The Sound of Thunder c-6 Read online

  beginning to smile until suddenly he recognized Sean. He blinked with

  shock, jerked his head in a gesture of invitation so his jowls wobbled,

  and disappeared into the back office. Sean followed him.

  "Are you mad, Mr. Courtney?" Goldberg was waiting for him, quivering

  with agitation. "If they catch you. " "Listen Izzy. I arrived last

  night. I haven't spoken to a white man in four years.

  What the hell is going on here?"

  "You haven't heard?"

  "No, damn it, I haven't."

  "It's war, Mr. Courtney.

  "I can see that. But where? Against whom?"

  "On all the borders-Natal, the Cape."

  "Against?"

  "The British Empire." Goldberg shook his head as though he did not

  believe his own statement. "We've taken on the whole British Empire. "

  "We?" Sean asked sharply.

  "The Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State. Already we have won

  great victories, Ladysmith is besieged, Kimberley, Mafeking-" YOU,

  personally?" "I was born here in Pretoria. I am a burgher.

  "Are you going to turn me in?"

  "No, of course not. You've been a good customer of mine for years.

  "Thanks, Izzy. Look, I've got to get out of here as fast as I can. "It

  would be wise."

  "What about my money at the Volkskaas-can I get it out?

  Izzy shook his head sadly. "They've frozen all enemy accounts.

  "Damn it, God damn it! " Sean swore bitterly, and then,

  "IIzzy, I've got twenty wagons and ten tons of ivory parked out there

  on the edge of town-are you interested?"

  "How much?"

  "Ten thousand for the lot; oxen, wagons, ivory-the lot."

  "It would not be patriotic, Mr. Courtney," Goldberg decided

  reluctantly. "Trading with the enemy-besides I have only your word

  that it's ten tons. " "Hell, Izzy, I'm not the British Army-that lot

  is worth twenty thousand quid. " "You want me to buy sight unseen-no

  questions asked? All right. I'll give you four thousand-gold.

  "Seven." "Four and a half," countered Izzy.

  "You bastard. " "Four and a half.

  "No, damn you. Five!" growled Sean.

  "Five?

  "Five!

  "All right, five.

  "Thanks, IZZy. " "Pleasure, Mr. Courtney."

  Sean described the location of his laager hurriedly.

  "You can send someone out to pick it up. I am going to run for the

  Natal border as soon as it's dark.

  "Keep off the roads and well clear of the railway. Joubert has thirty

  thousand men in Northern Natal, massed around Ladysmith and along the

  Tugela heights. " Goldberg went to the safe and fetched five small

  canvas bags from it. "Do you want to check?"

  "I'll trust you as you trusted me. Good-bye, Izzy." Sean dropped the

  heavy bags down the front of his shirt and settled them under his

  belt.

  "Good luck, Mr. Courtney."

  There were two hours of daylight left when Sean finished paying his

  servants. He pushed the tiny pile of sovereigns across the tailboard

  of the wagon towards the last man and went with him through the

  complicated ritual of farewell, the hand-clapping and clasping, the

  repetition of the formal phrases-then he stood up from his chair and

  looked around the circle. They squatted patiently, watching him with

  wooden black faces-but reflected back from them he could sense Ins own

  sorrow at this parting.

  Men with whom he had lived and worked and shared a hundred hardships.

  It was not easy to leave them now.

  "It is finished," he said.

  " Yebho, it is finished." They agreed in chorus and no one moved.

  "Go, damn YOU! Slowly one of them stood and gathered the bundle of his

  possessions, a kaross (or skin blanket), two spears, a cast-off shirt

  that Sean had given him. He balanced the bundle on his head and looked

  at Sean.

  -Nkosi! " he said and lifted a clenched fist in salute.

  "Nonga," Sean replied. The man turned away and trudged out of the

  laager.

  "nosi!"

  "Hlubi.

  "Nkosi!"

  "Lim.

  A roll call of loyalty-Sean spoke their names for the last time, and

  singly they left the laager. Sean stood and watched them walk away in

  the dusk. Not one of them looked back and no two men walked together.

  It was finished.

  Wearily Sean turned back to the laager. The horses were ready.

  Three with saddles, two carrying packs.

  "We will eat first, Mbejane. " "It is ready, Nkosi. Hlubi cooked

  before he went."

  "Come on, Dirk. Dinner."

  Dirk was the only one who spoke during the meal. He chattered gaily,

  wrought up with excitement by this new adventure, while Sean and

  MbeJane shovelled fat Hlubi's stew and hardly tasted it.

  Out in the gathering darkness a jackal yelped, a lonely sound on the

  evening wind, fitting the mood of a man who had lost friends and

  fortune.

  "It is time." Sean shrugged into his sheepskin jacket and buttoned it

  as he stood to kick out the fire, but suddenly he froze and stood with

  his head cocked as he listened. There was a new sound on the wind.

  "Horses!" Mbejane confirmed it.

  "Quickly, Mbejane, my rifle." The Zulu leapt up, ran to the horses and

  slipped Sean's rifle from its scabbard.

  "Get out of the light and keep your mouth shut," Sean ordered as he

  hustled Dirk into the shadows between the wagons.

  He grabbed the rifle from MbeJane and levered a cartridge into the

  breech and the three of them crouched and waited.

  The click and roll of pebbles under hooves, the soft sound of a branch

  brushed aside.

  "One only," whispered Mbejane. A pack-horse whickered softly and was

  answered immediately from the dari mess Then silence, a long silence

  broken at last by the jingle of a bridle as the rider dismounted.

  Sean saw him then, a slim figure emerging slowly out of the night and

  he swung the rifle to cover his approach. There was something unusual

  in the way the stranger moved, gracefully but with a sway from the

  hips, long-legged like a colt and Sean knew that he was young, very

  young to judge by his height.

  With relief Sean straightened up from his crouch and examined him as he

  stopped uncertainly beside the fire and peered into the shadows.

  The lad wore a peaked cloth cap pulled down over Ins ears and his

  jacket was an expensive, honey-coloured chamois. His riding breeches

  were beautiffilly tailored and hugged his buttocks snugly. Sean

  decided that his backside was too big and out of proportion to the

  small feet clad in polished English hunting boots. A regular dandy,

  and the scorn was in Sean's tone as he called out.

  "Stay where you are, friend, and state your business!"

  The effect of Sean's challenge was unexpected. The lad jumped, the

  soles of his glossy boots cleared the ground by at least six inches,

  and when he landed again he was facing Sean.

  "Talk up. I haven't got all night.

  The lad opened his mouth, closed it again, licked his lips and spoke.

  "I was told you were going to Natal. " The voice was low and husky.

  "Who told you that?" demanded Sean.

  "MY uncle. " "Who is your uncle?

  "Isaac Goldberg. " Sean digested this intelligence and while he did so

  he examined the face before him. Cleanshaven, pale, big dark eyes and

  a laughing kind of mouth that was now pursed with night.

  "And if I am?" Sean demanded.

  "I want to go with you. " "Forget it. Get back on your horse and go

  home.

  "I'll pay you-I'll pay you well. " Was it the voice or the posture of

  the lad, Sean pondered, there was something very odd about him. He

  stood with a flat leather pouch held in both hands across the front of

  his hip sing an attitude of defence, as though he were protecting,

  protecting what? And suddenly Sean knew what it was.

  "Take off your cap," he ordered.

  "No. " "Take it off.

  A second longer the lad hesitated, then in a gesture that was almost

  defiance he jerked off the cap and two thick black braids of hair,

  shiny in the firelight, dropped and hung down almost to his waist and

  transformed him instantly from gawky masculinity into stunning

  womanhood.

  Although he had guessed it, Sean was unprepared for the shock of this

  revelation. It was not so much her beauty, but her attire that caused

  the shock. Never in his life had Sean seen a woman in breeches, and

  now he gasped. Breeches, by God, she might as well be naked from the

  waist down-even that would be less indecent.

  "Two hundred pounds-" She was coming towards him now, offering the

  pouch. At each step the cloth of the breeches tightened across her

  thighs and Sean dragged his eyes guiltily back to her face.

  "Keep your money, lady. " Her eyes were grey, smoky grey.

  "Two hundred on account, and as much again when we reach Natal. " "I'm

  not interested." But he was, those soft lips starting to quiver.

  "How much then? Name your price.

  "Look, lady. I'm not heading a procession. There are three of us

  already-one a child. There is hard riding ahead, plenty of it, and an

  army of Boers in between. Our chances are slim enough as it is.

  Another member to the party, and a woman at that, will make them

  prohibitive. I don't want your money, all I want is to get my son to

  safety. Go home and sit this war out it won't last long. " "I'm going

  to Natal."

  "Good. You go then-but not with us. Sean could not trust himself

  longer to resist the appeal of those grey eyes and he turned to

  Mbejane. "Horses," he snapped and walked away from her. She stood

  watching him quietly as they mounted up, making no protest. She seemed

  very small and alone as Sean looked down at her from the saddle.

  "I am sorry," he growled. "Go home now like a good girl," and quickly

  he wheeled away and trotted out into the night.

  All night they rode, east through the open moonlit land. Once they

  passed a darkened homestead and a dog barked, but they sheered away and

  then turned east again and held the great crucifix of the Southern

  Cross at their right-hand. When Dirk fell asleep in the saddle and

  slipped sideways, Sean caught him before he hit the ground, pulled him

  across into his lap and held him there for the rest of the night.

  Before dawn they found a clump of bush on the bank of a stream, hobbled

  the horses and made camp. Mbejane had the billy can boiling over a

  small well-screened fire and Sean had rolled Dirk unconscious into his

  blankets when the girl rode into camp and jumped down from her horse.

  "I nearly lost you twice. She laughed and pulled off the cap.

  "Gave me a horrible night. " She shook down the shiny braids.

  "Coffee! Oh good, I'm famished."

  Menacingly Sean climbed to his feet and with clenched fists he glared

  at her, but undismayed she hobbled her horse and turned it loose before

  acknowledging him again.

  "Don't stand on ceremony, please be seated. " And she grinned at him

  with such devilment in her grey eyes, aping so faithfully his stance

  with hands on those indecent hips, that Sean suddenly found himself

  smiling. He tried to stop it for he knew it was an admission of

  surrender, but his effort was so unsuccessful that she burst into

  delighted laughter.

  "How's your cooking? " he demanded.

  "So SO." "You'd better brush up on it because from now on you're

  working your passage. " Later, when he had sampled it for the first

  time, he admitted grudgingly,

  "Not bad-in the circumstances," and wiped the plate with a crust of

  bread.

  "You are too kind, sir." She thanked him and lugged her blanket-roll

  into the shade, spread it, pulled off her boots, wriggled her toes and

  lay back with a sigh.

  Sean positioned his own bedroll with care so that, when he opened his

  eyes, without turning his head he could watch her from under the brim

  of the hat that covered his face.

  He woke at midday and saw that she slept with one cheek in her open

  hand, the lashes of her eyes meshed together and a few loose strands of

  dark hair across a face that was damp and flushed in the drowsy heat.

  He watched her for a long time before silently rising and crossing to

  his saddle-bags. When he went down to the stream he took with him his

  flat canvas toilet-bag, the remaining pair of breeches that were

  neither patched nor too badly stained and a clean silk shirt.

  Sitting on a rock beside the water, naked and freshly scrubbed, he

  regarded his face in the polished steel mirror.

  "A big job. " He sighed and started snipping at the great bush of

  beard which had not felt the scissors in dime years.

  At dusk, selfconscious as a girl in her first party dress, Sean walked

  back into the camp. They were all awake. Dirk and the girl sat

  together on her blanket in such earnest conversation that neither of

  them noticed his arrival. Mbejane was busy at the fire; he rocked back

  on his heels and examined Sean without change of expression.

  "We'd better eat and get going."

  Dirk and the girl looked up. Her eyes narrowed and then widened

  thoughtfully.

  Dirk gaped at him, and then, "your beard's all funny-" he announced,

  and the girl tried desperately to quell her laughter.

  "Get your blankets rolled up, boy."

  Sean tried to break Dirk's grip on the subject, but like a bulldog Dirk

  held on relentlessly.

  -and why are you wearing your best clothes, Dad?"

  They rode three abreast in the darkness, Dirk between them and Mbejane

  trailing behind with the packhorses. The land rose and fell beneath

  them like the swells of an endless sea and the way in which the grass

  moved with the night wind heightened the illusion of waves.

  Islands in the sea were the dark bulks of the kopJes they passed, and

  the yelp of a jackal was the voice of a seabird.

  "Aren't we holding too far east?" The girl broke the silence and her

  voice blended with the soft sound of the wind.

  "Intentionally," Sean answered. "I want to cross the tail of the

  Drakensberg well clear of the Boer concentrations around Ladysmith and

  the line of rail, " and he looked over Dirk's head at her. She rode

  with her face lifted to the sky.

  -You know the stars?" he asked.

  "A little."

  "So do I. I know them all." Dirk accepted the challenge and swivelled

  towards the south. "That's the Cross with the pointers, and that's

  Orion with his sword on his belt, and that's the Milky Way."

  "Tell me some others," the girl invited.

  "The others are just ordinary ones-they don't count. They haven't even

  got names.

  "Oh, but they have and most of them have got a story.

  "There was a pause. Dirk was now in an invidious position.

  either he had to admit ignorance, and Dirk's pride was too large to

  swallow with ease, or else he would forgo what promised to be a choice

  series of stories. Large as was his pride, his appetite for stories

  was even larger.

  "Tell me some," he conceded.

  "You see that little clump there underneath the big bright one?

  They are called the Seven Sisters. Well, once upon a time-" Within

  minutes Dirk was completely absorbed. These were even better than

  MbeJane's stories-probably because they were new, while Dirk could

  recite from memory MbeJane's entire repertoire. He fell upon any

  weakness in the plot like a prosecuting attorney.

  "But why didn't they just shoot the old witch?"

  "They didn't have guns in those days.

  "They coulda used a bow and arrow. " "You can't kill a witch with a

  bow and arrow. The arrow just goes-psst-straight through her without

  hurting her. " "Hangs teeth! " That was really impressive, but before

  accepting it Dirk found it necessary to corroborate with expert

  opinion. He checked with Mbejane, translating the problem to the

  Zulu.

  When Mbejane supported the girl Dirk was convinced for Mbejane was a

  celebrated authority on the supernatural.

  That night Dirk did not fall asleep in the saddle and when they camped

  before dawn the girl's voice was hoarse with overwork, but her conquest

  of Dirk was complete and that of Sean was well advanced.

  All night while he listened to her voice and the husky bursts of

  laughter that punctuated it Sean had felt the seed that was planted at

  their first meeting sinking its roots down into his lower belly and

  loins, spreading its tendrils up through his chest.

  He wanted this woman so violently that in her presence his wits failed

  him. Many times during the night he had attempted to join the

  discussions, but each time Dirk had brushed his efforts aside with