by Mike Bond
Before dawn he could smell wood smoke; they tied up the camels in a low laga and checked their rifles. “The youngster,” Ibrahim whispered, “is to stay with the camels. If he hears three rapid even shots he’s to bring them quickly. Despite any other shooting he’s to stay here.”
Warwar fidgeted with the AK47 sling against his sore shoulder. “It’s not honorable to ask this of him who first found these car tracks.”
“You’re not a man, yet.”
“Enough to kill that Samburu and the great bull. Enough to cross the Chalbi without fear.”
Ibrahim turned his back, his voice moving towards Rashid. “No, not yet without fear.”
Their footsteps sifted into the darkness. The breeze quickened, strengthening the wood smoke smell. A lion roared to the north; jackals keened; doves began their pre-dawn cooing, jug-jug, jug, jug, like a purling spring. Alone, Warwar fiddled with the mode selector of his rifle. Ibrahim must have a motive to exclude him so dishonorably. No man would accept this. He checked the camels’ tethers, patted each one’s nose to calm it. Feeling with his feet the depressions Ibrahim’s and Rashid’s steps had made in the sand, he followed them. After a long sandy slope he saw the fire directly ahead. It blinked as someone moved before it. They were up already, the whites—soon they’d leave.
He cut south of the others’ tracks into the cover of a shallow gully and ran towards the fire. When its flicker danced on the dune tops he climbed to the gully edge, keeping his gun down, and peered over the top.
The flames were leaping, freshly fed. Two black shapes moved to and fro before them. Behind it, to one side, were two blue tents, their open flaps facing the fire. To the other side were two Land Rovers, a strange white tent stretched between them. The smell of coffee narrowed his nostrils; there was a gasoline odor too, and another sour, acid smell he remembered now as the black material of the wheels the Land Rovers traveled on. He peered behind and to his right but could not see Ibrahim or Rashid.
The two shapes were dismantling one tent. They shined sharp lights into the other tent and into the strange white one; he could hear their voices, modulated and respectful, blacks speaking to whites. He slid forward on his belly, not knowing what he would do, pulling the AK47 alongside him.
A whitewoman in a white jacket stepped from the tent. With both hands she fluffed back her pale hair, stretched languidly and crouched beside the fire. A moment later she stood and raised a cup to her lips, put it down. She moved around the fire, silhouetted, towards the clump of cactus where Warwar lay.
A tall whiteman came out of the same tent and stood uncertainly, glanced towards the Land Rovers and back to the fire. He straightened his clothes and bent to speak into the strange white tent. The two dark shapes whom Warwar had identified as Africans entered the same tent the whitewoman and whiteman had left, and carried out two canvas cots which they folded and stacked inside a Land Rover. They brought out two of the weird sacks which Warwar had seen whites carry on their backs, much more difficult than on the head—indicative, he thought, of the whites’ always finding a complicated way to do simple things. The Africans leaned the sacks against a Land Rover and began to dismantle the second tent. Two younger men, one white, one black, stepped from the white tent, which Warwar recognized now as not a tent at all, merely the netting which the whites used out of fear of mosquitoes.
The whitewoman came towards Warwar, stepping round the thorn scrub, once looking back to the fire. He hugged the earth, slid his rifle forward and sighted down the barrel at the approaching glimmer of her hair. Glancing back hurriedly, he could not locate Rashid or Ibrahim—had they decided there were too many and left? Or were they back now with the camels, awaiting him, angry and determined to take away his tusks and lion pelt? With the woman coming closer he could not retreat. If she saw him he would shoot her, then run, but on the sandy soil the Land Rovers would easily catch him.
The woman’s shoe scuffed a rock. She skirted a termite mound tinged golden with predawn and halted. He lay breathless, sure she had seen him, his finger tightening against the trigger, his eye following the dark glint of the barrel to the center of her white chest. Now, in the moment before her death, he suddenly liked her bright hair and easy, open walk, so different from his own kind. She acts like a man, he thought, steadying the barrel, exhaling slowly as he squeezed the trigger. Why won’t she speak?
Abruptly she unpopped the trousers she wore and slid them down, squatted beside the termite mound and with a loud, diminishing hiss made water, sighing with relaxation. He held his breath against the smell, sweeter yet greasier than his own. It’s the forbidden things they eat, he told himself, feeling his penis harden against the ground.
She stood, rearranged her clothes and returned to the fire. He still could not see Ibrahim or Rashid. He sensed they had left, but could not think why. They’re women, he told himself, knowing it wasn’t true.
He imagined himself offering ten cows, twenty sheep and fifty goats to Soraya’s father. More than a legitimate bride price, it was testimony of his love for her, acknowledgement of his wealth and her uniqueness. Most of the girls in his tribe had to marry older men—how joyous she would be to have him, young and full of love! He who had killed the elephant king!
The stars had thinned, the hills sharp against the paling sky. The woman, two whitemen and three blacks sat eating round the fire. Six, Warwar told himself, is not auspicious. Still not knowing exactly what he would do, he snapped the mode selector of his rifle to automatic and crawled forward, shoulder nagging painfully, through the thorn scrub.
They had finished eating; one of the blacks was scrubbing the dishes with sand while another loaded the Land Rovers. The whiteman and woman bent over a large sheet of paper on one Land Rover’s hood, the two younger men peering over their shoulders. When the two blacks had finished their tasks, the whiteman laid the large paper on the ground and pointed things out to them. They nodded at the paper, one making a line on it with his finger.
These are fools, Warwar reminded himself. They worship paper and metal, not God. The Africans work for them, drive them probably, instead of being proud to be African and refusing to speak with whites. These Africans are not loved by God.
He rose from behind his bush and walked towards them. The desert glowed with poor man’s gold, the majestic moments before sunrise when every grain of sand and blade of rock is fired with expectant light, the long thorns of the crouched acacia glitter like sharpened needles, the sky flashes like mica. The time, Warwar remembered, God wishes us to die.
His footsteps startled the six crouched over the large paper and they looked round suddenly, one of the blacks leaping up with anger. Warwar shot him, two bullets into his stomach spraying blood out his back as he rose into the air like a leaf smacked by the wind, the woman screaming, the tall man shoving her back, the others raising their hands. “Go!” Warwar said to the two other blacks. “Go—I don’t need you!” But they did not understand Somali or were too frightened till he strode forward and waved his hand sharply, and unhappily they edged away. “Go!” he yelled in Swahili. “I don’t want you.”
One glanced at the tall whiteman who motioned with his head. The two blacks began to back up, their hands still raised, so that when he shot them they were for a moment like puppets he had seen once in El Wak bazaar—jerky arms held high till the bullets struck and the arms flapped down over the writhing torsos that then flopped lifeless to the ground, as if the puppet master had dropped their strings.
Watching the two die was a mistake, he realized, in the instant that the young white dashed at him. But he fired in time, a long burst that recoiled the rifle sharply into his ribs, the white halting in midair and catapulting backwards, the woman screaming and covering his body with her own, wailing “No! Stop! No!” in Swahili. She looked up at him, her face contorted and spattered with blood. So quickly he could not react she leaped, her claws ripping his face, knocking him backwards, but the tall man grabbed her and yanked her back.
“Fool!” Warwar tried not to hunch over his injured ribs; his arm shook. He fired at her, hip-high, but the shot was wide, spurting sand.
“Kill us all!” she yelled back at him, her fists beating away the tall man’s hands. “Carrion, motherless bastard—murderer!” She spat, choking, weeping; it ran down her chin.
Warwar felt embarrassed and thrilled by her. Keep control, he told himself. He aimed the rifle more carefully, seeing how the bullets would rend her belly, rip her apart. He wanted to check his magazine, tried to remember how many shots he’d fired, be sure there were enough, imagined shooting into the dark place between her legs.
“We’ve got money,” the tall man said. “Cameras, binoculars…”
“What’s that?” Warwar took his eyes from the woman. He could kill her later, naked.
The tall man hesitated. His Swahili was not good, or he was very frightened. “To see far—closer.”
“How many guns?”
“You’re a shifta, aren’t you? Please, don’t kill us—take everything—we have no guns, it’s against the law.”
“You,” he pointed his rifle at the woman, “bring me this far-seeing thing.”
He kept the gun on her as she walked unsteadily to a Land Rover, reached between the seats, returned with a glossy thing like two small black bottles joined, set it on the sand, and backed away.
“You look through it,” the man said, seeming not to see Warwar.
He knelt to pick it up. It was heavy. Aiming the gun at them he tried to look though it but lights and colors danced inside it. He threw it down, hearing with satisfaction its glass crack against a rock. “How much money do you have?”
The woman was wiping her face. “We’ll give you what we have. Just go!”
“We have twelve thousand shillings,” the man said.
Warwar felt the sun’s warmth strike his back, the wild exhilaration of twelve thousand shillings. Be clear, he warned himself, joy leads to sorrow.
“Scum of the universe,” said a voice behind him. “You are unfit to eat the Prophet’s shit or speak with men. You are not your mother’s son.”
Warwar kept his eyes on the whites. “Be not angry, cousin Ibrahim, because you tarried and I did not. Don’t fear, I’ll give you part of this.”
“It is not right to speak to your elders this way.” Ibrahim moved into Warwar’s sight, his gun pointing between Warwar and the captives.
“Where were you, then? Did you run when you heard my shots?” Warwar smiled at the whitewoman, who stared back in fury and confusion.
“You’ve killed too many,” Rashid said.
“These weren’t humans but slaves to the whites.”
“You’ve killed a white. That brings trouble.”
Warwar pushed the dead whiteman’s face with his foot; it was heavy and did not move. “He tried to kill me.”
“No arguments,” said Ibrahim. “Let’s take what we can and go.”
“What about these ones?” Warwar countered.
“We’ll destroy their vehicles. They have many days’ walk out of the desert. If they survive, we’ll be far away, and safe.”
“Where’s the money?” Warwar said in Swahili to the woman.
“In that car.” The tall man pointed to the second Land Rover, dark green and seeming older than the first.
“Watch them.” Warwar pulled tents and bags from the back of the Land Rover.
“It’s in the front—I’ll show you!” The tall man came forward tentatively, as if walking barefoot on hot sand. He stank of coffee, food, sweat and fear as he bent into the vehicle and opened a metal box that was part of the front. “Here.” He held out a white-wrapped bundle.
“Throw it.”
It landed at Warwar’s feet, shilling notes bound with rubber strings spilling on the sand.
“That gets shared three ways,” Ibrahim said, close behind him.
“The money’s mine! I found the tracks, hunted them down and captured the camp. You ran away. I’ll give you the cameras and other things, the far-seeing thing.”
“Binoculars, they’re called, foolish child. We did not run away, we organized an ambush where their vehicles would have stuck in sand—ahead, in the ravine. When we heard your silly shooting we ran back. With your killing you’ve ruined everything.”
“If I were not a young man speaking to his elder I would say you talk like a woman—full of fear and foreboding. I have won you booty—be wise enough to accept it.”
The jab of Ibrahim’s rifle in his back almost knocked him down. His crushed ribs could not breathe. He calmed the urge to turn and shoot, knowing he would fire too late. “Don’t speak like a man till you’ve grown the hair to prove it,” Ibrahim said evenly.
“You know full well I have. What do you wish, some of the money?”
“We share everything. You’re lucky we include you, after you disobeyed.” Ibrahim stepped past him to the others, scornfully exposing his back.
“I obey only God,” Warwar said, but Ibrahim did not seem to hear.
They unloaded the Land Rovers and threw everything on the ground. Most of it was useless—tents, bedding, clothes, many strange digging tools and tiny brushes, heavy bags of white powder that was sour to the taste and sucked the water from his mouth. There was a large rock surrounded in a strange white shell similar to the powder in taste; it broke nicely on a boulder when he dropped it; inside, horribly, were a jaw and teeth, seeming carved from stone. “You rob the dead,” Warwar hissed.
There was nothing to take but the money, cameras, a small radio. Warwar thought of killing Rashid and Ibrahim now, but they were closest to his family’s clan. Ibrahim had taught him to track, brought him this gun, had taken Ahmed into the manhood ceremony last year. Besides, there was no way he could surprise them both; their guns were always ready.
It was a lovely morning. High, white, lacy clouds striated the blue depths of the sky; lower, puffy, flat-bottomed ones promised partial shade; the breeze was cool from the Ethiopian escarpments to the north, perfumed with desert honey and loud with the mating songs of waxbills, weavers, bush larks and thrushes. But separated three ways, even with his share of the tusks and lion skin, the money would not bring Soraya’s bride price. “We can share evenly,” Warwar said. “But why leave the biggest prize here?”
Ibrahim looked up. “What’s that?”
“When the Ezrael clan captured that European near the Sudan, they kept him till they received a ransom of a million shillings. We will do the same.”
Rashid snickered. “With them?”
“We kill the man and take the woman. Someone pays to get her back.”
“It’s not wise to kill the man,” Ibrahim said. “Better he walks back, tells them she’s to be ransomed. It will take him days to reach others. By then we’ll be far. No, we cannot do this. There is no way to receive the money.”
“We’ll do as the Ezraels, by sending an emissary to Buna with the demand. When the emissary receives the money he returns to Somalia and the woman is set free.”
“Or killed,” Ibrahim said.
“There’s no point in looking too far into time.” Warwar felt his leadership of the situation return. He shouldered his rifle, spoke to the woman in Swahili. “I don’t wish to disappoint you, but you will come with us. We’ll go carefully and not too quickly and soon you are exchanged for money.”
“I have no money!” Wild-eyed, she bit her lip. “No one I know has any money!”
“What’s no money to you is very much money to us.”
She laughed or sobbed; he couldn’t tell. She spoke in her strange deep language to the man, who scowled at her then glanced at Ibrahim.
“What about him?” she said to Warwar.
“He finds his way alone. He says you are with us and we wait for a million shillings. That we will send a message. Tell him you will be safe.”
“With you?”
Warwar smiled at the bodies already coated with flies, ants and wasps. “They wer
e Africans who worked for whites. The young white was foolish—he would have lived.”
“We should burn the vehicles,” Rashid said.
“Too much smoke.” Warwar took a magazine from his djellabah and exchanged it with the nearly empty one in his rifle, walked to the vehicles and fired two bullets into each tire, reloading to finish the spares, then fired several shots into each engine, the ricochets howling away through the hot, still air, one windshield collapsing like a waterfall of glass. “Tell him,” he said to the woman, “to carry water and follow the tracks of the vehicles back to Kenya.”
“This is Kenya,” she said fiercely.
“No, this is the Chalbi.”
The tall man watched them tie her wrists and lead her eastwards towards the valley wall. Whey they had gone some distance he found a canteen and followed them, keeping as low as he could, to where they untied three camels loaded with tusks, one carrying also what seemed to be a large lion pelt. They made her climb on to the second camel and set off quickly; soon he could not see them in the shimmering haze, and was forced to hunt for their tracks across a stretch of exposed lava. Finally, stumbling over its baked, burning ripples he halted, surrounded by black light. “Rebecca!” he screamed. “Rebecca!” With a sob he returned to camp, filled a backpack with canteens, food and a blanket, strung the damaged binoculars round his neck, and plodded through the sand back along the tracks the two Land Rovers had made the previous day.
13
A HUMAN FOOTPRINT, wide in the pad, muscular in the arch, pinched at the heel. Five sharp toes driven deep into the mud of a Cape buffalo trail up a green bamboo valley at the edge of the cloud forest.
M’kele’s elongated finger tested the underside of a grass blade bent down into the mud by the poacher’s instep. The dew on the grass blade was smudged, and crumbs of mud from its underside adhered damply to the whorls of M’kele’s fingertip. A tiny spider rebuilding her web on a twig shaken by the poachers’ passage was just now spinning a second cable. “Ten minutes,” MacAdam whispered.
