The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 21

He stood upon it and looked around him at the golden gra.s.sland and the open groves of flat, topped acacia trees, at the lines of blue grey hills in the distance and the unblemished blue bowl of the sky over it all, then he knelt likea religious supplicant. It was the only movement in which the leg still hampered him a little. He scooped up 01"W sr 6 the earth in his cupped hands. It was almost as rich and as red as the beef that it would grow. By eye he divided the handful into two parts, and let a tenth part spill back to earth.

"That's your ten per cent, Peter Fungabera," he whispered to himself. "But this is mine and I swear to hold it for all my lifetime and to protect and cherish it, so help me G.o.d." Feeling only a little foolish at his own theatrics, he let the earth fall, dusted his hands on the seat of his pants and went back to the Land-Rover.

On the foothills before the homestead he met a tall lanky figure coming down the road. The man wore an oily unwashed blanket over his back and a brief loin-cloth; over his shoulder he carried his fighting-sticks. His feet were thrust into sandals cut from old car tyres, and his earrings were plastic stoppers from acid jars embellished with coloured beads that expanded his earlobes to three times normal size. He drove before him a small herd of multi, coloured goats.

41 see you, elder brother," Craig greeted him, and the old man exposed the gap in his yellow teeth as he grinned at the courtesy of the greeting and his recognition of Craig.

"I see you, Nkosi." He was the same old man that Craig had found squatting in the outbuildings of King's Lynn.

"When will it rain?" Craig asked him, and handed him a packet of cigarettes that he had brought for precisely such a meeting.

They fell into the leisurely question and answer routine that in Africa must precede any serious discussions.

"What is your name, old man?" A term of respect rather than an accusation of senility.

"I am called Shadrach."

"Tell me, Shadrach, are your goats for sale?" Craig could at last ask without being thought callow, and immediately a craftiness came into Shadrach's eyes.

"They are beautiful goats," he said. "To part with them would be like parting wrth my own children." Shadrach was the acknowledged spokesman and leader of the little community of squatters who had taken up residence on King's Lynn. Through him, Craig found he could negotiate with all of them, and he was relieved. It would save days and a great deal of emotional wear and tear.

He would not, however, deprive Shadrach of an opportunity to show off his bargaining skill, nor insult him by trying to hasten the proceedings, so these were extended over the next two days while Craig reroofed the old guest cottage with a sheet of heavy canvas, replaced the looted pump with a Lister diesel to raise water from the borehole and set up his new camp-bed in the bare bedroom of the cottage.

On the third day the sale price was agreed and Craig found himself the owner of almost two thousand goats. He paid off the sellers in cash, counting each note and coin into their hands to forestall argument, and then loaded his bleating acquisitions into four hired trucks and sent them into the Bulawayo abattoirs, flooding the market in the process and dropping the going price by fifty -per cent for a net loss on the entire transaction of a little over ten thousand dollars.

"Great start in business," he grinned, and sent for Shadrach.

"Tell me, old man, what do you know about cattle?" which was rather like asking a Polynesian what he knew about fish, or a Swiss if he had ever seen snow.

Shadrach drew himself up in indignation. "When I was this high he said stiffly, indicating an area below his right knee, "I squirted milk hot from the cow's teat into my own mouth. At this height," he moved up to the kneecap, "I had two hundred head in my sole charge. I freed the calves with these hands when they stuck in their mothers" wombs; I carried them on these shoulders when the ford was flooded. At this height," two inches above the knee, "I killed a lioness, stabbing her with my a.s.segai when she attacked my herd-" Patiently Craig heard out the tale as it rose in small increments to shoulder height and Shadrach ended, "And you dare to ask me what I know about cattle!" "Soon on this gra.s.s I will graze cows so sleek and beautiful that to look upon them will dim your eyes with tears. I will have bulls whose coats s.h.i.+ne like water in the sun, whose humps rise like great mountains on their backs and whose dewlaps, heavy with fat, sweep the earth when d-icy walk as the rain winds sweep the dust from the drought, stricken land."

"Haul" said Shadrach, an expletive of utter astonishment, impressed as much by Craig's lyricism as by his declaration of intention.

"I need a man who understands cattle and men," Craig told him.

Shadrach found him the men. From the squatter families he chose twenty, all of them strong and willing, not too young to be silly and flighty, not too old to be frail.

"The others," said Shadrach contemptuously, "are the products of the unions of baboons and thieving Mashona cattle-rustlers. I have ordered them off our land." Craig smiled at the possessive plural, but was impressed with the fact that when Shadrach ordered, men obeyed.

Shadrach a.s.sembled his recruits in front of the rudely refurbished cottage, and gave them a traditional giya, the blood-rousing speech and mime with which the old Matabele indunas primed their warriors on the eve of battle.

"You know me! he -shouted. "You know that my great great-grandmother was the daughter of the old king, Lobengula, "the one who drives like the wind"."

"Eh he!" They began to enter into the spirit of the occasion.

"You know that I am a prince of the royal blood, and in a proper world I woutil night frilly be an induna of one thousand, with wido*-bird feathers in my hair and ox tails on my war s.h.i.+eld." He stabbed at the air with his fighting, sticks.

Th he! Watching their expressions, Craig saw the real respect in which they held the old man, and he was delighted with his choice.

"Now!" Shadrach chanted. "Because of the wisdom and farsightedness of the young Nkosi here, I am indeed become an induna. I am the induna. of King's Lynn," he p.r.o.nounced it "Kingi Lingi', "and you are my aniadoda, my chosen warriors." Th he! they agreed, and stamped their bare feet on the earth with a cannon-fire clap.

"Now, look upon this white man. You might think him young and un bearded but know you, that he is the grandson of Bawu and the great-grandson of Taka Taka."

"Haul" gasped Shadrach's warriors, for those were names to conjure with. Bawu they had known in the flesh, Sir Ralph Ballantyne only as a legend: Taka Taka was the onomatopoeic name the Matabele had given Sir Ralph from the sound of the Maxim machine-gun which the old freebooter had wielded to such effect during the Matabele war and the rebellion.

They looked upon Craig with new eyes.

"Yes, Shadrach urged them, "look at him. He is a warrior who carried terrible scars from the bush war. He killed hundreds of the cowardly, women-raping Mashona--2 Craig blinked at the poetic licence Shadrach had taken un to himself "he even killed a few of the brave lionhearted Matabele ZIPRA fighters. So you know him now as a man not a boy." Th he! They showed no rancour at Craig's purported bag of their brethren.

"Know also that he comes to turn you from goat-keeping women, sitting in the sun scratching your fleas, into proud cattle-men once more, for-" Shadrach paused for dramatic effect soon on this gra.s.s will graze cows so sleek and beautiful that to look upon them-" Craig noted that Shadrach could repeat his own words perfectly, displaying the remarkable memory of the illiterate. When he ended with a high stork-like leap in the air and a clatter of his fighting-sticks, they applauded him wildly, and then looked to Craig expectantly.

"One h.e.l.l of an act to follow, Craig told himself as he stood before them. He spoke quietly, in low, musical Sindebele.

"The cattle will be here soon, and there is much work to be done before they arrive. You know about the wage that the government has decreed for farm-workers. That I will pay, and food rations for each of you and your families." This was received without any great show of enthusiasm.

"And in addition," Craig paused, "for each year of service completed, you will be given a fine young cow and the right to graze her upon the gra.s.s of Kingi Lingi, the right also to put her to my great b.u.m so that she might bear you beautiful calves-" Th he!" they shouted, and stamped with joy, and at last Craig held up both hands.

"There might be some amongst you who will be tempted to lift that which belongs to me, or who will find a shady tree under which to spend the day instead of stringing fencing-wire or herding the cattle." He glared at them, so they quailed a little. "Now this wise government forbids a man to kick another with his foot but, be warned, I can kick you without using "my own foot." He stooped and in one deft movement plucked off his leg, and stood before them with it in his hand. They gaped in amazement.

"See, this is not my own food" Their expressions began to turn sickly, as through they were in the presence of terrible witchcraft. Ikey began to shuffle nervously and look around for escape.

"So," Craig shouted, "without breaking the law, I can kick who I wish." Making two swift hops, he used the momentum to swing the toe of the boot of his disembodied leg into the backside of the nearest warrior.

For a moment longer the stunned silence persisted, and then they were overwhelmed by their own sense of the ridiculous. They laughed until d -Leir cheeks were streaked with tears. They staggered in circles beating their own heads, they hugged each other, heaving and gasping with laughter. They surrounded the unfortunate whose backside had been the b.u.t.t of Craig's joke, and abused him further, prodding him and shrieking with laughter. Shadrach, all princely dignity discarded, collapsed in the dust and wriggled helplessly as wave after wave of mirth overcame him.

Craig watched them fondly. Already they were his people, his special charges. Certainly, there would be rotters amongst them. He would have to weed them out.

Certainly, even the good ones would at times deliberately test his vigilance and his forbearance as was the African way, but in time also they would become a close-knit family and he knew that he would come to love them.

he fences were the first priority. They had fallen into a state of total disrepair: there were miles of barbed-wire missing, almost certainly stolen.

When Craig tried to replace it, he realized why. There was none for sale in Matabeleland. No import permits had been issued that quarter for barbed-wire.

"Welcome to the special joy of farming in black Zimbabwe," the manager of the Farmers" Co-operative Society in Bulawayo told him. "Somebody w.a.n.gled an import permit for a million dollars" worth of candy and milk chocolate, but there was none for barbed-wire."

"For G.o.d's sake." Craig was desperate. "I've got to have fencing. I can't run stock without it. When will you receive a consignment?"

"That rests with some little clerk in the Department of Commerce in Harare," the manager shrugged, and Craig turned sadly back to the Land-Rover, when suddenly an idea came to him.

"May I use your telephone? "he asked the manager.

He dialled the private number that Peter Fungabera had given him, and after he had identified himself, a secretary put him straight through.

"Peter, we've got a big problem."

"How can I help you?" Craig told him, and Peter murmured to himself as he made notes. "How much do you need?"

"At least twelve hundred bales."