A Sparrow Falls c-9

by Wilbur Smith

  He had chosen the place and the time with care. He had not been able to sanction the tough of Dirk Courtney riding on to his land again, and enter his home. The aura of evil that hung around the man was contagious, and he did not want that evil to sully the inner sanctum of his life which was the homestead of Lion Kop. He did not even want him on his land, so he had chosen the one small section of boundary where his land actually bordered on that of Dirk Courtney. It was the only half-mile of any land of Sean's along which he had strung barbed wire.

  As a cattleman and horseman, he had an aversion to barbed wire, but still he had strung it between his land and that of Dirk Courtney, and when Dirk had written asking him for this meeting, he had chosen this place where there would be a fence between them.

  He had chosen the late afternoon with intent also. The low sun would be behind him and shining into the other man's eyes as he came up the slope of the escarpment.

  Now Sean drew the watch from his waistcoat and saw it was one minute before four, the appointed time. He looked down into the valley, and scowled. The slope below him was deserted, and he could follow the full length of the road into town beyond that. Since he had seen young Mark puttering past on his motorcycle half an hour before, the road also had been deserted.

  He looked beyond the town to the flash of the white walls of the grand mansion that Dirk Courtney had bult when first he returned to the valley. Great Longwood, a pretentious name for a pretentious building.

  Sean did not like to look at it. To him it seemed that the same aura of evil shimmered about it, even in the daylight an almost palpable thing, and he had heard the stories they had been repeated to him with glee by the gossipmongers, about what happened up there under the cover of night.

  He believed those stories, or he knew with the deep instinct which had once been love, the man who had once been his son.

  He looked again at the watch in his hand, and scowled at it. It was four o'clock. He shook the watch and held it to his ear. It ticked stolidly, and he slipped it back into his pocket and gathered the reins. He wasn't coming, and Sean felt a sneaking coward's relief, because he found any meeting with Dirk Courtney draining and exhausting. Good afternoon, Father, The voice startled him, so that he gripped the horse with his knees and jerked the reins.

  The stallion pranced and circled, tossing his head.

  Dirk sat easily on a golden red bay. He had come down out of the nearest edge of the forest, walking his mount carefully and silently over the thick mattress of fallen leaves. You're late, growled Sean. I was just leaving. Dirk must have circled out, climbing the escarpment below the falls on to Lion Kop, avoiding the fence and riding up through the plantations to come to the rendezvous from the opposite direction. Probably he had been sitting among the trees watching Sean for the last half hour. What did you want to speak to me about? He must never again underestimate this man. Sean had done so many times before, each time at terrible cost. I think you know, Dirk smiled at him, and Sean was reminded of some beautiful glossy and deadly dangerous animal. He sat his horse with a casual grace, at rest but in complete control, and he was dressed in a hunting-jacket of finely woven thorn-proof tweed, with a yellow silk cravat at the throat; his long powerful legs were encased in polished chocolate leather. Remind me, invited Sean, consciously hardening himself against the fatal mesmeric charm that the man could project at will.

  oh come now, I know you have been busy thrashing the sweating unwashed hordes back into their places. I read with pride of your efforts, Father. Your butcher's bill at Fordsburg was almost as fearsome as when you put down Bombata's rebellion back in 19o6. Magnificent stuff-'Get on with it. Sean found himself hating again. Dirk Courtney had a high skill at finding weakness or guilt, and exploiting it mercilessly. When he spoke like this of the manner in which Sean had been forced to discharge his duty, it shamed him more painfully than ever. Of course it was necessary to get the mines operating again. You do sell most of your timber to the gold mines, I have the exact sales figures somewhere. Dirk laughed lightly. His teeth were perfect and white, and the sunlight played in the shining curls of his big handsome head, backlighting him and making his looks more theatrically magnificent. Good on you, dear Papa. You always had a keen eye for the main chance. No future in letting a bunch of wild-eyed reds put us all out of business. Even I am utterly dependent on the gold mines in the long run. Sean could not bring himself to answer, his anger was choking him. He felt dirtied and ashamed. It's one of the many things for which I'm indebted to you, Dirk went on, watching him carefully, smiling and urbane and deadly. I am your heir, I have inherited from you the ability to recognize opportunity and to seize it. Do you recall teaching me how to take a snake, how to pin it and hold it with thumb and forefinger at the back of the neck?

  Sean remembered the incident suddenly and vividly.

  The fearlessness of the child had frightened him even then. I see you do remember. The smile faded from Dirk's face, the lightness of his manner was gone with it. So much, so many little things, do you remember when we were lost after the lions stampeded the horses in the night? Sean had forgotten that also. Hunting in Mopani country, the child's first overnight away from the security and safety of the wagons. A little adventure that had turned into nightmare, one horse killed by the lions and the other gone, and a fifty-mile walk back through dry sandveld and thick trackless bush. You showed me how to find water. The puddle in the hollow tree, I can still taste the stink of it. The bushmen wells in the sand, sucking it up with a hollow straw. It all came back, though Sean tried to shut his mind against it. They had gone wrong on the third day, mistaking one small dry stony river bed f or another and wandering away into the wilderness to a lingering death. I remember you made a sling from your cartridge belt, and carried me on your hip. When the child's strength had gone, Sean had carried him, mile after mile, day after day in the thick dragging sand. When finally his own great strength had been expended also, he had crouched down over the child, shielding him from the sun with his shadow, and had worked his swollen tongue painfully for each drop of saliva to inject into Dirk's cracked and blackening mouth, keeping him alive just long enough. When Mbejane came at last, you wept The stampeded horse had reached the wagons with the lion claw-marks slashed deeply across its rump. The old Zulu gunbearer, himself sick with malaria, had saddled the grey and taken a pack horse on the lead rein. He had back-tracked the loose horse to the lion camp, and then picked up the spoor of man and child, following them for four days along a cold wind-spoiled spoor.

  When he reached them, they were huddled together in the sand, under the sun, waiting for death.

  , it was the only time in my life I ever saw you cry, Dirk said softly. But did you ever think how often you made me weep? Sean did not want to listen longer. He did not want to be further reminded of that lovely, headstrong, wild and beloved child who he had reared as mother and father together, yet Dirk's quiet insidious voice held him captive in a web of memory from which he could not escape. Will you ever know how I worshipped you? How my whole life was based on you, how I mimicked every action, how I tried to become you?

  Sean shook his head, trying to deny it, to reject it. Yes, I tried to become you. Perhaps I succeeded No. Sean's voice was strangled and thick.

  Perhaps that's why you rejected me, Dirk told him. You saw in me the mirror-image of yourself, and you could not bring yourself to accept that. So you turned me away, and left me to weep. No. God, no, that's not true. It was not that way at all.

  Dirk swung his horse in until his leg touched Sean's. Father, we are the same person, we are one, won't you admit that I am you, just as surely as I fell from your loins, just as surely as you trained and moulded me? Dirk, Sean started, but there were no words now, his whole existence had been touched and shaken to its very core. Don't you realize that every thing I have ever done was for you? Not only as a child, but as a youth and a man. Did you never think why I came back here to Ladyburg, when I could have gone to any other place in th
e world, London, Paris, New York, it was all open to me. Yet I came back here. Why, Father, why did I do that?

  Sean shook his head, unable to answer, staring at this beautiful stranger, with his vital strength and his compelling disturbing presence. I came back because you were here. They were both silent then, holding each other's eyes in a struggle of wills and a turmoil of conflicting emotions.

  Sean felt his resolve weakening, felt himself sliding slowly under the spell that Dirk was weaving about him. He heeled his horse, forcing it to wheel and break the physical contact of their legs, but Dirk went on remorselessly. As a sign of my love, of this love that has been strong enough to stand against all your abuse, against the denials you have made, against every blow you have dealt it, as a sign of that, I come to you now, and I hold out my hand to you. Be my father again, and let me be your son. Let us put our fortunes together and build an empire. There is a land here, a whole land, ripe and ready for us to take Dirk reached out across the space between the horses with his right hand, palm upwards, fingers outstretched. Take my hand on it, Father, he urged. Nothing will stop us. Together we will sweep the world from our path, together we will become gods. Dirk, Sean found his voice, as he fought himself out of the coils in which he had been trapped. I have known many men, and not one of them was all good nor completely evil. They were all combinations of those two elements, good and evil, that is, until I came to know you. You are the only man who was totally evil, evil unrelieved by the slightest shading of good. When at last I was forced to face that fact, then I turned my back on you. Father. Don't call me that. You are not mine, and you never will be again. There is a great fortune, one of the great fortunes of the worldNo, Sean shook his head. It is not there for either you or me. It belongs to a people, to many peoples, Zulu, and Englishman and Afrikander, not to me, but especially not to You. When I came to see you last, you gave me cause to believe, Dirk began to protest. I gave you no cause, I made no promise. I told you everything, all my plans. Yes, said Sean. I wanted to hear it, I wanted to know every detail, not so that I could help you, but so that I could stand in your way. Sean paused for emphasis, and then leaned across so his face was close to Dirk's and he could look into his eyes. You will never get the land beyond the Bubezi River. I swear that to you, he said it quietly, but with a force that made every word ring like a cathedral bell.

  Dirk recoiled, and the high colour drained away from his face. I rejected you because you are evil. I will fight you with all my strength, with my life itself. Dirk's features changed, the line of the mouth and the set of the jaw altered, the slant and tilt of the eyes became wolfish. You deceive yourself, Father. You and I are one. If I am evil, then you are the source and fountain and father of that evil. Don't spout noble words to me, don't strike postures. I know you, remember. I know you perfectly as I know myself. He laughed again, but not the bright easy laughter of before. It was a cruel thin sound and the shape of the mouth did not lose its hard line. You rejected me for that Jewish whore of yours, and the bastard slut you spawned on her soft white belly. Sean bellowed, a low dull roar of anger, and the stallion reared under him, coming up high on his hindquarters and cutting at the air, and the bay mare swung away in alarm, milling and trampling as Dirk sawed at its mouth with the curb. You say you will fight me with your life, Dirk shouted at his father. It may just come to that! I warn you. He brought the horse under control, barging in on the stallion so he could shout again. No man stands in my way. I will destroy you, as I have destroyed the others who have tried it. I will destroy you and your Jewish whore. Sean swung back-handed with the sjambok, a polo cut, using the wrist so the thin black lash of hippo-hide fluted like the wing of a flighting goose. He aimed at the face, at the snarling vicious wolf's head of the man who once had been his son.

  Dirk threw up his arm and caught the stroke, it split the woven tweed of his sleeve like a sword cut and bright blood sprang to stain the luxurious cloth, as he kneed the bay away in a wide prancing circle.

  He held the wound, pressing the lips of the cut together while he glared at Sean, his face contorted with utter malevolence. I'll kill you for that, he said softly, and then he swung the bay away and put her into a dead gallop, straight at the five-stranded, barbed fence.

  The bay went up and stretched at the jump, flying free of earth and then landing again on the far side, neatly gathered and fully in hand, reached out again into a run, a superb piece of horsemanship.

  Sean walked the stallion, fighting the temptation to lash him into a gallop, following the path over the high ground, a path now almost indiscernible, long overgrown. Only a man who knew it well, who had been along it often before, would know it as a path.

  There was nothing left of the huts of Mbejane's kraal, except the outline of building stones, white circles in the grass. They had burned the huts, of course, as is the Zulu custom when a chief is dead.

  The wall of the cattle kraal was still intact, the stone carefully and lovingly selected, each piece fitted into the shoulder-high structure.

  Sean dismounted and tethered the stallion at the gateway. He saw that his hands were still shaking, as though in high fever, and he felt sick to the gut, the aftermath of that wild storm of emotion.

  He found his seat on the stone wall, the same flat rock that seemed moulded to his buttocks, and he lit a cheroot.

  The fragrant smoke calmed the flutter of his heart, and soothed the tremble in his hands.

  He looked down at the floor of the kraal. A Zulu chief is buried in the centre of his cattle kraal, sitting upright facing the rising sun, with his induna's ring still on his head, wrapped in the wet skin of a freshly killed ox, the symbol of his wealth, and with his food pot and his beer pot and his snuff box, his shield and his spears at his side, in readiness for the journey. Hello, old friend, said Sean softly. We reared him, you and I. Yet he killed you. I do not know how, nor can I prove it, but I know he killed you, and now he's vowed to kill me also. And his voice quivered. Well, smiled Sean. If you have to make an appointment to speak with me, it must be some business of dire consequence. Through the merry twinkle of his eye, he was examining Mark with a shrewd assessing gaze. Storm had been right, of course. The lad had been gathering himself to make the break. To go off somewhere on his own, like a wounded animal perhaps, or a cub lion leaving the pride at full growth? Which was it, Sean wondered, and how great a wrench would the parting make on the youngster? Yes, sir, you could say that, Mark agreed, but he could not meet Sean's eyes for once. The usually bright and candid eyes slid past Sean's and went to the books on the shelves, went on to the windows and the sweeping sunlit view across the tops of the plantations and the valley below. He examined it as though he had never seen it before. Come on in then. Sean swivelled his chair away from the desk, and took the steel-rimmed spectacles off his nose and waved with them at the armchair below the window. Thank you, sir. While he crossed to the chair, Sean rose and went -to the stinkwood cabinet. If it's something that important, we'd best take a dram to steel ourselves, like going over the top. He smiled again. It's not yet noon, Mark pointed out. That's a rule you taught me yourself. The man who makes the rules is allowed to change them, said Sean, pouring two huge measures of golden brown spirit, and spurting soda from the siphon. That's a rule I've just this moment made, and he laughed, a fat contented chuckle, before he went on, Well, my boy, as it so happens, you have chosen a good day for it. He carried one glass to Mark, and returned to his desk. I also have dire an d important business to discuss. He took a swallow from his glass, smacked his lips in evident relish, and then wiped his moustaches on the back of his hand. As the elder, will it be in order if we discuss my business first?

  Of course, sir. Mark looked relieved and sipped cautiously at his glass, while Sean beamed at him with illconcealed self-satisfaction.

  Sean had conceived of a scheme so devious and tailored so fittingly to his need, that he was a little in awe of the divine inspiration which had fostered it. He did not want to lose this young
man, and yet he knew that the surest way of doing so was trying to hold him too close. While we were in Cape Town I had two long discussions with the Prime Minister, he began, and since then we have exchanged lengthy correspondence. The upshot of all this is that General Smuts has formed a separate portfolio, and placed it under my ministry. It is simply the portfolio of National Parks. There is still legislation to see through Parliament, of course, we will need money and new powers but I am going ahead right away with a survey and assessment of all proclaimed areas, and we will act on that to develop and protect - He went on talking for almost fifteen minutes, reading from the Prime Minister's letters and memoranda explaining and expanding, going over the discussions, detailing the planning, while Mark sat forward in his chair, the glass at his side forgotten, listening with a rising sense of destiny at work, hardly daring to IJ breathe as he drank in the great concept that was unfolded for him.

  Sean was excited by his own vision, and he sprang up from the desk and paced the yellow wood floor, gesturing, using hands and arms to drive home each point, then stopping suddenly in full flight and turning to stand over Mark. General Smuts was impressed with you, that night at Booysens, and before that. He stopped again, and Mark was so engrossed that he did not see the cunning expression on Sean's face. I had no trouble persuading him that you were the man for the job. What job? Mark demanded eagerly. The first area I am concentrating on is Chaka's Gate and the Bubezi valley. Somebody has to go in there and do a survey, so that when we go to Parliament, we know what we are talking about. You know the area well The great silences and peace of the wilderness rushed back to Mark, and he felt himself craving them like a drunkard. Of course, once the Bill is through Parliament, I will need a warden to implement the act. Mark sank slowly back in his chair. Suddenly the search was over. Like a tall ship that has made its offing, he felt himself come about and settle on true course with the wind standing fair for a fine passage. Now what was it you wanted to talk to me about?