A Sparrow Falls c-9

by Wilbur Smith

  Mark's intimate knowledge of the Zulu language would serve him well here.

  He was to build temporary accomodation for himself, and conduct a survey to choose the final site for a permanent warden's post. There were fifty other tasks less important, but no less demanding.

  It was a programme to excite and intrigue Mark, and make him want to begin, and as the day drew nearer, only one cloud lay dark and heavy on the splendid horizon ahead of him. He would be parting from Storm, but he consoled himself with the sure knowledge that it would not be for long. He was going ahead into Eden to prepare a place for his Eve.

  As Storm watched him sleep flat on his back, spread like a crucifix on the forest floor, without even the cotton underpants between him and nature, the possessive smile of a mother watching over the child at her breast warmed and softened Storm's lips.

  She was naked also, her clothing scattered around them like the petals of an overblown rose, thrown there by the storm winds of passions which were now spent and quiescent. She sat over him cross-legged on the corner of the plaid rug, and she studied his face, wondering at how young he looked in sleep, feeling a choking of tenderness in her throat, and the soft melting after-glow of loving deep in her body where he had been.

  She leaned over him, and her breasts swung forward with a new weightiness, the tips darker and wrinkled like small pinky brown raisins. She dipped her shoulders and let the nipples brush lightly across his face, and smiled again as he screwed up his nose and pursed his lips in his sleep, snorting as if to blow away a bothersome fly.

  He came awake suddenly and as he reached for her, she squealed softly and plucked her breasts away from him, slapping at his hands. Unhand me, sir, this instant! she commanded, and he caught her and pulled her down on to his chest, so that she could hear his heart beating under her ear.

  She snuggled down, making throaty little sounds of comfort. He sighed deeply, and his chest swelled and expanded under her cheek and she heard the air rush into his lungs.

  Mark? she said. I'm here. You're not going. You know that, don't you? The air in his lungs stayed there as he held his breath, and the hand that was stroking lightly up from the small of her back to the nape of her neck stilled. She could feel the tension in his fingers.

  They stayed like that for many seconds and then he let the air out of his lungs with an explosive grunt. What do you mean? he asked. Where am I not going? This place up there in the bush, she said. Chaka's Gate? Yes. You're not going. Why not? Because I forbid it.

  He sat up abruptly, joggling her roughly off his chest.

  They sat facing each other, and he was staring at her with such an expression that she ran her fingers through her hair and then folded her arms across her breasts, covering them protectively. Storm, what on earth are you talking about? he demanded.

  I don't want you to waste any more time, she told him. You must start making your way now, if you're ever going to amount to anything. This is my way, our way, he said, bewildered. We agreed on it. I will go up there to Chaka's Gate and build our home. Home! She was truly appalled. Up there in the bush me in a grass hut? Mark, are You out of your mind! I thought -'What you're going to do is start making some money, she told him fiercely, and, picking up her blouse, she pulled it over her head, and as her tousled head emerged she went on, and forget about little boys games. I'll be making money. His expression was stiff, and becoming hostile.

  What money? she asked, just as frostily. I'll have a salary. A salary! She flung back her head and gave a high peal of scornful laughter. A salary, forsooth! How much? I don't know, he admitted. It isn't really all that important. You're a child, Mark. Do you know that? A salary, twenty pounds a week? Can you really and truly imagine me living on your salary? She gave the word a world of contempt. Do you know who earns salaries? Mr Smothers earns a salary, she was on her feet now, hopping furiously on one leg as she drew on her knickers. Daddy's foremen at the saw-mills earn salaries. The servants that wait on the table, the stable-grooms earn salaries. She was pulling up her riding breeches, and with them all her dignity. Real men don't earn salaries, Mark. Her voice was high and shrill. You know what real men do, don't you? He was buttoning the fly of his breeches also, forced to follow her example, and he shook his head silently. Real men pay salaries, not take them, she said. Do you know that when my father was your age he was already a millionaire! Mark was never able to fathom what it was that triggered him, perhaps the mention of Sean at that particular moment, but suddenly he lost his temper. He felt it like a hot red fog behind his eyes.

  I'm not your bloody father, he shouted. Don't you swear at my father, she shouted back. He's five times the man you'll ever be. They were both panting and flushed, clothing rumpled, half-clad, with wild hair and wilder eyes glaring at each other like animals, speechless with hurt and anger.

  Storm made the effort. She swallowed painfully, and held out her hands palms upwards. Listen, Mark. I've got it all planned. If you went into timber, selling to the mines, Daddy would give you the agency and we could live in Johannesburg. But Mark's anger was still on him, and his voice was rough and scaly with it.

  Thank you, he said. Then I could spend my life grubbing money for you to buy those ridiculous clothes, and Don't you insult me, Mark Anders, she blazed.

  Try me, Mark told her. And that's what I'm going to be the rest of my life. If you loved me, you'd respect that. And if you loved me, you wouldn't want me to live in a grass hut. I love you, he shouted her down. But you'll be my wife and you'll do what I decide. Don't challenge me, Mark Anders. I warn you. Don't ever do that! I'll be your husband, he began, but she snatched up her boots and ran to her horse, stooping to loose the hobble and then flinging herself on to its back bare-footed and looked down at him. She was breathless with anger, but she struggled to make her voice icy and cutting. Don't take any bets on thad! And she dragged the horse's head around and kicked him into a run. Where is Missy? Sean demanded as he unfolded his napkin and tucked the corner into his waistcoat, glancing at Storm's empty place at the table. She's not feeling very well, dear, Ruth told him, as she began serving the soup, ladling it out of the fat-bellied tureen in a cloud of fragrant steam. I allowed her to have her dinner sent up to her room. What's wrong with her? Sean looked up with concern creasing his forehead. It's nothing serious, said Ruth firmly, closing the door on further discussion. Sean stared at her for a moment, and then understanding dawned. Oh! he said. The functions of the female body had always been shrouded for Sean Courtney in deepest mystery, and awakened in him an abiding awe. Oh! he said again, and leaned forward to blow noisily on a spoonful of soup to cover his embarrassment, and the niggling resentment that his beloved child was a child no longer.

  Across the table, Mark applied himself to his spoon with equal determination, but with an empty aching feeling below his ribs. Where is Missy tonight? Sean asked, with what was for him a certain diffidence. Still not well, "She telephoned Irene Leuchars this morning. Apparently the Leuchars are having a huge party tonight and she wanted to go. She left after lunch. She's driving herself back to Durban in the Cadillac. Where will she stay? Sean demanded.

  Vith the Leuchars, naturally. She should have asked me, Sean frowned. You were down at the saw-mills all day, dear. The decision had to be made immediately, or she would have missed the party. I knew you wouldn't mind. Sean minded everything that took his daughter away from him, but he could not say so now. I thought she hated Irene Leuchars, he complained.

  That was last month, said Ruth.

  I thought she was sick, Sean persisted. That was last night. When is she coming home? She may stay in town for the race-meeting at Greyville on Saturday. Mark Anders listened with the empty space in his chest turning to a great bottomless void. Storm had gone back to join that close group of rich, indolent and privileged young people, to their endless games and their eternal round of extravagant partying, and on Saturday Mark was leaving with two mules for the wilderness beyond Chaka's Gate.

  Mark wou
ld never fathom how Dirk Courtney knew.

  To him it seemed further evidence of the man's power, the tentacles of his influence that reached into every corner and crevice.

  I understand you are to make the survey for the Government, to decide whether it's worth developing the proclaimed area beyond Chaka's Gate? he asked Mark.

  Mark could still hardly believe the fact that he stood unarmed and completely unprotected here at Great Longwood. His skin tingled with warning of deadly danger, his nerves were drawn like bow-strings, and he walked with exaggerated care, one hand clenched in the hip-pocket of his breeches.

  Beside him, Dirk Courtney was tall and courteous and affable. When he turned to make that statement, he smiled a warm spread of the wide and handsome mouth and he laid a hand on Mark's upper arm. A light but friendly touch, which shocked Mark as though a mamba had kissed him with its little flickering black tongue. How does he know it? Mark stared at him, his feet slowing, so that he pulled gently away from Dirk's touch.

  If Dirk noticed the withdrawal, it did not show in his smile, and he let his hand fall naturally to his side and took the flat silver cigarette-case from his jacket pocket. Try one, he murmured. They are made especially for me. Mark tasted the incense of the sweetish Turkish tobacco, using the act of lighting the cigarette to cover his uncertainty and surprise. Only Sean Courtney and his close family knew, and of course the Prime Minister's office, the Prime Minister's office, if that was it, as it seemed it must be, then Dirk Courtney's tentacles stretched far indeed. Your silence I must take as confirmation, Dirk told him, as they came down the paved alleyway between two lines of whitewashed loose boxes. From over the halfdoors, the horses stretched out their necks to Dirk and he paused now and then to caress a velvety muzzle with surprisingly gentle fingers, and to murmur an endearment. You are a very silent young man. Dirk smiled that warm endearing smile again. I like a man who can keep his own counsel, and respect the privacy of others. He turned to confront Mark, forcing him to meet his eyes.

  Dirk reminded Mark of some glossy cat, one of the big predators, not the tabby domestic variety. The leopard, golden and beautiful and cruel. He wondered at his own courage, or foolhardiness, in coming here right into the leopard's lair. A year ago it might have been suicidal to put himself in this man's hands. Even now, without Sean Courtney's protection, he would never have dared, Yet although it was logical to believe that nobody, not even Dirk Courtney, would dare touch him, now that he was Sean Courtney's protege with all that that implied, yet prickles of apprehension nettled his spine as he looked into those leopard's eyes.

  Dirk took his elbow, not giving him opportunity to avoid the touch, and led him through a gateway to the stud pens.

  The two pens were enclosed with ten-foot high pole fences, carefully padded to prevent damage to the expensive animals that would be confined here. The earth within the rectangular enclosures was ankle-deep with fresh sawdust, and though one was empty, there was a group of four grooms busy in the nearest pen.

  Two of them had the mare on a double lead rein. She was a young animal, a deep red bay in colour, and she had the beautiful balanced head of the Arab, wide nostrils which promised great heart and stamina, and strong but delicate bones.

  Dirk Courtney placed a booted foot on the bottom rail of the pen, and leaned forward to look at her with a gloating pride. She cost me a thousand guineas, he said, and it was a bargain. The two other grooms had the stallion in check. An old, heavily built animal, with grey dappling his muzzle. He wore a girdle, strapped under his belly, and up between the hindlegs, a cage like an old-fashioned chastity belt of woven light chain that was called the teaser. It would prevent him effectively covering the mare.

  The grooms gave him rein to approach the mare, but the instant she felt his gentle nuzzling touch under her tail, she put her head down and lashed out with both back legs, a murderous hissing cut of hooves that flew within inches of the stallion's head.

  He snorted and backed away. Then, undeterred, he closed with her once more, reaching out to touch her flank, running his nose with a gentle ]over's touch across the glossy hide, but the mare made her skin shudder wildly, as though she were beset by bees, and she let out a screaming whinny of outrage at the importunate touch on her maidenly virtue. One of the grooms was dragged down on his knees as she flashed at the stallion with terrible yellow teeth, catching him in the neck and ripping open his old dappled hide in a shallow bloody cut before they pulled her off. Poor old beggar, murmured Mark, although the injury was superficial; it was the indignity of the whole business that aroused Mark's sympathy. The old stallion must endure the kicks and bites, until at last the temperamental filly was wooed and willing. Then he would be led away, his work done. Never waste sympathy for the losers in this world, Dirk advised him. There are too many of them In the sawdust-covered arena, the filly lifted her tail, the long glossy hairs forming a soft waving Plume, and she urinated a sharp spurt that was evidence of her arousal.

  The stallion circled her, -rolling back his upper lip, exposing his teeth, and his shoulder muscles spasmed violently as he nodded his head vigorously and reached out to her again.

  She stood quietly now, with her tail still raised, and trembled at the soft loving touch of his muzzle, ready at last to accept him. All right, Dirk shouted. Take him out. But it required the strength of both grooms to drag his head around and lead him out of the tall gate that Dirk swung open. Strangely enough, I don't believe that you are one of this life's losers, Dirk told Mark easily, as they waited by the gate. That is why you are here at this moment. I only trouble myself with a certain type of man. Men with either talent, or strength or vision, or all of those virtues. I believe you may be of that type. Mark knew then that all this had been carefully arranged, the meeting with Peter Botes, Marion Littlejohn's brother-in-law, outside the post office in Ladyburg, the urgent summons to Dirk Courtney's estate he had delivered, so there was no opportunity to report to Sean Courtney and discuss the invitation, and now this erotic show of mating horses, all of it planned to confuse and unsettle Mark, to keep him unbalanced. I think you are more like this, Dirk went on, as the grooms led in the stud stallion, an animal too valued to risk damaging by putting to an unwilling female, a tall horse, black as a rook's wing, high-stepping and proud, kicking the soft sawdust with polished hooves, and then coming up hard and trembling on stiff legs as he smelt the waiting mare, and the great black root grew out of his belly, long as a man's arm and as thick, arrogant, and with a flaring head that pulsed with a life of its own and beat impatiently against the stallion's chest. The losers toil, and the winners take the spoil, said Dirk, as the huge beast reared up over the mare. One of the grooms darted forward to guide him, and the mare hunched her back to receive the long gliding penetration. The winners and the losers, he repeated, watching the stallion work with glistening bulging quarters, and Dirk's handsome face was flushed with high colour, and his hands gripped the poles of the fence until the knuckles blanched like marble.

  When at last the stallion dropped back off the mare on to four legs, Dirk sighed, took Mark's elbow again and led him away. You were present when I spoke with my father of my dream.

  I was there, Mark agreed. Oh good, Dirk laughed genially. You have a voice, I was beginning to doubt it, But my information is that you have a good brain also Mark glanced at him sharply and Dirk assured him, Naturally, I have made it my business to find out all about you. You know certain details of my plans, I must be in a position to protect myself. They skirted the ornamental pond, below the homestead, the surface covered with flat lily pads and the smell of their blooms light and sugary in the afternoon heat, and they went on through the formal rose garden, neither of them speaking again until they had entered the high-ceilinged and overfurnished study; Dirk had closed the wooden shutters against the heat, making the room cool and gloomy, and somehow forbidding.

  He waved Mark to a chair across from the fireplace and went to the table on which stood a silver tray of bottles an
d crystal. Drink? he asked, and Mark shook his head and watched Dirk pour from a black bottle. You know my dream, Dirk spoke, still concentrating on his task. What did you think of it?

  It's a large concept, Mark said cautiously. Large? Dirk laughed. It's not the word I would have chosen. He saluted Mark with the glass and sipped at it, watching him over the rim. Strange how the fates work, Dirk thought, watching the slim graceful figure. Twice I tried to be rid of the nuisance he could have caused me. If I had succeeded, I would not be able to use him now. He hitched one leg over the corner of his desk and set the glass aside carefully to leave both hands free, and he gesticulated as he talked. We are talking of opening a whole new frontier, a huge step forward for our nation, work for tens of thousands of people, new towns, new harbours, railways, progress. He spread his hands, a gesture of growth and limitless opportunity. That one wonderful word that describes it all, progress! And anybody who tries to stop that is worse than a fool, he's a criminal, a traitor to his country, and should be treated as one. He should be brushed mercilessly aside, by any means that comes to hand. He paused now and glowered at Mark. The threat was barely concealed, and Mark stirred restlessly in his chair. On the other hand, Dirk smiled suddenly, like a flooding beam of sunlight bursting through the grey overcast of a storm sky. Every man who works towards the fulfilment of this huge concept will be fully entitled to a share of the rewards. What do you want from me? Mark asked, and the abrupt question caught Dirk with his hands poised and the next flight of oratory on his lips. He let the hands drop to his sides, and watched Mark's face expectantly, as though there was something still to come. And what are the rewards you speak of? Mark went on, and Dirk laughed delightedly, those were the words for which he had been waiting, each man has a coin for which he will work.