I unloaded the boat and started on the first of two journeys to hump my few possessions to the place. The exposed solitary walk across the terrace in the hard light, with nerves strung high and rifle at the ready, reminded me of the classic confrontation in a Western where the good guy and the bad guy shoot it out in the empty street. The more the range closed towards The Hill the tenser I became. But there was no shot, no sound even, except that of my heels on the rock. I skirted the cliffs under the tabletop (I was now at the opposite extremity of the fortress from the hut) and made full use of the cover afforded by the scatter of great boulders which had fallen from the cliffs. Once I had rounded the point there were more sheltering boulders on the wadi side. I picked my way cautiously through these and it was with a sense of anticlimax that I reached the foot of the stairway. There was not a sign of human occupation and the sandy tracks were devoid of any but animal spoor. I dumped the gunny-sack containing my things and made my second journey to the boat via the hut and filled a jerrican with water from the tank. To get there I walked clean across the broad front of The Hill facing the river. Afterwards I relaxed, for if I was to be shot at, that would have been the time. The return to my campingplace was without incident. It took most of the afternoon to make the trips. Perhaps their uneventfulness lulled me into putting off the issue of examining the skull and mortuary-like interior of the hut — until the next day. They certainly convinced me it would be quite safe to light a small fire that night (behind the protecting screen of rocks where it wouldn't be seen) as a precaution against wild animals, and I spent until dusk gathering wood. I found a dead leadwood tree whose long-burning timber known to veldmen as 'hard-coal' — would last for hours without attention and keep prowling hyenas at bay while I slept. It also has the useful characteristic of burning with sudden sparks and flares, probably from old insect nests deep in the heartwood.
Night fell.
I hung about until it was completely dark but I didn't feel safe to settle down until I had carried out a test to see if my fire could be spotted — just in case. The night was hot but it would be cheerless sitting alone in the blackness; nevertheless, I determined to do so if necessary. I took the rifle and went to the outer limit of The Hill's fortifications facing the wadi -
in other words, the sector between the fortress itself and the adjoining ring of hills to the south. The drop from the terrace into the wadi's sandy bed was less than that on the river front: some twenty feet, I guessed. Also, the fortified wall was in a worse state of repair and there seemed to be more rolls of barbed wire here.
I found that the ring of boulders round my fire hid it com- pletely from that particular angle. Satisfied, I then worked round in a semi-circle towards Nadine's trench, checking further. Suddenly there was a movement on the ground ahead. For a moment my eyes conjured up a man crawling towards me, head up. I swung my sights on to the object; when I made out what it was I grinned with relief. A starving armadillo scuffed at the iron-hard ground and what I had taken for a head was no more threatening than a baby riding on its mother's back, tail entwined with hers. Somehow the touching sight evoked a surge of deep longing for Nadine.
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.