Wilbur Smith - C07 A Time To Die

by C07 A Time To Die(Lit)

  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 h
uman 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.

  In the silence Shadrach stepped forward. Like Matatu, he had stood his ground. Now he stooped to the carcass, then jerked back and shouted aloud what they had not yet fully realized.

  "It's not the lion!"

  As he said it, the lion charged. He came straight at them out of the thicket as his mate had done but even more swiftly, driven by the agony in his belly and the black rage that filled him. He came grunting like a locomotive at full throttle, and they were unprepared, their rifles unloaded, bunched up too closely around the carcass of the lioness, and Shadrach was between them and the lion.

  The lion came bursting out of the tall grass in full charge and seized Shadrach in his jaws, biting into his hip. The momentum of its charge carried it into the knot of men standing close behind Shadrach.

  It knocked them all off their feet. Sean went over backward, crashing into the earth on his shoulder blades and the back of his neck with stunning force. He was holding the rifle in front of his chest, instinctively trying to protect it from damage as he went down, and the engraved barrels slammed into his sternum as he hit the earth. Pain shot through his chest, but he held on to the weapon and rolled onto his side.

  Ten feet away the lion was savaging Shadrach. It had him pinned under its massive paws as it mauled his hip and upper leg.

  "Thank God it's not a leopard," Sean thought as he broke open the rifle to reload. A leopard will not fix on one man if it attacks a group of hunters. It will bound from one t
o the other in rapid succession, maiming and killing all of them with dazzling speed.

  Furthermore, a leopard's main prey is the baboon, so it knows precisely how to dispatch a primate. It goes instinctively for the head, taking off the scalp and top of the skull, while its back legs kick down the belly, stripping out the intestines with hooked yellow claws very quickly, very efficiently.

  "Thank God it's not a leopard." The great beast was fixed on Shadrach, pinning him with its claws, worrying the leg, and with each growl a scarlet spray of blood puffed out of its jaws. The Matabele gun bearer was screaming and beating ineffectually at the huge maned head with both clenched fists.

  Sean saw Riccardo in the grass beyond them, scrambling to his knees and crawling toward where the Rigby rifle had been thrown.

  "Don't shoot, Capo!" Sean yelled at him. In a melee like this one, an inexperienced man with a loaded rifle was many times more dangerous than the attacking animal. The bullets of the Rigby would crack through the lion's body and smash into anybody beyond.