The rifle slithered across the rock and dropped over the edge, and they
lay chest to chest with legs locked together in a horrible parody of the
love act. But in this act we do not procreate, we destroy!
Hendry's face was purple and swollen above his damaged throat, his
Mouth open as he struggled for air, and his breath smelt old and sour in
Bruce's face.
With a twist towards the thumb Bruce freed his right wrist from
Hendry's grip and, lifting it like an axe, brought it down across the
bridge of Hendry's nose. Twin jets of blood spouted from the nostrils
and gushed into his open mouth.
With a wet strangling sound in his throat Hendry's body arched violently
upwards and Bruce was thrown back against the side of the cliff with
such force that for a second he lay there.
Wally was on his knees, facing Bruce, his eyes glazed and
sightless, and the strangling rattling sound spraying from his throat in
a pink cloud of blood. With both hands he was fumbling his pistol out of
its canvas holster.
Bruce drew his knees up on to his chest, then straightened his legs in a
mule kick. His feet landed together in the centre of
Hendry's stomach, throwing him backwards off the platform. Hendry made
that strangled bellow all the way to the bottom, but at the end it was
cut off abruptly, and afterwards there was only the sound of the wind in
the forest below.
For a long time, drained of strength and the power to think, Bruce sat
on the ledge with his back against the rock.
Above him the clouds had rolled aside and half the sky was blue.
He looked out across the land and the forest was lush and clean from the
rain. And I am still alive. The realization warmed Bruce's mind as
comfortably as the early sun was warming his body. He wanted to shout it
out across the forest. I am still alive!
At last he stood up, crossed to the edge of the cliff and looked down at
the tiny crumpled figure on the rocks below.
Then he turned away and dragged his beaten body down the side of the
turret.
It took him twenty minutes to find Wally Hendry in the chaos of broken
rock and scrub below the turret. He lay on his side with his legs drawn
up as though he slept. Bruce knelt beside him and drew his pistol from
the olive-green canvas holster; then he unbuttoned the flap of Hendry's
bulging breast pocket and took out the white canvas bag.
He stood up, opened the mouth of the bag and stirred the diamonds with
his forefinger. Satisfied, he jerked the drawstring closed and dropped
them into his own pocket.
In death he is even more repulsive than he was alive, thought
Bruce without regret as he looked down at the corpse.
The flies were crawling into the bloody nostrils and clustering round
the eyes.
Then he spoke aloud.
'So Mike Haig was right and I was wrong - you can destroy it.'
Without looking back he walked away. The tiredness left him.
