"How do you feel, Harvey?" Durell asked.
The engineer's face now had a little more color. He turned his eyes reluctantly away from Gloria's lush figure and regarded Durell solemnly.
"It hurts, but I'll be okay. How is Old 79?"
"Abdundi's men are working on it. One of the water pipes was hit. But we've found a fitting in the stuff you put aboard the supply coach."
"And the track?"
"It's lucky we took the extra rails. They're being laid right now."
"We've got to get out of here—^fast. How long is it to sunset?"
Durell looked at his watch. "Two hours, I think."
Harvey shook his head. He looked morose. "Our only chance is to get to Mokhehle Station. But that's another sixty miles farther on."
"What's there?" Durell asked.
"Trees. Something to shelter us. Hide under them. Between this point on the lake shore and Mokhehle there's absolutely nothing but swamp, open water, open causeways, and bridges, Cajun. We're sitting ducks imtil we get there."
"All right," Durell said.
Atimboku had joined the soldiers laboring on the track repairs. They were some distance ahead of the locomotive. His huge torso and broad shoulders gleamed with sweat as he swung a pick with the rest of the men. Beyond the bomb crater the track went straight ahead, dwindling in the heat mist of the lake's far horizon. The scene here was utterly flat except for the distant loom of violet mountains to the south and east. The sun was more than midway down in the afternoon sky. The temperature was at least 110 degrees, Durell guessed. Wherever he looked, there was water, the broad, broken expanse of the lake the Pakurus had named the Emerald Lake. It was more of a great swamp than a lake, but there were mile-wide stretches of shallow green water covered with reeds
Prince Tim gave his pick to a passing soldier and straightened his strong back. He nodded to Durell and said, "Come with me. I want to show you something."
There was no hint of the angry, paranoiac lust to kill that had marked him only an hour earlier. His white teeth glistened in his handsome, brown face as he grinned. He said again, "Come along, Cajun. It's interesting. Your little Japanese friend is there, too."
They walked on ahead of the work crew, past tall bamboo growths that obscured a long stretch of the track. Once out of sight of the train Durell was filled with awe for the place. There was a strange, alien beauty to the swamp, far different from the gloomy bayous he had known as a boy. He tried to ignore the oppressive heat and kept stride with Atimboku's long pace. For a short distance out of earshot of the work crew a heavy, somnolent quiet hung over the vista of water, swamp, and hummock. He kept half a pace behind Atimboku, who wore a revolver strapped to his waist. The Pakuru's body moved easily, muscles rippling, apparently reveling in the silent, windless heat.
"How is Harvey?" Atimboku asked in a quiet voice.
"He's out of the running. Broken leg. I'll have to manage the locomotive."
"Can you do it, Bwana Sam?"
"I have to."
"Look, I'm sorry if I—if I acted strangely back there, man. I was carried away by everything that's happened— by everything that's going to happen. We don't really know if we're going to make it, right?"
"That's right," Durell said.
"So I got a little upset. That Salduva—" Atimboku paused beside the railroad track and looked back. The thicket of bamboo hid the stalled train. "Well, she's my kid sister and all that, but she's always been a bit—a little strange. You could never guess what she'd do from one minute to the next when we were kids. I guess I was always jealous of her. She was Nagatawana's favorite—my father was always nuts about her. So she had her way in everything. Me, I had to toe the line, go through all the lousy tribal rituals, all the stupid, boring, primitive diplomatic rites with the local chiefs. So when I was sent to the States and got to Yale—well, I cut loose a bit, that's all. I know what you think of me, Cajun. All the SDS bit and the campus rioting and all that. But I think I've grown up a little. Just lately."
"I hope so," Durell said.
"So you still don't trust me, is that it?"
"Not quite."
Atimboku sighed, expanding his huge chest. He was a handsome, powerful young man with that dynamic aura of leadership that only a few in history possess. His face remained bland and friendly. The sun glittered and gleamed on the peculiariy green water of the lake, and the Pakuru looked off at the flat, shimmering horizon for a moment before he went on:
"I want you to tell Salduva that I'll do my best to get along with her. But I keep the royal stool. That's not negotiable."
"I'll tell her. It's your problem, not mine and not the State Department's. My job is just to get you to the UN. To get you out of here. That's all."
"You don't really think we're going to make it, do you?" Atimboku asked. "But I tell you, we will. We've got to. Listen, everything I've ever lived for is wrapped up in this. You've got my word. I'll behave from now on. You don't have to worry about me now. Just get the train rolling again, that's all. That's your only problem."
"What did you want to show me up here?"
Atimboku laughed. "Your friend, Oyashi. Come on."
They heard the gabble of voices some minutes before they passed through a second, bigger bamboo thicket along the tracks. At this point the lake shore curved to the right, opening into a marshy cove dotted with tiny, palm-grown islets. It was difficult sometimes to tell where the water ended and the land began. The voices grew louder, and Atimboku put a finger to his lips and led Durell deeper into the water. They moved slowly, wading along the oozy bottom until they were thigh deep. Near the edge of the bamboo grove the sounds grew deafening. Up ahead crouching in the water was Levemore Oyashi, intent on the scene ahead.
"Flamingos," Atimboku said. "A rare sight in Pakuru. Some of our tribes consider them sacred, and we do not use them for food. You may never see this again, Cajun."
Oyashi turned his head and motioned them to get down and be silent. Now Durell saw the colony. There were thousands of the huge birds making a bedlam of sound as they fed their young. Their nests were mounds of mud from one shore of the cove to the other, and the gooselike honking of the young huddled between their parents' feet made the sky shake with the noise. As the adults fed, they held their bills upside down in the water and stirred the bottom mud with stomping feet to raise the algae from the ooze. They made several vast, tight rafts in the water, and the parents kept feeding the new chicks with a bright red fluid that they gushed up from their pink and black biUs.
'Thoenicopterus ruber roseus," Oyashi whispered. "Long ago the ancient Romans considered flamingo tongues a great delicacy, Sam. I've often wanted to see this."
"I thought you were going down and out without your insulin," Durell returned.
"It comes and goes. I feel better now."
The great flamingos kept looking about with their clear yellow eyes but did not spot the three men in the bamboo blind. Oyashi's face was transformed by the sight. Durell had expected this from Oyashi, who loved natural phenomena, but he suspected Atimboku's interest even though the Pakuru seemed entranced by the big birds.
Durell felt wary. His scalp prickled. He wondered what Prince Tim's motives were. His promises just made could be a transparent effort to disarm him. He saw that Atimboku's hand rested on his hip, close to the revolver in its holster. As he watched, Atimboku casually moved his hand until it rested on the butt of the gun. He was directly behind Oyashi and to the left of Durell.
Then Atimboku's hand slashed up, pulling the revolver from its holster.
Whatever he meant to do was never known for at that moment there came a distant blast from Old 79's whistle. The shriek of the steam whistle
rode high over the insane gabble of noise from the giant birds. At once there was a thud and then a vast storm of pink, flapping wings. As one the entire colony took off, clumsily at first, then as they were free of the mud and water faster and faster, blotting out the glare of the sun, erasing the sky itself.
Oyashi stood up and turned and saw Atimboku's gun in his hand. The Japanese's face did not change.
For a moment the thunder of a thousand wings blotted out his voice as he said something to Atimboku.
Then Durell said, "I guess we'd better get back."
Atimboku put his gun away. "Yes. We'll go back."
Twenty
THE TRAIN rumbled east.
Gloria stood up slowly, smoothed her thighs under the skintight slacks, ruefully surveyed the sweat stains on her shirt, and tried to lift her heavy hair from the back of her neck. Harvey lay on the seat across from her in the small, swaying compartment. His leg was tightly bandaged, and his face looked waxen in the dim Ught that filtered through the boarded-up window. He seemed to be asleep. The little Indian doctor among the refugees had given him the last of the sedatives aboard the train.
"Harvey?"
He stirred and mumbled something.
"Can I get you anything?" she asked.
He seemed to snore.
Gloria stepped out of the compartment and looked forward where the refugees were huddled like cattle, dumb and quiet in their desperation. There was no air conditioning aboard the plush, Edwardian-style coach, which still had some of its signs in ornate Portuguese lettering. She turned in the opposite direction and stepped out on the back platform connected to the supply coach. The wind off Emerald Lake was so hot, and so many cinders drifted down from the engine's stack that no one sought relief out here. Wherever she looked, the world was drowned in the mire and ooze of the primeval swamp they traversed. She had made this trip to the coast several times before in the long years spent in this dump heap of the world, and she knew they had gone less than half the distance although the sun was already low, spreading bloody fingers over the flat sheets of green water as if reluctant to loosen its heated grip on the world.
If I don't do something soon, she thought, I'll just go out of my mind.
The train with Durell at the throttle thudded and clacked steadily along. Now and then there were hollow echoes as they passed over crude trestle bridges between long stretches of causeway. She saw a crocodile yawn at her, and on the distant hummocks some hippos slept. God, how she hated it all! She watched a fish eagle circling in the white sky. A vision of Manhattan, of reassuring buildings and busy people crowding by, touched her mind. Nostalgia was like a sudden ache in the pit of her stomach.
She crossed the platform to the supply coach. It had been altered by having its ends removed to receive the firewood and extra sleepers and rails that Durell had insisted they take along on this futile trip. For a moment she scanned the sky again, but there were no more planes up there—only the fish eagle looking for its prey in this drowned and useless land.
Gloria picked her way farther aft. No one was aboard this coach which had been stripped of its seats to make room for the wood and rusty lengths of rail. Smoke from the funnel drifted down in a thick cloud and made her eyes smart and her throat ache. She thought of Durell up forward and smoothed her thighs again and felt the endless, empty, aching need inside. Just the same, it was good to be alone for a change, away from the moans of the wounded refugees and their endless, murmuring complaints.
But she was not alone.
She saw Atimboku outlined against the setting sun, too late to retreat. He had been here all the time, watching her pick her slow way through the heaped jumbles of firewood. He looked enormous against the red glare in the western sky.
"Don't go back, Mrs. Gladstone."
"I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here," she said. Her heart suddenly thimiped and lurched. "I didn't mean to intrude."
"A quiet drink, a sunset view." Atimboku grinned and held up a bottle of Scotch. "Privacy is our last desperate possession in this crowded, confused world."
Against her will, against all that she had promised to herself, she walked toward him and joined him on the rear platform. The tracks kept sliding away, the train rocked, the wheels clicked and clacked. The lake had turned red with the last light of the setting sun.
"I didn't think you wanted my company," she said.
"Ah, I was distracted before. Really desperate. The problems of getting away from Pakuruville before my enemies took us—I had no time for more pleasant matters." Atimboku smiled and shrugged. "Believe me, I regretted it more than you. At least we understand each other."
"Maybe it was just as well." Gloria was afraid to meet his eyes. She knew he was smiling down at her with that awful, goddamn male superiority, that knowingness some men always had when they just looked at her as if they could see right through her and recognize the indiscriminate, burning need she always lived with. She hated him. But she was aware of his size, his strength, the muscular smoothness of his skin. She shivered inwardly as he reached out and held her arm.
"Don't," she said.
"What? We're alone here now. Your husband is asleep, safely sedated. No one will come back here."
"I don't care," she said suddenly. "I'm going back to the coach."
"And if I order you to stay?" Atimboku smiled.
"I wouldn't care about your orders even if you were King Tut. Harvey might need me."
"Ah, you suddenly care about your little, impotent husband? Yes, I know all about him. I know how he went to the whores in Pakuruville trying to revive his manhood. I always felt sorry for you. You are a rich, vital woman starved for affection, hungry for love."
"How do you know about Harvey?"
"I made it my business to know everything I could about those I kept in my government."
"You spied on him?"
Atimboku shrugged again. "Really, baby, we're wasting time."
She felt the hardness of his powerful body as he pulled her toward him; she saw the conceit, the certainty of possession in his contemptuous eyes. Suddenly Gloria felt sick. Along with the revulsion that lifted in her she felt a sudden terror.
"Let me go," she whispered.
"You don't want me to let you go."
"Yes. Please. Let me go."
He spat out an expletive, grabbed her, forced her back against the cordwood. She felt the intimate, helpless wetness of her, knew she would yield in a moment, and tried to struggle against him and herself. The train lurched and pressed his body harder against her. His hands denied her privacy. She smelled the essential maleness. of him and fought one hand free of his casual grip and struck and slapped and clawed at him with a sudden, overwhelming despair. His laugh only made her more frantic to escape. But it was too late. She felt his strong hand tear at her blouse, rip down her slacks. She wanted to and was afraid. She wanted to and hated him. God, she hated all men. Why did she need them so? She felt herself pushed back, and although she was a tall woman and reasonably strong, she was like a puppet under him, one part of her betraying her once again, making her helpless so that she reached and lifted to meet him while she wept and thought. No, not with this man, not while Harvey—
The rocking rhythm of the train matched that of Atim-boku's body, and she felt him take her and felt herself yield while the sun blinded her and set in a huge, bloody ball over the wide sheets of green water behind them, while his weight kept her helpless, dark and powerful like all the latent strength of Africa itself . . .
She felt the blow through the wild, red-black sun-man violence that possessed her.
She heard Harvey's high, impotent shouting above the thunder in her, the pounding of the train, the pressure of Atimboku's weight on her.
Incredibly, Harvey was there. A stick had been fashioned for him as a crutch, and he brought it down across Atimboku's back, cracking heavily, rising, slashing down again. Gloria screamed. There was no time to wonder how Harvey had awakened and made his wa
y back here among the wood and rails and machinery parts to find her. She screamed again and tried to free herself from Atim-boku, aware of her torn clothes that left her more naked than not out here in this darkening world of placid lake and blood-red sky. She was aware of blood splattering over her and called Harvey's name. He didn't hear her. He balanced on one leg, his face white with pain, and swung his crutch. Atimboku rose up. His weight left her. He swung a casual arm, powerful, contemptuous, and snapped the length of wood from Harvey's grip. Harvey stimibled and went down on the platform. He started to slip off toward the track and gravel that whipped away imder the wheels. Gloria lunged for him and caught his arm and pulled him back. Fingers caught in her hair with excruciating pain. They flxmg her back and away. Atimboku roared like a jungle beast. Angry spittle flew from his lips. He reached down, pulled Harvey up, ignored his bandaged leg. Harvey groaned, and his eyes roUed in unconsciousness. Gloria whimpered, "Don't," and threw herself at Atimboku. She pushed him back a step. Atimboku was going to throw Harvey overboard. His eyes were murderous, gleaming red with the reflected sunset. She had never seen such savagery in anyone. Still aware of his body, she hated him, wanted to kill him in turn.
Assignment Golden Girl Page 11