Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗

The handlers released their hold on the restrainers, and the split-pole barrier exploded before his charge, as did the ministerial party. They scattered like sardines at the rush Of a hungry barracuda.

High officials overtook their wives, in a race for the sanctuary of the jacaranda trees; infants strapped on the women's backs howled as loudly as their dams.

The bull went into one side of the luncheon marquee, still at a dead run, gathering up the guy ropes on his massive shoulders, so the tent came down in graceful billows of canvas, trapping beneath it a horde of panic, stricken revellers. He emerged from the further side of the collapsing marquee just as one of the younger ministerial wives sprinted, shrilling with terror, across his path. He hooked at her with one long forward-raked horn, and the point caught mi the fluttering hem of her dress. The bull jerked his head up and the brightly coloured. material unwrapped from the girl's body like the string from a child's top. She spun into an involuntary pirouette, caught her balance, and then, stark naked, went bounding up the hill with long legs flashing and abundant breasts bouncing elastically.

"Two to one, the filly to win by a tit," howled the R.A.F

LIM

bomber-pilot ecstatically. He had also fuelled up on the cheap champagne.

The gaudy dress had wrapped itself around the bull's head. It served to goad him beyond mere anger into the deadly passion of the corrida bull facing the matador's cape. He swung his great armed head from side to side, the dress swirling rakishly likea battle ensign in a high wind, and exposing one of his wicked little eyes which lighted on the honourable minister of education, the least fleet, footed of the runners, who was making heavy weather of the slope.

The minister was carrying the burden of flesh that behaves a man of such importance. His belly wobbled mountainously beneath his waistcoat. His face was grey as last night's ashes, and he screamed in a girlish falsetto of terror and exhaustion, "Shoot it! Shoot the devilP His bodyguards ignored the instruction. They were leading him by fifty paces and rapidly widening the gap.

Craig watched helplessly from his grandstand position on the transporter, as the bull lowered his head and drove up the slope after the Aeeing minister. Dust spurted from under his hooves, and he bellowed again. The blast of sound, only inches from the ministerial backside, seemed physically to lift and propel the honourable minister the last few paces, and he turned out to be a much better climber than sprinter. Fk'went up the trunk of the first jacaranda likea squirrel and hung precariously in the lower branches with the bull directly beneath him.

The bull bellowed again in murderous frustration, glaring up at the cowering figure, tore at the earth with his front hooves, and gored the air with full-blooded swings of his vicious, white-tipped horns.

"Do something!" shrieked the minister. "Make it go away!" His bodyguards looked back over their shoulders and, seeing the impasse, regained their courage. They halted, unslung their weapons and began cautiously closing in on the bull and his victim.

"No! Craig yelled over the rattle of loading automatic weapons. "Don't shood" He was certain that his insurance did not cover "death by deliberate rifle-fire', and, quite apart from the fifteen thousand dollars, a volley would sweep the area behind the bull, which included the marquee and its occupants, a scattering of fleeing women and children and Craig himself.

One of the uniformed bodyguards raised his rifle and took aim. His recent exertions and terror did nothing for the steadiness of his hand. The muzzle of his weapon described widening circles in the air.

"No! Craig bellowed again and flung himself face down on the floor of d-te trailer. At that moment a tall, skinny figure stepped between the wavering rifle-muzzle and the great bull.

"Shadrach!" whispered Craig thankfully, as the old man imperiously pushed up the rifle-barrel and then turned to face the bull.

"I see you, Nkunzi Kakhulu! Great bull!" he greeted him courteously.

The bull swung its head to the sound of his voice, and very clearly he saw Shadrach also. He snorted and nodded threateningly.

"Haul Prince of cattle! How beautiful you are! Shadrach advanced a pace towards those vicious pike-sharp horns.

The bull pawed at the earth and then made a warning rush at him. Shadrach stood him down and the bull stopped.

"How noble your head! he crooned. "Your eyes are like dark moons!" The bull hooked his horns towards him, but the swing was less vicious and Shadrach answered with another step forward. The shrieks of terrorstruck women and children died away. Even the most fainthearted stopped running, and looked back at the old man and the red beast.

"Your horns are sharp as the stabbing assegai of great Mzilikazi." Shadrach kept moving forward and the bull blinked uncertainly and squinted at him with red, rimmed eyes.

"How glorious are your testicles," Shadrach murmured soothingly, 'like huge round boulders of granite. Ten thousand cows will feel their weight and majesty." The bull backed up a pace and gave another halfhearted toss of his head.

"Your breath is hot as the north wind, my peerless king of bulls." Shadrach stretched out his hand slowly, and they watched in breathless silence.

"My darling," Shadrach touched the glossy, wet, chocolate-coloured muzzle and the bull jerked away nervously, and' then came back cautiously to snuffle at Shadrach's fingers. "My sweet darling, father of great bulls-" gently Shadrach slipped his forefinger into the heavy bronze nose, ring and held the bull's head. He stooped and placed his mouth over the gaping, pink-lined nostrils and blew his own breath loudly into them. The bull shuddered, and Craig could clearly see the bunched muscle in his shoulders relaxing. Shadrach straightened and, with his finger still through the nose-ring, walked away and placidly the bull waddled after him with his dewlap swinging. A weak little cheer of relief and disbelief went up from his audienc and subsided as Shadrach cast a withering contemptuous eye around him.