The Song Dog

by James McClure

  Zondi had now been gone more than half an hour, and the sky was clouding over.

  Zondi’s eyes had begun to smart. The songoma kept on adding pinches of herbs to a small clay pot containing hot coals, filling the cave with strange aromatic smells and far too much smoke. While she did this, she rocked back and forth on her haunches, muttering away to herself, and repeatedly cast at her feet a set of bones that included, unless he was very much mistaken, at least three human finger joints. She had told him to remain quiet.

  “You have come,” she said eventually, “with a man who has dreamed a dream.”

  That could be confidently said of anyone, thought Zondi, remembering Sister Theresa’s oft-repeated homily on sorcerers, but his reply was respectful: “I hear you, O Wise One.”

  “You have come,” she said, “to ask me many, many questions …”

  That didn’t call for much by way of a clairvoyant gift either, thought Zondi, given Tokoloshe would have told her he was a detective, but again he merely said: “I hear you, O Wise One.”

  “Then get on with it, let’s hear what you have to say,” she snapped testily, still rocking, setting the bones aside. “Since you drew close, my ears have filled with the sound of women weeping and children grieving.”

  “You must know, O Wise One, that Detective Sergeant Kritzinger is dead—Isipikili? News of that kind would surely travel swiftly, far and wide.”

  “Yes, I know of this matter, Michael Zondi, and my heart is sore.”

  “Isipikili came to visit you here, Great Mama—is that not true?”

  “He has been here many, many times, Michael Zondi.”

  “He has? When was the last time. Great Mama?”

  “On Sunday.”

  “This Sunday that has just gone. Mama?”

  She nodded. “He had much troubling him, and came again to seek the wisdom of the Song Dog.”

  “I need to know the nature of his troubles. Mama.”

  “Then why not read what he has written?”

  “I know of no such writing, O Wise One.”

  “Yet it exists! He has told me. He has written down all he knows of this matter, and has read through it many times, seeking enlightenment.”

  “Yet I have not found these writings, Great Mama. Can you tell me where I might lay my hands on them?”

  “Bah! Do I look like a nursemaid?”

  “No, Great Mama, but what else can I say when you speak in riddles?”

  “You consider that a riddle? Before you leave, you will certainly hear a riddle from these lips, for what the bones tell me about you is greatly disturbing! But I will tell you when I speak in riddles—in the meantime, with regard to this matter of things written, I thought I had made my meaning quite plain!”

  “Forgive me, Great Mama. Please go on, repeat to me what Isipikili came here to request of the Song Dog.”

  “Huh! Why should I, Mr. Policeman? I can see in your eyes that you doubt my great powers, and besides, you have not flattered me sufficiently. Where do you think you are, at the damn doctor’s? You have not marveled at my wondrous sorcery—or at least my astonishing memory—and not a word have you uttered in praise of my remarkable alertness for a wizened, wrinkled old woman.”

  “That is only because, Great Mama, you have the light in your eyes of a young maiden, compelling me to see you with breasts ripe and full, and your thighs plump and shiny …”

  “Hau!” she exclaimed, a delighted cackle escaping her as she clapped a hand over her mouth. “So you are not altogether the mission boy I first smelled when you entered my cave, Michael Zondi!”

  Kramer, pacing up and down, incessantly checking his watch and trying not to, gritted his teeth as yet another half hour crawled by.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded of the crow, which had swooped down to take a closer look at him. “Listen, you evil black bastard, I’m talking to you! Is the old bitch turning that stupid kaffir of mine into next year’s patent remedy or what?”

  The crow tipped its head, the better to keep him firmly fixed by its beady eye.

  “Ja, I can just see it,” Kramer went on, lighting his third-to-last Lucky. “Essence of Bantu Detective Sergeant bloody Zondi, four rand a small ointment tin, just rub it in. Perfect for lumbago, for talking bullshit, for frightening off—”

  At which very moment, the crow gave a squawk, rose into the air, and went flapping away, startled by a shower of pebbles and loose lumps of clay. Seconds later, Zondi appeared, slipping and sliding, almost losing his footing every yard or so, as he came hurrying back down the path. His face was surprisingly somber and his fists were clenched hard.

  “Hey, Mickey, what’s up?” asked Kramer. “You don’t look too happy, man …”

  “Who, me, Lieutenant?” said Zondi, plainly forcing a smile. “Oh, take no notice, boss—I was wanting to leave long ago, but the songoma held me back, insisting on telling me what the bones had revealed to her earlier, and wanting to talk about stupid dreams. Kaffir nonsense.”

  “Such as?”

  “Believe me, Lieutenant: irrelevant.”

  “Oh, ja? But was anything she said relevant, hey?”

  “It was indeed, boss!” said Zondi.

  24

  ZONDI, SEEING KRAMER was down to his last two Luckys, raised a hand and said: “No, boss, the Lieutenant must have one of mine, please.” They lit up and then sat side by side beneath the overhanging rock, with the crow edging up again.

  “This is how things were, Lieutenant,” said Zondi, pausing to pinch a crumb of tobacco from the tip of his tongue. “The songoma has known Boss Kritzinger many years. He would come to her because he wanted to learn the story of the Zulu people—she claims her memory goes right back before the Zulu wars with the English, and that her father was at the kraal of Shaka when the Voortrekker leaders were killed there after being warmly welcomed. Boss Kritzinger said one of his ancestors was among that number, and he wanted to understand why Shaka had suddenly—”

  “Whoa!” Kramer interrupted. “History lessons later, okay?”

  “The point I was hoping to make. Lieutenant,” said Zondi, a trifle stiffly, “is that the songoma was surprised when Boss Kritzinger came to ask her to intercede for him in seeking the wisdom of the Song Dog. It was not his way—he had never done such a thing before.”

  “Ah, I get you. And this was when, last Sunday?”

  “Uh-uh—last October, boss.”

  “Hey? But I thought …”

  “Boss Kritzinger paid two visits concerning this matter, Lieutenant, that’s what is confusing you. On the first of these occasions, during the last part of October, Boss Kritzinger came to tell her he was deeply troubled by the death of the two whites whose car had hit a sugarcane truck on land belonging to Boss Grantham.”

  “Christ, so at least we were warm, hey?”

  “Lieutenant?”

  “Just go on, Mickey!”

  “Boss Kritzinger told the songoma, boss,” said Zondi, “that he wanted the Song Dog to confirm whether his belief was correct: that the crash had not been an accident. He also wanted the Song Dog to let him know how close he had come to identifying the culprit. In reply, the—”

  “Hey, hang on a moment!” said Kramer, frowning. “There’s something I don’t get. If Kritz was prepared to shame himself by crawling to a witch doctor with questions like that, then why not go the whole hog? Why didn’t he ask the Song Dog straight out to name the guilty party and have done with it?”

  “The songoma is no fool, she wondered the same thing,” said Zondi. “But she suspected, she says, that Boss Kritzinger already knew the answers to the questions he was putting.”

  “Ach, no, this is getting too complicated for me, man!”

  “Not really, boss. A man may know something, but making himself believe it is often another matter entirely—especially if it is a bad thing. I remember going as a young policeman to the house of a family where the smallest child had been missing for a month, and altho
ugh I was carrying the smallest child’s dress, all torn and bloodstained, the parents simply would not—”

  “Ja, ja,” said Kramer, reminded of a similar incident he’d give a lot to forget. “Point taken. You’re saying that Kritz wanted something or someone outside him to confirm that some unthinkable thought of his was justified, right? But he was a detective, for Christ’s sake! Why didn’t he just check it out in the normal way?”

  Zondi shrugged. “Maybe that was impossible to do, boss, without risking a terrible calamity if the idea proved wrong. Maybe the only action he dared take at that time was to consult the songoma, who was just an old kaffir living many miles away—at least she was someone he could talk over his problem with quite freely.”

  “Hmmmm,” said Kramer, close to scoffing at the idea before conceding that he himself had felt much the same way lately. “But that of course raises the interesting possibility that Kritz could have said a lot more to her about this business than she let on.”

  “Agreed, boss, and that is part of the reason I was with the songoma for so long,” said Zondi. “But I could not budge her from one story—hau, she was like a rock stuck in a dry riverbed!”

  “Back to her story then. We’d got to where Kritz had come to her with those questions for the Song Dog …”

  “The songoma told Boss Kritzinger that he must return after nine days and she would have the Song Dog’s reply for him. But Boss Kritzinger did not keep that appointment. Many months were to go by before she saw him again.”

  “Which was on Sunday?”

  “Correct, Lieutenant.”

  “Hmmmm,” said Kramer. “I can understand Kritz having second thoughts and not going back those nine days later, but why change his mind again? Was it because he was suddenly no longer confident he knew what those answers were after all?”

  “Hau, you show great insight, Lieutenant! The songoma says he was in an even more troubled frame of mind, and mumbled something about things being probably much more serious than he had imagined. Having written down all he knew about the matter, and then having stared at it many times at his desk, he had begun to wonder whether some of his ideas had been wrong and the real truth lay in another direction. He wanted to know if she could remember anything of what the Song Dog had said in response to his original questions.”

  “That can’t have been very difficult, seeing she makes the bloody stuff up herself, hey?”

  “I don’t think she is aware of that, Lieutenant, but she did say to remember was easy, because the request had been so unusual and the Song Dog’s reply had been so brief.”

  “Huh!”

  “You don’t wish to know what its words were, boss?”

  “Of course I do!” said Kramer, flinging a stone in to the gorge below. “Bullshit or not, they could well have influenced the silly bastard’s thinking at the time of his decease.”

  Zondi nodded and said: “Then here are those words of the Song Dog, Lieutenant: Your path is righteous, Isipikili, but beware: he who hunts in long grass may step on the mamba …”

  “And that’s it?” said Kramer, jerking his head back. “Jesus wept, I didn’t expect much, but you can hardly call that a bloody money’s worth, can you? It doesn’t even match up properly with his questions!”

  “Yet the songoma says that Boss Kritzinger was greatly encouraged by the reply, boss.”

  “In what way? Shit, it’s the sort of mumbo jumbo that could be applied to practically any situation! All it boils down to is go for it, but watch your bloody back, hey? It could be the CID motto!”

  Zondi nodded. “Broadly speaking, I must agree, Lieutenant, but here was a man taking every word very personally. Boss Kritzinger told the songoma that the Song Dog was right: for months he had ‘hunted buffalo in the long grass,’ completely overlooking there could be a deadly serpent right at his feet—and yet, that very morning, he had caught what could have been a glimpse of it. Hau, he was very pleased.”

  “Did she ask him what he meant by ‘serpent’?”

  “My belief is that they discussed this at great length, boss, but all she would say to me was that she had added her own caution to the words of the Song Dog. She had told Boss Kritzinger that he must ‘hunt only man’ and ‘heed the least of messengers’ whenever he felt in danger.”

  “Hey?”

  “I know. Lieutenant, all very puzzling, but this is how these people speak. We could spend much time debating the meanings.”

  “Only if we thought it was worth the trouble, Mickey! But our sole concern is the effect this bullshit could have had. How did Kritz leave this place? What mood was he in?”

  “He was troubled, boss, and the songoma was afraid for him. His shadow was growing faint, she said.”

  “Oh, ja, the finest prophecies are the bastards of hindsight, not so?”

  Zondi grinned. “Hau, you too could be a great songoma. Lieutenant, famous for your wonderful sayings!”

  “Watch it, kaffir—a bit of respect now!”

  Their laughter drove the crow away.

  Kramer rose and looked at his watch. “Christ,” he said, “it’s only just gone nine. I’m buggered if I’m sitting here, twiddling my thumbs until twelve for Aap and his bloody helicopter. How about you, man?”

  It was a good thing Zondi had spent so much time staring at the ground during the flight from Mabata to the sorcerer’s mountain. Without the mental map he had made, the confusion of footpaths, especially in the many deserted valleys where there was nobody to help with directions, would have led to a great deal of wasted time and energy.

  As it was, it still took them more than two hours of steady trudging, up slopes and down slopes, over wild country and through occasional semi-cultivated areas, to come within sight of Mabata. The second helicopter had disappeared from in front of the little stone police station, and the only sign of life, detectable at such a distance, was some movement at the rear of two white vehicles parked beside the flagpole.

  Zondi, who had been leading the way in companionable silence, paused and glanced round, his eyebrows raised as though asking whether Kramer wanted to stop and rest for a minute or two.

  Kramer shook his head. He had ceased talking, ceased thinking to a degree; now was the time for action, and all he cared about was getting back to Jafini. Sweating profusely and with his jacket slung over his back, he kept his eyes on the flip and fall of Zondi’s heels, no longer bothering to look up. He’d had more than his fill of picturesque rural scenes typifying Zululand: the mud huts and the aloes, the drought-stunted maize and the potbellied piccanins, the donkeys with rocks tied to their tails, which was said to inhibit nocturnal braying. His legs, which had begun protesting, found themselves having to work harder and harder as the incline grew steeper.

  Then he noticed some empty Casde lager bottles, glinting in the dry grass on either side of him, and seconds later he and Zondi reached level ground again, only yards from where they had left their Land Rover, outside Mabata police station.

  In front of it stood the station commander, Stoffel Wessels, still in slippers, his shoulders slumped, staring vacantly at the horizon behind them.

  “Stoffel, what’s up, hey?” asked Kramer, then realized that the two long white vehicles in the background were ambulances. “Somebody’s been injured?”

  Wessels turned to him, refocused slowly, and said, with an odd sort of chuckle: “Chopper chop-chop!” he said.

  “I’m not with you, man,” said Kramer, glancing at Zondi, who responded with a shrug, indicating an equal sense of bewilderment.

  “Got the chop!” said Wessels, striking himself on the back of the neck with the edge of his hand. “Chop, chop, chop!”

  “Listen, uncle,” said a young ambulance driver, hastening over and putting an arm around Wessels’ shoulders. “You must come and sit inside quietly for a while—you are in shock, hey? Don’t worry, everything is being taken care of, and there is more help on its way.”

  “That’s nice,” said Wessels, nod
ding.

  “You’ll come with me, uncle?”

  “So long as I don’t have to see those—”

  “No, uncle; promise, uncle; we’ll go round into your house the other way, uncle. Here we go, no need to hurry …”

  The second ambulance driver, a burly middle-aged man with an Elvis haircut, long sideburns, the lot, came over to Kramer, sized him up, and said in foreign-sounding English, “You all right, guv? Bit of blood there on yer shirt, I see.”

  “Ach, no, that’s nothing! What the hell’s going on here? Do you know?”

  “Simple enough, squire. According to your lads in the other helicopter, who saw the whole thing, the first one down landed in a bit of a hollow, with a steep bank to one side, like. This was right where them wogs was fighting, see? Bullets and bleedin’ spears flyin’ all over the place, and some nig-nog givin’ it the old one-two with a flippin’ shotgun, dancing around up on a rock. Score was about Shabalalas fifteen, Sitholes fourteen, playin’ for a draw, and the crowd’s lovin’ it, the women all making that special you’ve-got-no-balls sound, eggin’ ’em on. Y’know, the usual, and normally, no problem. Only it looks like nobody in the copter realized how close to that bank they’d come, and so when the first three jumped out and legged it for cover, they went straight up the bank and whack, whack, whack, rotors caught ’em, decapitated the lot! Oh, aye, dead nasty but they’d not have known what hit them, mind. Trouble is, the copter tipped a bit as this happened and rotors caught the ground on t’other side. Next thing, these other lads see, is the whole caboodle doing a sort of a cartwheel, up out of that hollow and straight over this bloody cliff them Shabalalas had got their backs to! Boom! One big ball of flame and every nig-nog for miles is leggin’ it, fast as their feet’ll carry ’em. Second copter goes in, gets through to our control via its radio, and brings out the first three. It’s gone back now for the others before bits of ’em is pinched to be made into muti. Wouldn’t have yer job for a big clock, I’m tellin’ yer! Fancy a bit of gum, chief?”

  Kramer declined the proffered stick of Wrigley’s with a shake of his head, glanced into the back of the nearest ambulance, then turned and went over to the Land Rover, followed by Zondi.