Blue Horizon c-3

by Wilbur Smith

  Then he watched in despair as Louisa ran into the bushes and was plucked from the saddle. The elephant turned back to hunt for her, as she was held powerless in the grip of the thorns. However, this check enabled Jim to push in so close that Drumfire balked and shied at the gamy stench of the elephant, and at its threatening presence. Using his spurs without mercy, Jim drove him in closer still, watching for an opportunity to send in a telling shot. He knew that his ball must break bone or hit the vitals to distract the bull. However, all was confused movement, noise and flying dust. The elephant was wading through the thorn bush, and the waving branches protected his vulnerable parts and frustrated Jim's aim. Drumfire was skittering under him, throwing his head and trying to back away from the terrible menace of the elephant.

  He saw Louisa tangled in the thorns. She showed no sign of life. He thought that her neck might have snapped in the fall or that her skull was crushed in. The idea of losing her was too agonizing to be borne, and he forced Drumfire forward with all his strength and will. Suddenly

  the bull found Louisa's limp body and hauled her out of the thicket. Jim dared not fire at its head for fear of hitting Louisa. He was forced to wait until the beast backed and turned broadside to him, at last exposing its flank. Jim leaned far out of the saddle, reaching up until the muzzle of the heavy gun almost touched the rough and baggy skin, and he fired.

  The ball struck the point of the bull's shoulder, on the heavy joint of humerus and scapula, shattering the bone. The elephant reeled back from the shot, and threw out its trunk to balance itself on three legs. It released its grip on Louisa's leg, and she fell back into the thicket where the branches cushioned her from the hard earth.

  The elephant turned towards Jim, ears flaring, shrilling with pain and rage, then reached out with its trunk to pull him from the saddle. But it was pinned by its broken front leg, and Jim turned Drumfire away, swinging out of reach, and rode back to meet Bakkat who was coming up with the second gun. With expertise born of long practice they exchanged guns. "Reload! As quick as you like!" Jim shouted, and with the second weapon in his hand he spurred back to confront the bull, which was dragging itself to meet him, hobbling on three legs, the crippled front leg twisted and useless.

  Jim could see now that Louisa's shot had blinded one eye, for blood and eye jelly poured down its cheek. He changed direction, coming in from the bull's blind side, so close that the tip of one tusk grazed his shoulder, and as he went by he fired into its chest without checking Drumfire's gallop. The bull staggered. This time the heavy four-ounce ball had gone in deeply, cutting through the vital organs, the tangled arteries and veins deep in the chest cavity. It was a fatal wound but it would take time for the beast to fall.

  He reckoned that Louisa was out of harm's way, as long as she stayed where she was, deeply hidden in the thicket. In the utmost haste Jim rode back to where Bakkat had dropped down from Frost's back, the better and swifter to reload the other gun. It took courage to dismount in the face of a wounded elephant.

  Courage is one thing he lacks not! Jim thought, as he watched for him to finish the complicated business of reloading the heavy gun. Drumfire danced in nervous circles, and Jim glanced back to watch the bull. Then he shouted with alarm as he saw Louisa crawling out of the thorn bush on hands and knees, almost under the bull's trampling feet. Exposed as she now was, she was once again in terrible danger. He dropped the empty gun and, not waiting for Bakkat to finish reloading, galloped back. Again he swerved in from the bull's blind side so that he could risk a much closer pass.

  Obviously half stunned, Louisa came to her feet, favouring her injured leg where the bull's trunk had seized her. She saw Jim riding towards her, hopped towards him and lifted her arms. She was a dreadful sight, her clothing torn by thorns and stained with blood. She was covered with scratches and dust, her long hair tumbling down over her face.

  Drumfire brushed so closely along the bull's blind side that the blood that flowed down from the wound in its shoulder stained Jim's breeches at the knee, but when the elephant swung its trunk to swat him like a fly, Jim flattened himself along Drumfire's neck and ducked under the blow. They galloped up to Louisa and, without pausing, Jim leaned far out of the saddle, gripping only with his knees, flung one arm round Louisa and swung her up behind him. As soon as she was astride she locked both her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his sweaty shirt between his shoulder-blades. She was sobbing with pain and fright, unable to utter a word. He carried her to the crest of the hill, swung himself to the ground, and reached up to lift her down from Drumfire's back.

  She was still unable to speak, but words were unnecessary and inadequate. Her eyes, close to his, expressed all her gratitude and gave him a glimpse of her other emotions, still too complex and confused for her to express.

  Jim set her carefully on the ground. "Where are you hurt?" he asked. His voice was choked with concern for her. The toll that their brush with death had exacted was clear to see on his face, and this rallied her. She clung to him still as he knelt over her.

  "My ankle, but 'tis almost nothing," she whispered.

  "Let me see it," he said, and she let her arms slip away from his neck. "Which one?" he asked, and she showed him. He eased the boot from her foot and tested her leg gently. "It's not broken," he said.

  "No." She sat up. "And 'tis only a little sore." She brushed the golden hair off her dusty face and he saw that a thorn was stuck into her cheek. He plucked it out, and she winced but held his gaze. "Jim!" she whispered.

  "Yes, my little hedgehog?"

  "No, 'tis nothing, except--' She broke off, unable to finish, then went on lamely, "I like it well enough when you call me that."

  "I'm glad to have you back," Jim said. "For a moment I thought you had taken leave of us."

  "I must be a sight to give children nightmares." She could look no longer into his eyes, and tried to wipe the dust from her face.

  Only a woman could consider her appearance at such a time, Jim

  thought, but he did not say it. "You are such a sight as I have dreamed on," he said instead, and she blushed under the dirt.

  Then Bakkat rode up on Frost with both the great guns loaded and primed. The bull will escape us yet, if you let him, Somoya."

  Jim roused himself to what was happening around them. He saw the old bull walking away slowly downhill, dragging one front leg and shaking its huge head as the agony of the burst eyeball raged through its skull.

  "Oh, Jim," Louisa whispered. "The poor beast is in terrible extremes. You must not let him suffer so."

  "It will not take long," he promised her. He stepped up into Drumfire's saddle and took the gun Bakkat handed up to him. Then he rode down the slope, circled out ahead of the maimed animal and stopped Drumfire squarely in its path. He cocked the hammer and waited.

  The bull seemed not to notice them and came on slowly, painfully. At ten paces Jim fired into the front of its chest. As the ball socked heavily into the wrinkled hide, he spun Drumfire away like a dancer. The bull made no move to follow them. It stood still as a monument, and the heart blood pumped from the fresh bullet hole, bright as a fountain in the sunlight.

  Jim changed guns with Bakkat, then brought Drumfire back towards where the bull still stood. He came in on its blind side at a steady walk. The bull began to rock gently on its feet, once again making a soft rumbling sound deep in its chest. Jim felt all his warlike passions abating, to be replaced by a feeling of sadness and aching remorse. With this most noble of all quarry, he felt more intensely than ever the eternal tragedy of the kill. It was an effort to raise the gun and fire again. The bull shuddered when it received the ball, and began to back away, but its movements were slow and unsteady. Then, at last, it sighed, a laboured, gusty sound.

  It fell the way a great tree goes down before the axe and cross-saw, slowly at first, then faster until it hit the earth with a crash that echoed from the hills across the valley.

  Bakkat slipped off Frost's back, and we
nt forward. The elephant's good eye was wide open, and Bakkat ran his finger lightly along the fringe of its lashes. It did not blink. "It is over, Somoya. He belongs to you for ever."

  Despite her protests that her injuries were of no consequence, Jim would not let Louisa ride back to the wagons. He and Bakkat cut two long, supple poles and with a framework of lighter sticks fastened between them, the whole covered by the canvas ground sheets from their blanket rolls, they contrived a travois for Trueheart to drag behind her. Jim laid Louisa tenderly on it and picked the smoothest path to lead Trueheart back to the wagons.

  Although Louisa laughed from this comfortable bed, and declared it the easiest journey she had ever made, by the time they reached the wagons her injuries had stiffened. When she rose from the travois she hobbled to her wagon like a very old lady.

  Jim hovered around her anxiously, aware that any uninvited help he might offer would be rejected. He was surprised and delighted when she placed a hand on his shoulder as she climbed the wagon steps. He left her to take off her torn, soiled clothing while he supervised the heating of the water cauldron and the preparation of the copper hip-bath. Zama and the other servants removed the after chest from her wagon and set up the bath in its place. Then they filled it with steaming water. When all was ready, Jim retired and listened through the canvas tent to her splashes, and winced in sympathy to her small cries and exclamations of pain as the water stung her abrasions and thorn pricks. When at last he judged that she had finished he asked permission to enter her wagon tent. "Yes, you may come in, for I am as chastely attired as a nun."

  She was wearing the dressing-robe Sarah Courtney had given her. It reached from her chin to her ankles, and down to her wrists.

  "Is there aught I can do to ease your discomfort?" he asked.

  "I have rubbed your aunt Yasmini's sovereign balm and ointment upon my ankle and on most of my other afflictions." She lifted the hem of the robe a few inches to show her ankle tightly wrapped in bandages. Dorian Courtney's wife was an adept of Arabian and Oriental medicine. Her famous ointment was the family cure-all. Sarah had packed a dozen large jars of it into the medical chest she had given them. There was an open jar beside Louisa's car dell bed, and the strong but pleasant herbal smell permeated the interior of the tent.

  Jim was not sure where these remarks were leading, but he nodded wisely. Then she blushed again, and, without looking at him, murmured, However, I have thorns in places that I cannot reach. And bruises sufficient for two persons to share."

  It did not occur to him that she was asking for his help, and she had

  to make it more apparent. She reached over one shoulder and touched her back as far down as she could reach. "It feels as though I have an entire forest of thorns embedded down there." Still he stared at her, and she had to eschew all attempts at subtlety and modesty.

  "In the chest you will find a pair of tweezers and a selection of needles you can use," she said, turned her back to him and slipped the robe off her shoulder. "There is one particular thorn here, just below my shoulder blade." She touched the spot. "It feels like a crucifixion nail."

  He gulped as he grasped her meaning, and reached for the tweezers. "I shall try not to hurt you, but cry out if I do," he said, but he was well practised in caring for sick and wounded animals, and his touch was firm but gentle.

  She stretched out face down upon the sheepskin mattress, and gave herself over to his ministrations. Although her back was scratched and punctured in many places, and pale lymph and watery blood wept from the injuries, her skin was marble smooth and lustrously pale where it was undamaged. Although when he had first met her she had been a skinny waif, since then an abundance of good food and months of riding and walking had firmed and shaped her muscles. Even in her present straits, her body was the loveliest thing he had ever laid eyes on. He worked in silence, not trusting his voice, and except for the occasional gasp or small whimper Louisa said nothing.

  When he folded back the hem of her robe to reach another hidden thorn, she moved slightly to make it easier for him. When he peeled back the silk a little further it revealed the beginning of the delicate cleft that separated her buttocks and down so fine and pale that it was invisible until the light fell upon it from a certain angle. Jim stood back and averted his eyes, although the effort required to do so was almost beyond him. "I cannot go further," he blurted.

  Tray, why not?" she asked, without lifting her face from the pillow. "I can feel there are thorns that still demand your attention."

  "Modesty forbids it."

  "So you will not care if my injuries mortify, and I die of blood poisoning to save your precious modesty?"

  "Do not jest so," he exclaimed. The thought of her death struck deep into his soul. She had come so close to it this very morning.

  "I jest not, James Archibald." She raised her head from the pillow and regarded him frostily. "I have no one else to whom I may turn. Think of yourself as a surgeon, and me as your patient."

  The lines of her naked bottom were pure and symmetrical beyond any geometrical or navigational diagram he had studied. Under his

  fingers her skin was warm and silken. When he had removed the thorns and anointed her various wounds with the balm, he measured a dose of laudanum to ease her discomfort. Then, at last, he was free to leave her wagon tent. But his legs seemed almost too weak to carry him.

  Jim ate dinner alone at the campfire. Zama had roasted a large slice of the elephant's trunk, considered by his father and other connoisseurs to be one of the great delicacies of the African bush. But Jim's jaw ached from the effort of chewing it and it had all the flavour of boiled wood chips When the flames of the campfire died down, exhaustion overtook him. He had just sufficient energy to peep through the chink in the afterclap of Louisa's wagon tent. She was stretched out, face down under the kaross, and sleeping so soundly that he had to listen intently for the faint sound of her breathing. Then he left her and tottered to his own bed. He stripped off his clothing and dropped it on the floor, then collapsed on the sheepskin.

  He woke in confusion not sure if what he was hearing was a dream or reality. It was Louisa's voice, shrill with terror: "Jim, Jim! Help me!"

  He sprang from his bed to go to her, then remembered he was naked. While he groped for his breeches she cried out again. He did not have time to don his breeches, but holding them before him, he went to her rescue. He skinned his knee on the tailboard of the wagon as he jumped down, then ran to hers and dived through the curtains of the afterclap. "Louisa! Are you safe? What troubles you?"

  "Ride! Oh, ride with all haste! Don't let it catch me!" she screamed. He realized that she was locked in a nightmare. This time it was difficult to wake her. He had to seize both of her shoulders and shake her.

  "Jim, is it you?" At last she came back from the land of shadows. "Oh, I had such a terrible dream. It was the elephant again."

  She clung to him, and he waited for her to calm. She was hot and flushed, but after a while he laid her back and pulled the fur kaross over her. "Sleep now, little hedgehog," he whispered. "I will not be far away."

  "Don't leave me, Jim. Stay with me for a while."

  "Until you sleep," he agreed.

  But he fell asleep before she did. She felt him topple over slowly and lie full length beside her. Then his breathing became slow and even. He was not touching her, but his presence was reassuring and she let herself slip back into sleep. This time there were no dark fantasies to haunt her rest.

  When she awoke in the dawn to the sounds of the camp stirring around her she reached out to touch him, but he was gone. She felt a sharp sense of loss.

  She dressed and climbed painfully down from the wagon. Jim and Bakkat were busy at the horse lines washing the scratches and small injuries that Drumfire and Trueheart had received in yesterday's battle with the elephant, and feeding them a little of the precious oats and bran moistened with black molasses as a reward for their courage. When he looked up and saw Louisa struggling down
from her wagon, Jim exclaimed with alarm and ran to her. "You should keep to your bed. What are you doing here?"

  "I am going to see to breakfast."

  "What madness is this? Zama can do without your instruction for a day. You must rest."