Wilbur Smith - C11 Blue Horizon

by C11 Blue Horizon(Lit)

"Stop them!" Keyser howled. "They have got the horses! Stop them!" He tripped over a rock and fell to his knees, gasping for breath, his heart pounding as though it were about to burst. He stared after the fast vanishing herd, and the import of his predicament struck him with full force. He and his men were stranded in tract less mountainous terrain, at least ten days' march from civilization. Their supplies were severely depleted even those they would not be able to carry with them.

  "Swine!" he shouted. "I will get you, Jim Courtney. I will not rest until I see you swinging on the gibbet, until I see the maggots filling your skull and dribbling out of your eye-sockets. I swear by all that is holy, and may God be my witness."

  The runaway horses kept bunched together, and Jim herded them along. He cut the rope on which he was towing the lioness, and left her carcass behind. Glad to be rid of his odorous burden, Drumfire calmed down at once. Within a mile the running herd dropped from a gallop to a canter, but Jim kept them moving steadily. Within an hour he knew that none of the troopers, shod as they were and carrying their weapons and equipment, could overhaul them. He slowed down to a steady trot, a pace they could keep up for hours.

  Before the attack on Keyser's camp, Jim had sent Zama and Louisa on ahead with Trueheart and the mules. They had had several hours' start, but Jim caught up with them an hour after sunrise. The meeting was emotional.

  "We heard the gunfire in the night," Louisa told Jim, 'and feared the worst, but I prayed for you. I didn't stop until a minute ago when I heard you shout behind us."

  "That's what did it, then, Hedgehog. You must be a champion prayer maker." Although he grinned, Jim felt an almost irresistible urge to lift her down from Trueheart's back and hold her close, to protect her and cherish her. She looked so thin, pale and exhausted. Instead he swung down from his own saddle. "Make a fire, Zama," he ordered. "We can warm up and rest. Damn me, if we won't eat the last mouthful of the food, drink the last mug of coffee, then sleep until we wake up." He laughed. "Keyset is on his way back to the colony on Shanks's pony and we won't have any more trouble from him for a while."

  This time Jim would not allow Louisa to refuse a mug of coffee, and once she had tasted the bitter liquid she could no longer deny herself, and drank the rest thankfully. It revived her almost immediately. She stopped shivering and a little colour returned to her cheeks. She even raised a wan smile at a few of Jim's worst jokes. He refilled the canteen with boiling water every time it was emptied. Each brew of coffee

  became progressively weaker but it restored his spirits and he was cheerful and ebullient again. He described to Louisa how Keyser had reacted to the surprise raid, and imitated him staggering about barefoot, waving his sword over his head, bellowing threats and tripping over his own feet in the dark. Louisa laughed until tears ran down her cheeks.

  Jim and Zama examined the horses they had captured. They were in good condition, considering the long, gruelling journey that had been forced on them. Keyser's grey gelding was the pick of the herd. Keyser had named him Zehn, but Jim translated that to the English, Frost.

  Now that they had remounts they would be able to push on at speed towards the rendezvous on the Gariep. But first Jim rested and grazed the horses knowing that Keyser could not harass them. Louisa took full advantage of this respite. She curled under her kaross and slept. She lay so still that Jim was worried. Quietly he lifted a corner of the fur to make sure she was still breathing.

  That morning, just before they had caught up with Zama and Louisa, Jim had spotted a small herd of four or five mountain rhebuck grazing among the rocks higher up the slope from the valley. Now he saddled Frost and Bakkat rode bareback on another of the captured horses. Jim left Louisa to sleep with Zama to guard her, and they rode back to where they had seen the rhebuck. They found that the herd had moved on and the slope was empty, but Jim knew they were unlikely to have gone far. They knee-haltered the horses and left them to graze on a patch of sweet grass with fluffy pink seed heads ripening in the spring sunshine. They climbed the slope.

  Bakkat picked up the rhebuck spoor just below the crest, and worked it swiftly, trotting along over rocky ground with Jim striding after him. On the far side of the ridge they found the herd already bedded down in the lee of a cluster of large boulders that sheltered them from the cold wind. Bakkat led Jim in close, leopard-crawling with the musket cradled in the crook of his elbow. At seventy paces Jim knew they could not get closer without bolting the herd. He picked a fat dun-coloured ewe who was lying facing away from him, chewing the cud contentedly. He knew that the musket threw three inches to the right at a hundred paces, so he propped his elbows on his knees for a steady shot and laid off his aim a thumb's width. The ball struck at the base of the ewe's skull with a sound like a ripe melon dropped on a stone floor. She did not move again, except to drop her head flat against the earth. The rest of the herd bounded away, flashing their bushy white tails and whistling with alarm.

  They skinned the ewe and gralloched her, feasting on raw liver as

  they worked. She was only a medium-sized antelope, but young and plump. They left the skin and head and entrails and between them carried the rest of the carcass back to the horses.

  Once they had loaded it on to Frost's back, Bakkat stuffed his food bag with strips of fresh raw meat, and they parted. Armed with Jim's telescope, he rode back to spy on Keyser and his troopers. Jim wanted him to make certain that they had abandoned the chase, now that they had lost their horses, and that they were starting on the long, bitter march back through the mountains to the distant colony. Jim would not trust Keyser to do what was expected of him: he was learning to respect the colonel's tenacity, and the strength of his hatred.

  By the time Jim reached the camp where he had left Louisa it was after noon, and she was still sleeping. The aroma of roasting rhebuck steaks roused her. Jim managed to brew one more watery canteen of coffee with the old beans, and Louisa ate with obvious relish.

  In the late afternoon, just as the sun was settling on the peaks, painting them bloody and fiery, Bakkat rode back into camp. "I found them about five miles from where we attacked them last night," he told Jim. "They have given up the chase. They have abandoned all of the supplies and equipment they could not carry on their backs they did not even take the time to burn it. I brought back everything I thought we could use."

  While Zama helped him unload the booty, Jim asked, "Which way are they heading?"

  "As you hoped, Xhia is leading them back west again, straight towards the colony. But they are travelling slowly. Most of the white men are suffering. Their boots are better suited to riding than walking. The fat colonel is already limping, and using a stick. It does not seem as though he will be able to carry on much longer, not for the ten days' travel it will take them to reach the colony." Bakkat looked at Jim. "You said that you did not want to kill him. The mountains might kill him for you."

  Jim shook his head. "Stephanus Keyser is no fool. He will send Xhia ahead to fetch fresh horses from the Cape. He might lose some of his belly, but he won't die," he declared, with assurance he did not feel. He added silently, Or, at least, I hope not. He did not want Keyset's murder laid at the door of his family.

  For the first time in weeks they did not have to run to keep ahead of their pursuers. Bakkat had found a small bag of flour and a bottle of wine in one of the saddlebags Keyser had abandoned. Louisa cooked flat unleavened bread cakes over the coals, and kebabs of rhebuck meat and liver, and they washed it down with Keyser's fine old claret. Alcohol is

  poison to the San, and Bakkat, giggling tipsily, almost fell into the fire when he tried to stand. The fur karosses had dried out after the soaking in the previous day's thunderstorm, and they collected armfuls of cedar wood to feed a fragrant campfire, so they enjoyed their first unbroken sleep for many a night.

  Early the next morning they rode on, well fed, rested and mounted, towards the meeting place at the Hill of the Baboon's Head. Only Bakkat was still suffering the ill-effects of the three mou
thfuls of wine he had drunk the night before. "I am poisoned," he muttered. "I am going to die."

  "No, you won't," Jim assured him. "The ancestors will not take a rogue like you."

  For three days Colonel Stephanus Keyser limped along, leaning heavily on the staff that Captain Koots had cut for him, supported on the other side by Goffel, one of the Hottentot troopers. The trail was endless: steep descents followed by treacherous uphill stretches on which the loose round scree rubble rolled underfoot. An hour before noon on the third day of the march Keyser could go no further. He collapsed with a groan on a small boulder beside the game trail they were following.

  "Goffel, you useless bastard, pull off my boots," he shouted, and offered one of his feet. Goffel struggled with the large, scuffed, dusty boot, then staggered backwards as it came free in his hands. The others gathered around and stared in awe at the exposed foot. The stocking was in bloody ribbons. The blisters had burst and tatters of skin hung from the open wounds.

  Captain Koots blinked his pale eyes. His eyelashes were colourless which gave him a perpetual bland stare. "Colonel, sir, you cannot go on with your feet in that condition."

  That's what I have been telling you for the last twenty miles, you gibbering idiot," Keyser roared at him. "Get your men to build me a carrying chair."

  The men exchanged glances. They were already heavily burdened with the equipment Keyser had insisted they carry back to the colony, including his English hunting saddle, his folding camp chair and bed, his canteen and bedroll. Now they were about to be accorded the honour of carrying the colonel himself.

  "You heard the colonel." Koots rounded on them. "Richter! You and Le Riche find two cedar wood poles. Use your bayonets to trim them

  into shape. We will tie the colonel's saddle over them with strips of bark." The troopers scattered to their tasks.

  Keyser hobbled on bare, bleeding feet to the stream and sat on the bank. He soaked his feet in the cold clear water and sighed with relief. "Koots!" he shouted, and the captain hurried to join him.

  "Colonel, sir!" He stood to attention on the bank. He was a lean, hard man, with narrow hips and wide bony shoulders under the green baize tunic.

  "How would you like to earn ten thousand guilders?" Keyser dropped his voice to a confidential tone. Koots thought about that sum of money. It represented almost five years' pay on his present level, and he had no illusions about climbing higher up the military ladder. "It is a large sum of money, sir," he said cautiously.

  "I want that young bastard Courtney. I want him as much as anything I have ever wanted in my life."

  "I understand, Colonel." Koots nodded. "I would like to get my hands on him myself." He smiled like a cobra at the thought, and clenched his fists instinctively at his sides.

  "He is going to get away, Koots," Keyser said heavily. "Before we ever reach the castle he will be over the frontier of the colony and we will never see him again. He has made a jackass of me, and of the

  VOC."

  Koots showed no sign of distress at these trespasses. He could not prevent a bleak smile reaching his thin lips as he thought, That's no great feat. It doesn't take a genius to make a jackass of the colonel.

  Keyser caught a glimmer of the smile. "You, too, Koots. You will be the butt of every joke of every drunkard and whore in every tavern in the colony. You will be buying your own drinks for years to come." Koots's face darkened into a murderous scowl. Keyser pressed the advantage. "That is, Koots, unless you and I can see to it that he is captured and brought back to give a public performance of the rope dance on the parade outside the castle."

  "He is taking the Robbers' Road to the north," Koots protested. "The VOC cannot send troops after him. It's outside their suzerainty. Governor van de Witten would never allow it. He could not flout the orders in council of Het Zeventien."

  "I could arrange for you, my fine fellow, to take an indefinite leave of absence from the Company service. Paid leave, of course. I would also arrange a travel pass for you to cross the frontier on a hunting expedition. I would give you Xhia and two or three other good men Richter and Le Riche, perhaps? I would provide all the supplies you needed."

  "And if I succeed? If I capture Courtney and bring him back to the

  castle?"

  "I will see to it that Governor van de Witten and the VOC place a bounty on him of ten thousand guilders in gold. I would even settle for his head pickled in a vat of brandewijn."

  Koots's eyes widened as he thought about it. With ten thousand guilders he could leave this God-forsaken land for ever. Of course, he could never return to Holland. He was known by a name other than Koots in the old country, and he had unfinished business there that might end on the gallows. However, Batavia was Paradise compared to this backward colony on the tip of a barbaric continent. Koots allowed himself a fleeting erotic fantasy. The Javanese women were famous for their beauty. He had never developed a taste for the simian-featured Hottentots of the Cape. Moreover, there were opportunities in the east for a man who was good with a sword and gun, who did not flinch at the sight of blood, and even more so if he had a purse of gold guilders on his belt.

  "What do you say to that, Koots?" Keyser interrupted his daydreams.

  "I say fifteen thousand."

  "You are a greedy fellow, Koots. Fifteen thousand is a fortune."

  "You are a wealthy man, Colonel," Koots pointed out. "I know that you paid two thousand each for Trueheart and Frost. I would bring back your two horses, along with Courtney's head."

  At the mention of his stolen horses Keyser's sense of outrage, which he had managed to hold under tenuous control, returned in full force. They were two of the finest animals outside Europe. He looked down at his ruined feet, the pain in them almost as bitter as the loss of his horses. Yet five thousand guilders out of his own purse was indeed a fortune.

  Koots saw him wavering. He needed only a gentle push. "Then there is the stallion," he said.

  "What stallion?" Keyser looked up from his feet.

  "The one who beat you at Christmas. Drumfire. Jim Courtney's stallion. I would throw him into the bargain."

  Keyser was weakening, but he set one last condition. "The girl. The convict girl, I want her also."

  "I will have a little fun with her first." Although his lean, hard features were impassive, Koots was enjoying the bargaining. "I will bring her to you damaged but alive."

  "She is probably damaged already." Keyser laughed. "And will be more so when that young Courtney ram is finished with her. I want her only

  to make a good show on the gallows. The crowds always love to see a young girl on the rope. I don't mind what you do to her before that."

  "We have an agreement, then?" Koots asked.

  "The man, the girl and the three horses." Keyser nodded. Three thousand each, or fifteen thousand for all of them."

  There were ten men to share the labour of carrying the colonel. A team of four was changed every hour, timed with Keyset's gold watch. The saddle was in the English style, but the work of one of Holland's finest saddle-makers. They secured it in the centre of the carrying poles. Keyser sat at ease with his feet in the stirrups, while two men at each end lifted the poles on to their shoulders and walked away with them. It took them nine days to reach the colony, the last two without food. The shoulders of the men were sadly galled by the weight of the poles, but Keyser's feet had almost healed, and the enforced diet had slimmed down his belly and bulk; he looked ten years younger.

  Keyser's first duty was to report to Governor Paulus Pieterzoon van de Witten. They were old comrades, and shared many secrets. Van de Witten was a tall dyspeptic-looking man of not yet forty. His father and grandfather before him had been members of Het Zeventien in Amsterdam, and his wealth and power were considerable. Very soon he would return to Holland and take his seat on the board of the VOC, as long as there were no blemishes on his career or reputation. The activities of this English bandit might conceivably leave such a stain on his reputation. Colone
l Keyser described in detail the crimes against the property and dignity of the VOC perpetrated by the youngest Courtney. Slowly he stoked the flames of the governor's outrage, repeatedly hinting at van de Witten's own responsibility in the affair. Their discussion lasted several hours, helped along by the consumption of quantities of Hollands gin and French claret. Finally van de Witten capitulated and agreed that the VOC would offer a reward of fifteen thousand guilders for the capture of Louisa Leuven and James Archibald Courtney, or for positive proof of their execution.

  The placing of rewards on the heads of criminals who had fled the colony was a long-established practice. Many of the hunters and traders who had licences to leave the colony supplemented their profits with bounty money for the VOC.

  Keyser was well pleased with this result. It meant that he was not obliged to risk a single guilder of his own carefully accumulated fortune to contribute to the bounty he had agreed with Captain Koots.

  That same night Koots visited him in the little cottage in the lane behind the Company gardens. Keyser advanced him four hundred guilders to cover the costs of provisioning the expeditionary force that was to pursue Jim Courtney. Five days later a small party of travellers assembled on the banks of the Eerste river, the first river after leaving the colony. They had come separately to the meeting place. There were four white men: Captain Koots, with his pale eyes and colourless hair, his skin reddened by the sun; Sergeant Oudeman, bald, but with heavy drooping moustaches, Koots's right-hand man and accomplice; Corporals Richter and Le Riche, who hunted together like a pair of wild dogs. Then there were five Hottentot troopers, including the notorious Goffel, who was the interpreter, and Xhia, the Bushman tracker. None of them wore VOC military uniform: they were dressed in the coarse homespun and leather of the Cape burghers. Xhia's loincloth was made of tanned spring buck skin decorated with beads of ostrich eggshell and Venetian trade beads. Over his shoulders he carried his bow and bark quiver of poisoned arrows, and round his waist a belt hung with an array of charms and buck horns filled with magical and medical potions, powders and unguents.