The Lion Killer (The Dark Continent Chronicles)

by James S. Gardner

  ***

  Abel and Tabitha were sleeping soundly the night she shook them. She placed her finger to her lips and motioned for them to follow her into the blackness.

  “My children, you must leave this island. The soldiers who hunt for you have camped on the far shore. The Arabs are camped on the other shore. We are in the middle of the killing ground. In the morning, the Arabs will attack. Take my boat and leave.”

  “You're coming with us,” Abel whispered.

  “We're not leaving without you,” added Tabitha.

  The woman placed her spider-thin fingers on Tabitha's lips to prevent her from speaking. “A thoughtful gesture, but a foolish one. My little boat won't float with three of us. Go now, before the moon escapes the clouds. And don't worry about me. Besides, why would they kill a harmless old woman?”

  Abel glanced at the shore and shuttered. “If the Arabs attack, the Dinka and Nuer children will be caught in the middle. If only there was a way to warn them.”

  “Let me worry about warning them. Go, and when you see the Khawadja, tell him how I helped you.”

  The rounded hippo boat spun out of control in the current until Abel used his push pole to steady it. The old woman waded out and hugged them. The moonshine illuminated her for a second. She disappeared behind a black curtain. The frogs stopped croaking. Only whining mosquitoes broke the silence. The boat drifted in the sluggish current, coming within a few meters of the Arabs' camp. Sparks and voices rose from their campfires. A stallion's whinny from the Arabs' camp was answered by a mare's whicker from the Africans' camp on the other side of the river. As the river widened, the current slowed down. Fearing they would be seen, Abel poled their boat into the heavy papyrus reeds before sunrise.

  ***

  General Mohammed Nur adjusted his binoculars until the image of an old woman came into focus. She was walking towards the camp on the shoreline.

  “Sergeant, let's see if you're any good with that rifle. Take the woman.”

  The sound of the shot caused him to lose the image. The general's smile revealed his ironcolored teeth. “She's down. Good shooting,” he said, tapping the sergeant on his shoulder.

  ***

  The dawn was greeted by the pop and crack of gunshots. It was over in less than five minutes. The mounted Arabs raced their camels up and down the riverbank killing those who escaped the initial assault. Some smacking sounds echoed over the water; it was the noise of bullets hitting human flesh. A soldier carried the general on his back to the other shore. His men laid out the old rifles and ragged clothes they stripped off the dead and dying Africans. One of the men dragged four naked girls out of the marsh. Their hands were tied behind them. They were joined by leather neck leashes. General Nur stopped in front of one girl and pinched her tiny breast. “This one's mine. You men do what you want with the rest of them.”

  ***

  Abel and Tabitha worked their way back upstream to the scene of the attack. The smell warned them. What they found was horrifying. The crocodiles were in a feeding frenzy. A bull crocodile held a woman's torso in its massive jaws as a smaller croc spun and twisted off her head. With its scaly head thrown back, the croc gulped the head down its bulging gullet. The feeding of the crocodiles caused human arms and legs to flop in a windmill fashion, giving the appearance of animation to the dead. Hunchbacked vultures waited impatiently along the shoreline. Hyenas and jackals feasted on the bodies away from the water's edge. They buried the old woman's halfeaten body, but there were so many dead; it was impractical to bury all of them.

  “I should have warned them,” said Abel.

  “Don't blame yourself. You're not God.”

  “Why would God let this happen? I curse your God and everything he stands for.” “Oh Abel, what are we to do?” “The old woman said Arthur Turner's alive. Finding him is our only hope. It means crossing the desert. The Arabs will have no trouble seeing us, but we have no choice.”

  Abel saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He pushed Tabitha behind him. A man crawled out of the bulrushes. He was too weak to stand up. “Help me. In the name of Allah, I beg you,” the man whimpered.

  When Ali Osman was wounded in the attack he was abandoned by his fellow Arabs. Abel picked up a tree limb and walked over to the injured Arab. He raised the log to hit the man, but something stopped him. The Arab looked up at him, mumbled a passage from the Quran, and passed out.

  “Bring me my knapsack.” Abel examined the man's head wound and found it to be superficial. A gunshot must have knocked him unconscious, thought Abel. After he built a lean-to over the Arab, he cleaned and dressed his head wound. That night Tabitha made a thin stew from boiled crocodile eggs and a tilapia fish she caught the day before. Abel fed the man all of the stew. Osman grabbed Abel's arm and pulled him closer. “Dinka, tell me why you saved my life.”

  “I don't know why. I want to become a medical doctor when I'm grown.”

  “Grown? This life is so cruel—there is no time to be a child. I pray Allah helps you attain your dream.” The Arab looked away, which ended their conversation.

  Abel, Tabitha and the Arab fell asleep by the fire. Sometime during the night the Arab vanished. Later that morning, as they searched the reed beds for fresh crocodile nests, Tabitha confronted Abel. “You curse God, yet you are like God. I would have killed the Arab, but you saved his life. He never even bothered to thank you. Abel, you are a good man.”

  At dusk, they started walking towards the setting sun. The flat arid plain appeared endless. The ground would have been flooded in the rainy season, but now the parched land was crisscrossed by deep cracks. The darkness came as swiftly and stealthily as a lioness on a hunt. Their sightlessness made them stagger and fall repeatedly. The glowing eyes of hyenas followed their progress. At times, the predators became too aggressive and had to be chased away. The marching numbed them, but they pushed on into the night.

  ***

  In the darkness before dawn, Tabitha and Abel stumbled upon a razed village. Exhausted, they fell asleep between the remains of two huts. They were awakened by a malicious sun and buzzing flies. At first, he thought her screaming was caused by a bad dream, but as he looked around he realized they had slept on a bed of bones. The bones could have been from animals had it not been for the skulls. The white craniums were topped in twisted patches of ratty hair. One skull was missing front teeth. The rest of the skulls were twisted into gruesome smiles. The bleached skeletons had been scattered by scavenging animals. Even the victim's clothes had been stolen. There was nothing left. Nothing but their gaping mouths defining the horror of their deaths.

  14

  The Darfur Region of The Sudan

  Arthur Turner stooped to see himself in the side mirror of his Land Rover. He hardly recognized his reflection. Deep parentheses outlined his mouth. The dark shadows under his eyes gave him a ghoulish appearance. The threepill malaria cure had taken longer than normal. Dizziness made him grab the door handle to keep from falling. A tall native approached him from behind and touched him on the shoulder.

  “Khawadja, I have been waiting to speak with you. You have been very ill. I bring you good news. Some Nuer refugees from the Sudd say they have seen Abel Deng. They say he treated one of their elders.”

  “When did you hear this news?”

  “Three days ago.”

  “And you believe the news to be true?”

  “Yes. The people of the Nuer tribe can be trusted.”

  “I knew my prayers would be answered. We'll leave at first light. We've got lots to do. What's your given name?”

  “My name is Agrippa.”

  “Agrippa, you must cover your nakedness. It's offensive to the nurses.”

  “Dinka men do not cover themselves in summer. It has always been so.” “Yes, but…never mind.” He felt too lightheaded to argue. The old Dinka stood guard outside of the tent. He leaned on his walking stick and placed his foot on the knee of his other leg. His buttock was hollowed and his knees we
re knobby. There was pride in the way he carried himself. He looks like one of the openbilled storks I've seen in the swamps, Arthur reflected. Arthur wiped the perspiration from his forehead. A wave of disorientation clouded his thinking. He picked up a pen and started to write.

  My dearest Lynn,

  So much has happened since my last letter. I'm afraid the news here is not good. I thought the Janjaweed might leave us alone, but it was not to be. We lost our two French aid workers in the last attack. You may have already read about it, although I believe the news is being censored by the government in Khartoum.

  Abel Deng, the young Dinka boy I wrote to you about, disappeared during the attack. I received news today that he's alive. I leave tomorrow morning to find him. I have taken the necessary steps to get him into the United States. When the time comes,I'll need you to take care of things on your end. Please order me a copy on Evan's book: Traditional Medicine in Ghana. Post it to the same address in Kampala. Sorry about the brevity of this letter, I'm a little under the weather. Make sure Ashlyn receives the enclosed sealed envelope.

  All my love, Arthur

  He put his pen on the table and buried his face in his hands. Trying to rub the dryness out of his eyes didn't work. The nagging fever made him woozy. His bouts with malaria were the catalysts for nightmares. He stretched out on his cot and closed his eyes. The dreaming started with a vision of his wife, but diverted to his childhood, as it had done recently, to a place and time he wasn't sure ever existed.

  It happened on a cruise in the Bahamas. His parents weren't speaking to each other, which wasn't unusual. He watched them duel like fencers probing for each other's weaknesses. The confrontations always ended with Max beating her. It would have been a normal holiday of horrors, but something awful happened.

  The ocean was calm. He remembered the night air was warm and friendly. Flying fish skipped away from the bow on transparent wings. Tangled beds of yellow seaweed floated by. He heard them fighting on the deck above him. He heard the smack of his father's fist. A stroke of heat lighting lit up his mother's face as she fell past the porthole in his cabin. They locked eyes and she screamed, but he couldn't hear her words. He ran up on the deck. The crew threw life rings over the side, but she was gone. He ran to his father, but Max pushed him away. He knew Max had killed her. Later on, he pretended to believe the therapists, but deep down he knew the truth.

  “Khawadja, you were having a bad nightmare,” Agrippa yelled. He helped Arthur sit up on the edge of the cot. He took a few seconds to find his bearings.

  “The malaria is giving me nightmares. I need to stay awake. Let's get the truck loaded.”

  Arthur and Agrippa waited for sunlight to give form to the desert. The orange rays made the sands appear almost hospitable, but as the light got harsher it made the desert look unforgiving. It was the end of the dry season. The woodland acacias could no longer afford the luxury of foliage; their branches were as emaciated as the animals that used them for shade.

  Arthur's Land Rover was painted with a red cross, but so was the one that had been attacked two weeks earlier. They passed small groups of refugees walking in the opposite direction. All of them told the same story: They were heading west to escape the violence.

  Arthur looked out across the vast plain and trembled. Heat waves rose from the land like gas fumes. A spinning dust devil momentarily disturbed the stillness.

  “This is as far as we go on the road. We'll stop here until its dark. Better to cross the desert at night. No sense making ourselves a target.”

  They rested in the shade. Arthur tried to sleep, but the sweltering heat made it impossible. Agrippa's catnap was interrupted by an annoying fly. He used a cow'stail flyswatter to shoo it away. Arthur studied the black man. The Dinka are perfectly adapted to this environment. What a pity to eradicate these wonderful people, he reflected. A people fashioned by a million years of evolution. The old man stood up and looked out at the desert. “I hear cow bells,” he said, cupping his ear.

  Arthur climbed up on the truck's roof. It took binoculars to see them. Tall men, like apparitions in the desert heat, walked towards him. They used their fighting sticks as canes. Their cows trudged in front of them. Agrippa picked up a water bottle and ran out to greet them. Each man took a small sip of water. They clapped their hands as a sign of gratitude.

  “Yin aca leec,” one man yelled at Arthur.

  “You're welcome. Has your friend been injured?” Arthur asked pointing at a man struggling to walk. The Dinka men had smeared dung ash and cow urine on their faces to repel the insects. The urine bleached their hair orange. The dust gave them a ghostly appearance. One man retrieved some of the concoction and offered it to Arthur. Arthur wiped it on his face.

  “He's lost God's gift of sight. The Arabs hide bombs under the earth. One of his favorite cows stepped on a bomb. The cow is dead and he was blinded.”

  “Let's have a look at him,” Arthur said.

  The man's face was disfigured. His eyes had turned milky. “I'm afraid there's not much I can do for you. Was your march from the Sudd difficult?”

  “No more difficult than usual. God bless you for trying to ease my suffering.”

  “I'm looking for a young Dinka boy. His name's Abel Deng.”

  “Deng is a common name in the Sudan. The boy you're looking for, has he undergone the rites of passage?” one of the men asked.

  “I don't know what you mean.”

  “Dinka boys have six of their bottom teeth removed and four deep incisions cut in their foreheads. Only then have they proven themselves worthy of taking a wife. Some say, we must discard our ancient customs. They say our ways are foolish.”

  “Abel has no such mutilations,” Arthur explained.

  “The government in Khartoum calls us savages,” the man said. “The changes in this country fill me with a great sadness.” The others shook their heads in agreement. “The boy you seek, does he have a scar on his chin?”

  “Yes, yes, that's him. Where did you see him?”

  “They camped with us two weeks ago. The boy has taken a young Nuer wife.” “Are you sure? He's only fourteen.” “Fourteen years is a lifetime in the Sudan. We asked them to join us, but they prefer marching at night. We must travel by day or the lions will eat our cows.”

  Emotions strangled Arthur's response. “God forgive me, I'd almost lost hope.” He offered the men more water, but they refused. Water was so precious in the desert; it would have been considered improper to accept it. The men rested for a short time. There was no escape from the sun. The cows huddled together trying to steal each other's shade. They swished their tails to dislodge the flies.

  A man walked over to a black-and-white spotted bull. He spoke to the bull. Instantly, the animal took up the lead. The cows fell in behind the bull. Without saying a word, the men followed their herd into the desert. The tall figures grew small from a distance. Within minutes, they disappeared into the heat waves.

  ***

  The full moon made traveling safer, but driving with the lights turned off caused Arthur to pass unseen within a mile of Abel and Tabitha walking in the opposite direction. It was dark by the time they stopped at the same razed village Abel and Tabitha had stumbled on. Agrippa seemed agitated and refused to get out of the truck. The light of day revealed human skulls with sunken eye sockets and gapping jaws. A myriad of human bones lay scattered in the sand. There was a strange dank odor in the air. The smell of death made Arthur queasy.

  “This place is giving me the willies,” he said. “How far is the swamp?”

  “We are close. If we were herding cattle, they would be increasing their pace. I smelled the marsh before sunrise.”

  Arthur slowed down. The water hyacinth and papyrus reeds expanded like a green blanket. The air was scented by swamp flowers.

  “You're a gifted navigator. I can't tell you how many times I would have turned in the wrong direction,” Arthur said to Agrippa. They retrieved their canteens and walked down to
the water. Agrippa used his hand to swirl away the floating vegetation and started filling the containers. Arthur knelt beside him to lend a hand.

  “This looks like a good spot to camp,” Arthur suggested.

  “When it gets dark, this place will have many mosquitoes. It would be better to camp back there,” he said, pointing back at the dried plain. “We must burn elephant dung or the insects will have a great feast.”

  “God, I'm glad I brought you along.” He touched the old man on the shoulder. Agrippa responded with a toothless grin.

  ***

  Over the next four days, Arthur and Agrippa skirted the western edge of the Sudd. Their campfires attracted local fishermen who would appear each morning in their dugouts or hippohide round boats. Arthur treated them for a variety of ailments. The fisherman presented him with gifts of fish and turtles. Each day, they moved farther south.

  On the morning of the fifth day, Arthur stopped to watch a pair of fish eagles soaring high above an island. Without wind to ripple its surface, the water looked like black marble. Tiny beeeaters no larger than butterflies fluttered above the tangled mass of purple convolvuli and thick papyrus reeds. Flocks of blue teal zoomed by before flaring to land between the pods of hippos. The hippos' periscopic eyes slipped beneath the surface and then reemerged. The dominant bull hippo warned them with whiz-honking. A large crocodile waddled down the bank and slithered into the water. It submerged under some whiteflowered water lilies.

  As Arthur adjusted his binoculars, a narrow reedboat rounded the bend. Two men waved and paddled towards them. The men showed no embarrassment at their nakedness. A monofilament net lay between them.

  “Habari,” one man yelled in Swahili.

  Arthur answered him in his native language. “Ichiyo nade?”