Shout at the Devil - Smith Wilbur (лучшие книги .TXT) 📗

"It was a mountain armed with teeth of ivory that grew from its face to touch the ground as it walked."

"Plough the Earth." Flynn whispered the name, and his hand fell on to the rifle that lay loaded beside his bed.

"It was that one." Mohammed nodded again. "He feeds quietly,

moving towards the Rufiji. But the voice of a rifle would carry down to the ears of the Allemand."

"I won't fire," whispered Flynn. "I just want to have a look at him. I just want to see him again." And the hand on the rifle shook like that of a man in high fever.

the sun pushed up and sat fat and fiery as molten gold, on the hills of the Rufiji basin. Its warmth lifted streamers of mist from the swamps and reed beds that bounded the Abati river, and they smoked like the ashes of a dying fire.

Under the fever trees the air was still cool with the memory of the night, but the sun sent long yellow shafts of light probing through the branches to disperse and warm it.

Three old eland bulls came up from the river, bigger than domestic cattle, light bluey-brown in colour with faint chalk stripes across the barrel of their bodies, they walked in single file, heavy dewlaps swinging, thick stubby horns held erect, and the tuft of darker hair on their foreheads standing out clearly. They reached the grove of fever trees and the lead bull stopped, suddenly alert. For long seconds they stood absolutely still, staring into the open palisade of fever-tree trunks where the light was still vague beneath the canopy of interlaced leaves and branches.

The lead bull blew softly through his nostrils, and swung off the game path that led into the grove. Stepping lightly for such large animals, the three eland skirted the grove and moved away to blend into the dry Thorn scrub higher up the slope.

"He is in there," whispered Mohammed. "The eland saw him, and turned aside."

"Yes," agreed Flynn. "It is such a place as he would choose to lie up for the day." He sat in the crotch of a M'bongo tree,

wedged securely ten feet above the ground, and peered across three hundred yards of open grassland at the dense stand of fever trees. The hands that held the binoculars to his eyes were unsteady with gin and excitement, and he was sweating, a droplet broke from his hair-line and slid down his cheek, tickling like an insect. He brushed it away.

"A wise man would leave him, and walk away even as the eland did."

Mohammed gave his opinion. He leaned against the base of the tree,

holding Flynn's rifle across his chest. Flynn did not reply. He peered through the binoculars, swinging them slowly in an arc as he searched.

"He must he deep among the trees, I cannot see him from here." And he loosened his leg grip from the crotch and clambered down to where

Mohammed waited. He took his rifle and checked the load.

"Leave him, Fini," Mohammed urged softly. "There is no profit in it. We cannot carry the teeth away."

"Stay here," said Flynn.

Fini, the Allemand will hear you. They are close very close."

"I will not shoot, "said Flynn. "I must see him again that is all. I

will not shoot." Mohammed took the gin bottle from the haversack and handed it to him. Flynn drank.

"Stay here,", he repeated, his voice husky from the burn of the raw spirit.

"Be careful, Fini. He is an old one of evil temper be careful." Mohammed watched Flynn start out across the clearing. He walked with the slow deliberation of a man who goes in good time to a meeting that has long been prearranged. He reached the grove of fever trees and walked on into them without checking.

Plough the Earth was sleeping on his feet. His little eyes closed tightly in their wrinkled Pouches. Tears had oozed in a long dark stain down his cheeks, and a fine haze of midges hovered about them.

Tattered as battle-riven banners on a windless day, his ears lay back against his shoulders. His tusks were crutches that propped up the gnarled old head, and his trunk hung down between them, grey and stack and heavy.

Flynn saw him, and picked his way towards him between the trunks of the fever trees. The setting had an unreal quality, for the light effect of the low sun through the branches was golden beams reflected in shimmering misty green from the leaves of the fever trees. The grove was resonant with the whine of cicada beetles.

Flynn circled out until he was head on to the sleeping elephant,

and then he moved in again. Twenty paces from him Flynn stopped. He stood with his feet set apart, the rifle held ready across one hip, and his head thrown back as he looked up at the unbelievable bulk of the old bull.

Up to this moment Flynn still believed that he would not shoot.

He had come only to look at him once more, but it was as futile as an alcoholic who promised himself just one taste. He felt the madness begin at the base of his spine, hot and hard it poured into his body,

filling him as though he were a container. The level rose to his throat and he tried to check it there, but the rifle was coming up. He felt the butt in his shoulder. Then he heard with surprise a voice, a voice that rang clearly through the grove and instantly stilled the whine of the cicadas. It was his own voice, crying out in defiance of his conscious resolve.

"Come on, then," he shouted. And the old elephant burst from massive quiescence into full charge. It came down on him like a dynamited cliff of black rock. He saw it over the open rear sight of his rifle, saw it beyond the minute pip of the foresight that rode unwaveringly in the centre of the old bull's bulging brow between the eyes, where the crease of skin at the base of its trunk was a deep lateral line.