Eagle in the Sky

by Wilbur Smith

  Debra turned and groped her way back into the house, locking herself into her room, but walls could not diminish the fury of the rain when it came. It drummed and roared and deafened, battering the window panes, and striking the walls and doors, pouring through the screen to flood the veranda.

  As overpowering as was the rainstorm, yet it was the lightning and the thunder that racked Debra’s nerves. She could not steel herself for each mighty crack and roar. Each one caught her off-balance, and it seemed that they were aimed directly at her.

  She crouched on her day bed, clinging to the soft warm body of the dog for a little comfort. She wished she had not allowed the servants to leave, and she thought that her nerve might crack altogether under the bombardment.

  Finally she could stand it no longer. She groped her way into the living-room. In her distress she had almost lost her way about her own home, but she found the telephone and lifted it to her ear.

  Immediately she knew that it was dead, there was no tone to it, but she cranked the handle wildly, calling desperately into the mouthpiece, until finally she let it fall and dangle on its cord.

  She began to sob as she stumbled back to her workroom, hugging the child in her big belly, and she fell upon the day bed and covered her ears with both hands.

  ‘Stop it,’ she screamed. ‘Stop it, oh please God, make it stop.’

  The new national highway as far as the coal-mining town of Witbank was broad and smooth, six lanes of traffic, and David eased the hired Pontiac into the fast lane and went flat, keeping his foot pressed down hard. She peaked out at a hundred and thirty miles an hour, and she sat so solid upon the road that he hardly needed to drive her. His mind was free to play with horror stories, and to remember Johan Akkers’ face as he stood in the dock glaring across the Court Room at them. The deep-set muddy eyes, and the mouth working as though he were about to spit. As the warders had led him to the stairs down to the cells he had pulled free and shouted back.

  ‘I’m going to get you, Scarface,’ he giggled. ‘If I have to wait twenty-nine years – I’m going to get you,’ and they took him away.

  After Witbank the road narrowed. There was heavy traffic and the bends had dangerous camber and deceptive gradients. David was able to concentrate on keeping the big car on the road, and to drive the phantoms from his mind.

  He took the Lyndenburg turn off, cutting the corner of the triangle, and the traffic thinned out to an occasional truck. He was able to go flat out again, and race along the edge of the high escarpment. Then suddenly the road turned and began its plunge down into the low veld.

  When he emerged from the Erasmus tunnel David ran into the rain. It was a solid grey bank of water that filled the air and buffeted the body of the Pontiac. It flooded the road, so David had difficulty following its verge beneath the standing sheets of water, and it swamped the windshield, so that the efforts of the wipers to clear it were defeated.

  David switched on his headlights and drove as fast as he dared, craning forward in his seat to peer into the impenetrable blue-grey curtains of rain.

  Darkness came early in the rain, beneath the lowering black clouds, and the wet road dazzled him with the reflections of his own headlights, while the fat falling drops seemed as big as hailstones. He was forced to moderate his speed a little more, creeping down the highway towards Bandolier Hill.

  In the darkness he almost missed the turning, and he reversed back to it, swinging on to the unmade surface.

  It was slushy with mud, puddled and swampy, slippery as grease. Again he was forced to lower his speed. Once he lost it, and slid broadside into the drainage ditch. By packing loose stones under the wheels and racing the engine he pulled the Pontiac out and drove on.

  By the time he reached the bridge over the Luzane stream, he had been six hours at the wheel of the Pontiac, and it was a few minutes after eight o’clock in the evening.

  As he reached the bridge the rain stopped abruptly, a freak hole in the weather. Directly overhead the stars showed mistily, while around them the cloud banks swirled, turning slowly, as though upon the axis of a great wheel.

  David’s headlights cut through the darkness, out across the mad brown waters to the far bank a hundred yards away. The bridge was submerged under fifteen feet of flood water, and the water was moving so swiftly that its waves and whirlpools seemed sculpted in polished brown marble, and the trunks of uprooted trees dashed downstream upon the flood.

  It seemed impossible that the bed of this raging torrent had been the narrow sandy bed in which Johan Akkers had run down Conrad with the green Ford truck.

  David climbed out of the Pontiac and walked down to the edge of the water. As he stood there he saw the level creeping up perceptibly towards his feet. It was still rising.

  He looked up at the sky, and judged that the respite in the weather would not last much longer.

  He reached his decision and ran back to the Pontiac. He reversed well back onto the highest ground and parked it off the verge with the headlights still directed at the river edge. Then, standing beside the door, he stripped down to his shirt and underpants. He pulled his belt from the loops of his trousers and buckled it about his waist, then he tied his shoes to the belt by their laces.

  Barefooted he ran to the edge of the water, and began to feel his way slowly down the bank. It shelved quickly and within a few paces he was knee-deep and the current plucked at him, viciously trying to drag him off-balance.

  He posed like that, braced against the current, and waited, staring upstream. He saw the tree trunk coming down fast on the flood, with its roots sticking up like beseeching arms. It was swinging across the current and would pass him closely.

  He judged his moment and lunged for it. Half a dozen strong strokes carried him to it and he grasped one of the roots. Instantly he was whisked out of the beams of the headlight into the roaring fury of the river. The tree rolled and bucked, carrying him under and bringing him up coughing and gasping.

  Something struck him a glancing blow and he felt his shirt tear and the skin beneath it rip. Then he was under water again, swirling end over end and clinging desperately to his log.

  All about him the darkness was filled with the rush and threat of crazy water, and he was buffeted and flogged by its raw strength, grazed and bruised by rocks and driftwood.

  Suddenly he felt the log check and bump against an obstruction, turning and swinging out into the current again.

  David was blinded with muddy water and he knew there was a limit to how much more of this treatment he could survive. Already he was weakening quickly. He could feel his mind and his movements slowing, like a battered prize fighter in the tenth round.

  He gambled it all on the obstruction which the log had encountered being the far bank, and he released his death-grip on the root and stuck out sideways across the current with desperate strength.

  His overarm stroke ended in the trailing branches of a thorn tree hanging over the storm waters. Thorns tore the flesh of his palm as his grip closed over them, and he cried out at the pain but held on.

  Slowly he dragged himself out of the flood and crawled up the bank, hacking and coughing at the water in his lungs. Clear of the river, he fell on his face in the mud and vomited a gush of swallowed water that shot out of his nose and mouth.

  He lay exhausted for a long while, until his coughing slowed and he could breathe again. His shoes had been torn from his belt by the current. He dragged himself to his feet and staggered forward into the darkness. As he ran, he held his hand to his face, pulling the broken thorns from the flesh of his palm with his teeth.

  Stars were still showing overhead and by their feeble light he made out the road, and he began to run along it, gathering strength with each pace. It was very still now, with only the dripping of the trees and the occasional far-off murmur of thunder to break the silence.

  Two miles from the homestead, David made out the dark bulk of something on the side of the road, and it was only when he was a fe
w paces from it that he realized it was an automobile – a late model Chevy. It had been abandoned, bogged down in one of the greasy mudholes that the rains had opened.

  The doors were unlocked and David switched on the interior and parking lights. There was dried blood on the seat, a dark smear of it, and on the back seat was a bundle of clothing. David untied it quickly and recognized immediately the coarse canvas suiting as regulation prison garb. He stared at it stupidly for a moment, until the impact of it struck him.

  The car was stolen, the blood probably belonging to the unfortunate owner. The prison garb had been exchanged for other clothing, probably taken from the body of the owner of the Chevy.

  David knew then beyond all possible doubt that Johan Akkers was at Jabulani, and that he had arrived before the bridge over the Luzane stream had become impassable – probably three or four hours previously.

  David threw the prison suiting back into the car, and he began to run.

  Johan Akkers drove the Chevy across the Luzane bridge with the rising waters swirling over the guard rail, and with the rain teeming down in blinding white sheets.

  The muddy water shoved at the body of the car, making steering difficult, and it seeped in under the doors, flooding the floorboards and swirling about Akkers’ feet; but he reached the safety of the far bank and raced the engine as he shot up it. The wheels spun on the soft mud, and the Chevy skidded and swayed drunkenly in the loose footing.

  The closer he drew to Jabulani the more reckless he became in his haste.

  Before his conviction and imprisonment, Akkers had been a twisted and blighted creature, a man of deep moods and passionate temper. Feeling himself rejected and spurned by his fellow men he had lived in a world of swift defensive violence, but always he had kept within the bounds of reason.

  However, during the two years that he had laboured and languished within prison walls, his anger and his lust for vengeance had driven him over that narrow boundary.

  Vengeance had become the sole reason for his existence, and he had rehearsed it a hundred times each day. He had planned his prison break to give himself three days of freedom – after that it did not matter. Three days would be enough.

  He had infected his own jaw, running a needle poisoned with his excreta deeply into the gum. They had taken him to the dental clinic as he had planned. The guard had been easily handled, and the dentist had co-operated with a scalpel held to his throat.

  Once clear of the prison, Akkers had used the scalpel, vaguely surprised by the volume of blood that could issue from a human throat. He had left the dentist slumped over his steering wheel on a plot of waste ground and, with his white laboratory gown over his prison suit, he had waited at a set of traffic lights.

  The shiny new Chevy had pulled up for a red light and Akkers had opened the passenger door and slid in beside the driver.

  He had been a smaller man than Akkers, plump and prosperous-looking, with a smooth pale face and soft little hairless hands on the steering wheel. He had obeyed meekly Akkers’ instruction to drive on.

  Akkers had rolled his soft white body, clad only in vest and shorts, into a clump of thick grass beside a disused secondary road and pulled the grass closed over him, then he had beaten the first road block out of the city area by forty minutes.

  He stayed on the side roads, picking his way slowly eastwards. The infection in his jaw had ached intolerably despite the shot of antibiotics the dentist had given him, and his crippled claw of a hand had been awkward and clumsy on the gear lever – for the severed nerves and sinews had never knitted again. The hand was a dead and insensate thing.

  Using the caution of a natural predator and helped by the newsflashes on the radio, he had groped his way carefully through the net that was spread for him, and now he was on Jabulani. and he could restrain himself no longer.

  He hit the mud hole at forty and the Chevy whipped and spun, slewing her back end deep into the mud and high-centring her belly on the soft ooze.

  He left her there and went on swiftly through the rain; loping on long legs. Once he giggled and sucked at his teeth, but then he was silent again.

  It was dark by the time be climbed the kopje behind Jabulani homestead. He lay there for two hours peering down into the driving rain, waiting for the darkness.

  Once night fell, he could see no lights, and he began to worry; there should have been lights burning.

  He left the kopje and moved cautiously through the darkness down the hill. He avoided the servants’ quarters, and went through the trees to the landing-strip.

  He ran into the side of the hanger in the dark and followed the wall to the side doorway.

  Frantically he spread his arms and felt for the aircraft that should be here – and when he realized that it was not he let out a groan of frustration.

  They were gone. He had planned and schemed in vain, all his desperate striving was in vain.

  Growling like an animal, he smashed the fist of his good hand against the wall, enjoying the pain of it in his frustration, and his anger and his hatred was so strong that it shook his body like a fever, and he cried out aloud, a formless animal cry without coherence or sense.

  Suddenly the rain stopped. The heavy drum of it upon the iron roof of the hangar ceased so abruptly that Akkers was distracted. He went to the opening and looked out.

  The stars were swimming mistily above him, and the only sound was the gurgle and chuckle of running water and the dripping of the trees.

  There was the glimmering of light now, and he saw the white walls of the homestead shine amongst the trees. He could do damage there, Akkers realized. He could find there some outlet for his terrible frustration. There was furniture to smash, and the thatch would burn – if lit from inside, the thatch would burn even in this weather.

  He stared towards the homestead through the dark sodden trees.

  Debra woke in the silence. She had fallen asleep in the midst of the storm, perhaps as a form of escape.

  Now she groped for the warm comforting body of the dog but he was gone. There was a patch of warmth on the bed beside her where he had lain.

  She listened intently and there was nothing but the soft sounds of water in the guttering and far-off the growl of thunder. She remembered her earlier panic and she was ashamed.

  She stood up from the bed and she was shivering with the cold in her loose, free-flowing dark blue maternity blouse, and the elastic-fronted slacks that were adjustable to her expanding waistline. She felt with her toes and found the light ballet pumps on the stone floor and pushed her feet into them.

  She started towards her dressing-room for a sweater, then she would make herself a cup of hot soup, she decided.

  Zulu started barking. He was outside in the front garden. Clearly he had left the house through the small hinged doorway that David had built especially for him in the veranda wall.

  The dog had many barks, each with a different meaning which Debra understood.

  A self-effacing woof, that was the equivalent of the watch-man’s ‘Ten o’clock on a June night – and all’s well.’

  Or a longer-drawn-out yowl, that meant, ‘There is a full moon out tonight, and the wolfs blood in my veins will not allow me to sleep.’

  A sharper, meaningful bark, ‘Something is moving down near the pumphouse. It may be a lion.’

  And then there was an urgent clamouring chorus, ‘There is dire danger threatening. Beware! Beware!’

  It was the danger bark now, and then growling through closed jaws as though he were worrying something.

  Debra went out on to the veranda and she felt the puddled rainwater soaking through her light shoes. Zulu was harrying something in the front garden, she could hear the growling and scuffling, the movement of bodies locked in a struggle. She stood silently, uncertain of what to do, knowing only that she could not go out to Zulu. She was blind and helpless against the unknown adversary. As she hesitated she heard clearly the sound of a heavy blow. It cracked on bone, and she heard
the thump of a body falling. Zulu’s growls were cut off abruptly, and there was silence. Something had happened to the dog. Now she was completely alone in the silence.

  No, not silence. There was the sound of breathing – a heavy panting breath.

  Debra shrank back against the veranda wall, listening and waiting.

  She heard footsteps, human footsteps coming through the garden towards the front door. The footsteps squelched and splashed in the rain puddles.

  She wanted to call out a challenge, but her voice was locked in her constricted throat. She wanted to run, but her legs were paralysed by the sound of the intruder climbing the front steps.

  A hand brushed against the wire screening, and then settled on the handle, rattling it softly.

  At last Debra found her voice. ‘Who is that?’ she called, a high panicky cry that ran out into the night silence.

  Instantly the soft sounds ceased. The intruder was frozen by her challenge. She could imagine whoever it was standing on the top step, peering through the screening into the darkness of the veranda, trying to make her out in the gloom. Suddenly she was thankful for the dark blouse and black slacks.

  She waited motionlessly, listening, and she heard a little wind shake the tree-tops, bringing down a sudden quick patter of droplets. A hunting owl called down near the dam. She heard the thunder murmur bad-temperedly along the hills, and a nightjar screeched harshly from amongst the poinsettia bushes.

  The silence went on for a long time, and she knew she could not stand it much longer. She could feel her lips beginning to quiver and the cold and fear and the weight of the child were heavy upon her bladder, she wanted to run – but there was nowhere to run to.

  Then suddenly the silence was broken. In the darkness there was the sound of a man giggling. It was shockingly close and clear, and it was a crazy sound. The shock of it seemed to clutch at her heart and crush the air from her lungs. Her legs went weak under her, beginning to shake, and the pressure on her bladder was intolerable – for she recognized the sound of that laughter, the sick insane sound of it was graven upon her mind.