The Diamond Bogo

by Robert F. Jones

  “So you have indoor plumbing,” said Buck. “But where do you get your water? I hope it’s not from the same underground river.”

  “Of course not,” snapped Clickrasp. “Most of the houses have their own wells—the water table is quite near the surface this close to the mountains—but we also have three stone mains, again the contribution of Dr. Park, which flow by gravity feed from springs just north of the city. Enemies might try to poison the springs, and thus the city, but we can always fall back on the wells in that event.”

  They walked on through the winding lanes, Clicky stopping frequently to talk with the citizenry. There was no sense of pomp or condescension in his manner, Bucky noted, but rather a genuine aura of warmth and egalitarianism. Indeed, Clicky bowed to every older person and woman who greeted him, clapped the men on the shoulders, and picked up most of the children for a quick hug and kiss. Most of the houses had small vegetable gardens behind them, and many of the women emerged from these plots, their hands black with loam which they brushed off on their skin skirts as they hastened up. Bucky studied the gardens, but saw little that he recognized. There were gigantic purple squashlike fruits growing under broad-leafed vines; a bush that bore yellow foot-long pods bulging with what looked like baseball-sized peas or beans; leafy plants with crinkled edges that resembled certain lettuces, yet stood as tall as a man. Fruit trees were interspersed in the gardens and around the houses, some of them hung heavy with globules that resembled oranges, avocados, and papayas. Giant sunflowers marked the verges of the gardens, blazing orange and yellow around their dark-brown faces. At this altitude, Bucky thought, with this intensity of sunlight this close to the equator, why not? It’s a gardener’s paradise. The whiff of compost heap came to his nostrils, cutting sharply across the sweet scent of blossoms. It reminded him of his grandmother’s garden back home, in his boyhood. An Austrian immigrant, she had had the greenest of thumbs. Gooseberries the size of marbles; sweet plums that she baked in a softer version of potato dough and called Zwetschchenknödel; cabbages big as basketballs; and always the sour, biting scent of the compost, rotting behind the garden, an intimation of death and regeneration.

  Farther on they passed what appeared to be a communal bath. Wisps of steam rose from the rocky pool in which a few Tok men and women lolled, chin-deep in the hot water. A faint odor of sulfur reached them. The pool was surrounded by carefully tended shrubs and small trees, and artfully arranged piles of varicolored rock, wind- and water-worn, that glowed in the noon light. It reminded Bucky of the hotsi-bath gardens in the inns of Japan, and indeed he noticed one Tok female scrubbing herself assiduously beside the pool with something that frothed like soap before she entered the bath itself.

  “We built that bath only fifteen years ago,” said Clickrasp, noticing Buck’s attention. “At the behest of an American captive, who had spent some time in Japan. During the Occupation. Nice chap, a wealthy banker from Philadelphia. Can’t recall his name. We took him alive down in the flats west of Lake Tok, where he was seeking a world-record beisa oryx. Taught us a lot about money matters—the gold outflow, balance of payments, your declining natural resources, that sort of thing. He finally committed suicide, though. Got bored with us and ripped his belly open with a diamond-bladed butter knife. Seppuku, he called it.”

  “You’re quite adaptive to other cultural styles,” Bucky said.

  “Yes,” Click agreed. “As you’ll see when our weapons arrive.” He giggled behind his hand. “Now then, here’s my home. Let’s go in and say hello to the womenfolk. You’ll be seeing quite a lot of them over the next few months, Bucky my boy.”

  24

  THE SPORTING LIFE

  “Fork it!” bellowed Nordquist. He slapped the rifle on the butt and kicked his boot in the dirt. The wounded lion coughed as it slunk into the heavy brush of the karonga nearly a quarter of a mile away. “There must be something wrong with the ferkin’ scope!” He stalked back to his motorized tricycle and stuck the weapon muzzle down into the lustrous leather rifle boot strapped to its side.

  Winjah said nothing. The rifle was a Weatherby .17-caliber magnum, mounted with a costly three-to-ten power variable scope. Nordquist claimed to have killed a Kodiak bear with it up in Alaska, along with every lesser species of North American big game. At first Winjah had objected that so small a bullet—a mere twenty-five grains, seven times lighter than the smallest he used on any animal—was too light for Africa. Nordquist had exploded.

  “It’s movin’ at 4,020 foot per second out of the muzzle,” he roared, “and still going better’n 2,000 at three hundred yards. It shoots where I wanna put it—right in the goldang earhole. Sure, it’s only packin’ 230 foot-pounds of clout at that range, where your freakin’ seven-mil mag’s got sixteen hunnert plus. But 230’s enough to pick the wax out of any critter’s ear. What is this pussy shit about breakin’ animals down? I wanna drop ’em where they stand, with the teensiest hunk of lead possible. That’s what we call sportin’ down Texas way.”

  Nordquist had indeed dropped a few animals with the popgun—a tommy, standing, at four hundred yards, and two hartebeest, one of them on the move, at lesser ranges. All had been hit either in the head or the neck. But he had hit and lost six others, mainly plains game like impala and Grant’s gazelles. When they bucked and went off wounded, he never followed them up.

  “Aren’t you going to finish him?” Winjah had asked, that first morning, when a fine Grant’s had given them the shake and split. He had seen the hairs fly on the gazelle’s throat. The hollow-point bullet had probably opened an artery, or the windpipe, and the animal would run off for perhaps half a mile before it lay down to die. An easy follow-up, particularly on the cycles.

  “Why?” asked Nordquist. “Gas is a helluva lot dearer out here than gazelles.” He gestured at the game plain, the high Tok Plateau, over which grazed countless thousands of horned creatures. Now, though, with the lion wounded, Winjah knew he had to take a stand.

  “Are you going to follow the lion in?” he asked, as politely as he could manage.

  “And get clawed up for nothin’?” Nordquist asked, turning stupefied from the bike, which he had been about to kick-start to life. “That’s for the adventure books. If I don’t drop ’em with one shot, they don’t even exist.”

  “But he’s wounded. He’s not only in pain, which I’m sure matters nothing to you, but now he’s a menace to everyone who passes this way, ourselves included. If he doesn’t die quickly, he may well end up crippled. When we come back out, he may choose us for dinner rather than some fleet-footed tommy or impala. And you hit him in the foreleg, you know.”

  “Bullshit,” said Nordquist. “I missed him clean.”

  “Then come on over with me while I look for blood. I’m sure you hit him. Or are you getting the wind up?”

  Nordquist reached for the revolver on his hip. It was a Ruger Super Blackhawk in .44 magnum, with the seven-and-a-half-inch barrel and the tanged trigger guard, onto which he had screwed grips of ivory from a walrus he shot up in the Bering Strait. Nordquist had explained at length that the highly touted .357 magnum pistol round was actually a much overrated bullet. A study by the New Mexico state police had demonstrated conclusively that the .44 mag was far superior for blowing a man’s guts out his asshole, as the Texan put it. Now he stared steely-eyed at Winjah, his hand hovering a twitchy few inches above the ivory butt. “You better take that back, Limey,” he said. Huey, Dewey, and Louie gripped their machine pistols more firmly and smirked. Paw was at it again.

  “Then follow me into the cover,” said Winjah, spinning on his heel and walking toward the draw into which the wounded cat had limped. Donn followed, his trigger finger on the guard of the .375, safety forward, his back twitching in anticipation of the Uzi bullets. He could see that Otiego, just ahead of him, was shivering his spear in preparation for a quick throw to the rear, if it were needed. But the Texans did nothing.

  Lambat, in the lead, spotted the blood first. He pointed it ou
t, wordlessly, with a stalk of grass—bright arterial blood clustered like berries in the low grass. Just about elbow height on the lion, Winjah thought. Yes, he’ll end up a man-eater all right. The trail led off into the draw. Winjah ordered Otiego and Machyana to follow along the lips of the deep brush-choked gully while Lambat went in with Winjah and Donn. Red Blanket was to climb that acacia over there, as high as possible, and watch to see if the lion came out ahead of them.

  “All right, duty calls,” Winjah said, turning to Donn. He smiled, suddenly, for the first time since they had met the Texans the previous morning. Christ, Donn thought, he actually loves this part of it. He looks ten years younger. “Once more unto the breach.”

  It was hot and stale in the karonga, the air still and the smell of dead water hanging thick with the pungent stink of thorn. Even in the mottled, brushy shade there was no cool. Lambat moved at a deep crouch, slowly, some five paces ahead of Winjah, with Donn an equal distance behind. Above, to either side, Donn caught occasional glimpses of the two flanking trackers through the spiky cover. Each time it gave him a start, and once Otiego saw his fear. The Turkana smiled wisely and then made a bhangi-smoking gesture. Donn’s heart began to slow and he smiled to himself. That’s a helluva man, he thought.

  They came to a drop in the draw, a spot where, during a heavy rain, there would be a waterfall. Below, the brush gave way to heavy sand and water-worn rocks. The lion’s pad marks were deep in the sand, and there was a depression where he had lain down for a moment, punctuated by a pool of glossy blood on which the flies were already at work. Lambat whispered to Winjah and pointed ahead. The draw widened and hooked to the right. A large boulder obscured the view around the corner. Winjah shook his head, in the negative, and Lambat slid back to him for a closer, quieter conversation. Donn felt something on his boot and looked down. A dung beetle, shiny, huge, was pushing a ball of shit over his toes. He watched it while the others conferred, watched it push its valuable load against the crepe sole of the boot, straining stupendously, finally raising the ball to the curved angle of the leather, then repositioning its hind legs and pushing once more. The shit-ball rolled over his foot, then down the other side. The dung beetle dropped after it and continued the interrupted journey.

  Winjah gestured and Donn went up to him.

  “The simba is just ahead of us,” Winjah whispered. “He’s lying up just beyond that boulder. Lambat smells him and thinks he can hear him breathing. I want you to give Lambat the .375 and then when I give you the signal, to throw a rock over the boulder. Then maybe he’ll come, or else he’ll run farther down the karonga and weaken a bit more.”

  “But I want to shoot.”

  “Not on lion, Bwana. Not yet.”

  “Yes,” Donn whispered. “Now or never, as they say.” He stared into the hunter’s pale-blue eyes. Very hard. “I can do it, Bwana.”

  Winjah looked back, equally hard. Finally he nodded. He whispered something to Lambat, who in turn looked closely at Donn. No smile. Lambat eased over to the right side of the draw and picked up a rock. Winjah moved to the far left. He raised the .458 to his shoulder and dug in his heels, leaning forward, head up over the sights. Donn did the same, but kept his eye on the scope at the proper relief. The boulder just framed the sight picture, not more than twenty yards ahead. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Winjah gesture to Lambat.

  He never heard the rock land. Instead there came a sound like none he had heard before, a raving, deep-chested hiss that erupted into a jet-engine roar, compressed and heated by the closeness of the karonga, and the lion was around the corner. All eyes and open mouth, the dark mane framing like black fire a grainy apparition that grew mountainous as he saw it through the scope, coming at them, and he felt the sear go. The blast of Winjah’s rifle slammed his eardrums, masking the explosion of his own. He had lost the lion through the scope, with the recoil, and frantically he sought it again, working the bolt and feeling the second round slap home in the receiver. Goddamn scope sights! At close range they aren’t worth shit.

  “Easy, Bwana,” said Winjah. “He’s finished.”

  The lion lay on its back, headed the way it had come, its tail twitching in short, spastic jerks. The great arch of the cat’s chest heaved once, then again, and Donn heard air whistling through blood and broken bone. Then the lion was still. Lambat hurled a rock at the carcass, eliciting no response. They walked up.

  “Nice shooting,” Winjah said. He pointed to the two entrance wounds, one in the throat and one on the point of the chest. “The higher one’s the .458. You put yours right down into his heart and lungs. Very nice shooting for a scoped rifle at such close range, Bwana.” He turned and shook Donn’s hand, while the other trackers leaped whooping down into the gully. Above, they heard the snarl of combustion engines.

  “Well,” Nordquist drawled from the lip of the draw. “You collected him for me. Thanks, fellers.”

  “He’s Donn’s cat,” said Winjah, not bothering to look up.

  “The hail you say,” Nordquist answered. “I’m the one that hit him first off. That makes him mine. First bullet—that’s the rules back home. Otherwise you’d have ever’ nigger in the woods plunkin’ lead into your deer after you dropped him.”

  “But you didn’t drop him, Mr. Nordquist,” Winjah said. “You were going to let him go off and die on his own, don’t you remember? ‘If I don’t drop them with one shot, they don’t even exist.’”

  “I was joshin’ ya. Why, my boys and I were headin’ over here right now to do the job. You Limehousers can’t take a joke.”

  “I don’t want the lion,” Donn interrupted. “I never intended to kill a big cat. And I’d be ashamed to show the trophy in my home. He can have it.”

  Winjah explained the situation to the trackers, who were preparing to skin the animal out. Otiego looked up at Nordquist, fierce contempt in his blood-rimmed eyes. With his panga, he chopped off the lion’s right front paw and gestured with it to Donn. “This much you keep,” he said. “I make necklace for you, out of the hooks.” Then he shifted his eyes back to Nordquist, the panga cocked meaningfully in his chopping hand.

  “Sure,” the Texan said quickly, “sure, why not? Let the Young Gavern have the claws. Hell, give him all of ’em. All I want’s a head mount, anyways. Head and shoulders.” He grinned wickedly. “With them big yaller choppers showin’.”

  When they got back to the main body of porters, the Kansduvian officer came up to Winjah looking nervous. He pointed to the edge of the rain forest, which loomed dark and tall to their right, perhaps half a mile off.

  “He says there are people moving on the edge of the jungle,” Winjah reported. “Perhaps a dozen, maybe more. At first he thought it was baboons or chimpanzees, but they walk erect and carry spears. He thinks it’s the Tok.”

  “The Dorks, hey?” said Nordquist. “Well, let ’em come. We’re locked and loaded, ready, willin’, and able, ain’t we boys?”

  “You bet, Pa,” chorused the ducklings.

  Nonetheless, the Nordquists tented together that night with the cycles gassed and parked at their door. They kept a Coleman lamp burning inside the tent, and left it up to Winjah and Donn to keep an eye on the night guards. Sitting beside the fire, sipping a cold Coors, Donn could hear their voices twanging dolefully over the crackle of the logs.

  “I thought you said all Texans were brave?” he said to Winjah.

  “These ones prove the rule,” the hunter replied. “It will be interesting to see the outcome of this internal struggle. Avarice versus cowardice. I’ll bet you right now that avarice wins.”

  Donn smiled into the dark, remembering the lion. Now he saw it clear: the difference between the good hunter and the bad hunter. Now he knew his side.

  25

  BUX FUX

  “Aha, fair Ticklette, I saw thee looming from afar!” Bucky clattered in his heavily accented Tok. “Thou art larger than the fang-nosed one, larger even than the two-toothed snouter.” The girl entered shyly, bow
ing and smiling under a cascade of long black hair. It was good form, Buck knew, to address a Tok of either sex as if they were gigantic. Comparisons with the rhinoceros and the elephant were the grandest of compliments. This young lady could scarcely top four feet, yet she beamed with delight at his greeting.

  Bucky sat in the main room of his house, reclining on a pile of soft-cured hides before a fire of juniper wood. The fire smelled like a boiled martini. In his hand, a skull goblet of brandy distilled from the curious Tok fruits—he couldn’t tell which, but it didn’t matter. Buck naked, he told himself again, as man was meant to be. The paintings on the stucco walls depicted scenes of sex and violence—hippopotami beheaded on the shores of reedy swamps, maidens impaled on the prongs of humanoid dragons, group gropes of the grossest nature—all rendered with the finesse of a cave-dwelling Modigliani. If you turned your head at just the right speed, squinting as you did so, you got—he had remarked earlier to himself—a cross between network and educational TV, with a porn flick thrown in for free.

  Starlight broke against the diamonds of the windowpane. Each window was built differently, with jewels of varying size and color set at odd angles within frames of wood or translucent cartilage. The play of light on the wall paintings and floor hides—zebra, okapi, oryx, bongo—moved slowly, changing all the while, under the cruder, more violent roistering of the fire. Clearly the Tok valued hallucination as an adjunct to lovemaking. Or perhaps on even a broader level, as a spice of life. Bucky knew they’d laced his booze with something strange, that was for dang sure. He’d copulated regularly for two days now, with scarcely a need for respite. Now and then a nap, occasionally the need for a pee. Once he had taken time out to wander back through the winding corridors of the low cool house—it was midday, he recalled, judging by the sunlight on the diamond windows (but how could you be sure?)—to the hole-in-the-ground crapper. The graffiti were just fine.