Tandia (113 page)

Peekay was beginning to feel slightly nauseous from loss of blood; he was growing weaker but enough strength remained. The wound was clean; under the collarbone and out the other side, smashing a hole through the shoulder blade. His arm was getting very stiff and painful but he'd tom his sleeve, plugging the bleeding, though he could feel his back was wet, sticky with blood. Peekay came at last to the narrow gap between the two high cliffs. It was here that he hoped finally to lose Geldenhuis. It was well concealed and in the shadow of the towering rock, a place you could pass fifty times and not see. He slipped into the darkness of the narrow opening, moving quietly. Soon he was on the other side looking down into the rainforest below. On the side opposite to him was the cliff face that contained the crystal cave. To the right of the concealed entrance to the cave the bridal veil fell, the fine white spray of water turning pink in the late afternoon sun. Below him the huge old yellowwood tree stood high above the canopy of trees, the way it had stood sentinel for six hundred years, maybe more.

Peekay moved slowly down the slope, his bad shoulder making it difficult and painful to do so. He was sweating, the sweat cold, coming from the pain. Twice he stopped to hear if he was being followed but he heard nothing. It took him fifteen minutes to get to the floor of the forest below and he stopped briefly at the stream to drink. He was growing weak but he knew he must somehow get to the ledge beside the cave, get into the crystal cave to Doc. Peekay knew that he was losing too much blood, that by morning he'd be unconscious and too weak to climb out of the kloof. He had somehow to find the strength to climb up to the cave, to lie beside Doc. He moved through the dark cover of the trees reaching the base of the cliff. 'Please, Doc, give me the strength,' he cried softly, looking up at the rock face towering above him. 'Just one more time, give me the strength I need.'

Peekay took off his rucksack, gingerly pulling its bloodsoaked strap off his left shoulder. His movements were slow, conserving his strength. He didn't panic; panic races the blood. He took half-a-dozen climbing spikes and the tiny hammer and fitted them into his belt. He also took the torch and attached it as well. He started up the rock face moving slowly, judging every move. His shoulder had started to bleed profusely as he demanded work from the arm; his teeth cut through his lower lip from the pain. Sometimes he was so dizzy he was forced to stand with his back to the cliff to prevent himself falling.

Geldenhuis lost Peekay. He'd caught sight of him for a moment as they worked across a ridge but then they approached a huge towering bluff and Peekay had vanished. He knew he must be in the vicinity; beyond the huge bluff the mountain fell sheer for a thousand feet. Peekay had disappeared into the rock. It was getting late, in less than an hour it would be sunset. Night comes quickly in the mountains. He wasn't even sure if he knew his way back. But he was past caring. Nothing else mattered to him now but the kill. He was so close, he could smell the death he was going to bring about. For forty minutes he searched, passing the entrance a dozen times before seeing the blood spot and looking into the dark, narrow fissure in the cliff face. He had to slide in sideways. At first the entrance didn't appear to lead anywhere, just a huge fissure in the towering cliff and then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the softer light, he saw another drop of blood. He moved on, squeezing through the narrowest bit which wasn't much wider than his body turned sideways. Suddenly he was looking down into a kloof of rainforest. In the centre a huge tree rose above all the others; at the far end, a cliff with a waterfall to its right held the kloof in its lap. He saw where Peekay had made his descent and then more blood.

Geldenhuis was able to follow the blood spoor down to the floor of the rainforest below. Once he reached the rainforest floor he lost it, but he kept going; moving along the stream he found another spot of blood on a rock. It was dark and still under the canopy of trees but he forced his way up the stream towards the waterfall. When he reached it he moved along the cliff face to his right, choosing it instinctively. He'd lost the blood trail but then he saw Peekay's rucksack and, looking up, he saw the blood on the cliff face above him; it was smeared over parts of the rock face where Peekay's shoulder had wiped against the rock. Geldenhuis could see clearly how to make the climb, but he would have to do so without his rifle. He placed it on the rock" and felt to make sure the knife was on his belt. He began to climb, moving as quietly as possible up the bloodstained rock.

Peekay had finally reached the ledge. He was totally exhausted. The wound had tom further and he was bleeding profusely. He was too weak to do anything about it. He could feel the setting sun on his face as he lay there, trying to gather sufficient strength to venture onto the six-inch ledge which led to the cave entrance. He would have to wait a while and gather his strength, harvesting every little bit until he had sufficient for the last short journey, the precarious ledge, the crawl down the narrow tunnel into the bat cave and then into the crystal cave of Africa itself, where Doc lay waiting for him, his long body turning slowly into crystal, into Africa itself, the blood and the muscle and the spirit of him entering into the mystic land. He would lie with Doc, they'd be together again. If only he could find the strength. The ledge was warm and it seemed a nice place to be. He could see the dark smudge of mountains in the distance silhouetted against the red sky of a setting sun. Those mountains were in Swaziland, Tandia would be there by now. Tandia had made it.

Peekay must have passed out, or perhaps he was dreaming, because he wakened to see a face standing above him.

It looked like Jannie Geldenhuis. Only it wasn't. It was a Jannie Geldenhuis who had gone mad. The face above him was going to kill him. He followed the face's hand and saw the knife Gert had made for him, the death's head knife.

He'd given it to Gideon, but now it was on the belt of the mad face of Geldenhuis. The blade drew out, sharp and beautiful, as keen to strike as death itself, the blade made into a miracle from a Dodge truck spring, deadly and cunning in Gert's brilliant hands. A spring under a Dodge truck that had gone mad and turned into a killer blade. That was funny. The knife came up and Peekay began to laugh.

The knife Gert made to protect him from hate; he'd given it to Gideon because the hatred against him was bigger, he needed Gert's blade more to equal the odds against him.

But he should have known, hate cannot live in a good man's hands for long, hate has to find the fingers it knows. The knife had found the hate it needed in the grip of the white policeman's madness. Now Gert's knife was going to kill Peekay. In the end hate was going to win. You had to laugh.

He'd been wrong after all. In the end, blind ignorant hate with a knife in its hand had triumphed over love and compassion which always came open-handed. The blade came up into a high arc, beautiful against a blood-red sky.

A shadow passed slowly over Peekay as Dum moved up the ledge behind Geldenhuis. She snarled like an animal, lifting him off his feet, her white teeth flashing as they sunk into his throat, hurling herself off the ledge with Geldenhuis pulled tightly against her body. Peekay heard him scream and then the crash of their bodies, the black and the white, as they smashed onto the rocks a hundred and fifty feet below where their blood mixed and flowed together at the base of the great altar of rock.
Together since the world began, the madman and the lover.

Peekay lay still for a long time. The moon came up, full and glorious, a bright florin of light in the African night. He'd always liked the full moon. He was back in the night country. He stood on the rock above the top waterfull ready to jump. 'You must jump now, little warrior of the king,' he heard Inkosi-Inkosikazi say.

Peekay launched himself into the silver air. This time he seemed to float and the old witchdoctor's voice came to him again, but from a distance. 'You are wearing the skirt of the lion tail as you face into the setting sun. Now the sun has passed beyond Zululand, even past the land of the Swazi and now it leaves the Shangaan and the royal kraal of Mojaji, the rain queen, to be cooled in the great dark water beyond.

'You can see the moon rising over Africa and you are at peace, unafraid of the great demon Skokiaan who comes to feed on the night, tearing its black flesh until at last it is finished and there is light again and the people sing softly in the morning.'

Peekay saw the journey, the bittersweet journey from the beginning, from the soft warm black breasts that suckled him, the warm taste of milk, more than you could drink if you tried your hardest. He heard the click of the train wheels carrying him to the east, a small child frightened as a butterfly.
Small can beat big, you must remember only one thing, little boetie, first with the head and then with the heart.
It was Hoppie's voice coming to him as he flew higher and higher…Grandpa Chook, Geel Piet,
Dance, klein baas, that way they think you not hurt.
Captain Smit, E. W., Hymie, who would love him now? Beautiful Hymie…

Such a fortunate life…Peekay rose higher and higher, floating on the silver night above Africa. He passed over a village, a high mountain village where the yellow moon clung to the peaks and the bluffs. Below him in a tiny mound of scarlet cashmere Somojo sat, his grizzled head clear in the firelight. He was in a trance. 'A woman has come into the village, Somojo, a woman of no tribe,' one of the princesses said quietly. 'She gave me this and told me she must bring it to you.' Somojo's tiny hand, bony as an ancient monkey's claw, rose from the scarlet blanket and she placed the leather pouch within it. 'You are wrong, my child,' the old, old man moaned softly. The mother of the morning star belongs to every tribe. Lumukanda is back with us.'