He explained. She stared at him, hurt and angry. “In my house you said you’re going straight to Dangoum.”
“Never said straight.”
“Okay. I’ll go with Kashka.”
“I’m not going to Dangoum. Don’t want a girl with me either.”
“Then I’m going alone.”
“No you’re not,” said Paul. “You’re not going anywhere alone. You know what’ll happen to you—first couple of men who find you wandering about, they’ll rape you, maybe kill you. Dangoum’s the same. I’ve been there. Full of bad men. Right, Kashka?”
“Damn right,” said Kashka. “You just wait till your father comes for the boat and go back with him to the Strip.”
“No, no, no! Paul, you said you’re my friend! Why are you saying this now?”
Both boys started to argue with her, but by now she was too upset to manage either Naga or English. She stood up, stammering a mixture of all three languages, gesturing with her whole body as she mimed the scene when she’d stripped off her belt and given it to Muliku, and dressed in her western clothes. Paul saw that that must have meant more than he’d realized at the time. By doing it she’d somehow cut herself off. If she tried to go back to the Strip her family would have nothing to do with her. What about persuading Kashka to take her with him at least as far as the Oloro crossing? She might make it down to Dangoum, and find Fulu people among the shanties to take her in. But suppose on the way she met some gang of near-bandits, raiders, or poachers or the sort of thugs who’d claimed to be soldiers during the war as an excuse for pillage and murder—if Malani was dead that would all be starting again now—she wouldn’t last a day. He sighed.
“Okay,” he said. “You come along by me. When old Francis better, we going south.”
She laughed with relief and sat down. The night grew colder and they piled more wood on the fire. Jilli had brought one blanket, under which she and Francis and whichever of the boys wasn’t on watch huddled and tried to sleep, but Paul would have been wakeful even without the cold and the hard ground. He had no trouble keeping his eyes open during his stints on watch. The mist from the marshes blurred the northern stars so he faced the other way and watched the familiar constellations, huge and calm, wheel steadily westward. He felt fulfilled, confident. He had done what Michael had asked him, made plans, and when the crisis struck, used them, taking his chances as they came. Francis was not going to die. Paul would get him to Papp, who would take over that responsibility, and then he would head for Dangoum. He had no notion what he would do when he got there, or how he could help Michael, but Michael had given him an address, and that was enough. Meanwhile he had come home. Though he had never been within a hundred miles of the hollow where he now sat and watched, he was where he belonged. The old night noises, the far whoop of a jackal, the creak of moon bugs calling for mates, the rustle and skitter of foraging little mammals, all these told him that this was the bush, with himself part of it, living in it, moving through it, skilful, alert, leaving no tracks, a Warrior.
We’ll be going down to the railway, he thought. I can leave Jilli there to watch the line and look after Francis while I go and get my gun.
5
The first thing Paul saw when he woke was Jilli sitting outlined against the white dawn sky at the rim of the hollow, weaving grass stems together with long, quick-moving fingers. Francis was still asleep, his breath steady, his lips less bruised-looking than yesterday. Paul rolled stealthily clear and doubled the blanket over him.
Kashka had vanished, but in a couple of minutes he appeared dragging a dead branch. There were several others stacked by the fire.
“You’re not going then?” whispered Paul.
“After breakfast. But if you’re going to give me some cash I’ll bring a bit of wood for you.”
Kashka didn’t smile—he didn’t seem to know how—but it was a sort of half joke. He was too proud to accept money for nothing, but at the same time he’d have to carry wood for two weeks to earn as much as he’d need. Paul laughed.
“My thanks,” he said. “You’d better have a look at the map.”
He got it out and spread it flat.
“We’re about here,” he said. “That’s the main Oloro bridge—I don’t know if they’ve mended the south one. There’ll be roadblocks in any case. They might be on the lookout for kids who’ve got away from Tsheba.”
“Not so likely this side of the marshes. If I throw them a few gurai…”
“It’s a long way. More than three hundred miles.”
“Okay,” said Kashka confidently.
He studied the map awhile, grunted, and began to put his belongings together. Paul counted him out three hundred gurai and added a five-dollar bill—he’d need to get to a fair-sized town before he could change that.
“My thanks,” said Kashka.
He rose and stood picking at the layer of clay on his forearm. It came away in tiny flakes, leaving the skin mottled like the scales of a snake.
“I’m going down to the creek to wash this off,” he said.
“Hadn’t you better keep it till you’re clear of Fulu country?”
“Not if I can’t speak Fulu. Anyway Jilli says you’ve got to take it off after four days or your skin goes bad. Well, I’m off. Good luck. Be lucky, Jilli.”
He picked up his satchel and strode out of sight.
An hour later when he crossed the road Paul saw Kashka squatting in the shade a hundred yards west, waiting. He was wearing T-shirt and jeans, and his uncovered skin was its proper glossy black. Paul wiped out his footprints with extra care as he crossed the road—no truck would stop for a hitchhiker if there were signs of other strangers around, because even with the war ended you could still meet raiders and brigands. He waved and went on down to the creek.
While he was scraping the softened clay from his chest he heard the sound of an engine, and stood tense. A truck, but not army—you got to know that note. But begging a lift was still a risky business. Kashka would be standing up now, holding out a twenty-gura note to show he could pay his fare. The driver would either stop or speed up if he thought Kashka might be a decoy. He might also calculate whether Kashka was carrying enough money for it to be worth killing and robbing him…
The truck slowed, idled just long enough for a passenger to climb aboard, growled on. Another good omen.
Back at the hollow he found that Jilli had put her clothes away and was wearing the thing she’d been weaving, a long grass belt wound four times around her waist, with a neat grass apron in front. He’d seen girls on the Strip wearing belts like that before they were old enough for the blue beads.
“That’s pretty,” he said. “There’s a bit of my back I couldn’t reach.”
He squatted down while she scraped the last of the clay from between his shoulder blades, using bits of stiff fern leaf he’d found by the creek.
“Okay,” she said. “Now I’ll go and wash too.”
“What’ll you do about new paste?”
“Not going to put it on.”
She pouted at his look of surprise.
“You told Kashka you aren’t Naga. You’re Nagala, you said. Okay, me too. Not Fulu any more. I’m Nagala too.”
They stared at each other. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, he thought. She doesn’t understand anything about the war, and why we’re fighting it. All she wants is to get to Dangoum and become a waitress at the Hilton. Then he remembered that five years ago a small boy, wild as a jackal, had crawled into a camp at dawn to steal food. And now he was a Warrior. It was as if Jilli had spoken a password. He smiled and spread his hands in acceptance.
“Okay,” he said. “Now you’re a Nagala Warrior, same as me.”
They spent five days in the hollow, waiting for Francis to get well enough to move. He had a relapse on the second day—perhaps he’d caught some kind of
chill when they’d washed the clay off him—but on the third morning he woke feeble but clear-headed. Paul would have liked to move camp, because the longer they stayed in one place the more likely it was that some big carnivore would find them, but he couldn’t find anywhere as good. So they carried every uneaten scrap at least a hundred yards into the bush and Jilli took turns with Paul to watch at night. She was a Warrior now.
On her very first watch she shook Paul awake and he looked up to see a line of eyes gleaming along the rim of the hollow. He grabbed the spear he’d made by lashing his knife to a strong stick, and counted. Six pairs. Hyena, or wild dog, maybe. Probably too small a pack to overcome their fear of man, and fire. Only you could never tell with wild animals. After a few minutes they ghosted away but he spent the rest of that night on watch.
Next day he trekked several miles along the road and found a Fulu fishing village where there was an old man who could speak some Naga. He bought dried fish, and stale expensive mealie cake. Jilli had caught fish in her traps at the creek, but they had to be eaten almost at once or they went bad. It was about a hundred miles to the railway, eight days’ trek, say. They could carry food for five days, Paul thought, but water for only two or three.
“I would rather come with you to Dangoum,” said Francis. “That way we could try the road.”
“Michael told me to get you to Papp.”
“If he told you, okay.”
“Anyway the road would be pretty risky. A lot of little dangers all the time, instead of one big one. We’re almost all right for food. I don’t know about water.”
Paul did know, but he wasn’t going to say so. Logically the road must be the better bet. He could find a way of getting Francis out to Shidi from Dangoum. But his fingers yearned for the touch of his AK, a call that was almost too strong for logic.
Squatting on his haunches Francis studied the map by the light of the flames.
“It’s bad bush, this bit,” he said. “Papp told me. But there are three water holes. His people used to use them when they trekked to the Flats for salt.”
“Where are they?”
“He didn’t tell me, using a map. His people didn’t like the river people so they went north three days and found water, and then east and found water twice more. Below the hills, he said.”
“Must be where the railway runs.”
“No, not those hills. Another range, farther north, I think.”
“Must be these ones here. We should be able to get that far. Then if we can find tracks…”
All animals have to drink, most of them every day. Sets of tracks converging on a point should lead to water. Probably.
“What do you think?” said Paul.
“Papp said it was bad bush between the hills. Just bad, not very bad. Okay for two or three people, not a whole tribe. He didn’t say anything about this side.”
“We can try. Go on a couple of days. If it’s no good, come back. Soon as you’re strong enough we’ll start.”
He explained the position to Jilli, who shrugged.
“If you’re going, I’m going too,” she said.
The weight of the shortwave radio was too much to risk on the journey, so they listened to it that evening for the last time. There was one scrap of fresh news about Nagala—the OAU was going to send observers to Dangoum to report back on whether the heads of state conference could still take place. It seemed remote, unreal, nothing to do with three children sitting around a fire, ready to set out on a dangerous journey.
They left before dawn, Paul with his satchel over his shoulder, a Fulu basket on his head, and his spare hand steadying his spear pole on his shoulder. Jilli also carried a basket and the other end of the pole, from whose centre hung the jerrican, half filled with water. They had rinsed and rinsed it, but the water still tasted of petrol. Francis carried his satchel and the plastic flask, half full. They drank that first.
They did about seven miles before it became too hot to walk, and another five in the afternoon. They could have done more, but toward sundown Francis spotted the wizened stems of a gourd twisting across a patch of bare ground, and they stopped to dig out the fleshy root. The pulp was full of water. It was held together by fibers you had to keep spitting out, and tasted of nothing, but they sucked it until they’d had all the water they’d needed and squeezed the rest into the flask, half filling it again.
Next morning, as it was getting hot, Francis veered aside to a low rocky mound, which turned out to be riddled with holes. He showed them how to make deadfall traps, large flat stones delicately propped on sticks, with a bit of bait tied to one of the sticks so that when it was tugged the structure collapsed and the stone crashed down. They made several. Jilli was very good at it. They were dozing in the shade of a flame thorn when they heard the first trap fall. That one caught nothing, but by the time the day started to cool they had killed three plump yellow ground squirrels.
“What do you think?” said Paul.
“It’s bad bush,” said Francis. “In good bush we’d have seen two or three gourds each day. No termites either.”
“What are the squirrels living on?”
“Flame-thorn nuts. We can’t eat them. And roots which grow into their tunnels.”
“If we hadn’t found anything we’d have had to turn back now. If it doesn’t get any worse I think we’ll be okay.”
So they went on. They found another gourd but no more food. Ahead now they could see a low range of hills, which by the time they camped for the night seemed only a few miles off. They split the ground squirrels, cleaned them, and roasted them whole. The sweet, fatty flesh was delectable.
“Better than you’ll find in the Dangoum Hilton, Jilli,” said Paul.
She laughed, the grease around her cheeks glistening in the firelight. It was like the good days in the commando, when the war was quiet. Paul felt full of confidence. The hills were not far off, and there were water holes on the far side of them. He calculated that he had now reached the point of no return. If they turned back now and found the same amount of food, they should make it to the marshes. If they went on one more morning’s march it would be too late. He was going on.
The third day was very bad. In the morning they wasted half an hour and a lot of energy digging down to the root of another gourd, but when the point of Paul’s pole struck it, it emitted a foul stink. They looked at Francis.
“Don’t know,” he said. “Papp never showed me.”
Paul touched the wound and tasted his finger. The juice burned like fire, though he spat and spat, and the taste stayed in his mouth all day. They trekked on and found nothing. Their eyes had lied, and the hills were farther than they’d guessed. They reached them toward sunset and found them ghastly, a bare, pale slope of rock and stone, without bush or blade, stretching east and west as far as they could see. They could find no wood, so slept that night without a fire. Nothing came near them that night, and even that was a bad sign. It meant that nothing lived, or could live, on these hills. It was too late to go back.
In the cool before dawn they started to climb. The sun rose, unveiled by any haze. It bored into the pale rocks, which absorbed its heat and sent it roasting back. By the time they reached the crest, though it was still well before noon, it was hotter than Paul had ever known.
Beyond the ridge lay a stony valley, then another ridge, and the crest of a higher one beyond that. It looked about four miles across the first valley, but knowing now how his eyes lied in this clear air Paul called it eight. Say another eight to the farther crest. Sixteen. More than they’d done in a day, so far. Impossible in this heat. The plastic flask was empty, the jerrican dangerously light despite their tiredness. They turned and looked north. No. No hope.
“Okay,” said Paul. “We’ll never make it while the sun’s up. We’ll rest in this bit of shade by that overhang back there and try it tonight. There’s a goo
d moon.”
There was nothing to argue about. They spent the day stretched out in a strip of shadow, which narrowed at noon to less than six inches, but Jilli extended it by dismantling one of the headbaskets and using the rib reeds, their clothes, and the grass mats she’d wrapped her stores in to make a fragile awning. They were naked, but the sweat streamed from them. They drank by sips. There was no breath of wind. At last the long torture eased. The sun reddened to a huge disc in the copper-coloured west. They decanted the last of the jerrican into the flask and climbed to the crest again, leaving the jerrican and anything else they didn’t absolutely have to carry behind.
At the crest they halted and gazed south. If there’s another ridge beyond that farther one, thought Paul, we’re dead.
The sun set as they were starting down. In a few minutes it seemed too dark to see, but then the stars were there, brilliant millions of them, and as their eyes became used to the night they found they could pick their way on. Soon the light strengthened, the stars became fewer, and then the moon was rising, casting hard black shadows you thought you would stumble over.
The air cooled, but the day’s heat still streamed up from the rocks and shale, soon with faint tinglings of moisture in it making it bliss to breathe. Paul felt stronger, a bit lightheaded, cheerful in spite of the danger. Jilli began to sing.
There was a black gully at the bottom of the valley, eroded tens of thousands of years ago by some stream when these hills had been green. Perhaps there was water still down there, deep under the earth. It took them some time to find a safe way across.
Climbing the slope to the next ridge was not too bad, easier in fact than picking their way down had been in the deceptive light. Though they rested twice on the way up Paul was surprised to find when they reached the crest that the moon was now high overhead, the night more than half gone. Looking back and on he tried to estimate distances. Both valleys seemed about the same. There were silverings of mist in the bottom of this one, a promise of dew when dawn came. He could see no sign of yet another crest beyond this next one.
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