by Wilbur Smith
‘There are no fouls, ma’am,’ Pickering replied. ‘Though if one of you deliberately shoots an opponent, he or she might have to face criminal charges, but not disqualification.’
Louise turned her head towards the figure on the front seat of the high-wheeled phaeton which was parked beyond the course markers. Her face was pale, the freckles standing out on her cheeks; and her head was bared so that the thick dark braid of hair thumped against her shoulder.
Mungo St John smiled back at her over the heads of the crowd, and shrugged slightly, so that Louise was forced to turn back to Pickering.
‘Very well, then,’ she agreed. ‘But the stake. We have not agreed the stake.’
‘Major Ballantyne,’ Pickering called to where Zouga stood at Tom’s head. ‘You have laid out the course. Now will you be good enough to name the stake.’
Then a strange thing happened. For the first time since Zouga had met her, Louise St John was uncertain of herself. Nobody else seemed to notice it, perhaps it was merely that Zouga had become highly receptive to every shade of her voice and expression. But he was certain that he saw something dark move in the blue depths of her eyes, like the shadow of a shark beneath the surface of the sea, and she took a pinch of her soft lower lip between her white teeth and again she glanced almost furtively at Mungo St John.
It was not Zouga’s imagination. Mungo St John did not return Louise’s glance with his usual amused indulgence. He was looking at Zouga and under his calm was a small undercurrent of unease, like an eddy at highwater when the tide turns.
Zouga raised his voice so that it would carry to St John.
‘Firstly, the loser will publish at his or her own expense upon the front page of the Advertiser in terms dictated by the winner, an acknowledgement of defeat.’
‘A composition I shall enjoy.’ Louise had swiftly recovered her poise. ‘And what else, Major?’
‘A payment by the loser to a charity of the winner’s choice of,’ Zouga paused, and both man and woman watched his face with outward calm, ‘of the sum of one shilling!’
‘Done!’
There was a slightly jarring note in Louise’s laugh, relief perhaps, and though Mungo St John’s expression did not alter, the tension went out of his shoulders.
‘Mrs St John. You are under starter’s orders,’ Pickering called through his speaking trumpet. ‘Be so good as to bring your mount under control.’
‘He is under perfect control, sir,’ she called back, and Shooting Star put his head down and lashed out with both back hooves towards the crowd.
‘If he is under control, Missus, then so is my mother-in-law,’ called a wag, and there was a hoot of laughter.
‘On the count of three then,’ Pickering intoned, his voice hollow and solemn through the trumpet. ‘One.’
Shooting Star backed up against the crowd, and they scattered as he bucked.
‘Two.’
He went into a tortured high-stepping circle, so tight that his nose almost touched the toe of Louise’s boot in the fancy silver stirrup.
‘And three.’ Louise lifted her left hand. Shooting Star came smoothly out of the circle, for the first time facing the start line, beginning to pace towards it majestically, and the pistol shot was a brief blurt of sound which sent the stallion sweeping away with an irresistible rush that made the slight figure on his wide back seem vulnerable and childlike.
There was no horse on the diamond fields that could match that first blazing burst of speed, the gap between the two horses opened, but not so dramatically as the watchers had expected. Tom’s awkward gallop took him over the ground at surprising speed, and he was not following directly in Shooting Star’s tracks.
‘She’s going wide, Thomas,’ Zouga told him with satisfaction, and Tom cocked his ears back to listen. ‘They aren’t going to chance the river. Well, we didn’t really think they would, did we?’
Directly ahead of Zouga the river started a lazy series of loops, symmetrical hairpin turns, winding back upon itself like a dying python.
Zouga had placed the red flag so that the direct line would cross the river-bed twice, and like most southern African rivers the banks were sheer, dropping ten feet to the dry sand and isolated rocky pools strung along the course. Each crossing was a trap in which a horse could break a leg and a rider his neck.
The alternative to the crossings was to ride wide, taking a circuit out beyond the meandering river course; but that almost doubled the distance to run to the first flag.
Already Shooting Star was a distant flying shape far out on the right, showing at intervals through gaps in the thorn scrub, marked by a little pale feather of dust flung up by his hooves.
‘Here we are,’ said Zouga, and under Tom’s ugly Roman nose the ground opened abruptly.
Zouga gave him a slack rein, and Tom hardly checked on the brink of the steep clay bank. He sat down, and skidded over the edge on his fat round haunches, his forelegs sticking out stiffly ahead of him, and they toboganed down into the river bed and hit the sand in a scrambling tangle; and then Tom was up and lunging for the far bank, going half up before the dried clay crumbled under his hooves and they slid back again, Tom stiff-legged and trembling with exertion.
Zouga circled him once in the clinging white sand, and then put him to the bank again, and he went up in a determined series of buck-jumps, shifting his weight before the clay could break under his hooves, and they flew out over the top and were running again, the next bend of the river a quarter of a mile ahead.
At the next crossings Tom had the knack of it and they went down the bank and out the other side without a check. Under Tom’s hooves the grass exploded into a whirl of noisy wings, and, with a wild harsh cry that would have panicked another horse, a big black-bellied bustard shot up into the air. Tom rolled a disdainful eye at the bird, steadied and gathered himself on the river bank of the last crossing and went down into it in a slide of dust and rolling pebbles.
As they came up the far bank the red flag was two hundred paces dead ahead.
Zouga swivelled in the saddle and looked out on his right hand.
‘Good for you, Tom,’ he called. ‘You’ve made a mile on them.’
Far out across the plain, the golden horse was just swinging wide of the last bend of the river, and Louise was bent low on his neck, pushing him at reckless speed over the rough going.
‘If she rides like that for a shilling—’ Zouga broke off, and himself leaned into the rhythm of Tom’s gallop. A mile was such a slim margin, and the stakes he was riding for were enormous. His fortune, his dream – nay his very existence – was at stake.
‘Go, Thomas, go!’ Zouga whispered grimly into the long furry ears, and Tom stabbed at the earth with his awkward hump-backed gait.
Zouga did not look back again; he knew the stallion was bearing down on them, fast, too fast, but Zouga dismissed them from his attention and slid the carbine from the leather boot at his knee and opened the breech, checking the load.
The targets were white china soup plates, the range two hundred yards, extreme range after a gallop like this. The stewards were waving their hats to guide him up to the firing line.
‘This way, Major.’
Zouga dropped the reins as he reached the low barrier of thorn branches that marked the firing line, and Tom came up short. He swung up the carbine, and fired as the butt slapped into his shoulder. One of the far-off specks of white burst and vanished. He cranked another round into the chamber, and glanced over his shoulder. The stallion was still half a mile away, but coming on with a war drum of hooves.
Zouga fired again, but Tom was blowing between his knees, heaving with the effort of the wild gallop.
‘Damn it to hell.’
Haste would be fatal now, but his fingers fumbled the reload and a shiny brass cartridge slipped and struck his boot before it fell into the sand. He thrust another into the breech, took a long slow breath, and judged Tom’s movements beneath him.
The rifle jump
ed against his shoulder, and the acrid plume of gunsmoke blew into his face. The second target exploded.
‘Two down, Major,’ one of the stewards shouted, and then as he fired again, ‘Three down – one to go!’
Then beside Zouga the golden stallion came plunging to a halt, coming back low on glossy bunched quarters.
Louise vaulted from his back in a swirl of beaded buckskin skirts. There was a flash of the silky skin of her upper calf above the boot, and the back of a dimpled knee. Even in the press of the moment, he found the pale beautiful flesh disturbing enough to spoil his aim – and he swore as his next shot flew wide.
Louise was shooting the latest model of the legendary ’73 Winchester repeater, the original polished brass frame replaced by blued steel, and Zouga knew that the modern centre-fire ammunition drove the heavy lead bullet with amazing power and accuracy.
She threw the stallion’s rein over her left shoulder, and braced herself to fire from a standing position, leaning forward to absorb the recoil of the Winchester, and let her first shot fly.
She shot in the American style, throwing the rifle to her shoulder and firing in the same movement, not holding her aim nor giving the barrel time to wander. It was fine shooting.
‘One hit to Mrs St John,’ yelled the steward. But the crash of the shot had startled Shooting Star and he reared wildly and backed off on his hind legs, heaving at the reins that were looped over Louise’s shoulder, jerking her over backwards so that her second shot flew in a long spurt of powder smoke towards the sky; and then she was down on her back, being dragged away, her skirts tangled about her legs, and the Winchester rifle was flung from her hand.
The stallion came down on his forelegs again. One hoof, sharp as a woodman’s axe, grazed the tender spot at the nape of Louise’s neck, just below the thick plait of dark hair, leaving an angry pink blaze on the pale skin but not breaking it.
Zouga felt the sweat on his throat turn so cold that he could not swallow. He swung Tom around to head off the stallion.
For unholy seconds Louise’s body was hidden by flying dust and trampling hooves; Zouga tried to shout to her to let the horse go, but his voice had choked, and then abruptly Louise was on her knees.
She was facing Shooting Star, clinging stubbornly to his reins with both hands, and when he reared again she used his strength to let him boost her to her feet.
‘Steady!’ she called to him. ‘Steady, I tell you.’
She was dusty and a tendril of dark hair had escaped the plait and hung into her eyes, but she was safe and very angry. Her voice crackled like breaking ice. Zouga’s relief was immediate, but he mocked her as he swung Tom back to the firing line for his last target.
‘I advise you to have that animal properly trained, madam.’
‘To hell with you, Major Ballantyne!’ she told him in the same tone as she had quelled her mount. Somehow the oath on her lips was not shocking at all, but strangely titillating.
Zouga gave Tom a few seconds to settle and regulate his breathing, and then swung up the rifle, held a full bead on the distant white speck and touched off the shot.
‘Four hits – you are free to ride on, Major,’ shouted the steward.
Louise was dragging Shooting Star by the reins to a wild plum tree, a tree with low and sturdy branches. Swiftly she lashed the stallion’s reins to a branch, and now she was running back holding her skirts up to just below the knee, and the stewards gawked at her ankles in the tight-fitting buttoned boots.
She snatched the Winchester from a clump of sansevieria and ran up towards the firing line, reloading as she came. Zouga could see that there were little blisters of perspiration across her forehead, and knew that she was badly shaken, for when she threw up the rifle she held the shot and the heavy weapon wavered unsteadily.
She lowered it, and her shoulders were trembling. She took two long deep breaths and then lifted the Winchester again, firing on the toss up.
‘Hit!’ yelled the steward.
Louise’s lower lip was quivering and she bit down on it fiercely, and shot again.
Zouga slid the carbine back into its leather scabbard, touched the brim of his helmet to Louise in a cavalier salute. ‘Good shooting, ma’am.’
He turned Tom’s head away from the firing line.
As they reached the wild plum, Zouga leaned out from the saddle. Louise had tied Shooting Star’s reins to the branch with a slippery fisherman, it was a sailor’s knot, a quick-release knot for a fast getaway.
Zouga twitched the loose end and the knot fell apart, then he slapped Shooting Star across the cheek with his open hand. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Get out of it!’
The stallion jerked his head, found that he was free and kicked his heels high.
Zouga looked back as he reached the next low fold in the plain.
The stallion was grazing head down, but even at that distance it was apparent that he was keeping a wary eye on the lonely figure that ran after him in hampering skirts. As soon as Louise came within arm’s length of his bridle, he tossed up his head and trotted away to the next clump of grass, leaving her blundering behind.
‘Come, Tom.’ He turned away, trying not to let his conscience trouble him. There were no rules, any ruse was acceptable, but it still felt bad – until he reminded himself of the stakes. A shilling against all he owned – and he set Tom to run in earnest.
Another mile and he glanced back, just in time to see Shooting Star and his rider come over the rise. They seemed to fly clear of the earth, borne along by the floating carpet of their own dust.
‘Run! Tom! Run!’ Zouga swept the hat off his head and slapped it against Tom’s neck, goading him to his best speed.
Within another half mile Tom’s shoulders were hot and slick with salt sweat. Ropes of saliva spilled from the corners of his lips and splattered onto Zouga’s boots – but the yellow flag was in sight.
‘Not far,’ Zouga called to him anxiously. ‘We must beat them to the flag.’
He looked back. He could not believe they were so close.
The stallion’s head was driving like a hammer to each stride, and his neck and shoulders were black with sweat. She had pushed him fearfully. Louise was driving him with her arms and the rhythmic force of her body. Her hair was a wild tangle about her face, and her eyes were a blaze of blue.
Yet as she came up to them she straightened in the saddle, her chin lifted high, and she looked at Zouga coldly, expressionlessly, the way a queen might glance at an urchin running at the wheel of her coach.
Zouga lifted his right hand to salute her achievement. It had been a tremendous run, to make up so much ground. He was turned slightly towards her – and her expression of cold disinterest lulled him for the vital instant that it took her to bring Shooting Star level with Tom’s shoulder.
Zouga never saw the command, probably the toe of her boot on the far side of Shooting Star’s heaving chest; he had certainly not expected a show horse to have learned the low tricks of a polo pony. Shooting Star’s huge sweat-streaked shoulder crashed into Tom, taking him in the short ribs with a force that drove the air out of him in a belching grunt, and as he was spun aside Tom chopped desperately to keep from falling, twisting and dropping to his knees, his nose on the ground, too tired and taken too unawares to meet the power of that ferocious barge.
Zouga lost a stirrup and was thrown onto Tom’s neck. He clung desperately, feeling the saddle shift under the unequal transfer of weight; then Tom heaved again and Zouga went over, landing on his shoulders and the back of his neck.
He seemed to strike solid rock and blackness crushed down from the dome of his skull. When it cleared, he was standing again, swaying like a drunk, blinking uncertainly after the pounding stallion as he pulled away towards the last flag.
Zouga pulled Tom to his feet, and checked swiftly for strained sinew or broken bone, then threw himself back into the saddle.
‘We’re not beat yet,’ he told Tom. ‘There are still the thorns.’
Tom was winded, his chest shuddering with the effort of each laboured breath, and they reached the flag in an awkward jarring trot and made the turn. Ahead of them the thorns stretched in a solid green barrier. This was the last obstacle – and beyond it was a clear run to the finish.
A rider had a choice: go through the thorn, or ride wide.
‘Which way did she go?’ Zouga shouted at the stewards below the flag as he went past.
‘She’s gone for the gap,’ one of them yelled back, and then Zouga saw the little feather of dust a mile or more out on the right subsiding only slowly as the stallion sped away.
The thorn barrier petered out on the rocky slopes of the Magersfontein hills, and there was an open gap below the steep ironstone cliffs – that was where the stallion was aimed.
Grimly Zouga swung Tom around the flag and pointed him directly at the thorns. This route was almost two miles shorter, but he would need every inch of it. Yet he stopped Tom when they reached the edge of the thorns and let him breathe as he untied the heavy greatcoat from the pommel of his saddle and shrugged into it. He buttoned it high at the throat and felt the sweat burst out on his forehead as he pulled on the leather gauntlets to protect his hands.
‘Let’s go,’ he whispered, and lay flat on Tom’s neck, as they crashed into the thorn.
The red-tipped hooked points of the thorns skidded over Zouga’s thick felt hat with a rasping tearing sound, and tugged at the shoulders and skirts of the greatcoat.
The brush grew as high as a mounted man’s head, the sturdy trunks just far enough apart to let a horse pass, but the barbed branches intertwined and exacted a cruel toll. However, Tom kept going, swinging and chopping from side to side; he dodged between the white barked trunks, ducking his head under the branches, his ears flat against his skull and his eyes closed to slits, maintaining just the right amount of momentum to snap the thorns off their triangular bases and showering both himself and Zouga with a confetti of feathery green leaves. Every few seconds he snorted at the sting of thorn that had penetrated his tough shaggy hide.