Assegai

‘Well, your mama’s clues were fairly cryptic,’ Kermit remarked drily, as they ate the dinner of roasted porcupine, as tender and juicy as a sucking pig, that Ishmael had provided. ‘Was she telling me to give it up and go home, do you think?’

‘Didn’t your Indian shaman teach you that when you’re dealing with occult prediction you have to consider every word for its possible associations? You cannot take anything literally. To give you an example, last time I asked for her help, Lusima told me to follow the sweet singer. This turned out to be the bird called a honeyguide.’

‘She seems to be something of an ornithologist, but she gave us black birds instead of honeyguides.’

‘Let’s start at the beginning. Did she tell you to go home or to go homewards?’

‘Homewards! My home is in New York, USA.’

‘Well, that would give us a bearing of north-west by north and a touch north, I reckon.’

‘In the absence of any other suggestions we’ll have to give that a go,’ Kermit agreed.

Leon navigated on the army-issue compass he had liberated when he left the KAR, and they camped that first night under the lee of a small rocky kopje. Just before dawn they were drinking coffee while they waited for the sun. Suddenly Loikot cocked his head and held up his hand for silence. They stopped talking and listened. The sound was so faint that it was only fitfully audible when the morning breeze dropped a little or veered favourably.

‘What is it, Loikot?’

‘The chungaji are calling to each other.’ He stood and picked up his spear. ‘I must go up the hill so I can hear what they are saying.’ He slipped away into the darkness, while they listened to the distant sounds.

‘They don’t sound like human voices,’ Kermit said, ‘more like the piping of sparrows.’

‘Or the cheeping of little black birds?’ Leon asked. ‘Lusima Mama’s little black birds?’

They burst out laughing.

‘I think you have it. Loikot will have news for us when he comes down the hill.’

They heard him calling, closer and clearer than the other voices, and the exchange of news on the Masai grapevine continued until after the sun was well clear of the horizon. Then, at last, there was silence as the wind and rising heat made further discourse unintelligible. Soon after this Loikot returned. He was puffed with self-importance. It was clear that he was not going to speak until someone pleaded with him to do so.

Leon humoured him. ‘Tell me, Loikot, what did you and your brothers of the circumcision knife speak about?’

‘There was much talk about the safari of ten thousand porters and many wazungu camped on the Ewaso Ng’iro river and the great killing of animals by the king of a land called Emelika.’

‘After this what did you speak about?’

‘There has been an outbreak of red-water disease among the cattle near Arusha. Ten have died.’

‘Is it possible that you also discussed the movement of elephant in the Rift Valley?’

‘Yes, we spoke of that,’ Loikot replied. ‘We all agreed that this is the season when the big bulls come down into the Rift. In recent days the chungaji have seen many in the land between Maralal and Kamnoro. There was talk of three travelling eastwards in one herd, all very big.’ Then, at last, he broke into a smile, and his voice took on an urgent cadence. ‘If we are to catch them, M’bogo, we must go quickly northwards to cut them off before they move on into Samburuland and Turkana.’

Manyoro and Loikot ran ahead of the horses with the long loping stride they referred to as ‘gobbling up the earth greedily’. The two horsemen trotted behind them, then Ishmael, further back, riding one mule and leading the other on which were loaded all his pots, pans and supplies.

Kermit was in his usual irrepressible mood. ‘A good horse between your legs, a rifle in your hand and the promise of game ahead! Son of a gun, this is the life for a man.’

‘I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing,’ Leon agreed.

Kermit reined in suddenly and shaded his eyes with his hat to look out to one side at a patch of grey thorn scrub. ‘That’s a big kudu bull over there,’ he said. ‘Bigger than any that Mellow got for me.’

‘Do you want another kudu, or do you want a cracking hundred-pounder jumbo? Make up your mind, chum. You can’t have both.’

‘Why not?’ Kermit demanded.

‘The big bull elephant with your name branded on his backside may be just over the next rise. You fire a shot here and he’ll take off at a rate of knots. He won’t stop running until he gets across the Nile.’

‘Spoilsport! You’re as bad as Goddamned Frank Mellow.’ Kermit kicked his horse into a canter to catch up with the two Masai, who had pulled well ahead.

In the middle of the afternoon a line of low hills pushed their crests over the flat horizon, resembling the knuckles of a clenched fist. They camped that night below the tallest. Before dawn the next morning they drank coffee around the fire, then left Ishmael with the horses to break camp and pack his mule while they climbed to the summit of the hill. When they reached it Loikot sang out across the valley. He was answered almost immediately by a similar but distant cry coming out of the remaining shreds of the night. The exchange went on for some time before he turned to Leon. ‘That one I was speaking to is not Masai. This is the border between our land and the Samburu,’ Loikot told him. ‘He is half a Samburu, the tribe who are our bastard cousins. They speak Maa but not as we do. They speak it in a funny way, like this.’ He rolled his eyes and made an idiotic hee-hawing sound, like a demented donkey. Manyoro thought this was hilarious and staggered around in a circle, slapping his cheeks and repeating the imitation of a Samburu speaking Maa.

‘Now that you two clowns have had your little joke, will you tell us what your bastard cousin the Samburu had to say?’

Still gasping and hiccuping with merriment, Loikot answered, ‘The Samburu donkey says that last evening as they were driving the cattle into the manyatta they saw the three bulls. He says that every one of them has very long white teeth.’

‘Which way were they heading?’ Leon demanded eagerly.

‘They were coming straight up this valley, towards where we are now.’ Quickly Leon translated this news to Kermit, and watched his eyes light up. ‘So if I’d let you shoot that kudu yesterday you would have blown away any chance we ever had of catching them.’

‘I’m covered with shame and remorse. In future I promise to listen to the words of the Great One who knows all.’ Kermit gave him a sardonic salute.

‘Go to hell, Roosevelt!’ Leon grinned. ‘I’m sending Manyoro and Loikot down into the valley to check that they didn’t pass during the night. However, it’s new moon at the moment, so I doubt they would have kept moving after dark. I’d bet good money that they rested during the darkest hours and that they’re only now starting to move again.’ They sat and watched the two Masai go down the hillside and disappear among the trees in the gut of the valley.

‘So far we’ve followed Lusima’s advice about little black birds cheeping in the dawn. What was her next suggestion?’ Kermit asked suddenly.

‘She spoke of the hunter who waits on the hilltop being thrice blessed. Here we are on the hilltop. Let’s see if your three blessings are on the way.’

As soon as the sun poked its fiery head above the horizon Leon unslung the strap of the binoculars from his shoulder, and settled with his back against a tree-trunk. Slowly he panned the lenses across the valley below. Within an hour he picked out the figures of Manyoro and Loikot coming back up the hill, but they were walking at a leisurely pace and chatting to each other. He lowered the binoculars. ‘They’re in no hurry, which means they’ve had no luck. The bulls haven’t passed this way. Not yet anyway.’ The two Masai came up and squatted close by. Leon looked a question at Manyoro, but he shook his head.

‘Hapana. Nothing.’ He took out his snuffbox and offered Loikot a pinch before he helped himself. They sniffed and sneezed, closing their eyes, then whispered quietly together so that their voices would not carry down into the valley. Kermit stretched out on the stony ground, pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes and, within minutes, was snoring gently. Leon kept the binoculars moving over the valley, lowering them every once in a while to rest his eyes and polish the lenses on his shirt tail.

Over the ages a number of large round boulders had become dislodged from the hillside and had rolled down on to the valley floor. Some resembled the backs of elephant, and more than once Leon’s heart tripped as he picked up a massive grey shape in the field of the binoculars, until he realized it was a grey rock and not elephant hide he was seeing. Once more he lowered the binoculars and spoke softly to Manyoro: ‘How long should we wait here?’

‘Until the sun reaches there.’ Manyoro pointed to the zenith. ‘If they do not come by then it is possible they have turned aside. If so, we must go down to the horses and ride to the manyatta where the Samburu saw them yesterday. There we can pick up the spoor and follow it until we catch up with them.’

Kermit lifted his hat off his eyes and asked, ‘What did Manyoro say?’ Leon told him and he sat up. ‘I’m getting bored,’ he announced. ‘This is a game of hurry up and wait.’

Leon did not bother to reply. He lifted the binoculars and resumed the search.

Half a mile down the valley there was a patch of greener growth that he had noticed earlier. He knew by the colour and density of the foliage that it was a grove of monkey-berry trees. The fruits were purple and bitter to human taste but attracted all varieties of wild game, large and small. In the centre of the grove lay one of the huge rolling boulders, its rounded top showing above the monkey berry. He picked it out again and was about to pass on when his nerves jumped taut. The rock seemed to have changed its outline and grown larger. He stared at it until his eyes swam. Then it changed shape again. He caught his breath. An elephant was standing behind the boulder, half hidden by it, so that only its rump and the curve of its spine were exposed. How the animal had reached that position without any of them seeing it was another demonstration to him of how silently and stealthily such a large creature could move. He felt his chest closing until he was breathing asthmatically. He kept staring at the elephant but it did not move again. There’s only one, so it can’t be the herd we’re looking for. Probably it’s a stray cow or a young bull. He tried to fortify himself against disappointment.

Then his eyes flicked to the right as he picked up another movement. The head of a second elephant pushed through the screen of monkey-berry branches. He gasped again. This was a bull: his head was huge, the forehead bulged impressively and the ears were spread like the sails of a schooner. The dangling trunk was framed by a pair of long, curved tusks, the ivory thick and bright.

‘Manyoro!’ Leon whispered urgently.

‘I see him, M’bogo!’

Leon glanced at him and saw that both Masai were on their feet, staring down at the monkey-berry grove. ‘How many?’ he asked.

‘Three,’ Loikot answered. ‘One is behind the rock. The second is facing us, and the third is standing between them but hidden behind the trees. I can see only his legs.’

Kermit sat up quickly, alerted by the restrained tension in their voices. ‘What is it? What have you seen?’

‘Nothing much.’ Leon was trembling. ‘Just a hundred-pounder, maybe two or even three. But I suppose you’re too bored to give a damn.’

Kermit scrambled to his feet, still half dazed with sleep. ‘Where? Where?’

Leon pointed. Then Kermit saw them. ‘Well, I’ll be—’ he blurted. ‘Kick me in the head! Shake me awake! This isn’t true, is it? Tell me I’m not dreaming. Tell me those tusks are real.’

‘You know what, chum? From here they look real to me.’

‘Get your rifle! Let’s go after them.’ Kermit’s voice cracked.

‘What a good plan, Mr Roosevelt. I can find no vice in it.’ Even as they watched, the three elephant ambled out of the monkey-berry grove and came down the valley towards them. In single file they followed a broad game path that passed close to the base of the hill on which they stood.

‘How many elephant do I have on my licence?’ Kermit demanded. ‘Is it three?’

‘You know damn well it is. Are you thinking of taking all of them? Greedy boy.’

‘Which one has the biggest tusks?’ Kermit was stuffing cartridges into the magazine of the Winchester.

‘Hard to tell from here. All three are big. We’ll have to get in a lot closer to pick the largest. But we’d better crack on speed. They’re moving fast.’

They scrambled down the hillside, loose stones rolling under their boots. The trees and the intervening bulge of the slope impeded their view, and they lost sight of the bulls. They reached the valley floor with Leon in the lead. He turned left along the base of the hill, running hard to get into a position from which they could intercept the elephants.

He reached the game trail, which was wide and beaten smooth over the aeons by the passage of hoofs, pads and feet, and turned on to it. Kermit was on his heels and the two Masai were only a few strides further back. Leon saw that the trail ahead was cut by a shallow gully that ran down from the hillside. It had been washed out by the run-off of storm water. Before they reached it a number of things happened almost simultaneously. Leon saw the leading bull emerge from the trees on the far side of the gully four or five hundred yards ahead, followed closely by the other two, all moving in single file directly towards them.

Then a booming cry echoed off the hilltop on their left flank: the alarm call of a sentinel baboon warning the troop of danger. He had spotted the men in the valley below his post. Immediately the cry was taken up by the rest. The clamour of harsh barks rang out across the valley. The three elephant stopped abruptly. They stood in a close group, swaying uncertainly, lifting their trunks to test the air for the scent of danger, swinging their heads from side to side, ears spread to listen.

‘Stand dead still!’ Leon cautioned the others. ‘They’ll pick up any movement.’ He stood and watched them intently. Which way would they run? he wondered. His heart was hammering against his ribcage from the exertion of the race down the hill and with excitement: all three elephant carried at least a hundred pounds of ivory on each side of their heads.

Which way must we go? Then he made up his mind. ‘We have to get into the gully before they spot us,’ he panted, and started forward again. They reached the gully without the elephant locating them and plunged down the steep bank into the middle of a herd of impala, which were browsing on the low branches of the bush that choked the dry watercourse. The herd exploded into a panic-stricken rush of leaping and snorting animals, bounded up the far side of the gully and stampeded down the game trail, towards the three great bulls.

The leader saw them tearing towards him, spun around and ran straight at the steep hillside. The other two followed.

Leon looked over the top of the bank and saw what was taking place. ‘Damn those bloody impala to hell and back!’ he gritted. The three elephant were running up the first incline at the base of the hill, heading diagonally away from him, making for the crest of the hills. ‘Come on, Kermit,’ he yelled frantically. ‘If we can’t cut them off before they get to the top we’ll never see them again.’

They ran across the narrow strip of level ground and reached the base of the hill. By now they were two hundred yards behind the elephant. Leon went straight at the slope, taking long strides, jumping over the smaller rocks in his path.

The elephant were unable to tackle such a steep slope head-on. The leader turned across it and began a series of climbing dog-leg turns. Meanwhile Leon and Kermit continued to move straight up, cutting across each of the loops that the bulls were forced to make. On each leg they gained on their gigantic quarry.

‘I don’t think I can keep this up,’ Kermit gasped. ‘I’m about done in.’

‘Keep going, chum.’ Leon reached back and seized his wrist. ‘Come on! We’re nearly there.’ He dragged him upwards. ‘We’re ahead of them now. Not much further to go.’

At last they staggered out on to the summit of the hill and Kermit leaned against a tree-trunk. His shirt was soaked with sweat, his chest heaved and the air whistled in his throat. His legs were shaking under him, like those of a man in palsy. Leon looked back down the slope. The leading bull was a hundred feet below their level, but he was coming up swiftly, taking each turn along the contour. Leon judged he would pass less than thirty yards from where they stood on the skyline, but he seemed unaware of their presence. ‘Get ready, chum. Down on your backside. Give yourself a steady shot. Quickly now. They’ll be on us in a few seconds,’ he hissed at Kermit. ‘They’ll only give you one chance. Take the leader. Shoot him in his armpit, just behind the shoulder. Go for his heart. Don’t try the brain shot.’

Suddenly the leading bull saw the figures crouching on the skyline above him and stopped again, swinging his trunk uncertainly. He began to turn away down the hillside, but Manyoro and Loikot were coming up behind him. They screamed and waved their arms, trying to turn him back towards the hunters on the crest.

The bull hesitated again, swinging his head from side to side. His companions pressed up close behind him. The two Masai raced towards them, howling like demons and flapping their shukas. By contrast the men on the ridge waited silent and motionless. To the leading bull they seemed the lesser threat. He turned back again, and kept on up the slope directly towards where Leon and Kermit were. The other two followed his lead.

‘Here they come. Get ready,’ Leon said softly.

Kermit was sitting flat on his buttocks, elbows braced on his knees. But he was still panting and, with consternation, Leon saw that the barrel of his Winchester was wavering. He dreaded that Kermit was about to put on one of his eccentric displays of marksmanship, but the moment had come. He drew a breath and snapped, ‘Now, Kermit! Take him!’

He raised the Holland, ready to back up when Kermit missed, as he surely must. The Winchester crashed and leaped in Kermit’s grip. Leon gaped and lowered his rifle. The bullet had hit the leading bull not on the shoulder but cleanly in the earhole. The elephant flopped to his knees, killed instantly. Leon jumped as the Winchester crashed again. The second bull, coming up behind the fallen leader, dropped lifelessly to another perfect brain shot. But he fell on the steep slope and began to roll down it. The carcass gathered momentum, and thundered downwards, raising an avalanche of loose rock and rubble. Manyoro and Loikot were almost caught up in it. At the last moment they threw themselves aside and the carcass slithered past.

The third bull stood on the open slope below the summit, cornered between the two groups of men. Manyoro jumped to his feet and ran towards him, shouting and waving his shuka. The bull’s nerve broke and he turned for the crest. Leon and Kermit were standing in his line of escape. The beast’s flight turned into a full-blooded charge: he cocked his ears half back and rushed straight at them, squealing with rage.

‘Again!’ Leon yelled. ‘Do it again! Shoot him!’ He swung up the Holland, but before he could fire the Winchester crashed for the third time. This elephant was below Kermit’s level, but head-on to him, so the aiming point was deceptively higher. Nevertheless he had judged it perfectly and his aim was dead true. The last bull threw his trunk over his head and died as swiftly and painlessly as his companions. He also rolled away down the slope, sliding the last few hundred feet until his body came to rest against the trunk of one of the larger trees near the base of the hill. From the first shot to the last, only a minute or two had passed. Leon had not fired once.

The echoes of gunfire died away against the hills on the far side of the valley and a deep silence descended on the land. No bird sang and no ape barked. All of nature seemed to hold its breath and listen.

At last Leon broke the hush. ‘When I say shoot him in the head you shoot him in the body. When I say shoot him in the body you shoot him in the head. When I give you an easy shot you botch it. When I give you an impossible shot you hit it right on the button. What the hell, Roosevelt? I really don’t know why you need me here.’

Kermit did not seem to hear him. He sat staring at the rifle in his lap with a stunned look on his sweat-streaked face. ‘God love me!’ he whispered. ‘I’ve never shot that good before.’ He raised his head and gazed down at the three massive bodies. Slowly he stood up and walked to the nearest elephant. He stooped and laid his right hand reverentially on one of the long, gleaming tusks. ‘I can’t believe what happened. Big Medicine just seemed to take over from me. It was as though I was standing outside myself, and watching it all happen from a distance.’ He raised the Winchester to his lips like a communion chalice and kissed the blued metal breech block. ‘Hey there, Big Medicine, Lusima Mama put one hell of a spell on you, didn’t she?’