Текст книги "A Time to Die"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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"What happened?" Claudia mumbled. "Where's the lion?"

"He took off an hour ago," her father told her. "Long before shooting light."

"Only one way you're going to get this cat, Capo, and that's with a jacklight or a hell of a lot of luck."

"I'm a lucky guy." Riccardo grinned and they heard the distant beat of the Toyota's engine growing louder as Job came in to pick them up.

They stayed in camp all that day, catching up on sleep lost the previous night, but when they went into the hide again that evening to wait for the lion, he had disappeared. He did not come to the bait the following night either, and the safari came on a slow period. Sean and his team worked diligently but fruitlessly to find the lion. There was no report from the scouts Sean had placed to watch the elephant crossings on the Chiwewe River, the northern boundary of Sean's concession. Riccardo Monterro was not interested in hunting lesser plains game such as sable antelope, kudu, or eland. These activities would have filled the days of another safari.

Only the two lionesses and their cubs stayed on the banks of the river-bed, taking up permanent domicile.

"Courtney's five-star hotel," Sean complained. "Gourmet meals delivered daily."

The pride became so accustomed to their visits that the lionesses retreated only a hundred yards or so into the forest with a few perfunctory low-key growls while they watched with interest as a fresh carcass was hauled into the tree. They barely contained their impatience until the Toyota pulled away, and it was still in full view when they came loping back to inspect the latest offering.

However, Frederick the Great did not return. They saw no sign of his huge, distinctive paw marks around the bait or on the dirt tracks Sean patrolled each day, searching the area for forty miles around the camp.

"But why would he just vanish like that?" Riccardo protested.

"Because he's a cat-and who knows how a cat thinks?"

Since that brief but torrid episode in the lion hide, the relationship between Sean and Claudia had altered subtly. Their bickering had become more vindictive and bitter, their overt resentment more intense, and their efforts to discomfort each other more spirited.

When she called him a racist, he only smiled. "In America that word is dreaded as the ultimate insult that can end a man's political career, ruin his business, or ostracize him from society. You are all so terrified of it, and the blacks know it and exploit it to the full.

Even the toughest hard-headed businessman or politician rolls over like a puppy dog and whines if you call him that," Sean told her gleefully. "This isn't America, ducky, and here we aren't terrified of that word. Here racism is the same as tribalism, and we are all blatant tribalists, especially the blacks. If you want to experience true dedicated tribalism and racism, then come and live in one of the newly independent African states. If you call your average black politician a racist, he would take it as a compliment. It would be the same as calling him a patriot."

Her wounded protestations were ample reward for his efforts as he looked for new ways to provoke her.

"Did you know I am a South African?" he asked.

She looked appalled. "I thought you were a Brit." He shook his head and smiled in that infuriating way of his.

"I imagine you support your government's sanctions against my country.

"Of course. Every decent person does."

"Even if it means a million blacks starve as a direct consequence?" He did not wait for her to reply. "What about disinvestment of American business from my country, you are all for that too?"

"I campaigned for it on campus," she told him proudly. "I never missed a rally or a march."

"So your plan is to convert a country by withdrawing all your missionaries and burning down the cathedral. That's brilliant!"

"You're twisting it."

"We should be grateful to you for the success of your efforts.

You forced your own citizens to sell our assets back to us at five cents on the dollar. Overnight you created two hundred multimillionaires in South Africa, and every one of them had a white face.

Congratulations and our sincere thanks, ducky."

But while they argued, they were avidly aware of each other, and the physical contact they had shared lay between them like a poisonous serpent, dangerous but intriguing.

Claudia had been celibate for almost two years now, ever since she had split from the physician she had lived with for a short while, until his demands for marriage became intolerable. Celibacy did not suit her affectionate Latin nature, but she was fastidious.

She found herself lying awake in her tent at night listening to Sean's voice from the camp fire as he talked to her father, the soft masculine rumble, just low enough for her to be unable to catch the words. Once she thought she heard her name, and she sat up and strained her ears, disappointed she could not hear what he was saying about her.

When at last he called goodnight to Riccardo and went to his own tent, he had to pass close to hers. She lay rigid in bed, listening to his footsteps and watching the beam of his flashlight through the canvas, preparing an icy dismissal in the most insulting terms and then experiencing the tiniest prick of disappointment as his footsteps passed on without a check.

On the ninth morning of the safari, when they drove out to check the bait on the riverbank, the younger lioness, her eyes now completely healed, was once again violently aggressive, snarling at Sean and mock-charging him from a hundred yards with her tail lashing as soon as he dismounted from the Toyota to inspect the bait. When she backed off and turned to retreat, they saw a pink stain of blood on the soft, pale beige fur beneath her tail.

"Growly Gertie has come into season," Sean exulted. "Now we have the one bait Frederick the Great won't be able to resist. You said you were a lucky guy, Capo. Now let's find out just how lucky.

Sean wanted to -get this lion before this extraordinary opportunity passed. There was no time to track down one of the huge buffalo herds along the Chiwewe River for a fresh bait, so Riccardo shot a young kudu bull from a herd of bachelors near the camp. They hung the carcass on the bait tree in the glade where they had last seen the big male lion-this time low enough for the lionesses to reach it easily-and they climbed into the mac han in the early afternoon. Within an hour the lionesses had picked up the scent of fresh blood and came trotting down the dry river-bed, followed by the straggling, squabbling bunch of cubs. While the older lioness fed heartily from the fresh kudu carcass, the younger female ate only lightly and sporadically. In between she prowled restlessly around the area of trampled grass beneath the tree, snarling at her cubs, rolling on her back, or sitting up to lick at the blood smear beneath her tail. At intervals she stood staring into the forest, then held her head low to the ground and let out a long, melancholy moan. It was a sound so full of agonized longing that Claudia felt herself empathizing with the sleek, beautiful creature.

"That's right, Gertie," Sean whispered behind Claudia's shoulder. "Call to Big Daddy, tell him what sweets you've got for him here."

"It's not fair," Claudia thought fiercely. "It's not fair to use her like this."

Suddenly both lionesses leaped up to face into the forest, and the older female snarled softly. Alarmed, the cubs ceased their endless play and huddled behind their dams. Then the young lioness went forward through the grass, slinking and undulating her whole body in a blatantly sexual display, emitting a series of low welcoming moans.

"Steady, Capo." Sean's hand was on Riccardo's arm, preventing him from raising the rifle. "Take your time."

Then out of the forest came the lion. At first they saw only the tip of his mane above the grass as he came forward at an eager trot to meet the lioness. She rushed forward shamelessly, and in a trampled clearing they came together.

"Wait, Capo," Sean whispered. He wanted the girl to watch it.

The lioness brushed her body against the male, back and forth she stroked him with the full length of her silken flanks, and the lion fluffed out his mane so that he seemed to double in size, responding to her advances, licking her face as she cuddled into the dense dark bush of his mane.

Then deliberately she turned and presented him with her hindquarters, cocking her tail high and sending a spurt of pink-stained urine out under his nose. The lion groaned and curled his upper lip, exposing his great yellow fangs in a rictus of passion. His back arched reflexively and Claudia wriggled in her seat as the lion stretched out his neck and licked the female under the tail with a long, curling pink tongue.

The lioness submitted to his caress for a minute, then whirled flirtatiously and, from across the river, they heard her low purrs of invitation. Sean placed his hand lightly on Claudia's thigh. The gesture was concealed from her father by the side of the chair. She made no attempt to pull away.

The lioness turned from the male, ran a few light mincing paces, and then flattened her body against the earth, looking back over her shoulder. The lion came to where she lay, moving with a stiff-legged gait, and he covered her body with his own, standing astride her. As he lowered his haunches over hers, his penis unsheathed from its pouch, glistening pinkly, and the lioness laid her tail forward along her back.

Sean ran the tips of his fingers up to the juncture of Claudia's thighs, and he could feel the springing mattress of her pubic hair through the cloth of her breeches. Her thighs opened slightly under his hand.

The lion humped his back over the female in a series of convulsive, regular spasms. Then he threw back his huge, maned head and roared. The lioness roared with him and he reached down and bit her lightly in the back of the neck, a fond, possessive gesture.

For long moments they were frozen together like that. Then the lion leaped off. At the same moment, Claudia reached down and placed her hand over Sean's. She took his little finger and twisted it back against the joint so viciously she almost dislocated it.

Agony shot up his arm to the shoulder.

He almost cried out in protest, but Riccardo was sitting close and though his view of his daughter's lower body was obscured by the canvas side of the chair, he would certainly guess at Sean's advances. With an effort Sean kept silent and drew his hand back, surreptitiously massaging the damaged finger. He could see the corner of Claudia's mouth was curled into a vindictive little smile.

Across the river the lioness stood up and shook herself. Then she walked out with a slow, satisfied air onto the open riverbank.

There she paused and looked back to where the lion was sitting on his haunches, still half hidden in the long grass.

"Get ready, Capo." Sean was still massaging his finger.

It was five in the afternoon, and the sun was at a perfect angle, lighting the far bank as though it were a stage. The range was a measured ninety-six yards from the mac han to the bait tree. Riccardo Monterro was the finest rifleman Sean had ever guided on safari. At that range he could place three bullets through the same hole.

The lioness mewled seductively, and the lion stood up and followed her out onto the open riverbank. He stood behind her, broadside to the mac han across the river, lit by the golden sunlight.

"He's a gift from heaven, Capo," Sean whispered. He tapped Riccardo's shoulder. "Take him!"

Slowly Riccardo lifted the rifle to his shoulder. It was a.300 Weatherby Magnum. The massive cartridge under the firing pin was loaded with eighty grains of powder and a 180-grain Nosier partitioned bullet. It would cross the open river-bed at over three thousand feet per second. When it entered living flesh, it would drive a shock wave ahead of it that would turn the internal organs, lungs, and heart to jelly and suck that jelly out of a massive exit hole, blowing them in a red spray over the grass beyond where the animal stood.

"Take him!" Sean said. Riccardo Monterro looked through the telescopic sight. The lion's body filled most of the magnified field of the lens.

He could see the individual hairs in the dense curling bush of mane and the detail of each sculptured muscle beneath the skin.

One inch behind the lion's shoulder, on the lateral center line of its body, was a tiny scar on the sleek hide. It was shaped like a horseshoe, a lucky horseshoe, and it made a perfect aiming point.

He aligned the cross hairs of the sight on the scar. They bounced slightly to the elevated beat of his own heart. He took up the slack in the trigger, feeling the final resistance under his finger before the sear released and the rifle fired.

Beside her father, Claudia sat rigid with horror. The lion turned his head and looked across the river-bed at her. The mating had touched and moved her deeply.

"He's too glorious to die," she thought. Almost without conscious effort, she opened her mouth and screamed with all the strength of her lungs.

"Run, damn you! Run!"

The result stunned even her. She had not believed a living creature could react so swiftly. From lazy immobility, all three animals exploded into flight. They dissolved into golden blurs of movement.

The oldest lioness disappeared almost instantaneously into the long grass, the cubs rushing after her. The younger lioness raced along the edge of the bank. So swift was her run that she did not seem to touch the earth; like a swallow drinking in flight, she skimmed the surface, and the lion followed her. For all his bulk and the dark mass of his mane, he moved as lightly as she did, reaching out those massively muscled legs in full stride.

Riccardo Monterro swiveled in his chair, the rifle to his shoulder, staring into the brilliant glass lens, swinging with the cat's run.

The lioness swerved into the grass and was gone. The lion followed her, but the instant before he disappeared, the report of the Weatherby rifle drove in on their eardrums, painful and deafening, and even in full sunlight a long tongue of flame flashed out across the river-bed.

The lion stumbled in his run and with a single, loud cough vanished into the grass. In the silence, their ears sang with the memory of gunfire, and they stared out at the empty clearing, subdued and appalled.

"Nice work, ducky!" Sean said softly.

"I'm not sorry," she said defiantly. Her father reloaded the rifle with a savage movement that sent the empty brass case spinning and sparkling away in the sunlight. He stood up, rocking the flimsy mac han and without a glance at his daughter he climbed down the makeshift ladder.

Sean picked up his.577 double rifle and followed him down.

They stood at the bottom of the tree. Riccardo unbuttoned the flap of his breast pocket and offered Sean a Havana from his pigskin cigar case. Neither of them usually smoked during the day, but now Sean accepted one and bit off the tip.

They lit their cigars and smoked for a while in silence. Then Sean said quietly, "Call your shot, Capo."

Riccardo was a marksman of such expertise that he could tell precisely where his bullet had gone the moment after he fired it.

Now he hesitated, then said grudgingly, "That cat was motoring.

I was too quick. I didn't lead him enough."

"Gutshot?" Sean asked.

"Yeah." Riccardo nodded. "Gutshot."

"Shit," said Sean. "Shit, and shit again."

They looked across at the dense stand of long grass and tangled thorny patches of undergrowth on the far bank.

It was ten minutes before the Toyota arrived, summoned by that single gunshot. Job, Shadrach, and Matatu were grinning with expectation. They had hunted six safaris with Riccardo Monterro, and they had never known him to miss. They jumped out of the Toyota and peered across the river. Their grins faded slowly and were replaced by expressions of deepest gloom as Sean said, "Intumbu! In the guts!"

The three of them went back to the Toyota and began to prepare for the follow-up In silence.

Sean squinted up at the sun. "Dark in an hour," he said. "We haven't got time to let the wound stiffen."

"We could leave him until the morning," Riccardo suggested.

"He'll be sick by then."

Sean shook his head. "If he dies in there, the hyena will get him.

No trophy. Besides which, we can't leave the poor beggar to suffer all night."

They fell silent as Claudia climbed down the ladder from the mac han When she reached ground level, she would not look at them but tossed the plait of dark hair over her shoulder defiantly and marched across to the Toyota. She climbed into the front seat and folded her arms across her small breasts, staring ahead grimly.

"I'm sorry," Riccardo said. "I've known her for twenty-six years.

I should have guessed she'd pull one like that."

"You don't have to come, Capo." Sean did not answer him directly.

"Stay with Claudia. I'll go across and get the job done.

That's what you pay me for."

It was Riccardo's turn to ignore the remark. "I'll carry the Rigby," he said. i "Make sure you're loaded with soft-nosed bullets," Sean advised.

"Of course." They walked side by side to the Toyota, and Riccardo changed the lighter Weatherby for the big Rigby. He opened the breech to check that there were soft-nosed mushrooming bullets in the magazine, then filled the loops on his cartridge belt from a fresh packet.

Sean leaned against the side of the Toyota and changed the cartridges in his big double rifle for others from the loops on the breast of his bush jacket.

"Poor bloody animal," he said. Although he was looking at Riccardo, he was speaking to Claudia. "It would have been a good clean kill, but now he's in the grass there, still alive with half his guts shot away. It's the most painful wound there is." He saw the girl wince and her cheek pale. She would not look at him.

"We'll be lucky if someone doesn't get killed," Sean went on with ghoulish relish. "It will probably be Matatu. He has to go ahead on the spoor, and the little beggar always refuses to run. If it's anybody, it will be Matatu that gets it today."

Despite herself, Claudia glanced piteously at the little Ndorobo.

"Cut it out, Sean," Riccardo ordered. "She knows how stupid she's been."

"I wonder." He snapped the rifle "Does she?" Sean asked.

closed. "Okay, Capo, wear your leather jacket. If the lion gets you down, it may protect you a little. Not much, but a little."

The three blacks were waiting on the edge of the bank. Job carried the eight-bore shotgun loaded with buckshot, but the other two were unarmed. It took a peculiar kind of courage to follow a wounded lion into thick cover without carrying a weapon.

Even in her agitation, Claudia noticed the trust with which they looked at Sean Courtney. She sensed that they had shared mortal danger so many times before that a peculiar bond united their small, exclusive group. The four of them were closer than brothers, She had never been that close or lovers, and she felt a sting of envy.

to another human being in her life.

In turn Sean touched each of them on the shoulder, a light, unsentimental gesture of affirmation. Then he spoke softly to Job.

A shadow passed over the Matabele's handsome features, and for a moment it seemed he might protest. But then he nodded acceptance and crossed to the Toyota, standing guard with the shotgun beside Claudia.

Sean held the double-barreled rifle across the crook of his arm as he combed his thick glossy hair back from his forehead with his fingers and bound it up out of his eyes with a strip of plaited leather around his forehead.

Even though she loathed him, she found herself admiring the heroic figure he cut as he prepared to face the terrible danger and gruesome death she had, in a large measure, prepared for him. The sleeves had been cut out of his bush jacket and he wore short khaki pants, so that his limbs were bare and tanned. He was even taller than her father, but his waist was slimmer and his shoulders wider, and he carried the squat, heavy rifle easily in one hand.

He glanced across at her, and his gaze was level, green, and contemptuous. She was suddenly possessed by a premonition of impending disaster, and she wanted to plead with him not to cross the river. But before she could speak, he had turned away.

"Ready, Capo?" he asked. Riccardo nodded, holding the Rigby at high port across his chest. His expression was solemn. "All right, let's move out." Sean nodded at Matatu and the little man led them down the bank.

In the river-bed, they fell into hunting formation with the tracker leading. Sean followed close behind him, watching the reed bed ahead. Riccardo came next, leaving a gap of ten paces between them to reduce the confusion in a close-quarters melee, and Shadrach followed at the end.

As they crossed, they filled their pockets with smooth water worn pebbles from the river-bed. Below the far bank they paused to listen. Then Sean passed Matatu and went ahead. He stood alone in the trampled clearing below the bait tree for almost five minutes, listening, staring intently into the tall grass beyond.

and Then he begin to lob pebbles into the grass, systematically working the area where the lion had disappeared. The pebbles clattered against other stones or bounced off the stems of shrubs, but there was no challenging growl. He whistled softly. The others scrambled up the bank and fell into their positions, and he nodded at Matatu.

They went forward slowly. There are many gravestones in Africa marking the resting places of men who hurried after a Wounded lion. Matatu concentrated all his attention on the ground at his feet. Placing his trust in Sean, he never looked up at the wall of grass ahead. At the edge of the grass he hissed softly and with his hand behind his back made a secretive gesture.

"Blood," Sean told Riccardo softly without looking back at him. "And belly hair. You were right, Capo. It's a gutshot."

He could see the wet gleam of blood on the stems of the grass.

"Akwendi!" he told Matatu. He drew a breath like a diver poised on a cliff above a deep and icy pool. He held that breath as he stepped forward and the tall grass closed around him, limiting his vision like the sinister and murky waters of the pool.

The impact of the bullet had been a mighty blow to the lion's flank that slewed him round and numbed his entire body behind his rib cage. But the grass closed about him as he raced forward, and immediately he felt secure and confident. Within twenty strides he stopped and stood looking back over his shoulder, listening and drawing the scent into his flared nostrils, lashing his tail from side to side, There was no sensation of pain, just a numbness and weight in his entrails as though he had swallowed an ironstone boulder. He smelled his own blood and turned to sniff at his side. The exit wound the bullet had left was the size of an egg cup, and from it oozed blood that was almost tarry black. Mingled with the blood were the liquid contents of his bowels. They made a tiny pattering sound as they dribbled onto the dry earth beneath him. He licked at the wound, and blood glutted his jaws.

Then he lifted his head and listened again. He heard human voices in the distance, beyond the river, and he growled softly, feeling his anger begin to, mount, associating the blood and heaviness in his belly with the presence of man.

Then the lioness called him, a low gasping moan, and he turned and followed her. He did not run now, for the weight in his belly hampered him and his back legs felt numb and heavy. The lioness was waiting for him a little farther on. Eagerly she rubbed herself against him and then tried to lead him away, trotting off ahead of him. He moved heavily after her, stopping to listen and lick the running wound, and she turned back impatiently and moaned at him and nuzzled his face, sniffing and licking at his wound, puzzled and distressed by his behavior.

His legs were heavy as tree trunks now. Ahead of him was a thicket of wild ebony. He turned and pushed his way into the dense, tangled undergrowth. He sighed as he lowered his body, curling the black tuft of his tail under him as he lay down.

The lioness fretted and worried at the edge of the thicket, calling to him with small mewling entreaties. When he did not respond, she followed him into the thicket and lay down beside him. She licked at his wound, and the lion closed his eyes and began to pant softly as the pain began.

It swelled in his body, becoming a vast, suffocating weight that grew and grew within him, seeming to distend his belly until it was at the point of bursting. The lion groaned softly and bit at his flank, trying to kill this thing within him, this living agony that was feeding on his entrails.

The lioness attempted to distract him. She was confused and worried, and she wriggled around and pressed her hindquarters into his face, offering him her swollen, weeping genitalia, but the lion closed his eyes and turned his head away, each breath rasping like a wood saw in his throat.

Then he heard voices again, the whispering voices of men, and he raised his head and his eyes burned yellow and fierce as he found a focus for his suffering. Hatred grew out of the agony of his belly, and his rage was dark and all-engulfing.

Something crashed into the branches of the wild ebony thicket above his head and he growled, a rattling exhalation of air through his tortured throat.

Slowly they went forward into the grass. It reached above their heads, enclosing them so closely they could see no more than two or three paces ahead.

The lion's blood was painted on the grass and the stems were pushed over by the passage of his body, so the trail was easy to follow. The blood on the grass gave Sean and Matatu the exact height of the wound, and the feces mixed with the blood told them the bowels had been penetrated. It was a mortal wound, but death would be slow and agonizing.

Within twenty yards of entering the grass Matatu paused and indicated the puddle of dark, tarry blood. "He stopped here," he whispered.

Sean nodded. "He won't have gone far," he guessed. He's waiting for us, Matatu, and when he comes, you run back behind me. Do you hear me?"

Matatu grinned at him. They both knew he would not obey.

Matatu had never run; he would stand the charge as he always did.

"All right, you silly little bugger." Sean was tense. "Get on with it."

&

"You Silly little bugger," Matatu repeated happily. He knew Sean only called him that when particularly proud of him or pleased with him.

They moved along the blood spoor, pausing every three or four paces while Sean lobbed pebbles into the grass ahead of them.

When there was no response, they moved cautiously forward again.

Behind him Sean could hear the click, click of the safety catch on the Rigby. Riccardo was snapping it on and off as they advanced, a nervous gesture that betrayed his agitation. Although the sound irritated him, Sean felt a stir of admiration for the man.

This was probably one of the most dangerous activities in which a man could engage. They don't come much worse than a gutshot lion in close cover. This was Sean's job, but for Riccardo it was a once-in-a-lifetime test, and he had not failed it yet.

Sean tossed another pebble into the grass ahead and listened to it rattle on the branch of a low tree.

As they went on, Sean thought about fear. For some men fear was a crippling and destroying emotion, but for those like Sean it was an addiction. He loved the sensation of fear. It was like a drug flowing through his veins, heightening all his senses, so he could feel the checkering on the polished walnut stock of the rifle under his fingers and the brush of each blade of grass against his bare legs. His vision was so enhanced that he saw it all through a crystal lens that magnified and dramatized each image. He could taste the very air he breathed and smell the crushed grass under his feet and the blood of the lion they were following. He was vividly, vibrantly alive, and he gave himself up to fear, as an addict would to a syringeful of heroin.

He tossed another pebble into the ebony thicket that stood like an island in the sea of grass just ahead of them. It fell through the branches, rattling and crackling, and the lion growled from the depths of the thicket.

The fear of death was so pleasurable as to be almost unbearable, an emotional orgasm, stronger than any woman had ever given him, and he slid the safety catch off the rifle and said, exultation in his voice, "He's coming, Matatu. Run!" Time slowed down, another phenomenon produced by fear.

From the corner of his eye he saw Riccardo Monterro step up beside him, taking his place in the firing line, and he knew what it was costing him.

"Good man!" he said loudly, and at the sound of his voice, the branches of the ebony thicket shook as a heavy body rushed through them. Suddenly there was a terrifying, growling, grunting uproar coming straight at them.

Matatu stood perfectly still, like a guardsman on parade.

Matatu had never run. Sean stepped up on one side of him and Riccardo on the other, and they lifted their rifles and aimed into the wall of grass as that thing rushed in on them, flattening the tall stems with its charge, roaring now, blasts of sound that were like a physical assault on their senses.

The grass opened in their faces and a huge, tawny body hurled itself on them.

They fired together, and the crash of gunfire drowned the enraged roaring. Sean fired the second barrel, the two shots sounding as one, and the huge 750-grain bullet tore into the charging animal, stopping it as though it had run into a cliff. Riccardo was working the bolt of the Rigby, and a rolling echo of gunfire filled the air around them.

The dead animal fell at their feet, and they stood with rifles raised, staring down at the bleeding carcass, dazed by the swiftness and the savagery and the beat of gunfire in their heads.