Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗
"Why not? Lots of people do."
"I don't," she said firmly. "I want it to be done properly." She did some counting on her fingers and pencilling on the calendar at the back of her notebook, and then decided, "February 16th."
"That's four months away," Craig groaned, but his protests were ridden down ruthlessly.
Joseph, on the other hand, was in full accord with Sally Anne plans for a formal wedding.
"You get married on Kingi Lingi, Nkosikazi." It was a statement rather than a question, and Sally Anne Sindebele was now good enough to recognize that she had been promoted from "little mistress" to 'great lady'.
"How many people?" Joseph demanded. "Two hundred, three hundred?" "I doubt we can raise that many," Sally-Anne demurred.
"When Nkosana Roly get married Kingi Lingi, we have four hundred, even Nkosi Smithy he come! "Joseph," she scolded him, you really are a frightful old snob, you know!" or Craig the pervading unhappiness that he had felt at Tungata's sentence slowly dissipated, swamped by all the excitement and activity at King's Lynn. In a few months he had all but put it from his mind, only at odd and unexpected moments his memory of his one-time friend barbed him. To the rest of the world, Tungata Zebiwe might have never existed. After the extravagant coverage by press and television of his trial, it seemed that a curtain of silence was drawn over him likea shroud.
Then abruptly, once again the name Tungata Zebiwe was blazed from every television screen and bannered on every front page across the entire continent.
Craig and Sally' Anne sat in front of the television set, appalled and disbelieving, as they listened to the first reports. When they ended, and the programme changed to a weather report, Craig stood up and crossed to the set. He switched it off and came back to her side, moving likea man who was still in deep shock from some terrible accident.
The two of them sat in silence in the darkened room, until Sally-Anne reached for his hand. She squeezed it hard, but her shudder was involuntary, it racked her whole body.
Those poor little girls they were babies. Can you imagine their terror?"
"I knew the Goodwins. They were fine people. They always treated their black people well, "Craig muttered.
"This proves as nothing else possibly could that they were right to lock him away likea dangerous animal." Her horror was beginning to turn to anger.
"I can't see what they could possibly hope to gain by this--2 Craig was still shaking his head incredulously, and Sally-Anne burst out.
"The whole country, the whole world must see them for what they are. Bloodthirsty, inhuman-'her voice cracked and became a sob. "Those babies oh Christ in heaven, I hate him. I wish him dead." "They used his name that doesn't mean Tungata ordered it, condoned it, or even knew about it." Craig tried to sound convincing.
"I hate him," she whispered. "I hate him for it." t's madness. All they can possibly achieve is to bring
_4 Shana troops sweeping through Matabeleland like the wrath of all the gods."
"The little one was only five years old." In her outrage and sorrow, Sally-Anne was repeating herself.
"Nigel Goodwin was a good man I knew him quite well, we were in the same special police unit during the war, I liked him." Craig went to the drinks table and poured two whiskies. "Please God, don't let it all start again. All the awfulness and cruelty and horror please God, spare us that." Ithough Nigel Goodwin was almost forty years of age, he had one of those beefy pink faces unaffected by the African sun that made him look likea lad.
His wife, Helen, was a thin, dark-haired girl, her plainness alleviated by her patent good nature and her sparkly, toffee-brown eyes.
The two girls were weekly boarders at the convent in Bulawayo. At eight years, Alice Goodwin had ginger hair and gingery freckles and, like her father, she was plump and pink. Stephanie, the baby, was five, really too young for boarding-school. However, because she had an elder sister at the convent, the Reverend Mother made an exception in her case. S4 was the pretty one, small and dark and chirpy as ajittle bird with her mother's bright eyes.
Each Friday morning, Nigel and Helen Goodwin drove in seventy-eight miles from the ranch to town. At one o'clock they picked up the girls from the convent, had lunch at the Selbourne Hotel, sharing a bottle of wine, and then spent the afternoon shopping. Helen restocked her groceries, chose material to make into dresses for herself and the girls, and then, while the girls went to F
watch a matinee at the local cinema, had her hair washed, cut and set, the one extravagance of her simple existence.
Nigel was on the committee of the Matabele Farmers" Union, and spent an hour or two at the Union's offices in leisurely discussion with the secretary and those other members who were in town for the day. Then he strolled down the wide sun-scorched streets, his slouch hat pushed back on his head, hands in pockets, puffing happily on a black briar, greeting friends and acquaintances both white and black, stopping every few yards for a word or a chat.
When he arrived back where he had left the Toyota truck outside the Farmers" Co-operative, his Matabele headman, Josiah, and two labourers were waiting for him.
They loaded the purchases of fencing and tools and spare parts and cattle medicines and other odds and ends into the truck, and as they finished, Helen and the girls arrived for the journey home.
"Excuse me, Miss," Nigel accosted his wife, "have you seen Mrs. Goodwin anywhere?" It was his little weekly joke, and Helen giggled delightedly and preened her new hairdo.
For the girls he had a bag of liquorice all sorts His wife protested, "Sweets are so bad for their teeth, dear," and Nigel winked at the girls and agreed, "I know, but just this once won't kill them." Stephanie, because she was the baby, rode in the truck cab between her parents, while Alice went in the back with Josiah and the other Matabele.
