He went to her and, with his foot, rolled her onto her back. The dark
black mine of sodden hair smothered her face.
He knelt beside her and hooked one iron-hard finger into the front of
her blouse. With a single jerk he ripped it cleanly open, and her big
round belly bulged into the lantern light. it was white and full and
ripe with the dark pit of the navel in its centre.
Akkers giggled and wiped the rain and sweat from his face with his arm.
Then he changed his grip on the knife, reversing it so the blade would
go shallow, opening the paunch neatly from crotch to rib cage without
cutting into the intestines, a stroke as skilful as a surgeon's that he
had performed ten thousand times before.
Movement in the shadows at the edge of the light caused him to glance
up. He saw the black dog rush silently at him, saw its eyes glow in the
lantern light.
He threw up his arm to guard his throat and the furry body crashed into
him. They rolled together, with Zulu mouthing him, unable to take a
grip with his injured jaws.
Akkers changed his grip on the hilt of the carving knife and stabbed up
into the dog's rib cage, finding the faithful heart with his first
thrust. Zulu yelped once, and collapsed. Akkers pushed his glossy
black body aside, pulling out the knife and he crawled back to where
Debra lay.
The distraction that Zulu had provided gave David a chance to come up.
David ran to Akkers, and the man looked up with the muddy green eyes
glaring in the lantern light. He growled at David with the long blade
in his hand dulled by the dog's blood. He started to come to his feet,
ducking his head in exactly the same aggressive gesture as the bull
baboon.
David thrust the barrels of the shotgun into his face and he pulled both
triggers. The shot hit solidly, without spreadin& tearing into him in
the bright yellow flash and thunder of the muzzle blast, and it took
away the whole of Akkers head above the mouth, blowing it to
nothingness. He dropped into the grass with his legs kicking
convulsively, and David hurled the shotgun aside and ran to Debra.
He knelt over her and he whispered, My darling, oh my darling. Forgive
me, please forgive me. I should never have left you. Gently he picked
her up and holding her to his chest, he carried her up to the homestead.
Debra's child was born in the dawn. It was a girl, tiny and wizened and
too early for her term. If there had been skilled medical attention
available she might have lived, for she fought valiantly. But David was
clumsy and ignorant of the succour she needed. He was cut off by the
raging river and the telephone was still dead, and Debra was still
unconscious.
When it was over he wrapped the tiny little blue body in a clean sheet
and laid it tenderly in the cradle that had been prepared for her. He
felt overwhelmed by a sense of guilt at having failed the two persons
who needed him.
At three o'clock that afternoon, Conrad Berg forced a passage of the
Luzane stream with the water boiling above the level of the big wheels
