Hostile Territory (A Spider Shepherd short story) by Stephen Leather Read Free Book Online Page A

from the route he had been following, crossing a dry river valley and climbing onto a low ridge. He pushed his way through some scrub bush then turned to Shepherd and smiled. They were standing on what appeared to be a narrow pathway running straight as a die into the distance. Although it was flanked on either side by dense scrub, the ground underfoot felt stony and the way itself was mainly grass-covered, burned brown by the sun with a few stunted bushes. ‘It’s an old railway line,’ Thomas explained. ‘It’s been closed for many years, but it’s so dry and stony that almost nothing can grow on it. We can make fast time now.’
    To Shepherd’s surprise they arrived at the fringes of Freetown within 24 hours, where the railway track ended, petering out among a sprawling shantytown of crude buildings and lean-to shacks. The stench was overpowering and the watercourse that ran through the area was as foul as any Shepherd had ever seen, yet he saw women scooping drinking water from it. The stink of sewage, refuse and decay mingled with the smoke from cooking fires, and there were clouds of flies everywhere.
    As they peered out from cover, they saw a barrier across the road, guarded by rebel soldiers, and patrols moving through the shacks and houses. They waited until after midnight before they moved on. Shepherd still had the scarf around his neck that he’d used to keep the dust from the Harmattan wind out of his nose and mouth. ‘Wind your scarf around your head,’ Thomas said. ‘You’ll need it. There is disease in the air.’ Thomas had a black and white checked scarf around his neck and he pulled it over his mouth and nose.
    He led Shepherd into the shantytown, past shacks built from scrap wood and packing cases, their roofs made from rusting corrugated iron or palm fronds. They moved through a maze of alleys and passageways, the stench growing ever stronger. A few mangy dogs growled or barked at them, and one or two figures appeared briefly but the sight of Shepherd’s powerful figure and the rifle he carried was enough to send them melting back into the shadows. Lower on the hillside, where the ferocious heat of the night was unbroken by even a trace of breeze, they reached a dumpsite, where even during the hours of darkness, a mountain of reeking refuse was being picked over by ragpickers moving like ants across its surface. Everything, even the people, was so smothered in grey dust that when they stopped moving, the rag pickers seemed to disappear from sight, merging into the heap on which they stood.
     Shepherd’s white skin was blanketed in dust in an instant and he was gagging on the stench, but Thomas urged him on. ‘There are no rebels here,’ he said. ‘There is nothing for them. No food to eat, nothing worth stealing, no women worth raping and no boys to conscript to do their killing. But the dump reaches almost into the heart of the city. It is a highway for us to follow.’
     They reached the far end of the dump two hours before the dawn. They slipped across the road, passed through another warren of side streets and passageways and emerged almost in the heart of the city, near the Cotton Tree roundabout. ‘You can find your way from here, I think,’ Thomas said.
     Shepherd nodded. ‘What about you?’
    ‘My brother’s house is not far away. I’ll be safe there.’
     Shepherd took out all the money he had and tried to give it to Thomas, but the man shook his head. ‘I did not do this for money. We were comrades in arms. I was the guide, you the bodyguard.’
    ‘You saved my life,’ Shepherd said. ‘Is there nothing I can do for you?’
    ‘Say a prayer for my father when you get home. In an English church. That will be more than enough for me.’
    Shepherd gripped his hand. ‘Your father would have been very proud of you, Thomas. Thank you.’
    ‘I hope we will meet again some day, when my country is at peace once more, but now we must hurry, the sun is almost up.’ Thomas