Black Leopard, Red Wolf

by Marlon James

  “Maybe you, Big Belekun, but he had a wife and children. They all came to Kongor with him. Fled, I heard.”

  “No story is so simple, Tracker.”

  “Yes, every story is. No story resists me cutting it down to one line, or even one word.”

  “I am lost. What are we talking about now?”

  “Basu Fumanguru. He used to be a favorite of the King.”

  “I would not know.”

  “Until he angered the King.”

  “I would not know. But it is foolish to anger the King.”

  “I thought that was what elders do. Anger the King—I mean, defend the people. There are marks on the streets, in gold, arrows that point where the King shall stop. One lies outside your door.”

  “Wind can blow a river off course.”

  “Wind blows shit right back to the source. You and the King are friends now.”

  “All are friends of the King. None are friends of the King. You might as well say you are friends with a god.”

  “Fine, you are friendly with the King.”

  “Why should any man be an enemy of the King?”

  “Did I ever tell you of my curse, Big Belekun?”

  “We have no friendship, you and I. We were never—”

  “Blood is the root. Like it is with so many things, and we are talking about family.”

  “My supper calls me.”

  “Yes it does. Of course it does. Eat some cheese.”

  “My servants—”

  “Blood. My blood. Don’t ask me how it would get there but should I grab my hand”—I pulled my dagger—“and cut my wrist here, not enough that life runs out, but enough to fill my palm, and—”

  He looked up at the ceiling, even before I could point in that direction.

  “And yours is very high. But it is my curse. That is, if I throw my own blood up in the ceiling, it breeds black.”

  “What does that mean, breed black?”

  “Men from darkest darkness—at least, they look like men. The ceiling gets unruly and spawns them. They stand on the ceiling as if it is floor. You know when the roof sounds like it is cracking.”

  “Roof—”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I said nothing.”

  Belekun choked on a berry. He gulped down lime wine and cleared his throat.

  “This, this Omoluzu sounds like a tale your mother told you. Sometimes the monsters in your mind burst through your head skin at night. But they are still in your mind. Yes.”

  “So you have never seen one?”

  “There is no Omoluzu to be seen.”

  “Strange. Strange, Belekun the Big. This whole thing is strange.”

  I walked over to him; the knife, I put back in the sheath. He tried to roll himself up to a seat but fell back down harder on his elbow. He grimaced, trying to turn it into a smile.

  “You looked up before I said ceiling. I never said Omoluzu, but you did.”

  “Interesting talk always makes me forget my hunger. I just remembered I am hungry.” Belekun stretched his fat hand out to a cushion with a brass bell on top, and rang it three times.

  “Bisimbi, you say?”

  “Yes, those little devil bitches of the flowing waters. Maybe he went to the river on the wrong night for a divination and annoyed one or two, or three. They must have followed him home. And the rest, they say, is the rest.”

  “Bisimbi. You are sure?”

  “As sure as I am that you annoy me like a scratch on the inside of my asshole.”

  “Because Bisimbi are lake spirits. They hate rivers; the flowing water confuses them, makes them drift too far when they fall asleep. And there’s no lake in Malakal or Kongor. Also this. The Omoluzu attacked his house. His youngest son—”

  “Yes, that poor child. He was of age to bull-jump his way to a man.”

  “Too young for a bull jump, is this not so?”

  “A child of ten and five years is more than old enough.”

  “The child was not long born.”

  “Fumanguru has no child not long born. His last was ten and five years ago.”

  “How many bodies were found?”

  “Ten and one—”

  “How many were family?”

  “They found as many bodies as there should have been in that house.”

  “How are you so certain?”

  “Because I counted them.”

  “Nine of the same blood?”

  “Eight.”

  “Of course. Eight.”

  “And the servants all accounted for?”

  “We wouldn’t want to still be paying for a corpse.”

  He rang the bell hard. Five times.

  “You seem unsettled, Belekun the Big. Here let me help you u—”

  As I bent over to grab his arm, air zipped past the back of my neck twice. I dropped to the floor and looked up. The third spear shot through, quick as the first two, and pierced the wall beside the other two. Belekun tried to scramble away, his feet slipping, and I grabbed his right foot. He kicked me in the face and crawled across the floor. I jumped up to a squat as the first guard ran at me from an inner room. Hair in three plaits and red as his skirt, he charged at me with a dagger. I pulled my hatchet before he got twenty paces and flung it straight between his eyes. Two throwing daggers passed over him, and I ducked to the ground again as another guard charged me. Belekun was trying to crawl to his door, but violence made even his fingers stiff, and he could barely move, like a tired fish too long out of water. My eyes on Belekun, I let the other guard get close to me, and as he swung a large ax I rolled to miss, before it hit the ground and sparked little lightnings. He swung it over his head and brought it down again, almost chopping my foot. Like a devil, this man. I pushed myself up on my elbows and jumped back right as he swung the ax to my face. He swung it right above me again, but I pulled my second hatchet, ducked under his swing, and chopped into his left shin. He screamed and the ax fell. He went down hard. I grabbed his ax and swung a chop to his temple. My blink blocked blood before it splashed my eye.

  Belekun the Big pulled himself up. Somehow he found a sword. Just holding it made him tremble.

  “I give you this, Belekun, for I give charity to all elders. You may deliver the first blow. First parry. Stab me. Chop if that is what the gods tell you,” I said. He blubbered something. I smelled piss.

  Belekun trembled so hard his necklaces and bracelets all rattled.

  “Raise your sword,” I said. Sweat ran from his forehead to his chins. He raised the sword and pointed it at me. It dipped from his hands and I stopped it with my foot, lifted it up until it pointed at me.

  “I give you one more charity, Belekun the Big. I’ll fall on it for you.”

  I threw myself on the sword. Belekun screamed. Then he looked at me, still in the air, his sword below me, both of us suspended as if we were the backsides of magnets.

  “A sword cannot kill you?” he said.

  “A sword cannot touch me,” I said. The sword flew out of his hand and I fell. Belekun rolled himself up and ran for the door, screaming, “Aesi, lord of hosts! Aesi, lord of hosts!”

  I yanked a spear from the wall, took three steps, and threw it. The iron tip burst through his neck, shot through his mouth, and lodged in the door.

  * * *

  —

  Six days after Leopard and I met at Kulikulo Inn, we were in the Uwomowomowomowo valley. No Bunshi, but the slaver was there trying to show the boy Fumeli how to ride a horse. He gripped the reins too tight, told the horse clashing messages, so of course she jumped up on two legs and threw him off. Three other horses stood off near a tree, grazing, all dressed in the floral cotton quilt saddles of the northern horse lords. Two horses, harnessed to a chariot, red with gold trim, stood waiting off in the distance, the
ir tails whisking away flies. I had not seen a chariot since I tracked a pack of stolen horses far north of the sand sea. The horse threw Fumeli off again. I laughed out loud, hoping he heard. The Leopard saw me and changed, trotting off as I waved to him. I thought I would feel nothing when I saw Nyka coming out of the bush, Nsaka Ne Vampi beside him, both in long blue djellaba, dark as black skin in the night. His hair plaited tight into one braid, and curved out and up at the back like a horn. She covering her hair in a wrap. His bottom lip red and swollen, and a soiled white linen strip above his brow. The slaver kept one caravan, the prettiest one left behind, and from it came Sogolon the witch. She looked angry that sunlight was in her eyes, but that might have been how her face always looked.

  “Wolf Eye, you look younger in the daylight,” Nyka said. He smiled and winced as he touched his bottom lip.

  I said nothing. Nsaka Ne Vampi looked at me. I thought she would nod but she just looked.

  “Where is the Ogo?” I said to the slaver.

  “By the river.”

  “Oh. Ogo are not known as bathers.”

  “Who said he bathes?”

  The slaver ran to Fumeli, who was trying to jump back on the horse.

  “Young fool, stop. One horse kick, you go down and down you shall remain. I tell you true,” he said.

  The slaver waved us over. The man who fed him dates came out of the caravan with a sack slung over his shoulder and a silver tray carrying several leather pouches. The slaver grabbed them one by one and threw them to us. I felt the texture of silver coins, heard them clink.

  “This not your reward. This is what my bookkeepers have portioned out for your expenses, each according to your ability, which means you all received the same. Nothing is cheap in Kongor, especially information.”

  His date feeder opened a sack, pulled out scrolls, and handed them to us. Nyka refused and so did Nsaka Ne Vampi. I wondered if she refused because he did. She talked much those nights ago, but said nothing now. Fumeli took one for the Leopard, who was still a Leopard, though he was listening.

  “That is a map of the city drawn to the best recollection, since I have not been there in years. Beware of Kongor. Roads seem straight, and lanes promise to take you where they say they go, but they twist and snake you, and bend into places you will not want to go, places of no return. Listen to me good, I tell you true. There are two ways to get to Kongor. Tracker, you know of what I speak. Some of you will not. When you head west and get to the White Lake, you can go around it, which will add two days to your journey, or cross, which will take a day, for the lake is narrow. That is your choice, not mine. Then you can choose to ride around the Darklands, which will add three days to your journey, or ride through, but it is the Darklands,” the slaver said.

  “What is the Darklands?” the boy Fumeli said.

  The slaver grinned, then lost his grin. “Nothing that you can conceive in your head. Who here has been through the Darklands?”

  Both Nyka and I nodded. We went through it together many years past, and neither of us would talk of it here. I already knew I was going around it, no matter what the others thought. Then Sogolon nodded.

  “Again. Your choice, not mine. Three days’ ride to go around the Darklands, but one day to go through. And with either, it would still be three more days before Kongor. If you go around, you will head through nameless lands not claimed by any king. If you go through you will also travel through Mitu, where men have put down arms to ponder the great questions of earth and sky. A tiresome land and a tiresome race, you might find them worse than anything awaiting you in the Darklands. It will take you a day’s ride just to get out. But this again is your choice. Bibi here shall come with you.”

  “Him? What shall he do? Feed us what we can reach for with our own hands?” Nyka said.

  “I go for protection,” he said.

  I was surprised at his voice, more commanding, like a warrior’s, not like someone who was trying to sing like a griot. This was the first time I really looked at him. Skinny as Fumeli and wearing a white djellaba gown past the knee, with a belt tied around the waist. From the belt hung a sword, which was not there the last two times I saw him. He saw me looking at it and approached me.

  “I have never seen a takouba this far from the East,” I said.

  “The owner should have never come west then,” he said, and smiled. “My name is Bibi.”

  “Was that the name he gave you?” I asked.

  “If that ‘he’ is my father, then yes.”

  “Every slave I know, the master forced on him a new name.”

  “And were I a slave, a new name I would have. You think me a slave because I feed him dates? He has me playing his deceits. People say much to a man who is less than a wall.”

  I turned away from him, but that meant facing Nyka. He walked off a few paces, expecting me to follow.

  “Tracker, you and me, we both left something in the Darklands, eh?” he said.

  I stared at him.

  “He should have left his woman tip,” Nsaka Ne Vampi said, and I was furious that he was telling her things about me. Betraying me still. They walked off, even though the slaver opened his mouth to say more.

  “Of course, to tell you true, there are rumors. The last place eyes have seen him was not even Kongor, but not only eyes see. I told you before. You can follow the trail of the dead, who was found dead and quickly buried, sucked out like juice from a berry. There was word of a boy and four others in Nigiki, one time long ago in Kongor. But find him and bring him back to me in Malakal where—”

  “You no longer ask for proof of his death?” I asked.

  “I will be at the collapsed tower. This is all I have to say. Sogolon, I will speak to you alone,” he said.

  Sogolon, who had not said a word up to this point, went off with him to the caravan.

  “I know you need no help to get to Kongor,” Nyka said.

  I was already looking west, but I turned around to see his face. Always a handsome man, even now with white hair peeking under his chin and brushing across the top of his plait. And his swollen lip.

  “Here is a question only you are fit to answer. Though you never was one for words, which is why you used to need me. If you take the way through the Darklands, how many of you will make it to the other side, hmm? The Leopard? Cunning as a cat but too hot as a man, his temper makes him foolish. Like a young you, no? The crone talking to master slaver? She going to drop dead before you even get to the lake. So, that little boy over there, who fucks him, you or the cat? He will not even mount a horse, much less ride it. That leaves you with the slave—”

  “He is not a slave.”

  “No?”

  “He said so.”

  “I did not hear.”

  “You did not listen.”

  “So the man who is not a slave and the Ogo, and you know how much trust one can put in an Ogo.”

  “More than one can put in you.”

  “Hmm.” He laughed. Nsaka Ne Vampi stayed back. She noticed that I noticed. I also noticed he said you, not us.

  “You have made other plans,” I said.

  “You know me better than I know myself.”

  “Must be some kind of curse, knowing you.”

  “No man has known me better.”

  “Then no man has known you at all.”

  “So you wish to settle this now, hmm? How about it? Right here. Or maybe down by the lake. Or shall I expect you to come quick in the night like a lover? Sometimes I wish you did love me, Tracker. How can I give you peace?”

  “I wish nothing from you. Not even peace.”

  He laughed again, and walked away. Then he stopped, laughed yet again, and walked over to a huge, filthy tapestry that was covering something. Nsaka Ne Vampi climbed the chariot and grabbed the reins. Nyka pulled off the tapestry, revealing a cage, inside
of which was the lightning woman. The Leopard saw her too. He trotted right up to the cage and growled. The woman scrambled to the farther side, though there was nowhere to go. She looked like a woman now. Her eyes were wide as if fright stuck itself on her face, like those children who were born in war. Nyka pulled the lock. The woman pushed back even farther and the cage shifted with her. The Leopard trotted away and lay in the dirt, but still he watched her. She sniffed around, looked around, then sprang out of the cage. She spun one way and then the next, looking at the caravan, the trees, the Leopard, the man and woman in the same blue, then jerked her head north, as if somebody just called her. Then she ran, barely on her two legs, hopped over a mound, leapt as high as a tree, and was gone. Nyka jumped on the chariot, just as Nsaka Ne Vampi whipped the reins, and the horses galloped away. North.

  “The lake, not west?” Bibi, the date feeder, said.

  I did not answer.

  This boy was going to scare his horse into galloping, throwing him and breaking his neck. I wasn’t about to teach him. The Leopard was no use since he stayed the cat, spoke to no one, and ran off as far as he could get from us while still hearing us. Sogolon would need help mounting a horse, I thought. Or she would attach some cot or cart to carry herself and whatever it was witches carry, maybe the leg of a baby, shit from a virgin, the hide of an entire buffalo stored in salt, or whatever she needed for conjuring. But she strapped a deerskin bag over her shoulder, grabbed the saddle horn with her left hand, and swung herself up, right into the saddle. Even the Ogo noticed. He of course would squash ten horses just by sitting on them, so he ran. For a man of such height and weight he made almost no sound and shook no ground. I wondered if he had bought a gift of stealth from a Sangoma, a witchman, a witch, or a devil. These were strong horses, but only good for a day’s ride at a time, so two days to the White Lake. I tied the second supplies horse to mine. Sogolon had gone ahead of us, but the Ogo waited. I think he was afraid of her. Bibi jumped off his horse and tied a sisal rope from his saddle to the bridle of one of the horses carrying supplies and told Fumeli to mount it.