When the Lion Feeds Page 16

  Mbejane, take my horse. Find a place to camp beyond the town and make a fire so I won’t miss you in the dark. Sean climbed down and walked into the bar. The room was full, miners most of them, he could see the grey coal dust etched into their skins. They looked at him incuriously as he crossed to the counter and ordered a brandy. He drank it slowly, making no attempt to join the loud talk around him.

  The drunk was a short man but built like Table Mountain, low, square and solid. He had to stand on tiptoe to put his arm around Sean’s neck.

  Have a drink with me, Boetie. His breath smelt sour and old.

  No thanks. Sean was in no mood for drunks. Come on, come on, the drunk insisted; he staggered and Sean’s drink slopped onto the counter.

  Leave me alone. Sean shrugged the arm away. You’ve got something against me? No. I just feel like drinking alone. You don’t like my face, maybe? The drunk held it close to Sean’s. Sean didn’t like it.

  Push off, there’s a good fellow.

  The drunk slapped the counter. Charlie, give this big ape a drink. Make it a double. If he don’t drink it, I ram it down his throat. Sean ignored the proffered glass. He swallowed what remained in his own and turned for the door. The drunk threw the brandy in his face. The spirit burned his eyes and he hit the man in the stomach. As his head came down Sean hit him again, in the face. The drunk spun sideways, fell and lay bleeding from his nose. What you hit him for? Another miner was helping the drunk into a sitting position. It wouldn’t cost you nothing to have a drink with him.

  Sean felt the hostility in the room; he was the outsider. This boy is looking for troubleIgoHe’s a tough monkey. We know how to handle tough monkeysCome on, let’s sort this bastard out Sean had hit the man as a reflex action. He was sorry now, but his guilt evaporated as he saw them gathering against him. Gone too was his mood of depression and in its place was a sense of relief. This was what he needed.

  There were six of them moving in on him in a pack.

  Six was a fairly well-rounded number. One of them had a bottle in his hand and Sean started to smile. They were talking loudly, spreading courage and waiting for one of their fellows to start it.

  Sean saw movement out of the side of his eye and jumped back to cover it with his hands ready. Steady on there, a very English voice soothed him. I have come to offer my services. It seems to me you have adversaries and to spare. The speaker had stood up from one of the tables behind Sean. He was tall, with a gauntly ravage d face and an immaculate grey suit.

  I want them all, said Sean.

  Damned unsporting. The newcomer shook his head.

  I’ll buy the three gentlemen on the left if your price is reasonable.

  Take two as a gift and consider yourself lucky. Sean grinned at him and the man grinned back. They had almost forgotten the impending action in the pleasure of meeting’Very decent of you. May I introduce myself, Dufford Charleywood. He shifted the light cane into his left hand and extended his right to Sean.

  Sean Courtney. Sean accepted the hand. Are you bastards going to fight or what! protested one of the miners impatiently.

  rWe are, dear boy, we are, said Duff and moved lightly as a dancer towards him, swinging the cane. Thin as it was it made a noise like a well-hit baseball along the man’s head.

  Then there were five, said Duff. He flicked the cane and, weighted with lead, it made a most satisfactory swish. Like a swordsman he lunged into the throat of the second miner. The man lay on the floor and made a strangling noise.

  ,The rest are yours, Mr Courtney, said Duff regretfully.

  Sean dived in low, spreading his arms to scoop up all n the pile of bodies four pairs of legs at once. He sat up i and started punching and kicking.

  Messy, very messy, murmured Duff disapprovingly.

  The yelps and thuds gradually petered into silence and Sean stood up.

  His lip was bleeding and the lapel was torn off his jacket.

  Drink? asked Duff.

  Brandy, please. Sean smiled at the elegant figure against the bar. I won’t refuse another drink this evening. They took the glasses to Duff’s table, stepping over the bodies as they went.

  Mud in your eye! Down the old red lane! Then they studied each other with frank interest, ignoring the clearing up operations being conducted around them.

  ,You are travelling? asked Duff.

  Yes, are you? No such luck. I am in the permanent employ of Dundee Collieries Ltd. You work here! Sean looked incredulous for Duff was a peacock among pigeons.

  Assistant Engineer, nodded Duff. But not for long; the taste of coal-dust sticks in my craw. May I suggest something to wash it outV A splendid idea, agreed Duff.

  Sean brought the drinks to the table.

  Where are you headed? asked Duff.

  I was facing north when I started, shrugged Sean, I just kept going that way. Where did you start from? South. Sean answered abruptly.

  Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. Duff smiled. Yours is brandy, isn’t it? The Barman came round from behind the counter and crossed to their table.

  Hello, Charlie, Duff greeted him. I take it you require compensation for the damage to your fittings and furniture? Don’t worry about it, Mr Charleywood. Not often we have a good barney like that. We don’t mind the odd table and chair as long as it’s worth watching. Have it on the house. That’s extremely good of you. That’s not what I came across for, Mr Charleywood.

  I’ve got something I’d like you to take a look at, you being a mining chap and all. Could you spare a minute, sir? Come on, Sean.

  Let’s see what Charlie’s got for us. My guess is it’s a beautiful woman. It’s not actually, sir, said Charlie seriously and led the way through into the back room. Charlie reached up and took a lump of rock down from one of the shelves. He held it out to Duff. What do you make of that? Duff took it and weighed it in his hand, then peered closely at it. It was glassy grey, blotched with white and dark-red and divided by a broad black stripe.

  Some sort of conglomerate. Duff spoke without enthusiasm. What’s the mystery? Friend of mine brought it down from Kruger’s Republic on the other side of the mountains. He says it’s gold bearing.

  They’ve made a big strike at a place called Witwatersrand just outside Pretoria. Of course, I don’t put much store by these rumours cos you hear them all the time: diamonds and gold, gold and diamonds Charlie laughed and wiped his hands on his apron.

  Anyway my friend says the Boers are selling licences to them as want to dig for the stuff. Thought I’d just get you to have a look. I’ll take this with me, Charlie, and pan it in the inoming. Right now my friend and I are drinking. Sean opened his eyes the next morning to find the sun burning in through the window above his bed. He closed them again hurriedly and tried to remember where he was. There was a pain in his head that distracted him and a noise. The noise was a regular croaking rattle; it sounded as though someone was dying. Sean opened his eyes and turned his head slowly. Someone was in the bed across the room.

  Sean groped for a boot and threw it; there was a snort and Duff’s head came up. For a second he regarded Sean through eyes as red as a winter sunset and then he subsided gently back into the blankets. Keep it down to a bellow, whispered Sean. You are in the presence of grave illness.

  A long time later a servant brought coffee.

  ‘Send word to my office that I am sick, commanded Duff. I have done so.

  The servant clearly understood his master. He went on, There is one outside who seeks the other Nkosi! He glanced at Sean. He is greatly worried IMbejane. Tell him to wait, said Sean.

  They drank coffee in silence, sitting on the edge of their beds.

  How did I get here? asked Sean. Laddie, if you don’t know, then nobody does Duff stood up and crossed the room to find fresh clothing. He was naked and Sean saw that although he was slim as a boy his body was finely muscled.

  My God, what does Charlie put in his liquor? complained Duff as he picked up his jacket.

  He found the lump of r
ock in the pocket, brought it out and tossed it onto the packing-case that served as a table.

  He regarded it sourly as he finished dressing then he went to the great pile of bachelor debris that filled one corner of the room. He scratched around and came out with a steel pestle-and-mortar and a battered black gold pan. I feel very old this morning, he said as he started to crush the rock to powder in the mortar. He poured the powder into the pan, carried it out to the corrugated iron water tank beside the front door and filled the pan from the tap.

  Sean followed him and they sat together on the front step. Duff worked the pan, using a practised dip and swing that set the contents spinning like a whirlpool and slopped a little over the front lip with each turn.

  He filled it again with clean water.

  Suddenly Sean felt Duff stiffen beside him. He glanced at his face and saw that his hangover had gone; his lips were shut in a thin line and his bloodshot eyes were fastened on the pan.

  Sean looked down and saw the gleam through the water, like the flash of a trout’s belly as it turns to take the fly. He felt the excitement prickle up his arms and lift the hair on his neck.

  Quickly Duff splashed fresh water into the pan; three more turns and he flicked it out again. They sat still, not speaking staring at the golden tail curved round the bottom of the pan. How much money have you got? Duff asked without looking up.

  little over a thousand. As much as that. Excellent! I can raise about five hundred but I’ll throw in my mining experience. Equal partners, do you agree? Yes. Then why are we sitting here? I’m going down. to the bank. Meet me on the edge of town in half an hour. What about your job? Sean asked.

  I hate the smell of coal, the hell with my job. What about Charlie? Charlie is a poisoner, the hell with Charlie. They camped that night in the mouth of the pass with the mountains standing up before them. They had pushed the pace all that afternoon and the horses were tired they turned their tails to the wind and cropped at the dry winter grass.

  Mbejane built a fire in the shelter of a red stone outcrop and they huddled beside it brewing coffee, trying to keep out of the snow-cold wind, but it came down off the mountains and blew a plume of sparks from the fire. They ate; then Mbejane curled up beside the fire, pulled his kaross over his head and did not move again until morning.

  How far is it to this place? Sean asked. I don’t know, Duff admitted.

  We’ll go up through the pass tomorrow, fifty or sixty miles through the mountains, and then we’ll be out into the high veld. Perhaps another week’s riding after that. Are we chasing rainbows? Sean poured more coffee into the mugs.

  I’ll tell you when we get there Duff picked up his mug and cupped his hands around it. One thhing is certain that sample was stinking with gold. If there’s much of that stuff around somebody’s going to get rich. Us, perhaps? I’ve been on gold stampedes before. The first ones in make the killings. We might find the ground for fifty miles around as thick with claim pegs as quills on a porcupine’s back.

  Duff sipped noisily at his coffee. But we’ve got money, that’s our ace in the hole. If we peg a proposition we’ve got capital to work it. If we’re too late we can buy claims from the brokers. If we can’t, well, there’re other ways of getting gold than grubbing for it, a store, a saloon, a transport business, take your pick. Duff flicked the coffee grounds out of his mug. With money in your pocket you’re somebody; without it anyone can kick you in the teeth. He took a long black cheroot out of his top pocket and offered it to Sean. Sean shook his head and Duff bit the tip from the cheroot and spat it into the fire. He picked up a burning twig and lit it, sucking with content. Where did you learn mining, Duff? Canada. The wind whipped the smoke away from his mouth as Duff exhaled. You’ve been around? I have, laddie. It’s too damn cold to sleep; we’ll talk instead. For a guinea I’ll tell you the story of my life. Tell me first, I’ll see if it’s worth it! Sean pulled the blanket up around his shoulders and waited. Your credit is good, agreed Duff. He paused dramatically. I was born thirty-one years ago, fourth and youngest son to the sixteenth Baron Roxby, that is, not counting the others who never made it to puberty Blue blood, said Sean.

  Of course, just look at my nose. But please don’t interrupt. Very early in the game my father, the sixteenth Baron, dispelled with a horsewhip any natural affection we may have owed him. Like Henry the Eighth he preferred children in the abstract. We kept out of his way and that suited everybody admirably. A sort of armed truce. Dear father had two great passions in life: horses and women. During his sixty-two glorious years he acquired a fine collection of both. My fifteen-year-old cousin, a comely wench as I recall, was his last and unattained ambition. He took her riding every day and fingered her most outrageously as he helped her in and out of the saddle. She told me about it with giggles. However father’s horse, a commendably moral creature, cut short the pursuit by kicking father on the head, presumably in the middlle of one of these touching scenes.

  Poor father was never the same again. In fact so much was he altered by this experience that two days later, to the doleful clangour of bells and a collective sigh of relief from his sons and his neighbours who owned daughters, they buried him. Dufford leaned forward and prodded the fire.

  It was all very sad. I or any of my brothers could have told father that not only was my cousin comely but she had the family sporting instincts developed to a remarkable degree After all who should know better than we? We were her cousins and you know how cousins will be cousins. Anyway father never found out and to this day I feel guilty, I should have told him. He would have died happier... Do I bore you? No, go on.

  I’ve had half a guinea’s worth already, Sean laughed.

  Father’s untimely decease made no miraculous changes in my life. The seventeenth Baron, brother Tom, once he had the title was every bit as tight-fisted and unpleasant as father had been. There I was at nineteen on an allowance too small to enable me to pursue the family hobbies, gathering mould in a grim old castle forty miles from London, with the development of my sensitive soul being inhibited by the undiluted company of my barbaric brothers.

  I left with three months advance allowance clutched in my sweaty palm and the farewells of my brothers ringing in my ears. The most sentimental of these was “don’t bother to write! Everybody was going to Canada: it seemed like a good idea so I went too.

  I made money and spent it. I made women and spent them also, but the cold got to me in the end. Duff’s cheroot had died; he re-lit it and looked at Sean.

  It was so cold you couldn’t urinate without getting frostbite on your equipment, so I began to think of lands trropical, of white beaches and sun, of exotic fruits and even more exotic maidens. The peculiar circumstances that finally decided me to leave are painful to recall and we will not dwell upon them. I left, to say the least, under a cloud.

  So here you see me freezing slowly to death, with a bearded ruffian for company and not an exotic maiden within a day’s ride. ‘A stirring tale, well told, applauded Sean.

  One story deserves another, let’s hear your tale of woe. Sean’s smile slid off his face. Born and bred here in Natal. Left home a week or so ago, also in painful circumstances! A woman? asked Duff with deep compassion. A woman, agreed Sean. The sweet bitches, sighed Duff. How I love them.

  The pass ran like a twisted gut through the Drakensberg.

  The mountains stood up sheer and black on each side of them, so they rode in shadow and saw the sun only for a few hours in the middle of the day. Then the mountains dropped away and they were out into the open.

  Open was the word for the high veld. It stretched away flat and empty, grass and brown grass dwindling to a distant meeting with the pale empty sky. But the loneliness could not blunt the edge of their excitement: each mile covered, each successive camp along the ribbon road ground it sharper until at last they saw the name in writing for the first time.

  Forlorn as a scarecrow in a ploughed land the signpost pointed right and said, Pretoria, pointed left
and said, Witwatersrand.

  The Ridge of White Waters, whispered Sean. It had a ring to it that name, a ring like a hundred millions in gold.

  We’re not the first, muttered Duff. The left-hand fork of the road was deeply scored by the passage of many wagons.

  No time to worry about that. Sean had the gold sickness on him now.

  There’s a little speed left in these makes, let’s use it. It came up on the horizon as a low line above the emptiness, a ridge of hills like a hundred others they had crossed. They went up it and from the top looked down.

  Two ridges ran side by side, north and south, four miles or so apart. In the shallow valley between they could see the flash of the sun off the swamp pools that gave the hills their name.

  Look at them, groaned Sean.

  The tents and wagons were scattered along the length of the valley and in between them the prospect trenches were raw wounds through the grass.

  The trenches were concentrated along a line down the centre of the valley.

  That’s the strike of the reef, said Duff, and we’re too late, it’s all pegged! How do you know? protested Sean. Use your eyes, laddie. It’s all gone. There might be some they’ve overlooked These boys overlook nothing. Let’s go down and I’ll show you. Duff prodded his horse and they started down.

  He spoke over his shoulder to Sean. Look up there near that stream, they aren’t wasting time. They’ve got a mill going already. It’s a four-stamp rig by the looks of it They rode into one of the Luger encampments of tents and wagons; there were women at work around the fires and the smell of food brought saliva jetting from under Sean’s tongue. There were men also, sitting among the wagons waiting for their suppers.

  I’m going to ask some of these characters what’s going on here, said Sean. He climbed down off his horse and tossed the reins to Mbejane.

  Duff watched him with a wry grin as he tried in succession to engage three different men in conversation. Each time Sean’s victim avoided his eyes, mumbled vaguely and withdrew. Sean finally gave up and came back to the horses.