Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 34

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With a sob she flew into his arms and clung to him with startling

strength. Jake knew that the embrace was the consequence of terror not

affection, but as his own heart-beat slowed and the tingle of the

adrenalin in his blood receded, he thought that he had achieved a solid

advantage. If you save a girl's life, she just has to take you

seriously, he reasoned, and grinned to himself still a little

unsteadily. All his senses were enhanced by the high point of recent

danger. He could smell the perfumed soap and the stink of ammonia. He

could feel with excruciating clarity the slim hard length of the girl's

body pressed to his and the smooth warmth of her skin under his

hands.

"Oh Jake!" she whispered brokenly, and with sudden aching certainty he

knew that in this moment she was his to take, to possess right here on

the black rock bank of the Awash, beside the warm carcass of the

lion.

The knowledge was certain and his hands moved on her body,

receiving instant confirmation her body was quick and responsive, and

her face turned up to his. Her lips trembled and he could feel her

breath upon his mouth.

"What the hell is going on down there?" Gareth's voice rang across the

murky depths of the gorge. He stood at the top of the bank high above

them. He had one of the Lee Enfield bolt-action rifles under his arm

and seemed on the point of coming down to them.

Jake turned Vicky, shielding her with his own big body and slipping off

his moleskin jacket to cover her nakedness.

The jacket reached halfway down her thighs and folded voluminously

around under her armpits. She was still shivering like a kitten in a

snowstorm, and her breathing was broken and thick.

"Don't worry about it," Jake called up at Gareth. "You weren't in time

to help, and you aren't needed now." He groped in his hip pocket and

Produced a large, slightly grubby handkerchief, which Vicky accepted

with a tearful, quivering smile.

"Blow your nose," said Jake. "and get your pants on, before the whole

gang arrives to give you a hand." regorius was so impressed that he

was speechless for several minutes. In Ethiopia there is no act of

ivalour so highly esteemed as the single-handed hunting and killing of

a full-grown adult lion, The warrior who accomplishes this feat wears

the mane thereafter as a badge of his courage and earns the respect of

all. The man who shoots his lion is respected, and the man who kil

with a spear is venerated. - Gregorius had never heard of one killed

with a single rock and a bottle of ammonia.

Gregorius skinned out the carcass with his own hands.

Before he had finished, the black pinioned vultures were sailing in

wide circles overhead. He left the naked pink carcass lying in the

river bed, and carried the wet skin up to the bivouac where Jake was

fretting to continue the trek towards the Wells. He was irreverent in

his disdain of the trophy, and Greg tried to explain it to him.

"You will gain great prestige amongst my people, Jake.

Wherever you go, people will point you out to each other."

"Fine

Greg. That's just fine. Now will you kindly haul arse.

"I will have a war bonnet made for you out of the mane, Greg insisted,

as he strapped the bundle of wet skin to the sponson of Jake's car.

"With the hair combed out, it will look very grand."

"It could only be an improvement on his present hair style," Gareth

observed drily. "I agree it's been a beautiful honeymoon, and Jake is

a splendid lad but like he said, let's move on, before I am violently

ill." As they moved towards their respective cars, Gregorius fell in

beside Jake and quietly showed him the mushroomed copper-jacketed

bullet he had removed from its niche in the pelvic bone of the

carcass.

Jake paused to examine it closely, turning it in the palm of his

hand.

"Nine millimeter, or nine point three," he said. "It's a sporting

calibre not military."

"I doubt if there is a single rifle in

Ethiopia that would fire this bullet," said Greg seriously. "It's a

foreigner's rifle."

"No need to blow the bugle yet," said Jake, and flicked the bullet back

to him. "But we'll bear it in mind." Gregorius almost turned away,

then said shyly, "Jake, even if the lion was already wounded it's still

the bravest thing I ever heard of. I have often hunted for them, but

never killed one yet." Jake was touched by the boy's admiration. He

laughed roughly and slapped his shoulder.

"I'll leave the next one for you," he promised.

They followed the windings of the River Awash through the savannah

grassland, moving in towards the mountains so that with each hour

travelled the peaks stood higher and clearer into the sky. The ridges

of rock and the deep-forested gorges came into hazy focus, like a wall

across the sky.

Suddenly they intersected the old caravan road, hitting it at a point

where the steep banks of the Awash flattened a little. The ford of the

river had been deeply worn over the ages by the passage of laden beasts

of burden and the men who drove them, so that the many footpaths down

each bank were deep trenches in the red earth, that jinked to avoid any

large boulder or ridge of rock.

The three men worked in the brilliant sunlight and swung shovel and

mattock in a fine mist of red dust that powdered their hair and bodies.

They filled in the uneven ground and deeply worn trenches,

levering the boulders free and letting them roll and bounce down into

the river bed, and slept that night the deathlike sleep of utter

exhaustion that ignored the ache of abused muscle and burst blisters.

Jake had them at work before it was fully light the next morning,

clearing and levelling, shovelling and packing the dry hard-baked

earth, until at last each bank had been shaped into a rough but

passable ramp.

Gareth was to take the first car through and he stood in the turret,

somehow managing to look debonair and sartorially elegant,

under the fine layer of red dust. He grinned at Jake and shouted

dramatically, "Noli il legitimi carborundum," and disappeared into the

steel interior The engine roared and he went bounding and sliding down

the steep ramp of newly turned earth, bounced and jolted across the

black rock bottom and flew at the far bank.

When the wheels spun viciously in the loose red earth, blowing out a

storm of grit and pebbles, Jake and Gregorius were ready to throw their

weight against it and this was just sufficient to keep the vehicle

moving. Slowly it ground its way up the almost vertical climb,

the rear end kicking and yawing under the thrust of the spinning

wheels, until at last it burst out over the top, and Gareth shut down

the power and jumped out laughing.

"Right, now we can tow the other cars up the bank," and he produced a

celebratory cheroot.

"What was that piece of dog Latin you recited just then Jake asked, as

he accepted the cheroot.

"Old family war cry," Gareth explained. "Shouted by the fighting

Swales at Hastings, gin court and in the knocking shops of the

world."

aW hat does it mean?"

"Nob Xegidmi carborundum?" Gareth grinned again as he lit the

cheroots. "It means, "Don't let the bastards grind you down"." One at

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