She explored farther and found more of the unusual trees. All around was the silent forest, and she heard no birds. Vervet monkeys slipped through the branches like shadows sliding among the leaves. It was strange that they didn’t make any noise.
At the very top of the hill, Nhamo found a crack in the rock. She followed it around a corner to where it widened to reveal a cave. Sand, which seemed too cool for the hot afternoon, surrounded the entrance. She dug her toes into it.
The mouth of the cave wasn’t large. She knelt down to get a better look. And in the shadows where the sand disappeared into darkness, she saw a heap of skulls.
They were little skulls, belonging to monkeys. They stared out with empty eyes, and all around the ground was littered with tiny bones.
No wonder the monkeys were silent! This was the lair of the caracal!
Nhamo hurried down the hill and sat as close to Donkeyberry as the old creature permitted. She was relieved when the baboons made the long trek back to the sleeping cliff, rather than spending the night in the trees. They seemed as anxious to get away from the cave as she was.
Rumpy pounced on the new fruit. He relished every berry and showed no ill effects. But Nhamo was frightened to go back to the hill by herself. Nor did the baboons return to gather more grapes. One visit was enough for their nerves.
They soon learned to tear Nhamo’s traps apart. First one, then another discovered the secret, until she couldn’t get to the snares fast enough to salvage any food. The baboons learned about the birdlime, too, and all she found now were a few forlorn feathers. Her garden, never healthy, turned yellow in the heat. She was reduced to eating the pumpkin leaves when every one of the new vegetables was devoured by beetles. Here and there she managed to salvage a tomato, a handful of okra, a stunted yam. It wasn’t enough.
She made a bow and arrows, but hardly ever hit her targets. She spent hours lurking by the dassie dens only to have them scale an almost vertical rock to escape. The dassies knew she was their enemy. They evaporated almost before she could see them.
As the food supplies disappeared, Nhamo felt a strange nervousness descend on the island. The baboons muttered more at night. The antelope were more wary, the birds readier to take flight. Nothing, she had to admit, had gone right since the day she looked into that bone-filled cave.
Most distressing, Rumpy had decided she was another member of the troop—a less important member. He began to play the kick-someone-off-a-rock game with her. He stared at her aggressively, slapped the ground, and swaggered over with his fur puffed out. Nhamo hurriedly moved away. With great satisfaction, Rumpy sat down in the place she had vacated. This was the first time he’d been able to bully anyone. He loved it!
He followed her around, demanding that she share her food. She retreated to the platform to eat. He sat below, watching intently. “I ought to throw this spear at you,” she yelled at him. “I ought to chase you with a panga!” But actually, she was afraid. Rumpy might be a miserable specimen compared to the other males, but he was still a large animal with lethal-looking fangs. She didn’t know how far she could push him.
Nhamo foraged by herself these days, and she scurried back to her trees before the troop returned. Rumpy made her too nervous to enjoy sitting with the baboons anymore. Hunting for food took most of her time now. She peeled the roots of wild geraniums and baked them in hot coals. They were so tough, it was like gnawing on a tree. She cooked their bitter leaves as a vegetable. She boiled cassia pods to make a thin, unsatisfying soup, and roasted spongy, tasteless water-lily bulbs.
All this filled her stomach, but it wasn’t nourishing. Nhamo began to get dizzy when she stood up. She had to rest frequently on her foraging expeditions, and she realized that she was slowly starving. The sky remained a hot, dry blue with not a single cloud in it.
Nhamo sat by the mukwa log, too dispirited to work. It was hollowed out well enough, but the exterior still looked like a lumpy tree. Crocodile Guts’s boat had been shaped to move smoothly in the water. The sides were braced to keep from warping. Altogether, his craft was a work of great skill, and Nhamo despaired of equaling it. She couldn’t even roll the log over, much less drag it to the water—which receded farther from the work site every day.
Besides, she was bone-tired. The smoke from the fire she used to make coals made her head swim. She rested her cheek on the log and closed her eyes out of sheer exhaustion. Gradually, she became aware that things were awfully quiet. Not even the go-away birds* called in the heat. The air was breathless and still. The forest had that eerie quality she had noticed near the caracal’s cave. Nhamo sat up quickly, in spite of her fatigue.
For two nights the baboons had chosen to nest in another part of the island. She listened for their distant shouts: There was nothing. Nhamo picked up the panga. I’ll get some water quickly and go back to the platform, she thought. Watching the harsh shadows under the trees, she edged toward the lake. If anything, the bright light stabbing through the leaves made things more confusing. She stopped several times when she couldn’t immediately identify something. She knelt by the reeds and cautiously filled the calabash.
On a rock set back from the water was a large shape. The rock was flat, almost like a platform, and was overhung by a large fig with roots snaking down on either side. Her heart thudding heavily, Nhamo shaded her eyes. The shape began to look familiar. It was…a kudu.
A kudu didn’t lie so quietly on its side unless it was dead.
She could tell it was a male by the huge, spiral horns. Its reddish brown back, marked by pale stripes, lay toward her, and one of the large, cuplike ears was silhouetted against the pale trunk of the fig. Nhamo clapped loudly. The kudu didn’t move. If it was alive, it would have sprung to its feet.
It might have starved or died of old age. Or it might have eaten something poisonous. One thing was clear: It wouldn’t stay on that rock long if the jackals and vultures discovered it.
Nhamo carefully made her way to the animal, looking around for possible rivals. She saw a trickle of blood glistening on the stone. It was still damp. She halted.
This antelope had just died—and not from starvation. Nhamo raised herself on tiptoe, craning her neck to see what was on the other side of the rock. Whatever had slain the kudu wasn’t visible, but it—or they, since it must have been jackals—had to be nearby. No predators would abandon such a rich feast.
Nhamo lifted the panga and inched forward. The thought of all that meat made her reckless. She could snatch a morsel away from jackals. They were probably sleeping off their first meal nearby. She could see that the intestines and forelegs had been devoured. The hind legs were untouched.
The neck of the antelope was scored with teeth marks: It had been strangled. Jackals didn’t do that. They weren’t strong enough. They disemboweled their prey, devouring it while it was still alive.
Strangling was a technique used by caracals—but no caracal could have brought down such a large animal. A kudu stood taller than Nhamo and weighed ten times as much.
Only a lion or a leopard could have done it.
Nhamo was positive her island contained no lions. Their roars were too obvious. That left only leopards. A leopard, she thought. How could I have overlooked it? But she knew: When she had discovered the caracal’s footprints, she had seized on that to explain Rumpy’s injury. She had assumed it lived in the cave at the other end of the island. But why would an obviously starving baboon troop avoid a hill covered with wild grapes? Not because of a creature smaller than themselves.
How could I have been so stupid?
Nhamo’s spirit threatened to abandon her. She felt like an antelope circled by hyenas. Sometimes an animal simply gave up and let itself be devoured. I am Nhamo Jongwe, a woman, not a little girl, she told herself. My totem is the lion. Lions are stronger than leopards. It wasn’t much consolation, but it was enough to keep her spirit from entirely fleeing her. Keep thinking, she ordered her body.
Leopards carried their prey i
nto trees, but the kudu was too large to lift. The big cat had eaten as much as it could manage and had withdrawn to rest. It wouldn’t go far. For the moment, though, it was sated and perhaps even asleep.
Nhamo had gone beyond terror to a state that was almost a dream. She couldn’t possibly run fast enough. She hadn’t a hope of fighting off a leopard with a child’s training spear. There was nothing she could do to protect herself, and so she did the only sensible thing left and began to cut off a big, meaty hind leg from the kudu.
It was too heavy for her to lift. She dragged it back to her trees and set about butchering it. She cut off long, thin strips of meat and laid them on her smoking-platform. Methodically, still in a dream, Nhamo built up a fire beneath. The trick was to bathe the meat in smoke without actually roasting it. Smoking preserved meat far longer than cooking did. She roasted some of the kudu, though, for immediate use. The rich food filled her with elation, but she was too shaken by the presence of the leopard to make up a victory poem.
In late afternoon, shouts in the forest told Nhamo the baboon troop was on its way to the cliff. Smoke-curing the meat would take at least two days, and she didn’t dare leave it exposed. She would have to do the operation in stages. She hauled the meat into the trees and laid it out. The wind was so hot and dry, it would hasten the process of curing on its own.
The baboons drifted past below, and sniffed as closely as they dared to the fire. Rumpy bared his fangs at the smoking-platform and then looked up at Nhamo, who was watching from her shelter. She had the unpleasant suspicion that he knew exactly where the meat had gone.
* * *
*A mulberry tree. Mulberries were introduced by the Portuguese.
*go-away bird: Looks like a cockatoo. It has a loud alarm cry that has spoiled many a hunter’s chances.
29
Once upon a time a farmer lived in the middle of a forest full of baboons,” began Nhamo. It was late at night. Her nerves wouldn’t let her sleep, so she decided to tell Mother a story. Nhamo hugged the grassfilled grain bag, and she had Mother’s jar nestled next to her face. She knew the leopard wouldn’t be a problem until he finished eating the kudu, but he was still out there.
“The farmer could never relax,” she went on. “Day after day the baboons looked hungrily at his mealies. But every time they tried to get them, the farmer would pelt them with rocks from his sling.
“Finally, the chief baboon said, ‘My brothers, we are never going to get those mealies. That man is much too watchful. He can make mistakes, though. He never guards the goat pen because he doesn’t know we can eat meat.’
“‘Hoo! Hoo!’ cried all the other animals. ‘Let’s go raid the goat pen!’
“They killed a goat and roasted its meat. ‘Do you know what would be really funny?’ suggested the chief baboon. ‘Let’s sew our droppings into the skin and prop it up outside the farmer’s hut.’
“‘Hoo! Wow! What a great idea!’ cried the other animals. They filled the skin with baboon droppings, sewed it up, and propped it against the farmer’s door. Then they hid in the bushes to watch.
“Soon the farmer came out. ‘Good morning, my fine nanny goat. What are you doing out of your pen?’
“The goat didn’t answer.
“‘Well, don’t stand there blocking the door. Get out of the way,’ said the farmer, but the goat didn’t answer. The man shouted at the animal and then, when it still didn’t answer, he lost his temper and kicked it.
“Maiwee! The stitches flew apart. The goatskin exploded and sent baboon droppings all over the hut. The farmer was furious. ‘Wah! Wah!’ cried the baboons, falling all over themselves with laughter.
“‘I’ll get them back for that,’ the man said as he swept and washed out his hut. He dug a deep pit in front of his garden and covered it with branches. Then he lay down on the trail to the forest and pretended to be dead.
“The baboons discovered him. They pushed and prodded him. He didn’t move. They sang:
‘The farmer is dead, hii!
What has killed him, hii!
He died of grief for his goat, hii!
With what can we repay him, hii!’
“‘We’ll have to bury him,’ said the chief baboon, so they carried the farmer into the forest and dug a grave. It was hard work, and soon the animals got bored.
“‘Who cares if the hyenas scatter his bones,’ said the chief baboon, wiping his face. ‘The good thing is, he’s no longer around to throw rocks at us. Let’s go raid the mealies.’
“The baboons left the farmer and hurried back down the trail. They raced to the garden, fell into the pit, and were all killed. The farmer lived happily ever after and never had to worry about his plants again.”
Nhamo hugged the grain bag and listened to sounds in the night. She heard the usual mutter of the baboons. They couldn’t be too worried or they wouldn’t talk.
It’s going to be more difficult to finish the boat now, Mother said.
“I shouldn’t have put it off,” moaned Nhamo.
There’s always something dangerous in the forest. You’ll just have to be more careful.
“I can’t work with that creature around!”
You don’t have a choice, Mother pointed out.
The waves are as big as elephants during the rainy season, said Crocodile Guts from his soft bed in the njuzu village.
Nhamo got up and sat on the edge of her platform. She watched the starlit cliff with its murmuring baboons until dawn.
As she had hoped, the meat dried steadily during the night. It hadn’t spoiled. As soon as the baboons were gone, Nhamo built up the curing-fire. Clouds of smoke billowed up through gaps in the platform, adding flavor as well as preserving the meat. Now and then she turned the strips to expose both sides.
“I can’t possibly work on the boat until this is finished,” she explained to Mother. Then, to keep from feeling guilty, Nhamo devised a method to protect her stores. She took two of the now-useless fish traps, plugged the small ends, and hung them by long ropes from the highest branch of the lucky-bean trees. The branch extended out over the grassland. She could pull the fish traps back by means of a string.
“I can store the meat inside, Mai. The birds can’t reach it, and the baboons can’t jump that high.” To be on the safe side, Nhamo built a low fire on the ground below. If Rumpy tried anything, he was going to get a hot foot.
In the middle of the day, Nhamo made a quick trip for water. The stream was dry now, and she had to depend on the lake. She put the panga in the sling with the calabashes and kept the spear handy. She half intended to raid the kudu carcass again, but when she got to the shore, the antelope was gone.
All of it.
The leopard must have dragged it into a tree, she thought. The rock looked perfectly clean, though, without a trace of blood. Or perhaps there was blood. Nhamo was too unnerved to check closely.
In the afternoon she packed the fish traps with dried meat and suspended them from the overhanging branch. Well satisfied, she went to the stream to gather a few blackjack leaves for relish. The stream was dry, but a cool dampness still clung to the soil.
Oo-AA-hoo! The sound brought her instantly alert. The baboons were back early—and they had come almost silently. Suddenly, they were all around her in a milling crowd. It wasn’t the chaotic, screeching mob she was used to. The animals slipped through the grassland like the vervet monkeys near the leopard cave. Even Tag was impressed with the seriousness of it. He rode on Donkeyberry’s back without a single murmur.
Nhamo shivered. The males were unusually irritable. They snapped at one another and threatened the females. Now that the troop was close to the sleeping cliff, the animals spread out and applied themselves to digging in the soil. That in itself was unusual. At the end of the day the baboons preferred social activities: grooming, entertaining infants, lounging in friendly groups. They were clearly ravenous. Something had kept them from feeding.
Rumpy sniffed around the smoking-platform, bar
king as a coal singed his nose. He spotted Nhamo and trotted up, fur bristling, to demand the meager bunch of blackjack leaves. “Go away!” shouted Nhamo. Rumpy slapped the ground. She snatched up a stone and hurled it accurately at his head.
Rumpy danced back and forth with fury. He didn’t cower as he usually did when she hit him. She suddenly realized he was dangerous. She grabbed the spear, which was lying against the thorn barrier, and quickly unhooked the ladder. As it flopped down, she thrust the spear at the angry creature to drive him back. Rumpy sprang forward instead.
He sent Nhamo crashing to the ground as he rushed to grab the ladder. His foot smashed her face into the dirt. By the time she recovered, he was already on the platform, raging through her possessions. His big teeth crunched into calabashes to get at the food inside. But what he really wanted—and could obviously smell—was the meat.
He hopped from branch to branch. He caved in the delicate smaller platforms. He found the fish traps hanging from the rope, but he couldn’t reach them. The branch was too slender, and he didn’t have the sense to pull them in with the string. Rumpy bounced up and down in the tree in a perfect fit of rage.
Meanwhile, Nhamo had grabbed a burning branch from the fire. She was terrified, but her survival depended on protecting her stores. She swung up the ladder and shoved the flames into Rumpy’s face. He flinched back. She clambered around him, trying to drive him out of the tree.
Rumpy was beginning to lose his nerve. Nhamo approached him like a small and utterly reckless honey badger. She screamed insults. She cursed his ancestors. She felt like she wouldn’t mind sinking her teeth into his throat.
Wah! shouted Rumpy. He dodged past her. His twisted foot stumbled against Mother’s jar, and he fell with a shriek over the edge of the platform. Mother’s jar rolled after him before Nhamo could reach it. It smashed open, and the picture, caught in the afternoon breeze from the lake, fluttered off and landed in the cook-fire.