A good man. General Obode would humor him. Today, he would try to see this pipsqueak writer with the funny name of Remo.
Colonel William Forsythe Butler was the first to enter. He appeared thin, but General Obode knew him to be a most powerful man, the only one in Busati to have wrestled him to a draw one afternoon, after Obode threw two generals and three sergeants simultaneously before the cheers of his troops. He had been a football player, this Colonel Butler. Morgan State and then the New York Mammoths—or was it the New York Giants? These names Americans had were all peculiar.
“Good morning, Colonel,” said General Obode, sitting down in the ornate high-backed governor’s chair which was now the president’s chair. “Did you hear the jackal last night?”
“I did, Mr. President.”
“And what would you make of a jackal in America if it howled at night? Three times?”
“We don’t have jackals in America.”
“Aha,” said General Obode, clapping his hands. “And we do not have jackals in the palace grounds, either. Then what would you make of a jackal in your New York City?”
“I would think it strange, Mr. President.”
“And so do I. I will teach you another lesson in governing that even your CIA didn’t teach you.”
“It would be an honor to learn, Mr. President.”
General Obode clapped his hands and in marched eight men in neat Western suits and neat Western shirts and neat Western ties. When they talked, they talked in neat British accents. They were Obode’s civilian council of state to whom he gave no power at all, preferring to surround himself in important jobs with military men. Six of the civilian council were Hausa, the other two were Loni, appointed reluctantly by Obode at Butler’s urging. Butler had told him that the Western world would recognize this as an act of greatness, assimilating into his government the members of a once hated and hunted enemy tribe.
“A jackal howled three times last night,” announced Obode. “Now to you Oxford and Cambridge people, it is nothing. And I’m sure it is nothing at some fancy United Nations office where all they have to do is worry about the air conditioning staying on. But this American here, this Butler, who has come home to his rightful land, he thinks it is something and he is CIA formerly. Now all of you have heard of the Central Intelligence Agency. It is not Oxford. It is not Cambridge. It is not the United Nations.”
“It is a vicious, dangerous organization, Mr. President,” said the chairman of the council who was a Hausa. “It will stop at nothing to achieve its ends.”
“Right,” said General Obode. “Therefore we can have some respect for it. And this former CIA man tells me a jackal howling at night is something strange. What do you think?”
While Obode spoke, Butler looked down at the floor, his left fingers twisting a ring he wore on his right hand, a ring fashioned of miniature golden chain links.
It was the consensus of the council that the howling jackal was definitely strange. The strangest thing they had ever heard of.
“Not the strangest thing,” said General Obode angrily. “A strange thing. We will investigate CIA style.” He dismissed the council with a wave of his hand. Seven of them, while leaving, caught Colonel Butler’s eye with a conspiratorial look, the look one gives a partner one trusts when there is really nothing to talk about. Obode summoned the captain of the palace guard who was a Hausa, and whose hatred of Butler fairly oozed as he entered the president’s quarters and saw the American there. The captain had also heard the jackal last night, and he had arrested a lieutenant for imitating the animal, just to intimidate the president.
“From the Loni,” said the captain, looking at Butler. “This lieutenant was a Loni and he was the jackal.”
“Let us see this jackal,” said General Obode. When the captain of the guard left, Obode explained his logic to Butler. Jackals did not live in the palace. Soldiers did. Therefore the jackal was a soldier.
“I don’t think so,” said Colonel Butler.
“What is your rank, Butler?”
“Colonel, Mr. President.”
“And what is my rank?”
“General, Mr. President.”
“Did they teach you discipline in your CIA?”
“They did.”
“Then you know that when a colonel disagrees with a general, a general is right.” Big Daddy clapped his hands gleefully.
“No, Mr. President, they taught me that the general gets his way. But any man can be right.”
Obode frowned a deep dark frown. He summoned Butler’s ear forward with a finger.
“When I want logic, Butler, I’ll ask for it,” he said.
“The lieutenant is innocent, though,” whispered Butler, hearing the captain again approach the door.
“Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. He could be the jackal.”
“He’s not,” Butler said. “I am the jackal.”
Obode leaned back and stared at Butler. “You want to die, Colonel?”
“No, Mr. President, I want your life saved. I brought the jackal into the palace last night to root out your enemies. If I put the jackal there, whoever says he found a man to be the jackal is a liar. The captain of your guard is a liar. He knows that you want to bring the Loni into the government, and so he is trying to destroy your plan by accusing the Loni lieutenant of a crime he did not commit. You see your enemy? He is as far away as the captain.”
Obode did not look up at the captain who was now approaching the President’s chair. Intrigue was afoot.
Butler looked at the captain, who returned his look with loathing. Butler winked. The captain had been one of the few men close to Obode who did not agree with Butler that Obode was a lunatic whose continued rule would make Busati a worldwide joke. Because the captain did not agree with Butler, the captain was dangerous to Butler. But now he had overplayed his hand.
The captain stood in front of Obode with a hand on the shoulder of a thin man, wearing the tattered remnants of a lieutenant’s uniform. The man’s legs and wrists were in heavy gray irons. His mouth was a blotch of blood. A tooth stuck out through his lower lip.
“He has confessed that he is the jackal, General,” said the captain.
“A confession is a confession,” said Obode. “That is logic and the CIA style of investigation is logic, so the man is guilty. But I will ask him myself.”
Obode looked up at the lieutenant, who had to be continually jerked upright by the captain of the guards,
“Are you the jackal?”
Drops of dark red blood fell to the clean marble floor at the man’s feet, building a puddle, splattering fault rays of red around it as each drop hit. The man, his eyes swollen almost shut, nodded and the puddle became bigger.
Butler twisted the gold chain ring on his right hand.
“Guilty,” said Obode. The captain smiled.
“Set up a firing squad,” said Obode. “I will personally administer the executions.” He clapped his hands, the man was led away, and servants rushed in with rags and water to clean the blood off the palace floor.
Big Daddy took care of the Libyan Ambassador in three minutes. He confided to the Ambassador that Israel was planning a raid on the Busati plain and he needed $85 million more in gold reserves to repel it. When the Libyan ambassador appeared somewhat dubious, Big Daddy wistfully remembered the fine training he had personally received from the Israeli paratroopers and how he longed to wear again the wings he had earned at such a high personal cost. He also reminded the Ambassador that he was the only leader of a nation to publicly say to the foreign press that Hitler had been right. That was worth at least $85 million right there. The Libyan Ambassador timidly suggested that Big Daddy had been paid for that already, but finally agreed to ask his glorious revolutionary leader, Colonel Quadaffi, for the funds.
“Don’t ask—tell,” said Obode and that took care of the Libyan Ambassador.
“We’ll get $25 million,” Obode told Butler when the Ambassador had left. “Better than
nothing. I can’t wait for their oil to dry up. They smell funny. Who’s next?”
“The journalist, Remo Mueller, from America. The one who wrote the favorable piece about you,” said Butler.
“I’ll see him tomorrow.”
“You’ve been saying that for three days.”
“I’ll say that for three days more. We have an execution for me to administer. But first I wish to see the jackal you say you brought into the grounds.”
“Will you still execute the lieutenant?”
“I said there would be an execution. I cannot go back on my word,” said Obode.
The salutes along the corridors by the guards were crisp and rigid, a perfection of discipline that could only be imposed by the best of British sergeants major.
As they walked down steps to a small cell beneath the palace, Obode asked Butler how things were at the white house with the iron gate.
“Just fine, Mr. President. Your soldiers who use it bless your name continuously. You should pay it a visit yourself.”
Obode sneered and shook his head.
“You don’t like white women, General?”
“You don’t have to put them in chains to bang them. I will tell you, Colonel, that before you came I had white women. I had yellow women. I had Hausa women and Loni women. I had old women and young women, fat women and skinny women, women who smelled of perfume and women who smelled of dung. Colonel Butler,” said Obode, pausing before an iron door to which Butler had the key, “there isn’t a spit’s difference between any of them. And your adventures to get young rich American girls costs too much, and may yet get us into trouble with your American government.”
“But, General, isn’t it fitting that the greatest soldiers of the great leader of a great country, get the very best?”
“Best of what? Queen Elizabeth or the lowest bush tribe whore. Same thing.”
“You have had Queen Elizabeth?”
“No. But if a man eats one hundred hogs, does he have to eat another to know what it will taste like?”
“I’m sorry, General, I thought you approved of what I was doing for your men.” Butler twisted the gold ring on his right hand.
Obode shrugged his massive shoulders. “You wanted to have your house and your games so I let you. I like you, Butler. You are the only man on my staff who has not loyalty to one tribe or another, but is loyal just to me. Even if you are soft on the Loni. So, I let you have your house. Now let me see your jackal.”
Butler turned the key and opened the door on an empty cell. Obode walked in and sniffed the air. Before the stunned Butler could move, Obode snapped the Colonel’s revolver from his holster as if disarming a recalcitrant enlisted man.
“I put the jackal here myself. I tied it right to that wall. I wanted to show you there were liars in your guard. The jackal was here, General. What reason would I have to lie to you?”
“Outside, Butler,” said Obode.
The palace courtyard was hot in the morning African sun, baking hot with dust in the very grass itself. The captain of the guard grinned broadly when he saw the Loni-loving American Colonel go before the General with his hands up and holster empty. He winked broadly at Butler, and then turned and motioned his firing squad to kneel.
“Against the wall,” said General Obode.
At the wall, Butler spun around beside the Loni officer who was chained against the wall in a standing position, but whose body hung heavy from his wrist manacles.
“You’re a damned idiot, General,” Butler yelled. “When you shoot me, you shoot the best officer you have. I just want you to know that, you dumb bastard.”
“You call me a dumb bastard,” yelled back Obode, “but you’re the one who’s got his hands up against the wall.”
At that, Butler laughed.
“You’re right, you fat bastard, but you’re still shooting the best officer you ever had.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, skinny little man. I am going to shoot the officer who lied to me about the jackal.”
The captain of the guard smiled. The firing squad behind him waited for a signal. It did not get one. There was the crack of a pistol and the captain of the palace guard was no longer smiling. There was a very dumb look on his face and a very wide dark red hole between his eyes, although few people saw it because the head was jerked back by the force of the shot. The body followed. It hit the burned grass with a whoomph and moved no more.
“So much for people who lie to me about jackals. And now for those who call me a fat bastard,” said General Obode. He extended the pistol at arm’s length and walked up to Colonel Butler’s face.
“Don’t do it again,” he said to Butler and spun the pistol around, Western style, offering it handle first.
“How do you know I won’t shoot you now, you…” said Butler, stopping as the pistol spun once more in Obode’s hand so that now Butler was again looking down the barrel.
“…glorious leader,” smiled Butler, finishing the sentence.
“You and you,” Obode yelled to two soldiers still kneeling, waiting for an execution order. “Take that man down from the wall. And treat him carefully. He is your new captain of the palace guard.”
“He is a Loni,” Butler said, taking the pistol from Obode and returning it to his holster.
“The other one was a Hausa, and he lied to me. How much worse could a Loni be?”
As he and Butler walked from the courtyard, Obode said, “You looked funny when that cell was empty. Did you look funny! Did you really think, though, that anyone could hide a jackal smell from me? Especially when the Hausa custom is that the chief must protect himself when the jackal howls at night?”
“I have a nose too, General. I smelled nothing but disinfectant in that call.”
“Right,” said Obode. “And who would wash a cell with disinfectant unless he was trying to hide a smell? The captain obviously found your jackal and disposed of it. I tell you, if more generals were sergeant majors, the world would be a better place.” He paused and said, “I wonder if that captain was responsible for killing the Minister of Public Safety.”
Butler shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “And maybe we’ll never know. Anyway, now that we know the jackal wasn’t magic, General, perhaps we can get on to other things.”
Obode shook his head slowly, as he turned and led Butler down a graveled path leading into the heavily-treed palace grounds.
“You think because one thing I believe in is disproven, I should not believe in anything I know to be true? Wrong. Because one of America’s missiles doesn’t work, do they stop building missiles? No. Because they know the majority of missiles are good. These are strange times in Busati, Butler. We are not rich and advanced like in Kenya or Zaire. But there are things one does not learn in universities. These things I know.”
“I do not understand,” said Butler. He saw a lizard scurry under a bush. For that lizard to brave the noonday African sun meant there must be a predator about, probably a rodent of some sort. This Butler had learned from Obode.
“Why do you think I have expelled all the Asians?” Obode asked. “Why do you think I expelled all the whites? The whole world thinks, here goes Big Daddy being cruel to whites and Asians he needs for his economy. Oh, what a crazy man is this Dada Obode. That is what they think. I know that. I am not a fool. Why do you think I did those things?”
“I don’t know, General.”
Big Daddy paused by a large wide mango tree, like the one Colonel Butler had nailed the Minister of Public Safety to, like the one Butler had killed James Forsythe Lippincott under, like the ones which stood before the hills where the Loni hid. Butler looked absent-mindedly for the predator to follow the lizard into the bush. But he saw no predator.
“It is all connected, Butler. All of it. And there is a reason for all the things I do.”
Butler nodded, still wondering where the predator was. He saw the lizard’s tail sticking out from under the bush, motionless.
“You
do not know the Loni,” Obode said. “Today, they are just a weak collection of spineless mountain bands, but once they were powerful. Once they ruled the Hausa as we now rule them. But there is a legend that says the Loni will again come to power. The legend says that when East and West are like father and son near the Busati River, then a force that no man can stop will come to shed blood in the river and in the mountains.”
Butler nodded.
“You nod, but I do not think you understand, Colonel. The legend says that the Loni children will come home. It says a man from the East will purify the Loni and make them again worthy to rule. And it says a man from the West, a man who walks in the shoes of death, will rid the Loni of a man who would enslave them.”
“And you’re the man who would enslave the Loni?” Butler asked.
Obode shrugged his shoulders. “Who else could the legend mean but the Hausa man who is the leader of the country? You wonder why I have listened to you and put Loni men into my government? I have done it because I want to be free of the title of ‘man who would enslave them.’ But still I fear. I do not think that one can outsmart a legend.”
“I see.” Butler watched the lizard’s tail poke out of the bush. When General Obode went into one of his prophecy raves, the best thing to do was to nod.
“Perhaps you are beginning to see,” Obode said.
“The legend says a man from the East and a man from the West. Yellow and white. To serve the Loni. And if that happens, the Hausa are through and I am dead. That is why I got rid of our Asians. That is why I got rid of our whites. I do not want yellow men and white men joining, lest they become this force to free the Loni. You see?”
Butler, who had his own very good ideas on what the legend meant and how it was soon to be fulfilled, simply nodded at Obode’s explanation. Where was the predator? Why was that lizard’s tail still sticking out of that bush?
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