Sunbird (7 page)

I stood beside Louren in the bright sunlight, that was intensified by the glare of the white salt surface, and watched the gunboys cut the incisions in the skin and flay the gemsbok with the skill of a pair of Harley Street surgeons.

'You might have warned me we had one of them on this trip,' Louren told me bitterly. 'Am I ever regretting having given in to you and letting her come along!'

I didn't reply and he went on. 'I've a bloody good mind to send her back to Maun on one of the trucks.' The suggestion was so unworkable that it didn't give me even a twinge, and Louren went on immediately. 'She's your assistant - try and keep her under control, will you!'

I moved away, giving him time to recover his temper, and took the map-case from the seat beside Sally. She didn't look up from her book. I walked around the vehicle and spread the aeronautical large-scale map on the bonnet of the Land-Rover, and within two minutes Louren was with me. Navigation is one of his big things, and he fancies himself no end.

'We'll leave the pan here,' he pointed to where a dry riverbed joined the eastern extremity of the pan, 'and strike in on a compass-bearing.'

'What kind of going will we meet, I wonder.'

'Sand veld, like as not. I've never been in there before.'

'Let's ask the drivers,' I suggested.

'Good idea.' Louren called the two of them across and the gunboys, who had by now finished the skilled work and were leaving the rest to the camp boys, joined us as was their right.

'This is where we want to go.' Louren pointed it out on the map. 'These hills here. They haven't got a name marked, but they run in line with the edge of the pan, like this.'

It took a moment or two for the drivers to figure out their bearings on the chart, and then a remarkable change came over both of them. Their features dissolved into blank masks of incomprehension.

'What kind of country is it between the pan and the hills?' Louren asked. He had not sensed the change in them. The drivers exchanged furtive glances.

'Well?' asked Louren.

'I do not know that country. I have never heard of these hills,' Joseph, the elder driver, muttered, and then went on to give himself the lie. 'Besides there is much sand, and there are river-beds which one cannot cross.'

'There is no water, agreed David, the second driver. 'I have never been there. I have never heard of these hills either.'

'What do the white men seek?' asked the old gimboy in Sindebele. It was obvious that maps meant nothing to him.

'They want to go to Katuba Ngazi,' the driver explained quickly. They were all convinced by now that neither Louren nor I had mastery of the language, and that they could speak freely in front of us. This then was the first time I heard the name spoken. Katuba Ngazi - the Hills of Blood.

'What have you told them?' demanded the gunbearer.

'That we do not know the place.'

'Good,' the gunbearer agreed. 'Tell them that there are no elephant there, that the wild animals are south of the pan.' The driver dutifully relayed this intelligence, and was disappointed in our obvious lack of dismay.

'Well,' Louren told them pleasantly, 'you will learn something today. For the first time you will see these hills.' He rolled up the map. 'Now get the meat loaded and let us go on.'

In five minutes the whole tone of the expedition had changed. Sally and the entire staff were all in the deepest depression. The smiles and horseplay were gone, there were sulky faces and meetings in muttering groups. The tempo of work dropped to almost zero, and it took almost half an hour to load the butchered gemsbok. While this was happening I led Louren away from the cluster of vehicles out of earshot and quickly told him of the exchange between the African servants.

'Hills of Blood! Wonderful!' Louren enthused. 'It means that almost certainly they know about the ruins - there is probably a taboo on them.'

'Yes,' I agreed. 'But now we are going to have to watch for attempts to sabotage the trip. Look at them.' We turned to watch the slow-motion, almost somnambulistic movements of our staff. 'My guess is that it's going to take longer to reach the Hills of Blood than we allowed for.'

We got off the pan once more, for the going is suspect with soft places beneath the crust that will bog a vehicle, and we followed the firm but sandy ground along the edge. We crossed another of the steep ravines, after having scouted for a place where the banks were flattened, and drove on for twenty minutes before we realized that neither of the trucks were following us. After waiting ten minutes, with both Louren and I fuming impatiently, we turned back and retraced our course to the dry river-bed.

One truck was hanging half over the edge of the ravine, one front wheel and one rear wheel not touching earth, but its belly heavily grounded. The other truck was parked nearby, and fourteen grown men were sitting or standing around in various attitudes of relaxation without making the least attempt to free the stranded truck.

'Joseph,' Louren called the driver. 'How did this happen?'

Joseph shrugged his shoulders disinterestedly, but he was having difficulty hiding his satisfaction.

'All right, gentlemen, let's get it out,' Louren suggested with heavy irony. Half an hour later, despite the ladylike efforts of all fourteen of them, and despite Joseph's hearty clashing of gears and desperate engine racing and stalling, the truck still hung over the edge of the ravine. Finally they all climbed out of the ravine and looked at Louren and me with interest.

'Okay, Ben?' Louren turned to me as he began to strip his bush jacket.

'All right, Lo,' I agreed. I was delighted to see how well Louren had taken care of himself. His body looked rock-hard, and denuded of fatty tissue. At six foot two he carried a mass of muscle whose outlines beneath the skin were unblurred.

I kept my shirt on. My body, although it has the same utility as Louren's, is not so good to look at.

'Front end first,' Louren suggested.

The truck had been unloaded, petrol tank about half filled, I estimated the front end weight at a little over two thousand pounds. I windmilled my arms as I looked at the problem, loosening up cold muscles. The servants looked puzzled, and one of them giggled. Even Sally put aside her book and climbed out of the Land-Rover to watch.

Louren and I went to the front of the truck and stooped to it, placing our hands carefully, bending at the knee, spreading our legs a little.

'All the way, partner?'

'All the way, Lo,' I grinned back at him, and we began the lift. I started slow, just taking up the slack in my muscles, bringing on the strain evenly and letting it build up in shoulders, thighs and belly. It was a dead unmoving mass and I started to burn the reserves, feeling the tension turn to pain and my breathing start to scald my throat.

'Now,' grunted Louren beside me, and I let it all come, rearing back against it with my vision starting to star and pin-wheel. It came away smoothly in our hands, and I heard the gasps and startled exclamations from the watchers.

We lifted the front of the truck clear of the ravine, went around to the back and did the same there. Then we started to laugh, a little shakily at first, but building up to a full gale. Louren put his arm around my shoulder and led me back to face our retinue of retainers who were looking discomforted and uneasy.

'You are--' Louren told them, still laughing, '--a bunch of frail old women and giggling virgins. Translate that for them, Joseph.'

I noticed that Joseph gave them a correct rendition of this pleasantry.

'And as for you, Joseph, you are a fool.' Louren stepped away from me towards Joseph, one quick dancing step, and hit him with an open hand across the side of the head. The sound of it was shockingly loud, and the force of it spun Joseph fully around in a tight circle before throwing him to the ground. He sat up groggily, with a thin trickle of blood running out of the corner of his mouth where teeth had cut into the thick under lip.

'You see that I am still laughing,' Louren pointed out to his startled audience. 'I am not even angry yet. Think a while on what may happen to anyone who makes me really angry.'

The truck was reloaded with alacrity and we went on.

'Well,' said Sally, 'we can be sure of full cooperation for the rest of this trip. Why didn't the big white bwana use a sjambok, rather than soiling his hands?'

'Tell her, Ben.' Louren did not look around at either of us, while I told Sally quickly about the campaign of deliberate obstruction that we had run into.

'I'm sure Louren didn't enjoy hitting the man. Sal. But he ditched the truck deliberately. We've got three and a half days left to get to these Hills of Blood, and we can't afford any more tricks.'

Sally immediately forgot her concern for Joseph. 'Hills of Blood,' she gloated. 'My God, it conjures up visions of human sacrifice and--'

'More likely it's merely the red colour of the cliffs,' I suggested.

'And this taboo thing.' She ignored me. 'It must be because of the ruins! Oh God, I can feel it in my blood - temples stuffed with treasures, relics and written records of a whole civilization, tombs, weapons--'

'You will notice my assistant's unbiased, unromantic and thoroughly scientific approach,' I pointed out to Louren, and he grinned.

'It irks me like hell, but for once I feel the way she does,' Louren admitted.

'For once that makes you smart, dearie,' Sally told him tartly.

It was two in the afternoon before we reached the point on the eastern extremity of the pan where we were to cut off on compass for the hills, and almost immediately it became apparent that we would not reach them that day. The going was heavy, sand-veld clutched at the wheels of the vehicles and reduced our rate of progress to a low-gear slog. Half a dozen times the trucks bogged in the thick sand, and had to be dragged out by the four-wheel transmission of the Land-Rover. Each time this happened there was a profuse offering of apologies from the driver and crew concerned.

The sand had absorbed all traces of the recent rains, but they showed in the new growth of green that decked the thorn and acacia trees - and more dramatically in the display of wild flowers that were spread everywhere in carpets and thick banks.

Their seeds and bulbs had lain dormant for three long years of drought, waiting for this time of plenty - and now the bright crimson of King Chaka's fire burned brilliantly among the fields of Namaqua daisies. Star lilies, Ericas, golden Gazanias and twenty other varieties made a royal show, and helped to lessen the frustrations of our snail's progress.

At every enforced halt, I left the cursing and hustling to Louren, and wandered away from the vehicles with my camera.

Sunset found us still fifteen miles from the hills, and when I climbed into the top branches of the flat-topped acacia under which we camped, I could see their low outlines on the eastern horizon. The cliffs caught the last slanted rays of the sun, and glowed orange-red. I sat in the fork of the main trunk and watched them until the sun was gone and the hills melted into the dark sky.

A strange mood gripped me as I watched the far hills. A mystic sense of pre-destiny filled me with a languid melancholy - a sense of unease and disquiet.

When I climbed down into the camp, Louren sat alone by the fire, staring into the flames and drinking whisky.

'Where's Sally?' I asked.

'Gone to bed. In a sulk. We got into a discussion about blood sports and beating up blacks.' Louren glanced at her tent which glowed with internal lantern light. There was no singing from the servants' fire as Louren and I ate grilled gemsbok liver and bacon, washed down with warm red Cape wine. We sat in silence for a while after we had eaten, and finished the wine.

'I'm bushed,' Louren said at last, and stood up. 'I'll just call Larkin. I promised to check in every second night. See you in the morning, Ben.'