“Yes,” Koots agreed. By this time his opinion of the Arab as a warrior had been much enhanced. “We must not waste that advantage.”
Eleven days later they came to the brink of a deep escarpment. There were tall snow-capped mountain peaks to the south, but ahead the land dropped away steeply in a confusion of hills, valleys and forest. Koots dismounted and steadied his spyglass on Xhia’s shoulder. Then, suddenly, he shouted aloud as he picked out in the blue distance the even bluer tint of the ocean. “Yes!” he cried. “I was right all along. Jim Courtney is headed for Nativity Bay to join up with his father’s ships. That is the coast less than a hundred leagues ahead.” Before he could fully articulate his satisfaction at having pursued the quest so far, something even more compelling caught Koots’s eye.
In the wide expanse of land and forest below him he descried drifts of pale dust dispersed over a wide area, and when he turned the glass on these clouds he saw beneath them the movement of the massed herds of cattle, slow and dark as spilled oil spreading on the carpet of the veld.
“Mother of Satan!” he cried. “There they are! I have them at last.” With a mighty effort he checked his warlike instinct to ride down on them immediately. Instead he cautioned himself to consider all the circumstances and eventualities that he and Kadem had discussed so earnestly over the past days.
“They are moving slowly, at the speed of the grazing herds. We can afford the time to rest our own men and horses and prepare ourselves for the attack. In the meantime I will send Xhia ahead to scout Jim Courtney’s dispositions, to learn his line of march, the character of his new men, and the order of battle of his horsemen.”
Kadem nodded agreement as he surveyed the ground below them. “We might circle out ahead and lie in ambush. Perhaps in a narrow pass through the hills or at a river crossing. Order Xhia to have an eye for a place such as that.”
“Whatever happens, we must not let them join up with the ships that might already be waiting for them in Nativity Bay,” said Koots. “We must attack before that happens, or we will be facing cannon and grape-shot as well as muskets and spears.”
Koots lowered the telescope, and grabbed Xhia by the scruff of his neck to impress upon him the seriousness of his orders. Xhia listened earnestly, and understood at least every second word that Koots growled at him.
“I will find you here when I return,” Xhia agreed, when Koots ended his harangue. Then he trotted away down the escarpment wall without looking back. He did not have to make any further preparations for the task ahead of him, for Xhia carried upon his sturdy back every possession he owned.
It was a little before noon when he set out, and late afternoon before he was close enough to the cattle herds to hear their distant lowing. He was careful to cover his own sign, and not to approach any closer. Despite his braggadocio he held Bakkat’s powers in high respect. He circled round the herds to find the exact position of Somoya’s wagons. The cattle had trodden the tracks and confused the sign, so it was difficult even for him to read as much from them as he wanted.
He came up level with the wagons but a league out to the north of their line of march when suddenly he stopped. His heart began to pound like the hoofbeats of a galloping herd of zebra. He stared down at the dainty little footprint in the dust.
“Bakkat,” he whispered. “My enemy. I would know your sign anywhere, for it is imprinted on my heart.”
All Koots’s orders and exhortations were wiped from his mind and he concentrated all his powers on the spoor. “He goes quickly and with purpose. In a straight line, not pausing or hesitating. He shows no caution. If ever I can surprise him, this is the day.”
Without another thought he turned aside from his original purpose and followed the tracks of Bakkat, whom he hated above all else in his world.
In the early morning Bakkat heard the honey-guide. It was fluttering in the treetops, chittering and uttering that particular whirring sound that could mean only one thing. His mouth watered.
“I greet you, my sweet friend,” he called, and ran to stand beneath the tree in which the drab little bird was performing its seductive gyrations. Its movements became more frenzied when it saw that it had attracted Bakkat’s attention. It left the branch on which it was displaying and flitted to the next tree.
Bakkat hesitated, and glanced round at the square of wagons laagered at the edge of the forest on the far side of the glade, a mile away. If he were to take the time to run back merely to tell Somoya where he was going, the bird might become discouraged and fly away before he returned. Somoya might forbid him to follow it. Bakkat smacked his lips: he could almost taste the sweet, viscous honey on his tongue. He lusted for it. “I will not be away long,” he consoled himself. “Somoya will not even know that I am gone. He and Welanga are probably playing with their little wooden dolls.” This was Bakkat’s opinion of the carved chessmen that so often occupied the couple to the exclusion of everything around them. Bakkat ran after the bird.
The honey-guide saw him coming and sang to him as it flitted on to the next tree, then the next. Bakkat sang as he followed: “You lead me to sweetness, and I love you for it. You are more beautiful than the sunbird, wiser than the owl, greater than the eagle. You are the lord of all birds.” Which was not true, but the honey-guide would be flattered to hear it.
Bakkat ran through the forest for the rest of that morning, and in the noonday when the forest sweltered in the heat, and all the animals and birds were silent and somnolent, the bird stopped at last in the top branches of a tambootie tree, and changed its melody.
Bakkat understood what it was telling him: “We have arrived. This is the place of the hive, and it overflows with golden honey. Now you and I will eat our fill.”
Bakkat stood beneath the tambootie and threw back his head as he peered upwards. He saw the bees, highlighted by the low sunlight like golden dust motes, as they darted into the cleft in the tree trunk. Bakkat took from his shoulder his bow and quiver, his axe and leather carrying bag. He laid them carefully at the base of the tree. The honey-guide would understand that this was his guarantee that he would return. However, to make certain there was no misunderstanding, Bakkat explained it to the bird: “Wait for me here, my little friend. I will not be gone long. I must gather the vine to lull the bees.”
He found the plant he needed growing on the bank of a nearby stream. It climbed the trunk of a lead-wood tree, wrapping round it like a slender serpent. The leaves were shaped like teardrops, and the tiny flowers were scarlet. Bakkat was gentle as he harvested the leaves he needed, careful not to damage the plant more than he had to for it was a precious thing. To kill it would be a sin against nature and his own people, the San.
With the wad of leaves in his pouch he moved on until he reached a grove of fever trees. He picked out one whose trunk was the right girth for his needs and ring-barked it. Then he peeled off a section and rolled it into a tube, which he secured with twists of bark string. He ran back to the honey tree. When the bird saw him return, it burst into hysterical chitterings of relief.
Bakkat squatted at the foot of the tree and made a tiny fire inside the bark tube. He blew into one end to create a draught, and the coals glowed hotly. He scattered a few of the flowers and the leaves of the vine on to them. As they smouldered they emitted clouds of pungent smoke. Bakkat stood up, hooked the blade of the axe over his shoulder and began to climb the tree. He went up as swiftly as a vervet monkey. Just below the cleft in the trunk he found a convenient branch and took a seat on it. He sniffed the waxy odour of the hive and listened for a moment to the deep murmurous voice of the swarm in the depths of the hollow trunk. He studied the entrance to the hive and marked his first cut, then placed one end of the bark tube into the opening and gently blew puffs of the smoke into it. After a while the humming of the swarm fell into silence as the bees were sedated and lulled.
Bakkat laid aside the smoke tube and braced himself, balancing easily on the narrow branch. He swung the axe. As the blow reverb
erated through the trunk a few bees came out and buzzed around his head, but the smoke of the vine leaves had dulled their warlike instincts. One or two stung him, but Bakkat ignored them. With quick, powerful axe strokes he cut a square hatchway in the hollow trunk, and exposed the serried ranks of honeycombs.
Then he climbed down to the ground and laid aside the axe. He returned to his perch on the branch with the leather bag over his shoulder. He scattered more vine leaves on the coals in the fire tube, and blew clouds of the thick, pungent smoke into the enlarged entrance. When the swarm was silent again he reached deep into the hive. With bees flowing over his arms and shoulders, he lifted out the combs one at a time and laid them gently in the bag. When the hive was empty he thanked the bees for their bounty, and apologized to them for his cruel treatment.
“Very soon you will recover from the smoke I have given you, and you will be able to repair your hive and fill it once again with honey. Bakkat will always be your friend, and he feels only great respect and gratitude towards you,” he told the bees.
He climbed down to the ground and cut a curl of bark from the trunk of the tambootie tree to form a tray on which he could lay out the honey-guide’s share of the booty. He selected the choicest comb for his little friend and accomplice, one that was full of the yellow grubs, for he knew the bird loved these almost as much as he did.
He gathered up all his possessions and slung the bulging leather bag over his shoulder. For the last time he thanked the bird and bade it farewell. As soon as he stepped back the bird dropped down from the top of the tree, fell upon the fat golden comb and pecked out the juicy grubs at once. Bakkat smiled and watched it indulgently for a while. He knew it would eat it all, even the wax, for it was the only creature that was able to digest this part of the bounty.
He reminded the little bird of the legend of the greedy San who had cleaned out the hive and left nothing for the bird. The next time the bird had led him to a hole in the trunk of a tree in which was coiled a huge black mamba. The snake stung the cheating San to death.
“The next time we meet, remember that I treated you well and fairly,” Bakkat told the bird. “I will look for you again. May the Kulu Kulu watch over you.” And he set off back towards the wagons. As he went, he reached into the bag, broke off pieces of comb and stuffed them into his mouth, humming with deep pleasure.
Within half a mile he stopped abruptly at a crossing place on the stream and stared in astonishment at the prints of human feet in the clay of the bank. The people who had passed this way recently had made no effort to hide their tracks. They were San.
Bakkat’s heart leaped like a gazelle. Only when he saw the fresh footprints did he realize how he had pined for his own people. He examined the sign avidly. There were five of them, two men and three women. One man was old, and the other much younger. He divined this from the reach and alacrity of their separate strides. One of the women was ancient, and hobbled along on gnarled, twisted feet. Another was in her prime, with a strong, determined step. She led the Indian file of her family.
Then Bakkat’s eyes fell on the fifth and last set of prints, and he felt a great longing squeeze his heart. They were dainty and as enchanting as any of the paintings of the artists of his tribe. Bakkat felt that he might weep with the beauty of them. He had to sit down for a while and stare at one until he could recover from the effect that they had had upon him. In his mind’s eye he could see the girl who had left these signs for him to find. He divined with all his instincts that she was very young, but graceful, limber and nubile. Then he stood up again and followed her footprints into the forest.
On the far bank of the stream he came to the point where the two men had separated from the women and gone off among the trees to hunt. From that point the women had begun gathering the wild harvest of the veld. Bakkat saw where they had broken off the fruit from the branches, and dug out the edible tubers and roots with the sharp, pointed stakes that each carried.
He followed the tracks that the girl had left, and saw how swiftly and surely she worked. She made no false digs, wasting no effort, and it was clear to Bakkat that she knew every plant and tree she came upon. She passed by the poisonous and tasteless, and picked out the sweet and nourishing.
Bakkat giggled with admiration. “This is a clever little one. She could feed her whole family with what she has gathered since she crossed the stream. What a wife she would make for a man.”
Then he heard voices in the forest ahead, feminine voices calling to each other as they worked. One was as musical and sweet as the call of the oriole, that golden songster of the high galleries of the forest.
It led him as irresistibly as the honey-guide had. Silent and unseen he crept towards the girl. She was working in a clump of thick scrub. He could hear her digging stick thudding into the earth. At last he was close enough to make out her movements, veiled by the latticework of branches and leaves. Then, suddenly, she moved into the open, directly in front of Bakkat. All the solitary years and loneliness were swept away like debris in the new, surging flow of his emotions.
She was exquisite, tiny and perfect. Her skin glowed in the noonday sunlight. Her face was a golden flower. Her lips were full and petal-shaped. She lifted one graceful hand and, with her thumb, wiped the clinging drops of perspiration from her arched eyebrow and flicked them away. They sparkled as they flew through the air. He was so close that one splashed on his dusty shin. She was oblivious of his presence, and began to walk away. Then one of the other women called to her from nearby, “Are you thirsty, Letee? Shall we go back to the stream?” The girl stopped and looked back. She wore only a tiny leather apron in front, decorated with cowrie shells and beads made from chippings of ostrich-egg shell. The pattern of the shells and beads proclaimed that she was a virgin, and that no man had yet spoken for her.
“My mouth is as dry as a desert stone. Let us go.” Letee laughed as she replied to her mother. Her teeth were small and very white.
In that moment Bakkat’s entire existence changed. As she walked away her little breasts joggled merrily and her plump, naked buttocks undulated. He made no attempt to stop or delay her. He knew that he could find her again anywhere and at any time.
When she had disappeared, he stood up slowly from his hiding-place. Suddenly he gave a leap of joy high into the air, and rushed away to make himself a love arrow. He selected a perfect reed from the edge of the stream, and lavished upon it all his talents as an artist. He painted it with mystic patterns and designs. The colours he chose from his paint horns were yellow, white, red and black. He fledged it with the purple feathers of the lourie, and padded the tip with a ball of tanned springbuck skin stuffed with sunbird feathers so that it would inflict no pain or injury on Letee.
“It is beautiful!” Bakkat admired his own handiwork when it was finished. “But not as beautiful as Letee.”
That night he found the encampment of Letee’s family. They were temporarily inhabiting a cave in the rocky cliff above the stream. He crept close in the darkness and listened to their banal inconsequential chatter. From it he learned that the old man and woman were her grandparents, and the other couple her mother and father. Her elder sister had recently found herself a fine husband and left the clan. The others were teasing Letee. She had seen her first menstrual moonrise fully three months previously, yet she was still a virgin and unmarried. Letee hung her head in shame at her failure to find herself a man.
Bakkat left the mouth of the cave and found a place to sleep further down the stream. But he was back before dawn, and when the women left the cave to go out into the forest he followed them at a discreet distance. When they started to forage they kept in touch with each other by calling and whistling, but after a while Letee became separated from them. Bakkat closed in on her with all his stalking skills.
She was digging for the fat tuber of the tiski plant, a variety of wild manioc. She kept her legs straight as she bent over and rocked to the rhythm of her digging stick. The protruding lips of h
er sex peeped out from between the backs of her thighs, and her plump little rear end was pointed to the sky.
Bakkat crept close. His hands shook as he raised the tiny ceremonial bow and aimed his love arrow. Yet his aim was true as ever and Letee squeaked with surprise, and sprang high in the air as the arrow smacked into her bottom. She wheeled round clutching herself with both hands, her expression betraying her astonishment and outrage. Then she saw the arrow lying at her feet and gazed around her at the silent bush. Bakkat had disappeared like a puff of smoke. The stinging in her bottom abated as she rubbed it. Then, slowly, she was overcome with shyness.
Suddenly Bakkat appeared, so close that she gasped with shock. She stared at him. His chest was broad and deep. His legs and arms were sturdy. She saw at an instant, by the easy way in which he bore his weapons, that he was a mighty hunter, and that he would provide well for a family. He carried the colour pots of the artist on his belt, which meant that he would have high standing and much prestige within all the tribes of the San. She dropped her eyes demurely and whispered, “You are so tall. I saw you from afar.”
“I also saw you from afar,” Bakkat replied, “for your beauty lights the forest like the rising of the sun.”
“I knew you would come,” she answered him, “for your face was painted on my heart on the day of my birth.” Letee came forward timidly, took his hand and led him to her mother. In her other hand she carried the love arrow. “This is Bakkat,” she told her mother, and held up the arrow. Her mother shrieked, which brought the grandmother running, cackling like a hen guinea-fowl. The two older women went ahead of them to the cave, singing, dancing and clapping. Bakkat and Letee followed them, still holding hands.
Bakkat gave Letee’s grandfather the bag of wild honey. He could not have brought them a more acceptable gift. Not only were they all addicted to the sweetness, but it proved Bakkat’s ability to provide for a wife and children. The family feasted on it, but Bakkat ate none because he was the giver. With every mouthful Letee smacked her lips and smiled at him. They talked until late in the light of the campfire. Bakkat told them who he was, the totem of his tribe and the list of his ancestors. The grandfather knew many of them, and clapped his hands as he recognized their names. Letee sat with the other women and they did not join in the talk of the men. At last, Letee stood up and crossed to where Bakkat sat between the other two men. She took his hand and led him to where she had laid out her sleeping mat at the back of the cave.