Bumi

by Linda Ihle

  “It’s possible, but not likely,” Devin said, although she wasn’t too sure about that ‘not likely’ bit. She had said it more to convince herself, she decided, than she had to comfort her new-found friend. “Let’s get the rest of the meat out of the fire and put it up in the tree.”

  “How do you propose to do that?” Angela asked. “It’s hot!”

  “Yes, I know that, but we have to get it out,” Devin retorted. She sat back on her haunches and stared at the steaming, smoking hog practically willing it to rise from the coals and climb the tree. “Let’s spit it,” she said suddenly, rising rapidly and walking off to the south side of the tree, seeking a sapling. No luck. She walked farther, reaching the south rim of the bowl and climbed cautiously up and out. To the right was a small clump of mopanes and standing right behind them, grazing peacefully, were a black rhino cow and her calf. Devin almost wet herself. She dropped swiftly to her knees, licked a finger and raised it to the breeze. She was upwind. As that thought registered, the cow raised its head and tested the wind. Devin began a rapid belly-crawl backward and down over the edge of the bowl, then raised her head and looked back. Angela was still sitting by the flames, staring up at her. Devin gestured for her to get back up the tree, then turned her attention back to the rhino. The cow trotted forward a few yards, then swung around, snout up, myopic piggy eyes directed at the very spot where Devin had knelt seconds before. Her calf followed, nervous, its little tail twitching. It mimicked its mother, standing stock-still, sniffing the air. Devin watched, gauging her distance from the pair and from the tree, then waited for them to resume grazing or charge. They did neither. She crawled eastward along the edge of the bowl, moving downwind, keeping a close eye on them as she moved. Thorns and sharp stones assailed her palms, but she paid no attention - their assault was nothing compared to what that animal could do to her.

  After creeping about seventy-five yards eastward, she turned south again, rose to a squat and duckwalked as fast as she could until she was behind the two. Still they stood peering at the spot where she had first seen them. “They probably smell Angela and the warthog,” she thought. “I hope she understood me.” As she watched, the pair moved slowly toward the rim of the valley. She took advantage of their indecision and turned backs, rose and sprinted through the grass to a small outcrop of black boulders and scrubby wag n’ bietjie thorn trees. She clambered over the rocks, still dew-slick, and lay down behind them, peering over the top to see whether her flight had been noticed. It had.

  The earth rumbled as the rhino cow turned and charged across the veldt toward the outcrop. But the scent was gone. She stopped a few yards away, pawing at the ground, her massive hooves gouging small valleys into the rocky soil. Head down, she peered shortsightedly at the outcrop then snorted loudly and stamped her front hooves. Devin held her breath, waiting. Soon the cow turned and made her way back to the mopanes, joining her calf which had chosen not to follow her in the charge. Devin waited until the cow was grazing again, before she rose and began to seek a green branch of some kind. She found a mopane sapling close to the outcrop, but its limbs were too thin and too green to serve as a spit.

  She sighed in exasperation, taking a quick peek over her shoulder to ensure that the cow and calf were still engrossed in feeding themselves. They were, backs to her again, so she climbed onto the rocks, shaded her eyes and scanned the area for a suitable candidate. None. Goddamnit! Not knowing what else to do, she studied a nearby young mahobohobo tree standing alone among the thorn scrub. It had a branch that looked promising although it might prove too short. What the hell, she decided, it’s worth a try. She stood on the tip of the branch, then walked along it, the rough bark scraping at her insteps, until it bent to the ground. It tore away from the trunk revealing a sickly greenish-white wood. Devin pulled and tugged and twisted at the branch until it broke free sending her falling backward onto her bottom. She suppressed a yelp as her rear slapped onto the rock, then pulled the rest of the limb free and headed back to the fig, walking now and taking the long way around. When she reached the point where she guessed she could be scented again, she dropped to all fours and crawled through the long grass until she reached the rim. Rising quickly to check the location of the rhino and finding them still intent upon their grazing, she slid over the rocks, down the gentle incline to the floor of the bowl, and ran back to the fig tree.

  Angela, who had watched the entire drama unfold, was already on her way down the tree when Devin arrived with the branch. “Would they have hurt you?” she whispered as Devin approached. “Hell, yes!” Devin panted. “Let’s see if this works.”

  She pulled the rough bark off the branch, tearing away the young twigs and scant leaves. That done, she pushed the branch between the legs of the hog and used it to turn the headless carcass over onto its back. Its belly was blackened and smoking, the hide peeled away to reveal white meat. “Good,” she muttered. “At least it’s cooked.” She pulled the smoking, sizzling stick away from the fire then pushed it into the hole where the animal’s head had been. Angela walked quickly to her side and helped her shove the branch in as far as it would go.

  It was too short after all, but it might serve another purpose. As they pushed and prodded, more hide peeled away from the sides and back. Devin’s mouth began to water. At the same time, words from “The Lord of the Flies” began to bounce against the walls of her memory, echoing there — “kill the pig, cut its throat....”. She hesitated a moment, then shrugged it off. “Put my kerosene can under its arse,” she instructed Angela, who ran to do her bidding. With the can in place, Devin summoned all her strength and raised the stick, holding it like a giant popsicle as hot juices and fat flowed down over her hands. She carried it thus over to the tree and, arms shaking, tried to get it up into the lowest fork, nearly dropping it. She couldn’t quite reach the lowest branch. “Can you help me? Give me a boost?” she asked Angela.

  Angela nodded. “I can try,” she said and walked up behind Devin. Placing her arms around the woman’s hips, and squatting slightly, she heaved upward and Devin got the remains of the hog into the niche between the lowest branch and the bole.

  “OK!” she said, panting. “Ready to eat?”

  Angela nodded, laughing at her expression. “Sure am,” she said.

  The women sat in the tree above the steaming pile of meat, reaching down and pulling off pieces, stuffing them into their mouths. “We look like vultures,” Devin commented at one point, laughing and almost choking on a piece of crackling. Angela, her chin and cheeks dripping with fat, smiled across at her. “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she cautioned.

  Their meal completed, the two climbed down, taking with them all their possessions. Devin found a dry dusty patch of earth and used handfuls of the soil to scour the pig fat and grease from her arms and hands. She longed for some cool water and soap, maybe a nail file and scissors, and especially some shampoo. Angela watched her, then followed suit. With her hands feeling a little cleaner, her whole body seemed to have at least partially shed its layer of filth. She grinned at Devin who was wondering about the same thing as she led the way across the bowl and up onto the savannah where the rhino and its calf had grazed.

  18.

  The sun, as in the ever unchanging order of things, continued its ascent and the heat it shed intensified, beating on back and shoulders. They spoke little as they trudged across the veldt, a strange pair, filthy and stinking of pork and sweat and blood. The ground grew softer as they approached the pans and Devin slowed her pace, her eyes trained to the ground. This was snake nirvana. She said nothing of that to Angela, remembering the woman’s religious bent, but told her to walk behind her, watching the ground for “soft” spots.

  “What are those?” Angela asked.

  “Just areas that might hold quicksand.”

  “Oh, gosh!”

  “No, no, it’s nothing to worry about,” Devin said quickly, pausing to glance back at her companion. “It’s just that you might sin
k a little way into some very stinky mud, that’s all.” She grinned.

  “Oh, OK,” Angela said, somewhat appeased.

  About two hundred yards farther and the two stood upon the edge of a sea of green and brown flora all camouflaging the knee-deep water of the pans.

  “What is it?” Angela asked, peering out over the wet prairie, her hand shading her eyes.

  “It’s a marsh.”

  “Do we have to cross it?”

  “I hope not. There is a way around it all, I’m sure,” Devin said. “It’s just that we’ll have to move quickly otherwise we won’t find any trees to spend the night in.” She shaded her eyes and peered up from under her bark hat at the sky. She calculated it was close to ten o’clock. It was, though, already noon-hot. “We’ll just rest here for a bit,” she offered, “then head east and south again to find a way around this. Oh, and let’s see if we can find some bulrushes - we can eat the roots or bulbs or…..what the hell are those called?….yes, rhizomes.”

  “You seem to know where you’re going.”

  “It’s been a very long time, but, yes, I have been here before. I came hunting here with my father about 15 years ago.” She shrugged. “If I’m right, there should be an abandoned house under a massive baobab about five to ten miles from the other side of the pan.” She pulled a cigarette from the sweat-sodden pack under her bra strap and lit it, inhaling deeply, wallowing in the effects of the nicotine. She noticed Angela staring at her. “You smoke?” she asked, hoping the answer would be no.

  “Uh, no, thank you,” Angela said. “I was really looking at your hat.” She giggled. “It looks very becoming and I think I should have one too.”

  “That you shall, as soon as we can find a tree in this watery desert,” Devin promised. She stubbed the burning end off the cigarette, and stuck the stompie back into the pack. “Come on, let’s move.”

  They rose, stretched and set off eastward around the massive marsh. Blackbirds, toppies, tiptols, and a myriad other birds fluttered and called above the waters from which rose a mass of gnats and other insects. Huge blue and gold dragonflies darted here and there snatching up flies, mosquitoes, and whatever else they could catch. Angela watched this panoply of nature, her mouth agape. She hadn’t seen anything like this since she had spent some time down near the Myakka River, fishing with her father, and her brother, before the latter became persona no grata. That memory evoked another and she stopped in midstep. “Are there alligators in here?” she asked.

  “Hell, I hope not!” Devin exclaimed. “The crocs are bad enough.”

  “You’re making fun of me?” Angela asked rhetorically.

  “Hey, it’s OK. As far as I know, we don’t have alligators in Africa. We have crocodiles and I know there aren’t any in this area. I think the water might be brackish or something. I never saw them here and we used to wade knee-deep right into the middle.”

  “Really?”

  “Ja..” Devin shrugged. “There might be, but I think I would remember. There are leeches though.”

  “Oh, that’s disgusting!” Angela responded, staring incredulously at her.

  “Ja, you’re right on that one,” Devin acceded. “Ever had one on you?”

  “Angela grimaced and shook her head. “No, no thanks,” she said. “Oh, look, cattails!”

  “Good eye,” Devin remarked. “Help me pull them up and see what we’ve got.”

  The women bent to their task, hauling near the bottom parts of the reeds, and pulled up two big rhizomes. They twisted and pulled at the attached reeds and broke them off. “Num, num,” Devin said. “I’ve been craving some starch. Maybe we can cook them when we settle in for the night?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  They walked on in silence, Devin, deep in her own reverie, yet still watching for snakes and leguaans. The sun beat down upon them. Angela perspired heavily and a thin trickle of blood began to wind down the inside of her left thigh. She asked if they could stop for a moment so that she could change her mud pad and get a drink of water and Devin obliged. She needed water too. She wondered if they could drink out of the marsh, then decided against it. They had enough water in the kerosene can, which Angela now carried, to last at least another day. She sat on her haunches on the edge of the wet savanna, the AK-47 cradled between her abdomen and thighs. She looked down at it and rubbed her hand along the length of its barrel. As she did, she caught sight of Angela returning, the used, blood-muddy sock dangling from her hand.

  “Everything OK?” Devin asked.

  Angela nodded as she knelt at the edge of the marsh and dipped the sock into the water, sluicing the dirt from it, leaving a swirl of crimson atop the water. Immediately, small fish darted to the surface to feed on the gore. She watched them, fascinated, then rose and squeezed the water out of the sock. She tucked it into the waistband of her shorts. “It’s so quiet and beautiful here,” she murmured.

  “I like the hills and mountains a little more,” Devin commented. “I suppose this is much like Florida?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. We have places like this there. I miss them.” She shrugged. “Sometimes I wish I had never come. What’s going to happen to us, Devin?”

  “Nothing, if I can help it,” Devin remarked, rising and stretching. She adjusted one of the underwires in her bra where it had been pressing rather painfully against a rib. “Let’s move. We’ll stop again a little later for food.”

  “We didn’t bring any of the pig with us,” Angela said. “What will we eat?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. We’ll find something. Man, if only I had a knife, we’d have a lot more options open to us.”

  “What would you do with a knife?”

  “I could skin things.” Not that I ever have in my life, but I’ve seen them do it and it can’t be that hard, can it ? I mean if you could, like, stop yourself from puking in the process....

  Angela nodded and they tramped on in silence. The afternoon marched with them. By about three o’clock, they noticed that their direction was now west-southwestward indicating that they had indeed walked around much of the west periphery of the pan. Sure enough, within an hour of walking farther and plotting a course more eastward and southward, they saw that the land begin to rise gently. The buzz of the gnats and flies dissipated and the ground became harder, rockier. They reached the top of a rise and found the ubiquitous black-boulder scattered terrain before them. They sat in the shade of one of the boulders and shared a little more water. Devin finished the cigarette she had stubbed out a couple of hours prior, then walked off and squatted to urinate. As she did, watching the small splashes of urine-soaked dust land on her filthy naked feet, she heard the familiar call of the guinea fowl. She rose, pulling her panties up, and stood in silence, her head cocked for the sound.

  It came again, from her left. She waved to Angela to stay where she was, and cautiously made her way toward the area where the sound had originated. Clambering silently up a small rock-strewn kopje, she reached the top and climbed onto a jagged rock slab perched there like a yarmulke. She rose to her full height, parted the branches of a mopane tree there and peered downward. There they were. A small group of the fowl rooted around in the dirt beneath a fruiting, monkey-orange tree, about twenty yards from where she stood. She would have to get closer. As she slung the weapon over her left shoulder and moved to descend over the glossy black surface of the boulder a stealthy movement to her right caught her attention. She froze for an instant, then slowly reached to pull the weapon off her shoulder, turning her head very gradually to the right. There, within a few feet of her, lay a full-grown cheetah. She had obviously disturbed its nap. It lay stretched out on its side, the dappled shadows blending perfectly with the spots on its coat, its head raised and turned toward her, its yellow eyes full upon her.

  The cat snarled and pushed itself up on one haunch keeping its eyes on her. Devin felt the hair all over her head rise. She felt cold, as if ice had been rubbed over her scalp, then sharpened to a stake and
embedded in her belly. She stared back at the cat, noting the raised ruff behind its head, the size of its teeth fully bared now. She could not shoot it. There was no way on this earth she could bring herself to do that. But, now what? Shit, shit, shit! She took a tiny step backward and found her shoulders up against the rough bark of the mopane. The cat turned toward her, following her with that unflinching, impenetrable gaze. It rose quickly to a crouch, its long, black-switched tail flicking behind it on the rock. Devin slowly pulled the AK-47 into a firing position, then turned swiftly and fired into the flock of guinea fowl.

  The weapon clattered three times, firing three rounds into the small flock. She barely felt its assault upon her bruised shoulder. The instant the last round left the barrel, she turned and clawed her way up the small mopane. As she did she felt the cat’s jaws closing on her left foot. She screamed and turned to stare down at it, but it was nowhere to be seen. It took her at least five seconds to register the fact that she had stuck her foot into a jagged fissure in the middle of the tree, lavishly adorned with cobwebs. She swiftly jerked it out, remembering in that moment a similar situation where she had put her foot where it was not meant to be and pulled it out only to find a fat, grey baboon spider firmly attached by its fangs to her big toe.