The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 23

The bull swung its head to the sound of his voice, and very clearly he saw Shadrach also. He snorted and nodded threateningly.

"Haul Prince of cattle! How beautiful you are! Shadrach advanced a pace towards those vicious pike-sharp horns.

The bull pawed at the earth and then made a warning rush at him. Shadrach stood him down and the bull stopped.

"How n.o.ble your head! he crooned. "Your eyes are like dark moons!" The bull hooked his horns towards him, but the swing was less vicious and Shadrach answered with another step forward. The shrieks of terrorstruck women and children died away. Even the most fainthearted stopped running, and looked back at the old man and the red beast.

"Your horns are sharp as the stabbing a.s.segai of great Mzilikazi." Shadrach kept moving forward and the bull blinked uncertainly and squinted at him with red, rimmed eyes.

"How glorious are your t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es," Shadrach murmured soothingly, 'like huge round boulders of granite. Ten thousand cows will feel their weight and majesty." The bull backed up a pace and gave another halfhearted toss of his head.

"Your breath is hot as the north wind, my peerless king of bulls." Shadrach stretched out his hand slowly, and they watched in breathless silence.

"My darling," Shadrach touched the glossy, wet, chocolate-coloured muzzle and the bull jerked away nervously, and' then came back cautiously to snuffle at Shadrach's fingers. "My sweet darling, father of great bulls-" gently Shadrach slipped his forefinger into the heavy bronze nose, ring and held the bull's head. He stooped and placed his mouth over the gaping, pink-lined nostrils and blew his own breath loudly into them. The bull shuddered, and Craig could clearly see the bunched muscle in his shoulders relaxing. Shadrach straightened and, with his finger still through the nose-ring, walked away and placidly the bull waddled after him with his dewlap swinging. A weak little cheer of relief and disbelief went up from his audienc and subsided as Shadrach cast a withering contemptuous eye around him.

"Nkosi!"he called to Craig. "Get these chattering Mashona monkeys off our land. They are upsetting my darling," he ordered, and Craig hoped fervently that none of his highly placed guests understood Sindebele.

Crai marvelled once again at the almost mystical bond that existed between the Nguni peoples and their cattle.

From that age, long obscured by the mists of time, when the first herds had been driven out of Egypt to begin the centuries-long migrations southwards, the destinies of black man and beast had been inexorably linked. This hump-backed strain of cattle had originated in India, their genus has indic us distinct from the European has taurus, but over the ages had become as African as the tribes that cherished and shared their lives with them. It was strange, Craig pondered, that the cattle, herding tribes see me always to have been the most dominant and warlike: people such as the Masai and Bechuana and Zulu had always lorded it over the mere tillers of the earth. Perhaps it was their constant need to search for grazing, to defend it against others and to protect their herds from predators, both human and animal, that made them so bellicose.

Watching Shadrach lead the huge bull away, there was no mistaking that lordly arrogance now, master and beast were n.o.ble in their alliance. Not so the minister of education, still clinging, catlike, to his perch in the jacaranda. Craig went to add his entreaties to those of his bodyguards, who were encouraging him to descend to earth once more.

Peter Fungabera was the last of the official party to leave. He accompanied Craig on a tour of the homestead, sniffing appreciatively the sweet odour of the golden thatching gra.s.s that already covered half the roof area.

"My grandfather replaced the original thatch with corrugated asbestos during the war," Craig explained. "Your RPG-7 rocket sh.e.l.ls were hot little darlings."

"Yes," Peter agreed evenly. "We started many a good bonfire with them."

"To tell the truth, I am grateful for the chance to restore the building. Thatch is cooler and more picturesque, and both the wiring and plumbing needed replacing-"

"I.

must congratulate you on what you have ac com pushed in such a short time. You will soon be living in the grand manner that your ancestors have always enjoyed since they first seized this land." Craig looked at him sharply, searching for malice, but Peter's smile was as charming and easy as always.

"All these improvements add vastly to the value of the property," Craig pointed out. "And you own a goodly share of them."

"Of course," Peter laid a hand placatingly on Craig's forearm. "And you still have much work ahead of you. The development of Zambezi Waters, when will you begin on that?"

"I am almost ready to do so as soon as the rest of the stock arrives, and I have Sally-Anne to a.s.sist with the details."

"Ah," said Peter. "Then you can begin immediately.

Sally-Anne Jay flew into Harare airport yesterday morning." Craig felt a tingle of rising pleasure and antic.i.p.ation.

"I'll go into town this evening to phone her." Peter Fungabera clucked with annoyance. "Have they not installed your telephone yet? I'll see you have it tomorrow. In the me and me you can patch through on my radio The telephone linesman arrived before noon the fbllow ing day, and Sally Anne Cessna buzzed in from the east an hour later.

Craig had a smudge pot of old engine oil and rags burning to mark the disused airstrip and give her the wind direction, anJ she touched down and taxied to where he had parked the Land-Rover.

When she jumped down from the cab mi Craig found he had forgotten the alert, quick way she moved, and the shape of her legs in tight, fitting blue denim. Her smile was of genuine pleasure and her handshake firm and warm. She was wearing nothing beneath the cotton s.h.i.+rt. She noticed his eyes flicker down and then guiltily up again, but she showed no resentment.

"What a lovely ranch, from the air," she said.

"Let me show you," he offered, and she dropped her bag on the back seat of the Land-Rover and swung her leg over the door likea boy.

It was late afternoon when they got back to the homestead.

"Kapa-lola has prepared a room for you, and Joseph has cooked his number, one dinner. We have the generator running at last, so there are lights and the hot-water donkey has been boiling all day, so there is a hot bath or I could drive you in to a motel in town?"

"Let's save gas," she accepted with a smile.

She came out on the veranda with a towel wrapped likea turban round her damp hair, flopped down in the chair beside him and put her feet up on the half-wall.

"G.o.d, that was glorious." She smelled of soap and she was still pink and glowing from the bath.

"How do you like your whisky?"

"Right up and lots of ice." She sipped and sighed, and they watched the sunset. It was one of those raging red African skies that placed ffiem and the world in thrall; to speak during it would have been blasphemous. They watched the sun go in silence, and then Craig leaned across and handed her a thin sheaf of papers.

at is this?" She was curious.

"Part-payment for your services as consultant and visiting: lecturer at Zambezi Waters." Craig switched on the light above her chair.

She read slowly, going over each sheet three or four times, and then she sat with the sheaf of papers clutched protectively in her lap and stared out into the night.

"It's only a rough idea, just the first few pages. I have suggested the photographs that should face each text," Craig broke the silence awkwardly. "Of course, I've only a few. I am certain you have hundreds of others. I seen thought we would aim at two hundred and fifty pages, with the same number of your photographs all colour, of course." She turned her head slowly towards him. "You were afraid?" she asked. "d.a.m.n you, Craig Mellow now I am scared silly." He saw that there were tears in her eyes again. "This is so-" she searched for a word, and gave up. "If I put my photographs next to this, they will seem I don't know puny, I guess, unworthy of the deep love you express so eloquently for this land." He shook his head, denying it. She dropped her eyes to the writing and read it again.

"Are you sure, Craig, are you sure you want to do this book with me?"

"Yes very much indeed."

"Thank you," she said simply, and in that moment Craig knew at last, for sure, that they would be lovers. Not now, not tonight, it was still too soon but one day they would take each other. He sensed that she knew that too, for though after that they spoke very little, her cheeks darkened under her tan with shy young blood whenever he looked across at her, and she could not meet his eyes.

After dinner Joseph served coffee on the veranda, and when he left Craig switched out the lights and in darkness they watched the moon rise over the tops of the msasa trees that lined the hills acIbss the valley.

When at last she, itse to go to her bed, she moved slowly and lingered unnecessarily. She stood in front of him, the top of her head reaching to his chin, and once again said softly, "Thank you," tilted her head back, and went up on tiptoe to brush his cheek with soft lips.

But he knew she was not yet ready, and he made no effort to hold her.

y the time the last s.h.i.+pment of cattle arrived, the second homestead at Queen's Lynn five miles away was ready for occupation and Craig's newly hired white overseer moved in with his family. He was a burly, slow-speaking man who, despite his Afrikaner blood, had been born and lived in the country all his life. He spoke Sindebele as well as Craig did, understood and respected the blacks and in turn was liked and respected by them.

But best of all, he knew and loved cattle, like the true African he was.

With Hans Groenewald on the estate, Craig was able to concentrate on developing Zambezi Waters for tourism.

He chose a young architect who had designed the lodges on some of the most luxurious private game ranches in southern Africa, and had him fly up from Johannesburg.

The three of them, Craig, Sally-Anne and the architect, camped for a week on Zambezi Waters, and walked both banks of the Chizarira river, examining every inch of the terrain, choosing the sites of five guest-lodges, and the service complex which would support them. At Peter Fungabera's orders they were guarded by a squad of Third Brigade troopers under the command of Captain Timon Nbebi.