A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 55

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Riccardo stopped and doubled over with laughter. Claudia turned on them furiously. "How can you laugh? That's the most outrageous story I've ever heard."

"Oh, I don't know," Sean replied evenly. "I don't think ten dollars was so outrageous. I think old China was being fairly lenient."

She tossed her head and lengthened her stride to catch up with Matatu, and Riccardo still chuckling, asked, "After the war, what happened to this character?"

Sean shrugged. "He was in the new government in Harare for a while, but then he disappeared in one of the political purges. He might have been liquidated.. the old revolutionaries are always looked on with distrust when the regime they fought for comes to power. Nobody likes sharing a bed with a trained killer and toppler of other rulers."

Sean called a halt an hour before dark for a brew of tea and their frugal evening meal. While Job cooked it over his small smokeless fire, Sean took Matatu aside and talked to him quietly. The tracker watched Sean's face as he spoke, nodding eagerly, and as soon as he finished Matatu slipped away, heading back the way they had come.

Riccardo looked a question as Sean came back to join them and he explained.

"I sent Matatu to backtrack us. Make sure we aren't being followed. I'm worried about that shot. It could have called up those uglies we found near the border."

Riccardo nodded. Then he asked, "Have you got a couple of aspirin, Sean?"

Sean opened the side flap of his pack and shook three tablets from their bottle.

"Headache?" he asked as he passed them to Riccardo, who nodded as he popped them into his mouth and washed them down with a swallow of hot tea.

"The dust and sun glare," he explained. But both Sean and Claudia were studying him and he bridled. "Damn it, don't look at me like that. I'm fine."

"Sure," Sean agreed smoothly. "Let's eat and move on to find a place to sleep." He went across to the cooking fire and squatted beside Job.

They talked softly.

"Papa," Claudia moved a little closer to her father and touched his arm. "How are you feeling, honestly?"

Don't worry about me, tesoro.

"it has started, hasn't it?"

"No," he replied, too swiftly.

Doc Andrews said there might be headaches."

"It's the sun."

"I love you, Papa," she said.

"I know, baby, and I love you too."

"An ocean and a mountain?" she asked.

"The stars and the moon," he confirmed, putting his arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him.

As soon as they had eaten, Job doused the fire and Sean got them up and moving again. Tukutela's spoor was easy to follow in the soft earth, and he and Job had no need of Matatu for this stage.

However, at dark they were forced to stop for the night.

"We'll reach the swamps tomorrow afternoon," Sean promised Riccardo as they stretched out on top of their sleeping bags.

Claudia lay awake worrying about her father long after the others were asleep. Riccardo snored softly, lying on his back with his arms extended like a crucifix. When she raised herself on one elbow to look at him in the starlight, she heard Sean's light breathing alter subtly and sensed he had been awakened by her movement, He slept as lightly as a cat; sometimes he frightened her, But even her concern for her father was at last overcome and she fell into that dark, drugged sleep of exhaustion. Waking was like coming back from a faraway place.

"Wake up, come on, wake up." Sean was slapping her face lightly, and she pushed his hand away and sat up groggily.

"What?" she mumbled. "God, it's still dark."

He had left her and gone to her father. "Come on, Capo, wake UP, man, wake UP. "What the hell, what is it?" Riccardo's voice was slurred and grumpy.

"Matatu has just come into camp," Sean told them quietly. "We are being followed."

Claudia felt the icy wind of dread blow across her skin. "Followed? By whom?"

"We don't know," Sean said.

"The same bunch that was camped at the border?" Riccardo asked. His voice was still slurred.

"Possibly," Sean said.

"What are you going to do?" Claudia asked, annoyed that her tone sounded afraid and confused.

"We are going to give them the slip," Sean said. "Get up on your hind legs."

They had slept with their boots on. They had simply to roll their sleeping bags and they were ready to move out.

"Matatu is going to lead you away and cover your spoor," Sean explained. "Job and I are going to lay a false trail for them in the original direction. As soon as it's light we'll break away and circle back to join you."

"You aren't going to leave us alone?" Claudia blurted out fearfully, then bit it off.

"No, you won't be alone. Matatu and Pumula and Dedan will be with you," Sean told her disdainfully.

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