Chanda's Wars (16 page)

I
WAKE UP
in the middle of the night shivering, probably from all the sun I got midday.

My old dream flashes through my mind: the road to Tiro; Soly and Iris taken away. Was it a warning? Is this my punishment for not listening? No, don't think like that. Dreams can mean anything. Mrs. Tafa thought it meant I
had
to go to Tiro. If I'd stayed home and something bad had happened, would I have tortured myself for that instead?

I wrap my blanket around me and stare at the moon. Soly. Iris. Where are you? What are you doing? Are you looking at the moon too?

A faint moan rises from the direction of the hollowed log. I'm not the only one awake. I feel for my shoes, slip them on, and walk gingerly toward the sound. As I get close, it stops.

“Nelson?”

Silence.

“Nelson, tell me it's you.”

“It's me.”

“Nelson, keep talking. Please. Guide me to where you are.”

“Go back to your blanket. Go to sleep. Leave me alone.”

My foot taps into the log. I reach down, touch it, edge along it, till I sense his presence. I sit. The skin on my arm tingles. I feel his heat beside me.

We stay like that for a long time. Then out of the hush, Nelson's voice, so delicate it's like he's talking to himself:

“I remember the first time I tracked him here,” he says. “Pako'd been running away from home for years. Every few months, since he was four. When things got rough, he'd take off. Like me. He didn't go far, at first. He'd just walk till he got lost, or tired, or scared. Then he'd sit and wait for someone to find him. It was always me, went after him. I'd get mad. He'd wasted my day. But one look at him all slumped over, I'd hug him and hug him. We'd talk a bit, then I'd carry him home. I'd tell him it would be okay, he wasn't in trouble anymore. I'd pray I was right. I usually was.”

Nelson gulps for air. I stare at the ground.

“Pako always took the same route,” he says at last. “I figure it's because deep down he wanted me to find him. Only each time he'd go farther. When he was five, he started taking food and water. ‘When I'm big,' he'd say, ‘I'm going to walk around the world. I'm going to walk so far, I'll disappear.' Two years ago, I thought he had. He ran away early, when I was at the post. By the time I got back, it was too late to see anything. Next day, I tracked him for what seemed like forever. I ended up here. Poor Pako. He must've been so scared when I didn't come that first day. Maybe he thought Mama and me, we didn't love him anymore. Maybe he thought we didn't care.”

He chokes. Then his voice goes quiet as a baby's breath: “I remember I followed his trail to this log. Pako was hiding inside. I pretended I didn't know. I knelt on the ground. ‘Dear god, and all the ancestors,' I said, ‘I'm looking for my little brother. His name is Pako. I miss him so much. But I don't know where he is. Please help me find him.' A few minutes later, he crawled out and snuggled next to me.”

Silence. Nelson begins rocking slowly.

“For the last two years, this is where Pako'd run,” he says. “It's his special place. He's made up stories about it:
‘This log belongs to the god of the mudhole. Anyone who goes inside it is safe. Even Papa's spirit can't get in.' Sometimes Pako asked if he can stay by himself a day or two. I bring provisions, camp up on the high ground, stay hidden, so he'll feel grown up.” Nelson throws back his head. “I'm a coward. A coward.”

“That isn't true!”

“It is!”

I hear him wiping his eyes with his shirtsleeve. I find his hand.

“I never faced them,” he weeps. “I never stood up to Papa, Runako, Samson. On the post, when I was little, Mama hid me in the granary bin when they'd get drinking. Later, when we moved to town, I'd hide in your granny's outhouse. They'd pound on your granny and grampa's door. Your family pretended they hadn't seen me. Your grampa and uncles would get them home.”

“That doesn't make you a coward. You were only a kid.”

A roar rips from his throat. “I wasn't a kid when Pako was growing up. Or my other little brothers. First sign of trouble, I'd be gone. Anything to make the shouting go away. In the morning, I'd see the bruises. ‘They fell,' Mama'd say. ‘Yeah, Mama,' I yelled, ‘well they fall a lot when
Papa's drinking.' I never did anything though. Just yelled and left her with everything. I'm so ashamed! If I'd stood up to them, this would never have happened. Pako wouldn't have run off. He wouldn't have been captured. Mama would still be alive.”

“You're not to blame. Especially not for Mandiki.”

“What do you know? Mama died to save Pako from the rebels. It should have been me who died.” He sinks to the ground.

I kneel beside him, feel for his shoulders. He quivers into a ball. I hold him tight.

“I swear to god,” he says, “I won't let Mama down again. I'm going to find my brother. I'm going to bring him home, like I did when he ran away. I won't be a coward. Not ever again. I'm going to be like you.”

I rock him and rock him and rock him. His body goes limp. Asleep in my arms, he's a little boy like Soly. My lips brush his forehead. I roll him gently onto his side, faced away from me, and press my back against his.

I'm not sure if this is a good idea, sleeping next to each other. Mrs. Tafa would say I was looking for trouble. I don't care. Nelson's warmth feels good. I wish I could throw one of our blankets over us, but I'm afraid
to crawl around in the pitch black trying to find them.

Nelson shifts like crazy all night. Every so often, a shiver ripples across his shoulders or his legs twitch. It's like he's trying to run in his dreams. “It's okay,” I whisper. “It's okay.” He doesn't hear me.

I don't sleep. Nelson. What does he mean, he wants to be like me? I'm not brave. I'm scared to death. Are my babies alive? Last time I saw them, they hated me. Do they still hate me? Do they blame me? Please god, let them forgive me. For shaming them. For being away when they needed me most. Let Mama forgive me too.

Oh, Mama, I want to get them back. But I don't know if I can. I'm so afraid. I'm so…

 

It's first light. My back feels cold. Where's Nelson? I roll over. He's gone. I sit up in a panic. Then I see him near the mudhole with his knapsack, surveying the ground. I lie back down and pretend to sleep, half-closing my eyes so I can watch him without him knowing it. He heads into a thicket. Doing his morning business, I figure.

Silence.

I hear a bird, a few more. In minutes, there's squawking all around. The world is waking up. I stretch. Nelson
should be back by now. Oh well. I take care of my own affairs and wash up at the mudhole. Nelson still hasn't come back.

I suddenly get it. He's taken off without me!

I grab my things and run up the trail. What with the great lord having just gone through, the path's easy to follow. The brush clears. I see Nelson in the distance, getting ready to scale the high ground to the north. I run to within shouting distance.

“Stop!” I holler. “Where do you think you're going?”

He pretends not to hear me.

“Are you deaf? I said, stop!”

He keeps going.

I scramble after him. “Have the guts to face me. You think you can leave me without a word?”

His voice comes low, hard: “You know the way back.”

“I told you, I'm not giving up.”

“Fine. Just go by yourself. Leave me alone.”

“Nelson?”

He whirls on me. “Papa was Papa. My papa. He wasn't a monster. He fed me. Clothed me. Gave me a roof. He's dead. I owe him respect. I mustn't shame him. I mustn't dishonor his memory. Not ever. No matter what.”

I raise my hand to touch him. He waves me off. “Get away.” All at once, I understand. In the dark, you can say things, and it's like there's no one there. But in the morning…in the light…

We stand there, staring at each other, breathing hard. I step back. Let the air fill my lungs slowly. Once, twice, three times. “Nelson,” I say, “about last night. You didn't say anything. I didn't hear anything.”

A butterfly floats up from the grass, circles my head, and flutters off. Nelson follows it with his eyes. He swallows. “Okay, then.” He rubs his nose. “Make sure you keep up.”

I adjust my knapsack. “Worry about yourself.”

We walk in silence.

 

Midmorning, we spot the vultures.

T
HE BIRDS CIRCLE
slowly, black specks in the distance.

“They're a quarter mile ahead,” Nelson says. “Something's got their attention.”

It could be anything. A dead hare. A dead warthog. A dead cow. All the same, the hairs on my neck tingle. There's evil around. I close my eyes. I see the skull puppet twisting on Mandiki's fist, his necklace of bones, the long fungal nails, that grin of dead men's teeth.

I check the horizon with my binoculars. Beyond the vultures, a thin wisp of smoke rises from behind a thicket. Nelson's already seen it. “It could be a family on some compound,” he says. “Maybe they're getting ready to cook seswa.”

“Or maybe it's the rebels cooking.”

We move quickly but cautiously. In no time, we're
underneath the raptors. They're circling lower now, ebony wings glinting in the sun. Talons and beaks etched sharp against the sky.

Nelson stays me with a finger. We stand stalk still. Just ahead, something's moved off the main trail. Its path is fresh. It goes maybe twenty feet into the savannah and stops. Whoever, or whatever, made this path is still out there.

For a moment, everything's still. Then a rustle. We crouch down. Have we been seen? Is this an ambush? We take off our knapsacks. Unsheath our machetes. Nelson motions me to circle out below where the path ends, while he circles above.

I crawl slowly, pulling myself forward on my elbows, gripping my machete by the handle, blade out. My hands are wet. My heart pounds. I stop. Whatever's there is only a few feet away. I listen hard. Nothing. Then a sudden whoosh of air above me to my left. I look up. A flash of feathers. A vulture lights down.

Nelson and I leap to our feet. We pounce toward the end of the path. Two vultures rise from the flattened patch of grass, beating their wings. We fall back. They settle, twist their necks, and stare, feathers raised, daring us to approach. There's a terrible stench. It's lunchtime.

Nelson's closer to the raptors than me. He gasps. “Don't look,” he says. He retreats to the trail.

“What's there? What did you see? What?”

“You don't want to know.”

It's true. I don't. But the way he says it, I have to.

I raise my machete across my body, shielding my head with my forearm in case the vultures try to drive me off. I inch forward. They make a low, grating hiss, but instead of attacking, they hop off a few steps. I glimpse their meal.

At first, I'm not sure what it is. I take a step closer. Look harder. I cover my mouth. It's a child. He's maybe twelve, sprawled facedown, naked. His calves are as puffed as balloons, the gangrenous flesh blistered to bursting. Above the knees, though, he's scrawny, bruised skin stuck tight to his ribs and skull, arms all tendon and bone.

I run in a circle, swinging my machete. “Aiii! Aiii!” The vultures fly up. They fake attacks, dipping and diving, trying to force me to leave. I don't. I kneel at the boy's side. He doesn't move. I roll him over to check for life. His chest lies flat, no sign of a breath. His eyes are turned into his head. The lids are caked. His hair crawls with lice.

“Nelson,” I cry out. I try to say more, but words fail. “Nelson. Nelson. Nelson.”

“Chanda, come away.”

“Nelson—he's one of the soldiers—one of the child soldiers we saw hobbling at the post.”

“I know. Chanda, come away.”

“I can see the sores on his toes and ankles. It's chiggers. He's lousy with chiggers. The ticks have burrowed into his feet. He must have had them for months. Nelson. He's been rotting alive.”

Nelson comes up behind me. He puts his hands on my shoulders.

“They took his clothes. Nelson. They left him naked.” I think of Soly and Iris and all of the other children stolen in the night. I think of them dragged away with what they had on, Iris in her nightie, Soly in that green feedbag. Think of them given the clothes of the dead. Wearing the pants and shirts of boys like this.

A sound as delicate as a tuft of milkpod rises from the ground: “Ma…ma…ma…”

I look down. Nelson and I were wrong. The boy isn't dead. His eyes roll forward. He doesn't see me. Doesn't see anything. But somehow he knows we're here. Or someone's here.

“Ma…ma…ma…”

Nelson leans in close. “We have to go,” he whispers.

“No. He's alive. We can't leave him to the vultures.”

“It's too late, no matter what we do. Look at him. The poison's through his body. It's into his brain. He can't even feel anything anymore.”

“Nelson, this child could be Pako. Soly. Iris. If it was one of them, what would you want a stranger to do?”

“I don't know,” he shouts back. “All I know is, we have to find them soon, before they turn into him.”

“Ma…ma. Ma…ma.”

I look down at the boy's blank face. I take his hand in mine. “Yes,” I say. “It's me. I'm here.”

There's a flicker around his mouth. “Ma…ma…”

“Shh. It's all right. I'm here.”

The child's eyes slide back in his head. Has he passed? I don't know.

I've been wearing the mosquito net as a shawl this morning. I take it off my shoulders and unfold it. Nelson and I wrap it gently around the boy's body.

“We can carry him as far as the compound up ahead,” Nelson says. “Check your hands for nicks. Chiggers can get in anywhere.”

We each take an end of netting and carry our load toward the smoke.