The Burning Shore - Smith Wilbur - Страница 117

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It's for the child, and she will never know, he decided.

He lifted the flap of the greatcoat, and hesitated again before touching her so intimately.

Forgive me, please, he apologized to the unconscious girl, and took her barest breast in his hand. The weight and the heat and velvet feel of it was a shock in his loins, but he tried to ignore it. He pressed and kneaded, with Shasa blustering and mouthing furiously at his hand, and then rocked back on his heels and covered Centaine with the coat.

Now, what the hell do we do, boy? Your mother's lost her milk. He picked Shasa up. No, don't try me, my friend, this is another dry house, I'm afraid. We'll have to camp here while I go shopping. He cut thorn branches and dragged them into a circular laager to keep out hyena or other predators and built a large fire in the centre.

You'll have to come with me, he said to the querulous infant, and strapping the canvas bag across his shoulder, he rode out on his hunting horse.

He found a herd of zebra around the next bluff of the mountain. Using his horse as a screen, he worked to within easy rifle-shot of the herd and picked out a mare with a young foal at her side. He hit her cleanly in the head and she dropped instantly. When he walked up to the dead zebra, the foal ran only a few yards, and then circled back.

Sorry, old fellow, Lothar said to it. The orphan would have no chance of survival and the bullet he gave it in the head was swift mercy.

Lothar knelt beside the dead mare and pulled back her top leg to expose the swollen black udders. He was able to draw half a canteen of warm milk from her. It was rich and topped with thick yellow cream. He diluted it with an equal quantity o warm water and soaked a folded square of cotton torn from his shirt into the mixture.

Shasa spluttered and kicked and turned his head away, but Lothar persisted. This is the only item on the menu Suddenly Shasa learned the trick of it. Milk dribbled down his chin, but some of it went down his throat, and he yelled impatiently every time Lothar pulled the wad of shirt out of his mouth to resoak it.

Lothar slept that night with Shasa against his chest, and woke before dawn when the child demanded his breakfast. There was zebra milk remaining from the previous evening.

By the time he had fed the boy, and then washed him in a mug of water warmed on the fire, it was after sunrise. When Lothar set him down, Shasa set off at a gallop on his hands and knees towards the horses, giving breathless cries of excitement.

Lothar felt that swollen feeling in his chest that he had not known since the death of his own son, and lifted him on to the horse's back. Shasa kicked and gurgled with laughter, and the hunting pony reached back and snuffled at him with ears pricked.

We'll make a horseman of you before you walk, Lothar laughed.

However, when he went to Centaine's litter and tried gently to rouse her, his concern was intense. She was still unconscious, though she moaned and rolled her head from side to side when he touched the leg. It was swollen and bruised, and clotted blood had dried on the stitches.

My God, what a mess, he whispered, but when he searched for the livid lines of gangrene up her thigh, he found none.

There was another unpleasant discovery, however, Centaine needed the same attention as her son.

He undressed her quickly. The canvas skirt and mantel were her only clothing, and he tried to remain unmoved and clinical when he looked at her.

He could not do so. Up to this time Lothar has based his concept of feminine beauty on the placid round blonde Rubensesque charms of his mother, and after her, his wife Amelia. Now he found his standards abruptly overturned.

This woman was lean as a greyhound, with a tucked-in belly in which he could see the separate muscles clearly defined beneath the skin. That skin, even where it was untouched by the sun, was cream rather than pure milk.

Her body hair, instead of being pale and wispy, was thick and dark and curly. Her limbs were long and NVillowy, not round and dimpled at elbow and knee. She was firm to the touch, his fingers did not sink into her flesh as they had into other flesh he had known, and where the sun had reached her legs and arms and face, she was the colour of lightly oiled teak.

He tried not to dwell upon these things, as he rolled her deftly but gently on to her face, but when he saw that her buttocks were round and hard and white as a perfect pair of ostrich eggs, something flopped in his stomach, and his hands shook uncontrollably as he finished cleaning her.

He experienced no revulsion at the task, it was as natural as his attention to the child had been, and afterwards he wrapped her in the greatcoat again and squatted on his heels beside her to examine her face minutely.

Again he found her features differed from his previous conception of feminine beauty. That halo of thick, kinky dark hair was almost African, those black eyebrows were too stark, her chin too thrusting and stubborn, the whole cast and set of her features was far too assertive to bear comparison with the gentle compliance of those other women. Even though she was totally relaxed, Lothar could still read on her face the marks of great suffering and hardship, perhaps as great as his own, and as he touched the smooth brown cheek, he felt almost fatalistically drawn to her, as though it had been ordained from that first glimpse of her so many months before. Abruptly he shook his head with annoyance and a quick sense of his own ridiculous sentimentality.

I know nothing of you, or you of me. He looked up quickly, and with a guilty start realized that the child had crawled away under the horses hooves. With chuckles of glee, he was snatching at their inquisitive puffing nostrils, as they stretched down to him, sniffing at him.

Leading the pack horse and carrying the child, Lothar reached his wagons late that same afternoon.

Swart Hendrick and the camp servants ran out to meet him, agog with curiosity, and Lothar gave his orders.

I want a separate shelter for the woman, alongside mine. Thatch the roof to keep it cool, and hang canvas sides we can raise to let in the breeze, and I want it ready by nightfall. He carried Centaine to his own cot and bathed her again before dressing her in one of the long nightgowns that Anna Stok had provided.

She was still not conscious, though once she opened her eyes. They were unfocused and dreamy, and she muttered in French so he could not understand.

He told her, You are safe. You are with friends. The pupils of her eyes reacted to light, which he knew was an encouraging sign, but the lids fluttered closed and she relapsed into unconsciousness, or sleep from which he was careful not to rouse her.

With access to his medicine chest again, Lothar was able to redress her wounds, spreading them liberally with an ointment which was his favourite cure-all inherited from his mother. He bound them up in fresh bandages.

By this time the child was once again hungry and letting it be widely known. Lothar had a milch-goat amongst his stock, and he held Shasa on his lap while he fed him the diluted goat's milk. Afterwards he tried to make Centaine drink a little warm soup, but she struggled weakly and almost choked. So he carried her to the shelter which his servants had completed, and laid her on a cot of laced rawhide thongs with a sheepskin mattress and fresh blankets. He placed the child besided her and during the night he woke more than once from a light sleep to go to them.

just before dawn he at last fell into deep sleep, only to be shaken awake almost immediately.

What is it? He reached instinctively for the rifle at his head.

Come quickly! Swart Hendrick's hoarse whisper at his ear. The cattle were restless. I thought it might be a lion. What is it, man? Lothar demanded irritably. Get on with it, spit it out. It was not a lion, much worse! There are wild San out there. They have been creeping around the camp all night. I think they are after the cattle. Lothar swung his legs over the cot and groped for his boots.

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