Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur - Страница 79

One of them hurled his spade despairingly after them. It shattered the rear window, and broken glass spilled over the rear of the cab.

Timon Nbebi picked up their own incoming tracks through the high grass, and at last they were going faster than a man could run. The two troopers gave up and stood A

panting in the tracks, their shouts of recrimination and anger dwindled and then were lost. Timon reached the bush track at the point that they had left it, and turned onto it, picking up speed.

"Give me your hands," he ordered, and when Craig offered his manacled hands, Timon unlocked the cuffs.

"Here! he gave Craig the key. "Do the same for Miss Jay." j She rubbed her wrists. "My God, Craig, I truly thought that was the end of the line."

"A close, run thing," Timon Nbebi agreed, with all his attention on the track. "Napoleon said that, I think." And then, before Craig could correct him, "Please to arm yourself with one of the rifles, Mr. Mellow, and place the other beside me." Sally-Anne passed the short, ugly weapons over to the front seat. The Third Brigade was the only unit of the regular army still armed with AK 47s, a legacy from their North Korean instructors.

"Do you know how to use it, Mr. Mellow?" Timon Nbebi asked.

was an armourer in the Rhodesian Police." iX course, how stupid of me." Swiftly Craig checked the curved "banana" magazine and then reloaded the chamber. The weapon was new and well cared for. The weight of it in Craig's hands changed his whole personality. "Iinutes before, he had been mere flotsam on the stream, "06wept along by events over which he had no control, confused and uncertain and afraid but now he was armed. Now he could fight back, now he could protect his woman and himself, now he could shape events rather than be shaped by them. It was the primeval, atavistic instinct of primitive man, and Craig revelled in it. He reached over the seat and took Sally-Anne's hand.

He squeezed it briefly, and fervently she returned the pressure.

"Now we have a fighting chance, at least." The new tone of his voice reached her. Her spirits lifted a little, and she gave him the first smile he had seen that night. He freed his hand, found the bottle of cane spirit in the cubbyhole, and passed it to her. After she had drunk, he gave it to Timon Nbebi.

"All right, Captain, what the hell is going on here?" Timon gasped at the sting of the liquor and his voice was roughened by it as he replied.

"You were perfectly correct, Mr. Mellow, my orders from General Fungabera were to take you and Miss Jay into the bush and execute you. And you were also correct in guessing that your disappearance would be blamed on the Matabele dissidents."

"Well, why didn't you obey your orders?" Before replying, Timon handed the bottle back to Craig, and then glanced over his shoulder at Sally-Anne.

"I am sorry that I had to go through the preparations for your execution, without being able to reassure you, but my men speak English. I had to make it look real. It galled me, for I didn't want to inflict more on you, after what you have already suffered."

"Captain Nbebi, I forgive you everything and I love you for what you are doing, but why, in God's name, are you doing it?" Sally-Anne demanded.

"What I am about to tell you, I have never told a living soul before. You see, my mother was a full-blooded Matabele. She died when I was very young, but I remember her well and honour that memory." He did not look at them, but concentrated on the track ahead. "I was raised as a Shana by my father, but I have always been aware of my Matabele blood. They are my people, and I can no longer stomach what is being done to them. I am certain that General Fungabera has become aware of my feelings, though I doubt that he knows about MY mother, but he knows that I have reached the end of my usefulness to him. Recently there have been small signs of it. I have lived too close to the man-eating leopard for too long not to know its moods. After I had buried you, there would have been something for me also, an unmarked grave or Fungabera's puppies." Timon used the Sindebele, amawundhla ka Fungabera, and Craig was startled. Sarah Nyoni, the schoolteacher at Tuti Mission, had used the same phrase.

"I have heard that expression before I do not under, stand it "Hyena," Timon explained. "Those who die or are executed at the rehabilitation centres are taken into the bush and laid out for the hyena. The hyena leaves nothing, not a chip of bone nor a tuft of hair."

"Oh God," said Sally-Anne in a small voice. "We were at Tuti. We heard the brutes, but didn't understand. How many have gone that way?" Timon Nbebi said, "I can only guess many thousands."

"It's scarcely believable."

"General Fungabera's hatred for the Matabele is a kind of madness, an obsession. He is planning to wipe them out.

First it was their leaders, accused of treason falsely accused, like Tungata Zebiwe "

"Oh naP Sally' Anne said miserably. "I cant 3ear it was Zebiwe innocent?"

"I'm sorry, Miss jayTimon Nbebi confirmed it. "Fun, gab era had to be yew careful when he tackled Zebiwe. He knew if he seized hi In" for his political activities, he would have the entire Matabele tribe in revolt. You and Mr. Mellow provided him with the perfect opportunity a non-political crime. A crime of greed."

"I'm being stupid," said Sally-Anne. "If Zebiwe wasn't the master poacher, was there ever a poacher? And if there was who was it?"

"General Fungabera himself, "said Timon Nbebi simply.

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"Are you sure?" Craig was incredulous.

"I was personally in charge of many of the shipments of 0, animal contraband that left the country."