The Burning Shore - Smith Wilbur - Страница 132
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The road was rough, the surface freshly blasted rock, sharp as knife-blades. Long ranks of black labourers, stripped to the waist and glistening with sweat, were pounding the rock with sledgehammers, breaking up the lumps and levelling the roadway. They stood aside, resting on their hammers, as Centaine drove up the pass in Abraham Abrahams dusty Ford, bumping slowly over the jagged stone, a nd when she shouted a question, they grinned and pointed on upwards.
The road became steeper as it wound into the mountains and the gradients became so severe that at one place Centaine had to turn the Ford and reverse up the slope.
At last she could go no further. A Hottentot foreman ran down the rough track to meet her, waving a red flag over his head.
Paso PI missus! Look out, madam! They are going to fire the charges. Centaine parked on the verge of the half-built road under a sign-board that read: De La Rey Construction Company Road-building and Civil-Engineering And she climbed down, and stretched her long legs. She was wearing breeches and boots and a man's shirt, The Hottentot foreman stared at her legs until she told him sharply, That will be all. Go about your duties, man, or your boss will know of it. She unwound the scarf from around her head and fluffed out her hair. Then she dampened a cloth from the canvas water-cooler that hung on the side of the Ford and wiped the dust from her face. It was fifty miles from Windhoek, and she had been driving since before dawn. She lifted the wicker basket off the back seat and set it beside her as she settled on the running-board of the Ford. The hotel chef had provided ham and egg sandwiches and a bottle of cold sweetened tea, and she was suddenly hungry.
As she ate she gazed out across the open plains far below her. She had forgotten how the grass shone in the sunlight like woven silver cloth, then suddenly she thought of long blond hair that shone the same way, and against her will she felt a rising heat in the pit of her belly and her nipples tightened and started out.
instantly she was ashamed of that momentary weakness, and she told herself fiercely, I hate him, and I hate this thing he has placed inside me. Almost as though the thought might have triggered it, it squirmed with her, a deep and secret movement, and her hatred wavered like a candle flame in the draught.
I must be strong, she told herself. I must be constant, for Shasa's sake. From behind her, up at the head of the pass, there came the distant shrilling of a warning whistle, followed by a brittle waiting silence. Centaine stood up and shaded her eyes, involuntarily tensing in expectation.
Then the earth leaped beneath her and the shock wave of the explosion beat upon her eardrums. A dust column shot high into the blue desert air, and the mountai in was cleaved as though by a garantuan axe-stroke. Sheets of grey-blue shale peeled away from the slope and slid in a liquid avalanche down into the valley below. The echoes of the explosion leapt from kloof to kloof, dwindling gradually, and the dust column blew softly away.
Centaine remained standing, staring up the slope, and after a while the figure of a horseman was outlined on the high crest. Slowly he rode down the raw track, the horse picking its way gingerly over the broken treacherous footing, and he was tall in the saddle, graceful and limber as a sapling in the wind.
If only he were not so beautiful, she whispered.
He lifted the wide-brimmed hat with its ostrich feathers from his head and slapped the dust from his breeches. His golden hair burned like a beacon fire, and she swayed slightly on her feet. At the foot of the slope, a hundred paces from Centaine, he threw his leg over the horse's neck, slipped to the ground, and threw the reins to the Hottentot foreman.
The foreman spoke urgently and pointed to where Centaine waited.
Lothar nodded and came striding down towards her. Halfway, he stopped abruptly and stared at her. Even at that distance she saw his eyes turn bright as yellow sapphires and he launched into a run.
Centaine did not move. She stood stiffly, staring up at him, and ten paces from her he saw her expression and halted again.
Centaine. I never thought to see you again, my darling. He started forward.
Don't touch me, she said coldly, fighting down the panic rising within her. I warned you once, don't ever touch me again.
Why do you come here then? he asked harshly. Isn't it enough that your memory has plagued me these long lonely months since I last saw you? Must you come in the flesh to torment me? I have come to make a bargain with you. Her voice was icy, for she had control over herself now. I come to offer you a trade. What is your bargain? If you are a part of it, then I accept before you state your terms. No, she shook her head. I would kill myself first. His chin came up angrily, though his eyes were wretched and hurting. You are without mercy."That I must have learned from you! State your terms. You will take me back to the place in the desert where you found me. You will provide transport and servants and all that is necessary for me to reach the mountain, and to exist there for a year. Why do you want to go there? That does not concern you. That is not true, it does concern me. Why do you need me? I could search for years, and die without finding it. He nodded.
You are right, of course, but what you are asking will cost a great deal. Everything I have is in this company, I don't have a shilling in my pocket. I want your services only, she told him. I will pay for the vehicles, the equipment and the wages of the servants. Then it is possible, but what about my side of the bargain? In exchange, she placed her right hand over her stomach, I will give you the bastard you left in me. He gaped at her.
Centaine- Slow, deep joy spread over his face. A child! You are to have our child! Instinctively, he came towards her again, Stay back, she warned him, not our child. It's yours alone. I want nothing to do with it after it is born. I don't even want to see it. You will take it from the childbed, and do whatever you want with it. I don't want it. I hate it, and I hate the man who put it in me.
With Lothar's wagons the journey from the Place of All Life to their rendezvous with Garry Courtney at the Finger of God had taken weeks. Their return to the mountain range took only eight days, and would have been quicker, except that they had to build the road for the all, motor vehicles through several rocky valleys and numerous dry river beds. Twice Lothar had to resort to dynamite to break a way through obdurate rock.
The convoy consisted of the Ford and two lorries, which Centaine had purchased in Windhoek. Lothar had chosen six camp servants, two black drivers for the lorries, and as a bodyguard for Centaine and camp overseer, he selected i Swart Hendrick, his Ovambo henchman.
I cannot trust him, Centaine had protested. He's like a man-eating lion. You can trust him, Lothar assured her, because he knows that if he fails you in even the smallest degree, I will kill him very, very slowly. He said it in front of Swart Hendric, who grinned, c It is true, missus, he has done it to others. Lothar travelled in the lead truck with Swart Hendrick and the construction gang. In forest country the black gang r an ahead of the slow-moving convoy, hacking out the road, and when the forest opened, they swarmed on to the back of the truck and the convoy bowled forward at a good speed. The second lorry, heavily laden with stores and equipment, followed the first, and Centaine brought up the rear at the wheel of the Ford.
Each night she ordered her tent to be set up well separated from the rest of the camp. She ate her meals there and slept with a loaded shotgun beside the bed. Lothar seemed to have accepted her terms of contract; his bearing was proud, but he became increasingly silent and he spoke to her only when the conduct of the expedition demanded it.
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