"S. M. Stirling - Draka 05 - Drakas!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

They settled in around the waterhole, the troopers tethering and unsaddling the horses, then wandering
briefly about the Bushman camp, examining the bodies and commenting on their marksmanship, picking
up souvenirs from among the Bushmen's abandoned possessions. One man was fingering a little bow, like
something a child would make to play Indians, and a couple of arrows, being very careful with the latter;
the slightest scratch from the poisoned tip could be mortal. Another man found a collection of ostrich-egg
shells, the Bushmen's water container of choice, in one of the tiny grass huts; the other troopers gathered
around, drinking and laughing and filling their canteens.

Ubi and Jonas came out of the bush, grinning, and spoke to Luther Boss.

"They caught a couple of women," the old hunter told Custer. "Had themselves a little entertainment, too,
I'd wager."

The trackers looked at each other and then at Custer, still grinning. They were an odd-looking pair; Ubi
was tall and long-limbed and very blackтАФHerero, he claimed, with a dash of Zulu and a touch of
HottentotтАФbut Jonas was almost as small as the bodies on the ground, and close to the same color. His
mother had been full-blood River Bushman, taken in childhood from her home in the Okavango marshes
by Ba-tswana slave raiders and sold to a brothel in Virconium; he had, he admitted cheerfully, no idea
who or what his father had been.

Both men had been with Luther Boss for a very long time. Technically they were his bondservants, as
much his property as his horse or his rifle. In reality the relationship was obviously more complex, with an
easy familiarity that annoyed some white men.

"They say maybe eight people got away," the scout continued. "Maybe nine. They think all men."

Whom, of course, they hadn't pursued too closely in the high grass; why risk a poisoned arrow when
there was safer and, as a bonus, rapeable prey to be had?
Custer said, "Decurion, have the men haul these bodies clear of the area. Take them a good long way
out, or the hyenas will be spooking the horses all night."

The waterhole turned out to be a pretty desperate affair, even for the Kalahari in August. The sandy soil
was thin here, and next to the Bushmen's camp the rock was fully exposed in a low rough outcrop, which
some ancient force had cracked right down the middle. The water was deep at the bottom of the cleft,
out of sight and very nearly out of reach.

But Jonas took off all his clothes and wriggled down into the fissure, clutching a gourd dipper taken from
a Bushman shelter, while Ubi stood ready to lower the canteens down after him. Custer watched,
amazed; it didn't seem possible a human being could fit himself into such a tight space, let alone move
about down there.

"Hewers of wood and drawers of water," Decurion Shaw said to Custer, "eh, Centurion?"

***

The next day's ride was a very long and hard one, just as Luther Boss had predicted. But at the end
there was a good waterhole, more accessible than the last, and as the men made camp Ubi and Jonas
found fresh Bushman sign.

"They say we'll catch them tomorrow, sure," Boss reported, and Custer let out a grateful sigh. With any