When The Lion Feeds Part 35

Elephant! Duff, Sean yelled. Not an hour ahead of us.

Get saddled up, man! Duff was ready in five minutes. Mbejane was waiting for them; he had already worked the spoor a short distance and picked up the run of it and now he went away on it, They followed him, riding slowly side by side.

You've hunted elephant before, laddie? asked Duff.

Never, said Sean. Good grief! Duff looked alarmed. I thought you were an expert. I think I'll go back and finish my sleep, you can call me when you've had a little more experience. Don't worry, Sean laughed with excitement. I know all about it; I was raised on elephant stories That sets my heart at ease, Duff murmured sarcastically and Mbejane glanced over his shoulder at them, not trying to conceal his irritation. Nkosi, it is not wise to talk now for we will soon come up with them. So they went on in silence: pa.s.sing a knee-high pile of yellow dung that looked like the contents of a coir mattress, following the oval pad marks in the dust and the trail of torn branches.

It was a good hunt, this first one. The small breeze held steadily into their faces and the spoor ran straight and hot. They closed in, each minute strengthening the certainty of the kill. Sean sat stiff and eager in the saddle Whith his rifle across his lap, his eyes restlessly moving over the frieze of bush ahead of him. Mbejane stopped suddenly and came back to Sean's stirrup. Here they halted for the first time. The sun is hot and they will rest but this place was not to their liking and they have moved on. We will find them soon now. The bush becomes too thick, Sean grunted; he eyed the untidy tangle of catbush into which the spoor had led them. We will leave the horses here with Hlubi and go in on foot. Laddie, Duff demurred. I can run much faster on horseback. , off! said Sean and nodded to Mbejane to lead. They moved forward again. Sean was sweating and the drops clung heavily to his eyebrows and trickled down his cheeks; he brushed them away. The excitement was an indigestible ball in his stomach and a dryness in his throat.

Duff sauntered casually next to Sean with that small half smile on his face, but there was a quickness in his breathing. Mbejane cautioned them with a gesture of his hand and they stopped. Minutes pa.s.sed slowly and then Mbejane's hand moved again, pink-palmed eloquence. It was nothing, said the hand. Follow me. They went on again. There were Mopani flies swarming at the corners of Sean's eyes, drinking the moisture, and he blinked them away. Their bu=ing was so loud in his ears that he thought it must carry to their quarry. His every sense was tuned to its limit: hearing magnified, vision sharp and even his sense of smell so clear that he could pick up the taint of dust, the scent of a will, lower and Mbejane's faintly musky body-smell.

Suddenly in front of him Mbejane was still; his hand moved again gently, unmistakably.

They are here, said the hand.

Sean and Duff crouched behind him, searching with eyes that could see only brown bush and grey shadows.

The tension coa.r.s.ened their breathing and Duff was no longer smiling. Mbejane's hand came up slowly and pointed at the wall of vegetation in front of them. The seconds strung together like beads on the string of time and still they searched.

An ear flapped lazily and instantly the picture jumped into focus. Bull elephant, big and very close, grey among grey shadow. Sean touched Mbejane's arm. I had seen it, said that touch.

Slowly Mbejane's hand swivelled and pointed again.

Another wait, another searching and then a belly nimbled, a great grey belly filled with half-digested leaves. It was a sound so ridiculous in the silence that Sean wanted to laugh, a gurgling sloshy sound, and Sean saw the other bull. It was standing in shadow also, with long yellow ivory and small eyes tight-closed. Sean put his lips to Duff's ear. This one is yours, he whispered. Wait until I get into position for the other, and he began moving out to the side, each step exposing a little more of the second bull's flank until the shoulder was open to him and he could see the point of the elbow beneath the baggy, wrhilded skin. The angle was right; from here he could reach the heart. He nodded at Duff, brought his rifle up, leaning forward against the recoil, aiming close behind the ma.s.sive shoulder, and he fired.

The gunfire was shockingly loud in the confined thorn bush; dust flew in a spurt from the bull's shoulder and it staggered from the strike of the bullet. Beyond it the third elephant burst from sleep into flight and Sean's hands moved neatly on his weapon, ejecting and reloading, swinging up and firing again. He saw the buffet hit and he knew it was a mortal wound. The two bulls ran together and the bush opened to them and swallowed them: they were gone, cras.h.i.+ng away wounded, trumpeting in pain. Sean ran after them, dodging through the catbush, oblivious to the sting of the thorns that s.n.a.t.c.hed at him as he pa.s.sed.

This way, Nkosi, Mbejane shouted beside him.

Quickly or we will lose them. They sprinted after the sounds of flight, a hundred yards, two hundred, panting now and sweating in the heat. Suddenly the catbush ended and in front of them was a wide river-bed with steep banks. The river sand was blindingly white and in the middle was a sluggish trickle of water. One of the bulls was dead, lying in the stream with the blood was.h.i.+ng off him in a pale brown stain. The other bull was trying to climb the far bank; it was too steep for him and he slid back wearily. The blood dripped from the tip of his trunk, and he swung his head to look at Sean and Mbejane. His ears c.o.c.ked back defiantly and he began his charge, blundering towards them through the soft river sand.

Sean watched him come and there was sadness in him as he brought up his rifle, but it was the proud regret that a man feels when he watches hopeless courage. Sean killed with a brain shot, quickly.

They climbed down the bank into the river-bed and went to the elephant; it knelt with its legs folded under it and its tusks driven deep into the sand with the force of its fall. The flies were already cl.u.s.tering at the little red mouths of the bullet wounds. Mbejane touched one of the tusks and then he looked up at Sean. It is a good elephant. He said no more, for this was not the time to talk. Sean leaned his rifle against the bull's shoulder; he felt in his top pocket for a cheroot and stood with it unlit between his teeth. He would kill more elephant, he knew, but always this would be the one he would remember. He stroked his hand over the rough skin and the bristles were stiff and sharp.

Where is Nkosi Duff? Sean remembered him suddenly. Did he also kill? He did not shoot, answered Mbejane. What! Sean turned quickly to Mbejane. Why notV Mbejane sniffed a pinch of snuff and sneezed, then he shrugged his shoulders. It is a good elephant, he said again, looking down at it. We must go back and find him. Sean s.n.a.t.c.hed up his rifle and Mbejane followed him. They found Duff sitting alone in the catbush with his rifle propped beside him and a water-bottle to his lips. He lowered the bottle as Sean came up and saluted him with it.

Hail! the conquering hero comes. There was something in his eyes that Sean could not read.

Did you miss yours? Sean asked. Yes, said Duff, I missed mine. He lifted the bottle and drank again. Suddenly and sickeningly Sean was ashamed for him. He dropped his eyes, not wanting to acknowledge Duff's cowardice. Let's get back to the wagons, he said. Mbejane can come with packhorses for the tusks.

They did not ride together on the way home.

It was almost dark when they arrived back at the laager.

They gave their horses to one of the servants and washed in the basin that Kandh1a had ready for them, then they went to sit by the fire. Sean poured the drinks, fussing over the gla.s.ses to avoid looking at Duff. He felt awkward.

They'd have to talk about it and he searched his brain for a way to bring it into the open. Duff had shown craven and Sean started to find excuses for him, he may have had a misfire or be may have been unsighted by Sean's shot. At all events Sean determined not to let it stay like this, sour and brooding between them. They'd talk it out then forget it. He carried Duff's gla.s.s to him and smiled at him. That's right, try and cover it with a grin, Duff lifted his gla.s.s. To our big brave hunter. Dammit, laddie, how could you do itV

Sean stared at Duff. What do you mean? You know what I mean, you're so d.a.m.ned guilty you can't even look me in the face. How could you kill those b.l.o.o.d.y great animals, but even worse how could you enjoy doing it? Sean subsided weakly into his chair. He Couldn't tell which of his emotions was uppermost, relief or surprise.

Duff went on quickly. I know what you're going to say, I've heard the arguments before, from my dear father. He explained it to me one evening after we'd ridden down a fox. When I say we", I mean twenty hors.e.m.e.n and forty hounds Sean had not yet rallied from the shock of finding himself in the dock after preparing himself to play the role of prosecutor. Don't you like hunting? he asked incredulously. The way he might have asked, don't you like eating?. I'd forgotten what it was like. I was carried away by your exitement, but when you started to kill them it all came back to me. Duff sipped his brandy and stared into the fire. They never had a chance. One minute they were sleeping and the next you were ripping them with bullets the way the hounds ripped that fox. They didn't have a chance. But, Duff, it wasn't meant to be a contest. Yes, I know, my father explained that to me. It's a ritual, a sacred rite to Diana. He should have explained it to the fox as well Sean was getting angry now. We came out here to hunt ivory, and that's what I'm doing. Tell me that you killed those elephant only for their teeth, laddie, and I'll call you a liar. You loved it. Christ!

You should have seen your face and the face of your d.a.m.ned heathen. All right! I like hunting and the only other man I ever met who didn't was a coward, Sean shouted at him.

Duff's face paled and he looked up at Sean. What are you trying to say? he whispered. They stared at each other and in the silence Sean had to choose between letting his temper run or keeping Duffs friends.h.i.+p, for the words that would spoil it for ever were crowding into his mouth. He made his hands relax their grip on the arms of his chair.

I didn't mean that, he said. I hoped you didn't, Duff's grin came precariously back onto his face. Tell me why you like hunting, laddie. I'll try and understand but don't expect me to hunt with you again. It was like explaining colour to a blind man, describing the l.u.s.t of the hunter to someone who was born without it. Duff listened in agonized silence as Sean tried to find the words for the excitement that makes a man's blood sing through his body, that heightens his senses and allows him to lose himself in an emotion as old as the urge to mate. Sean tried to show him how the n.o.bler and more beautiful was the quarry, the stronger was the compulsion to hunt and kill it, that it had no conscious cruelty in it but was rather an expression of love: a fierce possessive love. A devouring love that needed the complete and irrevocable act of death for its consummation.

By destroying something, a man could have it always as his own: selfish perhaps, but then instinct knows no ethics. It was all very clear to Sean, so much a part of him that he had never tried to voice it before and now he stumbled over the words, gesticulating in helpless inarticulateness, repeating himself, coming at last to the end and knowing by the look on Duff's face that he had failed to show it -to him. And you were the gentleman who fought Hradsky for the rights of men, Duff said softly, the one who always talked about not hurting people.

Sean opened his mouth to protest but Duff went on. You get ivory for us and I'll look for gold, each of us to what he is best suited. I'll forgive you your elephants as you forgave me my Candy, still equal partners. Agreed?

Sean nodded and- Duff held up his gla.s.s. It's empty, he said. Do me a favour, laddie. There was never any after-taste to their disputes, no rankling of unspoken words or lingering of doubt. What they had in common they enjoyed, where there were differences they accepted them. So when after each hunt the packhorses brought the tusks into the camp there was no trace of censure in Duffs fare or voice; there was only the genuine pleasure of having Sean back from the bush.

Sometimes it was a good day and Sean would cut the spoor, follow, kill and be back in the laager the same night. But more often, when the herd was moving fast or the ground was hard or he could not kill at the first approach, he would be gone for a week or more. Each time he returned they celebrated, drinking and laughing far into the night, lying late in bed the next morning, playing Klabejas on the floor of the wagon between their cots or reading aloud out of the books that Duff had brought with him from Pretoria. Then a day or two later Sean would be gone again, with his dogs and his gunboys trotting behind him.

This was a different Sean from the one who had wh.o.r.ed it up at the Opera House and presided over the panelled offices in Eloff Street. His beard, no longer groomed and shaped by a barber, curled onto his chest. The doughy colour of his face and arms had been turned by the sun to the rich brown of a newly-baked loaf. The seat of his pants that had been stretched to danger point across his rump now hung loosely; his arms were thicker and the soft swell of fat had given way to the flatness and bulge of hard muscle. He walked straighter, moved quicker and laughed more easily.

in Duff the change was less noticeable. He was lean and gaunt-faced as ever, but now there was less of the restlessness in his eyes. His speech and movements were slower and the golden beard he was growing had the strange effect of making him appear younger. Each morning he left the wagons, taking one of the servant's with him, and spent the days wandering in the bush, tapping with his prospecting hammer at the occasional outcrops of rock or squatting beside a stream and spinning the gravel in his pan. Every evening he came back to camp and a.n.a.lysed the bag of rock samples he had collected during the day; then he threw them away, bathed and set out a bottle and two gla.s.ses on the table beside the fire.

While he ate his supper he listened and waited for the dogs to bark, for the sound of horses in the darkness and Sean's voice. If the night remained silent he put the bottle away and climbed up into his wagon. He was lonely then, not with a deep loneliness but just enough to add relish to Sean's return.

Always they moved east, until gradually the silhouette of the Zoutpansberg softened as the mountains became less steep and began to fade into the tail of the range.

Scouting along their edge Sean found a pa.s.s and they took the wagons up and over and down into the Limpopo valley beyond. Here the country changed character again; it became flat, the monotony of thorn scrub relieved only by the baobab trees with their great, swollen trunks crowned in a little halo of branches. Water was scarce and Sean rode ahead from each camp to find the next waterhole before they moved. However, the hunting was good for the game was concentrated on the isolated drinking places, and before they were halfway from the mountains to the Limpopo Sean had filled another wagon with ivory.

We'll be coming back this way, I suppose! Duff asked.

I suppose so, agreed Sean. Well then, I don't see any point in carrying a ton of ivory with us. Let's bury it and we can pick it up on our way back Sean looked at him thoughtfully. About once in every year you come up with a good idea, we'll do exactly that The next camp was a good one. There was water, an acre of muddy liquid not as heavily salted with elephant urine as some of the previous ones had been; there was shade provided by a grove of wild fig trees and the grazing was of a quality that promised to restore the condition that the oxen had lost since crossing the mountains. They decided to make it a rest camp: bury the ivory, do some repairs and maintenance on the wagons and let the servants and animals fatten up a little. The first task was to dig a hole large enough to contain all the hundred-odd tusks they had acc.u.mulated and it was evening on the third day before they finished.

Sean and Duff sat together inside the laager and watched the sun go down, bleeding below the land, and after it had gone the clouds were oyster and Iflac-coloured in the brief twilight. Kandhla threw wood on the fire and it burnt up fiercely. They ate grilled kudu liver, and thick steaks with a rind of yellow fat on them, and they drank brandy with their coffee. The conversation lagged into contented silence for they were both tired. They sat staring into the fire, too lazy to make the effort required for bed. Sean watched the fire pictures form in the coals, the faces and the phantoms flickering and fading. He saw a tiny temple have its columns pulled out from under it by a fiery Samson and collapse in a shower of sparks, a burning horse changed magically into a dragon of blue flame. He looked away to rest his eyes and when he turned back there was a small black scorpion scuttling out from under the loose bark on one of the logs. It lifted its tail like the arm of a flamenco dancer and the flames that ringed it shone on its glossy body armour. Duff was also watching it, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Will he sting himself to death before the flames reach him? he asked softly. I have heard that they do. No, said Sean. Why not? Only man has the intelligence to end the inevitable; in all other creatures the instinct of survival is too strong, Sean answered him, and the scorpion crabbed sideways from the nearest flames and stopped again with its raised sting jerking slightly. Besides he's immune to his own poison so he has no choice. He could jump down into the fire and get it over with, murmured Duff, subdued by the little tragedy.

The scorpion started its last desperate circuit of the closing ring. its tail drooped and the grip of its claws was unsteady on the rough bark; it was shrivelling with the beat, its legs curling up and its tail subsiding. The flames caressed it with swift yellow hands and smeared its s.h.i.+ny body with the dullness of death. The log tipped sideways and the speck was gone. Would you? asked Sean. Would you have jumped?

Duff sighed softly, I don't know, he said and stood up. I'm going to pump out my bilges and crawl into bed He walked away and went to stand at the edge of the circle of firelight.

Since they had left Pretoria the small voices of the jackals had yapped discreetly around each outspan, they were so much a part of the African night that they went unnoticed, but now suddenly there was a difference.

Only one jackal spoke, and with a voice that stammered shrilly, a sound of pain, a crazy hysterical shrieking that made Sean's skin p.r.i.c.kle. He scrambled to his feet and stood staring undecided into the darkness. The jackal was coming towards the camp, coming fast, and suddenly Sean knew what was happening.

Duff! ! he called. Come back here! Run, man, run!

Duff looked back at Sean helplessly, his hands held low in front of him. and his water arcing down, curving silver in the firelight from Ins body to the ground. Duff ! Sean's voice was a shout. It's a rabid jackal. Run, d.a.m.n you, run! The jackal was close now, very close, but at last Duff started to move. He was halfway back to the fire before he tripped. He fell and rolled over and brought his feet up under his body to rise. His head turned to face the darkness from which it would come. Then Sean saw it. It flitted out of the shadows like a grey moth in the bad light and went straight for where Duff knelt. Sean saw him try to cover his face with his hands as the jackal sprang at him. One of the dogs twisted out of Mbejane's hand and brushed past Sean's legs. Sean s.n.a.t.c.hed up a piece of firewood and sprinted after it, but already Duff was on his back, his arms flailing frantically as he tried to push away the terrier-sized animal that was slas.h.i.+ng at his face and hands. The dog caught it and dragged it off, worrying it, growling through locked jaws. Sean hit the jackal with the club, breaking its back. He swung again and again, beating its body, into shapelessness before he turned to Duff. Duff was on his feet now. He had unwound the scarf from his neck and was mopping with it at his face but the blood dribbled down his chin and blotched the front of his s.h.i.+rt. His hands were trembling. Sean led him close to the fire, pulled Duff's hands down and examined the bites. His nose was torn and the flesh of one cheek hung open in a flap. Sit down! Duff obeyed, holding the scarf to his face again. Sean went quickly to the fire: with a stick he raked embers into a pile, then he drew his hunting-knife and thrust the blade into the coals. Mbejane, he called, without taking his eyes off the knife. Throw that jackal onto the fire. Put on plenty of wood. Do not touch its body with your hands. When you have done that tie up that dog and keep the others away from it. Sean turned the knife in the fire. Duff, drink as much of that brandy as you can What are you going to do? You know what I've got to do! He bit my wrist as well. Duff held up his hand for Sean to see the punctures, black holes from which the blood oozed watery and slow. Drink. Sean pointed at the brandy bottle. For a second they looked at each other and Sean saw the horror moving in Duffs eyes: horror of the hot knife and horror of the germs which had been injected into him. The germs that must be burnt out before they escaped into his blood, to breed and ferment there until they ate into his brain and rode him to a screaming gibbering death. Drink, said Sean again. Duff took up the bottle and lifted it to his mouth. Sean stooped and pulled the knife out of the fire. He held the blade an inch from the back of his hand. It was not hot enough. He thrust it back into the coals.

IMbejane, Hlubi, stand on each side of the Nkosi's chair. Be ready to hold him. Sean loosened his belt, doubled the thick leather and handed it to Duff. Bite on this. He turned back to the fire and this time when he drew the knife its blade was pale pink. Are you ready? The work you are about to do will break the hearts of a million maids. A last hoa.r.s.e attempt at humour from Duff.

Hold him, said Sean.