Sangane Dinizulu had set the pace up the slope, although he must be all of seventy years of age, and now he led the cavalcade of men and animals down to his kraal. It was sited on a grassy slope above the river. The huts of his many wives were arranged in a circle, beehives of smooth thatch each with an entrance so low that a man must stoop to enter. In the centre of the circle was the old man's hut.

It also was a perfect beehive, but much grander than the others, and the thatch had been plaited into intricate patterns. It was the home of a chieftain of Zulu, a son of the heavens.

On the grassy slope was assembled a multitude, a thousand or more of the most important men of the tribe with all their senior wives. Many of them had travelled for days to be here, and they squatted in clumps and clusters down the slope, each chieftain surrounded by his own retainers.

When the bridegroom's party came over the crest, they rose as one man, shouting their greetings and drumming their shields, and Sangane Dinizulu led them down to the entrance of the kraal where he paused and spread his arms for silence. The wedding guests settled down again comfortably in the grass. Only the chieftains sat on their carved stools of office, and while the young girls carried the beer pots amongst them, Sangane Dinizulu made his wedding speech.

First he related the history of the tribe, and particularly of hi own clan of Dinizulu. He recited their battle honours and the valian deeds of his ancestors. These were many and it took a long time, bu the guests were well content for the black beer-pots were replenishe( as swiftly as they were emptied, and although the old ones knew tN history of the tribe as intimately as did Sangane Dinizulu, it repetition gave them endless satisfaction, as though it were an anchol in the restless sea of life. As long as the history and the custom persisted, the tribe was secure.

At last Sangane Dinizulu was done, and in a voice that was hoarse and scratchy, he ended, 'There are those amongst you who have queried the wisdom of a daughter of Zulu marrying with a man all another tribe. I respect these views, for I also have been consumed by doubts and have pondered long and seriously." Now the older heads in the congregation were nodding, and a few hostile glances were shot at the bridegroom's party, but Sangane Dinizulu went on.

'I had these same doubts when my daughter asked my permission to leave the hut of her mother and journey to goldi, the place of gold, and to work in the great hospital at Baragwanath. Now I am persuaded that what she has done was right and proper. She is a daughter of which an old man can be proud. She is a woman of the future." He faced his peers calmly and resolutely, seeing the doubt in their eyes, but ignoring it.

'The man who will be her husband is not of Zulu – but he also is a man of the future. Most of you have heard his name. You know him as a man of force and power. I am persuaded that by giving him my daughter in marriage I am once again doing what is right – for my daughter and for the tribe." When the old man sat down' on his stool they were silent, serious and withdrawn, and they looked uneasily towards the bridegroom where he squatted at the head of his party.

Moses Gama rose to his feet, and strode up the slope from where he could look down upon them. He was silhouetted against the sky, his height was emphasized and the royal leopard skin declared his lineage.

'Oh people of Zulu, I greet you." That deep thrilling voice reached to everyone of them, carrying clearly in the silence, and they stirred and murmured with surprise as they realized that he was speaking fluent Zulu.

'I have come to take one of the most comely daughters of your tribe, but as part of the marriage price I bring you a dream and a promise,' he began, and they were attentive but puzzled. Slowly the mood changed as he went on to set out his vision for them, a unification of the tribes and a sloughing off of the white domination under which they had existed for three hundred years. The older men became more and more uneasy as they listened, they shook their heads and exchanged angry glances, some of them muttered aloud, an unusual discourtesy towards an important guest, but what he was suggesting was a destruction of the old ways, a denial of the customs and orders of society which had held together the fabric of their lives. In its place he was offering something strange and untested, a world turned upside down, a chaos in which old values and proven codes were discarded with nothing to replace them except wild words – and like all old men, they were afraid of change.

With the younger men it was different. They listened, and his words warmed them like the flames of the camp fire in the frosty winter night. One of them listened more intently than all the rest.