Sunset at Sheba (14 page)

His hand was still moving slowly over the gun and he looked uncomfortable, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other. ‘I didn’t know,’ he excused himself. ‘I never thought of it like that. I always felt you might laugh at me. You were older than me and knew too much about me. I wouldn’t have gone off shooting if I’d known. I might even have took a job in Plummerton.’

‘Not you, Sammy,’ she said with a smile. ‘I can’t see you behind a store counter selling sheep-dip and pearl buttons.’

‘Well, I
might.
If you’d only said -’

‘Same as me, Sammy,’ she pointed out. ‘There’s lots I
might
have done if
you’d
only said.’ She stared down at him, the small smile still playing round her mouth. ‘Seems we ought to have got together a bit and talked things over, the both of us,’ she commented.

He stood alongside the grey mare, then he reached up and took her hand, his face alive with sincerity.

‘Let’s get this behind us, Polly,’ he said. ‘Then we might be able to start again.’

Impulsively she leaned over and kissed his hand as it held hers, then she straightened up and kicked the mare into motion.

‘How’ll I know when to come back?’ she asked, turning in the home-made saddle, her face resolute and courageous again.

‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Just keep going. I’ll catch you up.’

She was still staring backwards when she passed the rocks, watching Sammy as he hoisted the buck to his shoulders and began to walk slowly towards the clump of stone, leading the Argentino, his thin body moving with the litheness and grace of a wild animal.

He waved once and she waved back, then she was out of sight on the south side of the kopje.

As she vanished, he stopped, staring after her, his face expressionless, then he pushed his hat back and, humping the rifle, began to walk again, the Argentino plodding after him, its footsteps heavy in the dust...

He picked a spot near the outcrop of rocks and tethered the horse behind a pile of boulders that leaned together like some vast cathedral. Then he walked towards the kopje and began to climb, carrying the rifle.

Choosing a spot where the shade fell and glancing round at the sun, he cocked the weapon and pushed his hat forward over his eyes. The bright glints caught his rifle barrel disconcertingly and he stooped and, picking up a handful of dust, rubbed it along the metal to dull the glow, his movements slow and methodical, for he had performed them a hundred times before out on the bare veld.

He laid the weapon carefully in front of him, butt end on the ground, the muzzle resting on a low rock, and finally leaned back against the rock and prepared to wait.

For a long time he didn’t move, frozen into easy immobility, then as the sun dropped farther towards the west, he shifted to find a patch of shade, moving quietly, and squatted down again.

An hour later, he saw a feather of dust across the plain.

Le Roux came towards the kopje, riding the chestnut slowly, his eyes on the ground, then he kicked the horse into a canter as his eyes saw the trail stretch between the rocks at the foot of the hill. As he reached the kopje, he slowed down again, staring at the ground, puzzled.

As Sammy cocked the rifle, Le Roux’s head came up. His horse’s ears pricked, and he gathered the reins in his hand, looking round him suspiciously.

‘Mr Le Roux,’ Sammy said, ‘I got my gun pointing straight at you. Get off that hoss.’

For a second, Le Roux sat motionless and frozen. His head turned slowly, his narrow eyes hard and ugly, trying to pick Sammy out from the tangle of shadows among the rocks. Slowly his hand moved towards the rifle in the saddle bucket.

‘I wouldn’t if I was you, Mr Le Roux,’ the patient voice came again. ‘I can drop a running duiker at three hundred yards without damaging the hide. Better get down.’

Le Roux’s eyes glittered with fury and he swung slowly from the saddle.

Sammy rose from behind his rock and moved slowly down the side of the hill among the rocks, his feet silent in the veldschoen. Stepping into the dusty track, he grinned at the scout.

‘Mornin’, Mr Le Roux,’ he said. ‘Been a nice mornin’. Afraid I’m going to have to take your hoss.’

Le Roux’s flat blank face went dark but he said nothing, standing rigidly, his big hands hanging down by his side. Sammy leaned across the chestnut’s saddle, the Henry still pointing at Le Roux, and took the rifle from the saddle scabbard.

‘Mauser,’ he said, glancing at it. ‘Nice gun, that.’ He glanced in the saddle bag. ‘Plenty of ammunition too. That’s handy. Better sling your bandoleer across as well.’

Glaring, Le Roux slipped the heavy bandoleer of cartridges off his shoulder and threw it into the dust in front of him. Sammy knelt, one eye all the time on the scout, and carefully picked out the cartridges and slipped them into his pockets.

‘You can have what’s left,’ he said, rising.

He put a foot into the stirrup and swung up into the saddle of the chestnut.

‘Nice hoss,’ he commented. ‘Them army people certainly mount and kit their men nice. Who’s in charge? Kitto?’

Le Roux nodded.

‘He knows his stuff, that Kitto,’ Sammy observed. ‘Bit of a fire-eater, but he’s all right. I’ve scouted for him once. Who else’s with you? Winter?’

Le Roux’s head jerked.

‘You’re not too talkative this morning, are you?’ Sammy said. His voice suddenly went hard and the youthful respect he had shown towards the older man vanished abruptly.

‘See here, Mr Le Roux,’ he said. ‘I’ve not harmed anybody, ever. You leave me alone. You tell Kitto that.’

He fished in the saddle-bag and withdrew a few sticks of biltong which he tossed across. Then he unwound the strap of a water bottle on the saddle.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s more’n I ought to leave you. Your pals’ll be up with you before long, I expect. Tell ‘em what I told you. Any single one of ‘em tries to interfere with me and mine, and I start shooting. That’s a fair warning.’

He kicked with his heels and the horse moved forward. Le Roux swung round, squinting into the sun as the animal passed him. Sammy trotted between the rocks at the foot of the kopje and vanished from sight, then a moment later he reappeared, pulling the Argentino on a lead rein, and as he turned behind the kopje, Le Roux ran quickly to the gap and stared after him. But Sammy was already a couple of hundred yards away and riding hard.

Kitto’s column were straggling badly again when they picked up Le Roux. The cars were steaming and hissing and the horsemen were sore and grumbling under their breath, disappointed that they had not caught up with Sammy Schuter as they had confidently expected after finding the abandoned cart. They rode stiff and swaying in the saddles, their teeth clamped against weariness, the horses moving slowly with drooping heads, stumbling under their burdens, more than one of them lame.

Kitto’s face was stiff now with anger whenever Winter turned his eyes towards him; gnawed and nagged by the urgency that possessed him.

When the flank riders returned without Le Roux, Kitto called all the horsemen together and, separating them into groups, sent them out fanwise in splinters, looking for the scout’s tracks. Within an hour, one of them had returned with Le Roux clinging on behind the saddle.

Kitto’s face was thunderous. ‘God damn it, Le Roux,’ he said. ‘What happened?’

Le Roux’s sun-blackened features and dark hair gave him a look of evil as he replied.

‘Ach,
he stole my horse, man,’ he said.
‘Daar agter,
by the kopje.’

‘What the hell were you doing to let him?’

Le Roux gestured, his bony red wrists raw-looking below his sleeve. ‘I was close behind ‘em,’ he said. ‘They’ll only have gained an hour or two even now. That’s all. He offered to shoot me.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Heading for Plummerton West.’

‘Plummerton? He can’t go back there!’ Kitto seemed suddenly on the point of panic. ‘My God, Winter, you were right! Get in the motor, Le Roux. We can move faster here. The ground’s good.’

Winter, leaning over the dun-painted side of the car tried to protest again. ‘Offy said there was to be no violence,’ he pointed out.

Kitto frowned, on his face an expression of angry bewilderment. So long as the fugitives had accepted the chase and fled before it, his task had been straightforward, even if difficult, but now that they had clearly decided to turn round and head back to Plummerton, the whole operation had been carried beyond the bounds of simplicity. In his strict Calvinistic way, he struggled with his conscience, striving to reach a decision that was effective and at the same time honourable. Somewhere, vaguely, he thought he saw a solution, but uneasily he felt it wasn’t the right one.

‘He’s stolen one of His Majesty’s troop-horses,’ he said, as though he were thinking aloud. ‘This was an armed patrol into Dhanziland when it started, in search of rebels who were aiding the King’s enemies. Anyone who interferes with it’s a damned renegade and has to be dealt with accordingly.’

A look of surprise came on to Romanis’ face. ‘Good God, man,’ he said. ‘What are you contemplating?’

Kitto paused and Winter guessed he wasn’t certain himself what he should do.

Then he slapped at his boot with his crop and moved to the car. ‘I’m contemplating nothing,’ he said. ‘But let’s be realistic. This damned man’s a threat to established order here. If he gets back to Plummerton he could be worth two or three thousand men to De Wet. And for every two or three thousand who join ‘em there’ll be two or three thousand more waiting for the example of others to encourage
them.
It’s a vicious circle and, make no mistake about it, if Botha and Smuts fall, there’ll be nothing to stop the Germans walking straight through South Africa as they have done through France and Belgium. And that would be a major victory for them. Don’t let’s blind ourselves with idealism. This boy’s become a menace to more than just Offy Plummer. We’ve got to get a move on.’

He turned away and spoke to Romanis, and the men standing by the horses swung up into the saddles.

Le Roux appeared alongside the Rolls and grinned at Winter.

‘Got to reserve my strength,
jong,’
he said as he settled back on the dusty seat. ‘We’ll be up with the woman soon.’

Kitto had come striding back now and climbed into his seat at the front of the Rolls. The Army Service Corps driver swung on the starting handle and the engine roared.

Quickly he returned to his seat and adjusted the lever on the steering wheel. The engine of the Napier behind started with a howl, dying away to a throbbing popple from the exhaust as Romanis dragged back the throttle. The horsemen were spreading out now on either flank, some of them already moving away.

‘Pass down the car please,’ the driver of the Rolls called out gaily, releasing the brake. ‘Have your fares ready!’

‘Cut that damn’ nonsense out,’ Kitto said, no room in his mind for levity until the job was done. He waved, pointing forward and as the car jerked he fell back into his seat and the little cavalcade moved off, trailing its plume of dust behind it, moving swiftly east again, away from the falling sun.

Sunset at Sheba.

Sammy reined in and stared up at the strange mysterious shape, its burden of stone like battered forts and castles, joined by bastions of gritty earth and clumps of aloe and cactus and rough thorn scrub. He turned slowly and glanced behind him at the bare veld, then swung his gaze back to the orgy of rocky sentinels, his eyes narrowed, his face sombre.

‘A man could see a long way from up there,’ he mused.

He sat still, as though he were loath to pass the great pile of rock, as though it fascinated him, and Polly watched him silently, listening to the soft hiss of the horses’ tails as they swept at the flies. The golden veld was ripening now to apricot and in a short time would be blood red as the sun disappeared.

Sammy still sat in silence, staring first at Sheba then back at the veld over which they had just passed.

‘Reckon we’ll stay here for the night,’ he said at last. ‘Plenty of shelter here.’

Polly slipped from the grey, her thighs aching from knee to groin, still feeling the horse between her legs.

She knew that shelter was not the reason why he had chosen the spot, for they had camped without worrying at spots out on the bare veld where there were no rocks within miles to set their backs against. But behind that taut bleak look in his face she could see a troubled stubbornness, as though he had selected Sheba to make a stand. From his next words she knew she was right.

‘I’m going up,’ he said, pointing to the slopes. ‘It’s my guess they’ll try to get between us and the Sidings again. I could maybe see from up there.’

He slipped from the horse and passed her the reins and she watched him scrambling up the shallow south side, avoiding the boulders, slipping between them on the rough stone-covered surface.

After a while, she lost sight of him and waited in silence, awed by the sombre majesty of the kopje, the legends that had grown up around it frightening her with their suggestions of ghosts. Then she heard a stone roll and saw Sammy scrambling down the slope again.

He stopped by the horses, panting a little.

‘See ‘em?’ she asked.

‘Not yet. But they won’t be far away. They’ll be getting scared now - they’ll have guessed by now that we’ve turned back - and when people are scared, Poll, they do funny things.’

Polly began to unfasten the ropes which held their belongings, oppressed in a way she couldn’t explain.

‘Hold it, Poll!’

She turned, her eyes questioning, and Sammy gestured towards Sheba.

‘Not here,’ he said. ‘Up there!’

Her eyes opened wide.

‘Up there?’ The words were jerked out of her in startled amazement as she stared at the precipitous sides of the kopje.

Sammy nodded and pushed her up on to the grey’s back again. ‘I’m sitting the night out up there,’ he said. ‘They might easy miss us in the dark, then we can cut down again and head for Plummerton.’ He jerked a hand at the kopje. ‘It’s shallow enough at first,’ he pointed out. ‘We can get the horses up among the rocks. Some of ‘em are big enough to hide an elephant.’