Eagle in the Sky - Smith Wilbur - Страница 57

• Предыдущая
• 57/90
• Следующая

swiftly it seemed he had been only a fantasy, and David described it to

Debra.

He took off the very instant he spotted us.  I remember when they were

so tame around here that we had to chase them out Of  the vegetable garden

with a stic.  .  Again he swung off the main track and on to another

overgrown path, on which the new growth of saplings was already thick

and tall.  He drove straight over them in the tough little vehicle.

What on earth are you doing?  Debra shouted above the crash and swish of

branches.

In this country when you run out of road, you just make your own.

Four miles farther on, they emerged abruptly on to the fire-break track

that marked the eastern boundary of Jabulani, the dividing line between

them and the National Park which was larger than the entire land area of

the state of Israel, five million acres of virgin wilderness, three

hundred and eighty-five kilometres long and eighty wide, home of more

than a million wild animals, the most important reservoir of wild life

left in Africa.

David stopped the Land-Rover, cut the engine and jumped down.  After a

moment of shocked and angry silence he began to swear.

What's made you so happy?  'Debra demanded.

Look at that, just look at that!  David ranted.

I wish I could.  Sorry, Debs.  It's a fence.  A game fence!  It stood

eight feet high and the uprights were hardwood poles thick as a man's

thigh, while the mesh of the fence was heavy gauge wire.  They have

fenced us off.  The National Park's people have cut us off.  No wonder

there are no animals.  As they drove back to the homestead David

explained to her how there had always been an open boundary with the

Kruger National Park.  It had suited everybody well enough, for

Jabulani's sweet grazing and the perennial water of the pools helped to

carry the herds through times of drought and scarcity.

It's becoming very important to you, this business of the wild animals.

Debra had listened silently, fondling the labrador's head, as David

spoke.

Yes, suddenly it's important.  When they were here, I guess I just took

them for granted, but now they are gone it's suddenly important.

They drove on for a mile or two without speaking and then David said

with determination, I'm going to tell them to pull that fence down. They

can't cut us off like that.  I'm going to get hold of the head warden,

now, right away.  David remembered Conrad Berg from his childhood when

he had been the warden in charge of the southern portion of the park,

but not yet the chief.  There was a body of legend about the man that

had been built up over the years, and two of these stories showed

clearly the type of man he was.

Caught out in a lonely area of the reserve after dark with a broken-down

truck, he was walking home when he was attacked by a full-grown male

lion.  In the struggle he had been terribly mauled, half the flesh torn

from his back and the bone of his shoulder and arm bitten through.  Yet

he had managed to kill the animal with a small sheath knife, stabbing it

repeatedly in the throat until he hit the jugular.  He had then stood up

and walked five miles through the night with the hyena pack following

him expectantly, waiting for him to drop.

On another occasion one of the estate owners bounding the park had

poached one of Berg's lions, shooting it down half a mile inside the

boundary.  The poacher was a man high in government, wielding massive

influence, and he had laughed at Conrad Berg.

What are you going to do about it, my friend?  Don't you like your job?

Doggedly, ignoring the pressure from above, Berg had collected his

evidence and issued a summons.  The pressure had become less subtle as

the court date approached, but he had never wavered.  The important

personage finally stood in the dock, and was convicted.

He was sentenced to a thousand pounds fine or six months at hard labour.

Afterwards he had shaken Berg's hand and said to him, Thank you for a

lesson in courage, and perhaps this was one of the reasons Berg was now

chief warden.

He stood beside his game fence where he had arranged over the telephone

to meet David.  He was a big man, broad and tall and beefy, with thick

heavily muscled arms still scarred from the lion attack, and a red

sunburned face.

He wore the suntans and slouch hat of the Park's service, with the green

cloth badges on his epaulets.

Behind him was parked his brown Chevy truck with the Park Board's emblem

on the door, and two of his black game rangers seated in the back.  One

of them was holding a heavy rifle.

Berg stood with his clenched fists on his hips, his hat pushed back and

a forbidding expression on his face.  He so epitomized the truculent

male animal guarding his territory that David muttered to Debra, Here

comes trouble.  He parked close beside the fence and he and Debra

climbed down and went to the wire.

Mr. Berg.  I am David Morgan.  I remember you from when my father owned

Jabulani.  I'd like you to meet my wife.  Berg's expression wavered.

Naturally he had heard all the rumours about the new owner of Jabulani;

it was a lonely isolated area and it was his job to know about these

things.  Yet he was unprepared for this dreadfully mutilated young man,

and his blind but beautiful wife.

With an awkward gallantry Berg doffed his hat, then realized she would

not see the gesture.  He murmured a greeting and when David thrust his

hand through the fence he shook it cautiously.

Debra and David were working as a team and they turned their combined

charm upon Berg, who was a simple and direct min.  Slowly his defences

softened as they chatted.  He admired Zulu, he also kept labradors and

it served as a talking-point while Debra unpacked a Thermos of coffee

and David filled mugs for all of them.

Isn't that Sam?  David pointed to the game ranger in the truck who held

Berg's rifle.  ja.  Berg was guarded.  He used to work on Tabulani.  He

came to me of his own accord, Berg explained, turning aside any implied

rebuke.

He wouldn't remember me, of course, not the way I look now.  But he was

a fine ranger, and the place certainly went to the bad without him to

look after it, David admitted before he went into a frontal assault. The

other thing which has ruined us is this fence of yours.  David kicked

one of the uprights.

You don't say?  I Berg swished the grounds of his coffee around the mug

and flicked it out.

Why did you do it?  For good reason.  , MY father had a gentleman's

agreement with the Board, the boundary was open at all times.  We have

got water and grazing that you need.  With all respects to the late Mr.

Morgan, Conrad Berg spoke heavily, I was never in favour of the open

boundary.  Why not?  Your daddy was a sportsman.  He spat the word out,

as though it were a mouthful of rotten meat.  When my lions got to know

him and learned to stay this side of the line, then he used to bring

down a couple of donkeys and parade them along the boundary, to tempt

them out.  David opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it slowly.

He felt the seamed scars of his face mottling and staining with a flush

of shame.  It was true, he remembered the donkeys and the soft wet lion

skins being pegged out to dry behind the homestead.

He never poached, David defended him.  He had an owner's licence and

they were all shot on our land.  'No, he never poached, Berg admitted.

• Предыдущая
• 57/90
• Следующая