The Burning Shore - Smith Wilbur (читаем бесплатно книги полностью .txt) 📗

Then from the base of the great stone monument a dart of light, reflected off metal, pricked her eyes and she shaded them with the blanket and peered intently.

Shasa, she whispered. They are there! They are waiting for us. She urged the weary pony into a canter, and rose in the stirrups.

in the shadow of the stone pillar was parked a motor vehicle, and beside it a small green cottage tent had been d. erected There was a camp fire burning in front of the tent, and a plume of smoke, blue as a heron's feather, smeared by the wind across the plain.

Centaine whipped the turban from her head and waved it like a banner. Here! she screamed. Hullo! Here I am! The two indistinct human figures rose from beside the fire, staring towards her.

She waved and hulloed, still at full gallop, and one of the figures broke into a run. It was a woman, a big woman in long skirts. She held them up over her knees, ploughing with desperate haste through the soft footing. Her face was bright scarlet with effort and emotion. Anna! Centaine screamed.

Oh, Anna! There were tears streaming down that broad red face, and Anna dropped her skirts and stood with her arms spread wide.

My baby! she cried, and Centaine flung herself from the saddle and clutching Shasa to her breast, ran into her embrace.

They were both weeping, holding hard to each other, trying to talk at once, but incoherently, laughing between the sobs, when Shasa, crushed between them, let out a protesting howl.

Anna snatched him from her and hugged him. A boy, he's a boy. Michel.

Centaine sobbed happily. I named him Michel Shasa. And Shasa let out a hoot and grabbed with of hands at t at marvelous face, so big and red as a fruit ripe for eating.

Michel! Anna wept as she kissed him. Shasa, who knew all about kissing, opened his mouth wide and smeared warm saliva down her chin.

Still carrying Shasa, Anna dragged Centaine by one arm towards the tent and the camp fire.

A tall, round-shouldered figure came towards them diffidently. His thinning sandy-grey hair was swept back from a high scholarly forehead, and his mild, vaguely myopic eyes were a muddier shade of the Courtney blue than Michael's had been; his nose, while every bit as large as General Sean Courtney's, seemed somehow to be ashamed of the fact.

I am Michael's father, he said shyly, and it was like looking at a faded and smudged photograph of her Michael. Centaine felt a rush of guilt, for she had been false to her vows and to Michael's memory. It was as though Michael confronted her now. For an instant she remembered his twisted body in the cockpit of the burning aircraft, and in grief and guilt she ran to Garry and threw her arms around his neck.

Papa! she said, and at that word Garry's reserve collapsed and he choked and clung to her.

I had given up hope- Garry could not go on, and the sight of his tears set Anna off again, which was too much for Shasa. He let out a doleful wall, and all four of them stood together beneath the Finger of God and wept.

The wagons seemed to swim towards them through the streaming dust, rolling and pitching over the uneven ground, and as they waited for them to come up, Anna murmured, We must be eternally grateful to this man-She sat in the back seat of the Fiat tourer with Shasa on her lap and Centaine beside her.

He will be well paid. Garry stood with one booted foot on the running-board of the Fiat. In his hand he held a rolled document, secured with a red ribbon. He tapped the roll against his artificial leg.

Whatever you pay him will not be enough, Anna affirmed, and hugged Shasa.

He is an outlaw and a renegade, Garry scowled. It goes very much against the grain- Please give him what we owe him, Papa, Centaine said softly, then let him go. I don't want ever to see him again. The small, half-naked Nama boy leading the ox-team whistled them to a halt, and Lothar De La Rey climbed down slowly from the wagon seat, wincing at the effort.

When he reached the ground, he paused for a moment, steadying himself with his free hand against the wagon body. His other arm was in a sling across his chest. His face was a yellowish putty colour beneath the smoothly tanned skin. His eyes were darkly underscored, the lines of suffering at the corners of his mouth accentuated, and a dense stubble of pale beard covered his jaws and sparkled even in the poor light.

He has been hurt, Anna murmured. What happened to him? And beside her Centaine silently turned her head away.

Lothar braced himself and went to meet Garry. Halfway between the Fiat and the wagon they shook hands briefly, Lothar awkwardly offering his uninjured left hand.

They spoke in low tones that did not reach to where Centaine sat. Garry offered him the roll of parchment, and Lothar loosened theribbon with his teeth and spread the sheet against his thigh, holding it with his one good hand as he stooped to read it.

After a minute he straightened and let the parchment spring back into a roll. He nodded at Garry and said something. His face was expressionless, and Garry shuffled selfconsciously and made an uncertain gesture, halfoffering another handshake and then thinking better of it, for Lothar was not looking at him.

He was staring at Centaine, and now he pushed past Garry and started slowly towards her. Immediately Centaine snatched Shasa off Anna's lap and crouched in the furthest corner of the seat, glaring at him, holding Shasa away from him protectively. Lothar stopped, lifted his good hand towards her in a small gesture of appeal, but let it drop to his side when her expression did not change.

Puzzled, Garry glanced from one to the other of them.

Can we go, Papa? Centaine spoke in a clear sharp voice.

Of course, my dear. Garry hurried to the front of the Fiat and stooped to the crank handle. As the engine fired, he ran round to the driver's seat and adjusted the ignition lever.

Is there nothing you wish to say to the man? he asked, and when she shook her head, he clambered up behind the wheel and the Fiat jerked forward.

Centaine looked back only once, after they had bumped over a mile of the sandy track. Lothar De La Rey still stood below the towering monument of rock, a tiny lonely figure in the desert, and he stared after them.

The green hills of Zululand were so utterly different from the desolation of the Kalahari or the monstrous dunes of the Namib, that Centaine had difficulty believing that she was on the same continent. But then, she remembered, they were on the opposite side of Africa, a thousand miles and more from the Finger of God.

Garry Courtney stopped the Fiat on the crest of the steep escarpment high above the Baboonstroom river and switched off the engine and helped both women down.

He took Shasa from Centaine and led them to the edge.

There, he pointed. That's Theuniskraal where both Sean and I, and then Michael, were all born. It stood at the foot of the slope, surrounded by rambling gardens. Even from this distance Centaine could see that the gardens were unkempt and overgrown as tropical jungle. Tall palms and flowering spathodea trees were hung with untrammelled mantles of purple bougainvillaea creepers, and the ornamental fish ponds were poisonous green with algae growth.

of course the house was rebuilt after the fire, Garry hesitated, and a shadow passed behind his muddy blue eyes, for in that fire Michael's mother had died, then he hurried on. I've added to it over the years. Centaine smiled, for the house reminded her of a haphazard old woman who had thrown on garments of a dozen different fashions, none of which suited her. Grecian columns and Georgian red brick glared sullenly at the white painted curlicue gables in the Cape Dutch style.

The twisted barley sugar chimney-pots huddled in uneasy alliance with crenellated buttresses and towers of stonework. Beyond it, stretching to the horizon, were waving fields of green sugar cane that moved in the light wind like the surface of a summer sea.