Sunbird (8 page)

I watched him cross to the Land-Rover and switch on the two-way radio set. I heard Larkin's boozy voice through the buzz and crackle of static. I listened for a few minutes, while Louren made his report. Then I stood up also and moved away from the camp-fire.

Restless, and still under the spell of my mood of disquiet, I wandered into the dark again. The gemsbok carcasses had attracted a pack of hyena to the camp, and they giggled and screeched out among the thorn trees. So I kept close to camp, passing Sally's tent and pausing for a while to draw comfort from her nearness, then walked on towards the servants' fire. My feet made no sound in the soft sand, and one of the old gunbearers was speaking as I approached. He had the attention of all the others who squatted in a circle about the low fire. His words came to me clearly, and stirred my memory. I felt the tingle of them run along my spine, and the ghost fingers stroked my arms and neck bringing the hair erect.

'This evil to be cleaned from the earth and from the minds of men, for ever.'

The words were exactly those that Timothy Mageba had spoken - the same words, but in a different language. I stared fascinated at the lined and time-quarried features of the old Matabele. It was as though he sensed my scrutiny for he looked up and saw me standing in the shadows.

He spoke again, warning them. 'Be careful, the spider is here,' he said. They had named me for my small body and long limbs. His words released them from the spell that held them, they shuffled their feet and coughed, glancing at me. I turned and moved away, but the old Matabele's words stayed with me. They troubled me, increasing my restless mood.

Sally's tent was dark now, and Louren's also. I went to my own bed and lay awake far into the night, listening to the hyenas and pondering what tomorrow would bring. One thing was certain, by noon we would know if the patterns on the photograph were natural or man-made, and with that thought I at last fell asleep.

We could see the hills from the front of the Land-Rover by ten the following morning. They showed orange-red beyond the tops of the taller acacias, stretching across our front, higher at the centre of our horizon then dwindling in size as they strung out on either hand.

I took over the driving from Louren while he pored over map and photograph, directing me in towards the highest point of the cliffs. There was a distinctive clump of giant candelabra euphorbia trees on the skyline of the cliff - and these showed up clearly in the photograph. Louren was using them to orientate our approach.

The cliffs were between two and three hundred feet high, their exposed fronts furrowed and weather-worn, rising almost sheer to the crests. Later I was to find that they were a form of hardened sandstone heavily pigmented with mineral oxides. Below the cliffs grew a small grove of big trees, and it was clear that there was underground water trapped there to nourish these giants. Their exposed roots twisted and writhed up the face of the cliff like frenzied pythons, and their dense, dark green foliage was a welcome relief from the drab greenish grey of the thorn and acacia. In a strip about half a mile wide, the ground before the cliffs was open and sparsely covered with a low growth of scrub and pale grass.

I threaded the Land-Rover through the scrub towards the cliffs in a silence which momentarily grew more strained. Closer we crawled towards the towering red cliffs, until we had to crane our necks to look up at them.

Sally broke the silence at last, voicing our disappointment and chagrin. 'Well, we should be within the great walls of the main enclosure now - if there was one.'

We parked at the foot of the cliff and climbed out stiffly to look around us, subdued and reluctant to meet each other's eyes. There was no trace of a city, not a single dressed block of stone, not a raised mound of earth nor the faintest outline of wall or keep. This was virgin African bush and kopje, untouched and unmarked by man.

'You're sure this is the right place?' Sally asked miserably, and we did not answer her. The trucks came up and parked. The servants climbed down in small groups, peering up at the cliffs and talking in hushed tones.

'All right,' said Louren. 'While they set up the camp we will scout the area. I will go along the cliff that way. You two go the other way - and, Ben, take my shotgun with you.'

We picked our way along the base of the cliff, through the grove of silent trees. Once we startled a small troop of vervet monkeys in the high branches and they fled through the tree-tops in shrieking consternation. Their antics couldn't raise a smile from either Sally or me. We paused to examine the cliff at intervals, but there was little enthusiasm or hope in our efforts. Three or four miles from camp we stopped to rest, sitting on a block of sandstone that had fallen out from the cliff face.

'I could cry,' said Sal. 'I really could.'

'I know. I feel the same way.'

'But the photograph. Damn it, there was definitely something showing. You don't think it's his idea of a joke, do you?'

'No.' I shook my head. 'Lo wouldn't do that. He was just as keen as we were.'

'Then what about the photograph?'

'I don't know. It was clearly some sort of optical illusion. The shadow from the cliff, and cloud perhaps.'

'But those patterns!' she protested. 'They are geometrical and symmetrical.'

'Light can play funny tricks, Sal,' I said. 'Remember that photograph was taken at six o'clock in the evening - almost sunset. Low sun throwing shadows, you could get almost any effect.'

'I think that this is the most disappointing thing that has ever happened to me.' She really did look as though she might burst into tears, and I went to her shyly and put one long arm around her.

'I'm sorry,' I said, and she pulled a face and offered her lips to be kissed.

'Wow!' she said at last. 'Dr Kazin, you do carry on!'

'You ain't seen nothing yet.'

'I've seen too much.' She broke away gently. 'Come on, Ben. Let's circle back to camp, away from the cliff. There may be something out there.'

We tramped slowly through the heat. The flowers were out here also, and I noticed the bees crawling busily into the blossoms, their back legs thick with yellow pollen. We found where the recent rains had scoured a shallow ravine, although there was no remaining trace of moisture. I climbed down into the ravine and examined the exposed layers of stone and earth. Three feet from the surface the pebbles were rounded and water-worn.

'Good guess. Sal,' I told her as I picked out a few pebbles and found the shell of a bivalve encrusted in the half-formed sandstone. 'That proves at least a little of our theory. At one time this was the bed of a lake - look.'

Eagerly Sal clambered down beside me. 'What is it?'

'A type of unionidae, fresh-water African mussel.'

'I wish,' said Sally, 'that it were something a little more exciting.' She dropped the ancient shell in the sand.

'Yes.' I agreed, and climbed out of the ravine.

My only excuse is that my reasoning was clouded by intense disappointment and my recent physical excitement with Sally. 1 do not usually behave in such a cavalier fashion with scientific clues. Nor do I usually miss as many as four hints in the space of an hour. We walked away without a backward glance.

The camp was fully set up and functioning smoothly when Sal and I trailed in, sweaty and dusty, and sat down to lunch off tinned ham and Windhoek beer.

'Anything?' asked Louren, and we shook our heads in unison and lifted our beer glasses.

'Warm!' Sally spoke with disgust at her first taste of the beer.

'Cook has got the refrigerator going. It'll be cold by tonight.'

We ate in silence until Louren spoke. 'I raised Larkin on the radio while you were away. He will send in a helicopter tomorrow. We'll have a last search from the air. That will settle it once and for all. If there's nothing doing, I will fly out. Some things are brewing back in Johannesburg, and there is only one passenger seat, I'm afraid. You two will have to bus out the hard way.'

It was at that moment that a deputation arrived, headed by Joseph, to tell us that some unknown and foolish person had left the taps open on four of the water tanks. We had thirty-five gallons of water between seventeen people to last the rest of the trip.

'Therefore,' added Joseph, with evident relish, 'we will have to leave this place tomorrow, and return to the nearest water on the Maun road.'

There were a few expressions of disgust at this latest, clearly deliberate setback, but none of us could work up any real anger.

'All right, Joseph,' Louren agreed with resignation. 'Break camp tomorrow morning. We will leave before lunch.' There was, an immediate improvement in employer-employee relations. I even noticed a few smiles, and heard a little laughter from the cooking fire.

'I don't know what you two intend doing this afternoon,' Louren lit a cigar as he spoke, 'but I noticed elephant spoor when I did my little recce this morning. I'm taking the Land-Rover and the gunbearers. Don't worry if I don't arrive back tonight, we may get hung up on the spoor.'

Sally looked up quickly; for a moment I thought she was going to start her anti-blood sport campaign again, but instead she merely frowned and went back to her ham. I watched the Land-Rover drive off along the base of the cliff before I suggested to Sally:

'I'm going to try and find a path up to the top - do you want to come along?'

'Deal me out, Ben,' she answered. 'I think I'll do some sketching this afternoon.'

Hiding my disappointment as best I could, I set off along the base of the cliff, and within half a mile I had found a game trail leading into one of the bush-choked gullies that furrowed the face of red rock.

It was a steep climb and I toiled up with the sun burning onto my back and bouncing off the rock into my face. From cracks and crannies in the cliff-face an army of furry little rock rabbits watched my endeavours with avid interest. It was forty minutes before I came out on the top, my arms scratched by the thorny undergrowth of the gully and sweat soaking my shirt.

I found a good vantage point on the front edge of the cliff under the spreading shade of a giant euphorbia, and my first concern was to sweep with binoculars for any trace of ruins. The thorn bush at the base of the cliff below me was fairly open and scantily grassed, and immediately it was obvious that there was no trace of any human habitation or cultivation. I shouldn't really have hoped for more, but disappointment gave a sickening little lurch in my guts. Then I dismissed it, and turned the glasses towards the camp far below. A Bantu was cutting firewood, and for a while I amused myself by watching the axe-stroke, then listening for the sound of the blow seconds later. I searched farther from the camp and picked up Sally's rose-coloured blouse at the end of the grove. She had obviously given up all hope of a major discovery and, sensible girl, was deriving what other enjoyment she could from the expedition. I watched her for a long time, trying to decide how exactly to proceed with my campaign to make her my own. I had spent one night with her, but I was not so naive as to believe that this proved a breathless and undying passion on behalf of a sophisticated, highly intelligent and extravagantly educated modern Miss. Angel that she was, yet I was pretty damned certain that my Sally had played the game with other men before Dr Ben stumbled starry-eyed into her bed. The odds were extremely high she had been motivated by respect for my mind rather than my body, pity, and possibly a little perverse curiosity. However, I was almost certain she had not found the experience too repulsive, and I had only to keep working on her to change respect and pity into something a little deeper and more permanent.

A good quiet sense of peace came over me as I sat there in the high kranz; slowly I realized that this whole journey had been worthwhile and I found myself wishing that I could stay longer at these haunting Hills of Blood, with their mystery and silent beauty. Sally and I together here in the wilderness where I could teach her to love me.

A flicker of movement in the corner of my eye made me turn my head slowly, and within six feet of where I sat a marico sunbird was sucking the nectar from the blossoms of a wild aloe, its metallic green head shimmering as it dipped the long curved bill into the fiery red blossoms. I watched it with an intense pleasure, and when it was gone on quick darting wings I felt as though I had missed something. The feeling became stronger, making me restless, there was a message somewhere that was trying to come through to me but it was being blocked. I let my brain relax, and had the feeling that it was just there at the very fringe of my conscious mind. Another second and I would have it.