Assegai

‘Now I will speak to my brothers of the chungaji. Hear me!’ Loikot a

Leon calculated that it was several miles away. ‘Will they hear you at such a distance?’

‘You will see,’ Loikot told him. ‘The wind has dropped and the air is still and cool. When I call with my special voice it will carry that far and even further.’ They waited. Below them, a small herd of kudu moved through the thorn scrub. Three graceful grey cows led the bull, with his fringed dewlap and spreading corkscrew horns. Their shapes were ethereal as drifts of smoke as they vanished silently into the scrub.

‘Do you still think they heard you?’ Leon asked.

The boy did not deign to answer immediately, but chewed for a while on the root of the tinga bush that the Masai used to whiten their teeth. Then he spat out the wad of pith and gave Leon a flash of his sparkling smile. ‘They have heard me,’ he said, ‘but they are climbing to a high place from which to reply.’ They lapsed into silence again.

At the foot of the hillock Ishmael had lit a small fire and was brewing tea in a small smoke-blackened kettle. Leon watched him thirstily.

‘Listen!’ said Loikot, and threw back his cloak as he sprang to his feet.

Leon heard it then, coming from the direction of the river. It sounded like a faint echo of Loikot’s original call. Loikot cocked his head to follow it, then cupped his hands and sent his high, sing-song cry ringing back across the plain. He listened again to the reply, and the exchange went on until it was almost dark.

‘It is finished. We have spoken,’ he declared at last, and led the way down the hill to where Ishmael had set up camp for the night. He handed a large enamel mug of tea to Leon as he settled down beside the fire. While they ate their di

‘Two nights ago a lion killed one of their cattle, a fine black bull with good horns. This morning the morani followed the lion with their spears and surrounded it. When it charged, it chose Singidi as its victim and went for him. He killed it with a single thrust so has won great honour. Now he can place his spear outside the door of any woman in Masailand.’ Loikot thought about this for a moment. ‘One day I will do that, and then the girls will no longer laugh at me and call me baby,’ he said wistfully.

‘Bless your randy little dreams,’ Leon said in English, then switched to Maa. ‘What else did you hear?’ Loikot began a recitation that went on for several minutes, a catalogue of births, marriages, lost cattle and other such matters. ‘Did you ask if any white men are travelling at the moment in Masailand? Any Bula Matari soldiers with askari?’

‘The German commissioner from Arusha is on tour with six askari. They are marching down the valley towards Monduli. There are no other soldiers in the valley.’

‘Any other white men?’

‘Two German hunters with their women and wagons are camped in the Meto Hills. They have killed many buffalo and dried their meat.’

The Meto Hills were at least eighty miles away, and Leon was amazed at how much information the boy had gathered from across such a wide area. He had read the old hunters’ accounts of the Masai grapevine, but he had not set much store by them. This network must cover the entire Masai country. He smiled into his mug: Uncle Penrod now had his eyes along the border. ‘What about elephant? Did you ask your brethren if they had seen any big bulls in this area?’

‘There are many elephant, but mostly cows and calves. At this season the bulls are up in the mountains or over the escarpment in the craters of Ngorongoro and Empakaai. But that is common knowledge.’

‘Are there are no bulls at all in the valley?’

‘The chungaji saw one near Namanga, a very large bull, but that was many days ago and no one has seen him since. They think he might have gone into the Nyiri desert where there is no grazing for the cattle so none of my people are there.’

‘We must follow the wind,’ said Manyoro.

‘Or you must learn to sing sweetly for us,’ Leon suggested.

Before dawn Leon woke and went to be alone behind the bole of a large tree, well away from where the others slept. He dropped his trousers, squatted and broke wind. His was the only wind that was blowing this morning, he thought. The wilderness around him was hushed and still. The leaves in the branches above him hung limp and motionless against the pale promise of dawn. As he returned to the camp he saw that Ishmael already had the kettle on the fire and the two Masai were stirring. He sat close enough to the flames to feel their warmth. There was a chill in the dawn. ‘There is no wind,’ he told Manyoro.

‘Perhaps it will rise with the sun.’

‘Should we go on without it?’

‘Which way? We do not know,’ Manyoro pointed out. ‘We have come this far with my mother’s wind. We must wait for it to come again to lead us on.’

Leon felt impatient and disgruntled. He had pandered long enough to Lusima’s claptrap. He had a dull ache behind his eyes. During the night the cold had kept him awake and when he had slept he had been haunted by nightmares of Hugh Turvey and his crucified wife. Ishmael handed him a mug of coffee but even that did not have its usual therapeutic effect. In the thicket beyond the campfire a robin began its melodious greeting to the dawn and from afar a lion roared, answered by another even further off. Then silence descended again.

Leon finished a second mug of coffee and at last felt its curative powers take effect. He was about to say something to Manyoro when he was distracted by a loud, rattling call, which sounded like a box of small pebbles being shaken vigorously. They all looked up with interest. Everyone knew which bird had made the sound. A honeyguide was inviting them to follow it to a wild beehive. When the men raided it they would be expected to share the spoils with the bird. They would take the honey, leaving the beeswax and the larvae for the honeyguide. It was a symbiotic arrangement that, down the ages, had been faithfully adhered to by man and bird. It was said that if anybody failed to pay the bird its due, the next time it would lead him to a venomous snake or a man-eating lion. Only a greedy fool would attempt to cheat it.

Leon stood up and the drab brown and yellow bird flashed from the top branches of the tree and began to display. Its wings hummed and resonated as it dived and pulled up, then dived again.

‘Honey!’ said Manyoro greedily. No African could resist that invitation.

‘Honey, sweet honey!’ Loikot shouted.

The last vestige of Leon’s headache vanished miraculously, and he grabbed his rifle. ‘Hurry! Let’s go!’ The honeyguide saw them following and darted away, whirring and rattling excitedly.

For the next hour Leon trotted steadily after the bird. He had said nothing of it to the others, but he could not shake off the haunting idea that the bird was Lusima Mama’s sweet singer. However, his doubts were stronger than his faith and he steeled himself for disappointment. Manyoro was singing encouragement to the bird, and Loikot, skipping along at Leon’s side, joined in with the chorus: