Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur - Страница 75

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However, they made no move to approach the village.

Instead they lay concealed upon the ridge, watching for strangers or any sign of the unusual, even the smallest hint of danger, Hendrick and Klein Boy quietly discussing each movement they spotted, each sound that carried up from the village until Manfred grew impatient.

Why are we waiting, Hennie? Only the stupid young gemsbok rushes eagerly into the pitfall, Hendrick grunted. We will go down when we are certain. In the middle of the afternoon a small black urchin drove a herd of goats up the slope. He was stark naked except for the slingshot hanging around his neck, and Hendrick whistled softly.

The child started and stared at their hiding-place fearfully.

Then, when Hendrick whistled again, he crept towards them cautiously. Suddenly he crinkled into a grin too big and white for his grubby face and he rushed straight at Hendrick.

Hendrick laughed and lifted him onto his hip, and the child gabbled at him in ecstatic excitement.

This is my son,Hendrick told Manie, and then he questioned the child and listened to his piping replies with attention.

There are no strangers in the village, he grunted. The police were here, asking for me, but they have gone. Still carrying the child, he led them down the hill towards the largest of the clusters of huts, and he stooped through the opening in the matting fence. The yard was bare and swept, the circle of huts facing inwards. There were four women working in a group, all of them wearing only loincloths of coloured trade cotton; they rocked on the balls of their feet, singing softly in chorus, stamping and crushing the raw dried maize in tall wooden mortars, their bare breasts jerking and quivering with each stroke of the long poles they wielded as pestles in time to their chant.

one of the women shrieked when she saw Hendrick and rushed to him.

She was an ancient crone, wrinkled and toothless, her pate covered with pure white wool. She dropped on her knees and hugged Hendrick's thick powerful legs, crooning with happiness.

My mother, said Hendrick, and lifted her to her feet.

Then they were surrounded by a swarm of delighted chattering women, but after a few minutes Hendrick quieted them and shooed them away.

You are lucky, Manie, he grunted, with a sparkle in his eyes. 'You will be allowed only one wife. At the entrance to the farthest hut the only man in the kraal sat on a low carved stool. He had kept completely aloof from the screeching excitement, and now Hendrick crossed to him. He was much younger than Hendrick, with paler, almost honey-coloured skin. However, his muscle had been forged and tempered by hard physical labour, and there was a confidence about him, that of a man who has striven and succeeded. He had also an air of grace, and fine intelligent features with a Nilotic cast like those of a young pharaoh. Surprisingly he held a thick battered book in his lap, a copy of Macaulay's History of England.

He greeted Hendrick with calm reserve, but their mutual affection was apparent to the white Boy watching them.

This is my clever young brother; same father, but different mothers. He speaks Afrikaans and much better English than even I do, and he reads books. His English name is Moses. I see you, Moses. Manie felt awkward under the penetrating scrutiny of those dark eyes.

I see you, little white boy. Do not call me "boy", Manie said hotly. I am not a boy The men exchanged glances and smiled. Moses is a bossboy on the H'ani Diamond Mine, Hendrick explained in placatory fashion, but the tall Ovambo shook his head and replied in the vernacular.

No longer, Big Brother. I was sacked over a month ago. So I sit here in the sun drinking beer and reading and thinking, performing all those onerous tasks which are a man's duty. They laughed together, and Moses clapped his hands and called to the women imperiously.

Bring beer, do you not see how my brother thirsts? For Hendrick it was good to divest himself of his western European clothing and dress again in the comfortable loincloth, to let himself drift back into the pace of village life.

It was good to savour the tart effervescent sorghum beer, thick as gruel and cool in the clay pots, and to talk quietly of cattle and game, of crops and rain, of acquaintances and friends and relatives, of deaths and births and matings. It was a long leisurely time before they came circumspectly to the pressing issues which had to be discussed.

Yes, Moses nodded. The police were here. Two dogs of the white men in Windhoek who should be ashamed to have betrayed their own tribe.

They were not dressed in uniform, but still they had the stink of police upon them. They stayed many days, asking questions about a man called Swart Hendrick, smiling and friendly at first, then angry and threatening. They beat a few of the women, your mother, He saw Hendrick stiffen and his jaw clench and went on quickly, She is old but tough. She has been beaten before; our father was a strict man. Despite the blows, she did not know Swart Hendrick, nobody knew Swart Hendrick, and the police dogs went away. They will return, said Hendrick, and his half-brother nodded.

Yes. The white men never forget. Five years, ten years.

They hanged a man in Pretoria for killing a man twenty-five years before. They will return. They drank in turn from the pot of beer, sipping with relish and then passing the black pot from hand to hand.

So there was talk of a great robbery of diamonds on the road from the H'ani, and they mentioned the name of the white devil with whom you have always ridden and fought, with whom you went out on the big green to catch fish. They say that you were with him at the taking of the diamonds, and that they will hang you on a rope when they find you. Hendrick chuckled and counterattacked. I also have heard stories of a fellow who is neither unknown nor unrelated to me. I have heard he is well versed in the disposal of stolen diamonds. That all the stones taken from the H'ani Mine pass through his hands. Now who could have told you such vile lies? Moses smiled faintly, and Hendrick gestured to Klein Boy. He brought a rawhide bag from its hiding place and placed it in front of his father. Hendrick opened the flap and, one at a time, lifted out the small packages of brown cartridge paper and laid them on the hard bare earth of the yard, fourteen in a row.

His brother took up the first package and with his sheath knife split the wax seal. This is the mark of the H'ani Mine, he remarked, and carefully unfolded the paper. His expression did not change as he examined the contents. He placed the package aside and opened the next. He did not speak until he had opened all fourteen, and studied them.

Then he said softly, Death. There is death here. A hundred deaths, a thousand deaths. Can you sell them for us? Hendrick asked, and Moses shook his head.

I have never seen such stones, so many together. To try to sell these all at once would bring disaster and death upon us all. I must think upon this, but in the meantime we dare not keep these deadly stones in the kraal. The next morning in the dawn the three of them, Hendrick and Moses and Klein Boy, left the village together and climbed to the crest of the ridge where they found the leadwood tree that Hendrick remembered from the days when he roamed here as a naked herdboy. There was a hollow in the trunk, thirty feet above the ground, which had been the nesting hole of a pair of eagle owls.

While the others stood guard, Klein Boy climbed to the nesting hole, carrying the rawhide bag.

It was many days more before Moses gave his carefully considered summation.

My brother, you and I are no longer of this life or this place. Already I have seen the first restlessness in you. I have seen you look out to the horizon with the expression of a man who longs to breast them. This life, so sweet at first, palls swiftly. The taste of beer goes flat on the tongue, and a man thinks of the brave things he has done, and the braver things which wait for him still somewhere out there. Hendrick smiled. You are a man of many skills, my brother, even that of looking into a man's head and reading his secret thoughts. We cannot stay here. The death stones are too dangerous to keep here, too dangerous to sell., Hendrick nodded. I am listening, he said.

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