When the Lion Feeds c-4

by Wilbur Smith

  Hello, shouted Sean and went eagerly to meet him.

  The rider reined in at the edge of the laager. He climbed stiffly out of the saddle and grabbed Sean's outstretched hand. Sean felt his finger-bones creak in the grip. Hello, man! How goes it? He spoke in Afrikaans. His voice matched the size of his body and his eyes were on a level with Sean's. They pumped each other's arms mercilessly, laughing, putting sincerity into the usual inanities of greeting. Kandhla, get out the brandy bottle, Sean called over his shoulder, then to the Boer, Come in, you're just in time for lunch. We'll have a dram to celebrate. Hell, it's good to see a white man again! You're on your own, then? Yes, come in, man, sit down.

  Sean poured drinks and the Boer took one up.

  What's your name? he asked. Courtney, Sean Courtney. I'm Jan Paulus Leroux, glad to meet you, meneer.

  Good health, meneer, Sean answered him and they drank. Jan Paulus wiped his whiskers on the palm of his hand and breathed out heavily, blowing the taste of the brandy back into his mouth. That was good, he said and held out his mug. They talked excitedly, tongues loose from loneliness, trying to say everything and ask all the questions at once, meetings in the bush are always like this. Meanwhile the tide was going out in the bottle and the level dropped quickly, Tell me, where are your wagons? Sean asked. An hour or two behind. I came ahead to find the river. How many in your party? Sean watched his face, talking just for the sound of it.

  Ma and Pa, my little sister and my wife, which reminds me, you had better move your wagons. What? Sean looked puzzled.

  This is my outspan place, the Boer explained to him.

  See, there are the marks of my fire, this is my camp.

  The smile went out of Sean's voice. Look around you, Boer, there is the whole of Africa. Take your pick, anywhere except where I am sitting. But this is my place. Jan Paulus flushed a little. I always camp at the same place when I return along a spoor.

  The whole temper of their meeting had changed in a few seconds. Jan Paulus stood abruptly and went to his horse. He stooped and tightened the girth, hauling so savagely on the strap that the animal staggered off balance.

  He flung himself onto its back and looked down at Sean.

  move your wagons he said, I camp here tonight. Would you like to bet on that! Sean asked grimly.

  We'll see! Jan Paulus flashed back.

  We certainly shall, agreed Sean.

  The Boer wheeled his horse and rode away. Sean watched his back disappear among the trees and only then did he let his anger slip. He rampaged through the laager working himself into a fury, pacing out frustrated circles, stopping now and then to glare out in the direction from which the Boer's wagons would come, but under all the external signs of indignation was his unholy anticipation of a fight. Kandhla brought him food, hurrying along behind him with the plate. Sean waved him away impatiently and continued his pugnacious patrol. At last a trek whip popped in the distance and an ox lowed faintly, to be answered immediately by Sean's cattle. The dogs started barking and Sean crossed to one of the wagons on the north side of the laager and leaned against it with assumed nonchalance. The long line of wagons wound out of the trees towards him. There were bright blobs of colour on the high box seat of the lead wagon.

  Women's dresses! Ordinarily they would have made Sean's nostrils flare like those of a stud stallion, but now his whole attention was concentrated on the larger of the two outriders. Ian Paulus cantered ahead of his father, and Sean, with his fists clenched into bony hammers at his sides, watched him come. Jan Paulus sat straight in the saddle; he stopped his horse a dozen paces from Sean and shoved his hat onto the back of his head with a thumb as thick and as brown as a fried sausage; he tickled his horse a little with his spurs to make it dance and he asked with mock surprise, What, Rooi Nek, still here?

  Sean's dogs had rushed forward to meet the other pack and now they milled about in a restrained frenzy of mutual bottom-smelling, stiff-limbed with tension, backs abristle and legs cocking in the formal act of urination. Why don't you go and climb a tree? You'll feel more at home there, Sean suggested mildly. Oh! so? Jan Paulus reared in his stirrups. He kicked loose his right foot, swung it back over his horse's rump to dismount and Sean jumped at him. The horse skittered nervously, throwing the Boer off balance and he clutched at the saddle. Sean reached up, took a double handful of his ginger beard and leaned back on it with all his weight.

  Jan Paulus came over backwards with his arms windmilling, his foot caught in the stirrup and he hung suspended like a hammock, held at one end to the plunging horse and at the other by his chin to Sean's hands. Sean dug his heels in, revelling in the Boer's bellows.

  Galvanized into action by Sean's example, the dogs cut short the ceremony and went at each other in a snarling snapping shambles; the fur flew like sand in a Kalahari dust-storm.

  The stirrup-leather snapped; Sean fell backwards and rolled to his feet just in time to meet Ian Paulus's charge.

  He smothered the punch that the Boer bowled overarm at him, but the power behind it shocked him; then they were chest to chest and Sean felt his own strength matched. They strained silently with their beards touching and their eyes inches apart. Sean shifted his weight quickly and tried for a fall, but smoothly as a dancer Jan Paulus met and held him. Then it was his turn; he twisted in Sean's arms and Sean sobbed with the effort required to stop him. Oupa Leroux joined in by driving his horse at them, scattering the dogs, his hippo-hide sjambok hissing as he swung it. Let it stand! you thunders, give over, hey! Enough, let it stand! Sean shouted with pain as the lash cut across his back and at the next stroke Jan Paulus howled as loudly. They let go of each other and massaging their whip-weals retreated before the skinny old white-beard on the horse.

  The first of the wagons had come up now and two hundred pounds of woman, all in one package, called out from the box seat, Why did you stop them, Oupa? No sense in letting them kill each other. Shame on you, so you must spoil the boys fun. Don't you remember how you loved to fight? Or are you now so old you forget the pleasures of your youth? Leave them alone!

  Oupa. hesitated, swinging the sjamhok and looking from Sean to Jan Paulus. Come away from there, you old busybody, his wife ordered him. She was solid as a granite kopje, her blouse packed full of bosom and her bare arms brown and thick as a man's. The wide brim of her bonnet shaded her face but Sean could see it was pink and pudding-shaped, the kind of face that smiles more easily than it frowns. There were two girls on the seat beside her but there was no time to look at them. Oupa had pulled his horse out of the way and Jan Paulus was moving down on him. Sean went up on his toes, crouching a little, preoccupied with the taste he had just had of the other's strength, watching Jan Paulus close in for the mAin course and not too certain he was going to be able to chew this mouthful.

  Jan Paulus tested Sean with a long right-hander but Sean rolled his head with it and the thick pad of his beard cushioned the blow; he hooked Jan Paulus in the ribs under. his raised arm and Jan Paulus grunted and circled awayForgetting his scruples, Oupa Leroux watched them with rising delight. It was going to be a good fight. They were well matched, both big men, under thirty, quick and smooth on their feet. Both had fought before and that often; you could tell it by the way they felt each other out turning just out of reach, moving in to offer an opening that a less experienced man might have attempted and regretted, then dropping back.

  The fluid, almost leisurely pattern of movement exploded. Jan Paulus jumped in, moving left, changed direction like the recoil of a whip lash and used his right hand again; Sean ducked under it and laid himself open to Jan Paulus's left. He staggered back from its kick, bleeding where it had split the flesh across his cheek-bone, and Jan Paulus followed him eagerly, Ins hands held ready, searching for the opening. Sean kept clear, instinct moving his feet until the blackness faded inside his head and he felt the strength in his arms again. He saw Jan Paulus following him and he let his legs stay rubbery; he dropped his hands and waited for Jan Paulus to commit hi
mself. Too late Jan Paulus caught the cunning in Sean's eyes and tried to break from the trap, but clenched bone raked his face. He staggered away and now he was bleeding also.

  They fought through the wagons with the advantage changing hands a dozen times. They came together and used their heads and their knees, they broke and used their fists again. Then locked chest to chest once more they rolled down the steep bank into the river bed of the Limpopo. They fought in the soft sand and it held their legs, it filled their mouths when they fell and clung like white icing-sugar to their hair and beards. They splashed into one of the pools and they fought in the water, coughing with the agony of it in their lungs, floundering like a pair of bull hippos, their movements slowing down until they knelt facing each other, no longer able to rise, the water running from them and the only sound their gasping for air.

  Not sure whether the darkness was actuality or a fantasy of fatigue, for the sun had set by the time they were finished, Sean watched Jan Paulus starting to puke, retching with a tearing noise to bring up a small splash of yellow bile. Sean crawled to the edge of the pool and lay with his face in the sand. There were voices echoing in his ears and the light of a lantern, the light was red filtered through the blood that had trickled into his eyes.

  His servants lifted him and he hardly felt them. The light and the voices faded into blackness as he slipped over the edge of consciousness.

  The sting of iodine woke him and he struggled to sit up but hands pushed him down. Gently, gently, the fight is over. Sean focused his one eye to find the voice. The pinkness of Ouma Leroux hung over him. Her hands touched his face and the antiseptic stung him again. He exclaimed through puffed lips. So! just like a man OumA chuckled. Your head nearly knocked off without a murmur but one touch of medicine and you cry like a baby. Sean ran his tongue round inside his mouth; one tooth loose but all the others miraculously present. He started to lift his hand to touch his closed eye but Ouma slapped it down impatiently and went on working over him. Glory, what a fight! She shook her head happily. You were good, kerel, - you were very good. Sean looked beyond her and saw the girl. She was standing in shadow, a silhouette against the pale canvas. She was holding a basin. Ouma turned and dipped the cloth in it, washing out the blood before she came back to his face. The wagon rocked under her weight and the lantern that hung from the roof swung, lighting the girl's face from the side. Sean's legs straightened on his cot and he moved his head slightly to see her better. Be still, jong, Ouma commanded. Sean looked past her at the girl at the full serene line of her lips and the curve of her cheek. He saw the pile of her hair fluff up in happy disarray and then, suddenly, penitent, slide down behind her neck, curl over her shoulder and hang to her waist in a plait as thick as his wrist. Katrina, do you expect me to reach right across to the basin each time? Stand closer, girl She stepped into the light and looked at Sean. Green, laughing almost bubbling green was the colour of her eyes. Then she dropped them to the basin. Sean stared at her, not wanting to miss the moment when she would look up again.

  My big bear, Ouma spoke with grudging approval.

  Steal our camp site, fight my son and ogle my daughter.

  If you go on like this I might have to knock the thunder out of you myself. Glory, but you are a dangerous one!

  Katrina, you had better go back to our wagons and help Henrietta see to your brother. Leave the basin on the chest there. She looked at Sean once more before she left. There were secret shadows in the green, she didn't have to smile with her mouth.

  Sean woke to the realization that something was wrong.

  He started to sit up but the pain checked him: the stiffness of bruised muscle and the catch of half-dried scab.

  He groaned and the movement hurt his lips. Slowly he swung his legs off the cot and roused himself to take stock of the damage. Dark through the hair of his chest showed a heel imprint of Jan Paulus's boot. Sean prodded round it gently, feeling for the give of a broken rib; then, satisfied with that area, he went on to inspect the raw graze that wrapped round onto his back, holding his left arm high and peering closely at the broken skin. He picked a bit of blanket fluff from the scab. He stood up, only to freeze as a torn muscle in his shoulder knifed him. He started to swear then softly, monotonously, and he kept it up all through the painful business of climbing down out of the wagon.

  His entire following watched his descent, even the dogs looked worried. Sean reached the ground and started to shout.

  What the hell!

  He stopped hurriedly as he felt his lips crack open again and start to bleed.

  rWhat the hell', he said again, keeping his lips still ,are you doing standing round like a bunch of women at a beer drink, is there no work here? Hlubi, I thought I sent you out to look for elephant Hlubi went. Kandhla, where's breakfast? Mbejane, get me a basin of water and my shaving-mirror. Sean sat in his chair and morosely inspected his face in the mirror.

  If a herd of buffalo had stampeded across it they would have done less damage."Nkosi, it is nothing compared to his face, Mbejane assured him.

  Is he bad? Sean looked up.I have spoken to one of his servants. He has not left his bed yet and he lies there, growling like a wounded lion in a thicket; but his eyes are as tightly closed as those of a new cub."Tell me more, Mbejane. Say truly, was it a good fight?

  Mbejane squatted down next to Sean's chair. He was silent a moment as he gathered his words.When the sky sends its cloud impis against the peaks of the Drakensberg, with thunder and the spears of lightning, it is a thing to thrill a man. When two bull elephants fight unto death there is no braver show in all the veld.

  Is this not so?

  Sean nodded, his eyes twinkling.Nkosi, hear me when I tell you these things were as the play of little children beside this fight Sean listened to the praises. Mbejane was well versed lkin the oldest art of Zululand and when he had finished he looked at Sean's face. It was happy. Mbejane smiled and took a fold of paper out of his loin cloth. A servant from the other camp brought this while you slept Sean read the note. It was written in a big round school- girl hand and worded in High Dutch. He liked that writing.

  It was an invitation to dinner. Kandhla, get out my suit and my number one boots. He picked up the mirror again. There wasn't very much he could do about his face, trim the beard, perhaps, but that was all. He laid the mirror down and looked up stream to where the Leroux wagons were half hidden among the trees.

  Mbejane carried a lantern in front of Sean. They walked slowly to enable Sean to limp with dignity. When they reached the other laager, Jan Paulus climbed stiffly out of his chair and nodded an equally still greeting. Mbejane had lied, except for a missing tooth there was little to choose between their faces. Oupa slapped Sean's back and pressed a tumbler of brandy into his hand. He was a tall roan but twenty thousand suns had burnt away Ins flesh and left only stringy muscle, had faded his eyes to a pale green and toughened his skin to the texture of a turkey's neck. His beard was yellowish-white with still a touch of ginger round the mouth. He asked Sean three questions without giving him time to answer the first, then he led him to a chair.

  Oupa talked, Sean listened and Jan Paulus sulked. Oupa talked of cattle and hunting and the land to the north.

  After a few minutes Sean realized that he was not expected to take part in the conversation: his few tentative efforts were crushed under Oupa's verbal avalanche.

  So Sean listened half to him and half to the whisper of women's voices from the cooking fires behind the laager.

  Once he heard her laugh. He knew it was her for it was the rich sound of the thing that he had seen in her eyes.

  At last the women's business with food and pots was finished and Ouma led the girls to where the men sat. Sean stood up and saw that Katrina was tall, with shoulders like a boy. As she walked towards him the movement pressed her skirt against her legs, they were long but her feet were small. Her hair was red-black and tied behind her head in an enormous bun. Ah, my battling bear, Ouma took Sean's arm, let me p
resent my daughter-in-law, Henrietta, here is the man that nearly killed your husband. Jan Paulus snorted from his chair and Ouma laughed, her bosom wobbling merrily.

  Henrietta was a small dark-eyed girl. She doesn't like me, Sean guessed instantly. He bowed slightly and took her hand. She pulled it away.

  This is my youngest daughter, Katrina. You met her last night.

  She does like me. Her fingers were long and squaretipped in his.