THE SOUND OF THUNDER
Wilbur Smith
Four years of travel in the road less wilderness had battered the wagons.
Many of the wheel-spokes and disselboonu had been replaced with raw
native timber; the canopies were patched until little of the original
canvas was visible; the teams were reduced from eighteen to ten oxen
each, for there had been predators and sickness to weed them out. But
this exhausted little caravan carried the teeth of five hundred elephant;
ten -tons of ivory; the harvest of Sean Courtneys rifle; ivory that he
would convert into nearly fifteen thousand gold sovereigns once he
reached Pretoria.
Once more Sean was a rich man. His clothing was stained and baggy,
crudely mended; his boots were worn almost through the uppers and
clumsily resoled with raw buffalo hide; a great untrimmed beard covered
half his chest and a mane of black hair curled down his neck to where
it had been hacked away with blunt scissors above the collar of his
coat. But despite his appearance he was rich in ivory, also in gold
held for him in the vaults of the Volkskaas Bank in Pretoria.
On a rise of ground beside the road he sat his horse and watched the
leisurely plodding approach of his wagons. It is time now for the
farm, he thought with satisfaction. Thirty-seven years old, no longer
a young man, and it was time to buy the farm. He knew the one he
wanted and he knew exactly where he would build the homestead-site it
close to the lip of the escarpment so that in the evenings he could sit
on the wide stoep look out across the plain to the Tugela River in the
blue distance.
'Tomorrow early we will reach Pretoria. ' The voice beside him
interrupted his dreaming, and Sean moved in the saddle and looked down
at the Zulu who squatted beside his horse.
'It has been a good hunt, Mbejane. ' 'Nkosi, we have killed many
elephant.' Mbejane nodded and Sean noticed for the first time the
strands of silver in the wooly cap of his hair. No longer a young man
either.
'And made many marches,' Sean went on and Mbejane inclined his head
again in grave agreement.
'A man grows weary of the trek, ' Sean mused aloud. 'There is a time
when he longs to sleep two nights at the same place. ' 'And to hear
the singing of his wives as they work the fields. ' Mbejane carried it
further. 'And to watch his cattle come into the kraal at dusk with his
sons driving them. ' 'That time has come for both of us, my friend. We
are going home to Ladyburg. ' The spears rattled against Ins raw-hide
shield as MbeJane stood up, muscles moved beneath the black velvet of
his skin and he lifted his head to Sean and smiled.
It was a thing of white teeth and radiance, that smile. Sean had to
return it and they grinned at each other like two small boys in a
successful bit of mischief.
'If we push the oxen hard this last day we can reach Pretoria tonight,
Nkosi. ' 'Let us make the attempt. ' Sean encouraged him and walked
his horse down the slope to intercept the caravan.
