Lord Tyger (16 page)

Then he dropped the dirt, and she was gone.

The rest of the day he looked for large stones and did not finish piling them on the grave until after dusk. Satisfied that no scavengers could dig down to her, he left.

In the tree house, he cleaned off the point of the Wantso arrow and put it in his quiver. The arrow would return to the Wantso.

He was not able to get to sleep until shortly before dawn. He wept and moaned and called for Mariyam many times. The sun rose, and Ras with it. He shaved; as he did every morning. The mirror showed him a red-eyed, haggard face. He ate some dried meat and fruit. He put the comb and the mirror in the antelope-hide bag. After he had sharpened his knife on the whetstone, he put the stone into the bag. Before descending, he scanned the forest. Even in his grief, he had not forgotten that the Wantso might still be hoping to ambush him, although he doubted that they would dare to stay overnight in the Land of the Ghosts.

It was logical for them to take Yusufu with them and expect Ras to come after them. They would lie in wait for him somewhere below the plateau. Or they might have taken Yusufu back to the village, where they would feel safer, and where Yusufu could be tortured.

Ras had gone only a mile when he saw Janhoy sneaking
through the bushes toward him. He did not feel like playing the stalking game with the lion, so he called out to him. Janhoy was very disappointed; his eyes looked hurt. Ras petted him and roughed him up a bit. He told Janhoy, "You cannot go with me today. You would be a hindrance; also, you could get hurt. I could not bear to lose you, too, Janhoy. You are too dear to me."

The lion insisted on going with him. Even when they reached the steep cliffs at the edge of the plateau, the lion tried to follow him down. Ras shouted at him and threw stones and presently Janhoy scrambled back up from a ledge to the top of the cliff.

At the bottom of the cliffs, Ras looked back up. Janhoy's big nose and hurt eyes were still visible.

"I will be back!" Ras shouted.

He was worried about Janhoy. Although the lion had been taught how to hunt by Ras and Yusufu, he had a difficult time getting enough to eat by his own efforts. Aside from leopards, antelopes, hogs, and gorillas, no large game existed on the plateau. There had been a few zebras when Ras was younger, but these had been eaten out by the leopards. Janhoy did kill a hog now and then. Antelopes were not easy for a single lion to catch, and leopards were too fast and agile for Janhoy. He was so accustomed to gorillas, having been taken as a cub to them by Ras, that he classed them with Yusufu, Mariyam, and Ras. They were not-meat.

If Ras and Yusufu had not occasionally hunted antelope for him, or with him, he would have starved to death. Now, what would he do with his only support gone?

He would have to get by, somehow.

8

THE BURNING OF EVIL

A half mile into the jungle, Ras stopped. The thought of Janhoy starving was almost too painful to bear. Yet, he could not climb back up the cliffs and take time to hunt an antelope or hog to hold the lion until he returned. Yusufu needed him. He might be tortured at this moment. Ras shook his head and went on.

From the foot of the plateau-cliffs, where the river cataracted, it was five miles straight to the Wantso village. The river curved back and forth so much that its length from falls to village was ten miles. Ras took the straight line, trotting where the bush was not too thick, going from branch to branch where the trees were close enough--a slow method of progress because of his weight--and swimming across the river whenever it blocked his path. It was fifteen straight miles from the tree house to the Wantso village, but he traveled twenty-two because of unavoidable detours. The sun was settling down like a big, golden-red bird in its nest. He decided that he would kill a monkey and eat before going on. Hunger would be draining his strength so swiftly that he would
not be very effective when he got to the village.

At this time, he came across a path much used by the Wantso. About to step out onto it, he heard footsteps. He withdrew into the bush just in time to avoid being seen. Gubado, the old harpist, was trotting along with a little bow and quiver, used for small game, on his back. He held a dead spotted rat in one hand and a spear in the other and two square white things between his teeth. They fluttered in the wind made by Gubado's passage.

The old man had found two Letters from God.

Ras stepped out from behind a bush a few feet before the old man. Gubado stopped. His jaw fell open; his eyes widened. The papers curved toward the ground. Ras gestured with his knife and started to ask him about Yusufu. Gubado dropped the rat and the spear and clutched at his chest. His head was thrown back and his face was twisted. He staggered backward, his mouth working soundlessly. Then he said, "Uh-uh-uh!" and fell backward and lay still.

Ras knelt by the corpse. "Old man, I had not meant to harm you. I know that you were too old and weak to go with the warriors that killed my mother. And I loved to hear your harp when I listened to you out in the bush. In fact, I made my own harp and learned to play it, remembering how you plucked the strings."

He began to cut away at Gubado's neck.

"But then, if you had been young enough, you would have been with the killers, perhaps the killer himself. And, remembering this, I would have killed you if your fear had not stopped your heart."

The flesh gave way easily enough to the knife. The neckbones were not so easy. After he had hacked and sawed
through the spinal cord, Ras cleaned his knife and sharpened it on the whetstone. Gubado's dull eyes stared up at him.

Ras said, "Do not reproach me, old man. You would have done the same to me if you had been able."

He put the knife in its scabbard and picked up the papers. By now, it was too dark to read, the moon had not yet come up, so he folded the papers and put them in his bag. He picked the head up by the right cone of hair and walked swiftly along the path. Before he had gone ten yards, he heard a roar behind him.

"Janhoy!"

He turned back and traveled a hundred yards. There was the great beast, still roaring.

"Hush!" Ras said. "You will notify the Wantso."

He patted the mane of Janhoy, who rubbed against him, and purred loudly. Janhoy followed him as far as the corpse of Gubado, where the lion stopped. Saliva ran from his jaws.

"So you managed to get down the cliffs? You must be half goat, you clumsy monster. Now, what will I do with you? You are the ghost, not I, haunting me and encumbering me."

It was too late and too dark to hunt. Janhoy would have to go hungry until dawn and perhaps after that. Yusufu had to be rescued, if possible. If not, he must be revenged.

Janhoy was now creeping toward Gubado's headless body. Ras hesitated, then said, "Eat, Janhoy. There is nothing else for you, and it will keep you occupied while I am gone."

He did not like the idea of encouraging the lion to eat human flesh. However, there seemed nothing else for Janhoy to do.

But Janhoy, though hungry, seemed doubtful. He wanted to eat Gubado, but he also did not think he should. He sniffed at
the body and then, swiftly, licked some blood off the neck. After a glance at Ras, as if to see his reaction, Janhoy settled down on the body and began to tear away at it.

Ras swung into the bush so he would not come near Janhoy, because he did not want him to think he had designs on Gubado. The lion was so hungry that, now he was in the first stages of eating, he might violently resent even Ras's approach to his food. Ras walked rapidly down the path, and soon the windings of the trail cut off the sound of ripping flesh.

Ras crossed the river above the village, where the water rose no higher than his chest. There were no crocodiles here, because the water was too chilly. Nevertheless, he thought his heart would stop when a fish brushed against his leg. When he came to the wall across the neck of the peninsula, he put Gubado's head down and went back into the bush. There were two torches on the platform behind the wall. In their light, Thikawa, a middle-aged man, and Sazangu, his juvenile nephew, were visible from the waist up. Their faces gleamed as if smeared with oil. Thikawa wore a white-feathered headdress, and his face was streaked with white paint. He leaned on a huge spear while he murmured to his nephew.

Ras strung his bow, fitted an arrow to the string, and took careful aim. The twang of the string made both guards jump, and Sazangu gave a little yell. Thikawa straightened up and then fell backward with the arrow sticking out of his breastbone. Sazangu yelled louder and ducked behind the wall before Ras could draw another arrow from his quiver. Ras placed the bow over his shoulder and climbed a tall tree. It was awkward work with the bow, but he took his time and presently was above the platform.

Sazangu was crouching down against the wall and still yelling. He was paying no attention to the big drum, which he was supposed to beat to sound the alarm. Thikawa was not in sight; he must have fallen off the platform. Ras fitted an arrow to the bow and called out Sazangu's name. Sazangu stopped yelling, jumped up, and then launched himself out from the platform. The arrow hit him in the lower back just as he cleared the railing.

The torches above the east gate of the village across the fields were bright enough to reveal that the gates were opening. Other torches appeared within the gateway, danced around, and then started across the fields toward the peninsula wall. Ras came down from the tree, went back to Gubado's head, and then into the river by the wall. He managed to hold the head, spear, bow, and quiver above the surface with one hand while he swam on his side. It was only a few yards of semicircle from the bank on one side of the wall to the bank on the other side. Back on the land, he went through the trees and brush until he came to a large tree. Here he retrieved a rope from its cache in a hollow and slung its coil over his left shoulder.

Now there were torches burning above each of the four gates of the village, with a man or boy on guard at each. Torches were fixed to the posts just below the branch from the sacred tree, and there was probably a guard below it. The eastern gate, however, had been left open while the noise at the peninsula wall was being investigated.

Ras walked close to the village wall along its eastern front until he was almost to the gate. He called, "Chufiya! Chufiya!"

The chief's son leaned out over the wall to look into the darkness.

"Who is it?"

"Lalazi Taigaidi!"

The arrow hit Chufiya between the shoulder and neck. He was spun around by the impact and then fell down behind the wall onto the platform floor. Ras ran forward with a cone of hair of Gubado's head clutched in his left hand. He placed the head at the gateway and ran away. A woman screamed, and men shouted. Ras stopped outside the northern gate. Kufuna, the guard, was looking toward the commotion. Ras called his name and, when Kufuna turned, he received the arrow in his solar plexus. Without a sound, he fell back off the platform.

There were more shouts, near where Kufuna must have struck the earth. Ras went along the wall to the western gate. Bigagi was no longer standing on the bridge, and the cage was gone. Shewego, an elderly man, was the guard above the western gate. Always nervous, he was even more jittery now. Like a bird, he looked everywhere. He saw Ras's white skin in the blaze of the torches, yelled, and dived across the platform railing without thought of the twenty-foot drop to the earth. The arrow missed him.

Ras cursed in Amharic and ran on around the wall to the western gate. Pathapi, one of his childhood playmates, was the guard here. Somebody must have warned him, or he had deduced what was happening from the sequence of events. He turned and threw his spear at Ras and then deserted his post.

Ras whirled around and ran back into the shadows of the walls on the west side. He stopped at the bridge to hack away with the knife at the cables on the land end of the bridge. Then he ran to the islet across the bridge and cut into the ropes there until a few threads held it. He gave a long, wavering scream. There was
silence inside the village except for some children crying, hogs squealing, and chickens squawking. A minute passed. Wuwufa's voice, a high-pitched gabble, suddenly arose. Soon, bars creaked and the western gates swung slowly open. Six men, holding torches, peered into the darkness.