Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Dark Star Trilogy)

by Marlon James

  I was walking. I heard my own footsteps in the bush. A man walked before me, several paces ahead, and I wondered how I had not seen him before. Slow he walked, with no purpose in step, just wandering. His hair long, and curly, and when he pulled his cloak tighter, arms light as sand itself. Something jumped into my heart. I ran up close to him and stopped, I didn’t know why. Up close the wet hair, the sharp turn from jaw to chin, the beard red, the cheekbones high, all were enough for me to think it was him and not enough for me to say, No, it could not be. The cape hid his legs, but I knew the wide stride, the balls of his feet hitting the ground before the heel, even in boots. I waited for his smell, but none came. The cape fell off and rolled into the bush. His feet I saw first, green from grass and brown from dirt. Then his calves, always so thick and strong, so unlike any man from these lands. And the back of his knee, and his buttocks, always so smooth and white, as if he never liked lying naked in the sun at the top of the baobab tree like one of the monkeys. Above his buttocks, trees and sky. Below his shoulders, trees and sky. Above his buttocks a hole, a nothing, everything eaten out from his belly to his back, leaving a gap big as the world. Dripping blood and flesh, and still he walked.

  But I could not. My legs had never been this weak, and I fell to my knees and breathed heavy and slow, waiting for Itutu to come to my heart. It did not. All in my head was my crawling on top of him, cradling his head, for there were flies everywhere else, and weeping, and bawling, and screaming, and screaming, and screaming into the trees and sky. And reading what he wrote in his own blood in the sand:

  The boy, the boy was with him.

  I cried, Beautiful man, I should not have been late. I should have come before you left this world and coaxed your soul into a nkisi, and wrapped it around my neck, so I could rub it and feel you. A mystic with a nkisi shaped like a dog said, There is a tormented spirit that would have words with you, Wolf Eye, but I wanted no words. I called his name and it came out a whimper.

  This Mossi kept walking into the deep bush. This I know. A time surely comes when grief is nothing but a sickness, and I had grown sick of sickness. I raged and howled and the smell of that monster and of that vampire bird both came upon me, and I rose and pulled both my axes and ran shouting at nothing, chopping at nothing. I ran from a new thing, it must have been a head witch trying to drive a needle through deaths upon deaths and sew them together. My father whom I did not know, and my unavenged brother. And Mossi, and so many more. Not a head witch, but the god of the underworld telling me of the wronged dead that I must make right, as if I am why they are dead. How must the Tracker who lives for no one have so many dead on his watch? Must he be blamed for them all? My head argued with my head, making me stumble. The Leopard should have been right here, right now, so I could stab him in the heart. My foot hit a downed tree and I fell.

  When I looked up I saw feet. Hanging high above me even when I stood up. Legs white like kaolin dust with his black feet loose and dangling. Ribs pressed out of his thin chest and black blood streaks dried up from running down his belly. Two black spots where his nipples used to be and dried blood that had flowed from them. Bite marks all over his chest, and neck, and his left cheek. Somebody was looking for a tender spot to bite. His chin resting on his chest, his arms spread out and tied off with vines. His wings spread wider and trapped in branches and leaves.

  “Nyka,” I whispered.

  Nyka did not move. I said his name louder. A giggle came out of the bushes below. I looked into the bush and into the bush looked at me. He stared as he did before, eyes wide for no reason, not delight, not malice, not care, not even curiosity. Just wide. Older. Taller. I could tell from just the eyes and his thin, bony cheek. I would rather he laughed. I would rather he said, Look at me, I am your villain. Or whimper and plead, Look at me, your real victim. Instead he just looked. I looked at his eyes and saw Mossi’s dead eyes, looking forever and seeing nothing. He dashed out of that grass patch right before my ax came for his face. I charged straight into the bush, thinking the beast growl came from another mouth but mine. I surged through branches and ripped through leaves into darker bush. Nothing. Bloodsucker-tit-biting ghoul, still giggling like a baby. Gone.

  Above me Nyka groaned. I stepped out of the bush and walked right into Sasabonsam’s hand-foot kicking me in the face.

  My head and back hit the ground. I rolled up to my knees, and jumped back to my feet. He flapped his wing but it kept hitting trees, so he landed on his feet and looked at me. Sasabonsam. I had never stopped to look at his face. His big white eyes, jackal ears, and sharp bottom teeth sticking out from his lips like a warthog’s. His whole body overrun with black hair except for his pale chest and pink nipples, an ivory necklace, and a loincloth that made me laugh. He growled.

  “Your smell, I remember it. I follow it,” he said.

  “Quiet.”

  “Come round looking for it.”

  “Silence.”

  “You not there. So I eat. The little ones, they taste strange.”

  I charged at him, ducking before he swung his wing. Then I rolled to his left foot and chopped it with both axes. He jumped and shrieked like a crow. You always aim for the toes, said a voice that sounded like me. The ax barely touched him. He tried to swat me with his hand but I ducked, jumped to his knee, and swung my ax at his face as I leapt off. The blunt side hit his cheekbone and he snarled, then swatted at me. His hand missed me but his claws slashed four lines across my chest. I fell to one knee and he kicked me away. My back slammed into a tree trunk and my breath rushed out.

  And my eyes rolled. And there was nothing. My chin grazed my chest, and I saw my nipples and belly. My head grew heavy, and my eyes did not work well. Nyka groaned and pulled at his hands. My chin hit my chest again. I looked up straight into Sasabonsam’s knuckles.

  “Six of them for one of you. Look at your quality,” he said.

  He said more but blood trickled from my right ear and I could not hear. He punched at my face, but I nodded and his hand struck the tree. He howled and slapped me. I spat blood on my legs, and my legs did not work.

  “Where are my askis, the little one say.”

  He grabbed my throat.

  “The little ball, the little one he tried to roll away. You want know how far he get? He the one that say, My father going come back and kill you. He going chop you with he two askis.”

  “Kosu.”

  “Father, he call you. Father? You don’t roll like a ball. You don’t have no askis now. Look at your quality.”

  “Kosu. Ko—”

  He punched me again. I spat out two teeth. He wrapped his long fingers around my head and pulled me up.

  Axes, he was saying that Father was going to chop him with axes.

  “He never scream. And I have him in many bites.”

  “Kosu.”

  I could only see bits of light through his thick and stinking fingers. His claws scratched my neck.

  “When I reach the bone in his back, still he did not cry. Then he die. And I bite the back of the head and suck—”

  “Fuck the gods.”

  He threw me and a peace came over me in flight that cut when I landed in branches and leaves. He grabbed at my ankle and I kicked him away. He giggled and grabbed my leg again and kept giggling as he pulled me out of the branches. My back and head hit the ground and then I was moving; he was pulling me.

  “You the fool and she the fool. She the one in gold and red and all she do, she sit. I see her through the window. Only I know the boy. I come for him in the weird place and he follow me. He even call me, for the white one teach him how to call. Me never want the boy for he don’t want me, he want the lightning one, but he call me and I come take him, and the night did quick and I fly away with him and he say I hear my mother talk about the wolf and he cubs and how she try to make him her soldier and they live in the monkeybread tree and I say that is the one who kill my brother, I hear, he says so and the boy say fly with me on your back and I can take you,
and he take me.”

  I said, Quiet, but it died before it fell out of my mouth. I don’t know where he was dragging me, and my back scraped against grass and dirt and stones in water, and then my head sunk underwater as he pulled me through a river, and the back of my head hit a rock, and I went dark. I woke up and I was still under the water and coughing and choking until he pulled me out into grass and under trees again.

  “The white one, the pretty one, the one who when I squeeze him until I see the blood flow under the skin, delicious, he a fighter, he better fighter than you. He get teach by the one with the two sword. The two of them, I break down the door and the two of them swing down from the tree saying they going fight me. And they jump up on me and strike and the one with two sword throw one sword to the white-skin and he come at me, this boy, he jump, and the boy he strike me in the head and it hurt and the man jab me in the side right here, right here and the sword go in but stop at my chest cage right here, I thump him with me knuckle and he fall back and the white-skin run at me and duck before I swat him with my wing and he grab my wing and stab right through it, see right there how it still a hole, that the white-skin do and I grab him with this foot and grab him with my other foot and fling his up into the tree and a branch knock him quiet. Yes yes. And the one that is a ball, he roll up behind me and knock me off me two foot. And I fall and he laugh but I grab him before he run away and I bite him and pull the flesh out, sweet flesh, sweet, sweet flesh, and I take another bite and another bite and the man with hair scream. He put some of them on horse and slap the horse. And they ride off and he come for me and he angry, and I like angry and he fight and fight and fight, and stab and cut and go for my eye and I catch the sword and the white-skin stab me right up me shithole and now I is fury, yes I was.”

  He pulled me out of light grass into dark and above me was also dark. I kicked at his hand again and he swung me up and slammed me back down on the grass. Blood poured out of my ear again.

  “I grab white-skin and I smash him, and smash him, and smash him, and smash him, and smash him until all he juice run out. And the long hair one he bawl and bawl and make like a dog, but he fight like a warrior man, he and two swords, better than you with one ax. Stay still and make me smash you too, I say to him, but he do this and this like a fly and he cut me across my back—he cut the skin! Nobody cut the skin and is many moon me see me own blood, then he flip around, better than you, and stab me in the belly and he look at me, and I stop and make him look at me, because many man think something down there, but nothing down there but flesh. I beat him away with this hand.”

  He dropped me to show me his hand.

  “And pull out the sword with this hand. I don’t use sword good but he reaching for he knife and I push it right through he chest just like I push my finger through mud. I swing the sword and cut he throat. And then I jump on him and eat the nice part first. Oh, the belly, then the red part, oh the fat, like a hog. They think my brother like the flesh and I like the blood, but I eat anything.”

  I wished I had a voice to beg him to stop, and I wished he had ears to hear.

  “Then I go after the others, the runners, yes I did. How they going flee far when I faster than a horse? The two-head one.”

  “They were two, you son of a bitch. Two.”

  “The other head he start cry for his brother. You know what I tell the ostrich one?”

  “Niguli. His name is Niguli.”

  “A strange taste. You feed him strange? He cried. I say, Cry, boy, cry. You not the one I come for, he should get eat instead of you.”

  “No.”

  “Lie. Lie. Lie. I lie. Me would eat you first then them. They call you Father?”

  “I was—”

  “You didn’t breed none. And you don’t after watch none. You open the pen and let in the wolf.”

  “The Leopard. The Leopard killed your brother.”

  He grabbed my throat again.

  “The ghost one, I couldn’t grab her. She be a dust in wind,” Sasabonsam said.

  He tossed me to the ground. Dark came on me in the day. Wanting to kill, wanting to die, in your head they are the same colour, and the door to one leads to the other. I wanted to say he would get no joy out of killing me, that I had walked from north to south of these lands and walked through the two kingdoms in war, and walked through arrows and fire and the killing plans of people and did not care, so kill me now, kill me hence, kill me quick, or kill me from toe to finger to knee and up, and I still would not care. But instead I said:

  “You know no griot.”

  Sasabonsam’s ears flattened, and he squeezed his brows. He stomped towards me. He stood over me, and I was between his legs. He spread his wings. He bent down until his face was right in front of my face, his eye on my eye. Rotten flesh settled between his teeth.

  “I know how a little boy taste,” he said.

  I took my two knives and stabbed his two eyes.

  Blood from his almost blinded mine. He roared like ten lions, fell back on his own right wing, and snapped it at the bone. He roared louder and flailed around until he grabbed both knives and pulled them out, screaming with each pull. He ran straight into a tree, fell on his back, jumped up, and ran again, right into another. I grabbed a stick and threw it behind him. He jumped, swung around, and ran into another tree. Sasabonsam tried to flap his wing but only the left flapped. The right swung but it was broken and limp. I searched around for the knives as he ran into trees. He roared again and stomped the ground, and scraped the grass and ground with his hands looking for me, coming up with clumps of dirt and leaves and grass and panting, and roaring, and shrieking. Then he would touch his eyes and howl.

  I found one knife. I looked at his neck. And his pale chest and pink nipples. At his fright at everything. At him backing into his right wing and cracking it again.

  He fell on his back.

  I stood up and almost fell to one knee. I rose again and limped away.

  Back through the bushes and down the hill and across the river, Sasabonsam was still howling, squealing, and bawling. Then he went quiet.

  The me of many moons ago would search for why neither fate made a difference to me. I did not care. Nyka was still up in the tree, still trying to free himself. I had found one ax in the bush under his tree, and the other several paces away. I heard him before I saw him, crawling down the tree on hands and legs like the white spider before, crawling to get to Nyka, to a sweet spot to drink blood. The boy. I threw my ax, but the pain in my leg made me miss, just a hand’s length from the boy’s face. He scurried back up the tree. I threw the second ax to Nyka’s right and cut through the vines gripping his hand. He pulled it free. I thought he would say something. I thought how there could be nothing that he would say that I would care to hear. I fell to one knee. Then he shouted my name and I heard a wing flap.

  I spun around and saw Sasabonsam swinging hands in the air and scraping the ground, sniffing. Smelling me out the way I smell everyone. I lurched backward and tripped over a fallen branch.

  And then it was all thunder and then lightning, one bolt, then three, all striking Sasabonsam, but with no end, just blasting and striking and spreading all over him and running into his mouth and ears and coming out of his eyes and mouth, as fire and juice and smoke and something came out of his mouth, not a scream, or a shriek, or a yell. A wail. Hair and skin caught flame and he staggered and dropped to one knee as lightning still struck him and thunder still dropped heavy on him, and fell Sasabonsam did, his body burning in a huge flame, then going out just as quick.

  Nyka fell from the tree.

  He was saying something to me, but I did not listen. I grabbed my ax and went over to the charred carcass of Sasabonsam and swung it down at the neck. I yanked out and chopped, yanked out and chopped until the ax hacked through skin, through bone, straight to the ground. I fell on my knees and didn’t know I was shouting until Nyka touched my shoulder. I pushed him away, almost swinging my ax at him.

  “Tak
e your disgusting hands off me,” I said. He backed away, his hands in the air.

  “I saved your life,” Nyka said.

  “You also took it. Not much it was, but you took it.”

  Not far from the Sasabonsam, I dug a hole in the earth with my hands, placed the necklace of my children’s teeth in it, then covered the hole back up. I patted the earth slow until it was smooth, and still I would not leave, would not stop patting and smoothing it until it felt like I was making a beautiful thing.

  “I never buried Nsaka. When I woke and saw her dead, I knew I had to flee. Because I was changed, you see. Because I was changed.”

  “No. Because you were a coward,” I said.

  “Because I went to sleep for a long time, and when I woke up my skin was white and I had wings.”

  “Because you are a coward with no bones, who can only deceive. She was the one who did all the fighting, I will guess. How did you rid yourself of it?”

  “My memory?”

  “Your guilt,” I said.

  He laughed. “You wish to hear of my remorse for betraying you.”

  “I do not wish to hear anything.”

  “You just asked the question.”

  “You answered it. You had no remorse to get rid of. You’re not a man, I knew that before I came across your shed skin. You act as if it makes you itch, but losing skin is nothing new for you.”