After he had told Riccardo about Shadrach and his meeting with Manguza, the evening was gloomy and cheerless. Claudia left the men at the camp fire, but they had not sat there long before Riccardo said goodnight and went off to his tent. Sean took a bottle of whisky from the dining tent and went down toward the servants" village.
Job's tent and those of his two wives were set apart from the others, on the bank of the river overlooking a deep pool where hippos lay like dark rock islands in midstream.
When Sean seated himself on the carved native stool across the fire from Job, one of the wives, a pretty young Matabele girl with Job's infant strapped on her back, brought two glasses and knelt beside him while he poured a large peg for each of them. She took the glass to her husband, and Job saluted Sean across the flickering flames.
They drank in silence and Sean watched Job's face in the firelight as he stared out across the river. The silence was companionable and comforting, and Sean let his thoughts wander back down the years as he rolled the smoky taste of whisky over his tongue.
He remembered the day he had first met Job Bhekani. It had been on a hill with only a number, Hill 3 1, a rocky hill, thick with stands of dense wild ebony and jesse bush where the enemy waited.
Job had been on the hill for two days, and his eyes were wild and bloodshot. Sean had parachuted in that morning with five sticks of his own scouts. They had fought side by side the rest of that day, and at dusk, when the hill was cleared and those of the enemy still alive had fled down the rocky slopes and disappeared into the forest, Sean and Job had helped each other to where the helicopter waited to take them out. They had gone down the hill slowly, wearily, dragging their weapons, their arms around each other's shoulders and their blood mingling when it oozed out from under the field dressings.
"Blood brothers whether you like it or not," Sean had croaked, grinning at Job from under the camouflage cream and soot and dust. A week later, when Job was released from base hospital, Sean had been waiting for him personally with his transfer papers.
"You've been seconded to Ballantyne Scouts, Captain."
And Job had smiled that rare wide smile and said, "Let's go, Colonel."
From his file, Sean knew that Job had been born on the Gwai River and attended the local mission school. He had obtained a bursary to the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, from where he had graduated with a first in politics, history, and social anthropology. From there he had gone on with another bursary to Brown College in Chicago and gotten his master's the same year Ian Smith declared unilateral independence.
Only much later, when they had tried and tested their friendship, did Sean learn how Job had herded his father's cattle along the Gwai River and come, even as a child, to know and love the wilds.
Job's father was one of the grandsons of King Lobengula, son of the great Mzilikazi, so Job was a direct descendant of the royal Zulu line, and this was apparent in his carriage and his features. the powerful jaw and deep forehead, the dark, intelligent eyes and domed skull beneath the thick close-cropped curls.
During his studies and his sojourn in America, Job had come to abhor the communist doctrine and all its works, so it was natural that on his return to Africa, he had enlisted in the Rhodesian African Rifles and within a year had earned his commission.
After the war, when the Lancaster House Agreement had given the country over to Robert Mugabe and his people's democracy, Job had sat-and passed with honors--the civil service entrance exam, for government and politics were the high road to power and wealth.
However, he was branded a "sellout" who had fought the war on the wrong side, the losing side, and he was a Matabele when the power was in the hands of the Shana tribe. Every door to advancement was barred against him. Angry and disillusioned, he had come back to Sean.
"Damn it, Job, you are miles too good for any job I could offer you in a safari company."
Tracker, skinner, gun bearer, whatever you have, I'll take it," Job had insisted.
So they had hunted together as they had fought, side by side, and within a year Sean had made him one of the directors of Courtney Safaris. They always referred to these quiet evenings, drinking whisky around the camp fire, as directors" meetings.
It amused Job to adopt various roles for different circumstances.
In front of safari clients he shifted to what he called "plantation nigger mode," when he called Sean Bwana and Nkosi and acted out the charade of the bygone colonial era.
"Don't be a prick, Job. You demean yourself," Sean protested at first.
"It's what the clients expect," Job had reasoned. "We are selling them an illusion, man. They are playing Eagle Scouts and Ernest Hemingway. If they guessed I had a master's in history and politics, it would frighten the hell out of them." Reluctantly, Sean had gone along with the act.
When they were alone, as they were now, Job changed into what he called his "Homo sapiens mode" and became the thoughtful, intelligent, educated man he truly was. As they talked, they switched easily from Sindebele to English, each of them as perfectly at ease and comfortable in the other's language as they were in each other's company.
"Look, Sean, don't worry too much about losing this concession. It hasn't happened yet, and even if it does, we'll find a way around it."
"Give me some comfort. I could do with it."
"We could apply for another concession, somewhere in Matabeleland where my family still has pull. Down Matetsi way or even on the Gwai River. That's my home turf."
"No good." Sean shook his head. "After this fiasco I'll have the mark of the beast on me."
"We "could apply in my name," Job suggested. He grinned wickedly.
"I'd make you one of my directors and you can call me Bwana!"
They laughed together, their mood lightening, and when Sean left Job at his fire and walked back to the main camp in the darkness, he felt cheerful and optimistic for the first time in days.
Job had the power to effect that transformation in him.
As he approached his own tent, something pale moved in the moon shadow beneath the trees and he stopped abruptly. Then he heard the tinkle of silver jewelry and realized she must have been waiting for him.
"May I speak with you?" Claudia said softly.
"Go ahead," he invited. Why did that Americanism "speak with," rather than "speak to," irritate him so, he wondered.
"I'm not very good at this," she admitted. He gave her no encouragement. "I wanted to apologize."
"You're apologizing to the wrong person. I've still got both my legs."
She flinched, and her voice trembled. "You're without mercy, aren't you?" Then she lifted her chin. "All right, I guess I deserved that. I've been an idiot. I thought I knew it all, but it turns out I knew very little, and in my ignorance I've done immense damage.
I know it doesn't help much, but I'm desperately sorry."
"You and I are from different worlds. We have not a single thought or feeling in common. We could never hope to understand each other, let alone be friends, but I do know what it took for you to say that."
"A truce, then?" she asked.
"All right, a truce." He held out his hand and she took it. Her skin was smooth as a rose petal, her hand slim and cool, but her grip was firm as a man's.
"Goodnight," she said, and she released his hand and turned away.
He watched her walk back toward her own tent. The moon was two days from full, and her white dress was ethereal and misty.
Beneath it her body was slim and her limbs long and elegant.
In that moment he admired her spirit and liked her more than he had done in all the time he had known her.
Sean slept as lightly as a hunter or a soldier. The natural sounds of the bush did not disturb him, not even the shrieks of the hyena pack around the fortified trophy shed, where the lion skins were curing. But at the light scratch on the canvas of his tent, he was instantly awake and reaching for his flashlight and the.577 propped at the head of his
bed. "Who is it?" he asked quietly.
"It's me, Job."" Sean glanced at his Rolex wristwatch, the luminous hands pointed to three o'clock. "Come in. What is it?"
"One of the trackers we left on the river has come into camp. He has run twenty miles."
Sean felt the back of his neck prickle, and he swung both legs out of bed. "Yes?" he said eagerly.
"At sunset this evening Tukutela crossed the river out of the national park."
"Is it certain?"
"It is certain. They saw him close by. It is Tukutela, the Angry One, and he has no collar around his neck."
"Where is Matatu?" As Sean stood up and reached for his pants, the little Ndorobo piped at the entrance, "I am ready, Bwana. "
"Good.
We leave in twenty minutes. Marching packs and water bottles. We'll take Pumula in Shadrach's place. I want to be on Tukutela's spoor before it's light enough to see it."
Bare-chested, Sean strode across to Riccardo's tent, hearing his even snores as he paused at the flap.
"Capo!" The snores cut off abruptly. "Are you awake? I've got an elephant for you. Get your arse out of the sack. Tukutela has crossed. We leave in twenty minutes."
"Hot damni" He could hear Riccardo was still half asleep. He stumbled about in the dark tent. "Where the hell are my pants?
Hey, Sean, wake Claudia, will you?"
There was a lantern burning in Claudia's tent. She must have heard the excitement.
"Are you awake?" Sean asked at the flap. She opened it and stood with the lantern light behind her. Her nightdress reached almost to her ankles, there was lace at her throat and cuffs, but the cloth was so fine that the light struck through it, and her naked body was in silhouette.
"I heard you telling Papa," she said. "I'll be ready. Will we be walking? Should I wear my hiking boots or moccasins?"
He was certain that she was putting on this show deliberately, and he felt a prudish outrage that was totally alien to his nature.
"Today you'll walk further and faster than you ever have in your life before," he told her harshly. Then he thought, "She's showing herself off like a tramp," ignoring the fact that his taste usually ran strongly toward tramps. "Just when I was starting to respect her."
A reprimand rose to his lips, but he bit it off and tried not to look at the flowing shape of her hips, graceful as the lines of a celadon porcelain vase thrown by a master craftsman of the Tang dynasty.
He wanted to turn away to show his indifference and his contradictory disapproval, but he was still standing there when she let the tent flap drop.
"Truce be damned," he muttered furiously as he strode back to his tent. "She's still in the ring throwing punches." But his anger puzzled him. With any other woman, even one half as lovely, he would have been delighted by the exhibition.
She's got more class than that," he explained to himself. Then he remembered how much he despised and disliked her. "This bimbo is getting you all up a gum tree," he warned himself. Suddenly he burst out laughing. The dreadful gloom of Shadrach's amputation and the imminent loss of his license were dispelled. He was going to hunt one of Africa's legendary beasts, and in some unaccountable manner the presence of this woman added spice to his mood of high anticipation.
There was frost on the grass in the low vleis they crossed. It sparkled in the headlights, and the game they saw was lethargic with the cold, barely moving out of the road to let the Toyota pass in the night. They reached the ford on the Chiwewe River an hour before dawn.
The waters were as black and shining as anthracite in the last beams of the moon, and the tall trees along either bank were a silvered host, like two opposing armies of mythical giants.
Sean parked the Toyota well off the track and left one of the skinners to guard it. They fell naturally into established hunting formation, clients in the center. Purnula took up Shadrach's old position at the end. A muscular taciturn man with a thick woolly bush of a black beard, he carried Riccardo's Rigby on its sling.
All the men, including Riccardo, were carrying field packs and even Claudia carried her own water bottles. Job had Riccardo's second rifle, the Weatherby, over his shoulder, and as always Sean lugged the577 Nitro Express. Once the hunt had begun he never let it out of his hands. They moved out, heading upstream, and within a mile they had warmed up and were pushing harder. Sean noticed that Claudia moved well on those long legs of hers and was keeping up without difficulty. She gave him a saucy grin as she noticed his appraisal.
The dawn light was hardening when the tracker who had come in with the news of Tukutela's crossing exclaimed and pointed ahead. It was light enough to make out a fresh blaze on the trunk of a pod mahogany tree guarding a low place on the riverbank.
"There!" said the tracker. "I marked the spoor."
At a glance, Sean saW that this was a natural crossing for large animals. Troops of hippo had pioneered a pathway through the reed beds and dowp the ten-foot riverbank. Herds of buffalo and elephant passing over it had consolidated it and improved the gradient.
The African veld is crisscrossed with a network of game trails, and a dozen or so of these came in through the forest, like the spokes of a wheel, to concentrate on this river crossing. Everyone in the party quickened pace at the tracker's exclamation, but Matatu reached the main pathway ahead of them and darted down it, turning his head to use the light of dawn most effectively, dabbing lightly at the earth with the tip of the peeled wild willow wand he carried.
He had not gone five paces before he straightened and looked back at Sean, his features wreathed in wrinkles of happiness and excitement.
"It is him!" he chirped. "These are the feet of the father of all elephants. It is Tukutela! It is the Angry One!"
Sean looked down at the great dished spoor in the fine dust of the game path and felt as though a spring tide had begun to flow in his life. His excitement was replaced by a sense of destiny, an almost religious gravity. "Matatu," he said, "take the spoor!"
Formally he announced the start of the hunt.
The spoor was as clear as a highway, following the game trail directly into the forest away from the river.
The old bull was striding out briskly as though he knew the crossing was the danger point. Perhaps that was why he had chosen to cross at sunset, so that darkness would cover him until he was clear.
For five miles he had gone without a check and then suddenly had turned aside from the game trail into a thicket of rambling thorn that had come into blossom and new shoot. He had moved back and forth, feeding on the blooms and succulent shoots, and his spoor was confused, the thicket trampled and torn.
Matatu and Job went into the Thorn thicket to unravel it while the rest of the party hung back to let them work unhindered.
"I'm thirsty!" Claudia exclaimed as she unhooked one of the water bottles from her belt.
"No!" Sean stopped her. "If you drink on your first thirst, you'll want to drink all day, and we've only just begun."
She hesitated a moment, considering defying him, but then she hooked the bottle back on her belt. "You are a hard taskmaster," she said.
On the far side of the thicket, Matatu whistled softly.
"He has worked the spoor out," Sean told them, leading them through the thorn. "How much have gained?" he asked Matatu. They had started almost ten hours behind the bull, but -every time he had paused to feed, they had cut that lead.
"He did not feed long." Matatu shrugged. "And now he is going hard again."
The bull had turned off the game trail and was following a stony ridge, almost as if he were deliberately obscuring his own spoor.
He left no indications obvious enough for the average human eye to follow, but Matatu went after him with complete authority.
"Are you sure he's still on it?" Riccardo asked anxiously.
"Capo, you've hunted with Matatu too often to ask that question," Sean told him.
"But what can he see?" Claudia wanted to know. "It's just rocks and gravel."
&nbs
p; "The elephant's pads leave a scuff on the rock. They bruise the lichen, leave smears of dust. There's fine grass growing between the stones. He has disturbed it, bending the stems in the direction of his passing. The disturbed grass catches the light differently."
"Could you follow it?" Claudia wanted to know. Sean shook his head. "No, I'm not a magician." They had been speaking in barely audible whispers, but Sean said, "That's enough chatter, let's keep it down to a bellow from now on."
So they went on in silence, and the forest about them was a perpetually changing show.
Wilbur Smith - C07 A Time To Die Page 10