Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur. Страница 40

Centaine had been trained in the ways of the wild by the finest of all instructors, the wild Bushmen of the San, and she had lost none of her skills. It was not only the larger game that engaged her. She pointed out a pair of quaint little bat-eared foxes that Shasa would have missed. They were hunting grasshoppers in the sparse silver grass, pricking their enormous ears as they crept forward in a pantomime of stealth before the heroic leap onto their formidable prey.

They laid their tell-tale ears against their fluffy necks and flattened against the earth as the horses passed.

They startled a yellow sand-cat from an ant-bear burrow, and so intent was the big cat on its escape that it ran headlong into the sticky yellow web of a crab spider. The animal's comical efforts to wipe the web from its face with both front paws while at the same time continuing its flight had them both reeling in the saddle.

Once in the middle of the afternoon they spotted a herd of stately gemsbok trotting in single file across the horizon.

They held their heads high, the long straight slender horns transformed by distance and the angle of view into the single straight horn of the unicorn. The mirage turned them into strange long-legged monsters and then swallowed them up completely.

As the lowering sun painted the desert with shadow and fresh colour, Centaine picked out another small herd of spring-bok and pointed out a plump young ram to Shasa. We are only half a mile from camp and we need our dinner. Eagerly Shasa drew the Mannlicher from its scabbard.

Cleanly! she cautioned him. It troubled her a little to see how he enjoyed the chase.

She stayed back and watched him dismount. Using Prester John as a stalking horse, Shasa angled in towards the herd.

Prester John understood his role and kept himself between Shasa and the game, even pausing to graze when the springbok became restless, only moving closer when they had settled down again.

At two hundred paces Shasa squatted and braced his elbows on his knees, and Centaine felt a rush of relief as the springbok ram dropped instantly to the shot. She had once seen Lothar De La Rey gut shoot one of the lovely gazelle. The memory still haunted her.

When she rode up she saw that Shasa had hit the animal cleanly behind the shoulder, and the bullet had passed through the heart. She watched critically as Shasa dressed out the game the way Sir Garry had taught him.

Keep all the offal, she told him. The servants love the tripes. So he wrapped it in the wet skin and bundled the carcass up onto Prester John's back and tied it behind the saddle.

The camp was at the foot of the hills, below a seep well m the cliff which provided water. The previous day Centaine had sent three servants ahead with the pack horses and the camp was comfortable and secure.

They dined on grilled kebabs of liver, kidneys and heart, larded with laces of fat from the springbok's belly cavity.

Then they sat late at the fire, drinking coffee that tasted of wood smoke, talking quietly and watching the moon rise.

in the dawn they rode out, bundled in sheepskin jackets against the chill. They had not gone a mile before Centaine pulled up Nuage's head and leaned far out of the saddle to examine the earth.

What is it, Mater? Shasa was always sensitive to every nuance of her moods, and he saw how excited she was.

Come quickly, cheri. She pointed out the tracks in the soft earth. What do you make of these? Shasa swung down from the saddle and stooped over the sign.

Human beings? He was puzzled. But so small. Children? He looked up at her, and her shining expression gave him the clue.

Bushmen! he exclaimed. Wild Bushmen. Oh yes, she laughed. A pair of hunters. They are after a giraffe. Look! Their tracks are overlaying those of the quarry., Can we follow them, Mater? Can we? Now Shasa was as excited as she was.

Centaine agreed. Their spoor is only a day old. We can catch them if we hurry. Centaine rode on the spoor with Shasa trailing behind her, careful not to spoil the sign. He had never seen her work like this, taking it at a canter over the bad places where even his sharp young eyes could see nothing.

Look, a Bushman toothbrush. She pointed to a fresh twig, the end chewed to a brush, that lay discarded beside the spoor and they rode on.

This is where they first spotted the giraffe. How do you know that? They have strung their bows. There are the marks of the butts. The little men had pressed the tips of their bows against the earth to arch them.

Look, Shasa, now they have begun stalking. He could see no change in the spoor and said so.

Shorter and stealthier paces, weight forward on the toes, she explained, and then, a few hundred paces farther, Here they went down on their bellies, snake-crawling in for the kill. Here they went up on their knees to loose their arrows, and here they leapt to their feet to watch them strike. Twenty paces farther on she exclaimed, See how close they were to the quarry. This is where the giraffe felt the sting of the barbs and started to gallop, look how the hunters followed at a run, waiting for the poison of the arrows to take effect. They galloped along the line of the chase until Centaine rose in the stirrups and pointed ahead.

Vultures! Four or five miles ahead the blue of the heavens was dusted with a fine cloud of black specks. The cloud turned in slow vortex, high above the earth.

Slowly now, chgri, Centaine cautioned him. It could be dangerous if we frighten and panic them. They brought the horses down to a walk and rode up slowly to the site of the kill.

The giraffe's huge carcass, partly flayed and dismembered, lay on its side. Against the surrounding thorn bushes crude sun-shelters of thatch had been erected, and the bushes were festooned with strips of meat and ribbons of entrails set out to dry in the sun, the branches bowed under their weight.

The area was widely trodden by small feet.

They have brought the women and children to help cut up and carry, Centaine said.

Phew! It pongs terribly! Shasa screwed up his nose.

Where are they, anyway? Hiding. Centaine said. They saw us coming probably from five miles away. She stood up in the stirrups and swept the broad-brimmed hat from her head to show her face more clearly, and she called out in a strange guttural clicking tongue, turning slowly and repeating the message to every quarter of the silent brooding desert that encompassed them.

It's creepy. Shasa shivered involuntarily in the bright sunlight. Are you sure they are still here? They're watching us. They aren't in a hurry., Then a man rose out of the earth so close to them that the stallion shied and nodded his head nervously. The man wore only a loincloth of animal skin. He was a small, yet perfectly formed, with elegant and graceful limbs built for running. Hard muscle lay flat down his chest and sculpted his naked belly into the same ripples that the ebb tide leaves on a sandy beach.

He held his head proudly, and though he was clean-shaven, it was evident he was in the full flowering of his manhood.

His eyes had a Mongolian slant to the corners and his skin glowed with a marvelous amber colour seeming almost translucent in the sunlight.

He lifted his right hand in a greeting and a sign of peace and he called, birdlike and high, I see you, Nam Child, using Centaine's Bushman name, and she cried aloud for joy.

I see you also, Kwi! Who is with you? the bushman demanded.

This is my son, Good Water. As I told you when first we met, he was born in the holy place of your people and O'wa was his adopted grandfather and H'ani was his grandmother. Kwi, the Bushman, turned and called out into the empty desert. This is the truth, oh people of the San. This woman is Nam Child, our friend, and the boy is he of the legend.