The Burning Shore c-8

by Wilbur Smith

Lying on his side, O'wa was restringing his little hunting bow, and when he had tested the tension of its string, he selected a pair of arrows from the leather band around his forehead, made a sign to H'ani and then slithered back from the crest of the dune. Once he was off the skyline, he leaped to his feet and slipped away into the shadows and folds of windblown sands.

  The two women lay behind the ridge, still and silent as the shadows. Centaine was learning the animal patience that this ancient wilderness demanded of all its creatures. The sky began to bloom with the first promise of day, and now she could see more clearly the creatures on the plain below them.

  They were huge antelopes. Four of them lying quietly, while one of them, larger and more thickset in shoulders and neck, stood a little apart. Centaine judged that he was the herd bull, for at his shoulder he stood as tall as Nuage, her beloved stallion, but he carried a magnificent pair of horns, long and straight and vicious, and Centaine was reminded vividly of the tapestry La Dame d la Licorne at the Muse de Cluny, which her father had taken her to see on her twelfth birthday.

  The light strengthened and the bull gleamed a lovely soft mulberry-fawn colour. His face was marked with F darker lines in a diamond pattern, that looked as though he were wearing a head halter, but there was that wild dignity about him that immediately dispelled any suggestion of captivity.

  He swung his noble head towards where Centaine lay, extended his trumpet-like ears and swished his dark bushy horse-like tail uneasily. H'ani laid her hand on Centaine's arm and they shrank down. The bull stared in their direction for many minutes, rigid and still as a marble carving, but neither of the women moved, and at last the bull lowered his head and began to dig in the loose earth of the plain with his sharp black forehooves.

  All, yes! Dig for the sweet root of the hi plant, great and splendid bull, O'wa exhorted him silently. Do not lift your head, you marvelous chieftain of all gemsbok, feed well, and I will dance you such a dance that all the spirits of the gemsbok will envy you for ever! O'wa lay one hundred and fifty feet from where the gemsbok bull was standing, still far beyond the range of his puny bow. He had left the shadow of the dune valley almost an hour before, and in that time had covered less than five hundred paces.

  There was a slight depression in the surface of the plain, a mere indentation less than a hand's span deep, but even in the vague light of the moon O'wa had picked it out unerringly with his hunter's eye and he had slid into it like a small amber-coloured serpent, and like a serpent moved on his belly with slow, sinuous undulations and silent prayers to the spirits of Lion Star who had guided him to this quarry.

  Suddenly the gemsbok flung up his head and stared about him suspiciously, ears flared wide.

  Don't be alarmed, sweet bull, O'wa urged him. Smell the hi tuber and let peace enter your heart again. The minutes stretched out, and then the bull blew a small fluttery sound through his nostrils, and lowered his head. His harem of fawn-coloured cows who had been watching him warily relaxed, and their jaws began working again as they chewed on the cud.

  o'wa slithered forward, moving under the flattened lip of the depression, his cheek touching the earth so as not to show a head silhouette, pushing himself over the soft earth with his hips and his knees and his toes.

  The gemsbok had rooted out the tuber and was chewing on it with noisy gusto, holding it down with a forehoof to break off a mouthful, and O'wa closed the gap between them with elaborate, patient stealth.

  Feast well, sweet bull, without you three persons and an unborn child will be dead by tomorrow's sun. Do not , great gemsbok, stay a while, just a little while longer. He was as close as he dared approach now, but it was still too far. The gemsbok's hide was tough and his fur thick. The arrow was a light reed, and the point was bone that could not take the same keen edge as iron.

  Spirit of Lion Star, do not turn your face away now, O'wa beseeched, and raised his left hand so that the tiny pale-coloured palm was turned towards the bull.

  For almost a minute nothing happened, and then the bull noticed the disembodied hand that seemed to rise out of the earth, and he lifted his head and stared at it. It seemed too small to be dangerous.

  After a minute of utter stillness, O'wa wriggled his fingers seductively and the bull blew through his nostrils and stretched out his muzzle, sucking in air, trying to get the scent, but O'wa was working into the small, fitful morning breeze, with the deceptive dawn light behind him.

  He held his hand still again and then slowly lowered it to his side. The bull took a few paces towards him and then froze, another few paces, craning inquisitively, ears pricked forward, he peered at the shallow indentation where O'wa lay pressed to the earth without breathing.

  Then the bull's curiosity took him forward again into range of O'wa's bow.

  In a flash of movement, like the strike of the adder, O'wa rolled on to his side, drew the eagle feather flights to his cheek and let the arrow fly. It darted like a bee across the space between them and alighted with a slapping sound on the patterned cheek of the bull, fixing its barbs in the soft skin below his trumpet-like ear.

  The bull reared back at the sting of it, and whirled away. Instantly his harem cows sprang from their sandy couches into full gallop and the whole herd went away after the running bull, switching their long dark tails and dragging a pale train of dust behind them.

  The bull was shaking his head, trying to rid himself of the the arrow that dangled from his cheek, and he swerved in his run and deliberately brushed his head against the trunk of one of the ancient dead trees.

  Stick deep! O'wa was on his feet, capering and yelling. Hold fast, arrow, carry the poison of O'wa to his heart.

  Carry it swiftly, little arrow. The women came running down from the dune to join him.

  Oh, what a cunning hunter, H'ani lauded her husband, and Centaine was breathless but disappointed for the herd was already out of sight across the dark plain, lost in the grey of predawn. Gone? she asked H'ani.

  Wait, the old woman answered. Follow soon. Watch now. O'wa make magic. The old man had laid aside his weapons, except for two arrows which he arranged in his headband to prick up at the same angle as the horns of a gemsbok. Then he cupped his hands on each side of his head into trumpet-shaped ears, and subtly altered his entire stance and the way he carried his head. He snorted through his nostrils and pawed at the ground, and before Centaine's eyes was transformed into a gemsbok. The mimicry was so faithful that Centaine clapped her hands delightedly.

  o'wa went through the panotominie of seeing the beckoning hand, approaching it warily, and then being struck by the arrow. Centaine had a sense of due,! vu, so accurately was the incident portrayed.

  O'wa galloped away with the same stride and carriage as the gemsbok, but then he began to weaken and stagger.

  He was panting, his head drooping, and Centaine felt a pang of sympathy for the stricken beast. She thought of Nuage and tears sprang into her eyes, but H'ani was clapping and uttering little shrieks of encouragement.

  Die, oh bull that we revere, die that we may live! O'wa blundered in a wide circle, his horned head too heavy to carry, an he sagged to the earth and went into the final convulsions as the poison coursed through his blood.

  It was all so convincing that Centaine was no longer seeing the little San, but rather the bull that he was portraying. She did not for a moment doubt the efficacy for the sympathetic spell that O'wa was weaving over his quarry.

  Ah! H'ani cried. He is down. The great bull is finished, and Centaine believed without question.

  They drank from the egg-bottles, and then O'wa broke a straight branch from one of the dead trees and shaped one end to fit the spearhead made from the thighbone of a buffalo which he carried in his pouch. He bound the spearhead in place and weighed the heavy weapon in his hand.

  It is time to go after the bull, he announced, and led off across the plain.

  Centaine's first impression was correct. They had passed beyond the dune country, but the plain that lay
ahead of them was every bit as forbidding, and the strange shapes of the dead forest gave it a surreal and otherworldly feeling.

  Centaine wondered how long ago the forest had died, and shivered as she realized that these trees might have stood like this for a thousand years, preserved by the desiccated air as the mummies of the pharaohs had been.

  O'Wa was following the tracks of the gemsbok herd, and even over the hard pebbled expanses of the plain where Centaine could see no sign of their passing, the little San led them at a confident unwavering trot. He paused only once to pick up the shaft of his arrow, lying at the base of the dead tree upon which the bull had brushed itself. He held it up and showed it to the women. See. The barb has struck. The head of the arrow was missing. O'wa had deliberately designed it in two pieces with a weak section just at the back of the poisoned barb so that it would break away.

  The light improved swiftly, and H'ani, trotting ahead of Centaine, pointed with her digging stick. At first Centaine could not see what she was indicating, then she noticed a small dried vine with a few parched brown leaves lying close to the earth, and the first sign of living plant life since they had left the coast.

  Because she now knew where and how to look, Centaine noticed other plants, brown and blasted and insignificant, but she had learned enough of this desert to guess what lay beneath the surface. It gave her spirits a small lift when she noticed the first scattered clumps of fine silver dry desert grass. The dunes were behind them, and the land about them was coming alive again.

  The morning breeze that had aided O'wa in his stalk persisted after the sun had cleared the horizon, so the heat was not as oppressive as it had been in the dune country. The whole temper of the San was lighter and more carefree, and even without H'ani's assurances 'Good now, eat, drink soon', Centaine was sure that they had passed through the worst stage of the journey.

  She had to screw up her eyes and shade them, for already the low sun sparkled in dazzling points of white light from the mica chips and bright pebbles and the sky was aglow with a hot soapy radiance that dissolved the horizon and washed out all colour and altered shape and substance.

  Far ahead of them Centaine saw the humped shape lying, and beyond it the four gemsbok cows lingering loyalty but fearfully by their fallen liege bull. They abandoned him at last only when the little file of human shapes was within a mile, and they galloped away into the shimmering heat haze.

  The bull lay as O'wa had mimed him, panting and so weakened by the poison of the arrowhead that his head rolled and his long straight annulated horns waggled from side to side. His eyes glistened with tears and his eyelashes were as long and curved as those of a beautiful woman, yet he tried to rise to defend himself as O'wa faced him, and hooked with those rapier horns that could impale a full-grown lion, swinging them in a vicious flashing arc, before sagging back.

  O'wa circled him cautiously, seeming so frail against the animal's bulk, waiting for his opening, the clumsy spear poised, but the bull dragged its semi-paralysed body around to face him. The arrowhead still dangled from the wound beneath his ear, and the lovely black and white pattern of his face mask was smeared with dark coagulated blood from the poisoned wound.

  Centaine thought of Nuage again, and she wanted the suffering to end quickly. She laid down her satchel, loosened her skirt and held it like a matador's cape and sidled up to the stricken bull on the far side from O'wa.

  Be ready, O'wa, be ready! The bull turned to her voice.

  She caped the bull and he lunged at her, his horns hissed in the air like a swinging cutlas, and he dragged himself towards her, kicking up dust with his giant hooves, and Centaine leaped nimbly aside.

  As he was distracted, O'wa rushed forward and lanced the bull in the throat, driving the bone spearhead deep, twisting and worrying it, seeking the cartoid artery. Bright arterial blood sprayed like a flamingo feather in the sunlight, and O'wa leapt back and watched him die.

  Thank you, great bull. Thank you for letting us live.

  Between them they rolled the carcass on to its back, but when O'wa prepared to make the first cut with his flint knife, Centaine opened the blade of her clasp knife and handed it to him.

  O'wa hesitated. He had never touched that beautiful weapon. He believed that if he did it might cleave to his fingers and he would never be able to give it up again.

  Take, O'wa, Centaine urged him, and when he still hesitated, staring at the knife with a timid reverence, Centaine with a sudden intuitive flash realized the true reason for O'wa's antagonism towards her.

  He wants the knife, he is lusting after it. She almost laughed but controlled it. Take, O'wa, and the little man reached out slowly and took it from her hand.

  He turned it lovingly between his fingers. He stroked the steel, caressing the blade, and then tested the edge with his thumb.

  Ai! All be exclaimed as the steel sliced through his skin and raised a beaded chain of blood drops across the ball of his thumb. What a weapon. Look, H'ani! He displayed his injured thumb proudly. See how sharp it is! My stupid husband, it is usual to cut the game and not the hunter! O`wa cackled happily at the joke, and bent to the task.

  He took the bull's scrotum in his left hand and drew it out, then with a single stroke lopped it free.

  Ai! How sharp! He laid the scrotum aside, the testicles grilled on the coals were a delicacy and the sac of soft skin would make a fine pouch for arrowheads and other small valuables.

  Starting from the wound between the bull's hindlegs, he made a shallow cut through the skin, angling the blade forward so as not to pierce the belly cavity. He led the cut with his forefinger hooked under the skin, up between the bull's forelegs under its throat to the point of the chin.

  He made ring cuts around the bull's neck, and around the hocks of all four limbs, then sliced down the inside of the legs until he intercepted the first long lateral incision.

  With the women pulling on the white underside of the skin and the blue marbled muscles sheathed in their transparent capsules, they flayed the hide off the carcass in a single sheet. It made a soft, tearing crackling sound as it came away; they spread it out, fur-side down on the ground.

  Then O'wa opened the stomach cavity with the precision of a surgeon, lifted out the heavy wet viscera and laid them on the sheet of skin.

  H'ani scurried away and collected a bunch of the fine pale desert grass. She had to range widely, for the clumps of grass were scattered and sparse. She hurried back and arranged the grass over the gourd bowl, while O'wa slit open the slippery white bag of the bull's rumen and lifted out a double handful of the contents. Water dribbled from the undigested vegetation even before O'wa began to squeeze it out.

  Using the bunch of grass as a sieve, O'wa filled the gourd with fluid and then lifted it with both hands to his lips. He drank deeply, closing his eyes with ecstasy, and when he lowered the bowl, he belched thunderously and grinned hugely as he passed the gourd to H'ani. She drank noisily and finished with a belch and a hoot of appreciation, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand as she passed the gourd to Centaine.

  Centaine examined the pale greenish-brown liquid. It's only vegetable juice, she consoled herself. It hasn't even been chewed or mixed with gastric juices yet- and she lifted the gourd.

  it was much easier than she had anticipated, and it tasted like a broth of herbs and grass, with the bitter aftertaste of the hi tuber. She handed the empty gourd back to O'wa, and while he squeezed and strained the rest of the contents of the rumen, she imagined the long table at Mort Homme set with silver and crystal and SEvres porcelain, and the way Anna fussed over the flowers, the freshness of the turbot, the temperature of the wine and the exact shade of pink of the slices of freshly carved filet, and she laughed aloud. She had come a long, long way from Mort Homme.

  The two little San laughed with her in complete misunderstanding, and they all drank again and then again.

  Look at the child, H'ani invited her husband. In this land of the singing sand I feared for her
, but already she blooms like the desert flowers after the rain. She is a strong one, with the liver of a lion, did you see how she helped at the moment of the kill, by drawing the eye of the bull to herself? H'ani nodded and cackled and belched. She will breed a fine son, you hear the word of old H'ani, a fine son indeed. O'wa, his belly ballooning with good water, grinned and was about to concede, when his eye dropped to the knife that lay between his feet, and the grin faded.

  Silly old woman, you chatter like the brainless spotted guinea fowl, while the meat spoils. He snatched up the knife. Envy was an emotion so alien to his nature that O'wa was deeply unhappy and not really certain of the reason why, but the thought of handing the knife back to the girl filled him with a corrosive anger that he had never known before. He frowned and muttered as he dressed out the viscera of the bull, cutting thin slices of the rubbery white tripes and chewing them raw as he worked.

  It was midmorning before they had festooned the branches of one of the dead trees with long ribbons of bright scarlet gemsbok meatf and the heat built up so swiftly that the meat darkened and dried out almost immediately.

  It was too hot to eat. Between them H'ani and Centaine spread the wet gemsbok skin over a framework of dead branches and they huddled under this tent-like structure, taking refuge from the sun, cooling their bodies with the evaporating fluids of the gemsbok's secondary stomach.

  At sundown O'wa took out his fire sticks and began the laborious process of coaxing a spark from them, but impatiently Centaine took the ball of dry kindling from him. Up to that time she had always been too intimidated by the little San and her own feeling of total inadequacy to make any show of initiative. Now, somehow, the crossing of the dunes and her part in the gemsbok hunt emboldened her, and she laid out the kindling and the knife and flint with the San looking on curiously.

  She struck a shower of sparks into the kindling and stooped quickly to blow it into the flame. The San shrieked in amazement and consternation, and backed away in superstitious awe. Only once the fire was burning steadily could Centaine reassure them, and they crept back and marvelled over the steel and the flint. Under Centaine's tutelage, O'wa at last succeeded in striking sparks, and his joy was spontaneous and childlike.