Men of Men

by Wilbur Smith

  Shooting Star’s burnished skin was so thin and finely bred that the network of veins and arteries showed through it. The thorns would have ripped it to bloody tatters.

  Zouga felt blood trickling down his own neck from where a thorn had nicked his ear, but he crouched lower and let Tom pick his own way through. ‘Poor Tom,’ he encouraged him. ‘Poor brave Tom.’ The horse whickered with the pain of the stinging red needles, but did not check his stride. Yet his breathing was easier now, the slower gait had helped him; and the sweat was drying in salty white crystals on his shoulders.

  Then abruptly they burst out of the thorn onto the open plain. Zouga tore off the leather gauntlets and threw them away. He ripped at the buttons of the greatcoat and let it fly away, flapping like a great black crow in the wind of Tom’s gallop – and then he stood high in the stirrups and shaded his eyes with the brim of his hat.

  Swiftly he searched the open ground, but it was empty as far as the tiny specks of colour in the distance: women’s dresses and the gay bunting that marked the finish. His heart bounded with relief, and under him Tom lunged into a clumsy gallop.

  Still standing in the stirrups, Zouga looked towards the line of hills out on his right hand, and he saw them.

  The stallion had turned the far end of the thorn barrier where it ran into the hills and was coming down the rocky slope towards the level ground in a dangerous scramble.

  The tiny figure on his back was being thrown about brutally. One instant she seemed to be on his neck, the next she was flung back onto his haunches, as Shooting Star plunged and heaved to keep his balance.

  ‘We have them now, Tom. There it is. There is the line, right under you nose.’ Zouga pointed his head. ‘They cannot catch us now. Go, old man, go!’

  Tom’s hooves cracked on the hard earth like the beat of a joyous drummer. The crossing of the thorns had been cruel work, but it had rested him and he was pushing hard now.

  ‘’Ware hole!’ Zouga called to him, and Tom flicked his ears reproachfully. He had seen it before Zouga had, and he jinked around the burrow neatly, while the heads of the curious little ground squirrels bobbed out of the earth as they passed.

  The ground was rotten with their warrens, but Tom barely checked his gallop, swinging to avoid the mounds of freshly-turned earth, or occasionally stretching out to step over an entrance hole.

  The ground squirrels were almost indistinguishable from their northern cousins, except for the stripe down their furry backs and their terrestrial habit. They stood on their hind legs, like small groups of spectators at the entrance of each warren, their expressions comically astonished and their long bushy tails curled over their backs as Tom pounded past them.

  Zouga looked over his shoulder. Shooting Star was off the steep slope of the hills, down onto the open plain, and it was apparent that he was burning the last reserves of his great strength, coming on in a blazing run, driving out with his forelegs, and then bunching up his sweat-drenched hindquarters to hurl himself into the next stride. Louise was pushing him with her arms, like a washerwoman working over the scrubbing board, but she was too far behind for Zouga to see the expression on her face.

  Much too far behind, half a mile behind – and there was less than a mile to run to the line of gaily coloured bunting that marked the finish.

  Zouga could clearly see the crowds on each side of the posts, thick as bees at the entrance to the hive, and others were running for the wagons to join them.

  He could hear the faint pop of gunfire, see the little spurts of gunsmoke jumping up above the heads of the crowd as his supporters fired into the air in jubilation.

  Soon he would hear their voices, catch the sound of their cheers, even above the beat of Tom’s hooves.

  It was all over. He had won. He had won back his claims, the cherished image of the falcon god – and the five thousand pounds with which he could take his family away to a new life. He had taken on the gods of chance and won.

  He had only one regret – that the courage of the horse and rider behind him had been in vain. Careful not to unbalance Tom’s heavy unlovely gallop, he looked back under his own arm.

  By God, she had not yet accepted defeat. She was driving with all her strength and all her heart, pushing the great horse as hard as she pushed herself, coming on so swiftly that Zouga glanced uneasily over Tom’s pricked ears to reassure himself as to the proximity of the finish line. No, there was no chance – even at that tremendous speed – Shooting Star could never catch them.

  Already he could hear the voices of the crowd, make out their individual faces, even recognize Pickering, the chief steward, on his seat on the wagon, and beside him Rhodes’ unmistakable bulk and the mop of unruly hair. With him to witness it, Zouga’s triumph was complete.

  He turned for the last time to look back at Shooting Star – just in time to see him fall. It had been much too fast, too uncontrolled, that wild gallop across ground rotten with squirrel warrens. Shooting Star’s front legs went from under him. Zouga imagined he could hear the bone break, like the crack of a pistol shot, and the huge horse went down from full gallop, shoulder first, neck twisted around in an agonized contortion like that of a dying flamingo; dust flew up in a cloud, blanketing them, and above it the stallion’s hooves kicked spasmodically, convulsively, and then sagged.

  The pale beige dust cloud drifted aside, revealing the tragic tangle of horse and rider. Shooting Star lay on his side and, as Zouga reined in and swung Tom’s nose back the way he had come, the great stallion made a feeble effort to lift his head off the ground and then let it fall back weakly.

  Louise’s body had been flung clear. She lay curled like a sleeping child on the bare earth, very still, very small.

  ‘Ha, Tom, ha!’ Zouga urged him to greater speed. He was shocked at the sense of utter desolation that assailed him as he galloped back to where she lay. There was something so final, so terribly chilling in her stillness, in the complete relaxation, the lifelessness of that tiny crumpled body.

  ‘Please God,’ Zouga spoke aloud, his throat seared by dust and thirst and dread. ‘Please don’t let it be.’

  He imagined the lovely delicate neck twisted at an impossible angle against the shattered vertebrae. He imagined the awful bloodless depression in the delicate dome of her skull; he imagined those huge dark eyes, open and staring, the inner glow fading – he imagined, oh God, he imagined – Then he was kicking his feet clear of the stirrups and jumping down even while Tom was at full gallop, stumbling to keep his balance and then running to where she lay.

  Louise uncurled her body and rolled lightly to her feet.

  ‘Come, darling, up darling,’ she called to Shooting Star, as she ran to him. The stallion lunged once, twice and then he was standing, head up.

  ‘What a clever darling,’ Louise laughed, but with the huskiness of excitement and the tremor of heart-breaking exertion in the sound of it.

  She did not have the strength left to vault for the saddle, and for a moment she hopped with one foot in the stirrup before she could find the energy to swing her other leg up over Shooting Star’s back, while Zouga stood and gaped at her.

  From the saddle she looked down at Zouga. ‘Playing dead is an old Blackfoot Indian’s trick. Major.’

  Louise swung the stallion’s head towards the finish line.

  ‘Let’s see you run the last lap on equal terms,’ she challenged, and Shooting Star jumped away at full gallop.

  For a moment Zouga could not bring himself to believe that she had taught the stallion to fall so convincingly, and to lie so still. Then suddenly his concern for her safety, the desolate feeling of believing her dead or maimed turned to fury and outrage.

  As he ran back to where Tom stood, he yelled after her.

  ‘Madam, you are a cheat – may God forgive you for that.’

  She turned in the saddle and waved gaily. ‘Sir, you are gullible, but I will forgive you for that.’

  And Shooting Star bore her away towards the finish
at a pace that poor Tom could never match.

  Zouga Ballantyne was drunk. It was the first time in the twenty-two years they had been together that Jan Cheroot had seen him so.

  He sat very erect on the high-backed deal chair, and his face above the beard had a strange waxen look to it. His eyes were glazed over with the same soapy sheen of uncut diamonds. The third bottle of Cape Brandy stood on the green baize of the table between them, and as Zouga fumbled for it, he knocked it over. The spirit glugged loudly from the mouth, and soaked into the cloth.

  Jan Cheroot snatched it upright, with a shocked oath.

  ‘Man, if you want to lose the Devil’s Own, I don’t mind – but, when you spill the brandy – that’s another thing.’

  Jan Cheroot stumbled a little over the words; they had been drinking since an hour before sundown.

  ‘What am I going to tell the boys?’ mumbled Zouga.

  ‘Tell them that they are on holiday – for the first time in ten years. We are all on holiday.’

  Jan Cheroot poured brandy into Zouga’s mug, and pushed it closer to his hand. Then he poured a good dram into his own, thought about it for a moment, and added as much again.

  ‘I have lost everything, Old Jan.’

  ‘Ja,’ Jan Cheroot said cheerfully. ‘And that was not very much, was it.’

  ‘I have lost the claims.’

  ‘Good.’ Jan Cheroot nodded. ‘For ten years those double-damned squares of dirt ate our souls away – and starved us while they were doing it.’

  ‘I have lost the bird.’

  ‘Good again!’ Jan Cheroot swigged his brandy, and smacked his lips with appreciation. ‘Let Mr Rhodes have his share of bad luck now. That bird will finish him, as it nearly finished us. Send it to him as soon as you can, and thank God to be rid of it.’

  Slowly Zouga lowered his face into his hands, covering his eyes and his mouth – so that his voice was muffled.

  ‘Jan Cheroot. It’s all over. For me the road to the north is closed. My dream is finished. It’s all been for nothing.’

  The bibulous grin faded slowly and Jan Cheroot’s yellow face puckered with deep compassion.

  ‘It is not finished – you are still young and strong – with two strong sons.’

  ‘We shall lose them too – soon, very soon.’

  ‘Then you will have me, old friend, like it has always been.’

  Zouga lifted his head out of his hands and stared at the little Hottentot.

  ‘What are we going to do, Jan Cheroot?’

  ‘We are going to finish this bottle and then open another,’ Jan Cheroot told him firmly.

  In the morning they loaded the soapstone idol into the gravel cart, and laid it on a bed of straw; then Zouga spread a stained and tattered tarpaulin over it and Jordan helped him rope it down.

  Neither of them spoke – until they were finished, and then Jordan whispered so softly that Zouga barely caught the words.

  ‘You can’t let it go, Papa.’ And Zouga turned to look at his younger son, truly seeing him for the first time in many years.

  With a small shock he realized that Jordan was a man. In imitation of Ralph perhaps, he also had grown a moustache. It was a dense coppery gold, and accentuated the gentle line of his mouth – yet, if anything, the man was more beautiful than the child had been.

  ‘Is there no way we can keep it?’ Jordan persisted, with a thin edge of desperation in his voice, and Zouga went on staring at him. How old was he now? Over nineteen years, and yesterday he had been a baby – little Jordie. Everything was changed.

  Zouga turned away from him, and placed his hand on the tarpaulin-wrapped burden in the bottom of the cart.

  ‘No, Jordan. It was a wager – a matter of honour.’

  ‘But, Mama—’ Jordan started and then broke off abruptly as Zouga looked back at him sharply.

  ‘What about Aletta?’ he demanded, and Jordan looked away and flushed, bringing up the colour under the velvety skin of his cheeks.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said quickly, and went to the head of the lead mule. ‘I will take the bird to Mr Rhodes,’ he volunteered, and Zouga nodded immediately, relieved that he would be spared this painful duty.

  ‘Ask him when he will be free to sign the transfer of the claims.’

  Zouga touched the wrapped statue again as though in farewell and then he pulled his hand away, went up the steps onto the verandah and into the bungalow without looking back.

  Jordan led the mules out into the rutted road and swung them towards the settlement. He walked bare-headed in the sunlight. He was tall and slim and he moved with a peculiar grace, stepping lightly and lithely in the soft red dust. His chin was up, his eyes focused far ahead, with the dreaming, yet all-seeing, gaze of a poet.

  Men and women, especially women, looked after him as he passed and their expressions softened, but Jordan walked on as though he were alone on a deserted street.

  Though his lips never moved, the words of the invocation to the goddess Panes kept running through his mind.

  ‘ – Why did you run away? You would have been better with us—’ So many times he had called to the goddess, the words were part of his very existence. ‘Will you not come back to us, great Panes?’

  The goddess was going – and Jordan did not believe he could support the agony of it. Statue, goddess and mother were all one in his mind, his last link with Aletta. Aletta who had become Panes.

  He felt desolate, bereaved as though of his dearest love, and when he reached the milkwood fence of Rhodes’ camp, he stopped and wild fancies seized him. He would take the goddess, run with her into the wilderness, hide her in some distant cave. His heart bounded. No, he would take her back to the ancient ruined city from which she had come, that far place in the north from which his father had stolen her, where she would be safe.

  Then with a plunge of his spirits and a slide of despair in his guts he knew that these were childish dreamings and that he was no longer a child.

  With a light touch on the lead mule’s bridle, he guided her into the camp, and Rhodes was standing at the front door of his bungalow, bareheaded and in shirtsleeves. He was talking quietly, urgently to a man below the stoep. Jordan recognized him as one of the Central Diamond Company overseers.

  When Rhodes looked up and saw Jordan, he dismissed the overseer with a curt word and a nod.

  ‘Jordan,’ Rhodes’ greeting was grave, perhaps he sensed the mood of the young man before him, ‘you have brought it?’

  When Jordan nodded, he turned back to the waiting overseer.

  ‘Bring four of your best men,’ he ordered. ‘I want this cart unloaded – and carefully. It’s a valuable work of art.’

  He watched keenly as they untied the ropes that held the tarpaulin in place, but cocked the large curly head when Jordan spoke.

  ‘If we have to lose it, then I’m glad it’s you that it goes to, Mr Rhodes.’

  ‘The bird means something to you also, Jordan?’

  ‘Everything,’ Jordan said simply, and then caught himself; that sounded ridiculous. Mr Rhodes would think him strange. ‘I mean, it has been in my family since before I was born. I don’t really know what it will be like without that goddess. I don’t really want to think about losing it.’

  ‘You don’t have to lose it, Jordan.’

  Jordan looked at him, unable to bring himself to ask the meaning.

  ‘You can follow the goddess, Jordan.’

  ‘Please don’t tease me, Mr Rhodes.’

  ‘You are bright and willing, you have studied Pitman’s shorthand, and you have an excellent pen,’ Rhodes said. ‘I need a secretary – somebody who knows and loves diamonds as I do. Somebody whom I feel easy with. Somebody I know and whom I like. Somebody I can trust.’

  Jordan felt a vast soaring rush of joy, something sharper, brighter and more poignant than he had ever known before. He could not speak; he stood rooted and stared into the pale blue and beautiful eyes of the man whom he had worshipped for so many years. />
  ‘Well, Jordan, I am offering you the position. Do you want it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jordan said softly. ‘More than anything on earth, Mr Rhodes.’

  ‘Good, then your first task is to find a place to set up the bird.’

  The white overseer had pulled the tarpaulin aside to expose the statue, and the sheet hung down over the side of the cart.

  ‘Easy now,’ he shouted at the gang of black labourers. ‘Get a rope on it. Don’t drop it. Watch that end, damn you.’

  They swarmed over the statue, too many of them for the job, getting in one another’s way – and Jordan’s heady joy at Rhodes’ offer was submerged in a quick stab of concern for the safety of the bird.

  He started forward to set the ropes himself, but at that moment there was the clatter of hooves and Neville Pickering rode into the yard. He was astride his mare, a highly bred and finely mettled bay, and he reined her down to a walk.

  He shot a glance at Jordan, and his face clouded for an instant – a quick show of irritation, or of something else. With a sudden intuitive flash Jordan realized that Pickering resented his presence here.

  Then as quickly as it had come the shadow passed from Pickering’s handsome features and he smiled that sunny charming smile of his and looked down at the statue in the cart.

  ‘What have we here?’ His tone was gay, his manner carefree and relaxed. As always he was elegantly dressed, the drape of broadcloth showing off his broad shoulders, the tooled leather belt emphasizing his narrow waist, as the polished half boots did the length and shape of his legs. The low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat was cocked forward over one eye, and he was smiling.

  ‘Oh, the bird.’ He looked up at Rhodes on the stoep of the bungalow. ‘So you have it at last, as you said you would. I should congratulate you.’

  The day had been still and too hot, it would change soon. The wind would come out of the south and the temperature would plunge, but until then the only movements of air were the sudden little dust devils that sprang out of nowhere, small but violent whirlwinds that lifted a high churning vortex of dust and dry grass and dead leaves a hundred or more feet into the still sky as they sped in a wildly erratic course across the plain, and then just as suddenly collapsed and disintegrated into nothingness again.