There are occasions in a hunter’s experience when a spoor begins hot and true and then fades. Mark remembered a hunt like that which he and the old man had made up near Chaka’s Gate.
‘Dead spoor, gone away,’ he muttered aloud now, and stood uncertainly in the main street of Ladyburg. There seemed no way that he might find the old man’s grave. No way that he could bring the body back and rebury it beside Alice on Andersland.
Less important was the money that the old man had been paid for Andersland. Three thousand pounds. It was a vast fortune in Mark’s eyes and it would be good to know what had happened to it. With that amount, he could afford land of his own somewhere.
Then Mark faced the issue he had avoided up until now and admitted that there was just one more faint chance, but he felt his stomach tighten at what he had to do. With a physical effort he steeled himself and set off steadily down the street towards the towering building of the Ladyburg Farmers Bank. He had not reached it before the church clock on the spire at the end of the street sounded the hour, five clear chimes that echoed across the valley, and a dozen bank employees came out in a group through the front door, smiling and chatting gaily in the relief of the day’s work ended – while a uniformed guard began closing and locking the solid mahogany doors.
Mark felt a sneaking sense of relief, and he turned away. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow,’ he told himself firmly.
The boarding house behind the church offered dinner and a bed for seven shillings and sixpence, and Mark thought about it for only a moment. The sovereigns that he had from the old man’s hoard might have to carry him long and far.
He went on out to the bridge over the Baboon Stroom and climbed down on to the bank, moving upstream to find a place to camp.
There was a fine site, with trees and firewood a quarter of a mile above the bridge, but when Mark went down the bank to the water, he could smell the stink of it before he touched the surface with the canteen; he paused, squatting on his haunches.
There was a thick soapy scum thrown up along the edge, and it had coated the stems of the reeds. For the first time Mark realized that the reeds were dead and brown, and that the water bubbled with sullen beads of gas. He scooped a handful and sniffed at it, then flicked it away with disgust and stood up, wiping his hand on the seat of his pants.
There was a big yellow fish, at least four pounds in weight, its swollen belly upwards and rotting opaque eyes bulging from its head as it floated in the sluggish current, turning gently in the eddy at the edge of the reeds. Mark watched it with a feeling of disquiet, of foreboding, as though that poisoned and rotting carcass had some special significance in his life. He shuddered softly and turned away, climbed the bank again and shouldered his pack.
He made his way upstream, pausing now and then to peer down into the river-bed, until he was opposite the steel structure of the new sugar mill; here the waters of the stream boiled and steamed with wisps of pale gas that hung like mist in the stiff brown reeds. Around the next bend, he came upon the effluent pipe, a six-inch black iron pipe that stuck out over the far side of the bank, from which the hot, steaming discharge poured in a continuous stream.
A change in the breeze carried the acrid chemical stench of it to where Mark stood, and he coughed and turned away.
A hundred yards further upstream, the clear water chuckled through clean strands of green reeds that bowed and swung gracefully on the breeze, and Mark saw the deep waving shape of an eel in the pool beyond, and watched the small black and pink crabs scurrying across the sugar-white sand below the surface.
He found another camp site on the first slope of the escarpment, beside a waterfall and its slowly swirling pool. In the trees above him, the ferns hung like soft green veils, and when he stripped his clothing and went into the pool, the water was a cool and refreshing delight.
He shaved with the old cut-throat, sitting naked on a mossy rock beside the pool. He dried himself on his shirt and then rinsed it out and hung it beside the small bright fire to dry, and while he waited for the canteen to boil he wandered, bare to the waist, on to the open slope and looked down into the valley.
The sun was already touching the rim of the escarpment, and its low rays were ruddy and warm rose. They burnished the iron roofs of the town, and tinted the column of smoke that rose from the chimney stack of the sugar mill to a beautiful golden bronze. The smoke rose tall into the evening sky, for the breeze had dropped in that peculiar stillness and hush of the African evening.
Movement caught his eye, and he blinked to clear his vision.
There was a hunting party in the open land beyond the town. Even at this distance, Mark could tell they were hunters. Four horsemen moving slowly in a group, one with a rifle or shotgun held against his hip, its barrel pointing to the sky as he leaned forward intently in the saddle. The other three were armed also; he could see the guns in the scabbards at their knees, and they also had that intent air of suppressed excitement, the air of the hunter. Ahead of the group was a single figure, a Zulu in ragged cast-off western clothing, but he led the horsemen in the characteristic attitude of the tracker, trotting in that deceptively fast gait of the Zulu, head down, eyes on the ground, carrying a stripped reed in one hand, the tracker’s wand to part the grass, or touch the spoor.
Idly Mark wondered what they were hunting, so close to town, and on the bank of that dying and poisoned river, for they were coming along the same trail that Mark had followed to the escarpment.
The light was going swiftly now, the shining beacons of the iron roofs winked out swiftly as the sun went below the crest, but in the last of the light, Mark saw the leader of the group of horsemen rein in his mount and straighten in the saddle. He was a stocky figure, sitting square on his mount. The man looked up towards the escarpment where Mark stood, then the light was gone and the group became a dark blob against the darkening land.
Vaguely disturbed, and troubled by the day just past, by the cold memories of the old man, by the sadness of that dying river, and at last by that distant figure, Mark crouched over his fire, munching his stew of tinned bully and then sipping his coffee.
When at last he pulled on his coat and rolled into his blanket close beside the fire, he could not sleep. The sense of disquiet seemed to grow rather than abate, and he found himself wondering again what four horsemen could find to hunt on the edge of a busy town. Then he thought again about the way that they had followed his own path along the river, and the disquiet deepened, sleep receded.
Suddenly he remembered how the old man would never sleep beside his cooking fire.
‘I learned that when we was a chasing the Boer. A light in the night brings things other than moths – lions, hyenas and men.’ He could almost hear the old man’s voice saying it, and he rose immediately, with the blanket still around his shoulders, and moved away up the slope fifty yards until he found a hollow filled with dead leaves.
Sleep came at last and the soft skirt of it was falling lightly across his eyes when a Scops owl called in the forest near him; instantly he was fully awake. It was a familiar night sound, but this one had jarred some deep chord in him. The imitation had been clever, but it did not deceive an ear so closely tuned to the sounds of the wild.
Tense and listening, Mark lifted his head slowly and peered down the slope. His fire was a puddle of pink embers and above him the shapes of the trees were dark and fluffy against a crisp sky of white stars.
The owl called again down near the pool, and, at the same moment, Mark heard something move stealthily near him in the darkness, something big and heavy, the brush of footfalls in the dead leaves. Then there was silence again.
Mark strained his eyes and ears into the darkness, but it was impenetrable under the trees.
Far below in the valley, a locomotive whistled three times, the sound carrying clearly in the stillness, and then there was the huff and puff of the train pulling out from the goods yard and settling into a steady rhythmic beat of boiler and tracks.
> Mark tried to put that sound beyond his hearing, trying to filter it out so that he could discern the closer softer sounds in the night around him.
Something moved down the slope, he heard the silky soft whisper of it and then he saw movement; outlined against the glowing ashes of his fire, a man’s booted legs stepped out of the darkness and halted beside the fire, standing completely still.
Nearer Mark, there was another movement, a stir of impatient feet in dead leaves – and then, unmistakably, the metallic snick of gun-metal as a safety-catch was slipped to the ‘fire’ position. The sound struck like electricity along Mark’s nerve ends, and his breath caught in his throat. It was very close, six feet away, and now he thought he could make out the loom of the man against the stars. He was standing almost on top of Mark’s bed in the hollow, staring down at the fire beside the camp.
The man at the fire spoke now, softly, but his voice carried clearly. ‘The bastard has gone – he’s not here.’ He stooped to the pile of dry firewood that Mark had cut and stacked. He threw a piece on to the embers, and sparks flew upwards in a fiery spiral and the branch flamed, throwing out a circle of yellow light.
Then he exclaimed sharply, ‘His pack is still here,’ and he hefted the shotgun expectantly, glaring into the night.
‘Remember, there’s a hundred pounds on it.’
The words and the way the man was handling the shotgun made his intention clear beyond doubt. Mark felt the warm flood of adrenalin rush through his body, and he was poised and quivering with suppressed energy, ready to burst into explosive movement in an instant.
The man near him moved again, and Mark heard the muted tap of metal on metal, the sound of the man’s breathing also, hoarse with tension – and then suddenly and with devastating shock, bright white light split the darkness. A lantern beam swivelled and then fastened on Mark’s blanket-wrapped crouching form.
In the instant before he moved, Mark saw the shape of the man beyond the dazzle of the light. He carried the lantern in his right hand holding it high, at the level of his head, and the rifle was in his left hand, hanging at the trail.
He was completely unprepared to find Mark lying almost at his feet, and his shout was wild.
‘He’s here. My God.’ He tried to bring up the rifle, but his right hand held the lantern.
‘Shoot! Shoot, damn it!’ another voice shouted, a voice somehow familiar, and beside Mark the man dropped the lantern and began to swing up the rifle. Mark launched himself straight at him.
He used the man’s own momentum, taking the upswing of the rifle; seizing the muzzle of the barrel in one hand and the stock in the other, he smashed the weapon into the man’s face with the full weight and force of his body behind it. He heard gristle and bone crunch, while the solid impact of the steel breach striking into the man’s face was transmitted through the rifle into his arms, jarring him to the shoulders.
The man went over backwards, with a cry that bubbled with the quick burst of blood into his nose and mouth. Mark bounded over him and ran at the slope.
Behind him there was a chorus of shouts and cries, and then the blam, blam of a shotgun and the double glow of the muzzle, flashes. Mark heard the heavy charges of shot slash into the leaves beside him, and something burned his upper arm like the sting of a wild bee.
‘The light. Get the light!’
‘There he is, don’t let him get away.’
A rifle fired three times in quick succession, it sounded like a .303 Lee-Enfield. The bullet hit a rock and howled away into the sky, another thumped into a tree trunk close beside him as he ran.
Mark fell heavily in the dark and felt his ankle go; the pain of it exploded up his leg into his groin and lower belly. He rolled on to his knees, and the beam of the lantern swept over, and then fastened hungrily on him.
‘We’ve got him.’
A fusillade of shots, and a triumphant chorus of shouts. The shot and bullets shattered the air around him, one so close that the whip of it deafened one ear and he threw himself forward at the slope.
The pain in his foot made Mark cry out. It was white-hot shooting agony that burst from his ankle and broke like brilliant phosphorescent surf against the roof of his skull, but he drove himself on, soaked with sweat, swerving as he ran, sobbing and hobbling on the damaged leg.
They were spread out in the bush behind him, and it seemed that the slope was tiring them quickly, men accustomed to riding horseback, for the cries were becoming strained and breathless, edged with worry and the first fear that their quarry might escape them.
Mark was trying to think between the bursts of agony with which each step racked him. He thought to drop into thick cover and lie until they passed him, but they were too close for that, and they had a tracker with them, a tracker who had brought them unerringly to his camp, even in darkness. To lie down now would be surrender—and suicide, but he could not go on much longer. Already the pain was threatening to swamp him, there was a sound in his head like great wings and his vision was starting to break up and star.
He fell to his knees and vomited, gagging and choking on the acid gall of it, and within seconds the voice of the pursuit was closer and more urgent. He dragged himself up, and the lantern beam caught him squarely; a rifle bullet disrupted the air about his head so that he staggered as he blundered onwards, using the screen of bush to avoid the beam of light. Quite suddenly he felt the ground tilt upwards under his feet sharply.
He lost his footing again, but in the same movement rolled to his feet and stumbled over a lip on to level ground where there was the sudden sugary crunch of gravel under his feet. Three stumbling paces and he came down heavily, his feet knocked out from under him and, as he went down, steel smeared the skin from his outflung forearm.
He lay panting and blinded for long seconds and heard the hunters bay like hounds down the slope. The sound goaded him and he groped with outstretched hands for purchase to push himself on to his feet once more.
He found the cold smooth steel that had tripped him; it trembled like a living thing under his hands. It came to him then that he had climbed the embankment of the railway line and fallen across the rails of the permanent way.
He pushed himself to his knees, and now he heard the deep panting rush in the night; suddenly the whole slope of the escarpment was lit by reflected light that swung dramatically and brightened like daylight as the locomotive he had heard leaving the goods yard in the valley came roaring out of the deep cutting that skirted the steepest part of the escarpment, before crossing the deep gorge of the river.
The long white beam of the lamp struck him like a solid thing and he flung up his arm to shield his eyes and rolled off the rails, crouching down on the gravel on the opposite side to that of his pursuers.
In the light of the locomotive lamp, Mark saw a stocky agile figure come up the embankment at a run. He ducked across the tracks, directly under the roaring throbbing loco. The dazzle of light prevented Mark seeing his face, yet there was something familiar in the way the man moved and held his shoulders.
The engine came thundering down on Mark, and as it drew level a spurt of steam from the driving pistons scalded him with its hot breath. Then it was past and there was just the dark blurred rush of the boxcars above him.
Mark dragged himself upright, balancing on his good foot and struck the streams of sweat from his eyes, peering upwards to judge his moment.
When it came, he almost missed it; his hands were slippery with sweat and the railing was almost jerked from his grip even though the train had lost much of its speed and power on the slope.
The strain in his shoulder shot an arrow of pain along his arm, and he was torn off his feet, swinging against the side of the boxcar while he grappled wildly for a grip with his other hand.
He found purchase and clung on to the side of the boxcar, his feet still free but scrabbling for the footplates – and at that moment hands like steel claws seized his injured ankle, the full weight of a heavy body bore
him down, racking him out against the side of the car.
Mark screamed with the unbearable white-hot pain of the grip on his ankle, and it took all his strength and courage to maintain his double grip on the rail.
His body was penduluming, as the man who held him was himself swung off the ground and then came back to skid and run in the loose gravel of the embankment, as though he were driving a dog-sledge.
Mark twisted his head back and judged the white blob of the man’s face and aimed the kick with his free foot, but it was an impossible target. At that instant the sound of the locomotive altered, as it hit the steel of the bridge where it crossed the deep gorge of the river.
The uprights of the bridge sprang out of the rushing corridor of blackness; Mark heard the deadly hiss of the riveted steel girders flit past his head, and at the same moment the grip on his leg was released. He clung with his remaining strength and resolve to the railing of that goods truck, while the train racketed over the bridge and ploughed on steadily up the slope, until it burst at last over the crest on to the level ground of the plateau. It picked up speed sharply, and Mark dragged himself inch by agonized inch up the railing, until at last he tumbled over the side of the open boxcar on to the load of sugar sacks and lay face downwards, sobbing for each breath, while he rode the high storm surf of pain from his leg.
The cold roused him at last. His sweat-sodden coat was turned icy by the rush of night air and he crawled painfully forward towards the shelter of the high steel side of the car. He checked quietly and found with relief that his purse and notebook were still in his pocket.
Suddenly he was aware that he was not alone and fresh panic gripped him.
‘Who’s that?’ he croaked, recoiling quickly into a defensive attitude.
A voice answered quickly in deep Zulu. ‘I mean no harm, Nkosi,’ and Mark felt a quick rush of relief. A man crouched against the side of the car, out of the wind, and it was clear that he was as alarmed by Mark’s presence as Mark had been by his.
‘I mean no harm, lord. I am a poor man without the money to pay to ride the steamer. My father is sick and dying in Tekweni, Durban town.’