The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur (читать книгу онлайн бесплатно полностью без регистрации .TXT) 📗

"We must take the chance," he decided.

"As you wish," grunted Jacque, and transferred his rifle to his other

shoulder, hitched up his belt and settled the steel helmet more firmly

on his head.

"Allez!" They trotted on through the forest towards the southeast.

Within a mile Bruce's body had settled into the automatic rhythm of his

run, leaving his mind free.

He thought about Wally Hendry, saw again the little eyes and round them

the puffy folded skin, and the mouth below, thin and merciless, the

obscene ginger stubble of beard. He could almost smell him. His nostrils

flared at the memory of the rank red-head's body odour.

Unclean, he thought, unclean mind and unclean body.

His hatred of Wally Hendry was a tangible thing. He could feel it

sitting heavily at the base of his throat, tingling in his fingertips

and giving strength to his legs.

And yet there was something else. Suddenly Bruce grinned: a wolfish

baring of his teeth. That tingling in his fingertips was not all hatred,

a little of it was excitement.

What a complex thing is a man, he thought. He can never hold one emotion

- always there are others to confuse it. Here I am hunting the

thing that I most loathe and hate, and I am enjoying it. Completely

unrelated to the hatred is the thrill of hunting the most dangerous and

cunning game of all, man.

I have always enjoyed the chase, he thought. It has been bred into me,

for my blood is that of the men who hunted and fought with

Africa as the prize.

The hunting of this man will give me pleasure. If ever a man deserved to

die, it is Wally Hendry. I am the plaintiff, the judge and the

executioner.

Sergeant Jacque stopped so suddenly that Bruce ran into him and they

nearly fell.

"What is it?" panted Bruce, coming back to reality.

"Look!" The earth ahead of them was churned and broken.

"Zebra," groaned Bruce, recognizing the round uncloven hoof prints. "God

damn it to hell - of all the filthy luck!"

"A big herd," Jacque agreed. "Spread out. Feeding." As far ahead as they

could see through the forest the herd had wiped out Hendry's tracks.

"We'll have to cast forward." Bruce's voice was agonized by his

impatience. He turned to the nearest tree and hacked at it with his

bayonet, blazing it to mark the end of the trail, swearing softly,

venting his disappointment on the trunk.

"Only another hour to sunset," he whispered. "Please let us pick him up

again before dark." Sergeant Jacque was already moving forward,

following the approximate line of Hendry's travel, trying vainly to

recognize a single footprint through the havoc created there by the

passage of thousands of hooves. Bruce hurried to join him and then moved

out on his flank. They zigzagged slowly ahead, almost meeting on the

inward leg of each tack and then separating again to a distance of a

hundred yards.

There it was! Bruce dropped to his knees to make sure.

Just the outline of the toecap, showing from under the spoor of an old

zebra stallion. Bruce whistled, a windy sound through his dry lips, and

Jacque came quickly. One quick look then: "Yes, he is holding more to

the right now." He raised his eyes and squinted ahead, marking a tree

which was directly in line with the run of the spoor.

They went forward.

"There's the herd." Bruce pointed at the flicker Of a grey body through

the trees.

"They've got our wind." A zebra snorted and then there was a rumbling, a

low bluffed drumming of hooves as the herd ran. Through the trees Bruce

caught glimpses of the animals on the near side of the herd. Too far off

to show the stripes, looking like fat grey ponies as they galloped, ears

up, black-maned heads nodding. Then they were gone and the sound of

their flight dwindled.

"At least they haven't run along the spoor," muttered Bruce, and then

bitterly: "Damn them, the stupid little donkeys! They've cost us an

hour. A whole priceless hour." Desperately searching, wild with haste,

they worked back and forth. The sun was below the trees; already the air

was cooling in the short African dusk. Another fifteen

minutes and it would be dark.

Then abruptly the forest ended. they came out on the edge of a vlei.

Open as Wheatland, pastured with green waist-high grass, hemmed in by

the forest, it stretched ahead of them for nearly two miles.

Dotted along it were clumps of ivory palms with each graceful stem

ending in an untidy cluster of leaves. Troops of guinea-fowls were

scratching and chirruping along the edge of the clearing, and near the

far end a herd of buffalo formed a dark mass as they grazed beneath a

canopy of white egrets.

In the forest beyond the clearing, rising perhaps three hundred feet out

of it, stood a kopje of tumbled granite.

The great slabs of rock with their sheer sides and square tops looked

like a ruined castle. The low sun struck it and gave the rock an orange

warmth.

But Bruce had no time to admire the scene; his eyes were on the earth,

searching for the prints of Hendry's jungle boots.

Out on his left Sergeant Jacque whistled sharply and Bruce felt the leap

of excitement in his chest. He ran across to the crouching gendarme.

"It has come away." Jacque pointed at the spoor that was strung ahead of

them like beads on a string, skirting the edge of the vlei, each

depression filled with shadow and standing out clearly on the sandy grey

earth.

"Too late," groaned Bruce. "Damn those bloody zebra." The light

was fading so swiftly it seemed as though it were a stage effect.

"Follow it." Bruce's voice was sharp with helpless frustration.

"Follow it as long as you can." It was not a quarter of a mile farther

on that Jacque rose out of his crouch and only the white of his teeth

showed in the darkness as he spoke.

"We will lose it again if we go on."

"All right." Bruce unslung his rifle with weary resignation.

He knew that Wally Hendry was at least forty miles ahead of them; more

if he kept travelling after dark. The spoor was cold. If this had been

an ordinary hunt he would long ago have broken off the chase.

He looked up at the sky. In the north the stars were fat and

yellow, but above them and to the south it was black with cloud.

"Don't let it rain," he whispered. "Please God, don't let it rain." The

night was long. Bruce slept once for perhaps two hours and then the

strength of his hatred woke him. He lay flat upon his back and stared up

at the sky. It was all dark with clouds; only occasionally they opened

and let the stars shine briefly through.

"It must not rain. It must not rain." He repeated it like a prayer,

staring up at the dark sky, concentrating upon it as though by the force

of his mind he could control the elements.

There were lions hunting in the forest. He heard the male roaring,

moving up from the south, and once his two lionesses answered him. They

killed a little before dawn and Bruce lay on the hard earth and listened

to their jubilation over the kill. Then there was silence as they began

to feed.

That I might have success as well, he thought. I do not often ask for

favours, Lord, but grant me this one. I ask it not only for myself but