Two Moons by J. Raymond Ractliffe - Chapter 13

Two Moons is a new novel by J. Raymond Ractliffe that explores the inner spirit life of Africa, her people and their powerful faith in the world of the Unseen.

The Mark of the Two Moons
Chapter 13

        Jeremy paused, the cloth wrapped around his hand wiping the sweat away from his eyes. He had slowly walked back through the bush they had dashed through to get to the Old Woman. It seemed like days since they had torn through the bush to save Matthew from bleeding to death. Could it be only yesterday that the nightmare of the charging rhino had changed the day and life of them all?

He stopped by a large stone, letting the water skin slip from his weary shoulder. He pulled at the wooden stop and let the water trickle into his mouth, savouring each drop as it quenched his burning thirst. Cracked lips stung and he stopped drinking. He must leave more if he was to survive this walk. The burn yesterday on his shirtless back had already drained him, more of the same today under the blistering sun and he would get heatstroke quickly and die.

Squinting to the simmering red horizon, Jeremy found the point where he had mentally marked his direction after he had scaled the path up the rocky hilltop.

He must have walked several miles now, over fallen rock and sandy trails, thin pathways that wound their way through trees, bush and tall grasses. Still no sign of where the rifles might be, they were still a way off.

My God! They had travelled much further with Matthew than he had thought. Konjaru's version of "not so far" as usual had been for his benefit, knowing it was this long a trek or hike, he might not have agreed to have considered this decision.

He pulled the water skin back on his shoulder, walking stick ready in his hand, a weary sigh escaped his lips as he set off again to find the farm and the comfort security of home.

A way behind him, a fragment of cloth had fallen from his bound hands. It was nothing in the vast brown and green landscape, so small only the ants and sand blowing would have found it. Blood from cracked and blistered hands had stained the cloth a muddy brown. Laying beside the path, the warming air had found this new scent in the morning, it began to endlessly tug at it until it could carry the scent away on its wings.

The faint scent rose above the treetops, over the tall elephant grasses and thorn bush, over the dead tree stumps that littered the landscape, until the winds finally sagged with fatiqque and it faltered to the ground, a whiff now left almost spent and gone.

A lone yellow stripped female hyena, an outcast and well past her prime, walked past the dying scent. Its nostrils wet and blowing for signs of game. The winds changed direction suddenly and wound the last of the blood scent up from the ground around its nose. It back-tracked suddenly, breathing in deeply the last minute drops of blood. Finding no trail on the sands or tree limbs, it raised it head and sniffed the hot air that had brought it here.

It turned and followed the air stream up the slow incline of land to the west. Laughing and grunting, it trotted its way along with his stooped oversized broad shoulders, holding an oversized head and Africa's most powerful jaws. The hyena continued until it found a feint trail, fresh large sand prints unknown to it, led down the way. What looked like a three-legged animal added to the hyena's curiosity. It sauntered along, nose close to the ground, then raising it in the air to follow the air streams, mouth dripping with wet drooling saliva in anticipation of an easy hunt.

A bleeding animal in the bush never ventures far, they finally lay down to rest by a shadowed tree or high stone at their final stage, frightened muscles would cramp and lock them in a sitting position, unable to move when laughing death approached them as they screamed.