Guardian by Dan Gleed Read Free Book Online Page B

recognition came a deep craving to get away, to put distance between myself and my world. To lick my wounds in the calm of anonymity.
    Parking at the back of the station, I made my way furtively through the early morning shadows towards the far end of the long freight train. If I was going to make it all the way to Mombasa, I needed cover as well as transport and was looking for a wagon with an unlocked door. I was just beginning to think such things didn’t exist, when right at the end of the train I found what I was looking for and when I stopped to listen, the desultory sounds still reaching me from the distant platform were reassuring. Clearly, I hadn’t been seen. So, keeping out of sight as best I could, I pulled at the protesting door until it was wide enough to toss my rifle through and wriggle in after it. Once inside, although I could barely see, I rushed to stand up and get the door shut, with the result that my shoulder cracked against one of a pile of long wooden boxes stacked around the interior. It went over with a crash that reverberated loud enough to wake the dead, let alone summon the nearby night watchmen. Aghast, I swung round to see what I had done and found myself looking at the blurred image of a matched pair of glimmering white elephant tusks sticking out of the splintered box. The problem was, I was looking at them over the business end of a very much in focus pistol, the silencer held directly and firmly between my eyes.

Chapter 10

    Dawn. Roz stirred and let the pale light of early morning draw her slowly into consciousness. The house was still and not even Ben would be awake at this hour, but it was a magic time, cool, quiet, beckoning. Quickly, she slipped out from under the covers, the sudden cold stiffening her nipples and causing an involuntary shudder as the morning air pressed in through the open window, flowing over her slim, naked body. Drawing on an old towelling robe, she swung long, sun-browned legs out over the windowsill onto the veranda and on bare feet pattered across the coarse marram grass (1) surrounding the farmhouse, heading for the paddock rail corralling her surprise birthday present.
    The stocky palomino mare, a contrition offering from her dad, looked up briefly before returning to the rather more pressing matter of tearing at the long dry grass; gloomy disapproval registered in every heavy snort. Roz didn’t mind. It was early days and they hadn’t bonded yet. Outside the paddock, the veldt stretched away in undulating waves to the far horizon speckled with distant herds of deer and the occasional clutch of zebra. Close in to the settlement no sound rode the gentle morning breeze and to the east the new day glowed with fresh tints of pink and gold, shading slowly to indigo above her head, awaiting only the promised sun to turn it all to deepest blue. But for now that star lay well below the sharp division of earth and sky, the very contrast heralding the approach of another perfect day. Except no day could be perfect now. Not the way she was feeling, her heart aching over her harsh dismissal.
    Shivering, Roz drew her robe tighter, ignoring the tantalising fragrance of frangipani blossom spicing the air, all mixed with an indefinable but unmistakeable aroma of wood smoke and native village life. She was still perplexed. “
Why, Paul, why are you being like this?”
The question formed in her mind and her cheeks flamed suddenly with remembered guilt at the way she had struck back. “
Oh, Paul.
” Her throat ached as she bit back the tears. She didn’t, couldn’t, believe we were finished. Mere days before, I had clearly been only too happy to stand next to her, hands linked, hearts dancing to the delicious thrill of a shared but undeclared love, while we gazed with rapt attention at the buzzards wheeling and soaring overhead.
    Watching, she had suddenly understood with mysterious and inexplicable intensity, deep in the secret recesses