The Burning Shore c-8

by Wilbur Smith

  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 heavil
y 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.