Men of Men Read Online Free Page B

Zouga, ‘but I call them The Devil’s Own. With these two hands,’ he held up his
huge paws, the palms studded with raised calluses, the nails chipped away and black with dirt, ‘with my own hands I’ve shifted fifteen thousand tons of stuff, and the biggest stone
I’ve pulled is a two. That there,’ he pointed to the adjoining claim, ‘was Black Thomas’s claim. Yesterday he pulled a monkey, a bloody fat stinking monkey, only two feet
from my side peg. Christ! It’s enough to break your heart.’
    ‘Buy you a beer.’ Zouga jerked his head towards the nearest canteen, and the man licked his lips then shook his head regretfully.
    ‘My kid is hungry – you can see the ribs sticking out of the little bugger and I have to pay wages by noon tomorrow.’ He indicated the dozen half-naked black tribesmen
labouring with pick and bucket in the bottom of the neatly squared off excavation with him. ‘These bastards cost me a fortune every day.’
    Jock Danby spat on his callused palms and hefted the shovel, but Zouga cut in smoothly.
    ‘They do say the strike will pinch out at the level of the plain.’ At this point the kopje had been reduced to a mere twenty feet above the surrounding plain. ‘What do you
think?’
    ‘Mister, it’s bad luck to even talk like that.’ Jock checked the swing of his shovel and scowled heavily up at Zouga on the roadway above him, but there was fear in his
eyes.
    ‘You ever thought of selling out?’ Zouga asked him, and immediately Jock’s fear faded to be replaced by a sly expression.
    ‘Why, mister? You thinking of buying?’ Jock straightened. ‘Let me give you a little tip for free. Don’t even think about it, not unless you got six thousand pounds to do
the talking for you.’
    He peered up at Zouga hopefully, and Zouga stared back at him without expression.
    ‘Thank you for your time, sir, and for your sake I hope the gravel lasts.’
    Zouga touched the wide brim of his hat and sauntered away. Jock Danby watched him go, then spat viciously on the yellow ground at his feet and swung the shovel at it as though it were a mortal
enemy.
    As he walked away Zouga felt a strange sense of elation. There was a time when he had lived by the turn of a card and the fall of a die, and he felt the gambler’s instinct now. He knew the
gravel would not pinch out. He knew it sank down, pure and rich into the depths. He knew it with a deep unshakable certainty, and he knew something else with equal certainty.
    ‘The road to the north begins here.’ He spoke aloud, and felt his blood thrill in his veins. ‘This is where it begins.’
    He felt the need to make an act of faith, of total affirmation, and he knew what it must be. The price of livestock on the diggings was vastly inflated, and his oxen were costing him a guinea a
day to water. He knew how to close the road back.
    By mid-afternoon he had sold the oxen: a hundred pounds a head, and five hundred for his wagon. Now he was committed, and he felt the currents of excitement coursing through his body as he paid
the gold coin over the raw wooden counter of the tin shack that housed the branch of the Standard Bank.
    The road back was cut. He was chancing it all on the yellow gravel and the road northwards.
    ‘Zouga, you promised,’ Aletta whispered when the buyer came to Zouga’s camp to collect the oxen. ‘You promised that in one week—’ Then she fell silent when
she saw his face. She knew that expression. She drew the two boys to her and held them close.
    Jan Cheroot went to each of the animals in turn and whispered to them as tenderly as a lover, and his stare was reproachful as he turned to Zouga while the span was led away.
    Neither man spoke, and at last Jan Cheroot dropped his gaze and walked away, a slight, bare-footed, bow-legged little gnome.
    Zouga thought he had lost him, and he felt a rush of distress, for the little man was a friend, a teacher and a companion of twelve years. It was Jan Cheroot who had