The Strength of Bone by Lucie Wilk

Author:Lucie Wilk [Wilk, Lucie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781927428405
Publisher: Biblioasis
Published: 2013-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

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Henry leans against a tree and catches his breath. He looks down at his trouser legs, dark with sweat and dusty with the red-brown dirt of the mountain. His shirt hangs open and his chest feels cool while his back is sticky and hot, so he removes his shirt, drapes it over the bend of the tree trunk. He wants to take off his trousers, too, but decides against this, as wandering the mountain in boxer shorts, deserted as it is, is still beyond him, even now, even in this state.

He looks around. He can tell how far up the mountain he is by the sweeping vista to the plains below, the fields that fluoresce white-yellow in the noon-hour sun. He must be more than halfway up by now. He cannot see the peak. He can’t see Sapitwa up there, not yet. He remembers his climb with Ellison, weeks before. They started from a different side of the mountain, a different trailhead. Nothing is familiar here, not even the plains below.

And he is off the path. In his chase after the girl, he followed her deeper into the bush, higher up the mountain, and farther off the path. He can’t even hazard a guess as to where he might go to find it again.

There are no boulders to sit on here, so he lowers himself down to the grass—short, tough, wheat-coloured grass that prickles against his palms. He looks out at the plains below. He can’t make out any sign of a village. He wonders how far around the side of the mountain he has gone. He is not even sure if the village is to the right, or to the left. He acknowledges now, with the hot noon sun making white whorls in his vision, that he is lost.

Henry looks out and sees the flat pallor of the sky above the horizon. It gives no clues, remains as blank as the first day he arrived here, the day he touched down on African soil. The blue has been filling him, sweeping in on him like a rising tide. Soon it will be all he is. Impassive like the sky. Nothing surprises him anymore. It is impossible to feel the usual sentiments that his days at home had been crowded with. Even the prospect of being lost, alone on a mountain in hot sun without food, water, or shelter, does not jolt a reaction in him. He contemplates his running shoes—reasonable footwear, he thinks. The logo is obscured by dust and he can’t remember what it is anymore. His trousers are too hot. Cotton is idiotic in this climate. He wishes he’d worn his hiking trousers—the kind made of some quick-to-dry synthetic material and converts to shorts—these are the conveniences he’d scorned when coming here. He’d wanted basic. And here he is. Man against mountain. As simple as it gets.

Henry stands. He looks down the mountain at the emptiness stretching for miles. He turns around and looks up. Just a hundred metres or so and he will be above the treeline.

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