The Sands of Kalahari by William Mulvihill

Author:William Mulvihill [Mulvihill, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NightHawk Books
Published: 2015-02-27T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER V

SMITH was dying of thirst.

There was no place to hide from the sun; the world was flat and hard and dry and there was no water, no shade. He walked across the terrible land looking for a place where he could lie and rest out of the sun. He would be dead soon and he did not care; he understood now the strange apathy that precedes death and makes it tolerable. He was about to sit down, he down, when he saw something ahead on the flat shimmering horizon. A tree …

His tongue was something strange, sausage-thick, hot. It was early morning; he had drained the last shell sometime in the night; he would die today, before the sun set. He staggered on, finding it difficult to keep the tree in front of him. Something was wrong with his heart. His forehead was suddenly cool and he retched.

He sat down. He’d rest awhile and wait until the dry heaves went away … his heart fluttering now like a frightened bird trapped in his chest. After a while he remembered the tree and got to his feet and walked toward it. It seemed far away.

He realized he was naked.

During the night an unbearable hotness had come over him and he had stood up to catch more of the cool air blowing from the east. He began walking into it, forgetting his empty ostrich shells, his shoes and hat. He took off his pants and shirt, carried them for a while until there no longer seemed a reason. He held his burning throat and went on through the night until he fell exhausted in the sand. And then the sun came again.

The tree was gone. He stopped, discovered he was walking away from it. As he watched, the tree became two, then four, then one again… .

He walked to it. The ground under him suddenly was very far away. He felt as if he were walking on stilts. He came toward a large stone, tried desperately not to step on it but somehow he couldn’t avoid it. He tripped and fell, swore.

He began to crawl. The dust entered his eyes and he closed them and crawled on over the baked earth and the stones. The pain did not matter; he had to get to the tree so that he could die in the shade.

He slumped down and rested for a long time as the sun rose higher. A naked man lying in a vast flat plain where nothing lived. A vulture came from far away and circled. Then another.

Smith opened his eyes and looked ahead and after a long time he saw that his tree was not a tree but a tiny bush less than a foot high, a strange growth with thick, rubbery leaves. He was ten feet from it.

He gathered his strength and crawled toward it, put his head under its tiny branches, its few dozen leaves. He brushed the pebbles away until the ground was soft for his cheek.

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