Blue Horizon c-3

by Wilbur Smith

  High above them he stood at the base of the cliff, and waved to them to follow. They saddled up quickly, and climbed up to meet him.

  "Look! Oh, look!" Louisa pointed to the vertical gash that split the rock face from the base of the cliff to the crest. "It is like a gateway, the entrance to a castle."

  Bakkat took Frost's reins from Jim and led the horse into the dark opening. They dismounted and, leading their own horses, they followed him. The passage was so narrow that they were forced to walk in single file with their stirrup irons almost scraping the rock walls on each side. On both sides of them the glassy smooth stone seemed to reach to the strip of blue high above them. The sky was so remote that it appeared thin as the blade of a rapier. Zama drove the spare horses into the opening behind them but their hoofbeats were muffled by the floor of soft white sand. Their voices echoed weirdly in the confined spaces as the passage twisted and turned through the depths of the rock.

  "Oh, look! Look!" Louisa cried, with delight, and pointed to the paintings that covered the walls from the sandy floor to her eye-level. "Who painted these? Surely they are not the work of men, but of fairies."

  The paintings depicted men and animals, herds of antelope that galloped wildly across the smooth stone, and dainty little men who pursued them with arrows nocked to their bows, ready to shoot. There were herds of giraffe, blotched with ochre and cream, long sinuous necks

  entwined like serpents. There were rhinoceros, dark and menacing, with nose horns longer than the little human hunters who surrounded them and fired arrows into them so that the red blood flowed and dribbled into pools beneath their hoofs. There were elephant, birds and snakes, all the profusion of creation.

  "Who painted these, Bakkat?" Louisa asked again. Bakkat understood the sense of the question but not the language she spoke. He turned on Frost's back and answered her in a rush of clicking words that sounded like snapping twigs.

  "What does he say?" Louisa turned to Jim.

  "They were painted by his tribe, by his fathers and grandfathers. They are the hunting dreams of his people praise-pictures to the courage and beauty of the quarry and the cunning of the hunters."

  "It's like a cathedral," Louisa's voice was hushed with awe.

  "It is a cathedral." Jim agreed. "It is one of the holy places of the San."

  The paintings covered the walls on both sides. Some must have been ancient, for the paint had faded and crumbled and other artists had painted over them, but the ghostly images of the ages blended together and formed a tapestry of infinity. They were silent at last, for the sound of their voices seemed sacrilegious in this place.

  At last the rock opened ahead of them and they rode towards the narrow vertical blade of sunlight at the end of the passage. Then they emerged through the rock cleft and the sunlight dazzled them. They found themselves high above the world, with a vulture's view across a vastness that left them silent and astonished. Great plains stretched away, dun and limitless, laced with veins of green where the rivers flowed, and dotted with patches of darker forest. Beyond the plains, almost at the reach of the eye, rose an infinity of hills, rank upon rank, like the serrated fangs of a monstrous shark, fading with distance, purple and blue, until they merged with the blue of the tall African sky.

  Louisa had never imagined a sky so high or a land so wide, and gazed upon it with a rapt expression, silent until Jim could bear it no longer. This was his land and he wanted her to share it with him and love it the way he loved it.

  "Is it not grand?"

  "If I had never believed in God before, I would now," she whispered.

  They reached the Gariep river the next morning, at the point where it debouched from the mountains. Over the aeons its waters had cut this deep pass through the rock. The river was running wide and apple green with the thawing of the high snows. After the mountains, the air here was warm and caressing. The banks of the river were lined with dense stands of sweet thorn and wild willows, carpeted with spring flowers. The saffron-plumed weaver birds were shrieking and fluttering as they wove their basket nests on to the drooping wands of the willows. Five kudu bulls were drinking at the water's edge. They threw up their massive spiralled horns and stared with astonishment at the cavalcade of horses coming down the far bank to the ford. Then they fled into the sweet thorn with their horns laid back and water dripping from their muzzles.

  Jim was the first across the river, and let out a hoot of triumph as he examined the deep tracks cut by steel-shod wheels into the soft earth of the opposite bank. "The wagons!" he shouted. "They passed through here less than a month ago!"

  They rode on faster, Jim barely able to contain his eagerness. From a distance of many miles he picked out the single kopje that stood upon the plain ahead. A forest of camel-thorn trees surrounded the base of the hill, then the conical slopes rose steeply to a buttress of grey rock. This formed a plinth for the weird, wind-carved natural sculpture that surmounted it. It was the shape of a squatting bull baboon, with domed pate and low, beetling brows, his elongated muzzle pointed towards the north, staring out across the lion-coloured plain over which the spring buck herds drifted like puffs of cinnamon-coloured smoke.

  Jim kicked his feet out of the stirrups and stood erect on Drumfire's back. Through the lens of the telescope he swept the base of the distant kopje. He laughed with joy as he picked out a flash of white in the sunlight, like the sail of a tall ship seen from afar.

  The wagons! They are there, waiting for us." He dropped into the saddle and as his backside slapped against the leather Drumfire jumped forward and bore him away at full gallop.

  Tom Courtney was butchering the venison he had killed that morning. Under the wagon tent one of the servants was turning the handle, another feeding the strips of fresh meat into the sausage-making machine. Sarah was working at the nozzle from which the paste oozed, filling the long tubes of pig's gut. Tom straightened up, glanced out across the veld and spotted the distant dust cloud raised by flying hoofs. He swept off his hat and used it to shade his eyes against the cruel white glare. "Rider!" he called to Sarah. "Coming fast."

  She looked up but kept the long coils of sausage running between her fingers. "Who is it?" she demanded. Of course, with a mother's instinct, she knew who it was, but she did not want to jinx it by saying the name until she could see his face.

  "It's himself!" Tom cried. "Or if it is not, I will shave my beard. The little devil must have succeeded in showing Keyser a clean pair of heels."

  For weeks they had waited, worried and tried to cheer each other, insisting that Jim was safe, while hope eroded with the passage of the long days. Now their relief and joy were unbounded.

  Tom seized a bridle from the rack on the tailboard of the wagon and ran to one of the horses tethered in the shade. He slipped the bit between its jaws and tightened the cheek-strap. Scorning a saddle he went up on its bare back and galloped out to meet his son.

  Jim saw him coming and rose in the stirrups, waving his hat over his head, hooting and bellowing like an escaped maniac. They raced towards each other and then as they came level, dismounted on the run, hurled by the momentum of their mounts into each other's arms. They hugged each other, beat each other on the back and danced in a circle trying to swing each other off their feet. Tom ruffled Jim's long hair and pulled and twisted his ears painfully.

  "I should thrash you within an inch of your life, you little skellum," he scolded. "You have given your mother and me the worst days of our lives." He held him at arm's length and glared at him lovingly. "I don't know why we bothered. We should have let Keyser have you, and good riddance." His voice choked, and he hugged Jim again. "Come on, boy! Your mother is waiting for you. I hope she gives you a royal slice of her tongue."

  Jim's reunion with Sarah was less boisterous but if anything even more loving than it had been with his father. "We were so worried about you," she said. "I thank God with all my heart for your deliverance."

  Then her first instinct was to feed him. Through mou
thfuls of jam

  rolv'Ply an mk tart ne 8ave n's parents a colourful, if expurgated, account of his exploits since he had last seen them. He did not mention Louisa, and they were all aware of the omission.

  At last Sarah could contain herself no longer. She stood over him and placed her fists on her hips. That's all very well and good, James Archibald Courtney, but what about the girl?" Jim choked on the tart, then looked shamefaced and at a loss for words.

  "Out with it, boy!" Tom said, in support of his wife. "What about the girl or woman or whatever she may be?"

  "You will meet her. She's coming now," Jim said, in a subdued voice, and pointed to the horses and riders coming towards them across the plain in a cloud of their own dust. Tom and Sarah stood together and watched it drawing closer.

  Tom spoke first. "An't no girl there that I can see," he said, with finality. "Zama and Bakkat, yes, but no girl."

  Jim jumped up from the trestle table and came to join them. "She must be..." His voice trailed off as he realized that his father was right. Louisa was not with them. He ran to meet Zama and Bakkat as they rode into camp. "Where is Welanga? What have you done with her?"

  Zama and Bakkat looked at each other, both waiting for the other to answer. At times such as these Bakkat could be conveniently mute. Zama shrugged and took the responsibility of replying. "She will not come," he said.

  "Why not?" Jim shouted.

  "She is afraid."

  "Afraid?" Jim was puzzled. "What has she got to be afraid of?"

  Zama did not reply but glanced significantly at Tom and Sarah.

  "What a time for her to start jibbing!" Jim strode towards where Drumfire was enjoying a nosebag of oats. "I will go and fetch her."

  "No, Jim!" Sarah called softly, but in a tone that stopped him in his tracks. He stared at his mother. "Saddle Sugarbush for me," she told him. "I will go to her."

  From the saddle she looked down at Jim. "What's her name?"

  "Louisa," he answered. "Louisa Leuven. She speaks good English."

  Sarah nodded. "I may be some time," she said to her husband. "Now, don't come looking for me, do you hear?" She had known Tom from girlhood, and loved him past the power of words to describe, but she knew that at times he had the tact of a wounded bull buffalo. She flicked the reins and Sugarbush cantered out of camp.

  She saw the girl half a mile ahead, sitting under a camel-thorn tree on one of the fallen dead branches with Trueheart tethered beside her. Louisa scrambled to her feet when she saw Sarah riding towards her. On the vast plain she was a tiny forlorn figure. Sarah rode up to her and reined in Sugarbush. "You are Louisa? Louisa Leuven?"

  "Yes, Mistress Courtney." Louisa took off her hat and her hair tumbled down. Sarah blinked at its golden profusion. Louisa bobbed a small curtsy and waited respectfully for her to speak again.

  "How do you know who I am?" Sarah asked.

  "He looks just like you, mistress," Louisa explained, 'and he told me all about you and his father." Her voice was low but sweet, and trembled on the verge of tears.

  Sarah was taken aback. This was not at all what she had expected. But what had she expected of an escaped convict? Hard-boiled defiance? World-weariness? Corruption and depravity? She looked into those blue eyes and could find no vice in them.

  "You're very young, Louisa?"

  "Yes, mistress." Her voice broke. "I am so sorry. I didn't mean to-get Jim into trouble. I didn't mean to take him away from you." She was weeping slow, silent tears, which sparkled like jewels in the sunlight. "We haven't done anything bad together, I promise you."

  Sarah stepped down from Sugarbush's back and went to her. She placed one arm round her shoulders and Louisa clung to her. Sarah knew that what she was doing was dangerous, but her maternal instincts were strong, and the girl was so young. The aura of innocence that surrounded her was almost palpable. Sarah found herself drawn irresistibly to her.

  "Come, child." Gently Sarah led her into the shade, and they sat side by side on the dead branch.

  They talked while the sun climbed to its zenith, then began its slow slide down the sky. At first Sarah's questions were probing, and she fought her inclination to let down all her defences and allow this stranger into her inner keep, into the place of trust. From bitter experience she knew that the devil often conceals his true nature behind a beautiful exterior.

  Louisa's replies were open, unstinted, almost disconcertingly honest. She never avoided Sarah's searching gaze. She seemed pathetically eager to please, and Sarah felt her reservations crumbling.

  At last she took the girl's hand. "Why do you tell me all this, Louisa?" she asked.

  "Because Jim risked his life to save me, and you are Jim's mother. I owe you that at least." Sarah felt her own tears rising to the surface. She was silent while she brought herself under control.

  At last Louisa broke the quiet. "I know what you are thinking, Mistress Courtney. You are wondering why I was on a convict ship. You wish to know what crime I am guilty of." Sarah could not trust her voice to deny it. Of course, she wanted to know the answer. Her only son was in love with this girl, and she had to know.

  "I will tell you," Louisa said. "I have told no one except Jim, but now I will tell you."

  And she did. When she had finished Sarah was weeping with her. "It is late." She glanced at the height of the sun, and stood up. "Come, Louisa, we will go home now."

  Tom Courtney was astonished to see that his wife had been weeping. Her eyes were swollen and red. He could not remember the last time that had happened, for Sarah was not much given to tears. She did not dismount, or make any move to introduce him to the pale girl who rode beside her into the camp.

  "We need to be alone for a while, before Louisa is ready to meet you," she told him firmly, and the girl kept her head down and her eyes averted as they rode past and went to the last wagon in the line. The two women disappeared behind the afterclap, the canvas screen at the back of the wagon, and Sarah called for the servants to bring the copper hip bath and buckets of hot water from the cooking fire. The mysterious chest that she had ordered to be loaded on to the wagon, which they had carried with them from High Weald, contained everything that a girl might need.

  The two men were sitting beside the fire on the riempie camp chairs, the backs and seats laced with the crisscrossed rawhide strips that gave the chairs the name. They were drinking coffee, and Tom had laced their mugs with a liberal dram of Hollands gin. They were still discussing everything that had overtaken the family since their last meeting, and were making plans on how to proceed. They both skirted tactfully around the subject of Louisa and how she fitted into these plans. The nearest Tom had come to it was to say, "That is women's business. We will have to let your mother decide."

  Night had fallen and out on the plain the jackals were wailing. "What is your mother doing?" Tom complained. "It's long past my dinner time, and I'm hungry." As if she had heard, Sarah came up from the last wagon carrying a lantern, and leading Louisa by the hand. As they stepped into the firelight, both men stared bemusedly at the girl. Jim was as amazed as his father.

  Sarah had washed Louisa's hair with lavender-scented soap from England, then rubbed it dry, brushed it, trimmed the ragged ends and caught it up with a satin ribbon. It hung down her back in a lustrous wave. Her blouse was buttoned demurely at the throat and the sleeves at the wrists. The full skirt just allowed her ankles to peep out from under the hem. White stockings hid the faint scars of the leg irons.

  The firelight emphasized the smooth perfection of her skin, and the size of her eyes. Tom stared at her, and Sarah preempted any humorous remark he might come up with. "This is Jim's friend, Louisa Leuven. She may be staying with us for a while." It was an understatement. "Louisa, this is my husband Mr. Thomas Courtney." Louisa made one of her graceful curtsies.