Read Online Sunset at Sheba by John Harris - Free Book Online
Authors: John Harris
Tags: Fiction
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can’t read or write. He’s never been to school. Surely some bloody ignoramus of an old clo’ merchant’s son isn’t going to put it across us.’
Between them they swept the unwilling Winter into the box-like rear of the car and slammed the doors. The engine howled metallically.
‘Hold tight,’ Romanis shouted. ‘This driver’s hell-bent for glory.’
The clutch was let in with a jerk that flung their heads back and as they roared out of the square, Winter realised he still held his empty glass in his hand. He shrugged and tossed it over his shoulder into the cloud of dust they trailed behind them, and concentrated on keeping his eyes closed against the flying particles of grit that washed against his face like spray.
‘Where do you hope to pick ‘em up?’ he shouted.
Kitto raised his voice above the roar of the engine. ‘Sheba,’ he yelled gaily. ‘Somewhere south of Sheba. They can’t have got far beyond there.’
Eight
Sheba. Rising out of the limitless veld as though it had no connection with the flat unturned earth around it, it stood in an eerie stillness, precipitous to the south, east and west, and sloping sharply towards the north. Its summit and sides were covered with unscaleable rocks that looked like the broken parapets of giant castles, time-smoothed ramparts like minarets flecked with colouring that gave it the appearance of some towering eastern city.
Every variety of colour blended on its sides, grey, black, yellow, red, brown and purple, all harmonising, all weatherworn and softened, its only inhabitants the few remaining klipspringers and dassies, the little rock rabbits who lived in the crevasses between the vast stone spires.
In front, beyond the sloping side to the north, lay a smaller pile of stones thrown up in the same vast prehistoric upheaval, a bare heap of sandy-coloured rocks which had become known, by the same token as its bigger neighbour, as Babylon; standing alone like Sheba, a miniature kopje, its southern end finishing in a pile of loose boulders tumbled haphazardly across the dusty plain.
Here, in front of Babylon, Sammy Schuter and Polly Bolt had camped for the night.
The day started in a spot of pink beyond the bleak enigmatic plain and spread slowly, washing the eastern skyline. The brick red earth turned lighter as the purple grey of the night faded and the outlines of the distant folds of land became visible in the first pale glow of day.
The fire had burned down to a hot incandescent heap of charcoal and the smoke that spiralled upwards had thinned to a single twisting pencil line. The light night winds had died and the whole enormous landscape of short dry grass and far distant purple slopes was utterly motionless in the first hint of the sun’s glow.
Polly was standing by the fire scrubbing out the cooking pot with gritty dust, her eyes smarting from the milk-blue wood smoke that had rolled across the little camp. Her cheeks, dusty from travel, were stained where she had rubbed the tears away. They had breakfasted on buck liver and fat cookies prepared by Sammy, and strips of meat crozzled on sharpened sticks, eating them Boer fashion, crossed-legged round the fire, their backs against the cart. The heat of the food was penetrating now through her body and the chills and discomfort and all the myriad fears of the unfamiliar and unfriendly night she had spent out there on the veld were slowly disappearing from her mind.
She watched Sammy for a while as he worked, steadily and efficiently by the back of the cart, flaying the body of a dead duiker he had shot the previous night as it went plunging in its curious diving motion for the scrub. He had brought it up all-standing with a sharp shrill whistle, its head up, its ears pricked, its tail flapping, and dropped it quickly with a bullet through the brain that had flung it end over end and left it sprawled on the grass, its head thrown back. They had covered it with a frame of grass and
Between them they swept the unwilling Winter into the box-like rear of the car and slammed the doors. The engine howled metallically.
‘Hold tight,’ Romanis shouted. ‘This driver’s hell-bent for glory.’
The clutch was let in with a jerk that flung their heads back and as they roared out of the square, Winter realised he still held his empty glass in his hand. He shrugged and tossed it over his shoulder into the cloud of dust they trailed behind them, and concentrated on keeping his eyes closed against the flying particles of grit that washed against his face like spray.
‘Where do you hope to pick ‘em up?’ he shouted.
Kitto raised his voice above the roar of the engine. ‘Sheba,’ he yelled gaily. ‘Somewhere south of Sheba. They can’t have got far beyond there.’
Eight
Sheba. Rising out of the limitless veld as though it had no connection with the flat unturned earth around it, it stood in an eerie stillness, precipitous to the south, east and west, and sloping sharply towards the north. Its summit and sides were covered with unscaleable rocks that looked like the broken parapets of giant castles, time-smoothed ramparts like minarets flecked with colouring that gave it the appearance of some towering eastern city.
Every variety of colour blended on its sides, grey, black, yellow, red, brown and purple, all harmonising, all weatherworn and softened, its only inhabitants the few remaining klipspringers and dassies, the little rock rabbits who lived in the crevasses between the vast stone spires.
In front, beyond the sloping side to the north, lay a smaller pile of stones thrown up in the same vast prehistoric upheaval, a bare heap of sandy-coloured rocks which had become known, by the same token as its bigger neighbour, as Babylon; standing alone like Sheba, a miniature kopje, its southern end finishing in a pile of loose boulders tumbled haphazardly across the dusty plain.
Here, in front of Babylon, Sammy Schuter and Polly Bolt had camped for the night.
The day started in a spot of pink beyond the bleak enigmatic plain and spread slowly, washing the eastern skyline. The brick red earth turned lighter as the purple grey of the night faded and the outlines of the distant folds of land became visible in the first pale glow of day.
The fire had burned down to a hot incandescent heap of charcoal and the smoke that spiralled upwards had thinned to a single twisting pencil line. The light night winds had died and the whole enormous landscape of short dry grass and far distant purple slopes was utterly motionless in the first hint of the sun’s glow.
Polly was standing by the fire scrubbing out the cooking pot with gritty dust, her eyes smarting from the milk-blue wood smoke that had rolled across the little camp. Her cheeks, dusty from travel, were stained where she had rubbed the tears away. They had breakfasted on buck liver and fat cookies prepared by Sammy, and strips of meat crozzled on sharpened sticks, eating them Boer fashion, crossed-legged round the fire, their backs against the cart. The heat of the food was penetrating now through her body and the chills and discomfort and all the myriad fears of the unfamiliar and unfriendly night she had spent out there on the veld were slowly disappearing from her mind.
She watched Sammy for a while as he worked, steadily and efficiently by the back of the cart, flaying the body of a dead duiker he had shot the previous night as it went plunging in its curious diving motion for the scrub. He had brought it up all-standing with a sharp shrill whistle, its head up, its ears pricked, its tail flapping, and dropped it quickly with a bullet through the brain that had flung it end over end and left it sprawled on the grass, its head thrown back. They had covered it with a frame of grass and
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