Sunbird by Wilbur Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

as I relinquished the wheel to him the bitter tang of burnt cordite filled the cab of the Land-Rover. He glanced at Sally. 'Thanks,' he said, 'I prefer a running shot.'
    'Why didn't you kill all three of them?' Her tone was neutral, without rancour.
    'You are only allowed two on a licence.'
    'Christ,' said Sally in a voice that now reeked of anger and outrage, 'how bloody touching. It's not often you meet a true gentleman.'
    And Louren drove us out to where the dead animals lay. While the servants skinned and butchered the carcasses. Sally remained in the back seat with her face averted, her hat pulled down low over her forehead, and her eyes glued to a book.
    I stood beside Louren in the bright sunlight, that was intensified by the glare of the white salt surface, and watched the gunboys cut the incisions in the skin and flay the gemsbok with the skill of a pair of Harley Street surgeons.
    'You might have warned me we had one of them on this trip,' Louren told me bitterly. 'Am I ever regretting having given in to you and letting her come along!'
    I didn't reply and he went on. 'I've a bloody good mind to send her back to Maun on one of the trucks.' The suggestion was so unworkable that it didn't give me even a twinge, and Louren went on immediately. 'She's your assistant - try and keep her under control, will you!'
    I moved away, giving him time to recover his temper, and took the map-case from the seat beside Sally. She didn't look up from her book. I walked around the vehicle and spread the aeronautical large-scale map on the bonnet of the Land-Rover, and within two minutes Louren was with me. Navigation is one of his big things, and he fancies himself no end.
    'We'll leave the pan here,' he pointed to where a dry riverbed joined the eastern extremity of the pan, 'and strike in on a compass-bearing.'
    'What kind of going will we meet, I wonder.'
    'Sand veld, like as not. I've never been in there before.'
    'Let's ask the drivers,' I suggested.
    'Good idea.' Louren called the two of them across and the gunboys, who had by now finished the skilled work and were leaving the rest to the camp boys, joined us as was their right.
    'This is where we want to go.' Louren pointed it out on the map. 'These hills here. They haven't got a name marked, but they run in line with the edge of the pan, like this.'
    It took a moment or two for the drivers to figure out their bearings on the chart, and then a remarkable change came over both of them. Their features dissolved into blank masks of incomprehension.
    'What kind of country is it between the pan and the hills?' Louren asked. He had not sensed the change in them. The drivers exchanged furtive glances.
    'Well?' asked Louren.
    'I do not know that country. I have never heard of these hills,' Joseph, the elder driver, muttered, and then went on to give himself the lie. 'Besides there is much sand, and there are river-beds which one cannot cross.'
    'There is no water, agreed David, the second driver. 'I have never been there. I have never heard of these hills either.'
    'What do the white men seek?' asked the old gimboy in Sindebele. It was obvious that maps meant nothing to him.
    'They want to go to Katuba Ngazi,' the driver explained quickly. They were all convinced by now that neither Louren nor I had mastery of the language, and that they could speak freely in front of us. This then was the first time I heard the name spoken. Katuba Ngazi - the Hills of Blood.
    'What have you told them?' demanded the gunbearer.
    'That we do not know the place.'
    'Good,' the gunbearer agreed. 'Tell them that there are no elephant there, that the wild animals are south of the pan.' The driver dutifully relayed this intelligence, and was disappointed in our obvious lack of dismay.
    'Well,' Louren told them pleasantly, 'you will learn something today. For the first time you will see these hills.' He rolled up the map. 'Now get the meat loaded and let us go on.'
    In five minutes the whole tone of the