A Cleft Of Stars

CHAPTER FOUR

I hauled myself up by the verandah post, winded and sick from the heavy fall. I stared transfixed at the sight of tobaccostained teeth projecting from beneath a fragment of lip on the skull; as I did so terror mounted like a quick-burning fuse from the sphincter muscles of my anus into my stomach. Blind panic exploded like a grenade and I jerked away into a wild career across the open terrace-away, away, anything to be away from the awful silence of that bizarre execution and the thought of the murderer's sights on my own back. I ran zig-zagging from the imaginary gun until I was brought to a halt by the security fence. I clawed my way along it and threw myself more by instinct than reason through the gap I had cut, and hid my head below the level of the terrace, out of sight of the watchful eyes with which my supercharged imagination invested The Hill.

Gradually my breath returned, and with it my sanity. The sun on my hatless head and the unbroken stillness bore in upon me the futility of my crazy sprint. The wild oscillations of irrational fear steadied round the deadpoint. I got a grip on myself and tried to make some sort, of assessment, and to force myself to go back to the hut.

It was essential to establish the identity of the dead man: Rankin or a guard. If it was Rankin, my whole plan was shot and then all I could do would be to return, tail between legs, to Nadine — if she would still have me after my walkout. For the first time since leaving I began to have doubts. The hardships of the river had enabled me to push consideration of my shabby trick out of mind but now I had to face it squarely. The end had to justify the means and if Rankin was dead I had lost the end-and possibly Nadine as well.

If the skull was the guard's, there was only one person likely to have murdered him: Rankin. The thought gave me a measure of grim inverted satisfaction: I had often wondered, during my stay in jail, whether time had passed me by and I would arrive at The Hill to find Rankin gone. But if the murderer was Rankin, I was in deadly danger and I would have to watch every step I made. If he was capable of killing an official guard, he was capable of anything. But why hadn't he disposed of the body? Or — the thought brought a taste of sourness into my gullet — had I interrupted the disposal process: hyenas? What I needed now was a gun and a lot of vigilance. The mere fact that the hyena had been busy inside the hut indicated that the killer could not be around and therefore it would be safe to go back.

What then had I run away from? I had seen dead men before, in the war. True, the skull was a ghastly sight, but if it was Rankin's, so what? I had little sympathy to spare for him. If it was the guard's; he was a stranger. What then had sparked off my terror?

I felt the rising surge in my bowels as I forced myself back on to the terrace. The Hill? Whichever way one looked one's eyes always came back to it; sprawled shimmering, ugly, gigantic across the view. The hard sunlight seemed to magnify rather than decrease its mystery. It was inevitable, too, that my concentration should focus on the tabletop with its royal grave. It seemed to echo the accusation: you double-crossed Nadine.

I started back towards the hut, walking straight and fast. If I went on thinking in this way, in this isolation, I'd be crazy within a few days. The Hill, I told myself, was nothing more than an unusual koppie at a strategic river junction. The mystery of the lost origin of a group of unknown invaders who had fortified it had been blown up to become a riddle into which one could read anything.

I strode up to the skull and I blenched. I temporized about examining it by first retrieving my hat and rifle. I felt again the tiny ripple of fear-activated muscle in my buttocks and to counteract it I took out a shell for the Mannlicher. The bolt action was looser than it should have been but I put this down to the bang it had had when it fell, and to its age. While I loaded I found myself eyeing every corner of the surroundings but once I had a bullet in the breech I felt better. I then made my way to the verandah. I needed a wall at my back as a precaution against ambush while I took stock of the situation. First, I decided to force myself to examine the skull. However, when I started towards it and had only reached the edge of the verandah, there was such a stench of decaying flesh that suddenly I found myself hanging on to a post, vomiting violently. When the fit had passed I went to the water tank and had a long drink. I came to the conclusion then that it would be better to postpone my examination of the hut and the victim until I could face the ordeal: perhaps in the cool of late afternoon. I still couldn't bring myself to approach the skull so I fetched the ladder and shinned up the roof for the long bamboo pole supporting the radio aerial, which I then used to spear and edge the skull inside the hut. Then I shut the door and window.

The ladder gave me another idea: laid over the rolls of barbed wire below the security fence it would give easy access to the river from the terrace and back again. Acting on this, I carried it on my shoulder across the bare stretch of terrace with a feeling of trailing my coat to unseen enemies; as if to tempt them further, I rested at intervals with my back deliberately turned to The Hill. I took my time, too, at the gate and painstakingly sawed with the diamond pencil through several more strands of wire, to make a sizeable gap. In the end I had a quick, safe route open.

It was my need for a rational approach which also crystallized my decision to make camp at The Hill itself. I made my choice of site as much with my heart as with my head. I plumped for a circle of big rocks near the foot of the secret stairway, not far from the trench where our love had taken fire. This site, I reasoned, commanded the fortress's most vital strategic point and if Rankin were holed up on the summit he could not by-pass it. Footpaths dating from the time of the expedition all converged there. Also, being on the side of The Hill away from the river, I could hide myself and avoid discovery from that quarter. And the soaring cliffs gave welcome shade. The actual entrance to the secret stairway was about twenty-five feet above the ground and concealed by the big old fig tree whose roots, hanging down from the cliffside, formed a grassy cage. It could be a useful hide-out if the need arose.

I unloaded the boat and started on the first of two journeys to hump my few possessions to the place. The exposed solitary walk across the terrace in the hard light, with nerves strung high and rifle at the ready, reminded me of the classic confrontation in a Western where the good guy and the bad guy shoot it out in the empty street. The more the range closed towards The Hill the tenser I became. But there was no shot, no sound even, except that of my heels on the rock. I skirted the cliffs under the tabletop (I was now at the opposite extremity of the fortress from the hut) and made full use of the cover afforded by the scatter of great boulders which had fallen from the cliffs. Once I had rounded the point there were more sheltering boulders on the wadi side. I picked my way cautiously through these and it was with a sense of anticlimax that I reached the foot of the stairway. There was not a sign of human occupation and the sandy tracks were devoid of any but animal spoor. I dumped the gunny-sack containing my things and made my second journey to the boat via the hut and filled a jerrican with water from the tank. To get there I walked clean across the broad front of The Hill facing the river. Afterwards I relaxed, for if I was to be shot at, that would have been the time. The return to my campingplace was without incident. It took most of the afternoon to make the trips. Perhaps their uneventfulness lulled me into putting off the issue of examining the skull and mortuary-like interior of the hut — until the next day. They certainly convinced me it would be quite safe to light a small fire that night (behind the protecting screen of rocks where it wouldn't be seen) as a precaution against wild animals, and I spent until dusk gathering wood. I found a dead leadwood tree whose long-burning timber known to veldmen as 'hard-coal' — would last for hours without attention and keep prowling hyenas at bay while I slept. It also has the useful characteristic of burning with sudden sparks and flares, probably from old insect nests deep in the heartwood.

Night fell.

I hung about until it was completely dark but I didn't feel safe to settle down until I had carried out a test to see if my fire could be spotted — just in case. The night was hot but it would be cheerless sitting alone in the blackness; nevertheless, I determined to do so if necessary. I took the rifle and went to the outer limit of The Hill's fortifications facing the wadi -

in other words, the sector between the fortress itself and the adjoining ring of hills to the south. The drop from the terrace into the wadi's sandy bed was less than that on the river front: some twenty feet, I guessed. Also, the fortified wall was in a worse state of repair and there seemed to be more rolls of barbed wire here.

I found that the ring of boulders round my fire hid it com- pletely from that particular angle. Satisfied, I then worked round in a semi-circle towards Nadine's trench, checking further. Suddenly there was a movement on the ground ahead. For a moment my eyes conjured up a man crawling towards me, head up. I swung my sights on to the object; when I made out what it was I grinned with relief. A starving armadillo scuffed at the iron-hard ground and what I had taken for a head was no more threatening than a baby riding on its mother's back, tail entwined with hers. Somehow the touching sight evoked a surge of deep longing for Nadine.

From her trench the glow of the fire could be seen clearly through a gap in the boulders (they were about ten feet high) but I decided I would risk keeping it alight because the moon would soon be rising in this direction and if I kept my eyes open I must spot anyone approaching a long way off. I thought again of Nadine and swore a quiet oath to myself that I would find Rankin at whatever cost and see again in her eyes what I had first seen here.

Then I walked quickly back to the fire and poured myself a stiff shot of brandy. As the rough stuff went down a maniacal scream, tapering off to a long choking gurgle, itself more horrible than the first, cut through the night. I cursed the hyena and wished I had a spare shot to scare it away with. I had come to The Hill with only ten rounds: I'd bought them with the couple of pounds I had managed to scrounge off the Prisoners' Friend when I left jail. I consciously damped my rising feelings against Rankin and the purpose of the bullets. I had bummed the money, not to kill Rankin with them, but to give me teeth for my purpose: to get him to confess. And I meant to go within an inch of his life if necessary, to extract that information.

I took another uneasy gulp of my drink as a further drawnout burst of hyena hysteria bounced from cliff to cliff. The sound then seemed to gain a second wind and began reverberating from the circle of koppies opposite. An answer, which was not an echo, came from the far side of The Hill. It was probably another brute, devouring the one I had shot at the hut. A bright star — I thought it was Vega — hung above the tabletop. I began to tell myself that if I was right then there were scavengers that night in the sky too, for Vega is in the constellation of the Vulture — but I shook off the fancy impatiently. The emptiness and the curious air of watchfulness of the old fortress were beginning to get on my nerves. It appeared I couldn't get away from hyenas. After leaving jail I had used them as a bait to extract an official letter from my former professor, Dr Sands; saying that my purpose in visiting The Hill area was to collect fossilized hyena droppings. These droppings, thousands of years old and containing fragments of bone which are often those of extinct creatures, are valuable and meaningful to science, filling in small gaps about what creatures once roamed Southern Africa. The letter was a bluff, of course, so that if I were picked up by the guards I could talk my way out of trouble on the grounds that I had a legitimate purpose. Dr Sands was the only person who had any idea of my whereabouts.

Some baboons on the summit began barking, adding to the hyenas' racket, Restless and uneasy, I poured myself another drink. The atmosphere of the place was like walking into a wet blanket hanging on a line: there was no resistance and yet it enveloped one completely. I began to regret that I had not settled the identity of the dead man.

All at once the hyena and baboons stopped. The silence was heavy enough to cut. I left the fire, drink in one hand and rifle in the other, and crunching overloudly across the broken scraps of ancient pottery, walked towards the tell-tale opening facing Nadine's trench. The heavens were now full of stars and the Milky Way lay suspended like a cosmic vapour jet trail; the Southern Cross hung like a vast Insignia of the Garter on a black velvet royal sleeve. The Hill's mass loomed high against the star-line. Subconsciously I registered that something was amiss. I put the drink aside and went outside my camp circle, pressing myself against one of the boulders. Then I saw what had silenced the animals. Where the moon should have been rising silver there was an ugly red glow in the sky above The Hill from the direction of the guard hut. It was on fire.

I was about to race towards it when I stopped in my tracks. Instead I slid silently to the ground against the rough sandstone. The rocks relayed the sinister whisper of metal as a rifle bolt went home.

The night seemed to hold its breath and I froze at the foot of the rock. The sound of metal had been very near: the rocks acted as a sounding-board. Whoever was after me probably hadn't reckoned on that. He must have approached from the blind side from which one couldn't see the fire. The fact that he had loaded his rifle so near my camp meant that he was not prepared to find anyone about. Now, however, he must realize that I was very close.

Alongside the burning hut's red glow the moon began to rise. If I didn't act fast it would spotlight me but not the gunman hidden on the shadowed side of the camp circle. I was at a further disadvantage because one of the rocks was split in such a way as to make a natural loophole for him to fire through while remaining invisible. From my present position it would be impossible to get a shot at him first. Spurred on by the growing lightness of the rising moon I cast about for an escape route. When I turned cautiously towards The Hill the solution came to me. The moonlight which exposed me where I now crouched could be my salvation. The geological formation of the cliffs, known as holkrans sandsteen, spelled out my line of escape. Meaning literally 'hollowed-out sandstone', this particular type of rock weathers exactly as the name suggests, forming a natural hollow at the base capped by an overhang. Every cliff has in fact its own cave shelter at its base. This now offered me a secure funkhole right under the gunman's eye. Between me and safety, however, lay a few exposed yards.

I hadn't even finished my snap assessment of the situation before an unearthly cry, like a Gaelic death-keen, cascaded down the rocks from The Hill's summit. My finger tightened automatically on the trigger and I guessed that my pursuer's must have done the same. The half-human cry of a starving baboon-in daylight I had caught a glimpse of pathetic and emaciated specimens — was taken up by its companions until it became a general chorus.

I saw it as a further opportunity, and under cover of the noise I cautiously rolled over and over towards the cliff with the rifle hard against me until I was about halfway up an intervening slope. I was ready to change position for the subsequent down-grade leading to the cliff shelter when the baboon cries cut off. I was left sprawled, face downwards, not daring to move, at the point of maximum exposure. I lay still.

I did not spot the whip-like tail and clutching claws until they were within six inches of my face. A four-inch scorpion reached out inquiringly and its pincers caressed my cheek. They felt closer, more inquisitively, and I could not suppress a shiver. The sting whipped to the ready in a tight arc while I held my breath to deaden all movement, for I knew that when it struck I would not be able to resist the agony, which would jerk my head back and the movement would be seen. I tried as the seconds raced by to think how long a man can hold his breath; then there was a thudding flurry of hands and feet over, past and around my prostrate body. Startled chakking exploded and hairy bodies skidded and jumped over me. One opportunist black paw snatched up the poised scorpion. A cloud of dust rose like a smokescreen from the startled baboon troop, whose last members had not paused before I launched myself under its cover and in a moment I was safe in deep shadow under the rocky lip.

I felt safer still after half an hour had passed. But the situation was simply a stalemate: if neither of us gave himself away we could go on until morning when the advantage would be his with a full magazine against my single shot at a time which was all the Mannlicher was capable of. I had to take the initiative somehow and confirm beyond doubt that the gunman was Rankin. It certainly wasn't the guard, to destroy his own hut.

Everything: the apparent carelessness about advertising his presence by making a bonfire of the place; and his emergency loading hard by my own fire, pointed to the fact that he had not seen my comings and goings during the afternoon. Yet, against this was the plain evidence that the hyena at the hut had been shot recently and that whoever had done so could not be far away. Perhaps, on further thought, he had decided that the need to cremate the guard's remains outweighed all other considerations.

Whatever the answer, the fact that I had heard him loading his rifle showed that he had been taken by surprise and meant business. It also added a more dangerous dimension to our contest: it became not merely Rankin (whom I felt sure it was) versus Guy Bowker; but a trigger-happy maniac ready to silence any unknown stranger who came to The Hill. I decided to end the impasse and make for the fig tree's root cage at the mouth of the secret entrance before the moon became much stronger. I was confident I could manage this without being seen. It was a short uphill climb through rubble; and several fissures at the foot of the cliff face would also afford cover. From behind the screen I would have a view of the camp fire.

I blackened my face, arms, clothes and gun with some unpleasant-smelling dust from the shelter floor. My sweat made it stick. I inched upwards towards my objective with long halts in the safe places. keeping the rifle clear of the rocks for fear of a tell-tale clink. The short distance was an eternity: every moment I expected a shot from below. Then I crawled through the lattice-work of roots, some as fine as grass, and peered down on my camp site.

There was no sign of anyone. It all seemed so peaceful: the friendly glow with an occasional spurt of typical leadwood sparks, my binoculars hanging from a nicked rock, my drink where I had put it down.

After an hour of tight vigilance a doubt crept into my mind. Had I indeed heard a rifle bolt — might it not have been a rock cracking? A cicada ground out a weary parody of his rain days. In the far distance a jackal complained; it was answered by a short jittery laugh from a hyena which broke off short as if the brute suspected my tense watch. From afar came the distant chuffer of a lion. The red glow of the blaze was gone from the sky and the moon was white.

Suddenly, as if by magic, a figure crouched by the fire, rifle at the ready, bush hat hard down over his eyes. It was so quick I did not see where he came from. As quickly, my rifle barrel was through the screen and my sights were trained on his head. He wasn't looking in my direction, though, but at the signs of my occupation. I could see from the set of his shoulders how tense he was. His back was half-turned, his face obscured. If I had any doubts about his purpose or qualms about gunning down an unsuspecting victim, his next action dispelled them. He took a handful of ash and rubbed it over his rifle barrel, breech, magazine and trigger guard — all the bright metal parts.

More than anything, I wanted to see his face. However, he moved swiftly across to kneel by the gunny-sack which stood out orange-yellow against the ground. He ignored it but his gaze went all round the compass, including the opening through which I had emerged. I watched his left hand, almost of its own independent will, finger the garish coloured mesh, while the wild animal it served kept tight watch. His other hand was curled round the rifle trigger. Those epicene hands were the hands of a craftsman and they frightened me as they touched and explored my things, passing on all there was to know to the spring-taut, unmoving body.

Then he turned towards me, cocking his head as if at some sound, and I had my answer. There was no mistaking Rankin's high forehead and slightly predatory look. The V of my sight stood clear against the middle of his forehead and I held his life in my trigger finger. But I 'dropped my aim past his head, along his back down to his leg. I wanted him winged, able to confess.

I fired.

The old gun exploded in my face.

There was a crash and stunning flash within inches of my eyes and at the same time I was hurled out of the root cage by a blow on the forehead by the back-firing bolt. As I crashed unconscious among the rocks I thought I heard the smack and ricochet of two rapid-fire shots from Rankin. I could not have been out for more than a few minutes; my fogged instincts on rising to consciousness told me that if I wanted to stay alive I must stay absolutely motionless despite the awful waves of nausea and flashes before my eyes. I lay sprawled half-in and half-out of a rocky cleft not more than eighteen inches deep and twice as long as a man. It had an upward incline; my head was downwards. The root cage was about ten feet above and to one side.

I eased myself into — a slightly better position and then cushioned my face in my arms biting down the nausea induced by pain and the smell of my own burnt hair and eyelashes. The head-down angle of my body didn't help either. Nor could I focus properly: the cordite seemed to have seared my eyes and blood dripped into them from the gash in my forehead which the bolt had made.

If I continued to lie where I was, I reasoned muzzily, Rankin might be persuaded that I was indeed dead and come to look for my body. Which wouldn't help me; he'd spot me as soon as he came near the root cage. If he chose to wait — and I had already had experience of his patience — I'd be bound to give myself away sooner or later and he would flush me out. It might be as late as next day, when I wouldn't even have the cover of darkness. Somehow or other I had to break out of the trap. I tried to look at the problem coolly, detachedly, but I was too tense and a solution eluded me. The higher the moon rose the slighter would my chances become. The only way out seemed to be the secret passageway but it would be impossible to reach its entrance in the root cage undetected. In any case, even should I gain the summit of The Hill, Rankin could starve me out without firing a shot.

I worried at the problem from every angle. I decided eventually that it might help if I knew more or less where Rankin was. I slid forward a few inches and lifted my eyes cautiously above my hiding-place. The camp was the same: utterly peaceful, nothing disturbed — and no Rankin: I presumed that he must have returned to his previous loophole. From it he commanded the fire, the cage and the approaches to the secret stairway. As I watched the fire gave a sudden flare but it was not bright enough to penetrate to where I felt sure Rankin lay hidden.

I explored every possibility of a solution again but nothing emerged. When the fire flared again I peered harder, hoping that in spite of my bad vision I would spot something. It was a bigger flare this time and the sparks reached high. The answer came as it subsided and I tried to project myself into Rankin's skin and think what I would do in his situation. The flare must have momentarily dazzled his night-sight and blotted out his picture of my cliff-side. Given one big burst of sparks again it might be possible for me to get clear unseen. The fire had been burning for hours, however, and how could I predict when a flare was coming? As if in reply, it sparked again: a miserable, tiny jet which was no cover at all. I was about to put the slim chance aside and rethink the whole problem from a new angle when it occurred to me that if I could make the fire flare I could pick my own moment to escape in the general direction of the wadi, away entirely from The Hill. Every possible method to achieve this, both practical and impractical, chased through my head. Somewhere, I-felt, there must be an answer. Now that I had almost decided on my course of action it was foolish to risk exposure again. I started to creep back quietly in order to offer the lowest profile possible. The clip of shells in my pocket dug into me. At once I knew the answer: tossed into the fire, the clip would explode and blow sparks and embers in every direction, blinding Rankin. It would also constitute a noisy diversion. Rankin would hardly expect a fusillade of shots within a few feet of his face.

I was excited at the prospect and fingered the clip but held myself back. The two critical factors would be when to toss the five shells into the fire and my aim, which would have to be perfect. There would be no second chance. I would also have to wait for one of the fire's periodic flares so that Rankin would remain unsuspecting when it landed and kicked up sparks. About the faint thud the clip would make in falling I could do nothing.

Grasping the clip, I slithered back into my previous position overlooking the fire. I had barely eased over on my left side to give my throwing arm free play when the fire flared. I was relieved that the pay-off came so soon. I was shaking and sweating. A long wait would have wrecked my efforts. I lobbed the clip at the fire and ducked down hard. I didn't hear it drop. There was nothing but the continuing pregnant silence.

I lay immobile, trembling with anticipation, wondering how long the cartridges would take to explode. I dared not consider a miss. When I could take the strain no longer I peeped from my hide-out. The fireside picture was the same. I felt then that it must have gone wide of the mark and I started to fine-comb the camping-site for it with my wretched eyesight. Without warning the fire erupted like a grenade-burst. There were five shells in the clip; I do not know how many separate reports I heard before I catapulted myself from the funkhole and ran at a tight crouch down the slope towards a path which led behind the rocks to safety. Then followed two heavier crashes in quick succession and Rankin's bullets whined and sang off the cliffs. There was a third, but no ricochet, and I realized that he was firing into the root cage and not in my direction.

I stubbed my foot, tripped, and fell heavily. Breathless, I got to my feet and found myself on the pathway with a great boulder between myself and Rankin. I sped away, keeping it between him and me while more shots crashed and echoed as he pumped shells into my hiding-place of a few minutes before. The ground levelled off and I raced into the open in the moonlight. Rankin-remained within range still, however. I sprinted and jinked in case he saw me but another burst of firing told me he was concentrating on The Hill.

Then I struck the old wall which marked the outer line of fortifications and was over it almost before I remembered the twenty-foot drop to the wadi below. I found foot and handholds and started to work my way down like a fly on a wall. But I slipped and fell, landing awkwardly and heavily in the sand. Had it been ordinary ground I might have broken a limb; as it was, the bream was knocked out or me for the second time that evening.

I lay gasping and before I had recovered properly I hightailed across the wadi into the circle of hills beyond. I followed a shallow ravine to the top and found an agglomeration of rocky outcrops which were perfect cover. The firing ceased and across my sandy moat of safety The Hill reared pallid under the moonlight.