Текст книги "Eagle in the Sky"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

the line of broken glass, and he dragged it down, sawing it desperately

across the edge.

Akkers screamed and his strangling grip relaxed, back and forth David

sawed the arm, slashing and ripping through skin and fat and flesh,

opening a wound like a ragged-petalled rose, hacking down into the

nerves and arteries and sinews so that the knife dropped from the

lifeless fingers and Akkers screamed like a woman.

David broke from him and shoved him away.  Akkers fell to his knees

still screaming and David clutched at his own throat massaging the

bruised flesh, gasping for breath and feeling the flow of fresh blood to

his brain.

God Jesus, I'm dying.  I'm bleeding to death.  Oh sweet Jesus, help me!

screamed Akkers, holding the mutilated arm to his belly.  Help me, oh

God, don't let me die.

Save me, Jesus, save me!  Blood was streaming and spurting from the arm,

flooding the front of his trousers.  As he screamed his teeth fell from

his mouth, leaving it a dark and empty cave in the palely glistening

face.

You've killed me.  I'll bleed to death!  he screamed at David, thrusting

his face towards David.  You've got to save me, don't let me die.  David

pushed himself away from the truck and took two running steps towards

the kneeling man, then he swung his right leg and his whole body into a

flying kick that took Akkers cleanly under the chin and snapped his head

back.

He went over backwards and lay still and quiet, and David stood over

him, sobbing and gasping for breath.

For purposes of sentence Mr. justice Barnard of the Transvaal division

of the Supreme Court took into consideration four previous convictions,

two under the wildlife conservation act, one for aggravated assault, and

the fourth for assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

He found Johan Akkers guilty of twelve counts under the Wildlife

Conservation Act, but considered these as one when sentencing him to

three years at hard labour without option of a fine, and confiscation of

firearms and motor vehicles used in commission of these offences.

He found him guilty of one count of aggravated assault, and sentenced

him to three years at hard labour without option.

The prosecutor altered one charge from attempted murder to assault with

intent to do grievous bodily harm.  He was found guilty as charged on

this count, and the sentence was five years imprisonment without option.

On the final charge of murder he was found guilty and justice Barnard

said in open court; In considering sentence of death on this charge, I

was obliged to take into account the fact that the accused was acting

like an animal in a trap, and I am satisfied that there was no element

of premeditation The sentence was eighteen years imprisonment, and all

sentences were to run consecutively.  They were all confirmed on appeal.

As Conrad Berg said from his hospital bed with one heavily plastered leg

in traction, and a glass of Old Buck gin in his hand, Well, for the next

twenty-eight years we don't have to worry about that bastard, I beg your

pardon, Mrs. Morgan.  Twenty-nine years, dear, Jane Berg corrected him

firmly.

In July the American edition of A Place of Our Oven was published, and

it dropped immediately into that hungry and bottomless pool of

indifference wherein so many good books drown.  It left not a sign, not

a ripple of its passing.

Bobby Dugan, Debra's new literary agent in America, wrote to say how

sorry he was, and how disappointed.

He had expected at least some sort of critical notice to be taken of the

publication.

David took it as a personal and direct insult.  He ranted and stormed

about the estate for a week, and it seemed that at one stage he might

actually journey to America to commit a physical violence upon that

country, a sort of one-man Vietnam in reverse.

They must be stupid, he protested.  It's the finest book ever written.

Oh, David!  Debra protested modestly.

It is!  And I'd love to go over there and rub their noses in it, and

Debra imagined the doors of editorial offices all over New York being

kicked open, and literary reviewers fleeing panic-stricken, jumping out

of skyscraper-windows or locking themselves in the women's toilets to

evade David's wrath.

David, my darling, you are wonderful for me, she giggled with delight,

but it had hurt.  It had hurt very badly.  She felt the flame of her

urge to write wane and flutter in the chill winds of rejection.

Now when she sat at her desk with the microphone at her lips, the words

no longer tumbled and fought to escape, and the ideas no longer jostled

each other.  Where before she had seen things happening as though she

were watching a play, seen her characters laugh and cry and sing, now

there was only the dark cloud banks rolling across her eyes, unrelieved

by colour or form.

For hours at a time she might sit at her desk and listen to the birds in

the garden below the window.

David sensed her despair, and he tried to help her through it.  When the

hours at the desk proved fruitless he would insist she leave it and come

with him along the new fence lines, or to fish for the big blue

Mozambique bream.

in the deep water of the pools.

Now that she had completely learned the layout of the house and its

immediate environs, David began to teach her to find her way at large.

Each day they would walk down to the pools and Debra learned her

landmarks along the track; she would grope for them with the carved

walking-stick David had given her.  Zulu soon realized his role in these

expeditions, and it was David's idea to clip a tiny silver bell on to

his collar so that Debra could follow him more readily.  Soon she could

venture out without David, merely calling her destination to Zulu and

checking him against her own landmarks.

David was busy at this time with the removal of Conrad's game fence, as

he was still laid up with the leg, and with building his own fences to

enclose the three vulnerable boundaries of Jabulani.  In addition there

was a force of African rangers to recruit and train in their duties.

David designed uniforms for them, and built outposts for them at all the

main access points to the estate.

He flew into Nelspruit at regular intervals to consult Conrad Berg on

these arrangements, and it was at his suggestion that David began a

water survey of the estate.

He wanted surface water on the areas of Jabulani that were remote from

the pools, and he began studying the feasibility of building catchment

dams of sinking boreholes.  His days were full and active, and he became

hard and lean and sunbrowned.  Yet always there were many hours spent in

Debra's company.

The 35-mm.  colour slides that David had taken of the buffalo herd

before Johan Akkers had decimated it, were returned by the processing

laboratory and they were hopelessly inadequate.  The huge animals seemed

to be standing on the horizon, and the ox-peckers on their bodies were

tiny grey specks.  This failure spurred David, and he returned from one

trip to Nelspruit with a

600-mm.  telescopic lens.

While Debra was meant to be working, David set up his camera beside her

and photographed the birds through her open window.  The first results

were mixed.

Out of thirty-six exposures, thirty-five could be thrown away, but one

was beautiful, a grey-headed bush shrike at the moment of flight, poised

on spread wings with the sunlight catching his vivid plumage and his

sparkling eye.

David was hooked by the photography bug, and there were more lenses and

cameras and tripods, until Debra protested that it was a hobby which was

completely visual, and from which she was excluded.

David had one of his inspirations of genius.  He sent away for pressings

of June Stannard's bird song recordings, and Debra was enchanted.  She

listened to them intently, her whole face lighting with pleasure when

she recognized a familiar call.

From there it was a natural step for her to attempt to make her own bird

recordings, which included the tinkle of Zulu's silver bell, the buzz of

David's Land Rover, the voices of the servants arguing in the kitchen

yard, and faintly, very faintly, the chatter of a glossy starling.

It's no damned good, Debra complained bitterly I wonder how she got hers

so clear and close David did some reading, and built a parabolic

reflector for her.  it did not look particularly lovely, but it worked.

Aimed at a sound source it gathered and directed the sound waves into

the microphone.

From the window of Debra's study they became more adventurous and moved

out.  He built permanent and comfortable hides beside the drinking

places at the pools, and when his rangers reported a nesting site of an

interesting bird species, they would build temporary blinds of thatch

and canvas, sometimes on tall stilts where David and Debra spent many

silent and enjoyable hours together, shooting film and catching sound.

Even Zulu learned to he still and silent with his bell removed on these

occasions.

Slowly they had begun to build up a library of photographs and

recordings of a professional standard, until at last David plucked up

sufficient courage to send to African Wild Life Magazine a selection of

a dozen of his best slides.  Two weeks later, he received a letter of

acceptance, with a cheque for a hundred dollars.  This payment

represented a return of approximately one twentieth of one percent of

his capital outlay on equipment.  David was ecstatic, and Debra's

pleasure almost as great as his.  They drank two bottles of Veuve

Clicquot for dinner, and under the spell of excitement and champagne

their love-making that night was particularly inventive.

When David's photographs were published in Wild Life accompanied with

Debra's text, they reaped an unexpected harvest of letters from persons

of similar interest all over the world, and a request from the editors

for a full-length, illustrated article on Jabulani, and the Morgans

plans for turning it into a game sanctuary.

Debra made a lovely model for David's photographs that he compiled for

the article, and she also worked with care on the text, while David fed

her ideas and criticism.

Debra's new book lay abandoned, but her disappointment was forgotten in

the pleasure of working together.

Their correspondence with other conservationists provided them with

sufficient intellectual stimulus, and the occasional company of Conrad

Berg and Jane satisfied their need for human contact.  They were still

both sensitive about being with other people, and this way they could

avoid it.

The Wild Life article was almost complete and ready for postin& when a

letter arrived from Bobby Dugan in New York.  The editor of Cosmopolitan

magazine had chanced upon one of the few copies of A Place of Our Own in

circulation.  She had liked it, and the magazine was considering

serialization of the book, possibly linked with a feature'article on

Debra.  Bobby wanted Debra to let him have a selection of photographs of

herself, and four thousand words of autobiographical notes.

The photographs were there, ready to go to Wild Life, and Debra ran

through the four thousand words in three hours with David making

suggestions, some helpful and some bawdy.

They sent off the tape and pictures in the same post as the article to

Wild Life.  For nearly a month they heard nothing more about it and then

something happened to drive it from their minds.

They were in the small thatch and daub hide beside the main pool,

sitting quietly and companionably during a lull in the evening activity.

David had his camera tripod set up in one of the viewing windows and

Debra's reflector was raised above the roof of the hide, daubed with

camouflage paint and operated by a handle above her head.

The water was still and black, except where a surface feeding bream was

rising near the far reed banks.  A flock of laughing doves was lining up

with a chattering troop of spotted guinea fowl at the water's edge,

sipping water and then pointing their beaks to the sky as they let it

run down their throats.

Suddenly David took her wrist as a cautionary signal, and by the

intensity of his grip she knew that he had seen something unusual and

she leaned close against him so that she could hear his whispered

descriptions, and with her right hand she switched on the recorder and

then reached up to aim the reflector.

A herd of the rare and shy nyala antelope were approaching the drinking

place timidly, clinging until the last possible moment to the security

of the forest.

Their ears were spread, and their nostrils quivered and sucked at the

air, huge dark eyes glowing like lamps in the gloom.

There were nine hornless females, delicate chestnut in colour, striped

with white, dainty-stepping and suspicious, as they followed the two

herd bulls.  These were so dissimilar from their females as though to

belong to a different species.  Purplish black, and shaggy with a rough

mane extending from between the ears to the crupper.  Their horns were

thick and cork screwed, tipped with cream, and between their eyes was a

vivid white chevron marking.

Advancing only a step at a time, and then pausing to stare with the

limitless patience of the wild, searching for a hint of danger, they

came slowly down the bank.

They passed the hide so closely that David was afraid to press the

trigger of his camera lest the click of the shutter frighten them away.

He and Debra sat frozen as they reached the water; Debra smiled happily

as she picked up the soft snort with which the -lead bull blew the

surface before drinkin& and the liquid slurping with which he drew his

first mouthful.

Once they were all drinking, David aimed and focused with care, but at

the click of the shutter the bull nearest him leapt about and uttered a

hoarse, throbbing alarm bark.  Instantly the entire herd whirled and

raced away like pale ghosts through the dark trees.

I got it!  I got it!  exulted Debra.  Wow!  He was so close, he nearly

burst my eardrums.  The excitement on Jabulani was feverish.  Nyala

antelope had never been seen on the estate before, not even in David's

father's time, and all steps were taken to encourage them to remain. The

pools were immediately placed out of bounds to all the rangers and

servants, lest the human presence frighten the herd off before they had

a chance to settle down and stabilize their territory.

Conrad Berg arrived, still using a stick and limping heavily as he would

for the rest of his life.  From the hide he watched the herd with David

and Debra, and then back at the homestead he sat before the log fire,

eating prime beef steak and drinking Old Buck while he gave his opinion.

They aren't from the Park, I shouldn't think.  I would have recognized a

big old bull like that if I'd ever seen him before, they have probably

sneaked in from one of the other estates, you haven't got the south

fence up yet, have you?  'Not yet.  Well, that's where they have moved

from, probably sick of being stared at by all the tourists.  Come up

here for a bit of peace.  He took a swallow of his gin.  You're getting

a nice bit of stuff together here, Davey, another few years and it will

be a real show-place.  Have you got any plans for visitors, you could

make a good thing out of this place, like they have at Mala-Mala.

Five-star safaris at economy prices – Connie, I'm just too damn selfish

to want to share this with anybody else.

The distractions and the time had given Debra an opportunity to recover

from the American failure of A Place of Our Own, and one morning she sat

down at her desk and began working again on her second novel.

That evening she told David: One of the blocks I have had is that I

hadn't a name for it.  It's like a baby, you have to give it a name or

it's not really a person.  'You have got a name for it?  he asked.  Yes.

'Would you like to tell me?

She hesitated, shy at saying it to some other person for the first time.

I thought I'd call it, A Bright and Holy Thing, she said, and he thought

about it for a few moments, repeating it softly, You like it?  she asked

anxiously.  It's great, he said.  I like it.  I really do.  With Debra

once more busy on her novel it seemed each day was too short for the

love and laughter and industry which filled it.

The call came through while David and Debra were sitting around the

barbecue in the front garden.  David ran up to the house when the

telephone bell insisted.

Miss Mordecai?  David was puzzled, the name was vaguely familiar.

Yes.  I have a person-to-person call from New York, for Miss Debra

Mordecai, the operator repeated impatiently, and David realized who she

was talking about.

She'll take it, he said, and yelled for Debra.  It was Bobby Dugan, and

the first time she had heard his voice.  Wonder girl, he shouted over

the line.  Sit down, so you don't fall down.  Big Daddy has got news for

you that will blow your mind!  Cosmopolitan ran the article on you two

weeks ago.  They did you real proud, darling, full-page photograph, God,

you looked good enough to eat, Debra laughed nervously and signalled

David to put his ear against hers to listen.

the mag hit the stands Saturday, and Monday morning was a riot at the

book stores.  They were beating the doors down.  You've caught the

imagination of everybody here, darling.

They sold seventeen thousand hardback in five days, you jumped straight

into the number five slot on the New York Times bestseller list, it's a

freak, a phenomenon, a mad crazy runner, darling, we are going to sell

half a million copies of this book standing on our heads.  All the big

papers and mags are screaming for review copies, they've lost the ones

we sent them three months ago.  Doubleday are reprinting fifty thousand,

and I told them they were crazy, it should have been a hundred thousand,

it's only just starting next week will see the west coast catch fire and

they'll be screaming for copies across the whole country There was much

more, Bobby Dugan riding high, shouting his plans and his hopes, while

Debra laughed weakly and kept saying, No!  I can't believe it!  and It's

not true!  They drank three bottles of Veuve Clicquot that night, and a

little before midnight Debra fell pregnant to David Morgan.

Miss Mordecai combines superb use of language and a sure literary touch

with the readability of a popular bestseller, said the New York Times.

Who says good literature has to be dull?  asked Time, Debra Mordecai's

talent burns like a clean white flame.  'Miss Mordecai takes you by the

throat, slams you against the wall, throws you on the floor and kicks

you in the guts.  She leaves you as shaken and weak as if you had been

in a car smash, added the Free Press.

Proudly David presented Conrad Berg with a signed copy of A Place of Our

Own.  Conrad had finally been prevailed upon to drop the Mrs. Morgan and

call Debra by her given name.  He was so impressed with the book that he

had an immediate relapse.

How do you think of those things, Mrs. Morgan?  'he asked with awe.

Debra, Debra prompted him.

She doesn't think of them, Jane Berg explained helpfully.  It just comes

to her, it's called inspiration.  Bobby Dugan was correct, they had to

reprint another fifty thousand copies.

It seemed as though the fates, ashamed of the cruel pranks they had

played upon them, were determined to shower Debra and David with gifts.

As Debra sat at her olive-wood table, growing daily bigger with her

child, once again the words flowed as strongly and as clearly as the

spring waters of the String of Pearls.  However, there was still time to

help David with the illustrated publication he was compiling on the

birds of prey of the bushveld, and to accompany him on the daily

expeditions to different areas of Jabulani, and to plan the furnishings

and the layout of the empty nursery.

Conrad Berg came to her secretly to enlist her aid in his plan to have

David nominated to the Board of the National Parks Committee.  They

discussed it in length and great detail.  A seat on the Board carried

prestige and was usually reserved for men of greater age and influence

than David.

However, Conrad was confident that the dignity of the Morgan name

combined with David's wealth, ownership of Jabulani, demonstrated

interest in conservation and his ability to devote much time to the

affairs of the Board would prevail.

Yes, Debra decided.  It will be good for him to meet people and get out

a little more.  We are in danger of becoming recluses here.  Will he do

it?  I Don't worry, Debra assured him.  I'll see to it.  Debra was

right. After the initial uneasiness of the first meeting of the Board,

and once the other members became accustomed to that dreadful face and

realized that behind it was a warm and forceful person, David gathered

increasing confidence with each subsequent Journey to Pretoria where the

Board met.  Debra would fly up with him and while they were at their

deliberations she and Jane Berg shopped for the baby and the other items

of luxury and necessity that were not readily come by in Nelspruit.

However, by November Debra was carrying low and she felt too big and

uncomfortable to make the long flight in the cockpit of the Navajo,

especially as the rains were about to break and the air was turbulent

with storm cloud and static and heavy thermals.  It would be a bumpy

trip, and she was deeply involved in the last chapters of the new book.

I'll be perfectly all right here, she insisted.  I've got a telephone

and I have also got six game rangers, four servants and a fierce hound

to guard me.

David argued and protested for five days before the meeting and agreed

only after he had worked out a timetable.

If I leave here before dawn I'll be at the meeting by nine, we'll be

finished by three and I can be back here by six-thirty at the latest, he

muttered.  If it wasn't the budget and financial affairs vote, I would

cut it, tell them I was sick.  'It's important, darling.  You go.  'You

sure now? 'I won't even notice you're not here.  Don't get too carried

away by it, he told her ruefully.

J might stay just to punish you.  In the dawn the thunderheads were the

colour of wine and flame and ripe fruit, turning and magnificent,

towering high above the tiny aircraft, high above the utmost ceiling of

which it was capable.

David flew the corridors of open sky alone and at peace, wrapped in the

euphoria of flight which never failed for him.  He altered course at

intervals to avoid the mountainous upsurges of cloud; within them lurked

death and disaster, great winds that would tear the wings from his

machine and send the pieces whirling on high, up into the heights where

a man would perish from lack of oxygen.

He landed at Grand Central where a hire car was waiting for him, and

spent the journey into Pretoria reading through the morning papers.  It

was only when he saw the meteorological prediction of a storm front

moving in steadily from the Mozambique channel that he felt a little

uneasy.

Before he entered the conference-room he asked the receptionist to place

a telephone call to Jabulani.

Two-hour delay, Mr. Morgan.  Okay, call me when it comes through When

they broke for lunch he asked her again.

What happened to my call?

I'm sorry, Mr. Morgan.  I was going to tell you.  The lines are down.

They are having very heavy rainfull in the low veld.  His vague

uneasiness became mild alarm.

Would you call the meteorological office for me, please?

The weather was down solid.  From Barberton to Mpunda Milia and from

Lourenro Marques to Machadodorp, the rain was heavy and unrelenting. The

cloud ceiling was above twenty thousand feet and it was right down on

the ground.  The Navajo had no oxygen or electronic navigational

equipment.

How long?  David demanded of the meteorological officer.  How long until

it clears?

Hard to tell, sir.  Two or three days.

Damn!  DAmn!  said David bitterly, and went down to the canteen on the

ground floor of the government building.  Conrad Berg was at a corner

table with two other members of the Board, but when he saw David he

jumped up and limped heavily but urgently across the room.

David, he took his arm, and his round face was deadly serious.  I've

just heard, Johann Akkers broke jail last night.  He killed a guard and

got clean away.

He's been loose for seventeen hours.

David stared at him, unable to speak with the shock of it.

Is Debra alone?

David nodded, his face stiff with scar tissue, but his eyes dark and

afraid.

You'd better fly down right away to be with her.  'The weather, they've

grounded all aircraft in the area.  Use my truck!  said Conrad urgently.

I need something faster than that.  Do you want me to come with you?

No, said David.  If you aren't there this afternoon, they won't approve

the new fencing allocations.  I'll go on my own.

Debra was working at her desk when she heard the wind coming.  She

switched off her tape recorder and went out on to the veranda with the

dog following her closely.

She stood listening, not sure of what she was hearing.

It was a soughing and sighing, a far-off rushing like that of a wave

upon a pebble beach.

The dog pressed against her leg and she squatted beside him, placing one

arm around his neck, listening to the gathering rush of the wind,

hearing the roar of it building up swiftly, the branches of the morula

forest beginning to thrash and rattle.

Zulu whimpered, and she hugged him a little closer.

There, boy.  Gently.  Gently, she whispered and the wind struck in a

mighty squalling blast, crashing through the treetops, tearing and

cracking the upper branches.

It banged into the insect screen of the veranda with a snap like a

mainsail filling, and unsecured windows and doors slammed like cannon

shots.

Debra sprang up and ran back into her workroom, the window was swinging

and slamming, dust and debris boiling in through it.  She put her

shoulder to it, closing it and securing the latch, then she ran to do

the same to the other windows and bumped into one of the house servants.

Between them they battened down all the doors and windows.  Madam, the

rain will come now.  Very much rain.  'Go to your families now, 'Debra

told them.  The dinner, madam?  Don't worry, I'll make that, and

thankfully they streamed away through the swirling dust to their

hutments beyond the kopje.

The wind blew for fifteen minutes, and Debra stood by the wire screen

and felt it tugging and whipping her body.  Its wildness was infectious,

and she laughed aloud, elated and excited.

Then suddenly the wind was passed, as swiftly as it had come, and she

heard it tearing and clawing its way over the hills above the pools.

In the utter silence that followed the whole world waited, tensed for

the next onslaught of the elements.

Debra felt the cold, the sudden fall in temperature as though the door

to a great ice-box had opened and she hugged her arms and shivered; she

could not see the dark cloud banks that rolled across Jabulani, but

somehow she sensed their menace and their majesty in the coldness that

swamped her.

The first lightning bolt struck with a crackling electric explosion that

seemed to singe the air about her, and Debra was taken so unawares that

she cried out aloud.  The thunder broke, and seemed to shake the sky and

rock the earth's very foundations.

Debra turned and groped her way back into the house, locking herself

into her room, but walls could not diminish the fury of the rain when it

came.  It drummed and roared and deafened, battering the window panes,

and striking the walls and doors, pouring through the screen to flood

the veranda.

As overpowering as was the rainstorm, yet it was the lightning and the

thunder that racked Debra's nerves.

She could not steel herself for each mighty crack and roar.  Each one

caught her off balance, and it seemed that they were aimed directly at

her.

She crouched on her day bed, clinging to the soft warm body of the dog

for a little comfort.  She wished she had not allowed the servants to

leave, and she thought that her nerve might crack altogether under the

bombardment.

Finally she could stand it no longer.  She groped her way into the

living-room.  In her distress she had almost lost her way about her own

home, but she found the telephone and lifted it to her ear.

Immediately she knew that it was dead, there was no tone to it but she

cranked the handle wildly, calling desperately into the mouthpiece,

until finally she let it fall and dangle on its cord.

She began to sob as she stumbled back to her workroom, hugging the child

in her big belly, and she fell upon the day bed and covered her ears

with both hands.

Stop it, she screamed.  Stop it, oh please God, make it stop.

The new national highway as far as the coal-mining town of Witbank was

broad and smooth, six lanes of traffic, and David eased the hired

Pontiac into the fast lane and went flat, keeping his foot pressed down

hard.

She peaked out at a hundred and thirty miles an hour, and she sat so

solid upon the road that he hardly needed to drive her.  His mind was

free to play with horror stories, and to remember Johan Akkers face as

he stood in the dock glaring across the Court Room at them.  The

deep-set muddy eyes, and the mouth working as though he were about to

spit.  As the warders had led him to the stairs down to the cells he had

pulled free and shouted back.

I'm going to get you, Scarface, he giggled.  If I have to wait

twenty-nine years, I'm going to get you, and they took him away.

After Witbank the road narrowed.  There was heavy traffic and the bends

had dangerous camber and deceptive gradients.

David was able to concentrate on keeping the big car on the road, and to

drive the phantoms from his mind.

He took the Lyndenburg turn off, cutting the corner of the triangle, and

the traffic thinned out to an occasional truck.  He was able to go flat

out again, and race along the edge of the high escarpment.  Then

suddenly the road turned and began its plunge down into the low veld.

When he emerged from the Erasmus tunnel David ran into the rain.  it was

a solid grey bank of water that filled the air and buffeted the body of

the Pontiac.  It flooded the road, so David had difficulty following its