Wilbur Smith - On Leopard Rock: A Life of Adventures

Praise for the novels of Wilbur Smith

Read on, adventure fans.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

A rich, compelling look back in time [to] when history and myth intermingled.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Only a handful of 20th century writers tantalize our senses as well as Smith. A rare author who wields a razor-sharp sword of craftsmanship.

TULSA WORLD

He paces his tale as swiftly as he can with swordplay aplenty and killing strokes that come like lightning out of a sunny blue sky.

KIRKUS REVIEWS

Best Historical NovelistI say Wilbur Smith, with his swashbuckling novels of Africa. The bodices rip and the blood flows. You can get lost in Wilbur Smith and misplace all of August.

STEPHEN KING

Action is the name of Wilbur Smiths game and he is the master.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Smith manages to serve up adventure, history and melodrama in one thrilling package that will be eagerly devoured by series fans.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

This well-crafted novel is full of adventure, tension, and intrigue.

LIBRARY JOURNAL

Life-threatening dangers loom around every turn, leaving the reader breathless... An incredibly exciting and satisfying read.

CHATTANOOGA FREE PRESS

When it comes to writing the adventure novel, Wilbur Smith is the master; a 21st Century H. Rider Haggard.

VANITY FAIR

Also by Wilbur Smith

The Courtney Series

When the Lion Feeds

The Sound of Thunder

A Sparrow Falls

The Burning Shore

Power of the Sword

Rage

A Time to Die

Golden Fox

Birds of Prey

Monsoon

Blue Horizon

The Triumph of the Sun

Assegai

Golden Lion

War Cry

The Tigers Prey

The Ballantyne Series

A Falcon Flies

Men of Men

The Angels Weep

The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

The Triumph of the Sun

The Egyptian Series

River God

The Seventh Scroll

Warlock

The Quest

Desert God

Pharaoh

Hector Cross

Those in Peril

Vicious Circle

Predator

Standalones

The Dark of the Sun

Shout at the Devil

Gold Mine

The Diamond Hunters

The Sunbird

Eagle in the Sky

The Eye of the Tiger

Cry Wolf

Hungry as the Sea

Wild Justice

Elephant Song

Wilbur Smith is a global phenomenon: a distinguished author with an established readership built up over fifty-five years of writing with sales of over 130 million novels worldwide.

Born in Central Africa in 1933, Wilbur became a full-time writer in 1964 following the success of When the Lion Feeds. He has since published forty-one global bestsellers, including the Courtney Series, the Ballantyne Series, the Egyptian Series, the Hector Cross Series and many successful standalone novels, all meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide. His books have now been translated into twenty-six languages.

The establishment of the Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation in 2015 cemented Wilburs passion for empowering writers, promoting literacy and advancing adventure writing as a genre. The foundations flagship program is the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.

For all the latest information on Wilbur visit www.wilbursmithbooks.com or facebook.com/WilburSmith .

ON LEOPARD ROCK

A Life of Adventures

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Zaffre Publishing

Zaffre Publishing, an imprint of Bonnier Zaffre Ltd, a Bonnier Publishing company.

80-81 Wimpole St, London W1G 9RE

Copyright Orion Mintaka (UK) Ltd. 2018

Charles Picks Memoirs: Charles Pick Archive, University of East Anglia

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

First published in the United States of America in 2018 by Zaffre Publishing

Typeset by Scribe Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-49986-124-2

Digital ISBN: 978-1-49986-128-0

For information, contact 251 Park Avenue South, Floor 12, New York, New York 10010

www.bonnierzaffre.com / www.bonnierpublishing.com

Contents

This book is for you, My NisoJon, with my undying token of eternal love.

Your husband

Wilbur

There is no such things as magic, though there is such a thing as knowledge of the hidden ways of NatureH. Rider Haggard, She

TWILIGHT

A frica is ancient, vast, monumental, a country of death and renewal. We may think man is the dominant species, but on these everlasting plains with the blue sky hazed by a searing sun, the rhythms of life are indifferent to us. Here we are allowed freedom, our spirit its release, but only if in return we offer respect, loyalty and humility.

In the midday sun my wife and I seek shade, and, with my back resting against a tree, Im as still as I can be to conserve energy. I take a mouthful of water. The grass is sharp and dry, gilded with dust, and I can hear the slow rush of life in the air, in the bushes, in the soil, a mechanical murmur like the stirring of blood with the pulse of my heartbeat. The wilderness is as beautiful as love and as deadly as heartbreak. I turn to my wife, and she looks at me and smiles, but sometimes I think there is pity in her eyes for this driven man, condemned to never-ending wandering, in pursuit of something he cannot define, that will probably always be beyond his grasp. What sort of man has she committed herself to? What is this journey she decided to embark upon?

A week ago, she sat with me in a crude grass hide, staring through its eye-slit down a narrow tunnel that had been beaten out of the dense bush by the gun bearers, for a bullet traveling at 3000 feet a second could be deflected by even the smallest twig. The tunnel had been paced out to precisely sixty yards so that the rifle could be zeroed in with pinpoint accuracy.

My rifle was resting in the vee of a branch in front of me and I only had to lift it an inch or two to be ready to aim and fire. The rifle was a .416 Rigby, a tenth anniversary present from my wife.

Before we had left camp, we had showered using unscented soap so that the big cats would be less likely to pick up our smell; otherwise they could sniff us out downwind for two miles.

We had baited the site with the carcass of a buffalo cow and the stench was wafting into our hide as we sat below the prevailing wind. The cow Id selected was well past its breeding prime and one of a herd of several hundred of the muscular black animals. A shot low on the shoulder and through the heart dropped her dead before she hit the ground. The heavy rifle crash had echoed across the plain and sent the herd scattering as blood surged from the wound in the harsh sunlight, the cows deep death roar as always inspiring in me an electric shock of exhilaration and regret.

The trackers had cut up the animal and hoisted her into a tree at a height that would allow a lion stretching on its back legs to feed, but not to take the bait whole. It wasnt long before the blowflies appeared like shiny round ballbearings to a strong magnet and hastened the putrefaction.

The smell of death contains its own unique primordial fear, and as we waited for the cats to come alive to the prey, the sun slipped slowly in the sky and lent the bush an apricot glow, allowing the colors to become saturated, heavy with their own beauty. The dusk encouraged the birds to emerge, fighting for their territory and staking their claim with raucous abandon, the parrots swooping like fragments of rainbow. There was a pair of sunbirds, anxious and flighty in their rich-sheen plumage, siphoning nectar from yellow flowers.

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