Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗
Attempted murder six years at hard labour I order that these sentences run consecutively and that no part of them be suspended-" Even Abel Khori's head jerked up at that. The sentences totalled forty years. With full remission for good behaviour, Tungata could still expect to serve over thirty years, the rest of his useful life.
At the back of the -court a black woman shrieked in Sindebele, "Babo! The father! They are taking our father from us!" Others took up the cry. "Father of the people!
Our father is dead to us." A man began to sing in a soaring baritone voice.
"Why do you weep, widows of Shangani... Why do you weep, little sons of the Moles, When your' fathers did the king's bidding?" It was one of the ancient fighting songs of the imp is of King Lobengula, and the singer was a man in his prime with a strong intelligent face and a short-cropped, spade shaped beard barely speckled with grey. As he sang, the tears ran down his cheeks into his beard. In another time he might have been an induna of one of the royal imp is
His song was taken up by the men around him, and Mr. justice Domashawa came to his feet in a fury.
"If there is not silence this instant, I will have the court cleared and the offenders charged with contempt," he shouted over the singing, but it was five minutes more of pandemonium before the ushers could restore order.
Through it all, Tungata Zebiwe stood quietly in the dock, with just the barest hint of a mocking smile on his lips. When at last it was over, but before his guards led him away, he gazed across the courtroom at Craig Mellow and he made a last hand-signal. They had only used it playfully before, perhaps after a hard-contested bout of wrestling or some other friendly competition. Now Tungata used it in deadly earnest. The sign meant: "We are equal the score is levelled," and Craig understood completely. Craig had lost his leg and Tungata had lost his freedom. They were equal.
He wanted to call out to the man who had once been his friend that it was a sorry bargain, not of his choosing, but Tungata had turned away. His warders were trying to lead him out of the dock, but Tungata pulled back, his head turning as he searched for someone else in the crowded court.
Sarah Nyoni climbed up onto her bench, and over the heads of the crowd she reached out both hands towards him. Now Tungata made his last hand signal to her. Craig read it clearly. "Take cover! Tungata ordered her. "Hide your se If. You are in danger." By the altered expression on her face, Craig saw that the girl had understood the command, and then the warders were dragging Tungata Zebiwe down the stairs that led to the prison cells below ground.
raig Mellow shoved his way through the singing, lamenting crowds of Matabele who overflowed the buildings of the Supreme Court and disrupted the lunch-hour traffic in the broad causeway that it fronted.
He dragged Sally-Anne by her wrist and brusquely shouldered aside the press photographers who tried to block his way.
In the car park he boosted Sally-Anne into the front seat of the Land-Rover, and ran around to the driver's side, threatening with a raised fist the last and most persistent photographer in his path. He drove directly to her apartment and halted at the front door. He did not turn off the engine.
"And now?" Sally' Anne asked.
"I don't understand the question, "he snapped.
"Hey!" she said. "I'm your friend remember me?"
"I'm sorry." He slumped over the wheel. J feel rotten plain bloody rotten." She did not reply, but her eyes were full of compassion for him.
"Forty years," he whispered. "I never expected that. If only I'd known-"
"There was nothing you could do then, or now." He balled his fist and hammered it on the steering wheel "The poor bastard forty years!"
"Are you coming up?" she asked softly, but he shook his head.
"I have to get back to King's Lynn. I've neglected everything while this awful bloody business has been going on."
"You're going right now?" She was startled.
"Yes."
"Alone?" she asked, and he nodded.
"I want to be alone."
"So you can torture yourself." Her voice firmed. "And I'll be damned if I'll allow that. I'm coming with you. Wait! I am going to throw some things in a bag you needn't even kill the engine, I'll be that quick." She was five minutes, and then ran back down the stairs lugging her rucksack and her camera bag. She slung them into the back of the Land-Rover.
"Okay, let's go." They spoke very little on the long journey, but soon Craig was thankful to have her beside him, grateful for her smile when he glanced at her, for the touch of her hand on his when she sensed the black mood too strong upon him, and for her undemanding silence.
They drove up the hills of King's Lynn in the dusk.
Joseph had seen them from afar, and was waiting on the front veranda.
"I see you, Nkosazana." From their first meeting Joseph had taken an instant liking to Sally-Anne. Already she was his "little mistress" and his welcoming grin kept breaking through his solemn dignity as he ordered his servants to unload her meagre luggage.
"I run bath for you very hot."
"That will be marvelous, Joseph." After her bath she came back to the veranda and Craig went to the drinks table and mixed a whisky for her the way she liked it, and another one for himself that was mainly Scotch and very little soda.
