Rage - Smith Wilbur - Страница 54
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'Garry!" he said urgently. 'Walk backwards! Don't run, but ge out of here,' and without looking around he swung the sling of the rifle off his shoulder.
The lion dropped into a crouch, its long tail with the black bust of hair at the tip lashed back and forth like a metronome, as il gathered itself for the charge, and its yellow eyes fastened on Shasa.
a focus for all its rage. u Shasa knew there would be time for only a single shot, for it would cover the ground between them in a blazing blur of speed. The light was too bad and the range was too far for that single shot to be conclusive, he would let it come in to where there could be no doubt, and the big 300-grain soft-nosed bullet from the Holland and Holland would shatter its skull and blow its brains to a mush.
The lion launched into its charge, keeping low to the earth, snaking in and grunting as it came, gut-shaking bursts of sound through the gaping jaws lined with long yellow fangs. Shasa braced himself and brought up the rifle, but before he could fire, there was the sharp crack of the little Winchester beside him and the lion collapsed in the middle of his charge, going down head first and cartwheeling, flopping over on its back to expose the soft butter-yellow fur of its belly, its limbs stretching and relaxing, the long curved talons in its huge paws slowly retracting into the pads, the pink tongue lolling out of its open jaws, and the rage dying out of those pale yellow eyes. From the tiny bullet hole between its eyes a thin serpent of blood crawled down to dribble from its brow into the dirt beneath it.
In astonishment Shasa lowered his rifle and looked round. Beside him stood Garry, his head at the level of Shasa's lowest rib, the little Winchester still at his shoulder, his face set and deadly pale, and his spectacles glinting in the gloom beneath the trees.
'You killed it,' Shasa said stupidly. 'You stood your ground and killed it." Shasa walked forward slowly and stooped over the carcass of the man-eater. He shook his head in amazement, and then looked back at his son. Garry had not yet lowered the rifle, but he was beginning now to tremble with delayed terror. Shasa dipped his finger into the blood that dribbled from the wound in the man-eater's forehead, then walked back to where Garry stood. He painted the ritual stripes on the boy's forehead and cheeks.
'Now you are a man and I'm proud of you,' he said. Slowly the colour flushed back into Garry's cheeks and his lips stopped trembling, and then his face began to glow. It was an expression of such pride and unutterable joy that Shasa felt his throat close up and tears sting his eyelids.
Every servant came from the camp to view the man-eater and to hear Shasa describe the details of the hunt. Then, by the light of the lanterns, they carried the carcass back. While the skinners went to work, the men sang the song of the hunter in Garry's honour.
Sean was torn between incredulous admiration and deepest envy of his brother, while Michael was fulsome in his praises. Garry refused to wash the dried lion's blood from his face when at last, well after midnight, Shasa finally ordered them to bed. At breakfast he still wore the crusted stripes of blood on his beaming grubby face and Michael read aloud the heroic poem he had written in Garry's honour. It began: With lungs to blast the skies with sound And breath hot as the blacksmith's forge Eyes as yellow as the moon's full round And the lust on human flesh to gorge Shasa hid a smile at the laboured rhyming, and at the end applauded as loudly as the rest of them. After breakfast they all trooped out to watch the skinners dressing out the lion-skin, pegging it fur side down in the shade, scraping away the yellow subcutaneous fat and rubbing in coarse salt and alum.
'Well, I still think it died of a heart attack,' Sean could suppress his envy no longer, and Garry rounded on him furiously.
'We all know what a clever dick you are. But when you shoot your first lion, then you can come and talk to me, smarty pants. All you are good for is a few little old impala!" It was a long speech, delivered in white heat, and Garry never stumbled nor stuttered once. It was the first time Shasa had seen him stand up to Sean's casual bullying, and he waited for Sean to assert his authority. For seconds it hung in the balance, he could see Sean weighing it up, deciding whether to tweak the spikes of hair at Garry's temple or to give him a chestnut down the ribs. He could see also that Garry was ready for it, his fists clenched and his lips set in a pale determined line. Suddenly Sean grinned that charming smile.
'Only kidding,' he announced airily, and turned back to admire the tiny bullet-hole in the skull. 'Wow! Right between the eyes? It was a peace offering.
Garry looked bemused and uncertain. It was the first time that had forced Sean to back down, and he wasn't able immediately grasp that he had succeeded.
Shasa stepped up and put his arm around Garry's shoulders. 'E you know what I'm going to do, champ? I'm going to have the he fully mounted for the wall in your room, with eyes and everythin he said.
For the first time, Shasa was aware that Garry had develope hard little muscles in his shoulders and upper arm. He had alwa, thought him a runt. Perhaps he had never truly looked at the chi] before.
Then suddenly it was over, and the servants were breaking camp an packing the tents and beds on to the trucks, and appallingly th prospect of the return to Weltevreden and school loomed ahead c them. Shasa tried to keep their spirits jaunty with stories and song on the long drive back to H'am Mine but with every mile the boy were more dejected.
On the last day when the hills which the Bushmen call the 'Plac, of All Life' floated on the horizon ahead of them, detached from th earth by the shimmering heat mirage, Shasa asked, 'Have you gentle men decided what you are going to do when you leave school?" I was an attempt to cheer them up, more than a serious enquiry. 'Who about you, Sean?" 'I want to do what we have been doing. I want to be a hunter, or] elephant hunter like great-grand-uncle Sean." 'Splendid? Shasa agreed. 'Only problem I can see is that you are at least sixty years too late." 'Well then,' said Sean, Tll be a soldier - I like shooting things." A shadow passed behind Shasa's eyes before he looked at Michael.
'What about you, Mickey?" 'I want to be a writer. I will work as a newspaper reporter and in my spare time I'll write poetry and great books." 'You'll starve to death, Mickey,' Shasa laughed, and then he swivelled around to Garry who was leaning over the back of the driving seat.
'What about you, champ?" 'I'm going to do what you do, Dad." 'And what is it ! do?" Shasa demanded with interest.
'You are the chairman of Courtney Mining and Finance, and you tell everybody else what to do. That's what I want to be one day, chairman of Courtney Mining and Finance." Shasa stopped smiling and was silent for a moment, studying the child's determined expression, then he said lightly, 'Well then, it looks as though it's up to you and me to support the elephant hunter and the poet." And he ran his hand over Garry's already unruly hair. It no longer required any effort to make an affectionate gesture towards his ugly duckling.
They came singing across the rolling grasslands of Zululand, and they were one hundred strong. All of them were members of the Buffaloes and Hendrick Tabaka had carefully picked them for this special honour guard. They were the best, and all of them were dressed in tribal regalia, feathers and furs and monkey-skin capes, kilts of cow-tails. They carried only fighting-sticks, for the strictest tradition forbade metal weapons of any kind on this day.
At the head of the column Moses Gama and Hendrick Tabaka trotted. They also had set aside their European clothing for the occasion, and of all their men they alone wore leopard-skin cloaks, as was their noble right. Half a mile behind them rose the dust of the cattle herd.
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