Black Leopard, Red Wolf

by Marlon James

  Sogolon kept looking at me.

  “And her little goddess, you meet it? It come sliming down the wall as of late? If she is a goddess then me is the divine elephant snake. That little river jengu, claiming she fight Omoluzu, when you could kill her with just seawater. Her goddess is an imp.”

  “None of you deserved to live, not a single one of you,” Sogolon said, still looking at me.

  “That is between we and the gods, not you, body thief,” Venin-Jakwu said.

  “You was always an ungrateful, stinking piece of dog shit, Jakwu. Killer and raper of women. Why you think I give you that body? One day all of that you do will happen to you.”

  “The body had an owner,” I said.

  “Every day before sun come, she running out to go back to the bush so Zogbanu can eat her. No matter where me take her and how me train her. Far better use of she body than she ever go use it,” Sogolon said.

  “You just wanted me to stop knocking you off your horse,” Venin-Jakwu said. “Just like you been knocking people out of they body for a long, long time.”

  “How?” Mossi said.

  “Don’t ask me, ask she.”

  “Time running and passing, and they still have the boy. You know where they going, Tracker.”

  Sogolon looked around, at all of us, speaking to everybody, convincing no one.

  “She didn’t try to kill us,” Sadogo said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Venin-Jakwu said.

  “We agreed to save the boy,” Mossi said, and walked over to me.

  “You don’t know her. I know her two hundred years, what she do more than anything else is plot how a person can be of use. She never ask you what is your use? I didn’t agree to nothing with none of you,” Venin-Jakwu said.

  “Maybe not. But we go to save the boy, and we might need the deceiving Moon Witch.”

  “A dead Moon Witch not going to be any use to you.”

  “Nor a dead girl who tried to go through three of us to kill her.”

  Now Venin-Jakwu darted from face to face. They pushed a foot under the sword of a fallen guard and kicked it up in hand. They gripped it, liking the feel, and smiled.

  “I am a man!” he said. “My name is—”

  “Jakwu. I know your name. I know you must be a fearsome warrior with many kills. Help us save this child and there will be coin in it for you,” I said.

  “Coin can help me grow a cock?”

  “Such an overpraised thing, a cock,” Mossi said. I don’t know if he was trying to make the room smile. Sogolon’s chest right above the heart was red. Ipundulu had tried to cut her chest open and rip out the heart, but she would have us watch her collapse on the ground before telling anyone that.

  “See to your heart,” I said to her.

  “My heart clear,” she said.

  “It’s almost falling out of your chest.”

  “It never cut deep.”

  “Nothing seems to,” Mossi said.

  At the foot of the tree, the buffalo waited with two horses. Everything I wanted to ask with my mouth I seemed to ask with my eye, for he nodded, snorted, and pointed to the horses. Jakwu mounted the first.

  “Sogolon rides with you,” I said.

  “I ride with no one,” he said, and galloped off.

  Mossi came up behind me. “How far shall he ride?” he said.

  “Before he sees he does not know the way? Not very far.”

  “Sogolon.”

  “She can ride on the buffalo’s back.”

  “As you wish,” Mossi said.

  I grabbed a piece of Mossi’s tunic and wiped his face. The blood had stopped running.

  “It is but a scratch,” he said.

  “A scratch from a monster with iron claws.”

  “You called it something.”

  “Give me this,” I said, and took one of his swords. I cut a hole at the fringe of his tunic and tore off a long strip of cloth. This cloth I wrapped around his head, tying it at the back.

  “Sasabonsam.”

  “That is not one of the names I remember from the old man’s house.”

  “No. The Sasabonsam lived with his brother. They kill men from high up in the trees. His brother the flesh eater, him the bloodsucker.”

  “World’s not short on trees. Why does he travel with this pack?”

  “I killed his brother,” I said.

  Two things. The Sasabonsam took a sword to his wing. He was carrying both the boy and Ipundulu, who must have been as heavy as him.

  On the ground the two burning trees seemed hundreds upon hundreds of paces away, which they were. We were about to ride off when several of the Queen’s guard, ten and nine, maybe more, all on foot but in front of us, bid us to stop.

  “Her Radiant Excellency said she never gave anyone leave.”

  “Her Radiance has worse things to worry about than who takes leave of her radiant ass,” Mossi said, and rode right through them. They jumped out of the way when the buffalo brushed his front hoof in the dust.

  “Such a shame to leave. This is a rebellion that brings me joy to see,” Mossi said.

  “Until the slaves see they would rather the bondage they know than the freedom they do not,” I said.

  “Remind me to pick this fight with you another time,” he said.

  We rode all night. We passed where the old man lived but all that was left of his house was the smell of it. Nothing remained, not even the rubble of cracked mud and smashed bricks. Truly this made me worry that there had been no house and no man, but a dream of both. Since I alone noticed, I said nothing and we rode past the nothing in a blur. Jakwu tried to follow while being ahead, but pulled back three times. Even I had no memory of the way, unlike Mossi, who charged through the night. I just held on to his sides. Sogolon tried to sit upright on the buffalo as he ran almost as fast as the horses, but she almost fell off twice. We moved through the patch of the Mawana witches but only one broke through the ground to see us, and when she did, dove back down as if it were water.

  Before sun chased night away, the boy left my nose. I jumped up. Sasabonsam had flown all the way to the gate and gone through. I knew. Mossi said something about my forehead punching the back of his neck, which made me pull back. He slowed the horse to a trot when we reached the dirt road. The door crackled, shifted the air around it, and gave off a hum, but was getting smaller. I could see the road to Kongor in yellow daylight.

  “When they come—”

  “The doors don’t open themselves, Sogolon. They have already gone through it. We are too late,” I said.

  Sogolon rolled off the buffalo and fell. She tried to scream, but it came out a cough.

  “You do this,” she said, pointing at me. “You was never fit, never ready, nothing in the face of them. None of you care. None of you see what the whole world going lose. First time in two years and you make them get away.”

  “How, old woman?” Mossi said. “By being sold into slavery? That was your doing. We could have taken on all of Dolingo and saved the boy. Instead we wasted time saving you. Safe passage my sore ass. You put the whole fate of your mission on a queen more concerned with breeding with me than listening to you. That was all your doing.”

  The gate was shrinking, large enough for a man, but not for the Ogo or the buffalo.

  “Is going be days till one get to Kongor,” she said.

  “Then you’d better cut a stick and walk,” Mossi said. “This is as far as we go.”

  “The slaver will double the money. I promise it.”

  “The slaver or the King sister? Or maybe the river jengu you pretend is a goddess?” I asked.

  “It is only about the boy. You so fool you don’t see? It was only for the boy.”

  “I have a feeling, witch, it was only for you. You keep saying we were useless whe
n use is exactly what you put us to. And the girl, poor Venin, you rid of her own body because Jakwu, or whatever his name is, was of greater use. This whole failure is on you,” Mossi said.

  Jakwu jumped off his horse and stepped to the gate. I don’t think he had ever seen one.

  “What do I see through this hole?”

  “The way to Mitu,” Sadogo said.

  “I shall take it.”

  “All might not be fine with you,” I said. “Jakwu has never seen the ten and nine doors, but Venin has.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He means, though your soul is new, your body might burn,” Mossi said.

  “I shall take it,” Jakwu said.

  Sogolon looked at the gate the whole time. She staggered right up to it. I knew she thought of it. That she had made it to three hundred, ten and five years, mayhaps surviving worse, and besides, who had time for old woman tales that nobody could ever prove?

  “Well you all seem like the gods smile on you, but nothing here for me,” Jakwu said. “Maybe I go to the North and have those Kampara perverts make me one of their wooden cocks.”

  “May good fortune come to you,” Mossi said, and Jakwu nodded.

  He headed to the door. Sogolon stepped out of the way.

  Mossi grabbed my shoulder and said, “Where now?” I didn’t know what to say to him, or how to say that wherever it was I hoped it would be in his company.

  “I have no stake in this boy, but I will go where you go,” he said.

  “Even if that means Kongor?”

  “Well, I am one for amusements.”

  “People trying to kill you is an amusement?”

  “I have laughed at worse.”

  I turned to Sadogo. “Great Ogo, where go you now?”

  “Who care about the cursed giant?” Sogolon said. “All of you whining like all of you is little bitch, because the old woman outsmart you. This not what you all make for? And you can’t smell it, touch it, drink it, or fuck it, so it mean nothing to you. Nothing bigger than yourself.”

  “Sogolon, you keep mourning this death of morals you never had,” I said.

  “Me telling you all. Whatever coin you want. Your own weight in silver. When the boy on the throne in Fasisi, you will have gold dust just to give your servants. You say you would do it for the boy if not for me. For the boy to see his mother. You like seeing a woman go down on her knees? You want my breasts in the dirt?”

  “Don’t disgrace yourself, woman.”

  “Me beyond honor or disgrace. Words, they just words. The boy is everything. The future of the kingdom is . . . the boy, he going—”

  The door had shrunk to about half my height and hung above the ground. Jakwu’s hand pushed through it, catching fire, grabbed the neck of Sogolon’s dress, and pulled her right in. Her feet burst into flames before Jakwu dragged all of her through, but it was quick, quicker than a god’s blink. Mossi and I rushed to the door but the opening was now smaller than our heads. Sogolon screamed from here to there, screamed at what we could only imagine was happening to her until the door closed on itself.

  TWENTY

  Strong winds blew into the sails and pushed the dhow. This was the fastest I ever see it go, save for a storm, the captain said, but claimed it was sake of neither river nor wind goddess. He wasn’t sure which, even though the answer showed itself clear to anybody who went belowdecks. We boarded the dhow to Kongor a day ago, and here is why it made sense. We could not go through Dolingo, for no one had word on whether the rebellion had spread or if the Queen’s men doused it. Dolingo’s mountains rose higher than Malakal and would have taken five nights to cross, followed by four through Mitu, before we reached Kongor. But a boat on the river took three nights and half a day. The last I sailed on a dhow, the boat was less than ten and six paces long, not even seven paces wide, and carried five of us. This boat was half the walk of a sorghum field and wider than twenty paces, and had two sails, one as wide as the ship and just as high, the other half that size, both cut like shark fins. Three floors belowdecks, all empty, made the ship sail faster, but also made it easier to capsize. A slave ship.

  “That ship, have you ever seen the like?” Mossi said when I pointed it out docked by the river.

  A half day’s walk led us to a clearing and the river, which ran from far south of Dolingo, snuck past it on the left, snaked around Mitu, and split to surround Kongor. On the other side of the river, the giant trees and thick mists hid the Mweru.

  “I have seen the like,” I said to him about the ship.

  We were all tired, even the buffalo and the Ogo. We were all sore, and the first night the Ogo’s fingers were so stiff he swatted three mugs of beer away trying to pick them up. I couldn’t remember what hit me in my back for it to smart so, and when I dipped in the river, every wound, scratch, and sore screamed. Mossi was sore as well and he tried to hide his limp, but winced when he stepped with his left foot. The night before, the cut above his forehead opened again, and blood streaked down the middle of his face. I cut another piece of his tunic, pounded wild bush into a paste, and rubbed it in his wound. He grabbed my hand and cursed at the sting, then eased his grip and dropped his hands to my waist. I wrapped his forehead.

  “Then you know why it would dock here, on the outskirts of Dolingo.”

  “Mossi, Dolingo buys slaves, not sells them.”

  “What does that mean, that the ship is empty? Not after what’s coming to pass in the citadel.”

  I turned to him, looking over at the buffalo, who snorted at the sight of the river.

  “Look how it floats above the water. It’s empty.”

  “I don’t trust slavers. We could turn from guest to cargo in the course of one night.”

  “And how would a slaver do that with the likes of us? We need passage to Kongor, and this ship is going to either Kongor or Mitu, which is still closer than where we are now.”

  I hailed the captain, a fat slaver with a bald head he painted blue, and asked if he minded some fellow travelers. They all stood from the port, looking down on us, ragged and covered in bruises and dust, but with all the weapons we took from the Dolingons. Mossi was right, the captain looked us over, and so did his thirty-man crew. But Sadogo never took off his gloves, and one look from him made the captain charge us nothing. But you take that cow to the shed with the rest of the dumb beasts, he said, and the Ogo had to grab the buffalo’s horn to stop him from charging. The buffalo took an empty stall beside two pigs who should have been fatter.

  The second level had windows, and the Ogo took that one, and frowned when it looked like we would join him. He has nightmares and wishes that nobody knows, I said to Mossi when he complained. The captain said to me that he sold his cargo that night to a thin blue noble who pointed with his chin the whole time, only two nights before the god of anarchy let loose in Dolingo.

  The ship would dock in Kongor. None of the crew slept below. One, whose face I didn’t see, said something about slave ghosts, furious about dying on the ship for they were still chained to it and could not enter the underworld. Ghosts, masters of malice and longing, spent all their days and nights thinking of the men who wronged them, and sharpening those thoughts into a knife. So they would have no quarrel with us. And if they wanted ears to hear of their injustice, I have heard worse from the dead.

  I went down the stairs to the first deck, the stairway so steep that by the time I reached the bottom, the steps behind me vanished into the dark. I couldn’t see much in the dark but my nose took me over to where Mossi lay, the myrrh on his skin gone to everyone but me. He rolled rags from an old sail into a pillow and put it right against the bulkhead, so that he could hear the river. I went to sleep beside him, except I couldn’t sleep. I turned on my side, facing him, watching him for such a long time that I jumped when I saw that he was looking at me, eye-to-eye. He reached over and touched my face b
efore I could move. It seemed as if he wasn’t even blinking, and his eyes were too bright in the dark, almost silver. And his hand had not left my face. He rubbed my cheek and moved up to my forehead, traced one brow, then the other, and went back down to my cheek like a blind woman reading my face. Then he put his thumb on my lip, then my chin, while his fingers caressed my neck. And lying there, I already forgot when I closed my eyes. Then I felt him on my lips. There is no such kiss among the Ku, and none with the Gangatom either. And nobody in Kongor or Malakal would do such gentle tongue play. His kiss made me want another. And then he pushed his tongue in my mouth and my eyes went wide open. But he did it again, and my tongue did it back to him. When his hand gripped me I was already hard. It made me jump again and my palm brushed his forehead. He winced, then grinned. Night vision made him out in the dark, gray and silver. He sat up, pulled his tunic over his head. I just looked at him, his bruised chest purple in spots. I wanted to touch him but was afraid he would wince again. He straddled my lap and grabbed my arms, to which I hissed. Sore. He said something about us being poor old injured men who have no business doing . . . I did not hear the rest, for he then bent down and sucked my right nipple. I moaned so loud, I waited for some sailor upstairs to cuss or whisper that something is afoot with those two. His knees against my own bruised ribs made me breathe heavy. I rubbed his chest and he sucked in air and moaned it back out. I was frightened that I hurt him, but he took my hand away and placed it on the floor. He blew on my navel, then moved lower between my legs and did precious art. I begged him to stop in the most feeble whisper. He climbed back on me. The floorboards, looser than they should have been, creaked with each jerk. I let everything out through gnashed teeth and grabbed his ass. I went on top. He grabbed my left ass cheek right on a raw bruise and I shouted. He laughed, pulling me deeper into him, my lips down on his. Both of us failing to not make a sound, then both thinking fuck the gods for we will have sound.