Blue Horizon c-3

by Wilbur Smith

  Bakkat laid aside the smoke tube and braced himself, balancing easily on the narrow branch. He swung the axe. As the blow reverberated through the trunk a few bees came out and buzzed around his head, but the smoke of the vine leaves had dulled their warlike instincts. One or two stung him, but Bakkat ignored them. With quick, powerful axe strokes he cut a square hatchway in the hollow trunk, and exposed the serried ranks of honeycombs.

  Then he climbed down to the ground and laid aside the axe. He returned to his perch on the branch with the leather bag over his shoulder. He scattered more vine leaves on the coals in the fire tube, and blew clouds of the thick, pungent smoke into the enlarged entrance. When the swarm was silent again he reached deep into the hive. With bees flowing over his arms and shoulders, he lifted out the combs one at a time and laid them gently in the bag. When the hive was empty he

  thanked the bees for their bounty, and apologized to them for his cruel treatment.

  "Very soon you will recover from the smoke I have given you, and you will be able to repair your hive and fill it once again with honey. Bakkat will always be your friend, and he feels only great respect and gratitude towards you," he told the bees.

  He climbed down to the ground and cut a curl of bark from the trunk of the tam bootie tree to form a tray on which he could lay out the honey-guide's share of the booty. He selected the choicest comb for his little friend and accomplice, one that was full of the yellow grubs, for he knew the bird loved these almost as much as he did.

  He gathered up all his possessions and slung the bulging leather bag over his shoulder. For the last time he thanked the bird and bade it farewell. As soon as he stepped back the bird dropped down from the top of the tree, fell upon the fat golden comb and pecked out the juicy grubs at once. Bakkat smiled and watched it indulgently for a while. He knew it would eat it all, even the wax, for it was the only creature that was able to digest this part of the bounty.

  He reminded the little bird of the legend of the greedy San who had cleaned out the hive and left nothing for the bird. The next time the bird had led him to a hole in the trunk of a tree in which was coiled a huge black mamba. The snake stung the cheating San to death.

  The next time we meet, remember that I treated you well and fairly," Bakkat told the bird. "I will look for you again. May the Kulu Kulu watch over you." And he set off back towards the wagons. As he went, he reached into the bag, broke off pieces of comb and stuffed them into his mouth, humming with deep pleasure.

  Within half a mile he stopped abruptly at a crossing place on the stream and stared in astonishment at the prints of human feet in the clay of the bank. The people who had passed this way recently had made no effort to hide their tracks. They were San.

  Bakkat's heart leaped like a gazelle. Only when he saw the fresh footprints did he realize how he had pined for his own people. He examined the sign avidly. There were five of them, two men and three women. One man was old, and the other much younger. He divined this from the reach and alacrity of their separate strides. One of the women was ancient, and hobbled along on gnarled, twisted feet. Another was in her prime, with a strong, determined step. She led the Indian file of her family.

  Then Bakkat's eyes fell on the fifth and last set of prints, and he felt a great longing squeeze his heart. They were dainty and as enchanting as any of the paintings of the artists of his tribe. Bakkat felt that he

  might weep with the beauty of them. He had to sit down for a while and stare at one until he could recover from the effect that they had had upon him. In his mind's eye he could see the girl who had left these signs for him to find. He divined with all his instincts that she was very young, but graceful, limber and nubile. Then he stood up again and followed her footprints into the forest.

  On the far bank of the stream he came to the point where the two men had separated from the women and gone off among the trees to hunt. From that point the women had begun gathering the wild harvest of the veld. Bakkat saw where they had broken off the fruit from the branches, and dug out the edible tubers and roots with the sharp, pointed stakes that each carried.

  He followed the tracks that the girl had left, and saw how swiftly and surely she worked. She made no false digs, wasting no effort, and it was clear to Bakkat that she knew every plant and tree she came upon. She passed by the poisonous and tasteless, and picked out the sweet and nourishing.

  Bakkat giggled with admiration. "This is a clever little one. She could feed her whole family with what she has gathered since she crossed the stream. What a wife she would make for a man."

  Then he heard voices in the forest ahead, feminine voices calling to each other as they worked. One was as musical and sweet as the call of the oriole, that golden songster of the high galleries of the forest.

  It led him as irresistibly as the honey-guide had. Silent and unseen he crept towards the girl. She was working in a clump of thick scrub. He could hear her digging stick thudding into the earth. At last he was close enough to make out her movements, veiled by the latticework of branches and leaves. Then, suddenly, she moved into the open, directly in front of Bakkat. All the solitary years and loneliness were swept away like debris in the new, surging flow of his emotions.

  She was exquisite, tiny and perfect. Her skin glowed in the noonday sunlight. Her face was a golden flower. Her lips were full and petal shaped. She lifted one graceful hand and, with her thumb, wiped the clinging drops of perspiration from her arched eyebrow and flicked them away. They sparkled as they flew through the air. He was so close that one splashed on his dusty shin. She was oblivious of his presence, and began to walk away. Then one of the other women called to her from nearby, "Are you thirsty, Letee? Shall we go back to the stream?" The girl stopped and looked back. She wore only a tiny leather apron in front, decorated with cowrie shells and beads made from chippings of ostrich-egg shell. The pattern of the shells and beads proclaimed that she was a virgin, and that no man had yet spoken for her.

  "My mouth is as dry as a desert stone. Let us go." Letee laughed as she replied to her mother. Her teeth were small and very white.

  In that moment Bakkat's entire existence changed. As she walked away her little breasts joggled merrily and her plump, naked buttocks undulated. He made no attempt to stop or delay her. He knew that he could find her again anywhere and at any time.

  When she had disappeared, he stood up slowly from his hiding-place. Suddenly he gave a leap of joy high into the air, and rushed away to make himself a love arrow. He selected a perfect reed from the edge of the stream, and lavished upon it all his talents as an artist. He painted it with mystic patterns and designs. The colours he chose from his paint horns were yellow, white, red and black. He fledged it with the purple feathers of the lourie, and padded the tip with a ball of tanned spring buck skin stuffed with sunbird feathers so that it would inflict no pain or injury on Letee.

  "It is beautiful!" Bakkat admired his own handiwork when it was finished. "But not as beautiful as Letee."

  That night he found the encampment of Letee's family. They were temporarily inhabiting a cave in the rocky cliff above the stream. He crept close in the darkness and listened to their banal inconsequential chatter. From it he learned that the old man and woman were her grandparents, and the other couple her mother and father. Her elder sister had recently found herself a fine husband and left the clan. The others were teasing Letee. She had seen her first menstrual moonrise fully three months previously, yet she was still a virgin and unmarried. Letee hung her head in shame at her failure to find herself a man.

  Bakkat left the mouth of the cave and found a place to sleep further down the stream. But he was back before dawn, and when the women left the cave to go out into the forest he followed them at a discreet distance. When they started to forage they kept in touch with each other by calling and whistling, but after a while Letee became separated from them. Bakkat closed in on her with all his stalking skills.

  She was digging for the fat tuber of the tiski plant
, a variety of wild manioc. She kept her legs straight as she bent over and rocked to the rhythm of her digging stick. The protruding lips of her sex peeped out from between the backs of her thighs, and her plump little rear end was pointed to the sky.

  Bakkat crept close. His hands shook as he raised the tiny ceremonial bow and aimed his love arrow. Yet his aim was true as ever and Letee squeaked with surprise, and sprang high in the air as the arrow smacked into her bottom. She wheeled round clutching herself with both hands, her expression betraying her astonishment and outrage. Then she saw

  the arrow lying at her feet and gazed around her at the silent bush. Bakkat had disappeared like a puff of smoke. The stinging in her bottom abated as she rubbed it. Then, slowly, she was overcome with shyness.

  Suddenly Bakkat appeared, so close that she gasped with shock. She stared at him. His chest was broad and deep. His legs and arms were sturdy. She saw at an instant, by the easy way in which he bore his weapons, that he was a mighty hunter, and that he would provide well for a family. He carried the colour pots of the artist on his belt, which meant that he would have high standing and much prestige within all the tribes of the San. She dropped her eyes demurely and whispered, "You are so tall. I saw you from afar."

  "I also saw you from afar," Bakkat replied, 'for your beauty lights the forest like the rising of the sun."

  "I knew you would come," she answered him, 'for your face was painted on my heart on the day of my birth." Letee came forward timidly, took his hand and led him to her mother. In her other hand she carried the love arrow. This is Bakkat," she told her mother, and held up the arrow. Her mother shrieked, which brought the grandmother running, cackling like a hen guinea-fowl. The two older women went ahead of them to the cave, singing, dancing and clapping. Bakkat and Letee followed them, still holding hands.

  Bakkat gave Letee's grandfather the bag of wild honey. He could not have brought them a more acceptable gift. Not only were they all addicted to the sweetness, but it proved Bakkat's ability to provide for a wife and children. The family feasted on it, but Bakkat ate none because he was the giver. With every mouthful Letee smacked her lips and smiled at him. They talked until late in the light of the campfire. Bakkat told them who he was, the totem of his tribe and the list of his ancestors. The grandfather knew many of them, and clapped his hands as he recognized their names. Letee sat with the other women and they did not join in the talk of the men. At last, Letee stood up and crossed to where Bakkat sat between the other two men. She took his hand and led him to where she had laid out her sleeping mat at the back of the cave.

  The two left early in the morning. All Letee's possessions were packed into the roll of her sleeping mat, and she carried it balanced effortlessly on her head. Bakkat went ahead of her. They moved at a trot, a pace they could keep up from morning until evening. Bakkat sang the hunting songs of his tribe as he ran, and Letee joined in the chorus in her sweet, childlike voice.

  Xhia was concealed in the thickets across the stream from the mouth of the cave. He watched the couple emerge into the early sunlight. He had been spying on Bakkat during all the preceding days of his courtship. Despite his hatred for Bakkat, Xhia was intrigued by the ancient marriage ritual. He felt a lascivious thrill from watching the man and woman play out their appointed roles. He wanted to witness the final act of mating before he interceded, and exacted his revenge from Bakkat.

  "Bakkat has plucked himself another pretty flower." The fact that she was the woman of his enemy made her all the more desirable to Xhia. "But he will not enjoy her long."

  Xhia hugged himself with glee, and let the couple trot off into the forest. He would not follow too closely for he knew that although Bakkat was distracted by his new companion he was still a formidable adversary. Xhia was in no hurry. He was a hunter and the first attribute of the hunter is patience. He knew there would be a time when Bakkat and the girl were separated, if only for a short time. That would be his chance.

  A little before noon Bakkat came upon a small herd of buffalo. Xhia watched as he left his bag and accoutrements in Letee's care, and crept forward. He picked out a half-grown heifer whose flesh would be sweet and tender, not gamey and tough as that of an older beast. She was also much smaller in size so that the poison would work more swiftly. Keeping downwind, Bakkat manoeuvred skilfully into a position directly behind the heifer so that he could send an arrow into the thin skin surrounding her anus and genitals. The thicker hide of her body would resist the frail arrow. The network of veins around the heifer's body openings would convey the poison swiftly to her heart. His shot was true, and the animal galloped away in alarm with the rest of the herd. The shaft of the arrow broke off, but the barbed, poisoned head was buried deeply. She ran for only a short distance before the poison started to take effect, and she slowed to a walk.

  Bakkat and Letee followed patiently. The sun had moved only a few fingers across the sky before the heifer halted and lay down. Bakkat and his little woman squatted nearby. At last the beast groaned and rolled over on to her side. Bakkat and Letee broke into a song of praise and thanks to the heifer for giving them her flesh to sustain them, and ran forward to butcher the carcass.

  That evening while it was still light they made their camp beside it.

  No matter that the flesh would soon turn in the heat, they would remain here until the entire cow was consumed, guarding it from the vultures and other scavengers. Letee made the fire and roasted strips of liver and the back straps of meat. When they had finished eating, Bakkat led her to the sleeping mat and they coupled. Xhia crept closer to spy upon this final act of the courtship. In the end, when Bakkat and Letee writhed together as one and cried out in a single voice, he doubled over and, in a shuddering spasm, ejaculated in concert with them. Then, before Bakkat could recover, he slipped back into the bushes.

  "It has been done," Xhia whispered to himself, 'and now the time has come for Bakkat to die. He is lulled and softened by love. There will never be a better time than this."

  In the dawn Xhia was watching when Letee rose from the mat beside her husband and knelt before the ashes of the fire to blow life back into them. When the flames burned up brightly, she left the camp and came into the bushes close to where Xhia waited. She looked about her carefully, then untied the string of her beaded apron, laid it aside and squatted. While she was busy, Xhia crept up on her. As she stood again he sprang upon her from behind. Xhia was swift and powerful. She had no chance to cry out before he had covered her mouth and nose with her own apron. He held her down easily while he gagged and trussed her with the bark rope he had plaited the previous evening. Then he lifted her on to his shoulder and carried her away. He made no effort to cover his tracks. The girl was the bait. Bakkat would follow her and Xhia would be ready for him.

  Xhia had scouted the ground the previous evening, and he knew exactly where to take the girl. He had chosen an isolated kopje not far from the campsite. The sides were sheer and rocky, so that from the heights he could keep a watch over the approaches. He had discovered only one path to the top, and its entire length was exposed to an archer on the summit.

  The girl was small and light. Xhia ran with her easily. At first she kicked and struggled, but he chuckled and told her, "Every time you do that I will punish you." She took no heed of the warning and kicked wildly with both legs. She was moaning and mumbling into her gag.

  "Xhia warned you to be still," he told her, and pinched one of her nipples with his fingernails. They were sharp as flint knives, and blood oozed from the wounds they inflicted. She tried to scream, her face contorted with the effort. She writhed and fought, and tried to bump him in the face with her head. He took her other nipple and pinched it until his nails almost met in her tender flesh. She froze with agony and he started up the steep pathway to the top of the kopje. Just below the

  summit there was a cleft between two rocks. He laid her in it, then examined her bonds. He had tied them in haste. Now he retied the knots at ankles and wrists. Satisfied
that they were tight, he removed the folds of her leather apron from between her jaws. Immediately she screamed with all the force of her lungs.

  "Yes!" He laughed at her. "Do that again. It will bring Bakkat to me even as the squeals of a wounded gazelle bring the leopard."

  She hissed and spat at him. "My husband is a mighty hunter. He will kill you for this."