When The Lion Feeds Part 41

Jan Paulus put the Bible on the tailboard of the wagon.

It was thick and the cover was of black leather, dull with use. Come here, Oupa said to Sean. Put your hand on the book... don't look at me. Look up, man, look up. Now say after me, "I do most solemnly swear to look after this woman", don't gobble, speak slower, "until I can find a priest to say the proper words. Should I fail in this then I ask you, G.o.d, to blast me with lightning, sting me with serpents, burn me in eternal fire -j" Oupa completed the list of atrocities, then he grunted with satisfaction and tucked the Bible under his arm. He won't have a chance to do all that to you... I'll get you first. Sean shared Jan Paulus's wagon that night; he wasn't in a mood for sleep and anyway Jan Paulus snored. It was raining again in the morning, depressing weather for farewells. Jan Paulus laughed, Henrietta cried and Ouma did both. Oupa kissed his daughter.

Be a woman like your mother, he said, then he scowled at Sean. Remember, just you rememberV Sean and Katrina stood together and watched the trees and the curtain of ram hide the wagon train. Sean held Katrina's hand. He could feel the sadness on her; he put his arm round her and her dress was damp and cold. The last wagon disappeared and they were alone in a land as vast as solitude. Katrina s.h.i.+vered and looked up at the man beside her. He was so big and overpoweringly male; he was a stranger. Suddenly she was frightened. She wanted to hear her mother's laugh and see her brother and father riding ahead of her wagon, the way it had always been.

oh, please, I want.. she pulled out from his arm.

She never finished that sentence, for she looked at his mouth and his lips were full and burnt dark by the sun they were smiling. Then she looked at his eyes and her panic smoothed away. With those eyes watching over her she was never to feel frightened again, not until the very end and that was a long time away. Going into his love was like going into a castle, a thick-walled place. A safe place where no one else could enter. The first feeling of it was so strong that she could only stand quietly and let the warmth wrap her.

That evening they outspanned Katrina's wagons back at the south bank of the river. It was still raining. Sean's servants waved and signalled to them, but the brown water bellowed down between them cutting off all sound and hope Of pa.s.sage. Katrina oo ed at the water. Did you really swim that, meneer? lSo fast that I hardly got wet. Thank you, she said.

Despite the rain and smoky fire Katrina served up a meal as good as one of Ouma's. They ate it in the shelter of the tarpaulin beside her wagon. The wind guttered the hurricane lamp, flogged the canvas and blew a fine haze of rain in on them. It was so uncomfortable that when Sean suggested that they go into the wagon Katrina barely hesitated before agreeing. She sat on the edge of her cot and Sean sat on the chest opposite her. From an awkward start their conversation was soon running as fast as the river outside the wagon. My hair is still wet, Katrina exclaimed at last. Do you mind if I dry it while we talk? Of course not. Then let me get my towel out of the chest. They stood up at the same time. There was very little s.p.a.ce in the wagon. They touched. They were on the cot.

The movement of his mouth on hers, the warm taste of it, the strong pleading of his fingers at the nape of her neck and along her spine, all these things were strangely confusing. She responded slowly at first, then faster with bewildered movements of her own body and little graspings at his arms and shoulders. She did not understand and she did not care. The confusion spread through her whole body and she could not stop it, she did not want to. She reached up and her fingers went into his hair. She pulled his face down on hers. His teeth crushed her lips sweet, exciting pain. His hand came round from her back and enclosed a fat round breast. Through the thin cotton he found the erectness of her nipple and rolled it gently between his fingers. She reacted like a filly feeling the whip for the first time. One instant she lay under the shock of his touch and then her convulsive heave caught him by surprise. He went backwards off the cot and his head cracked against the wooden chest. He sat on the floor and stared up at her, too surprised even to rub the lump on his head. Her face was flushed and she pushed the hair back from her forehead with both hands. She was shaking her head wildly in her effort to speak through her gasping You must go now, meneer, the servants have made a bed for you in one of the other wagons. Sean scrambled to his feet. Tut, I thought... surely we are... well, I mean. Keep away from me, she warned anxiously. If you touch me again tonight, I'll... I'll bite you. But, Katrina, please, I can't sleep in the other wagon.

The thought appalled him.

I'll cook your food, mend your clothes... everything!

But until you find a priest... She didn't go on, but Sean got the idea. He started to argue. It was his introduction to Boer immovability and at last he went to find his own bed. One of Katrina's dogs was there before him, a threequarters-grown brindle hound. Sean's attempts to persuade it to leave were as ill-fated as had been his previous arguments with its mistress. They shared the bed. During the night a difference of opinion arose between them as to what const.i.tuted a half-share of the blankets. From it the dog earned its name, Thief.

Sean determined to show Katrina just how strongly he resented her att.i.tude. He would be polite but distant. Five minutes after they had sat down to breakfast the next morning this demonstration of disapproval had deteriorated to the stage where he was unable to take his eyes off her face and he was talking so much that breakfast lasted an hour.

The rain held steady for three more days and then it stopped. The sun came back, as welcome as an old friend, but it was another ten days before the river regained its sanity. Time, rain or river meant very little to the two of them. They wandered out into the bush together to pick mushrooms; they sat in camp and when Katrina was working Sean followed her around. Then, of course, they talked. She listened to him. She laughed at the right places and gasped with wonder when she was meant to.

She was a good listener. As for Sean, if she had repeated the same word over and over the sound of her voice alone would have held him entranced. The evenings were difficult. Sean would start getting restless and make excuses to touch her. She wanted him to, but she was frightened of the confusion that had so nearly trapped her the first night. So she drew up a set of rules and put them to him. Do you promise not to do anything more than kiss me?

Not unless you say I can, Sean agreed readily.

No. She saw the catch in that. You mean, I must never do anything but kiss you even if you say I can!

She started to blush. If I say so in the daytime, that's different... but anything I say at night doesn't count, and if you break your promise I'll never let you touch me again.

Katrina's rules stood unchanged by the time the river had dropped enough for the wagons to be taken across to the north bank. The rains were resting, gathering their strength, but soon they would set in once more. The river was full but no longer murderous. Now was the time to cross. Sean took the oxen across first, swimming them in a herd. Holding on to one of their tails he had a Nantucket sleigh-ride across the river and when he reached the north bank there was a joyous welcome awaiting him.

They took six thick coils of unused rope from the stores wagon and joined them together. With the end of the rope round his waist Sean made one of his horses tow him back across the river, Mbejane paying out the line to him as he went. Then Sean supervised Katrina's servants as they emptied all the water barrels and lashed them to the sides of the first wagon to serve as floats. They ran the wagon into the water, tied on the rope and adjusted the barrels so that the wagon floated level. Sean signalled to Mbejane and waited until he had made the other end of the rope fast to a tree on the north bank. Then they pushed the wagon into the current and watched anxious as it swung across the river like a pendulum, the current driving it but the tree anchoring it. It hit the north bank a distance the exact width of the river downstream of the tree, and Sean's party cheered as Mbejane and the other servants ran down the bank to retrieve it. Mbejane had a team of oxen standing ready and they dragged it out.

Sean's horse towed him across the river again to fetch the rope.

Sean, Katrina and all her servants rode across on the last wagon. Sean stood behind Katrina with his arms round her waist, ostensibly to steady her, and the servants shouted and chattered like children on a picnic.

The water piled up brown against the side of the wagon, tilting it and making it roll, and with an exhilarating swoop they shot across the river and crashed into the far bank. The impact tumbled them overboard, throwing them into the knee-deep water beside the bank. They scrambled ash.o.r.e. The water streamed out of Katrina's dress, her hair melted wetly over her face; she had mud on one cheek and she was gasping with laughter. Her sodden petticoats clung to her legs, tripping her, and Sean picked her up and carried her to his own laager. His servants shouted loud encouragement after him and Katrina shrieked genteelly to be put down, but held tight round his neck with both arms.

Now that the rains had changed every irregularity in the land into a waterhole and sowed new green gra.s.s where before had been dust and dry earth, the game scattered away from the river. Every few days Sean's trackers came into camp to report that there were no elephant. Sean condoled with them and sent them out again. He was well satisfied; there was a new quarry now, more elusive and therefore more satisfying than an old bull elephant with a hundred and fifty pounds of ivory on each side of his face. Yet to call Katrina his quarry was a lie. She was much more than that.

She was a new world, a place of endless mysteries and unexpected delights, an enchanting mixture of woman and child. She supervised the domestic routine with deceptive lack of fuss. With her there, suddenly his clothes were clean and had their full complement of b.u.t.tons; the stew of boots and books and unwashed socks in his wagon vanished. There were fresh bread and fruit preserves on the table; Kandhia's eternal grilled steaks gave way to a variety of dishes. Each day she showed a new accomplishment. She could ride astride, though Sean had to turn his back when she mounted and dismounted. She cut Sean's hair and made as good a job of it as his barber in Johannesburg. She had a medicine chest in her wagon from which she produced remedies for every ailing man or beast in the company. She handled a rifle like a man and could strip and clean Sean's Mannlicher. She helped him load cartridges, measuring the charges with a practised eye.

She could discuss birth and procreation with a clinical objectivity and a minute later blush all over when he looked at her that way. She was as stubborn as a mule, haughty when it suited her, serene and inscrutable at times and at others a little girl. She would push a handful of gra.s.s down the back of his s.h.i.+rt and run for him to chase her, giggle for rates at a secret thought, play long imaginative games in which the dogs were her children and she talked to them and answered for them. Sometimes she was so naive that Sean thought she was joking until he remembered how young she was. She could drive him from happiness to spitting anger and back again within the s.p.a.ce of an hour. But, once he had won her confidence and she knew that he would play to the rules, she responded to his caresses with a violence that startled them both. Sean was completely absorbed in her. She was the most wonderful thing he had ever found and, best of all, he could talk to her. He told her about Duff. She saw the extra cot in his wagon and found clothing that was obviously too small for him. She asked about it and he told her all of it and she understood.

The days became weeks. The cattle grew fat, their skins sleek and tight. Katrina planted a small vegetable garden and reaped a crop from it. Christmas came and Katrina baked a cake. Sean gave her a kaross of monkey skins that Mbejane had worked on in secret. Katrina gave Sean handsewn s.h.i.+rts, each with his initials embroidered on the top pocket, and she relaxed the rules a fraction.

Then when the new year had begun and Sean hadn't killed an elephant in six weeks, Mbejane headed a deputation from the gunboys. The question he had to ask, though tactfully disguised, was simply, Did we come here to hunt, or what? They broke camp and moved north again and the strain was showing on Sean at last. He tried to sweat it out by long days of hunting but this didn't help for conditions were so bad that they added to his irritability. The gra.s.s in most places was higher than a mounted man's head, its sharp edges cut as he pa.s.sed through it. But the gra.s.s seeds were the worst: half an inch long and barbed like an arrow they worked their way quickly through clothing and into the skin. in the humid heat the small wounds they made festered within hours. Then there were the flies. Hippo-flies, greenheaded flies, sand-flies all with one thing in common they stung. The soft skin behind the ears was their favourite place. They'd creep upon him, settle so lightlyy he wouldn't feel it, then, ping with the red-hot needle. Always wet, sometimes with sweat, other times with rain, Sean would close with a herd of elephant.

He would hear them moving in the long gra.s.s around him and see the white canopy of egrets fluttering over them, but it was seldom he could get a shot at them. If he did he had to stand in the centre of a storm of blundering bodies. Often they would be following a herd, almost upon them, when Sean would lose interest and they'd all go back to camp. He couldn't keep away.

He was miserable, his servants were miserable, and Katrina was happy as a bird at daybreak. She had a man, she was mistress of a household which she ran with confidence and, because her senses were not yet as seasoned as Sean's, she was physically content. Even with Sean's strict adherence to the rules, their evenings in her wagon would end for her with a sigh and a shudder and she would go dreamy-eyed to bed and leave Sean with a burning devil inside of him. The only person Sean could complain to was Thief. He would he with his snout buried in Sean's armpit, with at least his share of the blankets over him, and listen quietly.

The Zulus could see what the trouble was but they didn't understand it. They didn't discuss it, of course, but if one of them spread his hands expressively or coughed in a certain way the others knew what he meant. Mbejane came closest to actually putting it into words. Sean had just thrown a tantrum. It was a matter of a lost axe and who was responsible. Sean lined them up and expressed

doubts as to their ancestry, present worth and future prospects , then he stormed off to his wagon. There was a long silence and Mubi offered his snuff-box to Mbejane.

Mbejane took a pinch and said, It's a stupid stallion that doesn't know how to kick down a fence! It is true, it is true, they agreed, and there the matter rested.

A week later they reached the Sabi river. The mountains on the far side were blue-grey with distance and the river was full, brown and full.

The next morning was fresh and cool from the night's rain. The camp smelt of wood-smoke, cattle and wild mimosa. From one of the ostrich eggs that Mbejane had found the day before, Katrina made an omelette the size of a soup-plate. it was flavoured with nutmeg and chunks.

of mushroom, yellow and rich. Afterwards there were scones and wild honey, coffee and a cheroot for Sean.

Are you going out today? Katrina asked. Uh huh. oh! Don't you want me to? You haven't stayed in camp for a week. Don't you want me to go?

she stood up quickly and started clearing the table. Anyway you won't find any elephant you haven't found anything for ages. Do you want me to stay? It's such a lovely day. She signed to Kandhla to take the plates away.

, If you want me to stay, ask me properly. We could look for mushrooms. Say it, said Sean. All right then, please!

IMbejane! Take the saddle off that horse, I won't be using him Katrina laughed. She ran to her wagon, skirts swirling around her legs, calling to the dogs. She came back with her bonnet on and a basket in her hand. The dogs crowded round them, jumping up and barking. Go on... seek up then, Sean told them and they raced ahead, circling back barking, chasing one another. Sean and Katrina walked holding hands. The brim of Katrina's bonnet kept her face in shadow, but even then her eyes when she looked at him were bright green. They picked the new mushrooms, round and hard, brown and slightly sticky on top, fluted underneath delicately as a lady's fan.

In an hour they had filled the basket and they stopped under a manda tree. Sean lay on his back. Katrina broke off a blade of gra.s.s and tickled his face with it until he caught her wrist and pulled her down onto his chest. The dogs watched them, sitting around them in a circle, their tongues hangin out pink and wet. There's a place in the Cape, just outside Paarl. The mountains stand over it and there's a river... the water's very clear, you can see the fish lying on the bottom, said Katrina. Her ear was against his chest and she was listening to his heart. Will you buy me a farm there one day?

Yes, said Sean. We'll build a house with a wide veranda and on Sundays we'll drive to church with the girls and the little ones in the back and the bigger boys riding next to the buggy. How many will there be? asked Sean. He lifted the side of her bonnet and looked at her ear. It was a very pretty ear, in the sunlight he could see the fine fur on the lobe. Oh lots... boys mostly, but a few girls Ten? suggested Sean. More than that. Fifteen? Yes, fifteen. They lay and thought about it. To Sean it seemed a fairly well-rounded number. And I'll keep chickens, I want lots of chickens Alright, said Sean. You don't mind? Should It? Some people mind chickens, some people don't like them at all, said Katrina. I'm glad you don't mind them.

I've always wanted them. Stealthily Sean advanced his mouth towards her ear but she felt his move and sat up. What are you doing? This, I said Sean and his arm shot out. No, Sean, they're watching us. She waved her hand at the dogs. They'll understand, said Sean and then they were both quiet for a long time.

The dogs burst out together in full hunting chorus.

Katrina sat up and Sean turned his head and saw the leopard. It stood fifty yards away on the edge of the thick bush along the river bank watching them, poised elegantly in tights of black and gold, long and smallbellied. It moved then, bluffing with speed, touching the ground as lightly as a swallow touches the water when it drinks in flight. The dogs went after it in a pack, Thief leading them, his voice cracking with excitement. Back, come back, shouted Sean. Leave it, d.a.m.n you, come back. Stop them, Sean, go after them. We'll lose them all. Wait here, Sean told her.

He ran after the sound of the pack. Not shouting saving his wind. He knew what would happen and he listened for it. He heard the tone of the hunt change, sharper now. Sean stopped and stood panting, peering ahead. The dogs were not moving. The sound of their barking was steady in volume. The swine has stopped; he's going to take them He started running again and almost immediately heard the first dog scream. He kept running. He found the dog lying where the leopard had flung it, the old b.i.t.c.h with white ears, her stomach was stripped out. Sean went on.

The tan ridgeback next, disemboweled, still alive and crawling to meet him. He ran on; always the hunt was out of sight ahead of him but he kept after it. He no longer stopped to help the dogs that had been mauled. Most of them were dead before he reached them. The saliva thickened in his mouth, his heart jumped against his ribs and he reeled as he ran.

Suddenly he was in the open and the hunt was spread out before him. There were three dogs left. One of them was Thief. They were circling the leopard, belting him, darting in at his back legs, snapping, then jumping back as the leopard spun snarling. The gra.s.s was short and green in the clearing. The sun was directly overhead: it threw no shadow, it lit everything with a flat, even lightt.

Sean tried to shout but his throat wouldn't let the sound out. The leopard dropped onto its back and lay with the sprawled grace of a sleeping cat, its legs open and its belly exposed. The dogs hung back, hesitating. Sean shouted again but his voice still would not carry. That creamy yellow belly, soft and fluffy, was too much temptation.

One of the dogs went for it, dipping its head, its mouth open. The leopard closed on it like a spring trap. it caught and held the dog with its front paws and its back legs worked quickly. The dog yammered at the swift surgeon strokes and then it was thrown aside, its bowels hanging out. The leopard relaxed again to show the yellow bait of its belly. Sean was close now and this time the two dogs heard his shout. The leopard heard it also. It flashed to its feet and tried to break but the instant it turned Thief was at it, slas.h.i.+ng at its back legs forcing it to swing and crouch. Here, boy, leave him! Here, Thief, come here!

Thief took Sean's shout as encouragement. He danced just out of reach of the flicking paws, shrilly taunting the leopard. The hunt was finely balanced now. Sean knew if he could get the dogs to slacken their attack the leopard would run. He went forward a pace, stooped to pick up a stone to throw at Thief and his movement tipped the balance. When he straightened up the leopard was watching him and he felt the eel of fear move in his stomach. It was going to come for him. He knew it by the way its ears flattened against its head and its shoulders bunched like loaded springs. Sean dropped the stone and reached for the knife on his belt.