West With the Night

by Beryl Markham

  The spear was made of pliant steel tempered and forged by the metallist of his own tribe. But it was also more than that.

  To each Murani his spear is a symbol of his manhood, and as much a part of himself as the sinews of his body. His spear is a manifestation of his faith; without it he can achieve nothing — no land, no cattle, no wives. Not even honour can be his until that day comes, after his circumcision, when he stands before the gathered members of his tribe — men and women of all ages, from manyattas as scattered as the seeds of wild grass — and swears allegiance to them and to their common heritage.

  He takes the spear from the hands of the ol-oiboni and holds it, as he will always hold it while there is strength in his arms and no cloud of age before his eyes. It is the emblem of his blood and his breeding, and possessing it, he is suddenly a man.

  Possessing it, it is never afterward beyond his reach.

  Arab Maina placed his left foot on the reed-buck and carefully drew out his spear.

  ‘I do not know, it may have struck a bone,’ he said.

  He ran bloody fingers along the sharp edges of the weapon and let a little smile twist his lips. ‘By the will of God, the metal is not chipped! My spear is unhurt.’ He stooped to pluck a handful of grass and wiped the blood from the bright, warm steel.

  Arab Kosky and I had already begun to skin the animal, using our ‘bushman’s friends.’ There was not much time to waste, because our real hunt for the wild boar had not yet begun. But still the meat of the reed-buck would provide food for the dogs.

  ‘The sun has hit the valley,’ said Arab Maina; if we do not hurry the pigs will have gone in all directions like rolling weeds in a wind.’

  Arab Kosky buried his fingers along the walls of the reed-buck’s stomach, tearing it from the animal’s frame.

  ‘Hold this, Lakwani,’ he said, ‘and help me separate the intestines for the dogs.’

  I took the slippery, jelly-like stomach in my hands and held it while I kneeled over the reed-buck.

  ‘Maina, I still don’t know how you managed to throw in time from the position you were in!’

  Arab Kosky smiled.

  ‘He is a Murani, Lakwani — and a Murani must always throw in time. Otherwise, some day a dangerous animal might charge swifter than the spear. Then, instead of mourning his death, our girls would laugh and say he should have stayed at home with the old men.’

  Arab Maina leaned down and cut a chunk of meat from the cleanly skinned buck. He handed it to me for Buller. The rest, he and Arab Kosky left to the native mongrels.

  Buller trotted a short distance away from the kill, dropped his reward in a little pool of shade, and regarded his snarling cousins with exquisite disdain. In the language that he spoke, and only I understood, he said quite clearly (with just a tinge of Swahili accent), ‘By the noble ancestry of my bull terrier father, those animals behave like the wild dog!’

  ‘And now,’ said Arab Maina, moving away from the carnage, ‘we must make ready for the hunt.’

  The two Murani wore ochre-coloured shukas, each falling loosely from a single knot on the left shoulder, and each looking somewhat like a scanty Roman toga. They untied the knots now, wrapped the shukas prudently around their waists, and stood in the sun, the muscles in their backs rippling under their oiled skins like fretted water over a stony bed.

  ‘Who can move freely with clothes on his body?’ Arab Kosky said as he helped Arab Maina with the leather thong that bound his braided headdress in place. ‘Who has seen the antelope run with rags upon his back to hinder his speed!’

  ‘Who indeed?’ said Arab Maina, smiling. ‘I think sometimes you babble like a demented goat, Kosky. The sun is high and the valley still lies below us — and you speak to Lakwani of antelope wearing shukas! Take up your spears, my friends, and let us go.’

  Single file again, with Arab Maina in the lead, then Arab Kosky, then myself, and Buller just behind, we ran on down into the valley.

  There were no clouds and the sun started down on the plain making heat waves rise from it like flames without colour.

  The Equator runs close to the Rongai Valley, and, even at so high an altitude as this we hunted in, the belly of the earth was hot as live ash under our feet. Except for an occasional gust of fretful wind that flattened the high, corn-like grass, nothing uttered — nothing in the valley stirred. The chirrup-like drone of grasshoppers was dead, birds left the sky unmarked. the sun reigned and there were no aspirants to his place.

  We stopped by the red salt-lick that cropped out of the ground in the path of our trail. I did not remember a time when the salt-lick was as deserted as this. Always before it had been crowded with grantii, impala, kongoni, eland, water-buck, and a dozen kinds of smaller animals. But it was empty today. It was like a marketplace whose flow and bustle of life you had witnessed ninety-nine times, but, on your hundredth visit, was vacant and still without even an urchin to tell you why.

  I put my hand on Arab Maina’s arm. ‘What are you thinking, Maina? Why is there no game today?’

  ‘Be quiet, Lakweit, and do not move.’

  I dropped the butt of my spear on the earth and watched the two Murani stand still as trees, their nostrils distended, their ears alert to all things. Arab Kosky’s hand was tight on his spear like the claw of an eagle clasping a branch.

  ‘It is an odd sign,’ murmured Arab Maina, ‘when the salt-lick is without company!’

  I had forgotten Buller, but the dog had not forgotten us. He had not forgotten that, with all the knowledge of the two Murani, he still knew better about such things. He thrust his body roughly between Arab Maina and myself, holding his black wet nose close to the ground. And the hairs along his spine stiffened. His hackles rose and he trembled.

  We might have spoken, but we didn’t. In his way Buller was more eloquent. Without a sound, he said, as clearly as it could be said — ‘Lion.’

  ‘Do not move, Lakweit.’ Arab Kosky stepped closer to me.

  ‘Steady, Buller,’ I whispered to the dog, trying to soothe his rising belligerence.

  Our eyes followed the direction of Arab Maina’s eyes. He was staring into a small grass-curtained donga a few yards from the edge of the salt-lick.

  The lion that stood in the donga was not intimidated by Arab Maina’s stare. He was not concerned with our number. He swung his tail in easy arcs, stared back through the wispy grass, and his manner said, ‘I am within my rights. If you seek a battle, what are we waiting for?’

  He moved slowly forward, increasing the momentum of his tail, flaunting his thick black mane.

  ‘Ach! This is bad! He is angry — he wants to attack!’ Arab Maina spoke in an undertone.

  No animal, however fast, has greater speed than a charging lion over a distance of a few yards. It is a speed faster than thought — faster always than escape.

  Under my restraining hand I felt the muscles of Buller knot and relax, in a surging flow of mounting fury. Buller’s mind had reached its blind spot. Uncontrolled, he would throw himself in gallant suicide straight at the lion. I dug my fingers into the dog’s coat and held tight.

  Arab Maina’s appearance was transformed. His face had taken on a sullen, arrogant expression, his square, bold jaw jutted forward. His eyes dimmed almost dreamily and sank behind high, shiny cheekbones. I watched the muscles on his neck swell like those on the neck of an angry snake, and saw flecks of white froth appear in the corners of his mouth Passive and rigid he stared back at the lion.

  He raised his shield at last, as if to make sure it was still in his hand, and let his spear arm drop to his side to preserve all of its power for whatever might come.

  He knew that if the lion attacked, his own skill and Arab Kosky’s would, in the end, prove sufficient — but not before at least one of us had been killed or badly mauled. Arab Maina was more than a Murani; he was a leader of Murani, and as such he must be able to think as well as to fight. He must be capable of strategy.

  Watching him still, as he in
turn watched the lion, I knew that he had a plan of action.

  Observe his eyes,’ he said; ‘he thinks very hard of many things. He believes that we also think of those same things. We must show him that we are fearless as he himself is fearless, but that his desires are not our desires. We must walk straight past him firmly and with courage, and we must shame his anger by laughter and loud talk.’

  Arab Kosky’s brow was dotted with small bubbles of sweat. A slight flicker of a smile crept over his face.

  ‘Yes, true enough! The lion thinks of many things. I too think of many things and so does Lakweit. But your plan is a good one. We will try it.’

  Arab Maina lifted his head a little higher, turning it only enough to keep the lion within the scope of his vision. He placed one sinewy leg in front of the other, and stiffly, like a man walking the trunk of a tree that bridges a chasm, he began to move. One after another, we followed. My hand still lay upon Buller’s neck, but Arab Kosky let the dog and me slip past him to walk between the two Murani.

  ‘Stay close to me, Lakweit’ — Arab Maina’s voice was anxious. ‘I fear for you when it is not possible to see you.;

  Arab Kosky burst into forced laughter.

  ‘There is a tale about a rhino who needed a needle to do her husband’s sewing…’ he began.

  ‘So she borrowed one from the porcupine…’ said Arab Kosky.

  ‘And swallowed it,’ I contributed. ‘I have heard that tale before, Kosky!’

  The Murani laughed louder. ‘But perhaps our friend the lion has not. Look at him. He is listening!’

  ‘But not laughing,’ said Arab Maina. ‘He moves as we move. He comes closer!’

  The lion had stalked out of the donga. Now, as we walked, we could see that he guarded the slain body of a large kongoni. Smears of blood were fresh on his forelegs, his jowls, and his chest. He was a lone hunter — an individualist — a solitary marauder. His tail had stopped swinging. His great head turned exactly in ratio to the speed of our stride. The full force of the lion-smell, meaty, pungent, almost indescribable, struck against our nostrils.

  ‘Having swallowed the needle …’ said Arab Kosky.

  ‘Silence — he attacks!’

  I do not know who moved with greater speed — Arab Maina or the lion. I believe it must have been Arab Maina. I think the Murani anticipated the charge even before the lion moved, and because of that, it was a battle of wills instead of weapons.

  The lion rushed from the fringe of the donga like a rock from a catapult. He stopped like the same rock striking the walls of a battlement.

  Arab Maina was down on his left knee. Beside him was Arab Kosky. Each man, with his shield, his spear, and his body, was a fighting machine no longer human, but only motionless and precise and coldly ready. Buller and I crouched behind them, my own spear as ready as I could make it in hands that were less hot from the sun than from excitement and the pounding of my heart.

  ‘Steady, Buller.’

  ‘Do not move, Lakweit.’

  The lion had stopped. He stood a few strides from Arab Maina’s buffalo-hide shield, stared into Arab Maina’s eyes challenging him over the top of it, and swung his tail like the weight of a clock. At that moment I think the ants in the grass paused in their work.

  And then Arab Maina stood up.

  I do not know how he knew that that particular instant was the right instant or how he knew that the lion would accept a truce. It may have been accomplished by the sheer arrogance of Arab Maina’s decision to lower his shield, even if slightly, and to rise, no longer warlike, and to beckon us on with superb and sudden indifference. But however it was, the lion never moved.

  We left him slicing the tall grass with his heavy tail, the blood of the kongoni drying on his coat. He was thinking many things.

  And I was disappointed. Long after we had continued our trot toward the place where we knew there would be warthog, I thought how wonderful it would have been if the lion had attacked and I had been able to use my spear on him while he clawed at the shields of the two Murani, and how later they might have said, ‘If it hadn’t been for you, Lakweit …!’

  But then, I was very young.

  We ran until we reached the Molo River.

  The river took its life from the Mau Escarpment and twisted down into the valley and gave life, in turn, to mimosa trees with crowns as broad as clouds, and long creepers and liana that strangled the sunlight and left the riverbank soothing and dark.

  The earth on the bank was damp and pitted with footprints of the game that followed a web-work of thin trails to drink at dawn, leaving the racy smell of their droppings and their bodies in the air. The river forest was narrow and cool and vibrant with the songs of multi-coloured birds, and clotted with bright flowers that scorned the sun.

  We laid down our weapons and rested under the trees and drank the chilled water, making cups with our hands.

  Arab Maina lifted his face from the edge of the river and smiled gently. ‘My mouth was like unto ashes, Lakweit,’ he said, ‘but truly this water is even sweeter than Jebbta’s carefully brewed tembo!’

  ‘It is sweeter,’ said Arab Kosky, ‘and at this moment it is more welcome. I promise you, my stomach had turned almost sour with thirst!’

  Looking at me, Arab Maina laughed.

  ‘Sour with thirst, he says, Lakweit! Sour, I think, with the sight of the lion at the salt-lick. Courage lives in a man’s stomach, but there are times when it is not at home — and then the stomach is sour!’

  Arab Kosky stretched his lithe, straight limbs on the tangled grass and smiled, showing teeth white as sun-cured bone. ‘Talk lives in a man’s head,’ he answered, ‘but sometimes it is very lonely because in the heads of some men there is nothing to keep it company — and so talk goes out through the lips.’

  I laughed with both of them and pressed my shoulders comfortably against the tree I leaned upon and looked through a chink in the ceiling of the forest at a vulture flying low.

  ‘Maina, you know, I hate those birds. Their wings are separated like a lot of small snakes.’

  ‘As you say, Lakwani, they are creatures of evil omen — messengers of the dead. Too cowardly to slay for themselves, they are satisfied with the stinking flesh from another man’s kill.’ Arab Maina spat, as if to clean his mouth after talking of unpleasant things.

  Buller and the native dogs had gone into the river and wallowed in the cool black muck along its banks. Buller returned now, sleek with slime, dripping and happy. He waited until he had the two Murani and me easily within range and then shook himself with a kind of devilish impudence and stood wagging his stump tail as we wiped water and mud from our faces.

  ‘It is his way of making a joke,’ said Arab Kosky, looking at his spattered shuka.

  ‘It is also his way of telling us to move,’ said Arab Maina. ‘The hunter who lies on his back in the forest has little food and no sport. We have spent much time today at other things, but the warthog still waits.’

  ‘What you say is true.’ Arab Kosky rose from the grass. ‘The warthog still waits, and who is so without manners as to keep another waiting? Surely Buller is not. We must take his advice and go.’

  We went up the riverbank, falling into single file again, and threaded our way through a labyrinth of silver-grey boulders and rust-red anthills, shaped variously like witches caps or like the figures of kneeling giants or like trees without branches. Some of the anthills were enormous, higher than the huts we lived in, and some were no higher than our knees. They were scattered everywhere.

  ‘Seek ’em out, Buller!’

  But the dog needed no urging from me. He knew warthog country when he saw it and he knew what to do about it. He rushed on ahead followed by the native mongrels running in a little storm of their own dust.

  I know animals more gallant than the African warthog, but none more courageous. He is the peasant of the plains — the drab and dowdy digger in the earth. He is the uncomely but intrepid defender of family, home
, and bourgeois convention, and he will fight anything of any size that intrudes upon his smug existence. Even his weapons are plebeian — curved tusks, sharp, deadly, but not beautiful, used inelegantly for rooting as well as for fighting.

  He stands higher than a domestic pig when he is full grown, and his hide is dust-coloured and tough and clothed in bristles. His eyes are small and lightless and capable of but one expression — suspicion. What he does not understand, he suspects, and what he suspects, he fights. He can leap into the air and gut a horse while its rider still ponders a strategy of attack, and his speed in emerging from his hole to demonstrate the advantage of surprise is almost phenomenal.

  He is not lacking in guile. He enters his snug little den (which is borrowed, not to say commandeered, from its builder, the ant-bear) tail foremost so that he is never caught off guard. While he lies thus in wait for the curiosity or indiscretion of his enemy to bring him within range, he uses his snout to pile a heap of fine dust inside the hole. The dust serves as a smoke screen, bursting into a great, enshrouding billow the moment the warthog emerges to battle. He understands the tactical retreat, but is incapable of surrender, and if a dog is less than a veteran, or a man no more than an intrepid novice, not the only blood spilled will be the warthog’s.

  These facts were always in my mind when Buller hunted with us, as he always did. But there was never any question of leaving him. It would have been like preventing a born soldier from marching with his regiment or like denying a champion fighter the right to compete in the ring on the grounds that he might be hurt. So Buller always came, and often I worried.

  He ran ahead now, flanked by native dogs. The two Murani and I spread out fanwise, running behind.

  Our first sign of warthog was the squeal of a baby surprised in a patch of grass by one of the mongrels. The squeal was followed by what seemed to be the squeals of all the baby warthogs in Africa, blended, magnified, and ear-splitting. Panic-stricken, the little pigs ran in all directions, like mice in the dream of a tabby cat. Their tails, held straight and erect, whisked through the grass as if so many bulrushes had come to life to join in a frantic dance — a mad and somewhat gay dance, but hardly as abandoned as it appeared, because the squeals were not without intent or meaning. They were meant for the small, alert ears of their father, who, when he came, would come with murder aforethought.