Golden Fox

by Wilbur Smith

  The uniformed attendants had filled the tanks of the individual showers with piping-hot water. While the guests washed off the dust and grime of their travels, they unpacked and laid out their safari clothes in each tent.

  Bathed and refreshed, the family gathered at the camp-fire, and Shasa glanced at his wristwatch.

  ‘Bit early for a peg?’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Garry. ‘We are on holiday.’ He called the barman to take their orders.

  Isabella sipped her cold white wine. For the first time in almost two years she felt safe and at peace, and incongruously she thought of Michael. He was the only thing missing. She watched the procession of beautiful wild animals coming down to drink at the waterhole and listened to her father and Garry with only half her attention.

  They were discussing Sean’s client. He was a German industrialist named Otto Heider.

  ‘He’s twenty years older than Sean, but they are soul-mates. Both of them are thrusters. God, they take some chances together,’ Shasa told them. ‘The more hairy and dangerous the action, the more old Otto loves it. He won’t hunt with anybody except Sean.’

  ‘I had Special Services run a full report on him,’ Garry nodded. Special Services was a closed section of Courtney Enterprises whose director reported directly to Garry. It was his private intelligence system. It dealt with everything from company security to industrial espionage. ‘Otto Heider is a player all right. The list of his assets runs to four typed pages, but he is a wild player. I don’t think we should get financially involved with him. He takes too many chances. According to my calculations, he is undercapitalized by at least three billion Deutschmarks.’

  ‘I agree,’ Shasa inclined his head. ‘He’s an interesting character, but not for us. Do you know he brings his own blood-bank on safari, just in case he gets stamped on by an elephant or hooked by a buffalo?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know that.’ Garry sat forward in his camp-chair.

  ‘Fresh sweet blood,’ Shasa smiled. ‘On the hoof, so to speak. Self-administering transfusions.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Even Isabella was interested.

  ‘He brings two qualified nurses with him. Both blonde, both beautiful and under twenty-five years old, blood-type type AB Positive. If he needs blood, he can tap it straight off one of them and at the same time have expert nursing care.’

  Garry let out an admiring snort of laughter. ‘And, even if he does not need blood, they are still extremely useful items to have on a safari. The transfusions simply flow in the opposite direction.’

  ‘You are disgusting, Garry,’ Isabella smiled.

  ‘Not me! Old Otto is the disgusting one. I think I am changing my opinion of him. We might still do business together. Such forethought is most commendable.’

  ‘Forget it. Otto is flying out first thing in the morning with his two nurses. The client we are really interested in arrives tomorrow afternoon. Sean will drop Otto in Salisbury and bring the other one back—’ Shasa broke off and shaded his eyes, staring out across the wide glade in front of the camp.

  ‘I hear Sean’s truck. Yes, there he comes.’

  The tiny shape of the hunting vehicle darted out of the forest edge a mile away across the open grassland.

  ‘Master Sean is in a real hurry.’

  The sound of the truck engine mounted to a roar. A tall column of dust rose into the still evening sky. The animals at the waterhole panicked and galloped for the trees.

  As the distance closed rapidly, they could make out the occupants of the open Toyota. The cab and the bodywork had been removed and the windscreen laid flat over the engine bonnet. On a high rear seat were four figures. Sean’s two black trackers in khaki fatigues and two white women. These, Isabella presumed, were the German nurses, for they fitted the description, young and blonde and pretty.

  In the front passenger-seat was a middle-aged man dressed in custom-tailored safari clothing. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles and a leopard-skin band around his Stetson. He exuded the air of jaunty confidence that marked him as Otto Heider, the client they had been discussing.

  Sean was at the wheel of the speeding Toyota, and Isabella could not restrain herself. She jumped up from the camp-chair and ran to the gate of the boma.

  Sean wore a bush shirt with two heavy-calibre brass cartridges in the loops on his breast. His shirt-sleeves had been cut away at the shoulders, so that his arms were bare. The muscles were tanned and glowing with abundant health as though they had been oiled. His shoulder-length hair was cut in a Prince Valiant bob. The Comanche-style leather thong around his forehead could not restrain the shimmering jet-black locks that danced and fluttered like a flag around his head as he drove the truck at high speed up to the entrance of the boma.

  He hit the brakes so hard that the heavy vehicle spun into a broadside and came to a halt in a billowing cloud of its own dust. Sean leapt out and strode towards them. His khaki shorts were cut away high on the thighs, and his sockless feet were thrust into kudu-skin velskoen.

  ‘Sean!’ Isabella let out a happy cry, but he brushed past her with an expression of dark fury on his face. She stared after him in bewilderment.

  Sean ignored his father as he had his sister and stopped in front of his younger brother.

  ‘Just what the hell do you think you are playing at?’ he asked in a voice that rang with cold fury, and Garry’s happy grin faded.

  ‘And I’m glad to see you also.’ Garry’s tone was mild, but his eyes sparkled with annoyance behind his spectacles.

  Sean reached down and seized the front of Garry’s shirt. With one clean jerk, he lifted his brother out of the canvas chair. It was a feat of brutal strength, for Garry was a big, solidly built man.

  ‘Let me tell you a little secret,’ Sean said. ‘I spend four days getting into position for a shot at the only decent bull I’ve seen all season. At the critical moment you come barging in like von Richthofen and rev the hell out of us!’

  ‘Look, Sean, I didn’t . . .’ Garry tried to placate him, but Sean wasn’t even listening.

  ‘You goddam pen-pushing office wallah. You soft-arsed tourist playing tough guy. Who the hell are you trying to impress?’

  ‘Sean.’ Garry held up both hands, palms open. ‘Come on, be reasonable. How was I to know?’

  ‘Reasonable? When you shoot up my concession and chase the hell out of my jumbo. Reasonable? When you screw up my best client and the last shot we will get at a big bull this safari?’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  ‘If you’re sorry now, just think how sorry you’re going to be five minutes from now,’ said Sean. With his left hand still gripping Garry’s shirt, he shoved him backwards. Instinctively Garry resisted. Instantly Sean reversed the pressure, and it took Garry by surprise.

  Sean did not cock his right hand. He threw the punch only five inches, but the full power of his broad muscled shoulders was behind it and Garry was moving into it. Garry’s teeth clicked together in his jaw. As he staggered backwards his spectacles spun from his head. The camp-chair caught him at the back of his knees; he went over backwards, falling heavily and awkwardly.

  ‘Damn it, that felt good,’ said Sean, clenching and unclenching his right hand as he moved around the overturned chair to reach him again.

  ‘Sean!’ Isabella recovered from her shock. ‘Stop it, Sean! Leave him alone!’ She ran forward to interpose herself between her brothers, but Shasa caught her arm to restrain her. Although she struggled to be free, he held her easily.

  Garry struggled into a sitting position. His expression was dazed. A little trail of blood crept out of one nostril, and he tried to sniff it back. Then he lifted his hand and smeared it across his upper lip. He held the bloodied hand close to his myopic eyes and inspected it with disbelief.

  ‘Come on, Big Shot.’ Sean was standing over him. ‘Get on your feet. I’ve been saving up for this.’

  ‘Leave him alone, Sean. Please!’ Isabella hated the violence and the blood and this terri
fying anger between two people she loved so dearly. ‘Stop it! Stop it!’

  ‘Quite, Bella!’ Her father shook her sharply. ‘Keep out of this.’

  Still sitting in the dust, Garry shook himself like a great St Bernard dog.

  ‘Come on, Mr bloody Chairman of the Board,’ Sean taunted him. ‘Get on your feet, Mr Businessman of the Sodding Year. Let’s see your style, Mr Fortune Magazine 500.’

  ‘Leave them, Bella.’ Shasa still held her. ‘This had to come. It’s been brewing for twenty years. Let them work it out.’ Suddenly Isabella understood. Sean’s choice of jibes was an expression of the envy and resentment that he had accumulated over a lifetime.

  Sean was the firstborn, the golden princeling, the pick of the litter. All those honours and titles should have been his. He should have been the prime recipient of his father’s favour and approbation, and yet he had lost it all. It had been stolen away from him by the runt.

  ‘Piss-bed,’ said Sean. ‘Four-eyes.’ Those were childhood insults. Isabella had a vivid memory of the lordly superiority of the elder brother. She remembered how in the Cape winters of their childhood, when the snow lay thick on the Hottentots Holland mountains, Sean would turn Garry out of bed in the dawn and send him to sit on the toilet to warm the seat for him. She remembered a hundred other episodes of humiliation and casual bullying by which Sean had reinforced his domination over the weakling.

  Garry came to his feet. He had applied twenty years of unremitting labour to building up the sickly body that he had been born with. Now his chest was a barrel of muscle, and the coarse body-hair curled out of the V of his shirt-front. His limbs were almost grotesquely over-developed. However, he stood almost four inches shorter than his elder brother as they confronted each other.

  ‘That,’ he said quietly, ‘is the last time. It will never happen again. Do you understand?’

  ‘No.’ Sean shook his head, his anger contained behind the mocking smile. ‘I don’t understand, Piss-bed. You are going to have to explain it to me.’

  The German client and his two nubile nurses had climbed down from the Toyota and followed Sean into the boma. Now they were watching with delighted anticipation.

  Garry blinked like an owl without his glasses, but his teeth clenched so hard that humps of muscles, like walnuts, bulged on the hinges of his jaw below his ears. Sean leant forward, balanced on the balls of his feet and slapped his cheek lightly, still smiling mockingly, and Garry went for him.

  He was fast for such a heavy man, the way a bull buffalo is fast, the way an old mugger crocodile is fast, but Sean was fast as a leopard. He ducked under Garry’s rush, and threw a left-hander into his belly just below the sternum of his ribs. It was like throwing a brick at a battle-tank. Garry did not even grunt. He merely hunched his shoulders and came in again.

  Sean weaved and danced ahead of him, the insolent grin still on his lips. He was letting Garry come to him, and counter-punching with the rushes. His blows thudded on rubbery muscles as though he were beating a truck tyre with a baseball bat.

  The German nurses were squealing with happy horror. The camp servants came running from the kitchen lines. Their heads bobbed up in a row along the low boma wall, wide-eyed with fascination.

  ‘Stop them, Daddy,’ Isabella pleaded, but Shasa was assessing his sons with a calculating eye. So far, this was the way he would have expected it to go.

  Sean was all flash and style, tossing back his glossy locks after each exchange, taking a moment to glance at his audience, especially the blonde nurses.

  Garry, on the other hand, was plugging away solidly, making Sean dance and weave to keep out of range of those massive arms. He was obviously willing to take all the body shots that Sean could throw at him. However, it was surprisingly difficult for Sean to land on Garry’s head. He had a trick of hunching those muscled shoulders at the final instant and deflecting Sean’s fists.

  He was also very quick with his arms, and some of Sean’s best punches to the head were caught on Garry’s heavy biceps or on his hairy forearms.

  At first, Garry’s rushes seemed to be without purpose. Then Shasa realized that he was remorselessly driving Sean back into the corner wall of the boma, attempting to pin and grapple him there. Each time, Sean managed to break clear and Garry would begin all over again. He was as patient as a sheep-dog, working him into the position he wanted, grimly accepting the punishment Sean was inflicting. Blood from his nostril was running into his mouth and dripping from his chin into the front of his khaki bush shirt.

  By this time Sean’s mocking grin was becoming a little strained, and the flow of taunts had long since dried up. His movements were no longer so crisp. On the other hand, Garry moved with the same ponderous rhythm and momentum, pushing Sean back, back, always backwards. Sean’s punches were losing their snap, and he threw them less prolifically.

  Then Garry blocked him as he tried to pirouette away to the right, at last anticipating his move precisely. Sean back-pedalled quickly to regain poise, and felt the thatch of the wall touch his back. He ducked to go under Garry’s outstretched arm, and Garry let his first punch fly.

  All the spectators gasped, and one of the nurses squeaked shrilly. Garry’s punch was a thunderbolt, with two hundred pounds of muscle and bone and determination driving it. It hissed through the air and, although Sean caught it on his guard, it drove on through. It crashed against the curved dome of his skull, high above the hairline, with a force that made his long shining hair swirl and flicker as though a gust of wind had caught it.

  For an instant Sean’s eyes rolled fully backwards in their sockets, giving him a blind white stare. His knees buckled and sagged under him. Then he partially recovered, but his face was frosted with pain and his mouth was twisted with panic, as he tried to avoid the next bear-like rush.

  Garry charged in, eagerly seizing the moment for which he had worked so doggedly. His arms were spread as though to welcome an old friend or a lover. Suddenly he kicked and spurted like a long-distance runner hearing the bell for the final lap. He had fooled them all, including Sean. They had thought that those ponderous rushes were all the speed he had, but suddenly there was more, much more.

  A buffalo bull charges in for the kill in the same fashion, crabbing across the front of his victim, lulling him, making him doubt that he is really the focus of all that mountainous aggression. Then at the last moment he turns in with bewildering speed to hook and gore and trample.

  Half-stunned, Sean could not avoid him. Garry’s arms snapped around him in a murderous hug, and the momentum of his charge carried them both onwards into the dining-tent. The bar table went over in a shower of ancient spirits, noble wines and precious crystal. They trampled the glittering splinters underfoot, and a heady cloud of fumes enveloped them for a moment before they barged onwards.

  The long dining-table, spread with Madeira lace, crashed over. The Rosenthal dinner service burst into ten thousand expensive splinters. As they went out through the back of the tent, they ripped out the guy ropes and the canvas sagged in weary folds. The servants scattered with cries of alarm and excitement and encouragement.

  In a ferocious waltz, they whirled each other in erratic circles. Garry’s grip was unshakeable. He had double-locked his own wrists behind his brother’s back. His arms convulsed, rippling with muscle as they tightened like a python crushing its prey.

  One of Sean’s arms was trapped in that deadly circle. With the free fist, he beat wildly at Garry’s head, but he lacked purchase and the blows had no sting. Although one caught Garry in the mouth and split his lip, it left his big white teeth intact. He merely ducked his head and slitted his eyes and squeezed and squeezed.

  With an approving roar from the black audience and feminine squeals from Sean’s admirers, they lunged into the far side of the thatched boma wall and it burst open.

  The two of them, still locked together, came storming back on to the central stage. One of the nurses was not quick enough to avoid them. She was knocked
over in a tangle of long tanned legs, flaring skirts and lacy underwear that might have stopped any lesser show. Nobody even glanced at her.

  Garry was trying to swing Sean off his feet, lifting him high with each turn. Although Sean’s face was swelling and darkening with blood from the constriction of his chest and breathing, he managed like a cat to come down on his feet after each wild swing until Garry steered him into the middle of the camp-fire. Sean’s legs were bare, and the flames licked at them, frizzling the hair off his calves, scorching the thin kudu-skin velskoen.

  Sean let out a howl of anguish and bounded high in his brother’s arms. He managed to jump clear of the fire, but Garry’s grip was inexorable. Grunting with the effort, he forced Sean slowly backwards, bending him like a longbow. Sean’s scorched legs buckled, and he sank lower and lower. His knees touched the ground, and Garry bent over him and grunted again as he tightened the circle of his arms another inch.

  The air was forced from Sean’s lungs in a long hollow groan, and his face suffused with dark blood. Garry grunted again, and his grip tightened another notch, remorseless as a mechanical steel press. Sean’s eyes began to bulge from their sockets, and his jaw fell open. His tongue lolled out between his teeth.

  ‘Garry! You are killing him!’ Isabella screamed, her concern moving from one brother to the other. Her father held her, and Garry showed no sign of having heard her. He grunted yet again and squeezed.

  This time they heard Sean’s ribs crack like green twigs. He cried out and went slack as a half-empty bag of wheat in Garry’s arms. Garry dropped him and stood back, breathing heavily. His own face was flushed and swollen with the effort.