The Burning Shore - Smith Wilbur - Страница 98
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This is the last time we can hunt, the spirits are most insistent. No man of the San may kill any living thing within five days march of "the Place of All Life", he explained to Centaine, as he selected long whippy saplings of the grewia bush, peeled them and lashed them together until he had a strong flexible rod almost thirty feet long. On the final section, he left a side branch that grew back at an acute angle to the main stem, like a crude fish-hook, and he sharpened the point of this hook and hardened it in the fire. Then he spent a long time carefully examining the burrows of the spring-hare colony, before selecting one which suited his design.
While the women knelt beside him, he introduced the hooked end of the rod into the opening of the burrow, and like a chimney-sweep worked it gently down the shaft, deftly guiding it around the subterranean curves and bends until almost the entire length was down in the earth.
Suddenly the rod pulsed strongly in his hands, and immediately O'wa struck, jerking back like a hardline fisherman who feels the pull of the fish.
He is kicking at the rod now, trying to hit it with his back legs, O'wa grunted, pushing the rod deeper into the hole, tempting the trapped spring-hare to kick out at it again.
This time, as he struck, the rod came alive in his hands, kicking and twitching and jerking.
U I have hooked him! He threw his weight back on the i k rod, driving the sharpened wooden point deeper into the El t animals flesh. Dig, H'ani. Dig, Nam Child!
The two women flew at the soft friable earth with their staves, digging down swiftly. The muffled shrieks of the ".
I hooked spring-hare grew louder as they came nearer to i the end of the long gaff, until finally O'wa heaved the furry creature clear of its earth. It was the size of a large yellow cat, and it leaped about wildly on the end of the pliant rod on its powerful kangaroo back legs, until H'ani despatched it with a swinging blow of her stave.
By nightfall they had killed two more spring-hare, and after they had thanked them, they feasted on the sweet tender roasted flesh, the last they would eat for a long time.
in the morning when they set out again on the final leg of the journey, a sharp hot wind blew into their faces.
Although it was taboo for O'wa to hunt, the Kalahari bloomed in a rich and rare abundance both below and above the ground. There were flowers and green leafy plants to be eaten as salads, roots and tubers, fruits and protein-rich nuts, and the water-holes, all of them brimming, were easy marches apart. Only the wind hampered them, standing steadily into their faces, hot and abrasive with blown sand, forcing them to cover their faces with their leather shawls and lean into it.
The mixed herds of fat handsome zebra and ungainly blue wildebeest with their scraggy manes and skinny legs standing out on the wide pans or on the grassy glades turned their rumps into the sultry blast. The wind ripped the talcum-fine dust off the surface of the pans and whirled it into the sky, turning the air misty, so the sun itself was a hazy orange globe and the horizons shrank in upon them.
The dust floated on the surface of the water-holes in a thin scum, and it turned to mud in their nostrils and grated between their teeth. It formed little wet beads in the corners of their eyes and dried and cracked their skins so that H'ani and Centaine had to roast and crush the seeds of the sour plum tree to extract the oil to dress their skins and the soles of their feet.
However, with each day's march the old people became stronger, more active and excited. They seemed less and less affected by the scouring wind. There was a new jauntiness in their step and they chattered animatedly to each other on the march, while Centaine faltered and dropped far behind, almost as she had done at the beginning.
On the fifth evening after crossing the ridge, Centaine staggered into the camp that the San had already set up on the edge of yet another open pan. Centaine lay on the bare earth, too hot and exhausted to gather grass for her bed.
When Rani came to her with food, she pushed it away petulantly. I don't want it. I don't want anything. I hate this land, I hate the heat and the dust. Soon, H'ani soothed her, very soon we will reach the Place of All Life, and your baby will be born. But Centaine rolled away from her. Leave me, just leave me alone. She woke to the cries of the old people, and she dragged herself up, feeling fat and dirty and unrested, even though she had slept so late that the sun was already tipping the tops of the trees, on the far side of the pan. immediately she saw that the wind had dropped during the night and most 0 f the dust had settled out of the air. The residue transformed the dawn to a kaleidoscope of flamboyant colour.
Nam Child, do you see it! H'ani called to her, and then trilled like a Christmas beetle, inarticulate with excitement. Centaine straightened up slowly and stared at the scene that the dust clouds had obscured the previous evening.
Across the pan a great whale-backed mountain rose abruptly out of the desert, steep-sided and with a sym.
A metrically rounded summit. Aglow with all the rich reds and golds of the dawn, it looked like a headless monster.
Parts of the mountain were bald and bare, glowing red rock and smooth cliffs, while in other places it was heavily forested; trees much taller and more robust than those of the plain crowned the summit or grew up the steep sides. The strange reddish light suffused with dust and the silences of the African dawn cloaked the entire mountain in majestic serenity.
Centaine felt all her miseries and her woes fall away as she stared at it.
"The Place of All Life"! As H'ani said the name, her agitation passed and her voice sank to a whisper. This is the sight we have travelled so far and so hard to look upon for the last time.
Olwa had fallen silent as well, but now he bobbed his head in agreement. This is where we will make our peace at last with all the spirits of our people. Centaine felt the same sense of deep religious awe that had overcome her when first she had entered the cathedral of Arras, holding her father's hand, and looked up at the gemlike stained glass in the high gloomy recesses of the towering nave. She knew that she stood on the threshold of a holy place, and she sank slowly to her knees and clasped her hands over the swell of her stomach.
The mountain was further off than it had seemed in the red light of the dawn. As they marched towards it, it seemed to recede rather than draw closer. As the light changed, so the mountain changed its mood. It became remote and austere, and the stone cliffs glittered in the sunlight like a crocodile's scales.
O'wa sang as he trotted at the head of the file: See, spirits of the San We come to your secret place With clean hands, unstained by blood.
Al See, spirit of Eland and Mantis, We come to visit you with joyous hearts, and songs for your amusement The mountain changed again, began to quiver and tremble i in the rising heat. It was no longer massive stone, but rippled like water and wavered like smoke.
It broke free of the earth and floated in the air on a shimmering silver mirage.
O, bird mountain That flies in the sky We bring YOU praises.
O, Elephant Mountain, greater than Any beast of earth or sky, we hail you, O'wa sang, and as the sun swung through its zenith and the air cooled, so the Mountain of All Life settled to earth again and loomed high above them.
They reached the scree slopes, loose stone and debris that lay piled against the cliffs, and paused to look up at the high summit. The rocks were painted with lichen growth, sulphur-yellow and acid-green, and the little hyrax rock rabbits had stained the cliffs with seepage from their middens, like tears from an elephant's eyes.
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