Elephant Song

by Wilbur Smith

  reach the Zaire border but, of course, he wouldn't be able to keep it up. There were mountains ahead, and glaciers and snowfields, and he had abandoned most of his clothing. it was going to be interesting out on the glaciers in his present attire, he decided, as he made a nest in the moist leaf mould and composed himself for sleep.

  When he woke it was just light enough to see his hand in front of his face. He was hungry and the wound in his back was stiff and painful.

  When he reached to touch it he found it was swollen and the flesh hot.

  All we need is a nice little infection, he thought, and renewed the dressing as best he could.

  By noon he was ravenously hungry. He found a nest of fat white grubs under the bark of a dead tree. They tasted like raw egg yolks. What doesn't kill you, makes you fat, he assured himself, and kept on towards the west, the compass in his hand. in the early afternoon he thought he recognized a type of edible fungus and nibbled a small piece as a trial.

  In the late afternoon he reached the bank of a small clear stream, and as he was drinking he noticed a dark cigar shape lying at the bottom of the pool. He cut a stake and sharpened one end, carving a crude set of barbs above the point. Then he cut down one of the hanging ant's nests from the branches of a silk-cotton tree and sprinkled the big red ants on the surface of the pool, taking care to stand well back from the edge with the crude spear in his right hand.

  Almost immediately the fish rose from the bottom and began to gulp down the struggling insects trapped in the surface film.

  Daniel drove the point of his fish spear into its gils and brought it out flapping and kicking on to the bank. It was a barbeled catfish, as long as his arm. He ate his fill of the fatty yellow flesh and the rest of the carcass he smoked over a fire of green leaves. it should keep him going for a couple more days, he decided. He wrapped it in a package of leaves and put it in his pack.

  However, when he woke the next morning his back was excruciatingly painful, and his stomach was swollen with gas and dysentery. He couldn't tell whether it was the insect grubs, the fungus or the stream water that had caused it, but by noon he was very weak. his diarrhea was almost unremitting, and the wound felt like a red-hot coal between his shoulder-blades.

  It was about that time that Daniel had the first sensation that he was being followed. It was an instinct that he had realised he possessed when he was a patrol leader with the Scouts in the valley.

  Johnny Nzou had trusted this sixth sense of his implicitly and it had never let them down. It was almost as though Daniel was able to pick up the malevolent concentration of the hunter following on his tracks.

  Even in his pain and weakness Daniel looked back and felt a presence.

  He knew that he was out there, the hunter.

  Anti-tracking, he told himself, knowing that it would slow his progress, but it would almost certainly throw off his real or imaginary pursuer, unless he was very good indeed, or unless Daniel's anti-tracking skills had atrophied.

  At the next river-crossing he took to the water, and from then on he used every ruse and subterfuge to cover his tracks and throw off the pursuit.

  Every mile he grew slower and weaker. The diarrhea never let up, his wound was beginning to stink, and he knew with clairvoyant certainty that the unseen hunter was still after him, and drawing closer every hour.

  Over the years Chetti Singh, the master poacher, had developed various systems of contacting his hunters. In some areas it was easier than others.

  In Zambia or Mozambique he had only to drive out to a remote village and talk to a wife or brother, and rely on them to pass the message.

  In Botswana or Zimbabwe he could even rely on the local postal authority to deliver a letter or telegram, but contacting a wild pygmy in the Ubomo rain forest was the most uncertain and time-consuming of all.

  The only way to do it was to drive down the main highway and stop at every duka or trading-store, to accost every halftame Bambuti that he met upon the roadside and bribe them to get a message to Pirri in the forest.

  It was amazing how the wild pygmies maintained a network of communication over those vast and secret areas of the rain forest, but then they were garrulous and sociable people.

  A honey-seeker from one tribe would meet a woman from another tribe who was gathering medicine plants far from her camp, and the word would be passed on, shouted from a forested hilltop in a high penetrating sing-song to another wanderer across the valley, or carried by canoe, along the big rivers, until at last it reached the man for whom it was intended. Sometimes it took weeks, sometimes, if the sender was fortunate, it might take only a few days.

  This time Chetti Singh was extremely lucky. Two days after he had given the message to a straggling group of pygmy women at one of the river crossings, Pirri came to the rendezvous in the forest. As always he appeared with the dramatic suddenness of a forest sprite and asked for tobacco and gifts. Have you killed my elephant? Chetti Singh asked pointedly, and Pirri picked his nose and scratched himself between the legs with embarrassment. If you had not sent for me, the elephant would by now be dead. But he is not dead, Chetti Singh pointed out. And thus you have not earned those marvelous gifts I promised you. Just a little tobacco? Pirri pleaded. For I am your faithful slave, and my heart is full of love for you. just a small handful of tobacco? Chetti Singh gave him half what he asked for and while Pirri squatted down to suck and enjoy it, he went on, All I have promised you, I will give you that much again if you kill another creature for me, and bring me its head. What creature is this?

  Pirri asked guardedly, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. Is it another elephant? No, said Chetti Singh. It is a man. You want me to kill a man! Pirri stood up with alarm. if I do that the wazungu will come and take me and put a rope around my neck. No, said Chetti Singh.

  The wazungu will reward you as richly as I will. And be turned to Captain Kajo. Is that not so? It is so, Kajo confirmed. The man we wish you to kill is a white man. He is an evil man who has escaped into the forest.

  We, the men of the government, will reward you for hunting him.

  Pirri looked at Kajo, at his uniform and gun and dark glasses and knew he was a powerful government wazungu, so he thought about it carefully.

  He had killed white wazungu before in the Zaire war when he was a young man. The government had paid him for it then and it had been easy. The white wazungu were stupid and clumsy in the forest. They were easy to follow and easy to kill. They never even knew he was there until they were dead.

  How much tobacco? he asked. From me, as much tobacco as you can carry, said Chetti Singh. From me also, as much tobacco as you can carry, said Captain Kajo. Where will I find him? asked Pirri, and Chetti Singh told him where to begin his search, and where he thought the man was heading.

  You want only his head? Pirri asked. To eat? No.

  Chetti Singh was not offended. So that I know you have killed the right man. First I will bring you this man's head, said Pirri happily.

  Then I will bring you the teeth of the elephant and I will have more tobacco than any man in the world. And like a little brown ghost he disappeared into the forest.

  In the early morning, before the heat built up, Kelly Kinnear was working in the Gondola clinic. She had more patients than usual, most of them suffering from in tious tropical yaws, those great suppurating ulcers that would eat down to the bone unless they were treated.

  Others were malarial or had swollen eyes running with flyborne or hthalmia. There were also two new cases of AIDS. She didn't need blood slides to recognize the symptoms, the swelling of the lymph glands and the thick white thrush that coated their tongues and throats like cream cheese.

  She consulted Victor Omeru and he agreed that they should try the new treatment on them, the herbal extract of the selepi tree bark that was looking so promising. He helped her prepare the dose. The amount was necessarily an arbitrary decision, and they were discussing it when there was a sudden commotion outside the clinic front door.
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  Victor glanced out of the window and smiled. Your little friends have arrived, he told Kelly, and she laughed with pleasure and went out into the sunshine.

  Sepoo and his wife Pamba were squatting below the verandah, chatting and laughing with the other waiting patients.

  When they saw her they both squealed with delight and came running, competing with each other to take her hands and tell her all the news since their last meeting, trying to shout each other down to be the first to impart the choicest morsels of scandal and sensation from the tribe.

  One on each hand they led her to her usual seat on the top step of the verandah and sat beside her, still chattering in unison. Swilli has had a baby. It is a boy and she says she will bring it to show you at the next full moon, said Pamba. There will be a great net hunt soon, and all the tribes will join. . . said Sepoo.

  I have brought you a bundle of the special roots I told you about last time we met, shrilled Pamba, not to be outdone by her husband.

  Her bright eyes were almost hidden in a cobweb of wrinkles and half her teeth were missing. I shot two colobus monkeys, boasted Sepoo. And I have brought you one of the skins to make a beautiful hat, Kara-Ki.

  You are kind, Sepoo, Kelly thanked him. But what news from Sengi-Sengi? What about the yellow machines that eat the earth and obble up the forest?

  What news of the big white man with curly hair and the woman with hair like fire who looks into the little black box all the time?

  Strange, said Sepoo importantly. There is strange news.

  The big man with curly hair has run away from Sengi-Sengi.

  He has run into the forest to hide. Sepoo was gabbling it out to prevent Pamba from getting in before him. And the government wazungu at Sengi-Sengi have offered Pirri my brother, vast treasure and reward to hunt the man and kill him.

  Kelly stared at him in horror. Kill him? she blurted. They want Pirri to kill him? And cut off his head, Sepoo confirmed with relish.

  Is it not strange and exciting? You have to stop him! Kelly sprang to her feet, dragging Sepoo up with her. You must not let Pirri kill him.

  You must rescue the white man and bring him here to Gondola. -Do you hear me, Sepoo? Go, now! Go swiftly! You must stop Pirri. I will go with him to see that he does what you tell him, Kara-Ki, Pamba announced. For he is 2 stupid old man, and if he hears the honey chameleon whistle or meets one of his cronies in the forest, he will forget everything you have told him. She turned to her husband.

  Come on, old man. She prodded him with her thumb. Let us go and find this white wazungu and bring him back to Kara-Ki. Let us go before Pirri kills him and takes his head to Sengi-Sengi. Pirri the hunter went down on one knee in the forest and examined the tracks. He adjusted the hang of the bow on his shoulder and shook his head with reluctant admiration. He knows that I am here, close behind him, he whispered. How does he know that? Unless of course he is one of the fundis.

  He touched the spoor where the wazungu had left the water.

  He had done it with great skill, leaving only traces that someone as good as Pirri could detect. Yes, you know I am following you, Pirri nodded.

  But where did you learn to move and cover your tracks almost as well as a Bambuti? he muttered.

  He had picked up the wazungu's tracks where he had crossed the broad road that the big yellow earth-eating tree-gobbling machine had left through the forest. The earth there was soft and the wazungu had left tracks that a blind man could follow on a dark night. He was heading westwards towards the mountains, as Chetti Singh had said he would.

  Pirri thought immediately that it would be an easy hunt and a quick kill, especially when he had found where the wazungu had broken off a piece of poisonous fungus from a dead tree and eaten a little of it.

  He found the man's teeth marks in the piece of fungus that he had discarded, and Pirri laughed. Your bowels will turn to water and run like the great river, O stupid wazungu. And I will kill you while you squat to shit. Sure enough, he had found the place where the wazungu had slept the previous night and close by where he had voided his bowels for the first time. You will not go far now, he chuckled, before I catch you and kill you. Pirri glided onwards, softly as a wisp of dark smoke blending with the gloom and shadows and sombre colours of the deep forest, following the easy trail at twice the speed of the man who had laid it. At intervals he found dribbles of his poisoned yellow dung, and then the trail reached the bank of a small stream and went into the water and vanished.

  Pirri worked for almost half a day, casting both banks for a mile both upstream and down before he found where the wazungu had left the water again. You are clever, he conceded. But not as clever as Pirri.

  And he took the spoor again, going slowly now, for the man he was following was good. He laid back trails and false sign and used the water, and Pirri had to unravel each of his tricks, frowning while he worked it out and then grinning with approbation. Ah yes, you will be a worthy one to kill. You would long ago have got clean away from a lesser hunter. But I am Pirri. In the late afternoon of the second day he had reached a clearing and he caught his first glimpse of the wazungu. At first he thought it was one of the rare forest antelope on the opposite hillside.

  He caught just a tiny flicker of movement in one of the forest glades, almost a mile distant across the valley.

  For an instant even Pirri's phenomenal eyesight was cheated. It did not seem to be a man, certainly not a white man, and then as he disappeared into the tall trees at the edge of the forest he realised that the man had covered himself with mud from head to foot and wore a hat of bark and leaves which distorted the outline of his head and made it difficult to make out his human shape. Ha! Pirri rubbed his belly with delight and granted himself another small pinch of tobacco under his upper lip to reward himself for the sighting. Yes, you are good, my wazungu. Even I will not be able to catch you before darkness falls, but in the morning your head will be mine. That night Pirri Slept without a fire at the edge of the clearing where last he had seen the white man, and was moving again just as soon as it was light enough to make out the sign.

  In the middle of the morning he found the wazungu. He was lying at the foot of one of the towering African mahogany trees and at first Pirri thought he was already dead. He had tried to cover himself with dead leaves, a pathetic last effort to thwart the remorseless little hunter.

  Pirri moved in very slowly, taking every precaution, trusting nothing. He carried his broad-bladed machete ready in his right hand, and the weapon was honed to a razor edge.

  When at last he stood over Daniel Armstrong he realised that although he was sick and wasted, he was not yet dead. He was unconscious, breathing with a soft bubbling sound in the back of his throat, curled like a sick dog under the blanket of leaf trash. His head was tilted at an angle, and the sweat had washed away the mud camouflage below his jaw line, leaving a white line. A perfect aiming mark for the decapitating stroke.

  Pirri tested the edge of the blade of the machete with his thumb. It was sharp enough to shave his beard. He lifted it high above his head with both hands. The man's neck was no thicker than that of one of the forest duikers which were Pirri's usual prey. The machete would hack through meat and bone just as readily, and the head would spring away from the trunk with the same startling alacrity. He would hang it by its thick curly hair from a branch for an hour or so, to allow the blood to drain from the severed neck, then he would smoke it over a slow fire of green leaves and herbs to preserve it, before slinging it in a small carrying net of bark string and bearing it back to his poaching master, Chetti Singh, to collect his reward.

  Pirri felt a little cold gust of regret as he paused at the top of his stroke before sending the blade hissing down. Because he was a true hunter he always experienced this sadness for his quarry at the moment of the kill, the creed of his tribe was to respect and honour the animals he killed, especially when the quarry had been cunning and brave and worthy.

  Die swiftly, he made his silent entre
aty.

  He was on the point of slashing downwards when a voice said quietly behind him, Hold your blade, my brother, or I will put this poison arrow through your liver. Pirri was so startled that he leapt in the air and whirled to face about.

  Sepoo was five paces behind him. His bow was arched and the arrow was drawn to his cheek, the poison on the tip of the arrow was black and sticky as toffee and it was pointed unwaveringly at Pirri's chest.

  You are my own brother! Pirri gasped with the shock. You are the fruit of my own mother's womb. You would not let your arrow fly? If you believe that, Pirri, my brother, you are even more stupid than I believe you to be. Kara-Ki wants this white wazungu alive. If you tap a single drop of his blood, I will put this arrow through you, from brisket to backbone. And I, said Pamba his wife from the forest shadows behind him, I will sing and dance around you as you lie writhing on the ground.

  Pirri backed away sharply. He knew he could talk Sepoo into or out of almost anything, but not Pamba. He had a vast respect for and healthy fear of his sister-in-law. They have offered me great treasure to kill this wazungu: His voice was shrill. I will share it equally with you. As much tobacco as you can carry! I will give it to you.

  Shoot him in the belly, ordered Pamba cheerfully, and Sepoo's arm trembled with the strain of his draw as he closed one eye to correct his aim. Wait, shrieked Pirri. I love you, my dear sister; you would not allow this old idiot to kill me. I am going to take a little snuff, said Pamba coldly. If you are still here when I finish sneezing.

  I am going, howled Pirri, and took another dozen paces backwards. I am going. He ducked into the undergrowth and the instant he was out of the line of fire he screamed, You foul old monkey woman. . . They could hear him slashing out with his machete at the bushes around him in fury and frustration.