THE LAST SAVANNA

by Mike Bond

  “The first is ready, cousin,” he called.

  Ibrahim’s head reappeared in the hole. “Tie it.”

  Warwar tied the cord and watched the gourd rise quickly, knocking pebbles down on him as it bounced off the pit walls, till it flashed into the sun and vanished in Ibrahim’s hands. For a moment the hole was vacant; he bent and sucked quickly at the water, took a second gourd and began to force it down into the djellabah.

  28

  AS THROUGH an ancient rippled window Rebecca watched the rising half-moon dance in the fire’s heat. How near it seemed, as if it had a part to play in all this, as if it cared about her.

  Above the moon’s glow Warwar watched an airplane’s blinking red eye cross the night. Wherever man goes the whiteman looks down on him. From the great southern village of Nairobi, its people countless as the sands, north to the other vast village of New Flowers—Addis Ababa. But if it’s true what the old men say, once the whiteman spread everywhere like the sleeping sickness or the disease that kills the cattle—now like the strange grass he brought he withers and retreats.

  With the gerenuk rib he had been chewing he pushed a thorn twig closer to the coals, feeling their heat against his hand. How miraculous the thorn bush to keep the sun inside it, to warm us when we need it. How miraculous the gerenuk to eat the thorn and make his life so we can eat him and make ours. It is the spirit that warms—thorn and gerenuk and I and sun are one, and this rock made by the sun and the whitewoman—and where Ibrahim and Rashid misunderstand is that in their hearts they place one thing above another and this gives them pain.

  The thorn twig had burned and lay broken, the circles of its years bared like a skull’s teeth. But the twig’s thorns were still black and pointed—only the sharp endures. And only the hard can ever be sharp.

  The gerenuk had not been sharp. It was young, had never learned how suddenly the breeze shifts at sunset in the mountains, how far a rifle’s claw can reach. Ibrahim was sharp when he was young but grows less so. Although I’m respectful and call him cousin, he scents danger. But he’s confused by matters of clan and family—for him the wind has always blown this way, as the generuk was confused by Ibrahim’s scent below and so climbed up to me. Some people would rather keep a good idea of themselves, and think what they have always thought, than live.

  Shifting his legs Warwar felt pain in his back where Ibrahim’s rock had struck. Ibrahim must beg for life, ignobly, before I kill him. He must lose honor. For eternity.

  But with water and food the whitewoman will be stronger, and Ibrahim will want to go tomorrow. In three days we’ll cross the Addis Ababa road and reach the water hole at Abagobi, in four more days the Marrehan, then El God God where Soraya is combing her little sister’s hair or helping her mother grind up new roots for the broth, or bringing in a handful of sticks for the fire. While the old men think of her and count their herds.

  But the elders will never agree that the whitewoman be sold from El God God or any other village in the Marrehan. Knowing this, Ibrahim will be planning to stop somewhere in Ethiopia to send words to sell the whitewoman. This stopping place will be near a town where he’ll not be noticed, where he knows someone to send the words, a Moslem he can trust. The only place like that is Moyale, five days away.

  But, thought Warwar, Ibrahim’s still too sharp to camp near Moyale; he’ll hide the woman in the bush, somewhere beyond Moyale in the thorn scrub and baobabs of the craters of Hardacha, where if he’s hunted he can easily slip across the tip of Kenya into the Marrehan. Warwar let his eyes drift into the distances between the stars. Once Ibrahim reaches Moyale it will be too late, for he’ll send his own words to Nairobi, and he’ll win the money for Soraya.

  The whitewoman sat wrapped in the goatskin on the far side of the fire, her chin on upraised knees. Seeing her like this in the near darkness it was easy to think her someone else, a person like Soraya. “We’re not far from Moyale,” he said. “Soon you could be free.”

  Her eyes shocked him with their strange mix of kindness, pity and hatred. “But Ibrahim and Rashid would take you across Ethiopia,” he added, “far into Somalia, to our home on the Ouabi Shibeli…”

  “You’re not from Ouabi Shibeli! You’re border hyenas.”

  He made himself smile. “These men will take you many days across the desert, maybe let you die. I’d be happy to leave you in Moyale.”

  “You’re not afraid these ‘men’, as you call them, will understand you?” she asked slowly. “They haven’t been to school like you—to learn Swahili?”

  Unintentionally Warwar glanced uphill at Ibrahim and Rashid sitting by the camels, the pipe they passed back and forth winking as had the whiteman’s airplane. He could feel Ibrahim’s gaze. “You know they don’t speak Swahili.”

  “Like snakes, they can sense you.” Her voice came out of the darkness of the goatskin draped over her head and shoulders. “Don’t you wonder why they left you back there, for the Borani?”

  “Many times I’ve thought of that.”

  “What have you decided?”

  For a moment she seemed like the teacher in the concrete school, a woman far back inside him. “With food and water you’ve grown very strong and independent—I must be careful not to let you have so much. It made you very kind and gentle to be dying.”

  “You want everyone to die so that you’ll feel no threat?” she asked.

  “Four times I’ve saved your life—was that wanting you to die?”

  She sneered. “Four times?”

  “From the leopard, from the Borani, from Ibrahim and Rashid when they wanted to kill you, then in bringing you water when you were dying of thirst.”

  Her lip rose higher over her front teeth. “You took me. I didn’t ask for this. You killed my friends, sent my husband to die in the desert. You’re scum, don’t you see that?”

  “If your husband were a man, even a ‘scum’ man like me, he’d have never let you go—he’d have followed, been there to save you when you ran away. Instead you got me.”

  “You’re not worth his little finger.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “Of course!”

  Warwar smiled. “Why lie to me?”

  “It doesn’t matter what you think! Can’t you see that? Can’t you see you’re nothing?”

  “And what is she who has no love?”

  She looked away in resignation, anger. Warwar put new twigs on the fire. “I’d find a better way to send you home from Moyale, instead of going all the way to Ouabi Shibeli.” He waited but she did not speak. “You make the words on paper, asking for the money, and I’ll send them from Moyale. You can stay nearby, until the money comes.”

  The twigs he’d placed on the fire began to blaze, tossing light and shadow across her angular, distracted face. He could see the ligaments beneath the skin of her fingers laced over her knees, and wondered what it would be like to penetrate her.

  “They’ll send no money for me. How many times must I tell you that?”

  “No man would so disgrace his woman!”

  “You killed him!”

  “It was only a few days’ walk. He had water. Are you really all that weak?”

  Her face hardened. “Why won’t you just let me go?”

  “If you make the words, in Moyale, once the money comes you’ll be free.” He stood and glanced across the ridges of Gamud sharpened and lightened by the moon. “There’s lions on the slope below. Stay by the fire.” He climbed to Rashid and Ibrahim, a camel snorting at his approach. “She’s better. Tomorrow she can travel.”

  “Love’s a great restorer,” mocked Ibrahim.

  “Why do you tease me so, my cousin?”

  “Because he sees your ambition far exceeds your capabilities,” Rashid said.

  “My ambition’s to be a good man, and take my place in the clan.”

  “You see, Rashid, you are right,” Ibrahim noted.

  Warwar drew in a deep breath and sat disconsolately below them on the slope. “W
hen do you wish me to stand guard, cousin?”

  “Later, when the moon’s high. You will stay up here and watch the camels.”

  “Till then I’ll sleep.”

  “Near your whitewoman…”

  “No, there, overlooking the ravine. Wake me when it’s time.” Warwar went down to the niche where he had shot the gerenuk and sat against the cliff with his rifle across his knees, the half-moon rising in his face.

  Rebecca watched Rashid descend to take the boy killer’s place opposite her at the fire. As he gathered his burnoose about him and sat down, his look was one of curious distaste; he glanced between her upraised knees and hurriedly she dropped them, wrapped the goatskin tighter, lay down and closed her eyes.

  It had been Rashid who had fallen asleep the night she’d escaped. If she’d found water sooner she could have stayed ahead of them, even reached Allia Bay on its breezy edge of Lake Turkana. She remembered the dining room of the main hall at Koobi I, the soft wind off the lake, the chair she liked in the corner of the room, listening there, a bottle of Tusker cool in her hands, to the cheery after-dinner conclaves of colleagues from all corners of the earth as they tried to unravel the fabric of time and identify the strands woven into it so long ago, to comprehend those long gone whose genes were briefly now their own. She looked up to fight the tears; the moonstruck darkness was just a cold reminder of the eternal wasteland of death that had so recently, like a hyena edging ever closer to a dying fire, begun to prey on her.

  Through the damp blur of near-shut eyes she watched Rashid settle himself more comfortably, his rifle on its strap across both shoulders, so there was no way she could steal it from him. I could hit him with a rock, she thought, knowing she had not the strength to do more than injure and infuriate him. If ever she wanted them to kill her that’s what she’d do.

  Rashid faced uphill for a moment, chin raised, his profile with its large hook nose, ridged brow, tall forehead, slender, wide mouth and dark, pointed beard seeming somehow noble, as if he’d been caught up in this by accident, and his thoughts were far away, poised on concerns of greater elegance. Men and woman were two totally separate species, she’d realized, linked only by the ephemeral symbiotic needs of sex, companionship and rearing children. Under men’s superficial differences, the little kindnesses and considerations, weren’t they all the same? If ever free of these hyenas she’d have nothing more to do with men.

  WHEN THE MOON reached mid-sky Warwar awoke. Without moving he examined all he could see: the opposite cliffs drenched in vertical nacreous light, their scarps and crevasses blackened by shadows, the ravine where he had shot the gerenuk, the walls of the precipice at his back. He felt a surge of fear but reassured himself.

  He unsheathed his dagger, took off his djellabah, folded it and placed the rifle atop it, removed his sandals and laid them upside down beside the djellabah. While doing this he again went over in his mind the steps that the stars had shown him in his dream. Before Ibrahim died Warwar would make him crawl, cringe as a starving dog will beg for food or not to be struck.

  The difficult part was to disable Ibrahim’s rifle. Then in the morning, when Warwar shot Rashid, Ibrahim would snatch his rifle to kill Warwar but, shockingly, it would not fire. As in his dream Warwar saw Ibrahim’s expression change from scornful rage to shock to realization as he faced Warwar’s rifle, as he saw Rashid already dead and understood what would happen next. Would Ibrahim then beg, pray to Mecca, call him cousin, offer to give him all the money, sanction his marriage to Soraya? In the dream he had. “Don’t mistake the dream you live for life,” someone not long ago had said. Who was that?

  Naked, he climbed towards Ibrahim, fast and silent, tasting the night air round the steel blade in his teeth. Now the whitewoman would be his alone; he might make her remove her clothes, be a woman for him—who else of the clan had ever had a whitewoman? Even if it’s a desecration as Ibrahim says, still one can desecrate oneself, the clan—one’s also a man. The clan does not own one’s soul.

  Rebecca cautiously opened her eyes but Rashid did not move. He still sat with the rifle across his knees, the ringed finger of his right hand draped loosely over the trigger guard, the angle between the stock and magazine resting in the crook of his left arm. Although his eyes were closed he held his head high, the cowl of his white burnoose framing his long black curly hair, the embers lending his dark skin a reddish cast, as though lit from within.

  When she slid her feet from under the goatskin Rashid inhaled quickly and she froze with fear, but his steady breathing resumed, his face held high and peaceful. Raising herself on her left elbow she began to fold back the goatskin, stopping with each intake of his breath, lying down quickly when, far away, a desert fox yapped and Rashid tensed in his sleep, raising herself again a minute later, till the goatskin was free and in a single motion she stood.

  Two filled water gourds sat beside his knee; dreadfully she wanted to run downhill and round the huge craggy shoulder of this mountain and across the northern plateau for three days to the winding dirt track known as the Addis Ababa Highway—a truck would come, someone, take her to Faille, Moyale—she’d be home in a week. But to do this she needed all the water. To give herself determination she remembered her earlier thirst and, choking back a sudden sob at the thought of her sons waiting and worrying, she moved her foot round the fire and stretched out a hand for the closer water gourd.

  Noiseless as a leopard Warwar crossed the ridge towards Ibrahim sleeping beside the tethered camels. Ibrahim lay on a bed of sand in a bowl of rock, his rifle by his side; to reach him Warwar had to descend the steep rocky slope without disturbing its loose stones and pebbles. Without clothes or sandals he was truly quieter but suddenly he feared snakes; the stars seemed to turn black; danger crouched in every hollow. He raised one foot, placed it by accident on a crumbly rock, removed it silently, regained his balance and moved the foot elsewhere. The jagged lava dug into the balls of his feet. Despite the night’s warmth he could not stop shivering. The knife in his mouth made him salivate, his breath hissing over the blade.

  Rebecca grasped the second water gourd and began to lift it away; its leather strap tautened, caught under Rashid’s knee. “Kitabu!” he said, quite clearly, in a natural tone; after a petrified moment she realized he had spoken in his sleep. “Book,” he had said, in Swahili. Did he speak Swahili, or was that some other word in his language? She’d been trying to put down the gourd because its strap had stuck under Rashid’s knee, but when he had said “Kitabu,” he had also moved his elbow and now the barrel of the AK47 had shifted and she could not reach around it. If she let go of the water gourd it would roll against his foot.

  From the hollow where Ibrahim slept Warwar could not see Rashid or the whitewoman, but in the morning, Warwar told himself, Rashid would die and after Warwar had made Ibrahim beg for life then killed him, the whitewoman would be his alone, to do with what he wanted before he sold her.

  All he had to do now was cross the last few steps to Ibrahim’s side, lift Ibrahim’s rifle carefully from its niche by his elbow, carry it back up the slope, remove the little metal spearhead inside it which hammers against the cartridges, and return it. A rock beneath his foot crunched as he put his weight on it, but Ibrahim, sleeping the sleep of the just, did not move. Soon I’ll have you, Warwar said, almost aloud.

  Rebecca’s arm ached from stretching out to hold the gourd, the other gourd clasped against her chest. She was growing dizzy and had to remind herself not to hold her breath, so near was her face to his. His breath was against her lips, her arm growing numb, and she hesitantly lowered the gourd, her elbow brushing the AK47’s muzzle. Instantly his eyes opened, showing no surprise, a casual recognition as if they’d been long married and he’d woken with her in his arms. She dropped the gourd; in the instant of her fear, her face inches from his, his musty sleep-breath filling her nostrils, she heard the gourd hit against the ground and glug as the stopper popped; she leaped over the goatskin and down the rocky s
lope in starlight, twisted her ankle and tumbled, lost the other gourd, scrambled to her feet and kept running. Rashid unslung his rifle, whistled, “Ibrahim!”, tightened his djellabah, and ran after her.

  Ibrahim woke when the gourd hit the ground, snatched his rifle and stood as Rashid whistled. He saw Rebecca’s glimmer moving downhill and aimed carefully, then from the corner of his eye glimpsed another shape, darker and faster, retreating uphill, saw it was Warwar naked, and fired. Warwar ducked as the barrel came up, and Ibrahim fired again, hearing a cry. Warwar dived over the ridge; climbed after him, forcing him upslope.

  When he reached the crest Ibrahim descended to Warwar’s sleeping place, hid Warwar’s rifle among the rocks and kicked his djellabah and sandals into the abyss.

  29

  SHE RAN DOWN the stony slope and hobbled along the gully at its bottom, Rashid clattering down behind her. The twisted ankle drove a knife up her thigh into her stomach with each step; she couldn’t run, climbed from the gully up a narrowing steep canyon and halted one-legged, trying not to gasp, her hands spread out against the steepening canyon walls, her fingers white as lilies on the rock. The first hues of dawn touched the canyon crests, but all was dark below. The patter of his steps went past, returned; she heard his steady breathing coming up behind her.

  Pinned in a corner of two walls she leaned out, trying to see up the cliff; there were ledges sticking out and gleaming rockslide chutes. She pulled herself up this corner as it steepened; something smashed down on her head, crushing it into her neck, and her hands slipped—she was falling outwards and grabbed at nothing, tried to pull back from the void sucking her down, caught her foothold as she fell, shoulder socket wrenching, stones clattering below her down the canyon wall.

  Beneath her feet a flash of silver drove her scrambling back up the wall and over the lip of stone she had just smashed her head into. Crouched on this lip, knees over the edge, back pressed against the cliff, she jammed her fingers under a chunk of rock but could not pry it free. She stood unsteadily, could not balance, twisted round for handholds up the canyon wall, tipping outwards, clamped her body to the wall. Rashid came closer. Knowing she’d fall, she scrabbled for grips up the slick vertical stone, slipped, slid and held, slid again, found a last hold and inched trembling up the cliff, angling herself to the left and up a skinny ledge. But when she slowed to listen he had swung after her. Her fingers found a loose rock and prised it from the cliff; it was heavy and off-balanced her.