The old man was silent again for a long time. He turned from Durell to the girl. “This is true? You are no stranger to me, Mrs. Cotton, although of course you did not know of my true existence. You have helped Lubindan children with your work in the schools and your kindness, teaching them of the world. It is you I trust, not this man, this American, who comes here for his own purposes, whatever his tokens of coins and messages. Was the village burned, Mrs. Cotton?” .
“Yes,” the girl said. “I don’t know how they will live until the rains come.”
“The rains come soon," said the old man. “They will be strong and heavy, and the Kahara will bloom. But—”
The Saka was interrupted.
Once again, Durell heard the familiar, booming voice call to him from out of the unfamiliar darkness.
“Durell! . . . Durell!”
Kitty made a small movement of shock and surprise. The old man did not move except to cock his head slightly toward the closed cave entrance. Durell lifted the heavy Magnum.
“So,” said the Saka. “It is my son.”
“I know it’s your son. It’s Madragata.”
“Let him come in.”
“He’ll kill you,” Durell said flatly.
“And you, too, if he can.”
“But you’ll talk to him?”
“Will you not?" the old man asked gently. “Is it not best to talk first? Then perhaps there will be no fighting.”
“You don’t know—”
“We will talk,” the old man decided.
Chapter 15.
Durell listened to their voices that echoed back and forth within the jagged rim of the mountain that surrounded the cave entrance. The Saka spoke strongly. in a dialect he did not understand, and when Durell looked at Kitty, she shook her head. “I don’t know what they’re saying,” she murmured.
Her manner toward him had changed again. She stood close beside him as they watched from the partly open zebra-hide curtain at the cave entrance. From outside came shouted replies to the Saka’s words, a lift in the voices that hinted at argument, then silence.
“Will he sell us out?” Kitty whispered.
“The Saka? No.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Her hand crept into his. Her fingers felt chilly. The sunlight touched her face and turned it to gold.
The Saka spoke again, this time at greater length. The clicking consonants rolled out with force and power. The old man turned, waved his tall walking stick like a baton, and came back into the cave.
“Madragata will be here.”
“Alone?” Durell asked.
“With one man. An adviser.” The old man looked at Kitty and smiled. “Be seated. Be calm. No harm will come to you.”
But there was anger in the old, dark eyes.
Madragata wore his complacency and arrogance like a royal cloak. He was tall, but not as tall as his father. Neither did he have the long, angular muscularity of the Saka’s people. Durell had not seen him too clearly on the night of the raid on Hobe Tallman’s bungalow. Now he saw the pride in the man, the ferocious ambition, the cruel and coldly analytical mind behind the eyes that smiled; the smile meant nothing. It was no deeper than the film spread from a drop of oil in a pond. He carried no weapons that Durell could see, and at a sign from the Saka, he himself put aside the Magnum and Remington rifles and then added the S&W .38 from his waistband as the old man waited patiently.
“We meet again, Senhor Durell,” said Madragata.
“It is not my pleasure,” Durell said.
“Most certainly not. It will be quite the opposite, I promise you.” Madragata turned. “Old Father, I want -this man. I have been hunting for him for some time, since he came to our country. Also the young woman. These are spies, capitalists and colonialists who would grind our country into deeper poverty and enslave us all with invisible economic chains, reducing us to the state of vassals.”
“You have proof?” the old man asked mildly.
“He is a chief field agent for K Section, a branch of the American CIA. He would like to buy us as his fathers bought our ancestors, the men of our tribes, to work in their fields overseas. Our history has seen enough of slavery.”
“And your young woman?”
“She, too,” Madragata nodded. “She is the wife of a spy, the scum Brady Cotton, who lived among us pretending to be a friend, a simple merchant, all the time reporting on us and sabotaging our efforts toward true freedom.”
“Your freedom? Or Lubinda’s?” the Saka asked gently.
“Yours and mine, Old Father.”
“My son, you have not mentioned this Chinese gentleman you have brought with you.”
“He is Mr. Ch’ing. He is my adviser. He helps to finance the glorious Apgak movement through the generosity of the People’s Republic of China.”
“And will he not also try to enslave us, when you are sufficiently in his debt?” the Saka asked.
Durell looked at the chubby, innocuous-looking Chinaman who had entered the cave with Madragata. They knew each other. Durell’s memory spun like the flashing cards of an electronic index file. Ch’ing Lui Yin, deputy administrator for Western Africa, from the Black House in Peking. The man’s round face smiled at him, the black almond eyes admitted his recognition. Mr. Ch’ing's dossier in the files at No. 20 Annapolis Street was bulging with instances of interference in the domestic affairs of a number of newly emerged nations on the continent. He had been declared persona non grata in Senegal, the Ivory Coast, and Dahomey. Peking had officially disavowed him on each occasion. But he surfaced again and again, always inciting a “people’s revolution” that led to guerrilla warfare, burning, torture, and destruction. Most often it was the native population he had come to “help” that seemed to suffer the most. The man’s carefully manicured hands were bloodier than most. He wore a safari jacket, trousers stuffed into boots, and an empty holster in his belt. His black hair was cut in a thick shock so that it looked like a dark cap over his heavy, bristly brows.
“Senhor Durell,” he said, mimicking Madragata.
The Saka said gently, “You know each other?”
“We are—ah—rivals,” Ch‘ing said softly.
“And Lubinda is a pawn on your chess board, is that it?” The Saka held up a long, bony hand. “Please. Spare me the rhetoric and the dialectics. No diatribes about Western imperialism. No tears for the downtrodden masses. It seems to me that poverty, oppression, and death of the mind and the spirit always follow you.”
“Do you have visions, old man?” Ch’ing asked.
It was an error to talk to the Saka like that. Madragata stirred uneasily and said, “Old Father, I have always respected you; I learned much when I knelt before you. My brother Komo has sold out to the imperialists. I have not. I come only to take these two Americans from you."
The Saka looked down at him. “Why did you burn Ngama, the village where I was born?”
“Because—” Madragata hesitated, paused. “The maka was not harmed.”
“But you took away the young men?”
“For the Freedom Army of the Apgaks, yes.”
“They went willingly?"
“Yes.”
“It seems to me you must be lying, else why did you have to burn the village? Or was it a whim, a desire for wanton destruction? The villagers are poor, they live on the edge of extinction. I know. I happened to survive my youth. Many did not. It seems to me you were always cruel, boy."
Madragata said impatiently, “I am not a boy, Saka. You are old. You have been dreaming here in the hills, sulking like ta spoiled child. It is you who have abandoned Lubinda, not I. You chose to die when independence finally came.“
There was a long silence after the Apgak’s outburst. Madragata looked malevolently at Durell and the girl, and again Durell wondered what it could be that had made Kitty Cotton the man’s enemy. He felt her move a
bit closer to him, as if contact gave her re
assurance. Mr. Ch’ing whispered something to Madragata. The guerrilla leader shook off the Chinese, and Ch‘ing’s bushy black eyebrows lifted briefly.
Madragata said, “I have a hundred men on this mountain. They will obey me. I demand these two Americans as prisoners.” He grinned. “After all, Old Father, you are officially and legally dead. No words from you can have effect in this world, eh? It was of your own choice.”
“And if I refuse to give these people to you?” The Saka’s voice was quiet, but it had changed, hardening, with a hint of old steel coming to the fore. “What will you do to me then, my son? Will you see to it that I really dwell in the tomb beside the river?”
“Do not press me, old man.”
“Will you kill me, then?”
“The good of the land is above all other morality.”
MI. Ch’ing intervened. “Saka, he does not know what he says. He is upset. These two people are a great danger to the Apgak movement—”
“Be quiet,” the Saka said. He stood even straighter than before, not leaning on his long staff now, but holding it as if it were a weapon, barring the space between the guerrilla leader and Durell and the girl. His deep-set eyes burned as he looked at Madragata. “Although I have died in the eyes of the public, I am not dead. Although I have been silent for these past two years, I still have my tongue. I can speak. I have not wasted the seasons in this cave. I believe your cause will mean the destruction of homes, of innocent villages, the enforced conscription of young men. It is wrong. I do not trust your Mr. Ch’ing. I do not trust Mr. Durell, either. Lubinda needs help, and we must receive it, but with no compromises, no sale of the souls and minds of our people.” The old man moved forward. “I will speak to your men.”
“No,” Madragata said.
“Are you afraid of what I shall say?”
“You are dead. You should remain dead. For—for the good of the nation.”
“Kill me then,” the old man said.
His tall, thin figure moved toward the cave entrance. Madragata stood frozen, his eyes shifting from right to left. Mr. Ch’ing raised a hand, then dropped it. The old man reached the zebra-hide curtain at the cave opening and stepped outside to the ledge in front of the cavern. The last of the sunlight bathed his attenuated form in a rosy glow. He raised the staff high above his head.
“Men of the Apgak!” The old man’s voice was surprisingly strong, reaching out for the echoes from the surrounding walls of the meteorite mountain. “This is your Saka! Yes, I live, I come back to you to continue on the way of freedom! Men of the Apgak, my son leads you astray! He is mistaken, and will bring fire and doom to beloved Lubinda! Do not follow him, do not—"
Madragata made a growl of disbelief in his throat and lunged for the old man outside the cave. The Saka heard him and whirled with surprising speed and brought up his long staff. It smashed hard against the Apgak’s chest, stopping his son’s charge for a moment. At the same time, Mr. Ch’ing produced a Browning pistol out of his voluminous pockets.
Mr. Ch’ing was smiling. Kitty made a warning sound, but Durell was already moving, driving for the Chinese. The gun went off with a shattering roar inside the dim cave. Chips of rock and a burst of sandstone dust came from the wall behind Durell. He heard distant shouting from the mountainside beyond the cave, and then he hit Ch’ing hard, drove the man black, reached for the Browning. The gun went off again. The bullet struck the ceiling. The man’s face convulsed. Despite his soft appearance, Ch’ing’s body was all hidden springs and steel coils. Durell hit him, hit him again, fought for the gun. Ch’ing tried to use it as a hammer on him, then he brought up his left hand, fingers stiff, and jabbed at his eyes. Durell ducked aside, slammed a fist into the man’s belly, chopped at the side of Ch’ing’s throat. The man made a bubbling sound and his eyes popped and he fell back against the wall of the cave.
“Sam!”
It was Kitty’s sudden cry of warning. He did not turn. He saw Ch’ing make one last effort to bring up the gun and he kicked at the man's wrist, heard bones snap, and then the gun went skittering across the smooth floor of the Saka’s cave. Kitty snatched it up. Durell whirled and saw Madragata stagger in from the outer lodge. The man’s head was bleeding, his nose looked broken, and a bubbling sound of incomprehensible rage came from his bloody mouth. Behind him stood the Saka’s tall, elongated figure, the staff still in his hand.
“It is quite all right, Mrs. Cotton,” said the old man.
He looked at the Chinaman. “He had a gun?”
“Yes,” Durell said.
“We must leave.” The old man put a hand over his eyes for a moment, and his body trembled briefly. Madragata had fallen on all fours and was shaking his head dazedly like a dog. “I had to do it. He is my son. I do not know what his men will think or do. I hope, but I do not know.” He gestured to Durell and the girl. “Come.”
“Are Madragata‘s men—?” Kitty began.
“They will be here soon. We cannot leave by the front entrance.” The old man straightened, his moment of shock and sorrow vanished. “There is another way out. Take the lantern, Mr. Durell, and please pick up all the weapons.” His manner was quick and decisive now, and Durell could see the charisma of a born leader, a man of talent and energy. of striking inner force. ‘We will go now. We will return to the land of the living."
Chapter 16.
Thunder rumbled distantly in the black, starless sky.
A cold wind that smelled of dampness and blowing dust came out of the Kahara from the east. It was a smell compounded of parched earth, of faraway rain, of tempests hurrying to overtake them. The old man had led
them through a maze of narrow passages carved by past rainstorms in the soft sandstone of the mountain. In twenty minutes, they had emerged on the other side, to slide down a long gravelly slope to the desert plain. There had been no sign of Madragata and his Apgak men. They would follow, of course, but only after an interval of puzzlement and rage on the part of the Apgak leader and his Chinese associate. For the moment, they were safe.
The Saka, for all of his years, proved astonishingly nimble and strong. He led the way. From the mountain, they headed north toward the dry riverbed and what Durell suspected was the border of Lubinda. Under the stars, the desert air was cold, and Kitty’s teeth chattered now and then, despite the effort she made to keep up with Durell and the old man. Scrubby thorn trees, clumps of mopanes that survived by sucking liquid from the underground water table, surrealistic ridges of stone carved by unthinkable time and seasons, marked their way. The old man led them with sureness and speed. There was no sign of pursuit. Once, they startled a covey of bush pigeons, and the birds sprang up into the black air with a sound like miniature thunder to echo the rumbling over the eastern horizon.
For three hours, the Saka was relentless. Then he lifted his stall to signal a hand, and they found a chance to rest from the increasing pressure of the wind by hiding behind a jagged outcropping of the rock.
“You two must rest and sleep,” the Saka said. “I shall watch and wait.”
“Wait for what?” Durell asked. ‘We can go on.”
“I camped here, once or twice, in the bad times, when we fought against colonialism. It is a familiar place to certain men. There is water if we need it, which we can dig for. And we must wait for the rain now. We have crossed t-he dry river. The flood will not harm us here.”
Kitty sank gratefully into a niche behind the rock and Durell joined her. The old man climbed higher and stood leaning on his staff, his long legs firm, his cloak flapping in the wind that sounded like distant express trains rushing across the empty, black Kahara plain. He faced south from where they had come, and did not move. Durell thought again that he looked like an ancient biblical patriarch, his face set and grim, reflecting a patience and a strength that was more than normally remarkable.
For a time, the girl was silent. Durell thought she had collapsed into sleep. Then she murmured something and moved into his arms and rested there, h
er rich body warm and pliant against his.
“Sam?” she whispered.
“Are you angry with me?”
“Why should I be angry? You’ve been fine."
“I’ve been thinking about Brady—ever since you and I—on the beach ”
“That’s natural.”
She shook her head against his chest. “No, that’s not what I meant. You asked me why Madragata wants to get rid of me. I couldn’t remember. I‘ve been thinking and thinking, trying to recall something Brady might have said to me that might make me dangerous to the Apgaks.”
“And?” he asked quietly.
“I couldn’t remember anything, at first. Brady and I hardly spoke to each other these past two or three months. I told you, our marriage was finished.”
“What did you remember?” he asked. He could smell the scent that still lingered in her long, thick hair, and he was aware of the pressure of her body against him as they sat in the rocky niche, out of the wind. He could not see the Saka, who stood high above them, his face turned to the south. “What was it, Kitty?”
“It’s Hobe’s log,” she said.
“What log?”
“His private drilling records. As manager, he used to compile his own reports and estimates on how much chance the Lady had of striking oil.”
“It wasn’t a public or company record?”
“Hobe Tallman wants to strike it rich. There’s Betty, of course, always putting pressure on him to succeed, to make money. It’s been tough on the poor man. But most of all, Hobe is a man with a record of failures behind him—wildcatting, making strikes that look promising and then turn out to be overloaded with sulfur, of poor grade—well, I don’t know what all. I don’t know the oil business. All I know is that Brady said that Hobe was really desperate to succeed this time, with the Lady.”
“Was Hobe in debt?”
“I suppose so.” She shrugged. “Betty talked about that, somewhat. Back home in the States, the big house that he bought for her is mortgaged to the eyeballs. He’s just lost a condominium apartment, too. They foreclosed on him. Betty wants to be rich, you see. Really rich. Maybe that’s why she married him, getting fooled by his big front, a hot-shot oil man. And he’s failed her. Brady said once that if Hobe didn’t strike a winner this time, he was finished. And Betty often said that she was ready to walk out on Hobe if he failed again.”
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