Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 29

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great." Vicky took the food and ate with high relish, pausing only to

stare at Gareth Swales as he came to the fire freshly shaven and

perfectly groomed, wearing a spotless open-neck shirt and a baggy pair

of plus-four trousers in an expensive thorn-proof tweed. His brogues

gleamed with polish, and he smoothed his golden moustaches and raised

an eyebrow when Jake exploded with delighted laughter.

"Jesus,"he laughed. "Anyone for golf?"

"I say, old son, "Gareth admonished him, amiably running an eye over

Jake's faded moleskins,

scuffed Chukka boots and plaid shirt with a tear in the sleeve. "Your

breeding is showing. just because we are in Africa, there is no need

to go native, what?" Then he glanced at Gregorius and flashed that

brilliant smile. "No offence, of course. I must say you look jolly

dashing in that get-up." Gregorius swathed in his sham ma looked up

from his breakfast and returned the smile. "East is east, and west is

west," he said.

"Old Wordsworth certainly knew his stuff," Gareth agreed, and dipped a

spoon into the pan.

The four vehicles, grotesquely burdened and strung out at intervals of

two hundred yards to avoid each other's dust, crawled out of the

coastal dunes into the vast littoral where the wind rustled endlessly

but brought no relief from the steadily rising heat.

Jake was pointing the column on a compass-bearing slightly southerly of

that which he would have chosen without Gregorius's advice. They aimed

to pass below the sprawling salt pans which

Gregorius warned were treacherous going.

For the first two hours, the fluffy yellow earth offered no serious

obstacle to their passage, except that the narrow solid tyres cut in

deeply and created a wearying drag that kept the speed down below ten

miles an hour and the old engines grinding in the lower gears.

Then the earth firmed, but was strewn with black stone that had been

rounded and polished by the grit-laden wind and varied in size from

acorns to ostrich eggs. Their speed dropped away a little more as the

cars bounced and jolted over this murderous surface, and the black rock

threw the heat back at them, so they rode with all hatches and

engine-louvres wide open. Though all of them, including Vicky, had

stripped to their underwear, still they ran with sweat that dried

almost immediately it oozed from their pores. The exposed metal of the

cars, although it was painted white, would blister the hand that

touched it, and the engine heat and stench of hot oil and fuel in the

driver's compartments was swiftly becoming unbearable as the sun

climbed to its zenith.

An hour before noon, Priscilla the Pig blew the safety valve on her

radiator and sent a shrieking plume of steam high into the air.

Jake earthed the magneto and stopped her immediately. He climbed,

half-naked and shiny with sweat, from the turret and shaded his eyes to

peer out across the wavering heat-distorted plain. There was no

horizon in this haze and visibility was uncertain after a few hundred

yards.

Even the other vehicles lumbering far behind him seemed monstrous and

unreal.

He waited for the others to come up before calling, "Switch off.

We can't go on in this. the engine oil will be thin as water, and

we'll ruin all the bearings if we try.

We'll wait for it to cool a little." Thankfully, they climbed from the

cars and crawled into the shade of the chassis where they lay panting

like dogs. Jake went down the line with a five-gallon tin of

blood-warm. water and gave them each as much as they could drink

before collapsing on the blanket beside Vicky.

"It's too hot to walk back to my own car," he explained, and she took

it with good grace, merely nodding and closing one more button of her

half-open blouse.

Jake wet his handkerchief from the water can and offered it to her.

Gratefully, she wiped her neck and face and sighed with pleasure.

"It's too hot to sleep," she murmured. "Entertain me, Jake."

"Well now!" he grinned, and she laughed.

"I said it's too hot. Let's talk."

"About "About you. Tell me about you what part of Texas are you

from?"

"All of it. Wherever my pa could find work."

"What did he do?

"Wrangled cattle, and rode rodeo."

"Sounds fun." Jake shrugged.

"I preferred machines to horses."

"Then?"

"There was this war, and they needed mechanics to drive tanks."

"Afterwards? Why didn't you go home?"

"Pa was dead a steer fell on him, and it wasn't worth the journey to go

collect his old saddle and blanket." They were silent for a while,

just lying and riding the solid waves of heat that came off the

earth.

"Tell me about your dream, Jake," she said at last.

"My dream?"

"Everybody has a dream." He smiled ruefully.. "I've got a dream-" he

hesitated, "there is this idea of mine. It's an engine, the Barton

engine.

It's all there." He tapped his forehead. "All I need is the money to

build it. For ten years, I've tried to get it together.

Nearly had it a couple of times."

"After this trip, you will have it," she suggested.

"Perhaps." He shook his head. "I've been too sure too many times to

make any bets, though."

"Tell me about the engine," she said and he talked quietly but eagerly

for ten minutes.

It was a new design, a lightweight, economical design. "It would drive

anything, water pump, saw mill, motorcycle, that sort of thing."

He was intent, happy, she saw. "I'd only need a small workshop to

begin with, some place back west I've thought about Fort Worth-" he

stopped himself, and glanced at her. "Sorry, I was running on a

bit."

"No," she said quickly. "I enjoyed listening. I hope it works out for

you, Jake." He nodded. "Thanks. And they rode the heat for a few

more minutes in companionable silence.

"What's your dream?" he asked at last, and she laughed lightly.

"No, tell me,"he insisted.

"There is this book. It's a novel I have thought about it for years. I

have written it in my head a hundred times all I have to do is find the

time and the place to write it on paper--2 she broke off,

and then laughed again. "And then, of course, it sounds corny but I

think about kids and a home. I have been travelling too long."

"I know what you mean." Jake nodded. "That's a good dream you've got,

"he said thoughtfully. "Better than mine." Gareth Swales heard the

murmur of their voices and raised himself on one elbow. For a while he

thought seriously about crossing the dozen yards of sunbaked black

stones to where they lay but the effort required was just too much and

he fell back. A fist-sized rock jarred his kidneys and he cursed

quietly.

It was five o'clock before Jake judged they could start the engines

again. They refuelled from the cans strapped on the sponsons,

and once more they set off in column at an agonized walking pace over

the rough surface, each jolt shaking driver and vehicle cruelly.

Two hours later, the plain of black boulders ended abruptly, and beyond

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