it was another hour before, from the head of the valley, a thin tendril of pure white smoke rose gently into the heated air, and then bent into the elegant shape of an ostrich plume before the gentle breath of the breeze.
With miraculous suddenness the rising column of white smoke was surrounded by another living cloud, hundreds of tiny black specks that weaved and darted about and around it. The faint but excited bird cries carried down to where Zouga waited, and through the glass he could make out the rainbow, turquoise and sapphire plumage of the blue jay as they rolled and dived for the insects put to flight by the flames. Competing with them for the feast, were the iridescent black drongas with their long, forked tails catching the sunlight with metallic glitter as they swirled above the spreading smoke clouds.
Luke was doing his job well. Zouga grunted with satisfaction, as new columns of smoke rose at intervals, sealing off the valley from side to side as they spread to meet each other. Now there was a solid wall of smoke from one cliff to the other, and as the smoke turned dirty black, billowing upwards, spinning upon itself, carrying flaming fragments of leaves and twigs within it, it began to roll ponderously down the valley.
It reminded Zouga of a snow avalanche he had watched in the high Himalayas, the slow majestic progress gathering weight and momentum, building up its own wind storm as it sucked the valley of air.
He could see the tops of the flames now, leaping above the thorn, and hear the sound of them, like the whispering waters of a distant river. The alarm bellow of a bull buffalo rang like the blast of a war trumpet from the ironstone cliffs, and the whisper of flames rose swiftly to a dull crackling roar.
The smoke clouds rose across the sun, plunging them into an unnatural gloom, and Zouga felt a sharp. drop in his spirits at the extinction of the bright morning sun, that internal swirling pall of dun smoke seemed to hold a world of menace.
From the edge of the jessie bush broke a herd of kudu, led by a magnificent bull with his corkscrew horns laid flat along his back. He saw Zouga standing on the pinnacle of rock, and snorted with alarm, swinging away out of easy shot with his cows flying big-eared and scary behind him, their fluffy white tails flickered away amongst the mopani groves.
Zouga scrambled down from his too obvious position, and propped himself comfortably against the rock, checked the nipple on the cap of the Sharps and then cocked the big hammer.
Ahead of the flames, a pale white dust cloud was rising over the tops of the jessie bush, and another sound was added to the roar of flames. It was a low thunder that made the earth tremble under their feet. They are coming, Jan Cheroot muttered to himself, and his little eyes sparkled.
A single buffalo burst from the palisade of thorn. He was an old bull, almost bald across the shoulders and rump, the dusty grey skin crisscrossed by a thousand ancient scars and scabby with the bites of bush ticks.
The big bell-shaped ears were torn and tattered, and one thickly curved horn was broken off at the tip. He came out at a crabbing gallop, dust exploding at each hoof beat like miniature mortar bursts.
He was on a line to pass the rocky redoubt at twenty paces, and Zouga let him come on to twice that distance before he threw up the Sharps rifle.
He aimed for the fold of thick skin under the throat that marked the frontal aiming point for the heart and its complex of arteries and blood vessels. He hardly noticed the recoil nor the blurt of the shot as he watched for the strike of the lead bullet. There was a little spurt of dust off the grey hide precisely on his aiming point, and the sound of the hit was exactly like his headmaster swinging the malacca cane against his own schoolboy backside, sharp and meaty.
The bull took the bullet without a stumble or lurch, instead it swung towards them, and seemed immediately to double in size as it lifted its nose into the high attitude of the charge.
Zouga reached for his second gun, but he groped in vain. Mark, his number two, showed the whites of his eyes in a flash of terror, let out a squawk, hurled the elephant gun aside, and went hounding away towards the mopani grove.
The bull saw him and swerved again, thundering ten feet past Zouga as it went after the fleeing bearer.
Waving the empty Sharps, Zouga shouted desperately for another rifle, but the bull was past him in a grey blur and it caught Mark as he reached the tree line.
The great bossed head dropped until the snout almost touched the earth, and then flew up again in a powerful tossing motion that bunched the muscle in the thick black neck. Mark was looking back over his shoulder, his eyes wide and glaring white in the black face, rivulets of sweat pouring down his naked back, his mouth a pink gape as he screamed.
Then he was in the air. Legs and arms tumbling wildly, he went up like a rag doll thrown by a petulant child and disappeared into the thick green canopy of mopani foliage overhead. Without missing a stride, the bull drove on into the forest, but that was all that Zouga saw, for a cry from Sergeant Cheroot made him turn again. Hier kom hullel Here they come! ' Across their whole front, the earth seemed to move as though racked by the convulsions of an earthquake.
Shoulder to shoulder, nose to rump, the main herd broke from cover, flattening the Thorn bush under the great wave of bodies, filling the valley from side to side.
They lifted behind them a dense curtain of pale dust, from which the front ranks seemed endlessly to emerge, their great bossed heads nodding in unison as they pounded on, long silver strings of saliva dangling from open jaws as they bellowed in alarm and anger, and the roar of their hooves drowned the sound of the flames.
Matthew and John, Zouga's two remaining bearers, had stood their ground, and one of them snatched away the empty Sharps and thrust the thick stock of an elephant gun into Zouga's hand.
The weapon seemed heavy and unbalanced after the Sharps, and the sights were crudely fashioned, a blunt cone for the foresight, and a deep vee for the backsight.
The solid wall of bodies was bearing down upon them with frightening speed. The cows were a dark chocolate colour, and their horns were more delicately curved. The calves that raced at their flanks were sleek russet with crowns of reddish curls between the rudimentary little horn spikes. The herd was so tightly packed that it seemed impossible that they could split open to pass the rock. There was a tall rangy cow in the leading rank, coming straight on to Zouga.
He held half a beat aiming into the centre of her chest, and squeezed off the shot. The firing cap popped with a tiny puff of white smoke, and a heartbeat later the elephant gun vomited a deafening gust of powder smoke and bright flame, the burning patches went spinning away over the heads of the charging buffalo, and Zouga felt as though one of them had kicked in his shoulder.
