Chanda's Wars

by Allan Stratton

  I suddenly get it. He’s taken off without me!

  I grab my things and run up the trail. What with the great lord having just gone through, the path’s easy to follow. The brush clears. I see Nelson in the distance, getting ready to scale the high ground to the north. I run to within shouting distance.

  “Stop!” I holler. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  He pretends not to hear me.

  “Are you deaf? I said, stop!”

  He keeps going.

  I scramble after him. “Have the guts to face me. You think you can leave me without a word?”

  His voice comes low, hard: “You know the way back.”

  “I told you, I’m not giving up.”

  “Fine. Just go by yourself. Leave me alone.”

  “Nelson?”

  He whirls on me. “Papa was Papa. My papa. He wasn’t a monster. He fed me. Clothed me. Gave me a roof. He’s dead. I owe him respect. I mustn’t shame him. I mustn’t dishonor his memory. Not ever. No matter what.”

  I raise my hand to touch him. He waves me off. “Get away.” All at once, I understand. In the dark, you can say things, and it’s like there’s no one there. But in the morning…in the light…

  We stand there, staring at each other, breathing hard. I step back. Let the air fill my lungs slowly. Once, twice, three times. “Nelson,” I say, “about last night. You didn’t say anything. I didn’t hear anything.”

  A butterfly floats up from the grass, circles my head, and flutters off. Nelson follows it with his eyes. He swallows. “Okay, then.” He rubs his nose. “Make sure you keep up.”

  I adjust my knapsack. “Worry about yourself.”

  We walk in silence.

  Midmorning, we spot the vultures.

  34

  THE BIRDS CIRCLE slowly, black specks in the distance.

  “They’re a quarter mile ahead,” Nelson says. “Something’s got their attention.”

  It could be anything. A dead hare. A dead warthog. A dead cow. All the same, the hairs on my neck tingle. There’s evil around. I close my eyes. I see the skull puppet twisting on Mandiki’s fist, his necklace of bones, the long fungal nails, that grin of dead men’s teeth.

  I check the horizon with my binoculars. Beyond the vultures, a thin wisp of smoke rises from behind a thicket. Nelson’s already seen it. “It could be a family on some compound,” he says. “Maybe they’re getting ready to cook seswa.”

  “Or maybe it’s the rebels cooking.”

  We move quickly but cautiously. In no time, we’re underneath the raptors. They’re circling lower now, ebony wings glinting in the sun. Talons and beaks etched sharp against the sky.

  Nelson stays me with a finger. We stand stalk still. Just ahead, something’s moved off the main trail. Its path is fresh. It goes maybe twenty feet into the savannah and stops. Whoever, or whatever, made this path is still out there.

  For a moment, everything’s still. Then a rustle. We crouch down. Have we been seen? Is this an ambush? We take off our knapsacks. Unsheath our machetes. Nelson motions me to circle out below where the path ends, while he circles above.

  I crawl slowly, pulling myself forward on my elbows, gripping my machete by the handle, blade out. My hands are wet. My heart pounds. I stop. Whatever’s there is only a few feet away. I listen hard. Nothing. Then a sudden whoosh of air above me to my left. I look up. A flash of feathers. A vulture lights down.

  Nelson and I leap to our feet. We pounce toward the end of the path. Two vultures rise from the flattened patch of grass, beating their wings. We fall back. They settle, twist their necks, and stare, feathers raised, daring us to approach. There’s a terrible stench. It’s lunchtime.

  Nelson’s closer to the raptors than me. He gasps. “Don’t look,” he says. He retreats to the trail.

  “What’s there? What did you see? What?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  It’s true. I don’t. But the way he says it, I have to.

  I raise my machete across my body, shielding my head with my forearm in case the vultures try to drive me off. I inch forward. They make a low, grating hiss, but instead of attacking, they hop off a few steps. I glimpse their meal.

  At first, I’m not sure what it is. I take a step closer. Look harder. I cover my mouth. It’s a child. He’s maybe twelve, sprawled facedown, naked. His calves are as puffed as balloons, the gangrenous flesh blistered to bursting. Above the knees, though, he’s scrawny, bruised skin stuck tight to his ribs and skull, arms all tendon and bone.

  I run in a circle, swinging my machete. “Aiii! Aiii!” The vultures fly up. They fake attacks, dipping and diving, trying to force me to leave. I don’t. I kneel at the boy’s side. He doesn’t move. I roll him over to check for life. His chest lies flat, no sign of a breath. His eyes are turned into his head. The lids are caked. His hair crawls with lice.

  “Nelson,” I cry out. I try to say more, but words fail. “Nelson. Nelson. Nelson.”

  “Chanda, come away.”

  “Nelson—he’s one of the soldiers—one of the child soldiers we saw hobbling at the post.”

  “I know. Chanda, come away.”

  “I can see the sores on his toes and ankles. It’s chiggers. He’s lousy with chiggers. The ticks have burrowed into his feet. He must have had them for months. Nelson. He’s been rotting alive.”

  Nelson comes up behind me. He puts his hands on my shoulders.

  “They took his clothes. Nelson. They left him naked.” I think of Soly and Iris and all of the other children stolen in the night. I think of them dragged away with what they had on, Iris in her nightie, Soly in that green feedbag. Think of them given the clothes of the dead. Wearing the pants and shirts of boys like this.

  A sound as delicate as a tuft of milkpod rises from the ground: “Ma…ma…ma…”

  I look down. Nelson and I were wrong. The boy isn’t dead. His eyes roll forward. He doesn’t see me. Doesn’t see anything. But somehow he knows we’re here. Or someone’s here.

  “Ma…ma…ma…”

  Nelson leans in close. “We have to go,” he whispers.

  “No. He’s alive. We can’t leave him to the vultures.”

  “It’s too late, no matter what we do. Look at him. The poison’s through his body. It’s into his brain. He can’t even feel anything anymore.”

  “Nelson, this child could be Pako. Soly. Iris. If it was one of them, what would you want a stranger to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he shouts back. “All I know is, we have to find them soon, before they turn into him.”

  “Ma…ma. Ma…ma.”

  I look down at the boy’s blank face. I take his hand in mine. “Yes,” I say. “It’s me. I’m here.”

  There’s a flicker around his mouth. “Ma…ma…”

  “Shh. It’s all right. I’m here.”

  The child’s eyes slide back in his head. Has he passed? I don’t know.

  I’ve been wearing the mosquito net as a shawl this morning. I take it off my shoulders and unfold it. Nelson and I wrap it gently around the boy’s body.

  “We can carry him as far as the compound up ahead,” Nelson says. “Check your hands for nicks. Chiggers can get in anywhere.”

  We each take an end of netting and carry our load toward the smoke.

  35

  THE SMOKE’S DIED down by the time we reach the compound.

  Mandiki’s paid a visit. There’s a smell of burned flesh coming from the main house. Its thatched roof was set on fire and fell into the center. The charred door is blocked shut by a wagon, planted sideways, wheels locked by rocks. The wooden shutters have been pushed out by people struggling to escape. Their bodies, riddled with bullets, plug the two mud frames.

  Nelson and I toss the rocks off the wheels and roll away the wagon. Inside the house, we find more bodies, some collapsed by the entrance, others huddled at the far end of the main room.

  We stagger out of the place and vomit. I spit the smoke and bile out o
f my mouth. “Mandiki rounded up the whole family. He trapped them inside.”

  “Except for the children,” Nelson whispers on his knees. “The kids who’d know the hiding places north of here, like Pako knew the mudhole.”

  When we can breathe again, we go back into the house. We bring the bodies into the yard and lay them together. The boy in the mosquito net is dead beyond certainty. I nestle him beside one of the mamas. Then we rock the wagon on its side and turn it over the remains. It’ll keep out the scavengers. That will have to do for now.

  It’s midday. We rest through the worst of the heat in the shade of an outbuilding. Neither of us can eat. Iris. Soly. Pako. What did they see? I won’t think about that. I can’t. I busy myself making a new knapsack out of my blanket; I wrap Lily’s sling around my head for sun cover.

  “I can’t stay here any longer,” I say. “There’s nothing but death. We have to go.”

  Nelson has the same sick feeling. We fill our canteens with water from the compound’s well and force down a few bites of my maize bread. There’s not much left. Nelson still has a stock of biltong, but our food’s running low. Another day and I’ll be digging for kasaba roots, while Nelson hunts lizards and bush rats with his slingshot.

  We go north all afternoon, through savannah, scrub, and now a mixed woodland. I look up as we walk under the sausage trees; if their heavy fruit falls on us, it’ll crack our heads open. I’m careful near the marulas, too; bees hum around their sweet-laden branches.

  We’ve traveled far. Twenty miles to Pako’s mudhole. Ten or twelve this morning to the compound. Another ten since then. That’s at least forty miles in total. I should know what that means. All the same, it’s a shock when Nelson says: “Listen.”

  I hear a delicate lapping of water, catch a faint smell of fish. We emerge from the woodland at a broad, muddy river. It’s the east fork of the Kenje. It has to be; that’s the only river up here. I climb onto a large flat rock and look over the reeds.

  Fifty yards away, on the far bank, I see elephants—three females and a baby—grazing in the sedges, their thick trunks curling around bunches of reeds, ripping them up by the roots. A colony of cormorants roosts on a stand of yellow fever trees near the water’s edge. It’s just like in Mr. Lesole’s pictures. I start to tremble.

  “Nelson,” I say, “it’s the park.”

  36

  Mandiki’s trail heads into the reeds at the water. Nelson climbs a tree to scout. For a moment, I stare in awe at the elephants. Then, filled with fear and excitement, I sit on the rock and pull out Mr. Lesole’s map.

  Mfuala National Park. It stretches two hundred miles, east to west; fifty miles, north to south. The Kenje River starts in the mountains at the border with Ngala and flows south. Safari camps are marked along its tributaries. Above the entrance to the park at Mfualatown, the Kenje forks in two. The west fork cuts across our country on a diagonal. The other fork, the one Nelson and I are beside, goes sharp east and marks the park’s south boundary.

  My eyes drift back to the elephants. There aren’t any fences, but according to Mr. Lesole, the animals usually stay on the park side of the river. West of Mfualatown, the land is cleared, and there’s a long strip of towns, roads, warehouses, and other things they don’t like. East of Mfualatown, there’s this river. Some of the animals can cross it, but except for a few bachelor elephants they usually don’t. Over here, there’re poachers everywhere. Mr. Lesole says they sense it.

  Nelson swings down from a lower branch. “Chanda, we’re in trouble.”

  “Mandiki?”

  “Worse.”

  “What?”

  He squats, as if dizzy. “I’ve looked up and down the river. There’s no sign of the rebels coming out, on this side or the other.”

  I stop breathing. “You mean…”

  “We’ve lost them. They could be walking along the water’s edge in either direction. Or they could have crossed over miles away. There’s no way to tell.”

  “What if we split up? You go along the river one way, I go along the other?”

  “For how long? They could have walked for hours. If we’re on the wrong track, how do we know when to turn around and come back? And what if they’ve crossed into the park? Where did they do it? We don’t even know where to look!” He flings himself into the air. “We were so close! If only we hadn’t wasted time with that kid.”

  “Nelson—”

  “I never should have let you follow me!” He spins in a circle and storms off into the woods.

  I slump down, eyes fixed blankly at the color drawing of the park and the inset diagram of the country. It’s over. Over, over, over.

  Nelson returns. If he yells at me again, I’ll smack him. But the woods have calmed him.

  “We have an outside chance to figure this out,” Nelson says.

  “What? How?”

  He collects himself. “Here’s one of the first things I learned about hunting,” he says quietly. “Know your prey. If you know your prey, you’ll know what it’s likely to do. Where it’s likely to go. That’ll help you catch it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He sits beside me on the rock. “Mandiki thinks everyone’s his prey. He’s wrong. You and me, we’re hunters. He’s our prey.”

  I’d never thought of it like that. My spine tingles.

  “So,” Nelson continues, “what do we know about Mandiki?”

  “Well,” I clear my throat, “we know he’s traveling light, maybe twenty men and a few dozen kids. That means he can’t fight a major battle. He has to be able to hit and run.”

  “What else?”

  I smooth out the map and sketch Mandiki’s route on the inset drawing of the country. “Mandiki came over the mountains, raided Mr. Lesole’s camp in the foothills, and made his way through the park,” I say. “Then he swept down alongside the highway, striking Tiro and Shawshe. Since then he’s headed north and inland. The army’s got patrols along the highway. He’s been trying hard to avoid them.”

  “But will he keep heading north?” Nelson asks, rubbing his ear. “Maybe he’ll double back south to surprise people.”

  “I don’t think so,” I say. “With dry season starting, the high grasses are dying. Every day, he’d be more exposed. Why risk it? Especially with Tiro and Shawshe getting reinforced. And below them there’s the army base at Rombala.”

  “So Mandiki gets to this river. He’s not going south,” Nelson says. “Where then?”

  I think hard, every fiber focused, clear. “Not west. That gets him near Mfualatown. It’s big and heavily armed. We saw lots of tanks going there from Tiro.”

  “Then east?”

  “Why? There’s nothing east but a few family compounds.”

  “He hit a family compound last night,” Nelson shrugs.

  “Yes,” I nod. “But that wasn’t part of a plan. It just happened to be on his way.”

  “Where?”

  My brain whirs: “Home!”

  Nelson shakes his head. “Mandiki can’t go home. He’s on the run. The Ngala army found his main camp.”

  “So what?” I say, nerves sparking. “He’s dodged the army there for six years. If he really had to escape, the rest of his troops would have followed him. They didn’t. Mandiki came with a small brigade. He’s been on a mission.”

  “What mission?”

  “To punish us. Why? For signing the friendship treaty!” I’m on fire now, the words tumbling from my tongue. “In less than a week, he’s proved he can take our kids, murder our families, and nothing can stop him. That’s not all. He’s pushed our country toward ruin.”

  “How?”

  “Think, Nelson, think! Our government knew Mandiki was here. It sent tanks to Tiro. So why did it blame his attacks on poachers and bandits?”

  “To keep us calm.”

  “No,” I jump up. “To calm investors. Tourists.”

  Nelson frowns. “If Mandiki wanted to scare them, he would’ve murdered the guests at the
safari camp.”

  “And risked his own future? If he killed foreigners, who knows what their governments might have done.”

  “Fine.” Nelson swats a mosquito. “But why should investors or tourists worry about Mandiki now? As far as they know, he isn’t even here.”

  “The official lie won’t last.”

  “Why not?”

  I take a deep breath. “Back in Bonang, I have a teacher, Mr. Selalame. I know what he’d say. ‘Satellites track government armies. Rumors circulate in embassies.’ One way or another, the truth will get out. When it does our economy will get hammered.”

  “Not if Mandiki’s gone home.”

  I throw up my arms. “Wake up. Once the world knows Mandiki’s been here, it’ll know he can come again. Any time. What then? Investors fear instability more than death. Mandiki’s job is done. That’s why he’s off to regroup at a new camp in Ngala.”

  Nelson exhales slowly. “They teach you a lot in Bonang.”

  “Mr. Selalame’s very special,” I say grimly. “Anyway, if what I’ve said is right, we have another problem. It’s just fifty miles to the mountains. Once Mandiki crosses the border, rescuing Soly, Iris, and Pako will be impossible.”

  Nelson bites his lip. “We better move fast.” He scans the river. “Where do you think he crossed?”

  “Someplace shallow enough for children. Look for sandbars, ripples in the water running shore to shore.”

  Nelson’s eyebrows lift off his forehead. “Mr. Selalame taught you that, too?”

  “No, I got that from my neighbor, Mr. Lesole.”

  “Between the two of them, you know everything.”

  “Not tracking,” I smile. “That’s your department. You’re King of the Spoor.”

  He shuffles, embarrassed.

  I look east. “Let’s scout down there, away from Mfualatown. My bet is, Mandiki took the first sandbar he could find. There’d be light. He’d want to take cover as soon as he could.”

  “Wait,” Nelson says. “What if he crossed at night? He had the kids from the last compound. They could have led him to the shallows in the dark.”