‘You have it, my son.’ She touched his head. ‘My motherly love is yours also.’
‘I have brought another petitioner to you.’ Leon stood up and beckoned Kermit forward. ‘His Swahili name is Bwana Popoo Hima.’
‘So this is the prince, the son of a great white king.’ Lusima looked closely into Kermit’s face. ‘He is a twig of the mighty tree, but he will never grow as tall as the tree from which he sprang. There is always one tree in the forest that grows taller than any other, one eagle that flies higher than any other bird.’ She smiled kindly at Kermit. ‘All these things he knows in his heart, and it makes him feel small and unhappy.’
Even Leon was amazed at her insight. ‘He longs desperately to earn his father’s respect,’ he agreed.
‘So he comes to me to find him an elephant.’ She nodded. ‘In the morning I will bless his
They gathered at noon the next day under the council tree in the cattle pen. Big Medicine lay on the tanned lionskin. The blued metal was freshly oiled and her woodwork shone. The sacrificial offering of fresh cow’s blood and milk, salt, snuff and glass trade beads had been set out. Leon and Kermit squatted side by side at the head of the lionskin with Manyoro and Loikot behind them.
Lusima emerged from her hut, magnificent in her finery. She came to the council tree with her regal stride, her slave girls attending her closely. The men clapped with respect and called her praises: ‘She is the great black cow who feeds us with the milk of her udders. She is the watcher who sees all things. She is the mother of the tribe. She is the wise one who knows all things on this earth. Pray for us, Lusima Mama.’
She squatted in front of the men and asked the ritual questions: ‘Why do you come to my mountain? What is it you seek from me?’
‘We beg you to bless our weapons,’ Leon replied. ‘We importune you to divine the path that the great grey men take through the wilderness.’
Lusima rose and sprinkled the rifle with blood and milk, snuff and salt. ‘Make this weapon as the dreadful eye of the hunter that it may slay whatever he looks upon. May his
Then she went to Kermit and, with the giraffe-tail switch, sprinkled the blood and milk on his bowed head. ‘The game will never escape him, for he has the heart of the hunter. Let him follow his quarry unerringly. May it never escape his hunter’s eye.’
Leon whispered the translation to Kermit, and after each sentence she spoke, they clapped and said the refrain to her prayer: ‘Even as the great black cow speaks, let it be so.’
Lusima began to dance, whirling in a tight circle, her bare feet like those of a young girl, her sweat mingled with the oil and ochre until she glowed like a carving of precious amber. At last she collapsed on the lionskin and her face contorted. She bit her lips until blood ran down her chin. Her whole body juddered and shook, her breath sawing and rasping in her throat, froth coating her lips and mingling pinkly with the blood. When she spoke her voice was as thick and hoarse as a man’s: ‘The hunter makes his way homewards. The clever hunter listens to the cheeping of the small black birds in the dawn,’ she grated. ‘If he waits on the hilltop the hunter will be thrice blessed.’ She gasped and shook herself as a hunting spaniel does when it clambers from the water on to the riverbank.
‘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?’
