by Mike Bond
THINKING of her sons, Rebecca half heard the camel nicker as MacAdam went to check it, the nervous stamp of its hooves, its wanting to be free. Her children were a dream she was unable to recall, but she saw how her distractedness had for years driven her from the older one, he with his father’s judicious surface, how she had treated him with a distant tension while believing she loved him intensely, how her tension and rejection had blocked closeness with the younger boy, except at moments when he forgave her. If only, she thought, I could be with them as I feel.
“What’s got you nervous?” MacAdam said to the camel in Rendille, laughing at himself, for as this was a Somali camel how should she know Rendille? “It’s just the tongue I’ve learned for your kind,” he continued, but the camel would not listen, straining at her halter and shifting her hooves on the scratchy corroded lava. She shoved her bristly jaw at him, sniffed his breath to see if he were fearing also, then shrugged away, impatient with this whiteman too dull and insensate to scent what anyone could scent.
“Ah—it’s lion? Coming in from the north? Worry not, my pretty, he won’t come in on us here, not with the gun and fire, not unless it’s a big male and he’s old and very hungry.” He scratched behind her ears but she snatched her head away, pawed the rock, jerked her halter. He took up the gun. “I’ll go see, my pretty,” What will I do with you, he wondered, when we reach Faille?
The great bowl of the stars was redolent with fragrances of brush, cooling stone, and wind from the peak. His hands on the rifle smelt of the camel’s fur—if it’s a lion he’ll come in on me, MacAdam decided, thinking I’m a camel. I’m getting scared, seeing danger behind every rock now I’ve something to live for. If it’s lion I’ll shoot above him and he’ll run, he’s not a fool, to have survived up here. No reason to kill him.
What’s that—flicker of motion against that distant slaty lava slope, a ripple of starlight brighter than the earth? Why would he try to approach across the shale? The world silent, nothing but the change in the character of one boulder among many, a hundred yards away. The lion moving east to circle us downwind, study our scents. If he’s old he should know better than to cross the scree. There was nothing but the cool feel of rocks as MacAdam settled down among them, nothing but the sense of where, from the corner of one eye, he’d seen the movement of the lion.
In the silence of the desert night the lion could be many things; MacAdam knocked on his rifle stock then realized, that’s silly, it’s not wood, but high-grade plastic from some German factory, How strange that now my life depends on a weapon made in the land that killed my father—how the killing goes round and round and never stops, new alliances, new enemies, always thinking now we know who’s right, who’s wrong…This gun fabricated perhaps by a survivor of the Falaise pocket, where four hundred thousand frightened German boys sought a way out of the Allied massacre, taking with them at Fourneaux Woods fourteen soldiers of the South Wales Borderers, including a burly cheerful mustached lieutenant named Aubrey MacAdam, he, my mother said, who always used to knock on wood. My father only lived to twenty-seven, twenty years younger than I am now, yet I always think of him as older, wiser. What would he do, here? Would he have chosen to be here at all?
IT WAS DIFFICULT for Warwar to squirm one-armed among the rocks, with Ibrahim’s rifle like a prison ball chained to his one hand, with his thirst making him dizzy and weak, making the stars and rocks dance and confusing his sense of smell.
He would tell Rashid that he and Ibrahim had surprised a Galla trying to steal the camels. We chased him all night and the next day then that evening the Borani ambushed us by the spring of the two doum palms. I finally killed them all and then cut off this shattered arm, but Ibrahim was killed. That will give me a few days to get better, when Rashid can heal me, before I have to shoot him. Or I can lead him to the doum palms and let him drink the water.
Before him Warwar saw a clear chute of scree, with no cover. The black stone at night scintillated like flint, reminding him of death, his death, which could some soon now if Rashid shot him, if there was a lion. When I am paid my wages on the day of Resurrection, Warwar thought, how much will they be? Will I be removed from the fire? What if there is no fire, no wages, just nothing? How can nothing be, when by its very nature it is not?
Impossible to cross the scree chute without being seen, if Rashid’s sitting guard. With his anxious nature he would be. Why did he never come to help us when the Borani ambushed us at the doum palms? He stayed here, mating with my whitewoman. That’s reason alone to kill him.
MACADAM WATCHED the boulder that had moved, and all around, and everything between it and the scree, but nothing changed. If the lion’s coming he’s stopped to analyze the scree. If he turned around he could circle camp and come upwind from the ravine. Or west across the wind, once he’s circled to check us from below.
If the lion was waiting to cross above the scree that would be the best time to shoot over his back and scare him. Even though that would scare her. But I’ve been gone too long already. She’d already scared.
If the lion’s circling to come upwind he’ll reach her first. But if he crosses the scree this is the only place to stop him. Till that last quick charge when he won’t be scared off.
The wind hit MacAdam’s right cheek—it had shifted east of Gamud peak. Now if I swing further west I might pick up his scent. If he’s still there. And if he’s not there that means he’s circled and will be coming upwind to camp. She and I’ll back up against the rocks and he’ll come from wherever he wants to and I’ll have to shoot him.
IF Ian would come back now, she pleaded. I need him. I’ll admit that now, I need him. If he’ll just come back now I’ll tell him how much I’ve loved him, heartbroken, all these years, that every day I’ve missed him, his tense smile, his gray eyes so sadly shocked by life. That he bears it all up. That I love him so. Dear God please understand. That I’ve been afraid, cold. And because I’ve been cold nobody’s loved me. Except Ian—no, even Klaus, too, he’s loved me. And the kids… they’ve all loved me—what am I to do? What am I to do, God, if he won’t come back?
The rifle slept like a snake, lit by the coals. As if it could wake and strike at any moment, whenever and at whom it wished. Oh make him come back fast, she begged. Emboldened by the firelight, a dusky scorpion crossed the rock where MacAdam had sat, its arachnid tail held high in warning.
Her body was frozen with knowing something approached. Ian please come down soon. She could not move her hand towards the rifle, seeing it ready to strike, feeling already its fangs in her hand. No, I’m fine, she told herself firmly. It’s just the night.
39
FROM HIS NEW POSITION MacAdam still could not see the lion. He licked a finger and wet the insides of his nostrils but smelled only the stones and the sharp coolness from the peak, the commiphora breathing the recent rain back out of their brittle trefoil leaves, the red rocky soil awaiting tomorrow’s sun.
A heavy listlessness made him want to stay. Or will the lion go down after Rebecca? He pulled his eyes away from the slope and crawled a few paces, turned back and raised his head to look again. I should stay here, something tells me. She’s down there, she has the rifle. Reluctantly he shifted downhill between the clustered boulders to the hilltop where he’d shot the Somali, where the rocks were smaller and if the lion came he’d see him. Which means the lion won’t come this way. If he’s too smart to cross the scree he won’t come up this slope either. He’s old and wise but doesn’t know this place. A refugee from up north, Ethiopia’s last lion.
This means he’s very smart and very experienced, and probably very hungry to be doing this. A flake of the Somali’s bone tinkled underfoot. If the lion circles to the east the camel will smell him. So he’ll come from the west. The southwest. MacAdam imagined the lion moving towards camp, head high against a black mane, eyes inquiringly empathetic, the statuesque stealth of his kind, the power that can make itself invisible.
WARWAR CREPT upslope
through the deep rocks. The camel stirred as he passed downwind, sensing rather than smelling him, the familiar notion of him. He wondered again where the male was. The male would never stay out alone, leave the female. Criminal if Rashid lost him—a strong young male like that.
Beyond the camel the sandy gully led round an angle of stone on which Warwar could see the reflected glow of Rashid’s fire. Why’s he so afraid?
In case Rashid was not sitting by the fire but guarding among the rocks, Warwar stayed in the shadows, slid the rifle forward, set it down, slid one-armed silently alongside it, raised and lifted it forward, put it down and inched up beside it, the rocks scraping his ribs, the water near, almost in his mouth.
His heart was hammering so loud he feared Rashid would hear it. For a moment the fire’s reflection on the gully wall profiled an animal cut into the rock, a long-horned, broad-shouldered ancient beast as on the cave walls of Marrehan, put there by God to tell men of the old ways. As he shifted closer the animal became a crouching leopard, shoulders tensed to strike, long haunches rippling back. This was a bad omen but he pushed nearer, almost in the open.
There in the fire’s glow sat the whitewoman, wrapped in the goat cloak. Sliding his head and shoulders into the gully Warwar came closer but could not see Rashid. He’s up there watching. If I come into camp now he could kill me; then I’ll never get water. Despite this thirst it is better to wait for him to come, then shoot him easily. With the whitewoman loosely in his sights Warwar settled among the deep rocks, his stub arm aching terribly.
MACADAM DECIDED maybe the lion had circled below the scree and had smelled the rifle and left. Maybe he wasn’t hungry. What if it wasn’t a lion? He glanced at Leo rising in the northeast, head and shoulders above Gamud’s crenellated peaks. Be careful, Leo said. Careful of what? Of what you haven’t thought of. Of what you don’t expect.
He crept towards the water hole, avoiding the sandy patches for the rustle that they made against his soles, silent on the loose, rough rock, till he could see the fire and Rebecca beside it, the coals reddening the goatskin draped round her and reflecting dully on the curved wall of the gully beyond.
Of what you see but don’t expect and therefore aren’t seeing. She seems to be sleeping. The lion isn’t coming from the north or east because of the scree and the wind, nor from the south because of the open lava, so he can only come in through the deep stones between the gully and the lava. From the southwest quadrant. Where I see no movement. I’ll go down, see her, check things from there.
AS THE FIRE DIED the rifle-snake crept closer. If she put more dung on the coals the gun would retreat, but she could not reach towards the pile of dung or the snake-rifle would strike her hand. It had been watching like this for a long time and soon it would kill her. If he would just come back—but, no, he’s got a snake rifle slung over his shoulder, and it reached out lovingly and sank its fangs into his neck. I’m just thinking this because it seems true, but really there isn’t any snake, only this rifle, and soon I’ll reach out and pat it, to be sure.
But if Ian doesn’t come and the fire doesn’t die, if it’s true what I’ve always feared, that there’s no end to evil? Then I’ll wait forever for this snake to strike, and the fire will grow darker and darker but never go out, and I’ll get thirstier and thirstier and colder and colder but never die, and that’s what happens after life, that’s what it means to be in Hell.
MACADAM TOOK A LAST LOOK before dropping down into the gully and the water hole. The lion won’t come up behind because of the wind, unless he scorns our sense of smell but knows we have a gun. Then he’d stalk me from behind. But what if all the time I thought he was hunting her he’s been hunting me?
He felt immediate dread, his back tightening in terror as he spun round, and there was the lion huge and black in the last electric instant of its leap, tawny coat and rippling muscle, forepaws like mountains to sever and destroy him, great jaws to chew him down, and finger tightening on the trigger he regretted this loss of Rebecca and all the desert dawns and cool highlands of his life, sensed the lion would kill her too and pulled the trigger as the barrel was coming up, a shot that ricocheted against rock and made the lion grunt and swerve, MacAdam firing three more shots that leaped and sang among the stones, his ears ringing with the blasts that then echoed back from Gamud peak. The lion had vanished. Wounded. Now he’s coming in for sure.
WARWAR DUCKED, trying to hear between the rifle’s echoes for a footstep, any sound, but when the echoes died away there was nothing, no moans, no sound of camels, nothing. The gun was not Rashid’s, but a different kind he’d never heard before. Four shots ricocheting at three different angles. Had someone shot Rashid? There’d been no thump of bullet hitting flesh, no clatter of dropped rifle or slap of body falling down. No running, no voices. None of the accoutrements of death.
When he looked up the whitewoman was gone.
40
EXPECTING THE LION’S LEAP MacAdam ran downhill, afraid it had already killed Rebecca. When he reached the gully she wasn’t there. “Rebecca!” he screamed, “Rebecca! Rebecca!” He ran up out of the gully, couldn’t see her tracks; M’kele’s gun fired and he ran towards it, the lion streaking at him as he raised his gun but then he realized it was she grabbing him. “The lion!” he shouted, trying to see above her head and looking all round as she hugged him.
“I thought they’d shot you, so I grabbed the snake and came to kill them. It was them!”
“Who?” Shadow, in the rocks beyond the gully—the lion?
“The ones who shot!”
“That was me—at the lion!”
“What lion?” Her teeth were chattering and he tried to warm her with his arm, pushing her toward the fire. “It was them,” she pleaded.
“Who?” The shadow moved, beyond the gully. He shoved her aside and fired, the bullet smashing off a rock. The shadow gone—imagination—why had the lion come that way? How’d he get beyond the gully?
She jammed her foot against a rock. “They’re down there!”
“Who?” Still nothing behind. He’ll come upwind.
“The Somalis!”
“You saw them?”
She locked her leg against the slope. “The one you just shot at was a Somali.”
He threw his and M’kele’s guns over one shoulder, snatched her up and ran down to the gully, dropped her and spun round: there was no lion.
“Pick up all the dung you can find,” he said— ‘I’ll guard you.”
IGNORING HIS THIRST Warwar tried to decide what had happened. The whites had just killed Rashid and one of them had now just shot at him among the boulders and a sliver of bullet or rock had gone into his side, not deeply, but bleeding and painful. There were at least two whites plus the white-woman—he had heard the second rifle that spoke with a deep sharp voice like the first—guns he’d never heard before. When he killed them he’d have their guns, but they’d not be easy to kill. He could hear the voices of one whiteman and the whitewoman now in the gully—he sounded excited and she afraid—but where was the other whiteman, who’d shot the second gun?
THE FIRE ruddied the dark ilipino of the gully, bringing to MacAdam’s mind the word Masada but he did not think about it or about the crushed ache of his chest or the dizzy nauseous hunger for sleep. If the lion comes down the gully I’ll have at least a second after he comes round the rock before he gets me. Time for three shots fast or two well-placed, or none well-placed if I’m startled. If he comes from up the gully it’s not so easy—he’ll leap on me from this side so I have to swing the gun and there’s maybe time for one shot. Which means he’ll come that way because he knows it’s harder for me. Or he’ll figure I’ll think that and he’ll come up the gully instead. No matter which way I think he’ll come, he’ll come the other way. Or he’ll wait on the overhang till I move out to feed the fire. If he comes across the top he can’t leap on us directly because of the overhang but will have to land first on the ground then turn to leap on us. Despit
e the angle that gives me time for two shots. No matter which way he comes he’ll wait till I close my eyes for one second or turn to look at her or stop watching in all directions at once. “Why’d you shoot, up there?” he asked her.
Beside him, pointing M’kele’s gun up the gully, she seemed to feel as if fundamentally he’d failed her. “I dropped it. It fired by itself.”
If the lion’s so hungry why didn’t he kill the camel? Unless he’s too old or hurt or he’s an Ethiopian rogue used to eating corpses from the wars up there or in Sudan. How’d he attack from the east and moments later be going down the gully on the west? Unless he has a female hunting with him?
“Ian, please!” She wanted to tell him about this snake that could change itself into a rifle, but he wouldn’t believe it. “Please let’s go!”
“So he jumps us in the darkness? Kills me first and then comes after you? Or so the camel goes crazy with fear, and we lose her?”
“The camel’s not afraid because she knows it’s them! The one you shot at above the gully—if he was a lion he’d have scared the camel!”
“The wind’s changed, to the north. He circled from the south.”
“I don’t care,” she yelled, shutting him out. “We won’t live to see tomorrow!”
He nodded at the stars. “It’s already tomorrow. Soon as it’s light we cross the ridge. Two more days we’ll be in Faille.”
She turned her back, made him disappear. He has no right to keep me from going out there. I’m a separate human being just like him. If you’re a passenger in a car and the driver’s driving crazy you’ve got the right to make him stop and let you out.
Nothing to stay or go back for. Hyenas in the night, packs of wild dogs fattened on desert refugees. This man a stranger. All strangers. Get back to France I’ll leave him. Not going back to France. Yes, take the boys and go to France. Over her shoulder she sneered at this stranger behind her. “You won’t live to see Faille.”