Bones of the River (14 page)

“And if you say that all are yours,” said Bosambo, “how do I know that you speak the truth? N’Kema, I will go alone and hold a palaver, and in the end word of this matter will be sent to Sandi, who judges all, like God.”

Bosambo, who had an amazing knowledge of the country, found the Little River without difficulty, and at the noon hour, when Fobolo was asleep in the shadow of his hut, Bosambo came to him and there was a long palaver, which could end only in one way.

A carrier pigeon had taken to Sanders a sketchy account of Bosambo’s rough-and-ready justice. Later came Fobolo himself full of trouble and plaints. Squatting in the hot sunlight before the residency, Fobolo told his story.

“Lord, this Bosambo came and made a long palaver, saying many evil things against me.”

“Tell me what evil things, Fobolo,” said Sanders.

“Lord, he called me a stealer of dogs and an eater of dogs; and that was foolish, as your lordship knows, for all true men eat dogs. And then, lord, when the palaver was finished, Bosambo went to a certain place near the water, where I keep all my dogs, and he took them all away with him; and, lord, they sat in Bosambo’s canoe and made sad noises.”

Sanders thought a moment, his chin in his palm, and then: “Fobolo, I speak! As to these dogs, I will send a book to Bosambo, and he shall tell me where they have gone. Afterwards you shall tell me from whence they came.”

“Lord,” protested the other, “they are my very own dogs. I have had them all since they were little babies–”

“That is as may be,” said Sanders. “Now listen, Fobolo. Strange stories come to me from the Upper River of men who die quickly, and for no reason. And my spies tell me of women who go secretly to you by night, and come away with little gourds which hold death. Some day I will come to your village and hold a palaver. Tell me, Fobolo, how high do the trees grow on the edge of the Great Lake?”

Fobolo shuddered. “Lord, they are too high for me,” he said huskily.

“But not so high that one of my soldiers cannot climb,” replied Sanders significantly. “And on one branch to fasten a rope where a man can hang. I think, Fobolo, your days are very few.”

That night Fobolo sat with his followers in that place on the edge of the residency wood which is set apart for the entertainment of such visitors as he; and in the morning he was gone.

The disappearance of Helen was not discovered till daylight. Bones had made for her a kennel of a peculiarly ingenious type. It was an exact replica of his own hut, with verandah poles and thatched roof complete. He had made it with the assistance of half the garrison, and had covered the floor of the interior with a thick layer of native grass. And Helen seemed to be satisfied, and to have no other desire than to sleep.

She had been attached to a thick leather thong, which in turn was fastened to one of the verandah poles, and there, with a large bone and a dish of water, Bones had left her, apparently reconciled to her fate, and even looking forward to the coming day. And in the morning she was gone.

“Nobody but an imbecile would fasten a bulldog to a leather lead,” said Hamilton. “Of course she gnawed it through.”

“But, my dear old thing,” said Bones dismally, “she was so perfectly satisfied when I said ‘night-night’ to her. And she looked up into my eyes with a kind of resigned, happy look, and toddled off without a word.”

“You’re bringing tears to my eyes,” said Hamilton. “And now she has toddled off without a word again. You’ll probably find her in the woods.”

A search, conducted by the entire population, produced no sign of the fugitive. Bones, looking for clues, found nothing more tangible than one of his slippers in the darkest corner of the kennel. It was half-eaten.

Curiously enough, nobody associated the disappearance of Helen of Troy with Fobolo, and no word of Helen came from the spies of Sanders.

Three months later, Fobolo called together his kinsmen and spoke to them.

“You know that I am rich and that all men envy me, even Sandi, who sent Bosambo here to take my dogs, which he has sold to the chiefs of the Isisi. And now I have word that Sandi is coming with his soldiers because of the death of a certain man who was poisoned by his wife. I must go quickly, or I shall hang, for the woman was put to the fire by the king of the Akasava, and she said that she bought the poison from me, giving me a thousand brass
matakos
. And this is true, that she told me it was for a leopard who broke into her garden and scratched her. But because N’Kema hates me, he has sent word to Sandi – and it will not be good to stay. Tonight we will go away into the forest, taking our women and our treasures, and the dog with the beautiful face that I found in Sandi’s garden. Also will we take Militi, who is the favourite daughter of the king, and is the most beautiful woman in the land. And she shall dance for us, and the king will be sorry.”

That night, when the
Zaire
was threshing her way up between the shoals, and was within ten miles of the Akasava city, Fobolo and his kinsmen landed noiselessly on the beach, and, slaying the sentry before the hut of the king’s daughter, carried her away, and within two hours came to the village by the lake.

“Now, woman,” said Fobolo, “you may cry, but none will hear you.”

The girl, an object of dispassionate interest on the part of Fobolo’s wives, lay moaning on the ground, more dead than alive, for Fobolo had choked her into silence when he carried her off. His kinsmen and his people were ready, their cooking-pots upon their shoulders, their young goats and dogs tethered, and each carried something of his treasures. Fobolo went to the little compound on the headland and opened the grass door.

“Come, my pretty one,” he said.

Helen of Troy opened her eyes and blinked at the sunlight. Then she stretched both her hind legs and her forelegs and yawned. For three months she had lain in that roomy pen, waddling out at intervals to inspect the village, and never once in all that time had she shown the slightest indication of her true character.

To Fobolo, Helen of Troy was a normal dog, something which in time would make an excellent
pièce de résistance
for a feast. And Helen had fostered this illusion, for she had been content to eat and sleep, and since, after the native way, none interfered with her, she had interfered with none. Obediently and meekly she trotted at Fobolo’s heels back to the village street, where the carriers were waiting. The girl still sat huddled, clasping her knees, her face hidden.

“Come, woman,” said Fobolo, “for you will walk far before you sleep.”

So far he got, when his trained ears heard the rumble of a distant
lokali. Lokalis
belong to the night and to the early morning, when the air is still and sound travels fastest. He bent his head and listened, then suddenly heaved a long, sobbing sigh.

“Sandi is coming,” he said. “I think we had better go.”

In his hand was a long and pliant thong. He dropped it sharply across the girl’s shoulders and jerked her to her feet.

“Walk, woman,” he said.

And at that moment Helen of Troy began to take a serious interest in the proceedings.

At the shriek of the girl she growled softly; and as though encouraged by the ferocity of her own language, the growl became a bark the like of which had never been heard by Fobolo. The fat food dogs looked round at Helen in terror. That bark stirred something within them, and they whimpered fiercely in response.

“Dog,” said Fobolo, “be silent.”

He brought up the thong and it fell once. He only knew one kind of dog – a dog that whimpered and fled. But Helen did neither. She stood square, motionless, glaring, her black lips curled in a silent snarl.

“Let us go,” said Fobolo.

And then something weighing about 20 lbs leapt at him. He struck it down with the bunch of spears he carried on his shield arm, but the respite was temporary.

As the
Zaire
pushed her nose through the last barrier of weeds and gained the open water of the Lake, Sanders saw a figure running along the sandy edge of the lake. He was running at a speed which at once interested and startled the Commissioner. Behind him bounded a small white speck.

“What is that, Bones?”

Bones focussed his glasses. “Looks like a man running to me, sir,” he said.

At that moment the flying native saw the
Zaire
, and, turning, plunged into the water and swam frantically toward the boat. Behind him came a blunt head, and, at a short interval, the white stump of a tail.

They hauled the two on board together, which was necessary, since Helen of Troy had gripped his loincloth and was not to be shaken off.

“Dogs I know,” gasped Fobolo. “Men eat them. But it is not right that dogs should eat men. I think this is a devil. Devils also I have seen, being a wise man, but none like this.”

“My man,” said Sanders, “there are other devils to be seen. And if in your village I find Militi, the daughter of N’Kemo, this night you shall live with ghosts.”

For a thousand years (which may only mean a few centuries) there had been a feud between the Leopards and the Fire Ghosts. When the Leopards came under the ban of civilised administration, and soldiers of all nations penetrated the hinterlands with judges and priests and commissioners who were something of both, and by whipping and summary hanging, stamped down this most evil of all secret societies, the Fire Ghosts, being comparatively innocuous, were left supreme. For they did not hunt young maidens having gloves on their hands shaped like leopards’ paws, with little steel knives in place of the claws, nor did they hold terrible meetings where things were done that can only be described in highly technical books. They were mild folk who believed in ghosts and devils, and they did no more than chop an occasional enemy and paint the soles of their feet with his blood.

But presently they, too, came under the ban, and dwindled until all the ancient hates and animosities, together with the secrets of their rituals, were concentrated in the villages of Labala and Busuri, and although they were within a dozen miles of one another, they kept the peace.

Then a thing happened that had no parallel in history. A woman of Busuri married Obaga, the hunter of Labala. As to the reason for this monstrous union, some say one thing and some say another. They first met in the forest, and each made the contemptuous gesture – by European standards vulgar – with which Labala and Busuri greet one another. Then they met again and refrained. Afterwards they smiled, and then came Obaga to the Chief of the Busuri and the father of the girl, and a bargain was struck. So M’Libi of Busuri went into the hut of Obaga and lived with him for two years, but bore him no children.

Whereupon all the old women of the village put their shaven heads together and cackled joy that their prophecies had been fufilled, for they had said that no children could come of such an unnatural marriage. So also the old women of Labala spoke over their menial tasks and cursed the day that such a likeable girl had gone to the Fire Ghosts. So affairs went on, Obaga patient, uncomplaining, kindly. He brought her the finest of his pelts; the noblest of monkey tails, the prerogative of chiefs, were split to make her a bed robe. A few gibed him secretly because he was loved; none openly because he was feared, for he threw spears unerringly and had no regard for human life.

Then on a day, Obaga returned from a hunting trip seven days earlier than he had expected. More important, he was not expected by his handsome young wife. Obaga found his hut empty, and when he came out with knit brows, N’kema, the fisherman, shouted a jest that had to do with the short memories of women.

Without a word Obaga went back into his hut and gathered the short killing spears he had put aside, polished them with dust gathered from before his hut, and, sitting on his bed, whetted one of them for two hours until the edge of it was razor-sharp. Then he went forth, twirling the spear between his fingers. He was making for the banks of a little river which runs through a wood, for this was a notorious meeting-place for lovers of a kind. Therefore, it was called The Wood of Changed Hearts – or so we may translate it, though the stomach is more readily recognised as the seat of all emotion.

Somebody had gone to warn M’Libi, and halfway to the wood, very near to a patch of shallow graves (these Northern Ochori considering it unlucky to carry their dead across water to the middle islands) he found her sitting on a fungus-grown trunk of dead wood, her hands crossed on her breast. The scowl on her face denied her humility.

“O M’Libi, I see you,” said Obaga the hunter softly, and she set her white teeth for all that was to come, her eyes fixed on the bright spear blade which glittered and flashed in the afternoon sun.

“Obaga, I have been to the woods to gather leaves for mourning, for my brother has died this day in the Ochori city, and Bosambo sent word to me.”

“Many things have died this day,” said Obaga. He held his spear at full arm’s length by his thigh, and he so spun it with finger and thumb, that the blade was a blur of light. This was a trick of his when he was not sure in his mind, and she knew it well and took courage.

“When I was born,” she said slowly, her eyes never leaving the spear, “it was said that I should have two lives; one of greatness and one of evilness. Out of the mud grows the wonderful flower. Obaga, who knows what will come from this mud?”

The hunter wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“Who is this lover of yours?” he asked her, and for the first time her eyes left the spear.

“If there is to be killing, begin!” she said, and dropped her hands to the tree trunk.

“There will be no killing,” said Obaga. “Come.”

She followed him back to the village, and, to the disappointment of all, there was neither killing nor beating. At dawn next day, Obaga gathered his spears, his bows and loose-headed monkey arrows, girded a broad-bladed elephant sword about his waist, and went back to his hunting. His wife stood and watched him until he was out of sight. One other watched from the fringe of the forest, Tebeli, the boaster, and when he had made sure that the husband was gone, he hurried to M’Libi.