Men of Men b-2

by Wilbur Smith

  "I did not wish to be chosen, I hate and fear what still lies ahead of me if I follow that road."

  "Pemba is dead."

  "You do not understand. Pemba was but a little wizard already he had taught me almost all he knew. Then I would have been called by the one whose name I dare not speak aloud. That call will still come, and I shall not be able to deny it."

  "You are under my protection."

  "There is only one way you can protect me, Bazo Lord."

  "How?"

  "Make me worthless to them. Destroy this gift which is such a terrible burden."

  "How?"

  "As you destroyed Pemba with the stabbing spear of steel, destroy it with your great spear of flesh, tear my veil and let this thing pass from me."

  she felt him, hot and fierce, pressing against her, and her body seemed to melt and become pliant and yielding.

  "Ah yes, Lord. Make me as other women, so that I may feel your noble belly on mine in the nights, that I may feel your son kick in my womb and tug at my breast when I give him suck., "All these things you will have, Tanase." Bazo's voice was hoarse with his wanting. "When we reach Gubulawayo the king will reward me, and give me leave to go in to the women, and take a wife."

  Lord, it is dangerous to wait."

  "i will not rut on you like a slave girl. You will be the first and senior of all my wives."

  "Lord,"

  "Enough, Tanase, tempt me no further, for what you feel, hard though it may be, is not stone but flesh only."

  INKOSI, you do not know the power of the wizards.

  Save me from them."

  "I know the law and custom of Matabele, and that is all a man should know and heed."

  Bazo's scout came in at a dead run, the sweat snaking down his back and chest, and he shouted his report the moment he came up to the head of the column.

  Bazo whirled and barked three sharp orders. Immediately the column closed up, and the captives were forced to squat with a dozen warriors standing guard over them.

  The rest of the Matabele formed up behind Bazo and he led them away at that gait between a trot and a ran which lifted the dust to their knees.

  Bazo picked his ambush with an unerring eye. He chose a place where broken ground and thick bush allowed only one passage through, and the single horseman rode into it. The long shields were suddenly all around him, fencing him in as his dun-coloured pony snorted and skittered.

  The rifle was half-way drawn from the leather boot at the horseman's knee when Bazo stopped him with a shout.

  "Too late for that. You were dead, and the jackals feasting already. You grow careless, despite all that I taught you, Henshaw."

  Ralph let the rifle slide back into its scabbard, and he threw up his hands, pleasure and chagrin warnng on his face.

  "Shake any tree and a Matabele falls out of it., His voice was mock-mournful, and he swung down off Tom's sturdy back and strode to meet Bazo.

  "I expected to see the induna's ring on your forehead already, oh mighty slayer of Mashona," he laughed as they embraced.

  "Soon, Little Hawk, very soon. But you, I thought your wagon would be heavy with ivory "Done, Little Axe, already done." Ralph stepped back and looked at him. In the months since they had parted, both men had changed.

  In Bazo there remained no trace of the young trim labourer who had worked his shifts in the pit and eaten Zouga Ballantyne's rations. Here was a warrior and a prince, tall and plumed and proud.

  Ralph was no longer the callow lad, his every action ordered by his father. Instead he was a grown man, with a jaunty lift to his chin and a self-assured set to his shoulder. Yet though his clothes were travel-worn an stained the training of Zouga Ballantyne still showed, for they were recently washed and his jaws had been clean shaven that very morning. They looked at each other and the affection between them was tempered and hardened with respect.

  "I shot a young buffalo cow, not two hours ago."

  "Yes," Bazo nodded. "It was the shot which brought us."

  "Then I am glad of it. The buffalo meat is fat, and there is enough even for a hungry Matabele."

  Bazo glanced at the sun. "Though I am in haste, on the king's business, my prisoners are in need of rest. We will help you eat your buffalo, Henshaw, but in the dawn we will go on."

  "Then there is much to talk about, and little time to do so."

  There was the pop of a trek-whip, and Bazo glanced beyond Ralph's shoulder to see the oxen come plodding between the trees and the wagon lurching and wallowing behind them.

  "You still keep bad company,"Bazo scolded with a grin as he recognized Umfaan at the head of the span and Isazi, the little Zulu, on the flank, "but the load you carry is welcome."

  From the wagon box hung the raw quarters and shoulders of the freshly-butchered buffalo carcass.

  "We have not tasted fresh meat since we left the king's kraal."

  Ralph and Bazo sat at a separate fire apart from their retinues, where they could talk freely.

  "The king agreed to buy the guns and bottles that I carried up from Kimberley," Ralph told Bazo, "and he paid me generously., He did not go on to describe to Bazo the currency in which he had been paid. He did not describe his own astonishment when Lobengula had offered him an uncut diamond, a big bright first-water stone.

  His surprise had immediately been tempered by conscience; he had no doubts about where that stone had come from. His conscience lasted about as long as his surprise, and he haggled with gusto, forcing up the price to six stones, which he had picked with an eye trained by many years on the diggings. He knew they would be worth 10,000 pounds when he got them back to civilization.

  Thus in a single stroke he had paid for the wagon and team, his entire debt to Diamond Lil, interest and all and was already many thousands of pounds in profit.

  "Then I asked Lobengula to let me hunt elephant, and he laughed and said I was too young and that the elephant would eat me up. He kept me waiting outside his kraal for ten days."

  "If he kept you such a short time, then you have found favour with the king," Bazo interrupted. "Some white men have waited from the beginning of the dry season to the middle of the wet, merely for permission to take the road out of Matabeleland."

  "Ten days was long enough for me," Ralph granted.

  "But when I asked him in which part of his lands I was allowed to hunt, he laughed again and said, "The elephant will be in so little danger from you, Little Hawk, that you may go where you wish, and kill as many as are stupid or lame enough to let you."

  Bazo chuckled delightedly. "And how many lame stupid elephant have you found so far, Henshaw?"

  "I have fifty good tusks in the wagon already., "Fifty!" Bazo's chuckles died and he stared at Ralph in amazement; then he stood up and crossed to the wagon.

  He untied one of the straps and lifted the canvas cover to peer in at the load, while Isazi looked up from his cooking fire, frowned and called to Ralph.

  "This boy's great-grandfather, Mashobane, was a thief, his grandfather, Mzilikazi was a traitor, you have every reason to trust him with our ivory, Henshaw."

  Bazo did not look at him, but glanced up into the trees.

  "The monkeys hereabout make a frightful chatter," he murmured, and then came back to Ralph.

  "Fine tusks!" he admitted. "Like the ones the hunters took when I was still a child."

  Ralph did not tell him that most of those in the wagon were taken even before that time. He had discovered all but two of the caches that his father had bequeathed to him.

  The ivory had dried out, lost almost a quarter of its green weight; but most of it was still in good condition, and would fetch the market price once he got it to the railhead.

  Though Ralph had hunted diligently for his own elephant whilst he sought out Zouga's ancient dumps, he had had little success. He had killed five, only one of which was a bull and whose green tusks had weighed just over sixty pounds. The others had been small female barely worth taking.

  ivory
The great herds that Zouga had described in A Hunter's Odyssey no longer existed. Since those days there had been many hunters, some of them inspired by Zouga's own writing. Boer and Briton, Hottentot and German, they had hunted and harried the huge grey beasts and left their white bones piled on the veld and in the forest.

  "Yes, they are good tusks," Ralph nodded. "And my wagon is heavy laden now. I am on the road back to the king's kraal to ask him for permission to leave Matabeleland and go back to Kimberley."

  "Then when you have gone, we will see you no more," Bazo said quietly. "You will be like the other white men who come to Matabeleland. You will take what you want, and never come back."

  Ralph laughed. "No, old friend, I will be back. I do not have everything I wish, not yet. I will come back with more wagons, perhaps six wagons, all loaded with trade goods. I will set up trading posts from the Shashi river to the Zambezi., "You will be a rich man, Henshaw. I am sure of it," Bazo agreed. "But rich men are not always happy men.

  This I have remarked often. Is there nothing else in Matabeleland for you but ivory and gold and diamonds?"

  Ralph's expression changed. "How did you know that?"

  he demanded.

  "I asked, I did not know," Bazo denied, still smiling.

  Though I do not have to throw the bones or look in the magic calabash to know it is a woman, you have suddenly the look of a dog that smells the bitch. Tell me, Henshaw, who is she and when will you take her to wife?" Then he laughed aloud. "You have not yet asked her father? Or you have asked and he has refused?"

  "It is not a matter for laughter," Ralph said stiffly, and with an effort Bazo wiped the mirth from his face, though it twinkled still in his eyes.

  "Forgive one who loves you as a brother, I did not know it was such a heavy matter." And at last he managed to match Ralph's portentous expression, while he waited for him to speak again.

  "Once, long ago, while we rode up in the skip, you spoke of a woman with hair as white and fine as the winter grass," Ralph said at last, and Bazo nodded.

  "It is she, Bazo. I have found her."

  "She wants you as much as you want her?" Bazo said firmly. "If she does not, then she is so stupid that she does not deserve you."

  "i haven't asked her yet," Ralph admitted.

  "Do not ask her, tell her, and then ask her father. Show the father your tusks of ivory; that will settle the matter."

  "You are right, Bazo," Ralph looked dubious. "It will be that simple." And then softly in English, so that Bazo could not understand. "God knows what I shall do if it is not. I don't think I can live without her."

  If he did not follow the words, Bazo understood the sense and the mood. He sighed, and his eyes strayed to Tanase at the cooking fire.

  "They are so soft and weak, but they wound more deeply than the sharpest steel."

  Ralph followed his eyes, and then suddenly his own expression cleared and it was his turn to guffaw and reach across to slap Bazo's shoulder.

  "Now I recognize the look you spoke of earlier, the dog with the smell of the bitch in his nostrils."

  "It is not a matter for laughter," said Bazo, haughtily, Long after the last gnawed buffalo bone was thrown upon the fire and the last beer pot emptied; long after the Matabele warriors had tired of singing the song of Pemba, the ode to their own prowess and courage on the hill of the wizard, and rolled into their sleeping karosses; long after the last captive girl had ceased wailing, Bazo and Ralph sat on beside their own fire, and the drone of their voices and the munch of the oxen chewing the cud were the only sounds in the camp.

  It was as though every last moment was precious to them for both sensed that when they met again they would be changed, and perhaps the world with them.

  They relived their youth, remembering Scipio, the falcon, and Inkosikazi, the great spider; they smiled at the stinging mewary of the fighting sticks, and Bakela's wrath when Bazo gave him the shattered diamond; they talked of Jordan and Jan Cheroot and Kamuza and all the others, until at last reluctantly Bazo rose.

  "I will be gone before the sun, Henshaw," he said.

  "Go in peace, Bazo, and enjoy the honours that await you and the woman you have won."

  When Bazo reached his sleeping-mat, the girl was already wrapped in his kaross.

  As soon as Bazo lay down beside her, she reached for him. She was as hot as though she was in high fever her body burning and her skin dry. Silent sobs racked her and her grip was fierce.

  "What is it, Tanase?" He was shocked and alarmed.

  "A vision. A terrible vision."

  "A dream." He was relieved. "It was only a dream., "It was a vision," she denied. "Oh, Bazo, will you not take this terrible gift from me, before it destroys us both."

  He held her and could not answer her; her distress moved him deeply, but he was helpless to alleviate it.

  After a while she was quiet, and he thought that she slept, but then she suddenly whispered.

  "It was a terrible vision, Bazo Lord, and it will haunt me unto my grave., He did not answer, but he felt the superstitious chill in his guts.

  "I saw you high upon a tree-" She broke off, and another single sob hit her like a blow. "The white man, the one you call Henshaw, the Hawk, do not trust him."

  "He is as my brother, and like a brother I love him., "Then why did he not weep, Bazo, why did he not weep when he looked up at you upon the tree?"

  Salina Codrington rolled out her pastry with long and expert strokes of the pin. The sleeves of her blouse were rolled high and she was floury to the elbows. Little blobs of pastry stuck to her hands and fingers.

  The thatched ceiling of the kitchen at Khami Mission Station was sooty from the open iron stove, and the smell of the dough was yeasty and warm.

  A single skein of white-gold hair had escaped the ribbon and now tickled her nose and chin. Salina pursed her lips and blew it away; it floated like gossamer and then gently settled across her face again, but she did not change the rhythm of the rolling-pin.

  Ralph thought that little gesture the most poignant he had ever witnessed, but then everything she did fascinated him, even the way she cocked her head and smiled at him as he slouched against the jamb of the kitchen door.

  Her smile was so gentle, so unaffected, that his chest squeezed again, and his voice sounded choked in his own ears.

  "I am leaving tomorrow."

  "Yes," Salina nodded. "We shall all miss you dreadfully."

  "This is the first chance I have had to speak to you alone, without the monsters "Oh Ralph, that's an unkind, if totally accurate, description of my darling sisters." Her laughter had a surprising timbre and depth to it. "If you wanted to speak to me, you should have asked."

  "I'm asking now, Salina."

  "And we are alone."

  "Will you not stop still for a moment."

  "The baking will spoil, but I can listen well enough while I work."

  Ralph shifted his feet, and hunched his shoulders uncertainly. It was not as he had planned it. It was going to be a feat of timing and dexterity to sweep her up in arms all covered with flour and dough and with a heavy rolling-pin clutched in her hands.

  "Salina, you are the most beautiful girl, woman, I mean, lady, that I have ever seen."

  "That's kind, but untrue, Ralph. I do have a mirror, you know."

  "It's true, I swear-' "Please don't swear, Ralph. In any event, there are much more important things in life than physical beauty kindness, and goodness and understanding for instance.

  "Oh yes, and you have all those."

  Suddenly Salina stopped in mid stroke, and she stared at him with an expression of dawning consternation.

  "Ralph," she whispered. "Cousin Ralph "COUSIN I may be," he was stammering slightly in his rush to have it all said, "but I love you, Salina, I loved you from the first moment I saw you at the river.

  "Oh Ralph, my poor dear Ralph." Consternation was mingled now with compassion.

  "I would never have spoken, not before, but now, af
ter this expedition I have some substance. I will be able to pay off my debts, and when I come back I will have my own wagons. I am not yet rich, but I will be., "If only I had known. Oh Ralph, if only I had suspected, I would have been able to But he was gabbling it out now.

  "I love you, Salina, oh how dearly I love you, and I want you to marry me."

  She came to him then, and her eyes filled with blue tears that trembled on her lower lids.

  "Oh dear Ralph. I am so sorry. I would have given anything to save you from hurt. If only I had known."

  He stopped then, bewildered. "You will not, does that mean you will not marry me?" The bewilderment faded, and his jaw thrust out and his mouth hardened. "But why not, I will give you everything, I will cherish and "Ralph." She touched his lips, and left a little dab of flour upon them. "Hush, Ralph, hush."

  "But, Salina, I love you! Don't you understand?"

  "Yes, I do. But, dear Ralph, I don't love you!"

  Cathy and the twins went as far as the river with Ralph. Vicky and Lizzie rode, two up, on Tom's back.

  They rode astride, with their skirts up around their thighs, and squealed with delight every few seconds, until Ralph thought his eardrums would split, and he scowled moodily ahead, not replying to Cathy's questions and comments as she skipped along beside him, until the spring went out of her step and she, too, fell silent.

  The bank of the Khami river was where they would part. All of them knew that, without speaking about it.

  And when they reached it Isazi had already taken the wagon through the drift. The ironshod wheels had left deep scars in the far bank. He would be an hour or so ahead. They stopped on the near bank and now even the twins were silent. Ralph looked back along the track, lifting his hat and shading his eyes with the brim against the early sunlight.

  "Salina isn't coming then?" he said flatly.

  "She's got a belly ache," said Vicky. "She told me so." If you ask me, it's more like the curse of Eve," said Lizzie airily.

  "That's rude," Cathy said. "And only silly little girls talk about things they don't understand."

  Lizzie looked chastened, and Vicky assumed a virtuous air of innocence.

  "Now both of you say goodbye to Cousin Ralph."