A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 74

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"There is one of them," Matatu began, then broke off.

Sean opened his eyes with resignation. "Tell me," he invited drowsily.

"There is one of these Renamo I have seen before."

"You know one of them?" Sean came fully awake.

"I think so, but it was long ago, and I cannot remember where."

Sean was silent as he considered that simple statement and what it really entailed. Sean would have had difficulty remembering the face of every person he had met in, say, the last ten years. Here was Matatu bemoaning the fact that he could not instantly recognize a single set of footprints, which he had last seen years previously, out of a jumble of other tracks.

Even though he had seen Matatu Perform similar feats so many aim times before, he felt a creep of doubt at Matatu's el mil darkn "Go to sleep, you silly little bugger." He s ed in the ess, by the scruff of the neck, and shook his woolly took the little man head with rough affection. "Perhaps You'll dream his name in your sleep. she was running naked through a Sean dreamed of Claudia.

dark forest. The trees were black and leafless, with crooked limbs.

A pack of wolves pursued her. They also were black as night but glistening white fangs and red lolling tongues. Claudia called with his name as she ran, and her skin was pale and luminous as the moon. He tried to go to her, but his legs dragged as though he waded through a pool of treacle. He tried to call her name, but his tongue was lead in his mouth and no sound came from his throat.

He awoke with a hand roughly shaking his shoulder. He tried to shout again, but it came out in a garbled slur. t6wake up!" Matatu shook him. "You were crying and moaning. Renamo will hear You!"

He sat up quickly. The cold seemed to have frozen the muscles n him. it took in his legs, and the terror of the dream was still upO him seconds to focus on reality and remember where he was.

"You're getting past it, boyo." He was humiliated. A Scout slept ess or had his throat soundlessly and awoke to immediate aw aren cut while he was grunting and snoring- whispered. Already the "It win be light enough soon," Matatu dawn chorus of bird cab tinkled and chirruped through the forest and he could make gut the latticework of thorn branches against the sky.

"Let's go." Sean stood up.

While the sun was still low and the dew was on the grass, they up to the dry river-bed in which Renarno had bivouacked for came the night.

The band had moved on again at first light but could not be far ahead.

matatu picked Claudia's footprints Out Of the ruck in the soft sand of the river-bed. she moves with less pain," he told Sean-The leg is healing, but Job and Dedan are still carrying her. Here she climbed into the litter."

Matatu left the distinctive feminine prints and hovered over another set of larger male tracks that to Scan were indistinguishable from all the others, except that whoever had made them wore boots with a double herringbone pattern on the sole. " Im him"

aw Matatu whispered. "I know the way this one walks." He shook his head in frustration and turned away.

They went forward with extreme caution now. e trail led them T'h directly toward the higher ground along the escarpment of the valley, and soon they entered the foothills. Whoever was commanding the Renamo column knew exactly where he was headed.

Sean was expecting at any moment to make contact with the rear guard of the column. He dreaded the thought that the first warning they might receive could be the wicked crackle of an RPD light mi'e gun, filing at a rate of six hundred rounds a minute.

Here in the hills every boulder, every fold of ground was a possible enemy redoubt and had to be minutely inspected before W they could move on. Sean fretted with impatience but forced himself to gear his advance to the difficult terrain.

i They turned the corner of another low hill and through a frieze Of graceful lusm trees an open vista stretched ahead to where the massif of the central escarpment rose above its foothills.

"There it is," Sean murmured. "That's where they'll be laying for us."

The spoor was pointed directly at a pass through the escarpment. The entrance was guarded by chffi of red stone. The gut of the pass was almost devoid of trees or cover and yet the sides were heavily hushed. It was a natural trap, a perfect killing ground.

Matatu whistled in the center. Sean doubled over, keeping Off the crest as he ran down to join him. From the center, there was an Unimpeded view up the gut of the valley and Sean saw movement against the scree and yellow grass. He lifted the binoculars to his eyes, and the line of dark moving specks resolved through the lens into a column of men.

They were toiling up the incline in single file. Most of them wore tiger-striped camouflage and jungle hats, although a few were dressed in a motley of denim and khaki. The front of the column was already into the bush at the head of the valley at least three miles distant, but through his binoculars Sean counted twelve men The litter was in the center. Four of them were carrying it t I was men on the front poles and two on the back. Sean tried to pick out Claudia's form, but before he could refocus his binoculars the litter and the bearers had reached the tree fine and disappeared.

Sean lowered his binoculars and polished the lens with his handkerchief. Pumula had come in from the other flank, and now he and Matatu crouched in the junibolme of rock and coarse bush and

_"J

studied the lie of the land in gloomy silence. Again Sean raised the rfec glasses and studied the steep bushy sides. It was ape t site for an ambush; they could catch Sean's party in enfilade and crossfire as they tried to climb the valley.

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