Assignment Black Gold (15 page)

“
Maka
,” Kitty
said, and her tongue clicked perfectly.

“
Maka
, this man is
a friend. He needs help. We will also help you and the people of the village,
when we can.”

The old woman blinked her eyes. Then she spoke in reply,
using perfect English, and Durell swore to himself.

The old woman said, “You are Mrs. Cotton, the young woman
who teaches the children of Lubinda?”

“Yes, I am she.”

Durell drew a deep breath. He said, “Ask her what happened
here.”

Kitty did not turn her head to look at him. “It’s obvious
what happened, Sam. The Apgaks who landed on the beach with their prisoners
came up this way. They wanted recruits and took the young men and women with
them. They need men for their revolutionary army, and women to take care of the
men.” She spoke to the woman again, made the clicking sound. “Is it not so,
Maka
?”

“Yes. Until now, our village was privileged. It has happened
to other villages, but Madragata promised that we would not be harmed. He has
broken his promise to us and destroyed our lives.”

“When did this happen?”

“Before the moon set. We were all asleep when they came.”

“Did you see any of their prisoners?”

“Yes. White men, in slave chains.”

“Were they injured?”

“Two carried blood on their heads. The others were beaten
and tormented. They did not look up.”

Durell said, “
Maka
,
where did they go?”

The old woman raised dark eyes to consider him. In her
wrinkled, aged face there was pride and a hint of past tribal beauty. “Does one
follow the jackals to find their lairs? They came. They burned. They
killed. They went.”

“Are you hungry?” Kitty asked.

“No.”

“Do you want some water?”

“Nay

Durell said, “
Maka
,
I have been sent to you by your son, Komo Lepaka.”

The old woman’s eyes flickered. She said nothing.

“Did you see Madragata with the raiders?”

“Is your name Durell?” the old woman countered.

“Yes. Samuel Durell.” ‘

“He asked for you. He wishes to kill you.”

“Did he say why?”

“Madragata is also my son. There are sons who do not speak
the truth to their mothers. One does. One does not. My true son is a false one.
Madragata killed my people he-re. Komo is more my true son than the other.”

“Komo said you would help me it I came to you with a message
from him.”

The old woman’s eyes went blank. “Now I truly grow afraid.”

“Komo said you would help me to find the Saka.”

The woman blinked. “The Saka, my beloved, is dead in his
tomb on the banks of the Lubinda River.”

“Komo says the Saka is not dead.”

“Has Komo seen his ghost?”

“Komo says the Saka is alive.”

“
Aiyee
,” the old woman whispered.
“He was my
moren
,
my master. Many a time I baked his bread in the ant heaps of the Kahara.” She
looked down into the folded palms of her long, wrinkled hands. “The Saka taught
me English. In those days, a woman was not supposed to be taught anything but
how to take care of her man. I was his first wife, so he taught me. He
was proud that I learned so easily. He also taught me Portuguese. Now I wish he
had taught me nothing, so that I would not understand your words.”

Kitty said gently, “Durell speaks the truth,
Maka
.”

The old woman began to tremble.

“I cannot help you. I do not know where ghosts and spirits
go.”

“The
saka
is alive and on this
earth,” Kitty said. “We must find him.”

“He would be old, old. Very old.”

More villagers had straggled back from the desolate plain
that stretched darkly to the south of the dry riverbed, beyond the ruined
German castle. Some of the women went to the single well and drew water. A few
of the men came and looked at the
maka
and at Durell and the girl, and then wont away to consider their ruined houses,
their slaughtered livestock. The moon was down over the western horizon, and
the night air felt cooler, dry and dusty, with no life in it. There was tension
in the atmosphere, however, as if a storm were brewing somewhere inland,
although there was no breath of wind, no hint of movement. In the firelight,
the old woman’s face looked as if it had been carved from mahogany, like the
artifacts Brady Cotton once collected. Durell looked at his watch. It was past
three o’clock in the morning.

“Old Mother, I have a token from your adopted son, Komo.” He
reached into his pocket for the Maria Teresa dollar with the four holes in it,
which Lepaka had given him. The woman now watched him with bright, unblinking
eyes. A shadow of pain flickered in their dark depths when she saw the
silver coin in Durell’s palm. She leaned forward a little and touched it with
an uncertain, trembling forefinger, but she made no effort to take the
coin from his hand. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. It is from Komo.”

“He said to me that you would help me find the Saka,
if he is still alive. If the Saka is alive, Old Mother, where would he be?”

The old woman sighed. “I weep for him.”

“Why?”

“It was his wish to die in the minds of men.”

“Why?” Durell repeated.

“He did not wish to live in a shadowed land of sorrow, in a
land of disillusionment.”

“Why would he be so sad?”

“He saw his life’s work unfinished.”

“But he was powerful, and in command—”

“The power was taken from him by his sons.”

“Komo?”

“And Madragata,” the old woman said. “Like your Hebrew story
of Cain and Abel. They fought each other, for different purposes. They saw
opposite visions here in the Kahara, They ignored the Saka and did not listen
to his words. So he chose to die.”

“He is not dead,” Durell said again. “If he were alive, where
would he be?”

“I do not know.”

“You know,” Durell insisted.

The old woman was uneasy and fearful now, where before she
had shown no fear. She sighed and looked down again at her hands. For a long
moment, she was silent. Then she said, “He did much thinking, the Saka. He was
a man of the mind, of principles and ideals, not action. It was the flaw
in him. He often talked of it, when we lay together at night, when I was young
and full of juice, and he loved me. He could think, but he could not act. It
was his weakness. His sons came to know this and acted for him, each in his own
different way, and his heart was broken. And so he died. He thought it best.”

“He died deliberately?”

“He removed himself from this world, yes.”

Kitty said quietly, “And just where did he go to die,
maka
?”

“He went to the mountain that is round.”

“Round Mountain?”

“To the mountain that is round.”

“Where is that?” Durell asked.

She paused again. He did not think she would reply. All
around them, the villagers moved like ghosts through the ruins of their homes.
One of the few surviving dogs began to bark, and was quickly hushed. None of
the people came near them.

Durell said, “Do any of these others know about the Saka?”

“No. It is my secret. Now it is yours.”

“Did you tell Madragata?”

“No. He has no respect for his
maka
.” The old woman chuckled. “He is son of my breast, he suckled
my milk, but it is a truth that he is less a son to me than Komo, the desert
orphan. whom I also let suck on my breast.”

“Where is the mountain that is round?"

“One must go a day’s walk into the sun when it rises.” A
glint of amusement at last enlivened the old woman’s eyes. A sound that might
have been laughter came from her wrinkled mouth. “It is beyond the lake that is
salt. Where once the wild little men used to live.”

“Thank, you,
maka
,"
Durell said.

“Thank you," Kitty said.

Chapter 14.

The sun was a hot iron on the napes of their necks. Its
glare was blinding as they walked east into the dawn. There was no sound except
the susurration of the wind that rustled the sand and stirred the dry, leafless
branches of the occasional shrub and thicket of brush they passed. During the
hours of darkness before the shimmering, violet dawn, they had slept for a
time, near a ridge of red rock, and Durell had wakened to the early dawn,
listening to the whistle of a night plover over the sandy plain. The desert
that seemed so lifeless actually held antelope and steenbok, lizards and tiny
striped mice, honey birds, snakes, and even an occasional pride of lions. Wild
bees began to hum in the air as the light grew stronger. He listened to ta
jackal cough and then howl. The sound was mournful. A vulture came spinning out
of the violet dawn sky.

“Kitty?”

“I’m awake.”

They had not made love again during the two-hour sleep they
had enjoyed, after walking toward the east, away from the village. It would be
hot today, and the wind would cut like sandpaper, searching out the land. They
had filled their canteens from the village well, near two flamboyant
trees, and the old woman had ordered a meal for them of bush pigeons. The old
German castle gloomed against the sky.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Did you believe her?” Kitty asked.

“The
maka
? Yes.”

“She never admitted that the Saka is alive, you know.”

“He’s alive,” Durell said.

“Do you think he will listen to you and come back to
Lubinda?”

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

When the sun came up, they saw that the Kahara sand was red,
and there were great ridges of blushing stone. Now and then they passed giant
baobab trees, the bark looking hot and also red, the sap like permanganate; the
trunks were wide, but they were hollow inside and they were stripped of leaves,
the awkward limbs reaching toward the blinding sky as if in prayer. There were
dunes covered with brush and clusters of spiked thorn trees amid yellow grass
that bent in the hot wind, suffering until the seasonal rains would come.

At midmorning, they paused to rest in the shade of a grove
of mopane trees, the bark all green and red and gold, twisted in spirals going
up along the trunks. Crickets shrilled in the yellow grass that thrived
although no water was visible. This was a land that had been pioneered by the first
Portuguese captains, hunting gold and finding slaves, for the slave trade
of the
Carib
and Brazil, and later the States. Durell
kept himself occupied with his thoughts, but not once did he lose his caution
and alertness as he watched the terrain, The first Portuguese captains
had been
Ruy
de
Siqueiera
,
Alfonso
d’Aveiro
, and Duarte
Pires
,
the forerunners of many other adventurers who met the Bantu people and the
great warrior races of the
Amampondo
, the
Namaqua
Ovambo
,
Mambukush
, and the
Bechuana
races
of
Tembu
and
Thaba’nchu
.
The word Bantu simply meant people; it was the plural of
muntu
, a single person. Long ago,
south of the Congo River, in the land now called the Zaire, the
Kongo
people of
Bundu
had been
conquered by the
Mbanza
, along with the
Ambundu
and the
Ambwela
people,
under the king whose title was
Ntinu
and Mani, Lord
of the Earth, Earth Priest. In the early sixteenth century, there had been a
king named
Ngola
, and the Portuguese traders in gold
and slaves took the king’s name for the name of the country and called it
Angola. Those were the days of Queen
Nzinga
of the
powerful
Ovambo
tribe that still lived in modern
Namibia; those had been the glory days of the Portuguese adventurers, Balthazar
de Castro and Paulo Dias de
Novais
—

“Hold it,” Durell said.

The girl stopped obediently. She had said little to him that
meant anything since their lovemaking on the beach. He did not know for certain
what was troubling her; perhaps it was true that she was prim and was suffering
pangs of guilt for what they had done.

“I don’t see anything,” she said.

“There. Over there.”

Light flashed and glittered from a wide stretch of
water ahead, reflecting the brazen sky, the ridge of red rock beyond.
There were pinnacles of stone to the right, a single karee tree, a glimpse of
tangled riverbeds amid gorges that sliced through the desert plain before them.
The land was polished smooth by the wind and the heat of the sun.

“I still don’t see—oh,” the girl said. “Yes.”

The tracks of the men who had raided the village that night
were clearly visible under the bright sky. The trail went north, around the
weedy shores of the bitter lake. There were outcroppings of stone close to the
shore, and the water looked like rippled glass under the glinting sun.

A man was propped against the reddish rock, a rifle in
his hand. The rifle was pointed at Durell.

“Do we run?” the girl whispered.

“Not a chance.”

He walked forward toward the man, holding his own powerful
Magnum loosely in his right hand, swinging at his hip. For a moment, he wasn’t
certain if the black man was alive or dead. Then he saw the eyes blink and a
pink tongue touch the black lips.

Durell held his hand high over his head and gave the man
with the rifle the Bushman greeting. “
Tshjamm
!
Good day!”

The man had grayish woolly hair and looked to be about forty
or fifty. He could not he certain. Pain had etched deep lines of
suffering around his mouth. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face caked with dust.
A clump of acacia made a wavering shade over his legs. There was blood on hi-m,
and Durell saw a broken thigh bone thrusting through the black skin. Although
it was hot, the man was not sweating; there was little liquid left in him.