Men of Men - Smith Wilbur (книги бесплатно без txt) 📗

His own breathing started to bunt roughly, and his fingers shook at the lacings of her bodice. The skin of her shoulder was without blemish, silky and warm. He touched it with the tip of his tongue, and she shuddered and gasped, but when he pulled down the light cotton, she shrugged her shoulders to let the cloth come free. It caught for a moment and then slid to the level of her lowest rib.

He was unprepared for those tender and terribly vulnerable young breasts, so pale and rosy-tipped and yet at the same time hard and jubilant in their marvellous symmetry.

He stared at her body, and she watched him through half-closed lids, but made no effort to cover herself, though her cheeks were wildly flushed and her lips trembled as she whispered.

"No, Ralph, I don't want to go, not now, or ever."

"The lantern -" He reached for it, but now she caught his hand.

"No, Ralph, I'm not ashamed of you and me. I don't want darkness, I want to see your dear face."

She jerked the ribbon loose from her waist and then lifted her dress over her head and let it flutter to the wagon floor. Her limbs were long and coltish, her hips still bony as a boy's, and her belly concave as a greyhound's above the dark triangular bush of her womanhood. Her skin shone in the lanternlight with that peculiar lustre of healthy, vibrant youth. He stared at it for only an instant and then she had lifted the corner of the rough woollen blanket and slid in under it. The long slim arms and legs wrapped around him.

"There is nothing I would not do for you. I would steal and lie and cheat, and even kill for you, my wonderful, beautiful Ralph," she whispered. "I'm not sure what a man and woman do, but if you show me I will be the happiest girl on this earth to do it with you."

"Cathy, I didn't mean this to happen -" He tried with a last sudden lash of his conscience to push her away.

"I did," she said, clinging stubbornly to him. "Why else do you think I came here?"

"Cathy, "

"I love you, Ralph, I loved you from the very first moment I ever saw you."

"i love you, Cathy." And he was amazed to find that what he said was the truth. "I really and truly love you," he said again, and then later, much later: "I didn't realize how much until now."

"I didn't know that it would be like this," she whispered. "I have thought about it often, every day since you first came to Khami. I even read about it in the Bible it says that David knew her. Do we know each other now, Ralph?"

"i want to know you better, and more often," he grinned at her, his tousled hair still damp with sweat.

"I felt as though I had fallen through a dark hole in my soul into another beautiful world, and I didn't want to come back again."

Cathy's voice was awed and marvelling, as though she were the first in all the infinite lists of creation to experience it. "Didn't you feel that, Ralph?"

They held each other close under the blanket, and they talked softly, examining each other's faces in the yellow lantern light, breaking off every few minutes to kiss the other's throat and eyelids and lips.

It was Cathy who pulled away at last. "I don't want to know the time, but listen to the birds, it will be light too soon." Then, with a rush of words, "Oh Ralph, I don't want you to go."

it will not be for long, I promise you. Then I will be back."

"Take me with you."

"You know I can't."

"Why not, because it's dangerous, isn't it?"

But he avoided the question by trying to kiss her again.

She put her hand over his mouth.

"I'll die a little every moment of the time you are gone, but I'll pray for you. I'll pray that Lobengula's warriors do not find you."

"Don't worry about me," he chuckled fondly. "We'll fall through that dark hole in your soul again soon."

"Promise," she whispered, and brushed the damp curls off his forehead with her lips. "Promise me you will come back, my beautiful, darling Ralph."

Ralph started his wagon train south again on the road to the Shashi, and for the first morning he rode at the head of the unusually lightly loaded vehicles. At noon he gave the order to outspan. He and Isazi slept away the hot afternoon, while the bullocks and horses grazed and rested.

Then at dusk they cut the five chosen bullocks out of the herd and tied them to the wagon wheels by leather reins around the boss of their horns while they fitted the back packs. Ralph and Isazi had selected these beasts for their strength and willingness, and during the long trek up from Kimberley he had trained them to accept these unusual burdens with resigned docility.

Jordan had provided Ralph with the precise measurements and weight of the bird statue that now graced the entrance to mister Rhodes" new mansion, Groote Schuur, and Ralph had used these figures to design the back packs and constructed them with his own hands, not trusting anyone else with his secret intentions.

Each pack could carry two statues like the one at Groote Schuur. They would be slung in woven nets of good mania rope on each side of the bullock, and Ralph had worked meticulously to ensure a perfect fit of the saddle to protect the beasts" back from galling, and prevent the load from shifting even over the roughest ground or on the steepest inclines.

Now, when Isazi, the little Zulu driver, led the file of three bullocks quietly out of the camp and disappeared into the darkening forest, they followed meekly. Ralph stayed behind just long enough to repeat his orders to the other drivers.

"You will double-march to the Shashi river. If the border impis question where I am, you will tell them I am hunting to the east with the king's permission, and that you expect me to rejoin the wagons at any time. Do you understand?"

"I understand, Nkosi," said Umfaan, who, although now promoted from voorlooper to driver, still answered to the name of "Boy".

"Once you cross the Shashi, you will trek on as far as the Bushman wells five days" march beyond the frontier.

Lobengula's impis'will not follow you that far. Wait there until I come, do you understand, Umfaan?"

"I understand, Nkosi."

"Then repeat it to me."

Satisfied at last, Ralph stepped up into Tom's stirrup and looked down at them from his back.

"Go swiftly," he said.

"Go in peace, Nkosi."

He trotted out of camp, following Isazi's bullock train and dragging behind him a bulky branch of thorn mimosa to sweep their spoor clean. By mid-morning the following day they were well clear of the wagon road and had entered the mystical Matopos Hills. While the oxen grazed and rested, Ralph rode ahead to mark a trail between the soaring granite kopjes, and through the deep an d sullen gorges. At dark they resaddled the bullocks with their packs and went on.

The next day Ralph made a noon observation of the sun with the old brass sextant. From experience he made allowance for the cumulative error in his boxed chronometer, and worked out a position which he knew was accurate to within ten miles. Also from experience, he knew that his father's observations, made before he was born, were usually as accurate. Without them he would never have found the caches of ivory which had been the start of his growing fortune.

His calculations compared to his father's showed that he was one hundred and sixty miles west of the ancient ruined city that the Matabele called Zimbabwe, the burial place of the old kings.

Then, while he waited for darkness to resume the march, he took from his saddle-bags the sheaf of notes which Zouga had given him as a parting gift when he first left Kimberley. He read the description of the route to Zimbabwe, and of the city itself, for possibly the hundredth time.