A Feast Unknown (14 page)

(An aside, for the reader’s benefit. I also have an M.D.
from Johns Hopkins and a Ph.D. in African Linguistics from the University of Berlin. I have not been entirely idle in my almost eighty years.)

I had destroyed all evidences of mining, too. I thought that it would be a long time before anybody found anything. Even in these times, when Africa is relatively crowded and men are everywhere, few get to these rugged mountains. Moreover, the area has a reputation among the natives for being demon-haunted.

So I was surprised when we came over the mountain and looked down into the valley. At least a hundred men were digging on the site of the ruins or on the west side of the valley.

Noli swore. He tied me to a tree and studied the valley through his binoculars for a long time. I took the opportunity to strain against the handcuffs, as I did every time his eyes were not on me. The metal was made of very tough material, otherwise I would have parted the links a long time ago. I stopped when Noli turned to untie me, and we went down the mountain, but away from the floor of the valley. When we had reached the top of the next mountain he again studied the intruders, after tying me to another tree.

“There’s a strip of land which looks level enough for a plane to land on,” he said. “Although from here you can’t be sure. Is there a place where a plane could land?”

“There is,” I said. “But these men may have come in by foot. I think someone told them where the gold is. Otherwise, they would have captured me first to make me tell. They would not have tried to kill me before they found out what they needed to know.”

He looked through the glasses again. He said, “How did you know they were Kenyans?”

“It seemed likely,” I said.

“They’ve removed their insignia because they’re in Uganda, but they’re Kenyan.”

He put the binoculars down and turned to me. He was redfaced and scowling. The tips of his moustachios quivered.

“You said the gold was in the valley beyond this one!”

I did not answer. He began to beat me again. I kicked out against his shin and knocked him down and then kicked him in the chest with the sole of my foot. He rolled away and fought to regain his wind. I spat at him.

He looked as if he would like to kill me. He would have, since he knew, or thought he knew, where the gold was. But there was the elixir. He said, “You will pay dearly for this.”

“I have paid,” I said. “That kick was for the beating. But I still owe you for much more. And I am one who pays his debts.”

“Is the gold really down there?” he said.

“They will find none,” I said. “Not unless they dig much deeper than I did. The only way you, or they, can get my gold is to demand a ransom. My fortune is secure in fifty banks throughout the world.”

He grimaced. He could walk only by limping. I had kicked him harder than I had intended.

“Caliban is down there,” I said, “and he is showing himself so that the soldiers will chase him. But they won’t catch him. They will catch us instead, unless we travel far and fast, because he will lead them to us.”

He looked at the northern end of the valley, where we
had crossed. The tiny figure should have been unidentifiable to the naked eye. He had, however, shed all his clothes. The sun gleamed on that metal-cap-like hair and the bronze skin. He moved as if he were a cloud driven by the wind.

A number of Kenyans were running towards him and firing, though he was so far from them they had no chance of hitting him. Others on the slope were after him, too. He angled in towards them. They may have been puzzled about that, but they took advantage of it.

He came up the mountainside like a great bronze-colored rock baboon. I have never seen a man run up such a steepness and rockiness so swiftly or bound so from projection to projection.

“He is leading them up to us,” I said.

Noli had been watching him through the binoculars. He said, “Why is he doing that?”

He did not comment on Calibans prodigious climbing. His expression was strange, however.

I saw no reason to tell Noli that Caliban was putting me to the test again.

“Unlock the handcuffs,” I said. “I can’t get away from you as long as I’m within range of your gun.”

He smiled briefly and said, “You know I won’t shoot unless I have to. No. You stay cuffed.”

“At least let my hands be in front of me.”

“No.”

“You can’t run very fast,” I said. “The only way to stop them will be to roll rocks down and hope to start an avalanche. The slope here is a steep and loose talus. You’ll need help. I can’t help with my hands behind me.”

He waved his rifle. “Let’s go. We can still outrun them.”

I saw no reason to go along with Noli an inch more. We had come to the parting of the ways.

I strained against the handcuffs. I thought I would rip out the muscles of my arms and the veins of my temples with my effort. There was a snap, and my hands came free. He backed away, his skin white and his eyes wide. He swore in Albanian.

I turned away from him and looked over the edge of the rock. Caliban was slowed down. The Kenyans had quit firing at him. About fifty were strung out in a rough line about three hundred yards long. The rest were still on the valley floor. They had stopped firing because they realized they could precipitate an avalanche.

I picked up a boulder which must have weighed three hundred pounds and lifted it above my head. I shouted at Caliban. He had stopped now. He was about forty feet below me. His feet were on a ledge so narrow that I could almost not see it, and his hands were gripping some projections invisible to me. His head was thrown back, and he stared straight up at me. He looked like a statue carved out of the mountain itself.

I shouted, “Catch, Caliban!” and heaved the boulder outwards.

I don’t think he expected us to be so close. He must have thought we would be at least a half-mile on and desperately striving to increase the distance.

The boulder fell for twenty feet, hit an outcropping, bounded out, struck ten feet above Caliban, broke off rock and dust and bumped past him. I could see him dimly through the cloud.

I picked up a smaller boulder and tossed it after the first. It missed all the outcrops the first had struck and, as nearly as I could determine through the dust, should have hit Caliban. Or the place where he had been. Still was, I hoped. Or did I? I felt some sense of disappointment that the relationship was so soon over and that he had been so easily disposed of.

That is, if he had been. I would not have stayed a second in the same spot, and I doubted that he would.

The first boulder had leaped on down like a great legless kangaroo. It had hit something, a loose pile, an unstable boulder or cluster of boulders. The avalanche started. The dust rose so thickly that I could not see what was happening. A noise as of two clashing thunderstorms arose, and soon the flat rock on which I stood began to tremble. We retreated. The edge of the mountain did not, however, fall off. It remained firm, although it, too, became hidden in dust.

When the rumbling had ceased and the cloud had thinned, I crawled out onto the edge and looked down. The face of the mountain was somewhat changed. There were some fresh wounds in it, naked rock exposed by the slipping away of the massive piles. At the foot of the mountain, out across half of the valley, was a mass of rocks. No Kenyans were to be seen. Only their possessions, tents, supplies, and material, had escaped.

Nor was anything to be seen of Caliban.

Noli was still pale, but he managed a smile and said, “
We
certainly wiped them out, heh, Lord Grandrith?”

He was holding the rifle with both hands, and he was watching my hands. I said, “I know you have another pair of handcuffs in the pocket of your jacket. I will allow you to put them on me only if my hands are in front of me. There will be
some very difficult climbing ahead, and it will be impossible for me to climb with my hands behind me. In fact, it may be impossible with handcuffs.”

I held out my arms. He took the key out of his pocket and threw it to me. “Unlock those cuffs.”

While I was doing so, he took out the other pair of cuffs.

“You will put them on yourself,” he said. “You didn’t really think I would get close enough to you for you to grab me, did you?”

“I thought I would try,” I said.

He threw the cuffs at me and I caught them with one hand, spun, and released them as I completed the circle. The cuffs flew at him; he jerked the rifle up to ward them off; I was in at him, throwing myself like an American football blocker. The rifle blast seared my back; I hit him in the hips; he went down and over.

By the time he had gotten to his feet, I had the rifle.

At my order, he presented his back to me. I knocked him out with the rifle butt and chained his hands behind him. I put the key in his jacket pocket and sat down. When he regained consciousness, he groaned and fluttered his eyelids. I slapped his face to bring him to more quickly.

I lifted him up and passed a noose from his rope around his arms and body a few inches below his shoulders. I shoved him ahead. He balked but nevertheless went screaming over the edge. I pulled up on the rope so that it tightened before he had gone more than a body’s length down. He dangled, his back scraping the perpendicular face of the cliff. He tried to look up at me, but the weight of his body and the pressure of the rock behind his head prevented him.

I lowered him slowly and gently. I did not want the rope to
loosen and so drop him down the cliff. Then I jerked the rope and managed to turn him so he faced the cliff. He saw the tiny ledge below his feet. After some effort, he got his feet firmly placed on the narrow cropping. The heels of his boots hung over the air.

I let more slack into the rope and succeeded in working it loose from his body and pulling it back up. He must have wanted greatly to look upward, but he did not dare. He could maintain his position on the ledge only by pressing face and body in against the rock.

I called, “Noli! You can’t go more than a few inches to the right or left! Yet, if you can get your hands in front of you, and somehow get the key out of your front pocket, and then unlock the cuffs, you can climb back up here!”

I paused. He said nothing. I said, “I’m giving you a chance to live, to get free! I’m leaving your rifle and bandolier and knife here, so that you might be able to get back to civilization, if you get out of your first predicament!

“Perhaps I’m being stupid! Maybe I should have tossed you over the edge, instead of giving you a chance to live! A very small chance, true, but still a chance!”

He did not say anything or move. He was probably afraid that the slightest motion would lose him his footing. Later, he would have to make the effort, no matter what the consequences. If he just remained there in paralysis, he would weaken, his legs would bend, and out and down he would go.

I relished that thought. It was so delightful, it gave me a semi-erection. For a moment, I was tempted to go back and drop stones on him until he did fall, just to find out if the fall itself would give me an orgasm.

I left the rifle as I had promised. First, I plugged the muzzle with dirt. If he should have the great nerve and limberness and strength and very good luck to get out of this situation, he would count himself very fortunate. He would inspect the rifle, of course, unless he was so upset or elated that he forgot his usual suspicions. If he did, and he fired it, he would lose his face.

I always check out any firearms that have been out of my sight for even a short time. Once, an enemy did the very thing to me that I was now doing to Noli.

19

Before leaving, I surveyed the valley again. The dust had almost entirely settled. On the slope of the mountain on the other side, several figures appeared. I looked through the binoculars. I could not be sure at this distance, but it seemed that the party was the two old men and the blacks.

I wondered how far Caliban intended to let them come. He knew the consequences if he deliberately brought outsiders anywhere near the next mountain.

That was his concern. I hurried on across the top of the mountain and halfway down found a sort of cave beneath three huge boulders. I slept uneasily on the cold hard stone. More than once I awoke, thinking I heard the rattle of a displaced rock or the scrape of a knife against stone. Twice, I dreamed that a huge shadowy figure was sneaking through the darkness towards me. Once, the eyes glowed with a strange swirling golden-flecked bronze light.