Geoffrey Jenkins - A Cleft Of Stars

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.