Read Online Sunset at Sheba by John Harris - Free Book Online Page B

worry about.’
    She regarded him with a wry expression on her face. ‘I bet you knew it’d be like this,’ she accused.
    ‘Course I knew.’
    ‘Sammy, why didn’t you tell me?’
    ‘I tried to, but you wouldn’t listen.’
    ‘Did you have a bad night?’
    ‘No. Slept like a log.’
    ‘Anybody’d think you were enjoying it.’
    He grinned at her. ‘I am. I like it best out here. Better than towns.’ He looked up at the horizon and wiped his hands on the grass. ‘Better be making a move,’ he said. ‘We’re not here for pleasure.’
    Polly jumped to her feet and began to load pans into the back of the cart.
    ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked, eager for anything that would take her mind off their discomfort.
    ‘A bit o’ shootin’,’ he said.
    She stood with an armful of their belongings, watching him over the top of them as he lowered the carcass of the buck to the ground.
    ‘Sammy’ - her eyes shone suddenly as excitement caught hold of her - ‘shoot me a springbok! I’ve never seen a springbok shot, only that measly little thing you got last night!’
    He glanced at her, enjoying the gaiety in her face. She hadn’t bothered to put make-up on and instead of doing her hair in elaborate rolls, as she usually did, she had tied it simply behind her head with a ribbon she had unthreaded from her petticoat, so that she looked softer, fresher and curiously younger in the old print frock and with the coils of her hair free about her neck and throat.
    Sammy was staring at her, his eyes steady on her face, approving and warm. ‘Don’t know why you ever put all that muck on your face,’ he said, apropos of nothing.
    Polly frowned, but it was a half-hearted gesture, spoiled by the look of pleasure in her eyes. ‘A girl don’t look her best less she titivates herself up a bit.’ She stared at him primly, nearer to blushing than she’d been for years. ‘We going to stand here all day?’ she demanded loudly.
    He grinned. ‘I’ll get the hosses.’
    He loped off to where the horses were grazing - the old mare that they used in the shafts and the one-eyed Argentino police horse that they’d bought for ten pounds in Plummerton Sidings, a bad-tempered animal which shied every time they approached it from its right hand side. They were both of them knee-haltered a short distance away, cropping at the grass.
    ‘We’ll pick up meat for a few days,’ he said as he returned. ‘Then we’ll get moving. When we get nearer Kimberley, we’ll fill the cart. It’ll fetch a pound or two in the market. Get that fire out, Poll.’
    Polly was already kicking dust over the remains of the fire as Sammy harnessed the bony grey mare into the shafts, but the smell of coffee and fried meat still hung faintly round the small encampment.
    Sammy swung himself into the saddle of the little Argentino with its age-whitened muzzle, fighting it as it moodily protested against his mounting on the wrong side. For a while, it jerked its hindquarters, lifting its legs with hints of kicking, a tough little animal which for all its age and lightweight had already proved its stamina, then he mastered it and waited until Polly had swung herself up on to the seat of the cart and adjusted the folds of her skirt. He passed her the old shotgun they’d bought with the horse and she sat holding it gingerly.
    ‘Don’t blow your head off,’ he warned.
    He pulled the Martini Henry from the scabbard and laid it across his saddle, holding the reins with one hand and the rifle with the other.
    ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘Now’s the time to pick up the buck. They’re kind of slow before the sun warms ‘em up. We’ll find ‘em in the hollows licking the salt off the dried water holes.’
    The day was still only a faint promise of gold in the east and it was a pure morning, with all the world still and the air invigorating. Even Polly was aware of its clarity.
    ‘Kind of cleans out your lungs and brain,’ she admitted, gesturing