Black Leopard, Red Wolf

by Marlon James

  “Of course you are.”

  Everyone was so quiet that I could hear water gurgle under the raft. The Ogo turned around. He said, “What is man and what is woman? Well that is a simple question with a simple answer, except for when—”

  “Sadogo, not now,” I said.

  “Your name? What do they call you?” I asked.

  “The higher ones call me Venin. They call all chosen ones Venin. He is Venin and she is Venin. The great mothers and fathers chose me from before birth to be a sacrifice to the Zogbanu. I have been in prayer from birth till now and I am still in prayer.”

  “Why are they this far north?”

  “I am the chosen one to sacrifice to the horned gods. This is how it was with my mother and the mother of my mother.”

  “Mother and mother of moth . . . Then how are you here? Someone remind me, why did we take this one?” I said.

  “Maybe stop asking questions where you know the answer,” the Leopard said.

  “Is that it? Where would I be without the wise Leopard? What is this answer that I already know?”

  “They would have eaten down to girl and boy bones by now. They were waiting for us.”

  “Your slaver told them we were coming,” I said to the Leopard.

  “He’s not my slaver,” he said.

  “You both fool. Why send we on a mission then stop we from doing it?” Sogolon asked.

  “He changed his mind,” I said.

  She frowned. I was not going to say, Sogolon, what you say here is true. The Leopard nodded.

  “Nothing point to no betrayal from the slaver,” she said.

  “Of course. The Zogbanu was just following shifting winds. Maybe it was someone on this raft. Or off it.”

  The sun was right above us and the lake had gone deeper blue. Bunshi was in the water, I saw her low down in the blue; her skin, which looked black in the night, now looked indigo. She darted like a fish, up above the water, then down, the east far off and west far off, then back, right beside the raft. She was like water creatures I have seen in rivers. A fin right down the back of her head and neck, shoulders and breasts and belly like a woman’s, but from the hip down the long swishy tail of a great fish.

  “What is she doing?” I said to Sogolon, who up till now hadn’t bothered to look at me. The view ahead was nothing but the line separating sea from sky, but she fixed her eyes on it.

  “You have never seen a fish?”

  “She is not a fish.”

  “She is speaking to Chipfalambula. Asking her for one more traveling mercy to take us to the other side. We are not here by permission, after all.”

  “Not where?”

  “You fool,” she said, and looked down.

  “This?” I said, and kicked up dirt.

  Her standing there, looking like a leader, annoyed me. I walked past her to the front of the raft and sat down. Here the mound sloped down into the river. I could see the rest of the raft under the water. It was not a raft, it was a floating island controlled by wind or magic. Two fishes, maybe as tall as I am, swam in front.

  What I saw next I was sure I did not see. The island below the sea opened a slit right at the front where I sat and swallowed the first fish. Half of the second stuck out, but the opening chomped it down. Below my right heel I saw Chipfalambula’s eyes looking up at me. I jumped. Her gills opened and closed. Farther down her enormous fins, each wider than a boat, paddled slow in the lake, the half below the water a morning blue, the half above the colour of sand and dust.

  “Popele asks permission of the Chipfalambula the toll taker to take us to the other side. She has not yet given an answer,” Sogolon said.

  “We are long gone from land. Is that not her answer?”

  Sogolon laughed. Bunshi leapt fully out of the water and dived, right in front of it, whatever it was.

  “Chipfalambula does not take you into deep water to carry you to the other side. She takes you out to eat you.”

  Sogolon was serious. Nobody felt the thing moving but we all felt when it stopped. Bunshi swam right up to its mouth and I thought it would swallow her. She dove under and came up by the side of her right fin. It swatted her as one would a wasp and she flew into the sky and landed far off into the water. She swam back in a blink and climbed back on top of the big fish. She walked past us to stand with Sogolon. The great fish started moving again.

  “Fat cow, cantankerousness growing in her old age,” she said.

  I went over to the Leopard. He still sat with Fumeli, both of them with knees drawn up to chest.

  “I will have words with you,” I said.

  He stood up, as did Fumeli. Both wore leather skirts, but the Leopard was not as uneasy with it as he was back at Kulikulo Inn.

  “You only,” I said.

  Fumeli refused to sit, until the Leopard turned around and nodded.

  “Wearing sandals next?”

  “What is this about?” Leopard asked.

  “You have something else pressing you? Another meeting on the back of this fish?”

  “What is this about?”

  “I went to see an elder about Basu Fumanguru. Just to see if these stories would turn true. He told me that the Fumanguru house fell to sickness, caught from a river demon. But when I said something about cutting my hand and throwing blood, he looked up to the ceiling before I even said it. He knows. And he lied. Bisimbi is not a river demon. They have no love for rivers.”

  “So that is where you went?”

  “Yes, that is where I went.”

  “Where is this elder now?”

  “With his ancestors. He tried to kill me when I told him he was lying. Here is the thing. I do not think he knew of the child.”

  “So?”

  “A chief elder and not know about his own? He said the youngest boy was ten and five.”

  “It’s still riddles, what you say,” the Leopard said.

  “I say this. The boy was not Fumanguru’s son, no matter what Bunshi or the slaver or anyone says. I am sure the elder knew Fumanguru was going to be murdered, might have ordered it himself. But he counted eight bodies, which is what he expected to count.”

  “He knows of the murder, but does not know of the child?”

  “Because the child was no son of Fumanguru. Or ward, or kin or even guest. The elder tried to kill me because he saw I knew he knew about the murder. But he did not know there was another boy. Whoever is behind the killing told him nothing,” I said.

  “And the boy is not Fumanguru’s son?”

  “Why would he have a secret son?”

  “Why does Bunshi call him a son?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Forget money or goods. People trade only lies in these parts.” He said this looking straight at me.

  “Or people only tell you what they think you need to know,” I said.

  He looked around for a while, at everybody on the fish, for a good while at the Ogo, who went back to sleep, then back at me.

  “Is that all?”

  “Is that not enough?”

  “If you think so.”

  “Fuck the gods, cat. Something has curdled between us.”

  “This is what you think.”

  “This is what I know. And it has happened in the quick. But I think it’s your Fumeli. He was but a joke to you only days ago. Now you two pull closer and I am your enemy.”

  “Me pulling him closer, as you say, makes you my enemy.”

  “That is not what I said.”

  “It is what you meant.”

  “Not that either. You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “I sound like—”

  “Him.”

  He laughed and sat back down beside Fumeli, drawing up his legs to his chest as the boy did.

  Daylight ran aw
ay from us. I watched it go. Venin was by Sogolon, watching her, sometimes watching the river, sometimes drawing her feet together when she saw she sat on skin, not ground. Everybody else slept, stared into the river, watched sky, or minded their own business.

  We came to the shore in the evening. How much time was left for sun, I did not know. The Ogo woke up. Sogolon left the fish first, walking with her horse. The girl, right behind her, grabbed Sogolon’s robe tight, afraid to be even arm’s length away, maybe more because of the oncoming dark. The Ogo wobbled off, still sleepy. The Leopard said something at which Fumeli laughed. He swung his head left and right, then rubbed the boy’s cheek with his forehead. He grabbed the reins of the boy’s horse and walked right past me. Following him, Fumeli said, “Looking out for the date feeder?”

  I squeezed my knuckles and let him pass. The girl Venin walked right beside Sogolon as did Bunshi, the fins in the back of her head disappearing. Only a hundred paces from us there it was, rising out of mist so heavy it rested on the ground, with trees tall as mountains and long branches splayed like broken fingers. Huddled together, sharing secrets. So dark green it was blue.

  The Darklands.

  I have been here before.

  We stood and looked at the forest. The Darklands was something mothers told children; a bush of ghosts and monsters, both lie and truth. A day stood between us and Mitu. To go around the Darklands took three or four days and had its own dangers. The forest had something I could never describe, not to them about to go in. Woodpeckers tapped out a beat, telling birds far away that we approach. One tree pushed past the others as if to catch sun. It looked surrounded. Fewer leaves than the other trees, exposing branches spread out wide like a fan, though the trunk was thin. The Darklands was already infecting me.

  “Stinkwood,” Sogolon said. “Stinkwood, yellowwood, ironwood, woodpecker, stinkwood, yellowwood, ironwood, woodpecker, stinkwood, yellowwood—”

  Sogolon fell back. Her head jerked left like somebody slapped her, then right. I heard the slap. Everyone heard the slap. Sogolon fell and shook, then stopped, then shook, then shook again, then grabbed her belly and snarled something in a language that I have heard in the Darklands. The girl holding her robe fell with her. She looked at me, her eyes wide open, about to scream. Sogolon stood up but air slapped her down again. I drew my hatchets, the Ogo squeezed his knuckles, the Leopard changed, and Fumeli drew his bow. The Leopard’s bow. The Sangoma’s enchantment was still on me, and I could feel it the way one feels the sharp cold on the air of a coming storm. Sogolon staggered away, almost falling twice. Bunshi went after her.

  “Madness has taken her,” the Leopard said.

  “Cannot bind these and cover those,” Sogolon said in a whisper, but we heard her.

  “She is old. Madness take her and gone away,” said Fumeli.

  “If she is a madwoman, then you are dim-witted and young,” I said.

  Bunshi tried to grab her but she pushed her away. Sogolon fell to her knees. She grabbed a stick and started drawing runes in the sand. In between what looked like someone punching her and slapping her she scratched them in the dirt. The Ogo had enough. He pulled on his iron gloves and stomped to her, but Bunshi stopped him, saying his fists cannot help us here. Sogolon marked, and scratched, and dug, and brushed dirt with her fingers, making runes in the dirt and falling back and cursing until she made a circle around her. She stood up and dropped the stick. Something moved through the air and dashed at her. We couldn’t see it, only hear the wind. Also this, the sound of something hitting, like sacks thrown against a wall, one, then three, then ten, then a rain of hits. Hitting against a wall of nothing all around Sogolon. Then nothing.

  “Darklands,” Sogolon said. “Is the Darklands. All of them feeling stronger here. Taking liberties like they get passage from the underworld.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  Sogolon was about to speak, but Bunshi raised her hand.

  “Dead spirits who never liked death. Spirits who think Sogolon can help them. They surround her with requests, and become furious when she says no. The dead should stay dead.”

  “And they were all lying in wait at the mouth of the Darklands?” I asked.

  “Many things lie in wait here,” Sogolon said. Not many people hold her stare, but I was not many people.

  “You are lying,” I said.

  “They are dead, that’s no lie.”

  “I’ve been around those desperate for help, living and dead. They may grab you, hold you, and force you to look, may even pull you down to where they died, but none slap you around like a husband.”

  “They are dead and that’s no lie.”

  “But the witch is responsible and that’s no lie either.”

  “Zogbanu is hunting you. There are more.”

  “But these spirits on this shore are hunting her.”

  “Think you know me. You know nothing,” Sogolon said.

  “I know the next time you forget to write runes on sky or in dirt they will knock you off your horse or push you off a cliff. I know you do it every night. I wonder how you sleep. Tana kasa tano dabo.”

  Both Bunshi and Sogolon stared at me. I looked at the others and said, “If it is ground, it is magic.”

  “Enough. Nowhere is where this is taking us. You need to get to Mitu, then Kongor,” Bunshi said.

  Sogolon grabbed her horse’s bridle, mounted, then pulled the girl up. “We go around the forest,” she said.

  “That will take three days, four if the wind is against you,” the Leopard said.

  “Still, we gone.”

  “No one is stopping you,” Fumeli said.

  I wanted nothing in the world as much as I wanted to slap this boy. But I did not want to go into the Darklands either.

  “She is right,” I said. “There are things in the Darklands that will find us, even if we are not looking for them. They will be looking for—”

  “It is less than a day through this silly bush,” the Leopard said.

  “It is never less anything in there. You have never been.”

  “There you go again, Tracker, thinking whatever has beaten you shall beat me,” the Leopard said.

  “We go around,” I said, and turned for my horse. The Leopard mumbled something.

  “What?”

  “I said, Some men think they have become lord over me.”

  “Why would I seek to be your lord? Why would anybody, cat?”

  “We go through the forest. It is only trees and bush.”

  “What is this ill spirit in you all of a sudden? I said I have been to the Darklands. It’s a place of bad enchantments. You stop being yourself. You won’t even know what that self is.”

  “Self is what men tell themselves they are. I am just a cat.”

  His rudeness made no sense and I have seen him at his most brash. It was too quick, like some boil hidden for years that just burst. Then the boil opened his mouth.

  “Through the Darklands in one day. Around the lands is three days. Any man with sense would make the choice,” Fumeli said.

  “Well, man and boy, choose whatever you want. We go round,” I said.

  “The only way forward is through, Tracker.”

  He grabbed the horse and started walking. Fumeli followed.

  “Everyone finds what they are looking for in the Darklands. Unless you are what they are looking for,” I said.

  But they were no longer looking. Then the Ogo started to follow them.

  “Sadogo, why?” I asked.

  “Maybe he thinking he tired of your fat verse,” Fumeli said. “Everyone finds what they are looking for in the Darklands. You sound like those men with white hair and shriveled skin, who think they talking wise when they just talking old.”

  The Ogo turned to answer but I cut him off, although I should have let him explain for days. At le
ast that would have kept him from following them.

  “Never mind. Do what you have to,” I said.

  “Seems like the boy finds his use,” Sogolon said, then rode off with the girl.

  I mounted my horse and followed her. The painted girl held on to Sogolon’s sides, her right cheek resting on her back. Evening was running after us, and doing it in the quick. Sogolon stopped.

  “Your men, any of them ever travel through the Darklands?”

  “The Leopard said it’s only bush.”

  “None of them ever go before, not even the giant?”

  “The Ogo. Ogos do not like to be called giant.”

  “His small brain is all that is saving him.”

  “Make your meaning clear, woman.”

  “I clear as river water. They not going to reach the other side.”

  “They will if they stay on the path.”

  “You already forget. That is what the forest hoping you do.”

  “They will have much to tell us on the other side.”

  “They not going to reach the other side.”

  “What is this bush?” the painted girl said.

  “Do you not have a name?”

  “Venin, I told you.”

  “You going back for your friends?” Sogolon asked.

  “They are not my friends.”

  I looked at her and Venin, and the sky.

  “Where is Bunshi?”

  Sogolon laughed. “How long you going take to find the missing if you take this long to notice the gone?”

  “I don’t track the goings and comings of witches.”

  “Will you go for them?”

  “None would show me gratitude for it.”

  “Gratitude is what you seeking? You come cheap.”

  She grabbed the reins.

  “You wish to save them, save them. Or don’t. What a band of fellows this turn into. Bunshi and her fellowship of men, which is why it fail before it even begin. Cannot make fellowship with men. A man alive is just a man in the way. Maybe we meet again in Mitu, if not Kongor.”

  “You say that as if I am going back.”

  “I will see you or I will not. Trust the gods.”

  Sogolon rode off in a gallop. I did not follow.