Bunduki (Bunduki Series Book One) (24 page)

Like Dawn, Bunduki had been impressed
by the vast quantity and variety of the wild life that he had seen.
However, such was the urgency of the situation and the need to keep
watch for human enemies that he had taken neither the interest nor
the pleasure in the animals which would have been the case in less
demanding circumstances.

Once Bunduki had crossed the
river, after having made a detour to examine what the hyenas and
vultures had left of the two dead
Mun-Gatah
scouts and the zebra near the chasm, he
had ridden upstream to the ford. He had been almost certain that
the party he was following were going to the source of the smoke.
Exercising greater caution because of the proof that there were
other people—most probably Mun-Gatahs—in the area, he avoided
showing himself upon the sky-line without first having scanned the
terrain. As far as possible he kept to ground which offered some
kind of concealment.

Bunduki had been descending into the
valley when he had seen Charole and he had taken cover behind a
sizeable clump of bushes. Such had been the Protectress’s
preoccupation with her various problems that she had been unaware
of the blond giant’s presence. He had considered that was all to
the good. While his disguise would have been satisfactory at a
distance, it would not have stood up to an examination at close
range. The chief danger, to his way of thinking, had been that her
mount would catch his zebras’ scent and warn her that he was there.
However, before she had gone far enough beyond his position, the
buffalo had made its appearance.

Seeing Charole thrown and
dragged by the animal which he identified as a quagga, Bunduki did
not hesitate before going to her assistance. Nor did he give any
thought to various sounds that suggested he might be
doing the very
thing he had hoped to avoid, allow himself to be seen by members of
the Mun-Gatah nation.

Despite his size, Bunduki was a
light rider and capable of sitting his mount so as to take less out
of it than would a smaller, but less skilled, person. However, he
had pushed the two
ocha-gatahs
hard and, about a quarter of an hour earlier, he had
finally transferred to the fresher and more powerful
banar-gatah.

Releasing the
ocha-gatahs’
reins, the blond
giant set his mount into motion. It responded eagerly, showing no
concern over being guided after the charging buffalo. Urging it to
go faster, he thought how he might rescue the woman.

Obviously the first priority was to
deal with the buffalo.

How to do it was the
problem.

Bunduki’s mother had been the
granddaughter of the legendary Texas cowhand and gun fighter Mark
Counter,
^xxxvi
one of whose feats had been to
wrestle with and break the neck of a longhorn bull with his bare
hands.
^xxxvii
Bunduki knew that, although he
had learned how to ‘bulldog’ as his illustrious forebear had done,
it would not serve his purpose on this occasion. The buffalo was
bigger and bulkier than any domesticated bull. It would have tipped
the scales at more than the long-horn’s nine hundred and
seventy-five pounds’ weight.

Nor did the blond giant
consider that riding alongside the buffalo and trying to stab it to
death with the spear, even if he could draw the weapon while
travelling at speed, offered an acceptable solution. Having had to
shoot some of the Cape sub-species of
Syncerus Caffer
Caffer
—to
which the enormous bull appeared to belong—on occasion as part of
the Amagasali Wild Life Reserve’s population control program, he
knew just how hard they were to kill, even when he was armed with a
modern, double-barreled .600 rifle. Dropping the great beast using
a spear, quickly enough to save the woman would be almost
impossible.

There was, Bunduki concluded, only one
way to handle the situation.

It would be neither easy, safe, nor
secure!

As a present for his seventeenth
birthday, the blond giant’s adoptive parents had taken him for a
vacation to a ranch that was owned by his maternal grandparents in
the Big Bend country of Texas. While there, he had become the best
of friends with his look-alike American cousin.

Although Bradford Counter’s
ambition had been to follow his ‘Great-Grandpappy Mark’s’ example
by becoming a peace officer instead of entering the family’s very
lucrative oil business,
^xxxviii
he was in addition to either of
these professions, a skilled cowhand. He had taught Bunduki to
perform many of the tasks required for such work, including a
method of dealing with recalcitrant cattle. As a member of
the
Bovidae
family, the buffalo might be said to come into that
category.

The great beast was running
fast in its eagerness to reach, trample on, or gore, the quagga and
the woman fleeing before it. However, even carrying Bunduki,
the
banar-gatah
was capable of travelling at a greater speed than the
buffalo’s thirty-five miles per hour.

Measuring the decreasing
distance between himself and the buffalo with his eyes, the blond
giant settled himself more firmly in the saddle. If he had had a
catch-rope he would have used it to ‘take up the buffalo’s
toes’,
^xxxix
as he had been taught by his
Cousin Brad. Lacking the necessary tool for that purpose, he was
compelled to resort to an even more tricky, demanding and risky
procedure.

Closing the gap at a racing
gallop, Bunduki steered the still responsive
banar-gatah
at an angle that would take
them to the right of the buffalo. Like all of its kind, the bull
was running with its tail extended poker-stiff behind it and
parallel to the ground. It was oblivious of the rapidly approaching
pursuer.

Out stabbed the blond giant’s
left hand, to catch hold of the buffalo’s tail. Having obtained his
hold, he gave a sudden jerk with all his strength. Simultaneously,
he let out a yell and kicked the
banar-gatah’s
ribs with his heels. Receiving the
signal, the gallant animal lunged forward with an increased
velocity. Even so, the blond giant wondered if it could move fast
enough to save both their lives.

Due to the speed that it was
travelling the massive beast was thrown off balance, despite its
two thousand pounds’ weight. Its hind legs were snapped to the left
and the fore limbs buckled. Turning heels over head, it alighted
with a shattering crash that knocked every atom of air from its
lungs.

For all the apparent ease with which
Bunduki had brought the buffalo down, his task had been anything
but simple. It had called for courage, skill and a well-trained
mount of the finest quality.

However, the blond giant knew
that his task was not yet at an end. The quagga was still racing
along the valley, dragging its helpless burden behind it. Steering
the
banar-gatah
in the required direction, Bunduki gave chase. Although he
heard shouts from his rear, he did not look back.

Using all his skill, Bunduki
acquired every bit of speed he could from the
banar-gatah.
Even so, he had to
cover almost a hundred yards before he was drawing level with the
woman’s panic-stricken quagga. She was hanging limply, barely
conscious after being dragged so far. For all that, she could count
herself lucky. The short, but thickly growing grass was springy
enough to have reduced the effect of the pounding.

Coming alongside the quagga from the
left, so as to avoid the danger of his mount trampling upon the
woman, Bunduki leaned across. The Mun-Gatahs used one piece reins,
so they were hanging over the animal’s neck instead of trailing
down. Having made his catch, he straightened his legs and stood in
the stirrups. Waiting until he felt that his mount’s hind legs were
coming under him and its balance was to the rear, he drew back on
the reins.

‘
Whoa!’ Bunduki yelled,
sitting down and inclining his torso to the rear while thrusting
his feet forward.

Obviously the Mun-Gatahs
adopted a similar method when waiting to make a mount come to a
halt quickly. Obediently, the
banar-gatah
began to slide to a stop. Having no such control
being exerted over it, the quagga ignored the command until the
pull of its reins brought its head around. It swerved, tried to
avoid the
banar-gatah
but failed to do so. They collided shoulder to shoulder and
both went down.

Seeing that the collision was imminent
and unavoidable, Bunduki snatched his feet from the stirrups and
dived to the left. He landed rolling, as he had learned to do when
being thrown by a horse, and regained his feet as quickly as he
could.

Ignoring half a dozen male
Mun-Gatahs who were galloping towards him, while four more plunged
lances into the still recumbent buffalo, Bunduki ran behind
the
banar-gatah
as it and the quagga were struggling to rise. When donning
the dead warrior’s garments, he had slit the tunic down its left
side so as to allow him unimpeded access to his bowie knife.
Drawing the weapon from its sheath, he bounded over the woman. As
he halted, he bent and grabbed her ankle with his left hand. Then
he slashed through the stirrup leather, liberating her as quickly
as he could. There was need for haste. The quagga was almost on its
feet and he doubted whether it would be in an amiable frame of mind
when it stood up.

Releasing the woman’s leg, the
blond giant threw himself forward. Fast as he moved, it was not
quite rapid enough. The quagga’s hind hooves lashed towards him and
one of them struck him a glancing blow on the right elbow.
Glancing, maybe, but it was still hard enough to numb his arm
momentarily and caused him to drop the knife. Carried forward by
the momentum of his leap, he advanced a couple of long strides.
When he had stopped himself, one look told him that he could
neither retrieve the weapon nor return and mount the
banar-gatah
before the
approaching riders arrived.

He felt some slight consolation
when he noticed that none of the six had a lance, although each was
armed with a sword. Nor were any of the newcomers wearing a leather
breastplate.
^xl
The foremost of them were already
bringing their zebras to a stop and looking in the blond giant’s
direction.

Springing from his
banar-gatah’s
saddle, the first man to arrive ran to where the
woman was beginning to sit up and gaze dazedly about her. Her
quagga had gone along the valley, bounding and kicking up its
heels. Snapping an order over his shoulder as he knelt by Charole,
the man sent one of the
grar-gatah
riders galloping after her mount. The rest of the
party dismounted and, apparently having disposed of the buffalo,
the others were approaching.

A burly
ocha-gatah
rider detached himself from the
quartet who were on foot and slouched towards Bunduki. Glancing
from the big blond to the knife, the man did a double take as he
realized belatedly that there was something wrong.

‘
Hey!’ the man
yelped, springing forward and reaching
for his sword. ‘You’re not a
Mun-Gatah! Who—
?’

The question went unfinished. Instead
of answering, Bunduki thrust out his left fist. It caught the man
just below the breast bone, halting and folding him onto the right
hook that was the blond giant’s follow-up attack. Lifted upright,
the man went over on to his back.

Attracted by their companions
yell, all but the
banar-gatah
rider kneeling by Charole turned. Seeing their companion
felled, the three of them rushed at Bunduki. Looking around, the
kneeling man realized that the Protectress’s rescuer was not a
Mun-Gatah. Immediately he wanted to know where he had acquired his
garments. What was more, in addition to any information the blond
giant might possess, he would make a fine sacrifice for the Quagga
God.

‘
Take him
alive!’ roared the
banar-gatah
rider, coming to his feet and going to help
enforce his command.

That proved to be much easier said
than done.

Hearing their leader and being aware
of what would happen if they should go against his wishes, the men
did not attempt to draw their swords. Instead, they fanned out and
closed on Bunduki from three different points. Like the other
warriors with whom he had fought, each of the trio wanted to gain
the acclaim of capturing him. So they were acting as individuals
rather than a team.

Swifter than his companions,
the man coming from the blond giant’s left was nearest and received
first attention. Catching the forward driving right wrist with his
left hand, Bunduki prevented it from reaching him and snapped a
side kick into the man’s ribs. Having done so, the big blond threw
up his right hand to deflect the punch being thrown by the nearest
warrior on that side
and halted the advance of the other with a back
kick to the body.