The Sound of Thunder (42 page)

take you up to the beaters. But remember! Once the hunt starts, keep in the line and listen to what you’re told. If I catch anybody of you running about or getting ahead of the line, I’ll personally wallop the tar out of him. Do you understand? ” It was a long speech to shout and Sean ended with his face flushed ferociously. That gave weight to his words and resulted in a respectful chorus of

“Yes, Mr. Courtney.”

“Off you go, then.”

Whooping, racing each other they poured away through the trees and a comparative peace descended on the camp.

“My God, let alone bush buck, that lot would drive elephant buffalo and lion panic, stricken ahead of them,” observed Dennis Petersen dryly.

“How about our positions, Sean?”

Aware that he had their complete attention, Sean drew out the nmoment a little.

, We are going to drive the Elands’ Kloof first,” he announced.

“Mbejane and two hundred Zulus are waiting at the head of the Kloof for the signal. The guns will take station at the tail of the Kloof. ” Sean paused.

“How about our positions?”

“Patience. Patience. ” Sean chided them. “I know I shouldn’t have to repeat the safety rules, but … and he immediately went on to do so. “No rifles, shotguns only. You’ll shoot only in an arc of 45 degrees directly ahead of you, no passing shots to either side.

Especially you, Reverend.” That gentleman, who was notoriously trigger, happy, looked suitably abashed. “My whistle will mean the beaters are too close, all guns up and unloaded immediately.”

“It’s getting late, Sean.

“Let’s get on with it.”

“Right,” Sean agreed. “I’ll take centre gun.” There was a murmer of agreement. That was fair enough, the plum to the man who provided the hunt, no one could grudge that. “On my left flank in this order, Reverend Smiley, since the Almighty will obviously send most of the game his way, I might as well profit by it.” A burst of laughter as Smiley wavered between horror at the blasphemy and delight at his own good fortune.

“Then Ronny Pye, Dennis Petersen, Ian Vermaak, Gerald and Tony Erasmus (you two fight it out in a brotherly fashion), Nick. … Sean read from the list in his hand. This in strict order of seniority was the social register of Ladyburg, a proper and exact balancing of wealth and influence, of popularity and age. Apart from placing himself in the centre of the line, Sean had not taken much part in the preparation of the list, quite correctly Ada had not trusted his sense of social perception.

“That takes care of the left flank.” Sean looked up from the list. He had been so engrossed in reading that he had not sensed the air of tension and expectancy which had fallen over his audience. A single horseman had crossed the drift and walked His magnificent thoroughbred into the camp. He had dismounted quietly and servants had led his horse away. Now, carrying a shotgun, he was walking towards Sean’s wagon.

Sean looked up and saw him. He stared in surprise, while slowly elation mounted within him until it reached his face in a wide grin.

“Garry, glad you could make it!” he cowled out spontaneously, but Garry’s face remained without expression. He nodded a curt greeting.

At least he’s come, exulted Sean. This is the first overture.

Now it’s up to me.

“You can take the first position on my right, Garry.”

“Thank you. ” Now Garry smiled, but it was a curiously cold grimace and he turned away to talk with the nearest man , A small shiver of disappointment moved the crowd. They had expected something spectacular to happen. All of them knew the feud between the Courtney brothers and the mystery that surrounded it. But now, with a feeling of anti, climax they turned their attention back to Sean’s reading. Sean finished and jumpe( down from the wagon, and immediately the crowd moved away Sean sought Garrick and saw him far ahead near the head of the.

long file of men that was strung out along the footpath that led to Elands’ Kloof.

The file moved fast as the hunters stepped out eagerly. Unless he ran, Sean knew he would not be able to pass the men ahead of him and catch up with Garry. I’ll wait until we reach the beat, he decided.

My God, what a wonderful ending to this week. I have Ruth, now if only I can get back my brother and with him, Michael!

From the shoulder of the gorge Sean looked down across Elands’ Kloof. A deep slot of a valley, two miles long and five hundred yards wide at this end, but it tapered slowly upwardly until it lost its identity in the high ground. The full length of it was clogged solid with dark green bush, a seemingly impenetrable mass above which a few tall trees reared up in a desperate attempt to reach the sunlight.

Like the tentacles of a giant squid, creepers and vines lifted from the dark bush to overpower then and drag them down. Here on the shoulder the air was dry and wholesome, down there it would stink of damp earth and rot ting vegetable matter.

Lingering as though suddenly reluctant to go down into the humid discomfort of the Kloof, the hunters gathered on the shoulder.

Shading eyes against the glare, they peered up toward, the head of the gorge where the beaters were a line of dari specks against the green spring grass.

“There go the kids,” someone pointed. Dirk was leading his band along the high ground above the Kloof.

Sean moved across to his twin brother.

“Well, Garry, how are things out at Theuniskraal?”

“Not bad.

“Iread your book, I think it’s excellent. It certainly deserved the reception it got in London. Lord Caisterbrook wrote to me to say that your concluding chapter is giving the War Office just food for thought. Well done, Garry. ” . “Thank you.” But there was an evasive lack of warmth in Garry’s reply. He made no attempt to continue the conversation.

“Michael didn’t come out with you today?”

“No. ” “Why not, Garry?” And Garry smiled for the first time, a cool, spiteful smile.

“He didn’t want to.”

“Oh!” The hurt showed in Sean’s face for an instant, then he turned to the men around him. “Right, gentlemen, let’s get down there.

” In position now, a line of men standing quietly in the gloom and stagnant heat. Each man’s neighbour visible only as an indefinite shape among the leaves and vines and fallen trees. Few things sharp, the outline of a hat, brim, the glint of a random beam of sun on gun, metal, a human hand framed in a hole of dark green leaves. The silence heavy as the heat, spoiled by the nervous rustle of a branch, a hastily smothered cough, the click of a shotgun breech.

Sean hooked his thumb across both hammers of his gun and pulled them back to full cock, lifted the twin muzzles to the roof Of leaves above his head and fired in rapid succession. He heard the deep booming note of the gun bouncing against the sides of the valley, echoing and fragmenting as it was thrown back upon itself. Then swiftly the silence closed in again.

He stood motionless, tuning his hearing as finely as was possible, but his reward was the thin drone of an insect and the harsh startled cry of a bush laurie. He shrugged, two miles of distance and the mass of vegetation would blanket completely the cries of the beaters and the clatter of their sticks as they thrashed the bush. But they were coming now, of this he was certain, they would have heard his signal shots. He could imagine them moving down the line, two hundred black men interspersed with the small white boys, chanting the rhetorical question which was as old as the drive hunt itself.

“Eyapi, Repeated over and over again, the accent on the first half of the word, shrilling it.

, Eyapi? Where are you going?”

And between him and the beaters, in that wedge of tangled bush there would be the first uneasy stirring. Dainty bodies dappled with grey, rising from the secret beds of fallen leaves.

Hooves, pointed and sharp, splayed and driven deep into sot’t leaf, mould by the weight of tensed muscle. Ears pricked forward, eyes like wet black satin, shiny moist muzzles quivering and snuffling, corkscrew horns laid back. The whole poised on the edge of flight.

With the taint of gunsmoke in his nostrils, Sean opened the action of his shotgun and the empty shells ejected crisply, spilling out to leave the eyes of the breech empty. He selected fresh cartridges from his belt and slid them home, snapped the gun closed and thumbed the hammers on to half, cock.

Now they would be moving. The does first, ginger, brown and away down the valley with then dappled like roe, deer, slipping fawns long, legged beside them. Then the bucks, the Inkonka, black and big and silent as shadows; crouching as they moved, horns flat against their shoulders. Moving away from the faint cries and the commotion, moving their mates and their young away from danger, down towards the waiting guns.

“I heard something there! ” The Reverend Smiley’s voice sounded as though he were being strangled, probably by the dog collar which showed as a pale spot in the gloom.

“Shut up, you fool!” Sean gambled his chance of salvation on the rebuke, but he need not have worried for the endearment, was drowned by the double blast of Smiley’s shotgun, so in decently loud and totally unexpected that Sean’s feet left the ground.

“Did you get him’?” Sean asked, his voice a little shaky from the fright.

“Reverend, did you get one?” Sean demanded. He had seen nothing, and heard nothing that might by the most generOU’ stretch of imagination lead anyone to suspect the presence of bush buck.

“My goodness, I could have sworn . Smiley’s reply was in the kind of voice you would expect from beyond the grave

“Oh dear, I think I must have been mistaken.”

Here we go again, thought Sean with resignation.

“If you run out of cartridges let me know,” he called softly and grinned at Smiley’s inured silence. The shots would have turned the game back towards the beaters, they would be start iv to mill now as they sought an avenue of escape. Perhaps move over out on the flanks. As if in confirmation of Scans thoughts, a shotgun thudded out on the left, then another, then two more on the right.

The fun had started in earnest.

In the brief silence he heard the beaters now, their excited cries muffled but urgent.

A blur of movement ahead of him through the screen of branches, just a flick of dark grey and he swung the gun and fired, wallop of the butt on to his shoulder, and thud and scuffle and roll and kick in the undergrowth.

“Got him!” exulted Sean. Still kicking, the head and shoulders of a half, grown ram emerged from under a bramble bush.

it was down, mouth open, bleeding, crabbing against the earth, leaving a drag mark through the dead leaves. Boom again, the mercy stroke, and it lay still. Head speckled with tiny gunshot wounds, eyelids quivering into death and the swift rush of blood from the nostrils.

The din of gunfire all about, cries of the beaters and the answering shouts of the gunners, the panic, stricken run and crackle in the bush ahead.

Inkonka, big one, black as a hellhound, ffiree twists in the horn, eyes staring, lunging into the clearing to halt with head up and front legs braced wide, hunted, panting, wild with terror.

Lean forward against the gun, hold the pip on his heaving chest and fire. The bounce of the gun and the long blue gush of smoke.

Knock him down with the solid charge of short range buckshot.

Cleanly, quickly, without kicking.

“Got him!”

Another one, blundering straight into the gun line, blind with panic, bursting out of the undergrowth almost on top of Sean.

Doe with fawn at her heels, let her go.

The doe saw him and wheeled left to take the gap between Sean and Garrick. As it dashed through, Sean looked beyond and saw his brother.

Garrick had left his position and closed in on Sean. He was crouched slightly, the shotgun held in both hands, hammers fully cocked, , and his eyes were fastened on Sean.

Garrick waited quietly during the initial stages of the beat, The tree, trunk on which he sat was soft and rotten, covered with moss and the orange and white tongues of fungus. From the inside pocket of his jacket he took the silver flask inlaid with camelians. The first mouthful started his tears and numbed his tongue, but he swallowed it painfully and lowered the flask.

He has taken from me everything I ever had of value: My leg: Garry looked down at the way it stuck out stiffly ahead of him with the heel buried in the damp leaf, mould. He drank again quickly, closing his eyes against the sting of brandy.

My wife: In the dark redness behind his eyelids he saw her again, as Sean had left her, lying in torn clothing with bruised and swollen lips.

my manhood. Because of what he did to her that night, Anna has never let me touch her body. Until then there was hope. But now I am forty, two years old and I am virgin. It is too late.

My position. That swine Acheson would never have thrown me out, but for Sean.

And now he will take Michael from me.

He remembered again the premonition of disaster that he had experienced when Anna reported to him how she had found Michael and Sean together on Theuniskraal. It had started then, each little incident building up. The day Michael had stared at the faded but bold entries in the leather, bound stock register. Is that Uncle Sean’s handwriting?”

That battered saddle Michael had found in the loft above the stables; he had polished it lovingly and restitched the seams, fitted new stirrup leathers, and used it for a year. Until Garry had noticed the crude initials cut into the leather of the flap.

“SC.” That night Garry had taken the saddle and thrown it into the furnace of the hot, water boiler. , Eight months ago, on Michael’s

twenty first birthday, Garry had called him into the panelled study of Theuniskraal, atic’ reluctantly told him of Scans legacy to him.

Michael had read the dog, eared sheet and read it through with his lips moving silently. Then at last he looked up and his voice was shaky.

“Uncle Sean gave me a half, share in Theuniskraal even before I was born. Why, Dad? Why did he do that?” And Garry had no answer for him.

This last week had been the climax. It had taken all Anna and Garrick’s combined influence and entreaties to prevent Michael responding to the invitations Sean had sent. Then the Zulu herd, boy, whose duty was to follow Michael and come to Garick immediately Michael crossed the boundary of The unieskraal, reported that each evening Michael rode up to the high ground on the escarpment and sat there until after dark staring in the direction of Lion Kop ranch.