Loikot bridled and glared at him. ‘And perhaps it is not the elephant but you who has become old and senile. We should have left you on Lonsonyo Mountain, drinking beer with your decrepit cronies.’
‘While you two exchange compliments the bull is walking away from us,’ Leon intervened. ‘Take the spoor, and let us settle this debate by looking upon his tusks and not merely upon the marks of his feet.’
As soon as they had followed the spoor out of the riverbed and into the open savannah it became obvious that the bull elephant had been thoroughly alarmed by the sound of axe blows and their voices as they had raided the beehive.
‘He is in full flight.’ Manyoro pointed out the length of the bull’s strides. He had settled into the long swinging gait that covers the ground as fast as a man can run. They all knew that he could keep up that pace from dawn to dusk without pausing to rest.
‘He is going east. It seems to me that he is heading for the Nyiri desert, that dry land where there are no men and only he knows where to dig for water,’ Manyoro remarked after the first hour. ‘If he keeps up this pace, by sunrise tomorrow he will be over the top of the escarpment and deep into the desert.’
‘Do not listen to him, M’bogo,’ Loikot advised. ‘It is the habit of old men to be gloomy. They can smell shit in the perfume of the kigelia flower.’
After another hour they stopped for a swig from the water-bottles.
‘The bull has not turned aside from his chosen path,’ Manyoro observed. ‘Not once has he paused to feed or even slowed his pace. Already he is many hours ahead of us.’
‘Not only can this old man smell dung in the kigelia bloom, but he can smell it even in the flower between the thighs of the sweetest young virgin.’ Loikot grinned cheekily at Leon. ‘Pay him no heed, M’bogo. Follow me, and before sunset I will show you such tusks as will amaze your eyes and fill your heart with joy.’
But the spoor ran on straight and unwavering. Another hour, and even Loikot was beginning to wilt. When they stopped for a few minutes to drink and stretch out in the shade they were all quiet and subdued. Even though they had driven themselves hard since leaving the dry riverbed, they knew how far they had dropped behind the bull elephant. Leon screwed the stopper back on the water-bottle and stood up. Without a word the others came to their feet. They went on.
In the middle of the afternoon they stopped to rest again. ‘If my mother was with us she would work such a spell as would turn the bull aside and make him start feeding,’ said Manyoro, ‘but, alas, she is not with us.’
‘Perhaps she is watching over us, for she is a great magician,’ said Loikot brightly. ‘Perhaps she can hear me if I call to her.’ He jumped to his feet and broke into a leaping praise dance, hopping high in the air on his long skinny legs. ‘Hear me, Great Black Cow, hear me call to you.’ Leon laughed and even Manyoro grinned and began to clap in time to the dance.
‘Hear him, Mama! Hear our little baboon!’
‘Hear me, Mother of the Tribe! You have shown us the marks of his feet, now do not let him walk away from us. Slow his great feet. Fill his belly with hunger. Make him stop to feed.’
‘That’s enough magic for one day. Surely the bull cannot escape us now,’ Leon intervened. ‘On your feet, Manyoro. Let us go on.’
The spoor ran on. The bull was moving so fast that when it crossed areas of loose earth it kicked spurts of dust forward with each long stride. When Leon looked up at the sun his heart sank. There was no more than an hour of daylight left, no possibility of coming up with the elephant before darkness cloaked the spoor, forcing them to break off the pursuit until dawn on the morrow. By then he would be fifty miles ahead of them.
He was still gazing up at the sky so he bumped into Manyoro, who had stopped abruptly in his path. Both Masai were poring over the earth. They looked up at Leon and, with hand signals, urged him to remain silent. They were both grinning and their eyes shone. They had been revitalized and no longer showed any trace of fatigue. Manyoro indicated the altered spoor with an eloquent, graceful gesture.
Leon grasped that a little miracle had taken place. The bull had slowed, his pace had shortened, and he had turned aside from his determined flight towards the eastern escarpment of the valley. Manyoro pointed to a grove of
