Rage - Smith Wilbur (книги читать бесплатно без регистрации .TXT) 📗

'A pwesent? Now what on earth is a pwesent?" 'Don't be a silly-billy, Daddy - you know what it is." 'Bella, you know you mustn't beg for presents,' Tara chided.

'If I don't tell him, Daddy might just forget,' Isabella pointed out reasonably, and made her special angel face at Shasa.

'My goodness gracious me." Shasa snapped his fingers. 'I did almost forget!" And Isabella hopped her lace-clad bottom up and down on her high stool with excitement. 'You did You did bring me one!" 'Finish your porridge first,' Tara insisted, and Isabella's spoon clanked industriously on china as she devoured the last of it and scraped the plate clean.

They all trooped though from the breakfast room to Shasa's study.

'I'm the likklest one. I get my pwesent first." Isabella made up the rules of life as she went along.

'All right, likklest one. Step to the front of the line, please." Her face a masterpiece of concentration, Isabella stripped away the wrappings from her gift.

'A doll!" she squeaked and showered kisses upon its bland china face. 'Her name is Oleander, and I love her already." Isabella was the owner of what was probably one of the world's definitive collections of dolls, but all additions were rapturously received.

When Sean and Garry were handed their long packages, they went still with awe. They knew what they were - they had both of them pleaded long and eloquently for this moment and now that it had arrived, they were reluctant to touch their gifts in case they disappeared in a puff of smoke. Michael hid his disappointment bravely; he had hoped for a book, so secretly he empathized with his mother when she cried with exasperation, 'Oh, Shasa, you haven't given them guns?" All three rifles were identical. They were Winchester repeaters in .22 calibre, light enough for the boys to handle.

'This is the best present anybody ever gave me." Sean lifted his weapon out of the cardboard box and stroked the walnut stock lovingly.

The too." Garrick still couldn't bring himself to touch his. He knelt over the open package in the middle of the study floor, staring raptly at the weapon it contained.

'It's super, Dad,' said Michael, holding his rifle awkwardly and his smile was unconvincing.

'Don't use that word, Mickey,' Tara snapped. 'It's so American and vulgar." But she was angry with Shasa, not Michtel.

'Look." Garry touched his rifle for the first time. 'My name - it's got my own name on it." He stroked the engraving on the barrel with his fingertip, then looked up at his father with myopic adoration.

'I wish you'd brought them anything but guns,' Tara burst out. 'I asked you not to, Shasa. I hate them." 'Well, my dear, they must have rifles if they are coming on a hunting safari with me." 'A safari!" Sean shouted gleefully. 'When?" 'It's time you learned about the bush and the animals." Shasa put his arm around Sean's shoulders. 'You can't live in Africa without knowing the 'difference between a scaly anteater and a chacma baboon." Garry snatched up his new rifle and went to stand as close to his father's side as he could, so that Shasa could also put his other arm around his shoulders - if he wanted to. However, Shasa was talking to Sean.

'We'll go up to south west in the June hols, take a couple of trucks from the H'am Mine and drive through the desert until we reach the Okavango Swamps." 'Shasa, I don't know how you can teach your own children to kill those beautiful animals. I really don't understand it,' Tara said bitterly.

'Hunting is a man's thing,' Shasa agreed. 'You don't have to understand - you don't even have to watch." 'Can I come, Dad?" Garry asked diffidently, and Shasa glanced at him.

'You'll have to polish up your new specs, so you can see what you're shooting at." Then he relented. 'Of course you are coming, Garry,' and then he looked across at Michael, standing beside his mother. 'What about you, Mickey? Are you interested?" Michael glanced apologetically at his mother before he replied softly. 'Gee, thanks Dad. It should be fun." 'Your enthusiasm is touching,' Shasa grunted and then, 'Very well, gentlemen, all the rifles locked in the gun room, please.

Nobody touches them again without my permission and my supervision. We'll have our first shooting practice this evening when I get back home." Shasa made a point of getting back to Weltevreden with two hours of daylight in hand, and he took the boys down to the range he had built over which to sight in his own hunting rifles. It was beyond the vineyards and far enough from the stables not to disturb the horses or any of the other livestock.

Sean with the coordination of a born athlete, was a natural shot.

The light rifle seemed immediately an extension of his body, and within minutes he had mastered the art of controlling his breathing and letting the shot squeeze away without effort. Michael was nearly as good, but his interest wasn't really in it and he lost concentration quickly.

Garry tried so hard that he was trembling, and his face was screwed up with effort. The horn-rimmed spectacles which Tara had fetched from the optician that morning kept sliding down his nose and misting over as he aimed, and it took ten shots for him finally to get one on the target.

'You don't have to pull the trigger so hard, Garry,' Shasa told him with resignation. 'It won't make the bullet go any farther or any faster, I assure you." It was almost dark when the four of them got back to the house, and Shasa led them down to the gun room and showed them how to clean their weapons before locking them away.

'Scan and Mickey are ready to have a crack at the pigeons,' Shasa announced, as they trooped upstairs to change for dinner. 'Garry, you will need a little more practice, a pigeon is more likely to die of old age than one of your bullets." Sean shouted with laughter. 'Kill them with old age, Garry." Michael did not join in. He was imagining one of the lovely blue and pink rock pigeons that nested on the ledge outside his bedroom window, dying in a drift of loose feathers, splattering ruby drops as it fluttered to earth. It made him feel physically sick, but he knew his father expected it of him.

That evening as usual the children came one at a time to say goodnight to Shasa as he was tying his black bow tie. Isabella was first.

'I'm not going to sleep a wink until you come home tonight, Daddy,' she warned him. 'I'm just going to lie all by myself in the dark." Sean came next. 'You are the best Dad in the world,' he said as they shook hands. Kissing was for sissies.

'Will you let me have that in writing?" Shasa asked solemnly.

It was Michael who was always the most difficult to answer. 'Dad, do animals and birds hurt a lot when you shoot them?" 'Not if you learn to shoot straight,' Shasa assured him. 'But, Mickey, you have too much imagination. You can't go through life worrying about animals and other people all the time." 'Why not, Dad?" Michael asked softly, and Shasa glanced at his wristwatch to cover his exasperation.

'We have to be at Kelvin Grove by eight. Do you mind if we go into that some other time, Mickey?" Garrick came last. He stood shyly in the doorway of Shasa's dressing-room, but his voice shook with determination as he announced, 'I'm going to learn to be a crack shot, like Sean. You'll be proud of me one day, Dad. I promise you." Garrick left his parents' wing and crossed to the nursery. Nanny stopped him at Isabella's door.

'She's asleep already, Master Garry." In Michael's room they discussed the promised safari, but Mickey's attention kept wandering back to the book in his hands, and after a few minutes Garry left him to it.

He looked into Sean's room cautiously, ready to take flight if his elder brother showed any signs of becoming playful. One of Sean's favourite expressions of fraternal affection was known as a chestnut and consisted of a painful knuckling of Garry's prominent ribcage.