Читать книгу Huberta's Journey - Cicely van Straten - Страница 9

Five

Mist lay in the river valley one morning, veiling the reeds. Mzamuli and his cows were trotting down from the hills after a night’s grazing.

The bull stopped to discharge dung, marking his territory. Suddenly his nostrils dilated. In the mud lay a pile of strange dung and the deep prints of an intruder. Mzamuli quickly spattered his own dung over the insult and barged through the reeds to the water’s edge.

There he paused. In the shallows stood a strange bull. Mzamuli opened his maw wide and displayed his tusks. The stranger responded with a gape as wide and threatening.

Snorting anxiously, the cows shepherded their calves across the river to the sandbank. They turned to stare as Mzamuli belched up a gust of foul air, opened his maw even wider and swung his head from side to side while his curved tusks flashed. But the young bull stood his ground and insolently displayed his own tusks.

He, Sihambi7, had come to fight.

It was ten seasons since Sihambi had been driven from the herd. Having matured at eight years old, he had made his first fumbling attempt to mount a cow. The cows had chased him from the nursery and an angry bull had attacked Sihambi and driven him far into the bush.

Desolate, he had wandered along the river, seeking shade and water to cool his torn hide. Towards sunset he had approached a bachelor wallow that two young bulls had established on the outskirts of the herd domain. Submissively he had drawn near, begging acceptance. He was admitted into their company and the three young bulls had wallowed and grazed together through many seasons. They often sparred with one another, training for the day when they would attempt to wrest power from a bull with cows.

Today Sihambi, the banished youngster, returned in his prime, eighteen years old. He was driven by an urge he could not tame. He was ready to fight a bull for his cows, to kill or to be killed.

“Hom-hom-hom-hom!” Mzamuli boomed and moved slowly towards him. Sihambi did not back away.

“Grrahoom!” The old bull charged headlong and drove his massive head against Sihambi’s. With a buffeting sideswipe he sent the young bull staggering into the reeds. But Sihambi turned nimbly and presented his head again.

“Chock!” The huge skulls met. A sliver of fear crept through Mzamuli. He had not met a head like this for a long time. Fear and fury drove him to charge again, pushing Sihambi back up the muddy channel through the reeds.

When Sihambi stumbled, the old bull ripped into his neck. Bellowing, the young bull sidestepped and backed off. Surveying Mzamuli, he saw that the old bull was grunting with each breath. He was not fresh.

Years of sparring in the bachelor wallow had taught Sihambi that when you were not as heavy as your opponent, you had to tire him with running. Once out of the reed beds, he would have the advantage. So he let Mzamuli drive him further away from the river.

When they reached the sandy space beyond the fever trees, Sihambi moved nimbly around Mzamuli, darting in to slash his flanks and retreating before the huge head could send him reeling. For over an hour he taunted Mzamuli, until the old bull was bleeding from a crisscross of slashes over his flanks and shoulders.

In a desperate charge, Mzamuli drove Sihambi back, cornered him against a termite mound, slashed a long curl of white fat from his shoulder and buffeted him sideways into a thorn thicket. With a roar of fury Sihambi scrambled to his feet, scattering dust and tussocks.

The big bull stood ready for him, presenting his muzzle. Sihambi made as if to meet him head on, but sidestepped a pace or two away and slashed upwards into Mzamuli’s belly.

With a groaning belch, the old bull ran for refuge in a wild gardenia thicket. His lungs were pumping like bellows. And he was afraid, more and more afraid.

Instinct urged him to return to the cool water where his weight and exhaustion would be offset by his powerful head and tusks. He left the thicket and headed to the river.

Sihambi was waiting for him. He rushed at Mzamuli from his left side. Before the old bull could turn, Sihambi bit deep into his left hind leg, crushing sinews and bone, and retreated out of reach.

Mzamuli roared in anguish and collapsed onto the sand. Several times he tried to rise but could not. His leg was fractured.

Sihambi made a last rush at the fallen bull, but Mzamuli merely groaned.

The young bull lifted his head and thundered his triumph to the world. Then he entered the river and swam into the territory that had been Mzamuli’s. Here he turned in a circle to display his pink maw with its glistening tusks to the other bulls.

The cows on the sandbank watched the strange bull that had fought his way into Mzamuli’s place. Novikela and Nombili called to the old bull but no answering grunts came back to them.

Mzamuli lay helpless in the heat of midday. Pain throbbed through his savaged body. A pied crow slipped from a branch and pounced onto his muzzle, nipping his wounds, waiting to gouge out his eyes.

Late in the afternoon, as shadows lengthened, a bloody message flowed downstream in the water to where crocodiles lurked. Ngwenya’s long snout slid up the bank. For a moment the crocodile hung still, nose to nose with the old bull. Sensing no response, he opened his jaws, gripped the hippo’s muzzle and began to drag it into the water.

Ngwenya was old and very strong. With dogged patience, snaking to and fro with the effort but never letting go, he drew Mzamuli into the river and drowned him. Over the days to follow the crocodiles would tear his carcass apart.

At sunset Novikela and her calf huddled uncertainly on the sand bank with Mzamuli’s cows and watched the strange bull. He was calling to them, claiming his own.

But Novikela waited for the deep familiar grunts of Mzamuli. Every night for years she had come to his call. He had been as familiar to her as the river water, the sand of the sanctuary and the bodies of her calves.

Sihambi’s calls grew louder, more urgent. Hunger stirred in Novikela’s belly. She turned to the other cows, grunted acceptingly and splashed into the water.

As the cows emerged from the shallows, Sihambi and Novikela stared at each other for a long moment. Then he turned and led his cows and calves through the reeds and up the well-worn path into the hills to graze the territory that was his at last.