The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 89

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Then from somewhere deep within, her she found the strength to rise and hobble on up the path. At the heel of the hill, she looked down at the camp. It looked so quiet and orderly. Her home. The smoke from the camp-fire rose like a pale grey feather into the still morning air, so welcoming, so safe, illogically she felt that if she could only reach her tent then it would be all right.

She started and she had not gone a dozen paces, before she felt something burst deep within her, and then the abrupt hot rush down the inside of her legs as her waters broke and poured from her. She struggled on, hampered by her sodden skirts, and then, unbelievably, she had reached her own tent.

It was so cool and dark within, like a church, she thought, and again her legs gave way beneath her. She crawled painfully across the floor, and her hair came tumbling down and blinded her. She groped her way to the wagon chest set at the foot of the big camp cot, and threw the hair out of her eyes as she rested against it.

The lid was so heavy that it took all her strength, but at last it fell open with a crash. The pistol was tucked under the crocheted white bed covers, that she had hoarded for the home that Ralph would one day build for her. It was a big service Webley revolver. She had only fired it once, with Ralph steadying her from behind, holding her wrists against the recoil. Now it needed both her hands to lift it out of the chest. She was too tired to climb onto the cot. She sat with her back against the chest, both her legs straight out in front of her flat against the floor, and she held the pistol with both hands in her lap.

She must have dozed, for when she started awake, it was to hear the whisper of feet against the bare earth. She looked up. There was the shadow of a man silhouetted by the slanting rays of the sun against the white canvas of the tent like a figure in a magic lantern show.

She lifted the pistol and aimed at the entrance. The ugly black weapon wavered uncertainly in her grip, and aman stepped through the flap.

"Oh, thank God." Cathy let the pistol fall into her lap, "Oh thank God, it's you," she whispered and let her head fall forward. The thick curtain of her hair fell open, splitting down the back of her head, exposing the pale skin at the tender nape of her neck. Bazo looked down at it. He saw a soft pulse throbbing beneath the skin.

Bazo wore only a kilt of civet-tails, and about his forehead a band of mole-skin no feathers nor tassels. His feet were bare. In his left hand he held a broad stabbing assegai. In his right he carried a knobkerrie like the mace of a medieval knight. The handle was of polished rhinoceros horn, three feet long, and the head was a ball of heavy lead wood studded with hand-forged nails of native iron.

When he swung the knobkerrie, all the strength of his wide shoulders was behind the blow, and his point of aim was the pulse in the pale nape of Cathy's neck.

Two of his warriors came into the tent and flanked Bazo, their eyes were still glazed with the killing madness. They also wore the mole-skin headbands, and they looked down at the crumpled body on the floor of the tent. One of the warriors changed his grip on the assegai, ready for the cutting stroke.

"The woman's spirit must fly," he said.

"Do it!" Bazo said, and the warrior stooped and worked quickly, expertly.

"There is life within her," he said. "See! It moves yet." "Still it!" Bazo ordered, and left the tent, striding out into the sunlight.

"Find the boy, , he ordered his men who waited there. "Find the white cub." The driver of the locomotive was terrified. They had stopped for a few minutes at the trading-post beside the tracks at Plumtree siding, and he had seen the bodies of the storekeeper and his family lying in the front yard.

Ralph Ballantyne thrust the muzzle of the rifle- between his shoulder-blades, and marched him back to the cab, forcing him to go on northwards, deeper and deeper into Matabeleland.

They had come all the way from the Kimberley shunting yards with the loco throttle wide open, and Ralph had spelled the stoker on the foot plate shovelling the lumpy black coal into the firebox with a monotonous rhythm, bare-chested and sweating in the furnace glare, the coal dust blackening his face and arms like those of a chimney-sweep, his palms wet and raw from the burst blisters.

They had clipped almost two hours off the record run to the railhead. As they came roaring around the bend between the hills and saw the iron roof of the telegraph shack, Ralph hurled the shovel aside and clambered onto the side of the cab to peer ahead.

His heart leaped joyfully against his ribs, there was movement around the hut and between the tents, there was life here! Then his heart dropped as swiftly as it had risen, as he recognized the skulking dog-like shapes. , The hyena were so intent on squabbling over the things they had dragged out of the tents, that they were totally unafraid. It was only when Ralph started shooting that they scattered.

He knocked down half a dozen of the loathsome beasts before the rifle was empty. He ran from the hut to each tent in turn, and then back to the locomotive. Neither the driver nor the fireman had left the cab.

"Mr. Ballantyne, these murdering bloody eat hen will be back at any minute.-" "Wait!"" Ralph shouted at him, and scrambled up the side of the cattle-truck behind the coal buggy. He knocked out the locking-pins and the door came crashing down to form a drawbridge.

Ralph led the horses out of the truck. There were four of them, one already saddled, the best mounts he had been able to find. He paused only long enough to clinch the girth, and then swung up into the saddle with the rifle still in his hand.

"I'm not going to wait here," the driver yelled. "Christ Almighty, those niggers are animals, man, animals "If my wife and son are here, I'll need to get them back. Give me one hour, "Ralph asked.

"I'm not waiting another minute. I'm going back." The driver shook his head.

"You can go to hell then, "Ralph told him coldly.

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