"Like I say," the man told him as he pulled back out onto the highway, "I don't see for myself, I only hear. Many storms. It is the dry season and the rest of the country is dry, but in the mountains above Engaruka it is said that it rains and thunders all the time. Others say they hear voices up in the sky and that the voices are not those of human beings. I believe none of this, of course. I am not backward."
"Right. That's why you didn't want to take us there."
"A wise man avoids the panic of others whether there is reason for it or not. An elephant can step on you accidentally as easily as on purpose. The result is the same. And then there are all the moran. It is better to avoid so many. When they gather in large numbers they look to pick fights. Ilmoran are crazy."
Olkeloki leaned forward intently. "What about the ilmoran?"
"From all over, from all of the sixteen tribes of the Maasai as far north as the land of the Samburu. Why they are gathering in some nowheres bush town I do not know. Some say it has to do with a special celebration. The government leaves them alone because they are afraid to make trouble." He laughed. "The government is too frightened to ask. I do not believe it is a celebration. There are better places to have celebrations. Even the Maasai know this.
"But they are going there for something. I myself have seen hundreds of ilmoran heading that way. They have been coming for many days now and they say that Engaruka is surrounded by manyattas." Again he glanced slyly into the rear-view. "It is said that they have been summoned to Engaruka by a council of elders."
Olkeloki's face had become an impenetrable mask, impossible to read.
They stopped in a place called Logindo for the driver to refuel and took turns using the restroom, making certain two of them stayed with the car at all times. Then they retraced their route for a few kilometers before turning off westward toward distant mountains. Oak felt a little more sympathetic toward their driver. The "road" was little more than a jeep track, though he seemed to know exactly where they were going. He spoke little and drove hard, which was fine with his passengers.
They were delayed only once, by a flat tire. "See? Acacia," said the driver as he extracted a three-inch-long thorn from the right front steel-belted radial. While Oak looked on interestedly he proceeded to replace the tube in the tubeless tire. With no service stations handy and no automobile club to call upon it made more sense to carry a supply of spare tubes, replace a punctured one with a fresh one, pump it up, and drive along on the punctured tire instead of wasting time trying to patch it. The tube was much simpler and cheaper to fix than the tire itself.
They drove on as afternoon began to give way to evening.
| Go to Table of Contents |
17
Engaruka—Evening of the 23rd
It was still light when they finally pulled into the village. If they had driven on through and blinked twice in passing they would have missed it. The houses were actually built of mud and sticks. One a little larger than the rest had a tin roof. The general store boasted a porch of milled lumber. As Oak emerged from the car he had a glimpse through one of the glassless windows. There was no need to worry about thieves sneaking in because there was nothing to steal. The shelves were empty.
As if by magic a dozen naked children materialized alongside the car, dividing their attention equally between it and its passengers. The village was situated in a slight depression and there was a single communal well located at the lowest point. A young woman or old girl was filling a battered wooden bucket and trying to watch them at the same time.
The character of the land had changed. There were more trees and not all of them were acacias. Just ahead a few palms hinted at the location of open water, probably a seep from some subterranean river.
Olkeloki handed the driver his final payment. He pocketed the money carefully, then headed back to his vehicle. He hesitated before climbing in and looked back at Oak and Merry.
"Come with me. I will take you into Arusha. No charge. I have to go there anyway. It is my home. You don't want to stay out here in this place. This is not for tourists. If you go with him," he indicated the silent figure of Olkeloki standing quietly nearby, "maybe nobody ever see you again."
"We'll take our chances," Oak told him.
"He's our friend," Merry added.
"Your friend? No friend brings people to this place." He snorted derisively, then climbed into the Subaru. The dust it raised hung in the air long after the car itself had vanished from sight.
Oak hefted his pack. "Well, what now?" A few adults had gathered to gawk at the visitors. Children continued to erupt from the earth like maturing cicadas.
"We walk." The old man gestured westward with his staff. "That way. Not far."
"It better not be." Merry was squinting into the sky. "It's starting to get dark."
"Don't worry," Oak told her sardonically, "we can't go too far. We're not carrying any water with us."
"There is water where we are going. Water, and food, and good company." Again the laibon gestured to his left.
"My kraal and my people are waiting for us over there."
Oak had prepared himself mentally for an arduous hike, but they'd gone less than two miles when they reached the crest of the third hill and Olkeloki looked proudly out onto the sloping plain beyond. For her part, Merry had expected a single dusty Maasai encampment with thornbushes ringing mud and dung huts.
Spread out before them in the warm glow of the fading equatorial sun was a small, temporary city.
"So many," she murmured, adjusting a pack strap.
Olkeloki was clearly pleased. "Ilmoran, of all the sixteen tribes of the Maasai."
Dozens of manyattas, or warriors' encampments, had been erected on both sides of the small stream that meandered across the plain parallel to the hill on which they were standing. Each was home to between fifteen and thirty fighters. Oak tried to count them, settled for a rough estimate of more than a thousand.
Children from the nearby kraal appeared to greet the three travelers as they neared the passage which had been cleared through the thornbush wall. They were taller and brighter of eye than the children of the "modern" village. They were also not the least bit shy, pulling at Oak's pants legs and giggling delightedly at the sight of Merry's blonde tresses. Oak noticed none of them danced around or pulled at the attire of the old man. They glanced at him while maintaining a respectful distance.
"There will be an olkiama tonight, a council of elders. I must find out what has happened in my absence." Abruptly, four junior warriors materialized from a patch of tall grass like brown ghosts and fell in around the travelers, two in front and two behind. They carried spears and throwing clubs and tried with little success not to stare at Merry.
"What's that they plait their hair with?" she asked Olkeloki.
"Sisal. It used to be a major Tanzanian export, until the government nationalized the plantations. They are beginning to return them to private ownership now, much chastised, I believe. The Maasai have always used it." He spoke briefly to the pair of warriors in front. They responded with nods and words and loped off ahead of the rest.
"They go to announce our coming so that we may be made comfortable on arrival and be given food to eat and milk to drink."
"If it won't insult anybody," Oak told him, "I'd just as son stick with water. I'm not a big milk drinker." Especially if it smells anything like the stuff you've been carrying around for days in that gourd, he thought. Olkeloki sipped regularly at the contents of his calabash, which actually looked and smelled more like thin yogurt than milk.
"I am cognizant of ilmeet requirements," said Olkeloki understandingly. "We will slaughter a sheep or goat. I will do my best to see that your needs are met and that you are made to feel at home."
"How long before we push on to this Ruaha place?" They were close to the kraal now and the thick, pungent aroma of people and animals was everywhere.
"As soon as I determine what is going on here. Warriors do not ga
ther in such numbers unless they are needed." That sounded ominous, Merry thought. "It may be that we cannot proceed farther for now."
"You mean, they aren't here for some sort of annual ritual or celebration?" Oak asked him.
Olkeloki shook his head. "Warriors gravitate to danger. I think that whatever is going to happen will happen soon. Certainly the place is significant." With his staff he pointed beyond the encampments.
Dominating the western horizon was a singular mountain. It was not as high as Kilimanjaro, which lay many miles to the east, nor distinctively craggy like the crest of the Sierras or Alps. Like Fujiyama it formed a perfect cone, but instead of the Japanese mountain's cloak of pine trees and snow, it was deeply eroded by monsoon rains and boasted growths no higher than thornbushes. It was an old mountain that had somehow held its shape despite century after century of tropical downpours and scouring wind. High grass grew up its flanks, which rose smooth and unbroken from the plain below. No other peaks crowded it for space. It sat alone like an old man in the desert, and its skin was just as wrinkled.
While the sharp light of sunset turned the surrounding plains gold and brown, the mountain assumed an unexpected purple cast that made Oak's skin crawl. Its crown was veiled in rapidly thickening dark clouds.
"Ol Doinyo Lengai." The note of reverence in Olkeloki's voice was unmistakable. "The Mountain of God. It is sacred to everyone in this part of the world, not just the Maasai. A place of power."
"Good power, or bad?" Merry asked.
"That depends whether Engai Narok, the good black god, or Engai Na-nyokie, the evil red one, is dominating the mountain. I think that tonight we will find out. See!"
Lightning split the gathering thunderhead boiling above the now hidden peak. The thunder reached them a moment later.
"They fight for control; Engai Narok with lightning and Engai Na-nyokie with the thunder."
"It's just an ordinary thunderstorm," Oak pointed out politely.
The old man looked back at him. "I hope that you are right, friend Joshua. We will find out during the olkiama. I have a feeling we have returned just in time."
The interior of the engang, or kraal, was every bit as primitive as Oak anticipated. Yet the closer he looked the more he felt that here were a primitive, seminomadic people who had managed to preserve their traditions while coming to terms with the twentieth century. They displayed assurance and confidence in everything they did, along with an assortment of Rolex and Seiko watches and a silvery Hitachi boom-box that squatted in a corner outside a hut muttering music and Swahili.
Further confirmation came from an unexpected source.
Olkeloki had disappeared into a large hut, leaving Oak and Merry to wander around outside. They were confronted by a tall, spear-carrying warrior who said to Oak, in perfect English, "I know that you are those who arrived from America with the old laibon. Please, can't you tell me how the Celtics did this year?"
"The Celtics?" Oak gaped at the young man. With his saffron toga, spear, painted legs, and ochred hair he looked like a citizen of the seventeenth century. But he spoke as an inhabitant of the twentieth.
"My name is Asembili. I have been home for only half a year. Prior to that I was attending Harvard Boys Academy in Boston. Next year I hope to be sent to Harvard itself, or Princeton if I must."
"Harvard or Princeton?" Merry looked him up and down. "But then how can you…?"
"… walk around dressed like this? I am Maasai. This is how Maasai warriors dress." Oak thought of Olkeloki and his ancient but well-fitting three-piece suit. "Every few years a tribe or clan will choose one of its brightest boys and pay his way to England or America so he can go to school there. This is done so that he can return to help the Maasai deal with the modern governments of Kenya and Tanzania. In that way we 'itinerant nomads,' as the government people call us, are not cheated." His pleasant smile faded and he pointed with the tip of his lethal-looking spear toward the cloud-shrouded mountain.
"You have come to help the illaibon?"
"I don't know—no, I guess that's what we're here for." Oak watched the lightning dancing around the cone of the old volcano. "Olkeloki seems to think it's important for a couple of foreigners to accompany him south."
Asembili looked solemn. "We are to go up the mountain tonight. To fight."
"Fight what?" Merry wondered.
"Whatever fights back."
"That sounds pretty nebulous," said Oak. "The ilmoran do what the elders advise. Are you a warrior?"
"I've done my share of fighting." He saw Merry staring at him.
"Will you come with us? I will let you fight next to me."
"No thanks. If you end up fighting who I'm afraid you're going to be fighting, I'd just be in the way. Besides, I had to leave my own weapons at home. You must know what airport security's like these days."
"Sometimes the most honest weapon is one that has no trigger." Asembili pulled a two-foot-long ebony stick from his belt. It was similar to Olkeloki's. Oak thought it was some kind of insignia of office, like a baton. As the young moran demonstrated, it was rather more than that.
Grasping the upper six inches, he separated the carved handle from its ebony scabbard. Attached to the handle was an eighteen-inch-long triangular blade.
"Fight with Asembili's knife. My clan will be proud." Ignoring Oak's protest, he handed him the weapon. Then he spoke frankly to Merry. "A little old, but still worth many cattle."
"Hey, now you listen here…"
Laughing, he skipped out of her reach. "In America I could not say that. Perhaps I will see you on the mountain." He turned and ran easily toward the entrance.
"Nervy bunch," she muttered. "I'm old enough to be his sister. I can see he didn't pick up any Boston manners."
"This isn't Boston. You ought to be flattered."
"I like a little subtlety. These people aren't subtle. It's not just the men, either. Haven't you noticed how many of the young girls have been giving you the eye?"
"Whaaat?"
She shook her head. "Some men are so naive. Where've you been for the last hour? Half the women in this place have done everything but proposition you by telegram. I suppose that's 'Maasai' too."
"I'm not sure where I've been for the past couple of days, much less the last hour. You're putting me on."
"Sure I am." She nodded past him. "See those two over there? In the bangles and beads?"
"Where?" Oak turned, saw two girls who looked to be in their late teens walking toward a hut. The instant his eyes met theirs, both of them cocked their heads sideways and smiled explosively back at him. The first one bent and disappeared inside the structure. The second ran her long tongue slowly over her upper lip before following her friend.
"Whew." Oak turned back to Merry. "That's been going on ever since we got here?"
"I'd better keep a close watch on you. If I let you get off by yourself you might never be seen again."
"I guess the Maasai are just a little, uh, promiscuous."
"Why, Josh, I do believe that you're blushing, though it's getting so dark it's hard to tell for sure." Torches mounted atop poles were being fired up by an older man carrying a butane cigarette lighter.
With nothing to do but wait for Olkeloki, they wandered outside the thornbush wall. Hundreds of lights from ilmoran torches speckled the plain and the lower slope of Ol Doinyo Lengai. Lightning continued to illuminate the clouds and thunder rolled in waves down the mountainside.
"I still can't believe the local government wouldn't be interested in an armed gathering of this size, even if the ilmoran are armed with nothing more than spears and clubs."
"Remember what that driver told us," Merry reminded him. "Not only are local officials leery of offending the Maasai, communications aren't too swift around here. By the time the word was passed up to anyone in a position to do anything about it, the ilmoran would probably be gone. So why make waves?"
"You're right. Let's go back inside."
"Worried abou
t lions?" she teased.
"Not with all these warriors around. I don't buy all those stories about lions avoiding ilmoran, but if I were a big cat I wouldn't come anywhere near an encampment of this size."
Sheep and goats were being slaughtered, the dressed meat ending up on sticks slipped over open fires. While they watched, a cow was brought forward but not slain. Instead, a warrior used a sharp stick to jab a hole in the jugular vein while another caught the steady stream of blood in an empty calabash. A third moran held the animal's head up. It did not appear to be in pain.
When enough blood had been collected, the wound was sealed with a mixture of water, leaves, and dung. Then another calabash was brought forward and they watched while the fresh blood was mixed with milk. The warrior who had collected the blood offered Oak a drink. He declined.
They were assured that the cow would heal with no ill effects. No Maasai would risk the life of one of his cattle simply to obtain a little blood.
Oak halted outside the hut which had swallowed Olkeloki. "Ever have the feeling you were being watched? And I don't mean by young men or women."
She eyed him questioningly. "You feel it too. Shetani?"
His expression twisted. "Can't tell. Just—something, out there, watching." He spun around sharply. Nothing but flickering torches, women going about their evening work, and ilmoran moving to and fro. Yet there was something out there watching him. He could feel its eyes on his back. He knew when he was being stalked. He'd felt it twice before, once in Alabama and again in Idaho. It was an unpleasant sensation.
Then Olkeloki was standing next to them, looking sepulchral in the dim light. The shadows exaggerated the gauntness of his face and filled in the hollows around his eyes. This was a different man from the one who had smiled and joked with them on the flight from D.C. He'd seen something inside the hut which had scared him. Olkeloki wore the look of a troubled spectre.
"It is time," he told them quietly. "Come." His eyes met Merry's and some of the sprightly old gentleman they knew returned. "You will come also, Merry Sharrow. I argued for it. It is not traditional for a woman to march with elders and ilmoran, but I reminded them that this is the twentieth century."
Into The Out Of Page 21
