by Aaron Barlow
Dr. George examined the wound then went into the laboratory returning with a scalpel, gauze, and several pharmaceutical bottles. He bent down and quickly made a deep incision below and on the opposite side of the leg from the wound. He then mixed a combination of herbs and ointments and applied them to both sites, wrapping the gauze around the leg. He stood up and cracked his knuckles in appreciation of the fine surgery he just accomplished. I asked him about antibiotics. He said that herbs and the ointment of the nemantha tree were sufficient along with the natural abilities of the animal to heal itself. The problem with Western medicine, he explained, was that it presupposed that the body had no ability to heal itself. Eventually the body came to rely on antibacterial intervention and virtually shut down its own inherent homeostasis. I had to admit this was a novel and thought provoking approach.
Dr. George had a habit of challenging me to expand my knowledge into other areas. As it turned out, however, the leg got worse, infected at both wounds now. I gave the bull a large dose of ampicillin and dosed the wounds with griseofulvin. It made remarkable progress after that. Dr. George seemed unaffected by my application of Western medicine saying, “Vell it being apparent the herbs and ointments prepared the beast for your antibiotics. I must say they vorked vell together.” That summed up our relationship, different cultures, different training; but we worked well together.
I was feeling particularly bored and depressed when George knocked on my door one night and asked if I would like to take a walk with him. This was unusual, as it was after dark and there were unfriendly animals lurking in the bush. It was a full moon, a hunting moon and I had rather strong trepidations about venturing outside the compound. But he persisted, and I grabbed an old shotgun and the only three shells we had.
The night was silent except for the occasional cackle of a guinea fowl or the low of the cattle in the night bomas. The sand was soft and warm from the day and the air was beginning to cool. The moon was up about 45 degrees and cast a bright glow on the bush, throwing shadows across our trail. George walked on for some time without saying anything. We had gone a little more than a mile, and I was beginning to feel more at ease when he abruptly stopped and cocked his head to the side, listening. He walked over to a large thorn bush and leaned over, touching his ear to the feathery leaves, “What…” I started to ask, but he held up a hand for silence. He turned to me and said, “There being danger about. Ve must returning to the compound.”
He turned and jogged off the way we had come. Not about to be left behind even if I didn’t know what the danger was, I overtook George and left him behind as I ran back to the compound. I was waiting at the cook hut as George staggered up and sat down.
“What was the danger?” I asked. “And how did you know?”
It took a few moments for him to catch his breath. “The bush telling me.”
“What do you mean the bush told you? Bushes don’t talk.” I was starting to feel that George was playing a prank, an East Indian version of the mythical snipe hunt.
“No,” he said. “Everything talks. You just having to listen. Animals, trees, brush, the vind. All having story. Trick being learning to listen. Brush talks best at night vhen the rest of the world stops to rest. It recalls the events of the day and comments about vhat happened. How many and vhat kind of bird rested in its branches, the antelope that foraged on its leaves, the ant that tickled its bark as it scampered up and down, the hated termite that ate its flesh. It talks of the sun and the vind and the rain and the aches and pains of getting old. Just like us. No different,” he then added, “no doubt.”
I still didn’t believe a word of it, “You mean that bush actually talked to you? What language? Hindi or English or maybe bushes have their own language.”
My sarcasm was lost on him. “No language. They talking into your head. I telling, you have to learn to listen. The ancients learned to listen. Modern man losing the art. Too many distractions; radio, TV, yelling.”
“So what did that bush tell you?” I asked.
“It telling lion vas about.” He was bobbing his head now, and I knew he was pulling my leg and it pissed me off, so I told him good night and went to my hut to read.
The next morning, while we were at breakfast, a herder came running up the yelling, “Calli, calli daxxo. Nin wa demadi.” My Somali was good enough by now to know that he was saying come quickly, a man was dead. We followed him at a run. About quarter of a mile into the bush we came on a small circle of herders standing around a pile of bloody rags. They parted as we approached. My stomach instantly turned and I lost my breakfast onto a small termite mound. There wasn’t much left of the man. He had been torn apart from the chest down and his entrails and ribs were exposed and gleaming in the early morning sun. Ironically, his face was untouched and appeared relaxed and composed as if asleep.
“What happened?” I asked in a raspy voice.
One of the men answered, “Libah. Lion.”
I looked at George and the hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I had the strangest sensation that I had witnessed something beyond my ability to process. This was unnatural, strange, and scary. I looked at George; he just stood there with his hands clasped together, slowly bobbing his head.
There was the sound of cloth rustling and footsteps. A rush of bodies pressed us. The women from the village had been informed of the death and were descending on us. One strode forward and stood staring at the body, and then began a high-pitched keening. The other women joined in. A man stepped forward and covered the remains with a white sheet and several others stooped to pick up what was left of the body. They took him off to the village to prepare for the funeral, which by Muslim practice must occur before sundown. As George and I walked back to the compound I asked, “They really did tell you of the lion, didn’t they? But how?”
He didn’t answer for the longest time, finally saying, “Vhen I first obtained vet degree I vas assigned to game preserve in Rahjastan. It being most isolated and remote of areas. Dry, desolate, hot and unfriendly. I vas from Karala State, rainy, green, and having large family and very large populations of peoples. Now I vas all alone. No vone, just me and the animals and the bush. Not even much food and the vater vas terrible. I vas about to quit and going home vhen an old Fakir vandered into camp vone day.”
“A what? “ I asked.
“Fakir, a holy man,” he answered. “For four days he sitting in shade under tree. I ask him, vanting food or vater? He saying nothings. Then finally he spoke. ‘It is time for me to eat and drink, for what you give me, I will teach you many things.’ He stay for three years, talk little, eat little; but I learn many things.”
“How long did you stay at the preserve?” I asked.
“I staying twelve years,” he answered. “Until the var and the soldiers coming and kill everything and there vas nothing left for me to take care of.”
“He taught you to listen to the bushes?”
“Vell, not exactly. He teaching me to opening my mind and seeing the vorld through other eyes. Vonce you seeing vorld from other eyes, you having different perspective. He telling me that vhat ve seeing not always being vhat is really. There being complete other vorld vere all things being equal and all things able to being talking to each others.”
At the edge of the compound he stopped and continued his tale, “I trying for many, many years to free mind and see other vorld. Vone day I staring into a small pool from recent rain and seeing my reflection. Then reflection disappearing, and I seeing something else and then I looking from reflection at myself. I seeing from other eyes. From that day on I look, see and hearing different. And I able to listen.”
My skepticism had been withering for some time. It was being replaced with a sort of reverence for this thin, quiet man who was so completely self-composed and so completely at peace that he could shed physical confines and enter into an ethereal universe.
“You keep saying that you’re able to listen. Can you talk to other entities also?”
“Listening is most important. First listen. Listen, learn, feel. My opinion not vorth much until I learn. I being apprentice for many years. Finally vhen I listen enough, learn enough then I able to communicate.”
He fell silent. I could tell the death of the herder had a strong effect on him. It affected me also, but more so as a shock at seeing a human body so brutalized. Before George entered his room he turned and said, “Lion liking human meat now. Ve must be very careful.”
I could hear the lion roaring deep into the night. It was close to the compound, and I can truly say that the roar of a lion, loose, close and ready to do harm is the most terrifying of sounds. My bladder was close to bursting before first light gave me enough confidence to run to the outhouse, clutching the shotgun tightly with one hand while undoing my belt with the other.
Three nights later, the lion made another kill, a young girl who was carrying a jar of water on her head and was only fifty feet from her hut. It happened so fast that she uttered not a cry and then she was gone into the descending darkness. They came to my hut and asked me to help them search for her. I had a flashlight and the shotgun. I asked George to come along and, although very frightened, he agreed. We started tracking at the point she was taken. The Somalis were the best trackers and took the lead, although it was one of the Bantu girls, Tatu, who had been taken. They carried torches held high in one hand and spears or machetes in the other. They were silent, following the faint tracks in the sand or the tiny drops of blood that were sprinkled so carelessly along the trail. The silence was ominous; success would give no rewards. The silence was ominous because we all knew that death would be a visitor again this night. The silence was ominous because each of us knew what had to be done.
We stopped for no apparent reason. It was George who spoke in a whisper, “The bush being afraid. This lion is evil creature. It kill not for food. It kill young girl for fun. Not natural. Not natural making scare bush and all creatures. All animals run away, the hyena even. Birds fly away, small animals burrow. Bush saying be very careful. Saying must drive evil spirit away. Tonight!”
The men couldn’t understand George’s words, but they understood his tone. They were closer to the earth than I and sensed George’s talent. The men accepted and revered George as a soothsayer and took seriously his fear. We looked at each other as fellow travelers on a trail of death then took up the chase again.
An old Turkana named Faro led at a fast trot. How he could read signs in the dark, on the run, was a mystery, yet he followed the spoor. We had gone less than a mile and had entered into heavy brush when a loud roar erupted just off the trail. Immediately a scream followed as the lion tore at a man’s midsection then bolted off into the darkness. It happened so fast that no one could react, only the man who was writhing on the ground, one side laid open chest to mid-thigh, blood already soaking the sand. George and I stopped to administer to him and the rest ran after the lion. I was really scared, shaking scared. My upbringing and experience had not prepared me for this. Here at my feet was a man silently suffering a horrible wound endured from a beast whose power, ferocity and cunning were beyond us. George tore off his shirt and stuffed it into the most gaping wound, trying to stem the blood. I started to help, but saw a white object lying behind a thorn bush several feet away. I cautiously walked toward it. It was the little girl, Tatu. She was dead, but the lion had had no time to start in on her. She was intact except for an broken neck and long gashes along her body.
George got up and walked over to where I stood, “Not being much we doing for dead girl, needing help with living man.” He tugged me back to the injured herdsman, and I took off my shirt to help bandage him. We were so engrossed that we didn’t notice the tawny shape watching from under the spread of a thorn tree not twenty feet away. Suddenly George looked up with a start. He touched my arm for attention, “Lion being here. Bush all around frantic. That devil give shake to herdsmen and double back. It being close, getting shotgun. Now!”
I reached behind me, picked the shotgun up and turned. And looked dead into the eyes of pure, unabated evil, its hot, fetid breath washing over me. I jerked the barrel up instinctively and pulled the trigger. Nothing, a dud shell. The lion bowled me over, knocking the two other shells away. It was on George in a flash. Stunned I still was able to grab the shotgun by the barrel and swing it as hard as I could down on the lion’s back. I swung again and again, cursing and swearing to try and close out the sound of George’s screams.
Then it was quiet and the lion turned its eyes on me. It stared at me with the most malevolent look I had ever seen, as if to say, I’m leaving you for another time. It gave a last swipe at George’s inert form and vanished into the brush.
I dropped the gun and knelt at George’s side. His eyes were open and a look of bemusement was on his face. I was afraid to look at his body; I had seen the dead herdsman and couldn’t face that mutilation again. Instead I cradled his head in my arms and held one of his long, bony hands until he gave a gasp and his hand fell limp in mine. I gazed into his sightless eyes, remembering all this kind and gentle man had said to me over the short time I had known him.
It surprised me to see his face glisten in the moonlight as if awash until I realized that my tears were freely flowing. I could hear the footfall of many shoeless men running toward us and then a circle of light cast over us from the burning torches. The men fell silent as they saw the body in my arms, then they gathered around in a circle as one by one they knelt to touch George’s cheek and say a brief prayer. I held my friend like this until I knew it was time. I motioned for one of the men to take George then stood up, shaky. They knew what was next; one of the men handed me the shotgun. I told them the shells had been knocked out of my hand and we all searched the brush until they were found. I loaded one and clutched the other between my fingers. I dropped to one knee to touch George once more and asked for his protection and guidance. Faro nudged my arm and I followed him into the darkness.
He went fast as usual, following the spoor at a trot, ignoring the pull and tear of the wait-a-bit thorns grabbing at our bare arms and legs. Suddenly, he stopped and stared at a clump of dense brush, then walked slowly forward.
He was five feet from the brush when it exploded. The lion burst forward with blinding speed and ran straight into Faro, knocking him down and with a great roar was about to tear his throat out when it suddenly turned its head and looked at me with a mixture of hate and disdain. It dropped Faro like a rag doll and took two steps toward me. I raised the shotgun and was about to fire when the lion jumped to the side and disappeared into the bush. I rushed to Faro who didn’t appear to be seriously hurt, but was in no way able to continue the chase.
I plunged into the bush after the lion. I had no clue as to where it was or where I was. I did know two things: that I wanted to kill that beast worse than I had wanted anything before and that lion would find me.
I stopped running and started thinking about George and his teachings. Something of him entered into me; a great peace came into my soul and hatred was pushed out.
Now I didn’t want to kill the lion, all I wanted to do was return to the compound and prepare Dr. K.K. George, my friend, for burial. And to mourn him as befit the departure of a pure soul from this tarnished earth.
I turned and was following my tracks in the sand, dragging the shotgun by the barrel and remembering the days and evenings spent with him when suddenly I heard sounds all around. Soft sounds, high-pitched sounds, wheezing and soughing and the sounds of ancient voices, raspy and dry. I looked around and tried to pinpoint them, but they came from all directions and seemed mostly to come from…within. I didn’t really hear them, they were simply present, and they didn’t come from anywhere specifically. I listened, but in a different way. I listened from another source, another sense, and t
hen I was able to understand individual sounds, not as words but as ideas. I listened as George had said, not with my ears, but with my body. I tried to become one with my surroundings, a part of everything. The bush was within me and it too mourned George. It also warned me that the lion was stalking and that that I should continue walking just as I was and that the bush would guide me and protect me.
It couldn’t protect George, evil incarnate wanted his soul as it did all souls that were pure and good, and so the ancients had sent this abomination. But I was neither pure nor particularly good and the ancients really didn’t care, so the abomination could do with me as it wished, but the bush was not about to abandon me. Fear left and I felt comforted and ready.
Now! The acacia, the thorn, the wait-a-bit and the tall grass all crowded into my head. Turn and fire! Without hesitation I swung around, threw up the gun and fired into the darkness. A flash of flame illuminated the lion not five feet behind me and springing. The blast caught the creature full in the face and smashed it to the ground. It was again quiet and dark.