Текст книги "The Burning Shore"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

The wind is against us, he waved one hand along the run of the spoor, they are travelling downwind. We will never come up with them. There are always one hundred good reasons why we should not do what you don't want to do. Lothar raked his wet hair back with his fingers and retied it with the leather thong at the nape of his neck. We will be following San, not animals. The wind is of no consequence. The San are animals.

Hendrick blocked one of his wide flat nostrils with his thumb and sucked red snuff up the other before going on. With this wind they will smell you from two miles and hear you long before you sight them."He dusted his hands and flicked the residual grains from his upper lip.

A beautiful story! Lothar scoffed. Even for you, the greatest liar in all of Ovamboland. And then, brusquely, Enough chatter, we are going after the white girl. Take the spoor.

From the high fork of the mopani tree, Centaine watched the elephant herd at the water-hole with mounting delight. once she had got over the trepidation caused by their size and monumental ugliness, she swiftly became aware of the endearing bond that seemed to unite all the members of the herd. They began to seem almost human to her.

The patriarch bull was crotchety and his arthritic joints obviously ached. They all treated him with respect, and left one side of the pool for him alone. He drank noisily, squirting the water down his throat. Then he lowered himself, groaning with pleasure, into the mud, and scooped it up in his trunk to slap it on to his dusty grey head. It ran down his cheeks, and he closed his eyes ecstatically.

On the opposite side of the pool the young bulls and cows drank and bathed, blowing mud and water out of their trunks like fire hoses, squirting themselves between the forelegs and down the flanks, lifting their heads and thrusting their trunks deep down their throats to send gallons of water hissing into their bellies. Satiated, they stood happily, trunks entwined in a loving embrace, and seemed to beam indulgently at the calves cavorting around their legs and under their bellies.

One of the smallest calves, not much bigger than a pig and just as fat, tried to wriggle under the trunk of a dead tree that had fallen into the pool and stuck fast in the mud. In comical panic it let out a squeal of alarm and terror. Every elephant in the herd reacted instantly, changing from contented indolence into raging behemoths of vengeance. They rushed back into the pool, beating the water and kicking it in a froth with their great hooves.

They think a crocodile has caught the calf, O'wa whispered.

Poor crocodile! Centaine whispered back.

The mother yanked the calf out from under the dead tree, hindfeet first, and it shot between her front legs and fastened on to one of her teats where it suckled with almost hysterical relief. The enraged herd quietened down, but with every evidence of disappointment that they had been denied the pleasure of tearing the hated crocodile into small pieces.

When the old bull finally heaved himself upright and, glistening with mud, strode away into the forest, the cows hastily rounded up their offspring, chasing them from their muddy pleasures with swinging trunks, and obediently they all trooped after the patriarch. Long after they had disappeared into the forest, Centaine could hear the crack of breaking branches and the rumble of their waterfilled bellies as they fed away southwards.

She and O'wa climbed down from the mopani grinning with pleasure.

The little ones were so naughty, Centaine told H'ani, just like human babies. We call them the big people, H'ani agreed, for they are wise and loving as the San. They went down to the edge of the water-hole and Centaine marvelled at the mountainous piles of yellow dung that the elephants had dropped. Already the clucking francolin were scratching in the steaming mounds for undigested nuts and seeds.

Anna would love that for the vegetable garden– she caught herself. I mustn't think so much of the past. She stooped to bathe her face, for even the muddy water offered relief from the rising heat, but suddenly O'wa stiffened and cocked his head, turning it towards the north, in the direction from which the elephant herd had come.

What is it, old grandfather? H'ani was instantly sensitive to his mood.

O'wa did not answer for a second, but his eyes were troubled and his lips twitched nervously.

There is something, something on the wind, a sound, a scent, I am not sure, he whispered. Then, with sudden decision, There is danger, close. We must go H'ani jumped up instantly and snatched up the satchel of egg bottles. She would never argue with her husband's intuition, it had saved them often during their lifetime together.

Nam Child, she said softly but urgently, hurry H'ani– Centaine turned to her with dismay. She was already knee-deep in the muddy pool. It is so hot, I want to-, There is danger, great danger. The two San whirled together like startled birds and flew back towards the forest refuge. Centaine knew that in seconds she would be left alone, and loneliness was still her greatest terror.

She ran from the pool, kicking spray before her, grabbed her carrying bag and stick and dressed as she ran.

O'wa circled quickly through the mopani forest, moving across the wind until it blew upon the back of his neck. The San, like the buffalo and the elephant, always fled downwind when alarmed, so that the scent of the pursuer would be carried down to them.

O'wa paused for Centaine to catch up with them. What is it, O'wa? she gasped.

Danger. Deadly danger. The agitation of both the old people was obvious, and infectious. Centaine had learned not to ask questions in a situation such as this. What must I do? Cover sign, the way I showed you, O'wa ordered her, and she remembered the patient instruction that he had given her in the art of anti-tracking, of confusing and hiding the spoor so that a pursuer would find it difficult if not impossible to follow them. It was one of the skills on which San survival depended. H'ani first, then you. O'wa was in complete command now. Follow her. Do as she does. I will come at the back and cover your mistakes. The old woman was as quick and agile as a little brown francolin. She flitted through the forest, avoiding the game paths and open ground on which their tracks would stand out clearly, picking the difficult line, ducking under thorn thickets where a pursuer would not expect them to pass, stepping on grass clumps or running along the trunks of fallen trees, changing her length of stride, hopping sideways over harder ground, employing every ruse she had learned in a long hard lifetime.

Centaine followed her, not as nimble, leaving an occasional blurred footprint, knocking a green leaf from a bush as she passed, disturbing the grass slightly. O'wa came close behind her, a broom of grass stalks in his hand to brush over the sign that Centaine left, stooping to pick up the tell-tale green leaf, delicately rearranging the bent grass stems that signposted the direction of their flight.

He guided H'ani with small chirping bird calls and whistles, and she responded instantly, turning left or right, speeding up or freezing for a few seconds so that J, O'wa could listen and sniff the breeze for the scent of the pursuit, then plunging forward again at his signal.

Suddenly another open glade spread before them, half a mile wide, studded with a few tall flat-topped giraffe acacia; beyond it rose the low ridge, heavily forested with paper-bark trees and dense wild ebony thickets for which O'wa was heading.

He knew that the ridge was composed of rock-hard calcrete, lumpy and broken, and he knew also that no human being could follow him over that ground. Once they reached it, they were safe, but the glade lay before them, and if they were caught there in the open, they would be easy prey, especially if their pursuers were armed with the smoke that kills from far off.

He wasted a few precious seconds to sniff at the air. It was hard to judge the distance of that faint offensive taint upon the light breeze, the stink of carbolic soap and snuff, of unwashed woollen clothing and socks, of the rancid cattle fat with which the Ovambo anointed their bodies, but he knew that he had to risk the open ground.

His most skilful anti-tracking could not cover all the fil signs that Nam Child had left over the soft sandy earth.

p t His efforts to do so would merely impede the pursuit, but he knew that the bushcraft of the Ovambo was almost equal to his own. Only on the hard calcrete ridge could he be certain of losing them. He whistled, the call of a crimson -breasted shrike, and obediently H'ani started out into the open glade, scuttling through the short yellow grass.

Run, little bird, O'wa called softly. If they catch us in the open, we are dead.

They have smelled us, Hendrick looked back at Lothar.

See how they are covering sign. At the forest edge it seemed as though their quarry had turned into birds and taken to the air. All trace of them seemed to disappear. Brusquely Hendrick signalled to the other Ovarnbo hunters, and they spread out swiftly.

Throwing a wide net, they moved forward in line. A man on the right flank whistled softly and then waved under handed, indicating a new direction.

They have turned down the wind, Hendrick mur inured to Lothar, who was ten paces out on his flank. I should have guessed it. The net of trackers wheeled on to the line, and moved forward. A man whistled on the left, and confirmed the line with that graceful underhand wave; they speeded up, breaking into a trot.

just ahead Lothar noticed a faint colour difference on the seemingly undisturbed earth, a tiny patch of lighter sand no bigger than a man's foot, and he stooped to examine it. A footprint had been carefully brushed over and obliterated. Lothar whistled softly, and waved them forward on the line.

Now do you believe the San can smell like an elephant? Hendrick asked him as they jogged on.

I believe only what I see, Lothar grinned. When I see a Bushman sniffing the ground, then I will believe. Hendrick chuckled, but his eyes were cold and humourless.

They will have arrows, he said.

Do not let them get close, Lothar replied. Shoot them down the moment you see them, but be careful of the white woman. I will kill the man who harms her. Pass it on to the others. Lothar's order was called softly down the line.

Shoot the San, but take great care of the white woman. Twice they lost the spoor. They had to back up to the last marked sign, cast around it, and then move off again on the new line. The San were winning time and distance with every check, and Lothar fretted.

They are getting away from us, he called to Hendrick.

I am going to run ahead on this line, you follow on the spoor, in case they jink again. Be careful! Hendrick shouted after him. They may lie in ambush. Watch out for the arrows. Lothar ignored the warning and raced through the forest, no longer tracking the sign, but taking the chance that it was straight ahead, hoping to startle the Bushmen and force them to show themselves, or to push them so that they would abandon their captive. He took no hard notice of the hooked thorns that ripped at his clothing.

He ducked under the low mopani branches and hurdled fallen logs, running at the very peak of his speed.

Suddenly he burst from the forest into an open glade and he pulled up, his chest heaving for breath, sweat running into his eyes and soaking the back of his shirt between the shoulder-blades.

On the far side of the glade below the low forested ridge he saw movement, small black specks above the tops of the swaying yellow grass, and he turned back to the nearest tree and scrambled into the first fork for a better view.

Gasping wildly for breath, he fumbled the small brass telescope out of his hunting bag and pulled it to full extension. His hands were shaking, so it was difficult to focus the telescope, but be swept the far edge of the open glade.

Three human shapes appeared in the round field of the lens. They were in Indian file, heading directly away from him, almost at the palisade formed by the trunks of the paper-bark trees. Only their heads and shoulders showed above the grass, bobbing up and down as they ran. One was taller than the other two.

He watched them for seconds only before they reached the tree line, and two of them disappeared instantly, but the tallest figure paused, stepped up on to a fallen log and looked back across the glade towards Lothar.

It was a girl. Her long dark hair was divided into two thick braids that hung on to her shoulders. Through the telescope Lothar could see her expression, fearful, yet defiant. The lines of her chin and brow were aristocractic, and her mouth was full and firm, dark eyes proud and bright, her skin stained to deep honey-gold, so for an instant he thought she might be a mulatto. As he watched she shifted the bag she carried from one shoulder to the other, and the coarse material that clothed her upper body fell open for an instant.

Lothar saw a flash of pale smooth skin, untouched by the sun, the form of a full young breast, rosy tipped and delicately shaped, and he felt a weakness in his legs that was not from hard running. His breath stopped for an instant, and then roared in his own ears as he panted to fill his lungs.

The girl turned her head away from him, offering him a profile, and in that instant Lothar knew that he had never seen a woman more appealing. Everything in him yearned towards her. She turned her back to him and sprang lithely out of the field of the lens, and disappeared.

The branches of the edge of the forest trembled for a few seconds after she was gone.

Lothar felt like a man blind from birth, who for a fleeting instant had been shown the miracle of sight, only to be plunged back into darkness again. He stared after the girl, his feeling of deprivation so appalling that he could not move for many seconds, and then he leapt from the tree, rolling to his knees, breaking his fall, and sprang to his feet again.

He whistled -sharply and heard his call answered by Hendrick far behind him in the mopani, but he did not wait for his men to come up. He crossed the glade at a full run, but his feet seemed weighted with lead. He reached the spot where the girl had stopped to look back towards him, and found the tree stump on to which she had climbed. The marks of her bare feet that she had left in the soft earth as she jumped down from the stump were deep and clear, but a few paces farther she had reached the calcrete of the ridge. It was hard as marble, rough and broken, and Lothar knew that it would hold no sign. He did not waste a moment searching for it, but forced his way up through the thick bush to the crest of the ridge, hoping for another sighting from there.

The forest hemmed him in, and even when he climbed into the top branches of a solitary boabab, he looked down on the unbroken roof of the forest that spread away, grey and forbidding, to the horizon.

He climbed down and wearily retraced his steps to the edge of the glade. His Ovarnbos were waiting for him there.

We have lost them on the hard ground, Hendrick greeted him. Cast ahead, we must find them, Lothar ordered. I have tried already, the spoor is closed We cannot give up. We will work at it, I will not let them go. You saw them, Hendrick said softly, watching his master's face. Yes. It was a white girl, Hendrick insisted. You saw the girl, did you not? We cannot leave her here in the desert. Lothar looked away. He did not want Hendrick to see into the empty place in his soul. We must find her. We will try again, Hendrick agreed, and then with a sly telling grin, She was beautiful, this girl? Yes, Lothar whispered softly, still not looking at him. She was beautiful. He shook himself, as though waking from a dream, and the line of his jaw hardened.

Get your men on to the ridge, he ordered.

They worked over it like a pack of hunting dogs, quartering every inch of the adamant yellow rock, stooping over it and moving in a slow painstaking line, but they found only one further mark of the passage of the San and the girl.

In one of the overhanging branches of a paper-bark tree, near the crest of the ridge, just at the level of Lothar's shoulder, a lock of human hair was caught, torn from the girl's scalp as she ducked beneath the branch. It was curly and springy, as long as his forearm, and it glistened in the sunlight like black silk. Lothar wound it carefully around his finger, and then when none of his men was watchin& he opened the locket that hung around his neck on a golden chain. In the recess was a miniature of his mother.

He placed the curl of hair over it and snapped the lid of the locket closed.

Lothar kept them hunting for signs until it was dark, and in the morning he started them again as soon as they could see the ground at their feet. He split them into two teams. Hendrick took one team along the eastern side of the ridge, and Lothar worked the western extremity where the calcrete merged into the Kalahari sands, trying to discover the spot at which their quarry had left the ridge again.

E Four days later they had still not intersected the spoor, and two of the Ovarnbo had deserted. They slipped away during the night, taking their rifles with them.

We will lose the rest of them, Hendrick warned him ; : quietly. They are saying that this is a madness. They cannot understand it. Already we have lost the elephant herd, and there is no profit in this business any longer.

The spoor is dead. The San and the woman have slipped away. You will not find them now. Hendrick was right, it had become an obsession. A

single glimpse of a woman's face had driven him mad.

Lothar sighed, and slowly turned away from the ridge on which the pursuit had foundered.

Very well. He raised his voice so that the rest of his men, who had been trailing disconsolately, could hear him. Drop the spoor. It is dead. We are going back. The effect upon them was miraculous. Their step quickened and their expressions sparkled to life again.

Lothar remained on the ridge as the gang started back down the slope. He stared out over the forest towards the east, towards the mysterious interior where few white men had ventured, and he fingered the locket at his throat.

Where did you go? Was it that way, deeper into the Kalahari? Why didn't you wait for me, why did you run? There were no answers, and he dropped the locket back into the front of his shirt. If I ever cut your spoor again, you won't lose me so easily, my pretty. Next time I'll follow you to the ends of the earth, he whispered, and turned back down the slope.

O`wa jinked back and followed the ridge towards the south, keeping just below the crest, driving the women as hard as they could run heavily laden over the rough footing. He would not allow them to rest, although Centaine was beginning to tire badly, and pleaded with him over her shoulder.

In the middle of the afternoon he allowed them to drop their satchels and sprawl on the rocky slope while he scurried on down to reconnoitre the contact line of the sands and the calcrete intrusion for a point at which to make the crossover. Halfway down he paused and sniffed; picking up the faint stench of carrion, he turned aside and found the carcass of an old zebra stallion. Reading the sign, O'wa saw that hunting lions had caught him as he crossed the ridge and dragged him down. The kill was weeks old, the tatters of skin and flesh had dried hard and the bones were scattered amongst the rocks.

O'wa searched quickly and found all four of the zebra's feet intact. The hyena had not yet crunched them to splinters. With the clasp knife he prised the horny sheath of the actual hooves from the bony mass of the metatarsals, and hurried back to fetch the women. He led them the soft ground, and knelt in front of down to the edge of Centaine.

I will take Nam Child off, and then come back for you, he told H'ani as he bound the hoof sheaths to Centaine's feet with sansevieria twine.

We must hurry, old grandfather, they could be close behind us. H'ani sniffed the light breeze anxiously, and cocked her head towards each small forest sound.

Who are they? Centaine had recovered not only her breath, but her curiosity and reason. Who is chasing us?

I haven't seen or heard a thing. Are they people like me, O'wa, are they my people? Swiftly H'ani cut in before O'wa could reply. They are black men. Big black men from the north, not your people. Although she and O'wa had both seen the white man at the edge of the glade when they looked back from the ridge, they had reached agreement in a few words that they would keep Nam Child with them.

f Are you sure, H'ani? Centaine teetered on the zebra hooves, like a little girl in her first high-heeled shoes. They were not pale-skinned like me? The dreadful possi– Ilk bility that she was fleeing from her rescuers had suddenly occurred to her.

No! No! H'ani fluttered her hands in extreme agitation. The child was so close to birth, to witness that moment was the last thing in her life that she still cared about. Not pale-skinned like you. She thought of the most horrific being in San mythology. They are big black giants who eat human flesh. Cannibals! Centaine was shocked.

Yes! Yes! That is why they pursue us. They will cut the child from your womb and-, Let's go, O'wa! Centaine gasped. Hurry! Hurry!"

O'wa, with the other pair of hooves strapped to his own feet, guided Centaine away from the ridge, walking behind her and creating the illusion of a zebra having left the rocky ground and wandered away into the forest.

A mile from the ridge he hid Centaine in a clump of thorny scrub, removed the hooves from her feet, reversed the pair upon his own feet and set off back to fetch H'ani.

The two San, each of them wearing hoof sandals, tracked back along the same trail and when they reached Centaine's hiding-place, discarded the hooves and all three of them fled into the east.

O'wa kept them going all that night, and in the dawn while the women slept exhausted, he circled back on their trail and guarded it against the possibility that the pursuers had not been deceived by his ruse with the zebra hooves. Although he could discover no evidence of pursuit, for three more days and nights he force-marched, allowing no cooking fires, and used every natural feature to anti-track and hide their trail.

On the third night, he was confident enough to tell the women, We can make fire. And by its ruddy wavering light he danced with dedicated frenzy and sang the praise of the spirits in turn, including Mantis and Eland, for, as he explained seriously to Centaine, it was uncertain who had aided their escape, who had directed the wind to carry the warning scent to them in the first place, and who had subsequently placed the zebra carcass so conveniently to hand. It is necessary, therefore, to thank them all. He danced until moonset, and the next morning slept until sunrise. Then they resumed the familiar leisurely pattern of march, and even halted early that first day when O'wa discovered a colony of spring-hare.

This is the last time we can hunt, the spirits are most insistent. No man of the San may kill any living thing within five days march of "the Place of All Life", he explained to Centaine, as he selected long whippy saplings of the grewia bush, peeled them and lashed them together until he had a strong flexible rod almost thirty feet long. On the final section, he left a side branch that grew back at an acute angle to the main stem, like a crude fish-hook, and he sharpened the point of this hook and hardened it in the fire. Then he spent a long time carefully examining the burrows of the spring-hare colony, before selecting one which suited his design.

While the women knelt beside him, he introduced the hooked end of the rod into the opening of the burrow, and like a chimney-sweep worked it gently down the shaft, deftly guiding it around the subterranean curves and bends until almost the entire length was down in the earth.

Suddenly the rod pulsed strongly in his hands, and immediately O'wa struck, jerking back like a hardline fisherman who feels the pull of the fish.

He is kicking at the rod now, trying to hit it with his back legs, O'wa grunted, pushing the rod deeper into the hole, tempting the trapped spring-hare to kick out at it again.

This time, as he struck, the rod came alive in his hands, kicking and twitching and jerking.

U I have hooked him! He threw his weight back on the i k rod, driving the sharpened wooden point deeper into the El t animals flesh. Dig, H'ani. Dig, Nam Child!

The two women flew at the soft friable earth with their staves, digging down swiftly. The muffled shrieks of the ".

I hooked spring-hare grew louder as they came nearer to i the end of the long gaff, until finally O'wa heaved the furry creature clear of its earth. It was the size of a large yellow cat, and it leaped about wildly on the end of the pliant rod on its powerful kangaroo back legs, until H'ani despatched it with a swinging blow of her stave.

By nightfall they had killed two more spring-hare, and after they had thanked them, they feasted on the sweet tender roasted flesh, the last they would eat for a long time.

in the morning when they set out again on the final leg of the journey, a sharp hot wind blew into their faces.

Although it was taboo for O'wa to hunt, the Kalahari bloomed in a rich and rare abundance both below and above the ground. There were flowers and green leafy plants to be eaten as salads, roots and tubers, fruits and protein-rich nuts, and the water-holes, all of them brimming, were easy marches apart. Only the wind hampered them, standing steadily into their faces, hot and abrasive with blown sand, forcing them to cover their faces with their leather shawls and lean into it.

The mixed herds of fat handsome zebra and ungainly blue wildebeest with their scraggy manes and skinny legs standing out on the wide pans or on the grassy glades turned their rumps into the sultry blast. The wind ripped the talcum-fine dust off the surface of the pans and whirled it into the sky, turning the air misty, so the sun itself was a hazy orange globe and the horizons shrank in upon them.

The dust floated on the surface of the water-holes in a thin scum, and it turned to mud in their nostrils and grated between their teeth. It formed little wet beads in the corners of their eyes and dried and cracked their skins so that H'ani and Centaine had to roast and crush the seeds of the sour plum tree to extract the oil to dress their skins and the soles of their feet.

However, with each day's march the old people became stronger, more active and excited. They seemed less and less affected by the scouring wind. There was a new jauntiness in their step and they chattered animatedly to each other on the march, while Centaine faltered and dropped far behind, almost as she had done at the beginning.

On the fifth evening after crossing the ridge, Centaine staggered into the camp that the San had already set up on the edge of yet another open pan. Centaine lay on the bare earth, too hot and exhausted to gather grass for her bed.

When Rani came to her with food, she pushed it away petulantly. I don't want it. I don't want anything. I hate this land, I hate the heat and the dust. Soon, H'ani soothed her, very soon we will reach the Place of All Life, and your baby will be born. But Centaine rolled away from her. Leave me, just leave me alone. She woke to the cries of the old people, and she dragged herself up, feeling fat and dirty and unrested, even though she had slept so late that the sun was already tipping the tops of the trees, on the far side of the pan. immediately she saw that the wind had dropped during the night and most 0 f the dust had settled out of the air. The residue transformed the dawn to a kaleidoscope of flamboyant colour.

Nam Child, do you see it! H'ani called to her, and then trilled like a Christmas beetle, inarticulate with excitement. Centaine straightened up slowly and stared at the scene that the dust clouds had obscured the previous evening.

Across the pan a great whale-backed mountain rose abruptly out of the desert, steep-sided and with a sym.

A metrically rounded summit. Aglow with all the rich reds and golds of the dawn, it looked like a headless monster.

Parts of the mountain were bald and bare, glowing red rock and smooth cliffs, while in other places it was heavily forested; trees much taller and more robust than those of the plain crowned the summit or grew up the steep sides. The strange reddish light suffused with dust and the silences of the African dawn cloaked the entire mountain in majestic serenity.

Centaine felt all her miseries and her woes fall away as she stared at it.

"The Place of All Life"! As H'ani said the name, her agitation passed and her voice sank to a whisper. This is the sight we have travelled so far and so hard to look upon for the last time.

Olwa had fallen silent as well, but now he bobbed his head in agreement. This is where we will make our peace at last with all the spirits of our people. Centaine felt the same sense of deep religious awe that had overcome her when first she had entered the cathedral of Arras, holding her father's hand, and looked up at the gemlike stained glass in the high gloomy recesses of the towering nave. She knew that she stood on the threshold of a holy place, and she sank slowly to her knees and clasped her hands over the swell of her stomach.

The mountain was further off than it had seemed in the red light of the dawn. As they marched towards it, it seemed to recede rather than draw closer. As the light changed, so the mountain changed its mood. It became remote and austere, and the stone cliffs glittered in the sunlight like a crocodile's scales.

O'wa sang as he trotted at the head of the file: See, spirits of the San We come to your secret place With clean hands, unstained by blood.