Текст книги "A Time to Die"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 38 страниц)

"Ouch!" she said. "That's damned sore."

"Okay." He nodded. "It's the medial ligament. I don't think you've torn it, it would be more painful if you had. Probably just sprained it."

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"Three days," he replied. "You won't be walking on it for at least three days."

He put his arm around her shoulders. "Can you stand up?" he asked. When she nodded, he helped her to her feet. She leaned against him, standing on her good leg.

"Try putting a little weight on it," he said.

immediately she exclaimed with pain. "No, I can't use it."

He stopped, picked her up in his arms as though she were a child, and carried her back to the village. She was surprised by his strength, and although her knee was beginning to throb, she relaxed in his arms. It was a good feeling. Papa had carried her like this when she was a little girl, and she had to resist the urge to lay her head against Sean's shoulder.

When they reached the village, he set her down in the clearing, and Matatu ran to fetch his pack. Her injury had diverted Riccardo's attention from his own troubles, and he came to fuss over his little girl in a way which ordinarily would have annoyed her.

Now she submitted to it, thankful for his revived animation and attention.

Sean strapped the knee with an elastic bandage from his first aid kit and gave her an anti inflammatory tablet to swallow with hot tea.

"That's about all we can do for it," he told her, and sat back.

"Only thing that will fix it is time.

"Why did you say three days?"

"It takes that long. I've seen a hundred knees just like yours, except that they were usually a lot more hairy and not nearly as pretty. "That's a compliment." She raised an eyebrow. "You're getting soft, Colonel."

"Part of the treatment, and of course totally insincere," he assured her with a grin. "The only question now, ducky, is what on earth are we going to do with you?"

"Leave me here," she said promptly.

"Are you out of your mind?" he asked. Riccardo backed him up immediately.

"That's out of the question."

"Look at it this way," she reasoned calmly. "I can't move for three days, by which time your elephant will be long gone, Papa."

She held up her hand to forestall his argument. "We can't go back.

You can't carry me. I can't walk. We would have to sit here anyway."

"We can't leave you alone. Don't be ridiculous."

"No," she agreed. "But you can leave someone to look after me while you go on after Tukutela."

"No." Riccardo shook his head.

"Sean," she appealed to him. "Make him see that it's the sensible thing to do."

He stared at her, and the admiration she saw in his gaze gave her a full warm feeling in her chest.

"Damn it" he said softly. "You're all right."

"Tell him it'll only be for a few days, Sean. We all know how much that elephant means to Papa. I want to give it to him as She almost said "last gift," but then she changed it to "as MY my special gift to him."

"I can't accept it, tesoro. " Riccardo's voice was gruff but blurred, and he lowered his head to hide his feelings.

"Make him go, Sean," Claudia insisted, gripping his forearm firmly. "Tell him I'll be as safe here with Job to look after me as I would be in the swamp with the two of you."

"She just may have a point, Capo," Sean said. "But, hell, it's not my business. It's between the two of you."

"Will you leave us alone, Sean?" Claudia asked. Without waiting for a reply, she turned to her father. "Come and sit here next to me, Papa." She patted the ground beside her. Sean stood up and walked away, leaving them together in the gathering darkness.

He went to sit beside Job. They sat in the companionable silence of old friends, drinking tea and smoking one of Sean's last cheroots, passing it back and forth between them.

An hour passed. It was dark before Riccardo came to where the two of them sat. he stood over them and his voice was rough and drawn with sadness.

"All right, Sean," he said. "She has convinced me to do as she wants. Will you make the arrangements to go on with the hunt first thing tomorrow morning? And, Job, will you stay here and look after my little girl for me?"

"I'll look after her for you, sir," he agreed. "You just go kill that elephant. We'll be here when you come back."

Working in the moonlight, they moved out of the burned-out village and built a fly camp a few hundred meters back in the forest.

They made a lean-to shelter for Claudia and under it placed a mattress of cut grass. Sean left the medical kit and most of their remaining provisions in the shelter with her. He detailed both Job and Dedan to remain with Claudia. Job would keep the light 30/06 rifle with the fiberglass stock, and Dedan had his ax and skinning knife.

"Send Dedan back to keep an eye on the isthmus. Any Frelimo or Renamo patrols will come that way. At the first sign of trouble, get the girl into the swamp and hide out on one of the islands."

Sean gave Job his final orders, then sauntered across to where Riccardo was taking leave of his daughter.

"Are you ready, Capo?"

Riccardo stood up quickly and walked away from Claudia without looking back.

"Don't get into any more trouble," Sean told her.

"You neither." She looked up at him. "And Sean, take care of Papa for me."

He squatted down in front of her and offered her his hand as he would have if she had been a man. He tried to think of something witty to say but could not.

"Okay, then?" he asked instead.

"Okay, then," she agreed. He stood up and walked down to the edge of the swamp where Matatu, Pumula, and Riccardo were waiting for him beside the dugout canoe.

Matatu took up his position in the bow of the frail craft, while Sean and Riccardo were amidships, sitting on their depleted packs and holding their rifles across their laps. Pumula stood in the stern with one of the freshly cut punt poles and propelled the dugout in response to Matatu's hand signals.

Within seconds of pushing off from the bank they were surrounded by a high palisade of papyrus and their view was restricted to the wall of reeds and the small patch of lemon-yellow dawn sky overhead. As they passed, the sharp, pointed leaves of the reeds dashed into their faces, threatening their eyes, and the webs the tiny swamp spiders had spun between the stems of the reeds wrapped over their faces, sticky and irritating. The night's clammy chill hung over the swamp, and when they came out suddenly into an open lagoon, there was a heavy mist lying over the surface and a flock of whistling ducks alarmed the dawn with the clatter of their wings.

The dugout was heavily overloaded with the four men aboard.

There was only an inch or so of freeboard, and if any one of them moved suddenly, water slopped on board. They were forced to use the tea billy to bail almost continually, but Matatu signaled them on.

The sun rose above the papyrus, and immediately the mist twisted into rising tendrils and was gone. The water lilies opened their cerulean blossoms and turned them to face the sunrise. Twice the four saw large crocodiles lying with just their eye knuckles exposed. They sank below the surface as the dugout slid toward them.

The swamp was alive with birds. Bitterns and secretive night herons lurked in the reed beds and little chocolate-brown jacanas danced over the lily pads on their long legs, while goliath herons as tall as a man fished the back waters of the lagoons. Overhead flew formations of pelicans and white egrets, cormorants and darters with serpentine necks, and huge flocks of wild ducks of a dozen Merent species.

The heat built up swiftly and was reflected from the surface of the water into their faces so that the two white men were soon sweating through their shirts. At places the water was only a few inches deep and they were forced to climb out and drag the dugout through to the next channel or lagoon. Under the matted reeds the mud was black and foul-smelling and reached to their knees.

In the shallower places the elephant's pads had left deep circular water-filled craters in the mud banks The spoor of the old bull led them ever deeper into the swamplands, but there was consolation in the swift progress the dugout made across the lagoons and channels, thrust on by the long punt pole. For a while Sean spelled Pumula in the stern, but soon Pumula could no longer abide his clumsy strokes and took the pole away from him.

There was room for only one man to stretch out in the bottom of the dugout. Riccardo slept in it that night while the others sat waist deep in the mud, leaning against the hull of the canoe and taking what rest the clouds of mosquitoes allowed them.

Early the following morning, when Sean stood up out of the mud, he found that his bare legs were swarming with black leeches.

The repulsive worms were attached to his skin, bloated with the blood they had sucked from him. Sean used a little of their precious supply of salt to rid himself of them. To pull them loose would leave a wound into which the leech had injected anticoagulants and which would continue to bleed profusely and probably become infected. However, a dab of salt on each leech made them twist and contort with agony and then fall off, leaving only a scaled wound on the skin.

When he opened his trousers, Sean found they had crawled up into the cleft between his buttocks and were hanging like black grapes from his genitalia. He shuddered with horror as he worked on them, while safely in the dugout Riccardo watched with interest and made a facetious comment: Hey, Sean, this must be the first time you've ever objected to a bit of head!"

Sean set the end of the punt pole in the mud and steadied it while Matatu shinned up it like a monkey and peered ahead. When he came down he told Sean, "I can see the islands. We are very close.

We will be there before noon, and unless Tukutela has heard us, he will be on one of the islands."

Sean knew from flights over the area and from study of his large-scale map that the islands formed a chain between the swamplands and the main channel of the Zambezi. They dragged the dugout through the shallows, Sean hauling on the nylon rope tied to the bow and Purnula and Matatu shoving in the stern.

When Riccardo offered to assist, Sean told him, "Take a free ride, Capo. I want you nicely rested so you don't have any excuses if you mess up your shot at Tukutela."

At last Sean saw the fronds of the palm trees rising above the screen of papyrus ahead. Abruptly the water deepened, and he went under to his chin. He dragged himself out and they all clambered back on board. Pumula poled them through to the first island. The vegetation was so dense that it overhung the water, and they had to push their way through to reach the shore.

The earth was gray and sandy, leached by a million floods, but it was good to have dry land underfoot. Sean spread out their wet clothing and equipment to dry while Matatu slipped away to make a circuit of the island. The water had just boiled in the billy when Matatu was back.

"Yes." He nodded at Sean. "He passed here yesterday early, while we were leaving the village, but he has settled down now. The peace of the river is upon him, and he feeds quietly. He left this island at sunrise this morning."

"Which way did he go?" Sean asked.

Matatu pointed. "There is another larger island close by."

AMULet's take a look."

Hill, Sean poured a mug of tea for Riccardo and left him with Pumula while he and Matatu skirted the northern shore, forcing their way through the dense growth until they reached the base of the tallest tree on the island and climbed into its top branches.

Sean settled into a high crotch of the tree, snapped off the few leafy twigs that obscured his view, and gazed out on a scene of magnificent desolation.

He was sixty feet above the island and could see to the misty horizon. The Zambezi flowed past the island. Its waters were an opaque glassy green so wide that distance had reduced the great trees that lined the far bank to a dark band that separated green water from the high alps of cumulus cloud that soared anvilheaded into the blue African sky.

The Zambezi flowed so swiftly that its surface was ruffled by eddies and whirlpools and wayward countercurrents. Floating carpets of swamp grass had been torn loose by the current and sailed past, seeming as substantial as the island beneath him. Sean thought about crossing that forbidding river in the frail dugout. It would take more than one trip to get them all across, and he abandoned the idea. There was only one way out, and that was back the way they had come.

He transferred his attention to the chain of islands that stood like sentinels between the mother river and her spreading swamps.

The nearest island in the chain was three hundred meters away; the channel between was clogged with reeds and water hyacinth and lily pads. The blooms of the water lilies were spots of electric blue against the green water, and even in the treetop Sean could catch wafts of their perfume.

Sean raised his binoculars and meticulously swept the channel and the nearest shore of the island, for even a great elephant could be swallowed up by the sweep and magnitude of this land– and waterscape.

Suddenly his nerves jumped as he saw weighty and ponderous movement in the reeds and the gleam of wet hide in the sunlight.

His excitement was stillborn, followed by the pull of disappointment in his guts, as he recognized the broad, misshapen head of a hippopotamus emerging from the swamps.

In the lens of his binoculars he could see the pink-shot piggy eyes and the bristles in the lisproportionately tiny ears. The hippo fluttered them like the wings of a bird, shaking off the droplets that sparkled like diamond chips, forming a halo above its huge head.

It plodded through the mud, crossing from one lagoon to another, pausing only to loose an explosive jet of liquid dung that it splattered with a violent stirring motion of its stubby tail. The force of this discharge flattened the reeds behind the obese animal.

With relief Sean watched it move on and submerge itself in the further lagoon. The rotten hull of the dugout would have offered no protection from those heavy, curved tusks in the gape of huge jaws.

At last Sean glanced across at Matatu in the fork beside him, and the little Ndorobo shook his head.

"He has moved on. So must we."

They scrambled down to the ground and went back to where they had left Riccardo. The voyage in the mokorro and a good night's sleep had invigorated him. He was on his feet, impatient and eager for the hunt, the way Sean had known him before.

"Anything?" he demanded.

"No." Sean shook his head. "But Matatu reckons we are close.

Absolute silence from now on."

While they loaded the dugout, Sean gulped a mug of the scalding tea and kicked sand over the fire.

They punted and pushed the canoe across the channel to the next island, and once again Sean climbed into a treetop while Matatu scurried into the dense undergrowth to pick up the elephant's spoor again. He was back within fifteen minutes and Sean slid out of the tree to meet him.

"He has moved on," Matatu whispered. "But the wind is bad."

Looking grave, he took the ash bag from his loincloth and shook out a puff of powdery white ash to demonstrate. "See how it turns and changes like the fancy of a Shangane whore."

Sean nodded, and before they crossed to the next island he stripped off his sleeveless bush shirt. Naked from the waist up, he could instantly feel the slightest vagary of the breeze on the sensitive skin of his upper body.

On the next island they found where Tukutela had left the water to go ashore, and the mud he had smeared on the brush as he passed was still slightly damp. Matatu shivered with excitement like a good dog getting his first whiff of a bird.

They left the canoe and crept forward, feeling their way through the heavy bush, thankful for the breeze that clattered the palm fronds overhead to cover the small sounds of their footfalls in the dead leaves and dry twigs. They found where the old elephant had shaken down the nuts from one of the palms and stuffed them down his throat without chewing them with his last worn set of molars, but he had moved on again.

"Run?" Sean whispered, fearful that the bull might have sensed their presence. But Matatu reassured him with a quick shake of his head and pointed to the green twigs the elephant had stripped of bark and left scattered along his tracks. The raw twigs had not completely dried out, but the spoor led them on a meandering beat across the island and then once more plunged into the channel on the far side. They sent Purnula back to bring the dugout around to where they waited and when he arrived piled Riccardo into it and pushed him across, wading waist deep beside him, moving stealthily and silently until they reached the next island.

Here they found a pile of dung, spongy and soft with reeds and hyacinth the bull had eaten, and beside it the splash mark of his urine as though a garden hose had been played upon the earth. It was stiff so wet that Sean scooped up a handful of the dirt and molded it into a ball like a child's mud cake. The pile of dung had a dry crust, but when Matatu thrust his foot into it, it was moist as porridge and he exclaimed with delight at the body heat still trapped within.

"Close, very close!" he whispered excitedly.

Instinctively Sean reached for the cartridges looped on his belt and changed them for those in the double-barreled rifle, careful to mute the click of the rifle's side lock as he closed it. Riccardo recognized the gesture-he had seen it so often before-and he grinned with excitement and clicked the Rigby's safety catch on and off, on and off. They crept forward in single file, but disappointment dragged them down again as the spoor led them across the island and then on the far side once more entered the papyrus beds.

They stood facing the wall of reeds, staring at the point where Tukutela had pushed down the stems as he went through. One of the flattened stems quivered and began slowly to rise into its original position. The elephant must have passed only minutes ahead of them. They stood frozen, straining to listen beyond the susurration of the wind in the papyrus.

Then they heard it, the low rumble like that of summer thunder at a great distance, the sound an elephant makes in his throat when he is content and at peace. It is a sound that carries much farther than its volume would suggest, but nevertheless Sean knew the bull was not more than a hundred yards ahead of them. He laid his hand on Riccardo's arm and drew him gently up alongside him.

"We have to be careful of the wind," he began in a whisper.

Then they heard the swish and rush of water sucked up in the bull's trunk and squirted back over his own shoulders to cool himself and caught a brief glimpse of the black tip of his trunk as he lifted it high above the tops of the papyrus ahead of them.

Their excitement was so intense that Sean felt his throat closed and dry, and his whisper was rough.

"Back off!"

He made a cutout hand signal that Matatu obeyed instantly, and they backed away a stealthy step at a time, Sean leading Riccardo by the arm. As soon as they were into the undergrowth Riccardo demanded in a furious whisper, "What the hell, we were so close."

"Too close," Sean told him grimly. "Without any chance of a shot in the papyrus. If the wind had swung just a few degrees, it would have been over before it began. We have to let him get across to the next island before we can close in."

He led Riccardo back faster, then stopped below the outspread branches of a tall strangler fig.

"Let's take a look," he ordered. They propped their rifles at the base of the trunk. Sean helped Riccardo to reach the first branch, then followed him as he climbed upward from branch to branch.

Near the top of the fig they found a secure stance. Sean steadied Riccardo with a hand on his shoulder, and they stared down into the papyrus beds.

They saw him immediately. Tukutela's back rose above the reeds. It was wet and charcoal black from the spray of his trunk, the spine urved and prominent beneath the rough wrinkled hide.

He was faced away from them, his huge ears flapping lazily, the edges torn and tattered, the thick veins twisted and knotted like a nest of serpents beneath the smoother skin behind their wide spread.

A row of four egrets rode upon his back, perched along his spine, brilliant white in the sunlight with yellow bils, sitting hunched up but attentive, bright-eyed sentinels who would warn the old bull of the first sign of danger.

While he was in the water, there was no way they could come at him, and he was well over three hundred yards away, far beyond effective rifle shot. So they watched him from the treetop as he made his slow, majestic Way across the channel toward the next island.

When Tukutela reached the deepest stretch of open water, he submerged completely; only his trunk rose above the surface, waving and coiling in the air like the head of a sea serpent. He emerged on the far side of the channel with water streaming down his dark mountainous sides.

Standing together on the branch of the fig, Riccardo and Sean were savoring this high point in both their hunting experiences.

Never again would there be another elephant like this. No other man would ever gaze upon such a beast. He was theirs. It seemed they had waited a lifetime for this moment. The hunter's passion eclipsed all other emotion, rendering everything else in their lives effete and tasteless. Here was something primeval, sprung from the very wells of the soul, and it affected them as great music might affect others.

The old bull lifted his head and turned aside for a moment, affording them just a brief glimpse of his dark-stained ivory, and they stirred unconsciously, affected by the sight of those long, perfectly curved shafts as by the creation of a Michelangelo or the body of a beautiful woman. At that moment there was nothing else in their universe. They were perfectly in tune, a bond of companionship and shared endeavor welding them together.

"He's beautiful!" Riccardo whispered.

Sean did not reply, for there was nothing to add.

They watched the old bull reach the far island and heave his body from the water, climb the low bank and stand for a moment, tall and gaunt and shining wet in the sun, before he pushed his way into the undergrowth and it swallowed up even his bulk. The egrets were brushed from his back and rose up like snowy scraps of paper in a whirlwind. Sean tapped Riccardo on the shoulder, and he shook himself as though awaking from a dream.

"We'll cross in the canoe," Sean whispered, and he sent Pumula to bring the craft around the islet.

They sat flat in the bottom of the mokorro so their heads would not show above the tops of the reeds and propelled themselves across the narrow neck of swamp by pulling on the stems of the papyrus. Soundlessly they slid through the reed beds, and the light breeze held true and steady. Sean felt every light touch of it on his bare shoulders.

They reached the shore. Sean helped Riccardo out of the canoe, and they pulled it up onto the bank, careful not to make the faintest sound.

"Check your load," Sean whispered. Riccardo turned the bolt of the Rigby and drew it back just far enough to expose the shining brass cartridge in the chamber. Sean nodded approval and Riccardo closed the bolt silently. They went forward.

They were forced to move in single file, following the path the bull had opened through the otherwise impenetrable growth.

Matatu led them a few paces at a time, and then they all froze to listen.

Suddenly there was4a loud crackling uproar in the bushes just ahead of them, ago they saw the branches sway and toss and shake. Riccardo-swung up the Rigby, but Sean restrained him, grabbing his forearm and pushing the muzzle of the rifle down.

They stood stonily, staring ahead, hearts pounding, and listened to the old bull feeding. Only thirty paces away he was ripping down branches, swinging his ears back and forth to a leisurely rhythm, rumbling contentedly, and they could not catch even the barest glimpse of gray hide.

Sean still had hold of Riccardo's arm, and now he drew him onward.

Step by step they edged through the green press of leaves and vines and drooping branches. Ten paces, and then Sean halted. He eased Riccardo forward, pushing him ahead, and pointed over his shoulder.

For long seconds Riccardo could make out no details in the jumbled growth and confused shadows. Then the bull flapped his ears again, and Riccardo saw his eye through a hole in the vegetation. It was a small, rheumy eye with the slightly opaque blue cast of age, and tears oozed down the wrinkled cheek below, giving it a look of great wisdom and infinite sorrow.

That sorrow was contagious. It engulfed Riccardo in a black wave, weighing down his soul and transforming his ardent predatory passion into a devastating sadness and mourning for this life that was about to end. He did not lift his rifle.

The elephant blinked his eye. The lashes surrounding it were thick and long, and the eye looked deep into Riccardo's own, seemed to pierce his very soul, seemed to mourn for him as he mourned for the old bull. Riccardo did not realize that the evil thing in his brain was once more bending and reshaping reality; he knew only that the sorrow in him was as insupportable as the black oblivion of death.

He felt Sean tap him lightly between the shoulder blades, screening even that tiny movement from the bull. It was the urgent command to fire, but it was as though Riccardo had left his own body and was hovering just above it, looking down on himself, watching both the man and the beast with death in them and death all about them, and the tragedy engrossed him and robbed him of his will and power to move.

Once again Sean tapped him. The elephant was fifteen paces away, standing perfectly still, a looming gray shadow in the undergrowth. Sean knew that Tukutela's sudden stillness was the old bull's response to the premonition of danger. He would stand still for only a few seconds longer and then plunge away into the dense undergrowth.

He wanted to seize Riccardo's shoulder and shake him, he wanted to cry out, "Shoot, man, shoot!" But he was helpless. The slightest movement, the faintest sound would trigger the old bull into flight.

Then it happened as Sean had known and feared it would. It seemed that Tukutela had been snatched away, had disappeared in a puff of gray smoke. It was impossible such a huge beast could move so quickly and so silently in such dense bush, but he was gone.

Sean seized Riccardo's arm and pulled him along with him, dragging him after the vanished bull. Sean's face was contorted with rage and dark rage filled his chest and made it difficult for him to breathe. He wanted to vent that rage on Riccardo. He had risked his very LIFE to put him in the position to take this animal, and the man had not even raised his rifle.

As Sean ran forward, his grip on Riccardo's arm was savage, and he dragged him through dense scrub and thorn, oblivious to his discomfort.

He was certain Tukutela would try to reach the next island in the chain, and he hoped for another chance at him as he crossed the open channel. He would force Riccardo to take even a long shot, hoping to cripple and slow the bull, so he himself could follow and finish him off.

Behind him Matatu screamed something unintelligible, a warning, a cry for help perhaps, and Sean came up short and stood listening. Something was happening that was totally unexpected and for which he was unprepared.

He heard the sudden crash and crackle in the undergrowth and then the wild trumpeting squeal of an enraged elephant, but the sound was from behind him, not the direction in which Tukutela had vanished. For an instant Sean did not understand. Then reality dawned on him and he felt the goose bumps rise on his naked back.

Tukutela had done something no elephant he knew of had ever done before. The old bull had not fled, but instead had circled downwind of them to get their scent. Even as he stood now, Sean felt the wind touch his naked back like the caress of a treacherous lover, bearing his scent down to where the great bull was rushing through the dense bush, hunting for him.

"Matatu!" Sean yelled. "Run! Run across the wind!" He shoved Riccardo roughly against the trunk of a towering teak tree.

"Get up there," he snarled at him. The lower branches were easy to climb, and Sean left him and raced back to protect Matatu.

He charged headlong through the bush, jumping over fallen logs, his rifle held across' his chest, while the forest rang to the elephant's wild and angry squeals.

He was closing swiftly, like an avalanche of gray rock. Tukutela rolled through the forest, splitting and bending the smaller trees that stood in his way, seeking out the evil amid smell of humanity, following it down so that once again he could wreak on them the accumulated hatred of his long lifetime.

Suddenly Matatu darted out of the bush just a few paces ahead of Sean. He would stand to meet any odds with Sean beside him, and now instead of running across the wind as Pumula had done, his instinct had led him directly back to his master's side.

As he saw him, Sean changed direction in midstride, signaling urgently for Matatu to follow him. He ran a hundred swift paces out to one side, across the wind, trying to deny their scent to Tukutela.

He stopped and crouched with Matatu beside him. His tactic had been successful. Pumula also must have got out of Tukutela's wind. For the moment Tukutela had lost their scent. The forest was absolutely still, the silence so intense that Sean could hear his Pulse beating in his own head.

He sensed that the old bull was very close to them, standing as still as they were, listening with ears spread wide, only that long trunk questing for the smell of them. There had never been an elephant like this, he thought, a bull who actively hunted his persecutors. How many times has he been hunted, Sean wondered, how many times has man inflicted hurt upon him that he attacks so fiercely at the first hint of human presence?