Msembi came to the table and poured again and said the beer was now quisha and I said this was the hell of a kind of management and that we would saddle up and leave at once for Laitokitok for more beer. We would take some cold meat to eat on the way up and a few tins of kipper snacks. Mthuka said, “Kwenda na Shamba.” So we agreed to go to the Shamba and pick up a few bottles of beer if they had any to hold the group until we could reach another brewing Shamba or Laitokitok. Ngui said I should pick up my fiancée and the Widow and that he and Mthuka both were OK with the third Masai Shamba up the road. Pop’s gun bearer said he was OK and would be the protector of the Widow. We wanted to take Msembi but we were four and the Widow and my fiancée made six and we did not know what Masai we would run into. There were always plenty of Masai in Laitokitok.
I went over to the tent and Mwindi had the tin trunk open and my old Hong Kong tweed jacket out with the money buttoned in the flapped-down inner pockets.
“How much money you want?” he asked.
“Four hundred shillingi.”
“Plenty money,” he said. “What you do? Buy a wife?”
“Buy beer, posho maybe, medicine for Shamba, Christmas presents, buy new spear, fill up car with petrol, buy whisky for mtoto of police, buy kippah snacks.”
He laughed at the kippah snacks. “Take five hundred,” he said. “You want hard shillingi too?”
Hard shillingi were kept in a leather pouch. He counted me out thirty and asked, “You wear good coat?”
The coat he liked me to wear best was a sort of hacking coat which had also come from Hong Kong.
“No. Wear leather coat. Take leather zip-up.”
“Take woollie too. Cold come down from Mountain.”
“Dress me as you wish,” I said. “But put the boots on very easy.”
He had clean washed cotton socks and I put them on and he worked the feet into the boots and left them open without pulling up the zippers at the sides. Ngui came into the tent. He was wearing his clean shorts and a new sport shirt that I had never seen. I told him that we would only take the 30-06 and he said he had ammo. He wiped the big gun clean and put it under the cot. It had not been fired and the Springfield had been shooting with non-corrosive primers and could be cleaned at night.
“Pistol,” he said severely and I poked my right leg through the loop at the end of the holster and he buckled the big belt around my waist.
“Jinny flask,” Mwindi said and handed the heavy Spanish leather shell pannier to Ngui.
“Money?” Ngui asked.
“Hapana,” I said. “Money kwisha.”
“Too much money,” Mwindi said. He had the key with which he had locked the tin trunk where he kept the money.
We went out to the car. Keiti was still benevolent and I asked him formally what was needed for the outfit. He said to bring a sack of posho if there was any of the good kind that came on the stage from Kajiado. He looked sad when we left and his head hung a little forward and to one side although he was smiling the slit smile.
I felt sad and wrong that I had not asked him if he wanted to go and then we were on the road to the Shamba. It was a well-worn road by now and it would be worn more before this is over, I thought.
MTHUKA HAD no finery except a clean shirt with a checked pattern and his washed trousers with the patches. Pop’s gun bearer had a yellow sport shirt with no figured pattern and it went very well with Ngui’s, which was muleta-colored red. I was sorry that I was dressed so conservatively but since I had shaved my head the day before after the plane had left and then forgotten all about it I felt that I must have a certain baroque appearance if I removed my cap. When shaved, or even clipped closely enough, my head, unfortunately, has much the appearance of some plastic history of a very lost tribe. It is in no way as spectacular as the Great Rift Valley but there are historical features of terrain which could interest both archaeologist and anthropologist. I did not know how Debba would take it but I had an old fishing cap on with long slanted visor and I was not worried about nor concerned with my appearance when we drove into the Shamba and stopped in the shade of the big tree.
Mthuka, I found later, had sent Nguili, the young boy who wanted to be a hunter but was working as second mess attendant, ahead to warn the Widow and my fiancée that we would be coming by to take them to Laitokitok to buy the dresses for the Birthday of the Baby Jesus. This boy was still a nanake in Kamba and so could not drink beer legally but he had made the trip very fast to show that he could run and he was sweating happily against the trunk of the big tree and trying not to breathe hard.
I got out of the car to stretch my legs and to thank the nanake.
“You run better than a Masai,” I said.
“I am Kamba,” he said, trying hard to breathe without strain and I could imagine how the pennies tasted in his mouth.
“Do you want to go up the Mountain?”
“Yes. But it would not be proper and I have my duty.”