Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur - Страница 180

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He took one quick look up at the mountain that towered 2000 feet above him. He could make out the path as it climbed out of the forest and zigzagged up the gut of Skeleton Gorge, passing the pimple of Breakfast Rock on the skyline and then crossing the rim onto the tableland.

There was a line of moving specks on the pathway, just emerging from the forest. The Ou Baas and Grandpater were setting their usual furious pace, proving to each other how fit they were, and as he shaded his eyes he recognized Mater's yellow dress, and Tara's turquoise skirt, just tiny flecks of colour against the grey and green wall of the mountain. They were trailing far behind the leaders.

He began to run. He took the first easy slope at a trot, pacing himself. He reached the 300-metre contour path and paused beside the concrete signpost to draw a few long breaths. He surveyed the track ahead.

It went up very steeply from here, jigging through the forest, following the bank of the stream, a series of uneven rocky steps. He went at it fast, but his town shoes had thin leather soles and gave him little purchase. He was panting wildly and his shirt was soaked through with sweat as he came out of the forest. Still almost 1000 feet to the top, but he saw immediately that he had gained on the picnic party.

They were strung out down the pathway. The two figures leading were Grandpater and the Ou Baas, at this distance it was impossible to distinguish between them, but that was Blaine a few paces behind them. He would be hanging back so as not to force the older men to a pace beyond their strength. The rest of the party were in groups and singles, taking up half the slope, with the women far in the rear.

He drew a deep breath and shouted. The women paused and looked back down the slope.

Stop! he yelled with all his lung power. Stop! One of the women waved, it was probably Marty, then they began to climb again. They had not recognized him, nor had they understood the command to stop. They had taken him for another friendly hiker. He was wasting time, the leaders were just under the crest of the summit.

Shasa began to climb with all his strength, leaping over the uneven footing, forcing himself to ignore the burning of his lungs and the numbing exhaustion of his legs, driving himself upwards by sheer force of will.

Tara looked back when he was only ten feet below her.

Shasa! she cried, delighted but surprised. What are you doing - ? He brushed past her. Can't stop, he grunted, and went on up, passing Anna and then Mater.

What is it, Shasa? Later! There was no wind for words, his whole existence was in his agonized legs, and the sweat poured into his eye, blurring his vision.

He saw the leaders make the last short traverse before going over the top, and he stopped and tried to shout again.

it came out as an agonized wheeze, and as he watched Grandpater and the Ou Baas disappeared over the crest of the slope with Blaine only twenty paces behind them.

The shot was dulled by distance, but even so Shasa recognized the sharp distinctive crack of a Mauser.

From somewhere he found new strength and he flew at the slope, leaping from rock to rock. The single shot seemed to echo and re-echo through his head, and he heard somebody shouting, or perhaps it was only the wild sobbing of his breath and the thunder of his blood in his own eardrums.

Manfred De La Rey lay all that night in his hide. At sunrise he stood up and swung his arms, squatted and twisted to loosen his muscles and banish the chill that had soaked through the overcoat into his bones. He moved a few paces back and emptied his bladder.

Then he stripped off the overcoat and the jersey,, both had been bought from a second-hand clothes dealer on the Parade. They were unmarked and could never be traced to him. He bundled them and stuffed them under a rock. Then he settled back in his hide, stretched out on the tarpaulin.

A few blades of grass were obscuring his line of fire and he broke them off and aimed at the head of the path.

His aim was clear and uninterrupted. He worked a cartridge from the magazine into the breech of the Mauser, checking it visually as it slid home, and he locked the bolt down.

Once more he took his aim, and this time he curled his finger round the rear trigger and carefully set the hair trigger with that crisp satisfying little click. Then he pushed the safety-catch over with his thumb and laid the rifle on the tarpaulin in front of him.

He froze into immobility. Patient as a leopard in a tree above a water-hole, only his yellow eyes alive, he let the hours drift by, never for an instant relaxing his vigil.

When it happened, it happened with the abruptness that might have taken another watcher by surprise. There was no warning, no sound of footsteps or voices. The range was too long for that. Suddenly a human figure appeared on the head of the path, silhouetted against the blue of the sky.

Manfred was ready for it. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder with a single fluid movement and his eye went naturally to the aperture of the lens. He did not have to pan the telescopic sight, the image of the man appeared instantly in his field of vision, enlarged and crisply focused.

It was an old man, with thin and narrow shoulders, wearing an open-neck white shirt and a Panama hat that was yellow with age. His silver goatee beard sparkled in the bright spring sunshine. The unwavering cross hairs of the telescope were already perfectly aligned on the exact centre of his narrow chest, a hand's breadth below the vee of his open shirt. No fancy head shot, Manfred had decided, take him through the heart.

He touched the hair trigger and the Mauser clapped in his eardrums, and the butt drove back into his shoulder.

He saw the bullet strike. It flapped the loose white shirt against the skinny old chest and Manfred's vision was so heightened that he even saw the bullet exit. It flew out of the old man's back on a long pink tail of blood and living tissue like a flamingo's feather, and as the frail body was plucked out of sight into the grass, the cloud of blood persisted, hanging in the clear morning air for the thousandth part of a second before it settled.

Manfred rolled to his feet and started to run. He had plotted every yard of his escape route to the Morris, and a savage elation gave strength to his legs and speed to his feet.

Behind him somebody shouted, a plaintive bewildered sound, but Manfred did not check or look back.

Shasa came over the crest at a full run. The two men were

kneeling beside the body that lay in the grass at the side of the track. They looked up at Shasa, both their faces stricken.

Shasa took one look at the body as it lay face down. The bullet must have been a dum-durn to inflict such a massive exit wound. It had carved a hole through the chest cavity into which he could have thrust both his fists.

There was no hope. He was dead. He hardened himself.

There would be time for grief later. Now was the time for vengeance.

Did you see who did it? he gasped.

Yes. Blaine jumped to his feet. I got a glimpse of him.

He cut back around Oudekraal Kop, he said, dressed in blue. Shasa knew this side of the mountain intimately, every path and cliff, every gorge and gully between Constantia Nek and the Saddle.

The killer had turned around the foot of the kop, he had a start of less than two minutes.

The bridle path, Shasa gasped He is heading for the bridle path.

I'll try and cut him off at the top of Nursery Ravine. He started to run again, back towards Breakfast Rock.

Shasa, be careful Blaine yelled after him. He has the rifle with him, I saw it. The bridle path was the only way a vehicle could reach the tableland, Shasa reasoned as he ran, and this had been so carefully planned that the killer must have an escape vehicle. it had to be parked somewhere on the bridle path.

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