The Mzungu Boy (10 page)

The going was easier on the grassland. The dogs ranged out ahead of us, making us feel safer than we had felt on any hunt before. They got excited when they ran across ten different animal scents and could not decide which one to follow. Nigel managed to get them back on course and we made good time over the plateau. We crossed the Liki valley to the Loldaiga plain.

It was late afternoon by then. Rain clouds were gathering over the mountains to the east. But we did not have to worry about those. We would be safely back home before the first drops fell.

Or so I thought.

We did not have time to waste worrying about the weather. We got straight down to business — finding Old Moses. Now that we knew where to look, it did not take us long.

He was grazing peacefully in the shade of a spreading acacia tree, staying out of the hot afternoon sun. He saw us coming from way off and stopped grazing to watch us. He was old and short-sighted and did not make us out until we were about two hundred yards from him. We were busy trying to point him out to the dogs and not doing too well. The plain was crowded with game. Zebras, giraffes, gazelles and wildebeests browsed quietly and ignored us completely.

When we came to about a hundred yards from him, Old Moses snorted, raised his tail in alarm and did a wild dust-raising dance where he stood. He made a complete circle around the tree and pawed the ground in warning. We stopped to watch. He feigned a charge at us, covering about thirty yards in a short fast trot, before stopping to paw the ground again. He shook his giant head at us and rattled his saber teeth, daring us to come closer.

This was a mistake, because Salt and Pepper finally noticed him. They stopped dead in their tracks. Their ears pricked dangerously, and they watched the antics of this strange creature that was neither pig nor dog and that had teeth growing outside its mouth. They had never gone hunting before. They were guard dogs. They had no idea what a warthog was.

They took a few steps forward, stopped and watched Old Moses dance with excitement. Then they leaped forward and charged across the grassland. Old Moses charged too, coming at them at top speed and shaking the ground with his weight. We held our breath and stood back to watch.

About ten yards from the animal, the dogs started to slow down. The full ugliness of the creature finally dawned on them. Close up, the warthog was even more fearsome.

The dogs were beginning to have second thoughts about attacking Old Moses when, unable to stop his own charge, he crashed into them full force and sent them flying.

Then he charged toward us at full speed.

I cried out in terror and scrambled out of his way. Nigel had started running the moment the dogs went flying into the air. He was racing like mad the way we had come and screaming his head off.

Old Moses went for him. I ran after Old Moses, trying to think what I should do if I caught up with him. Salt and Pepper recovered from their shock and raced after us.

They overtook me, going like the wind and baying for the creature's blood.

I slowed down to watch. Old Moses was so intent on demolishing Nigel that he had no idea we were after him. He was snorting at his heels, ready to fling him into the air with one toss of his giant tusks, when the dogs caught up with him. They hit him from behind with the combined force of their full charge.

I watched in amazement as the giant creature stumbled and went cartwheeling in the air to land with a thunderous crash a foot from Nigel's legs. The dogs, just as stunned, landed on top of him.

He rolled back onto his legs and took off in the opposite direction. He came full tilt at me, shaking his head from side to side and trying to dislodge the clumps of earth and grass stuck to his tusks. I cried out and jumped out of his way. The dogs chased after him, charging at an uncontrollable speed. I chased after the dogs.

We pursued Old Moses for about three hundred yards before he finally slowed down and stopped. He turned round to face us and waved his tusks at us. Salt and Pepper stopped too. They were aware by now that this was no ordinary creature they were up against.

I walked up to them and stopped. Then, without warning, Old Moses moved. We had all expected him to charge forward. He moved backwards instead, reversing into his burrow at such a speed that the ground shook when he crashed into the bottom of the hole.

Nigel ran up breathless and shaking with terror. He was covered in dust from head to boot.

“Where did he go?” he asked.

“Home,” I said.

Salt and Pepper were just as confounded by the warthog's disappearing trick. Then they discovered the hole in the ground and, in their excitement, tried to get into it together. They got stuck in the entrance. We pulled them out and Salt started digging straight away, his paws scattering earth in all directions. We stood back to watch him dig.

“Will he come out again?” Nigel asked.

I didn't think so. Not today, anyway.

“Wow!” Nigel was ecstatic. “Did you see that?”

“Are you still scared?”

“Not any more.”

“But you are shaking.”

“I'm all right,” he said. “I'm quite all right.”

Then his legs could no longer support him, and he had to sit down. His face was streaked with sweat and dust. He put on a brave face but I could see that he was very frightened.

“Did you bring the knife?” he wanted to know.

I had forgotten about the knife. The business with the soldiers had upset too many plans.

“How shall we skin him?” he asked.

I did not wish to disappoint him, but I thought I had better set him straight.

“We are not going to catch Old Moses.”

“We have him in the hole,” he argued. “Where can he go?”

“We have to get him out of there first, see? It's not so easy.”

“The dogs will dig him out.”

I liked Nigel. He was fun to be with and he had lots of good ideas. But his ignorance was wearisome sometimes.

I explained to him how deep a warthog's hole was. It would take Salt and Pepper a month or two to dig down to Old Moses.

Nigel did not believe me, but he did not argue.

“We'll smoke the monster out,” he said, taking out his matches.

But the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. The sun was ready to set over the hills, but the dogs went on digging, taking it in turns to widen the entrance to the hole. Every now and then Old Moses gave a warning grunt from deep inside the hole, a deep rumbling sound as of distant thunder.

“I think we should go home now,” I said to Nigel. “We can come back early tomorrow.”

“Just a few more minutes,” he said. “We are nearly there now.”

We were not, but I didn't argue with him. I sat down. We talked about this and that and waited for the dogs to give up. We ate some biscuits, scooping them out of Nigel's pockets in handfuls. The running and the falling about had broken them to powder.

We sat there a long time while the dogs dug.

Unnoticed by us, thunder rolled from the mountain and down the river valleys.

Nine

WHEN THE ENTRANCE
to the warthog's hole was wide enough, Salt pushed his head and shoulders through and barked in the hole.

There was a sudden quiet from within. We got down on our knees and put our ears to the ground to listen. We heard the sound we had heard once before, the rumbling of approaching thunder. The sound grew louder as it came nearer, and the earth shook.

We jumped to our feet and prepared to run. Then Salt gave a yelp. He shot backwards out of the hole and went spinning in the air. He crashed into Pepper and both dogs went down in a cloud of dust.

Old Moses stuck his head out of the burrow and shook his tusks at us. Then he retreated and crashed to the bottom of the hole with a thud.

The dogs picked themselves up from the dust. They were shivering from the shock. Salt limped over to Nigel, but Pepper dove angrily into the hole, pushing his way in until only his tail was left wagging in the air.

Again the deep, expectant silence. Pepper was older and wiser than Salt. He did not bark in the hole. He listened, as we did, to the start of the rumbling that would warn us of the approaching thunder.

We heard it coming, the ground shaking from its force, and we jumped back as before.

Pepper wriggled out of the hole and sprang away from the mouth of the den at the very last second.

With a loud whooshing sound, Old Moses shot out of the hole and into the air. Pepper had timed the moment just right. He leapt onto the old warthog's back and sank his teeth into the massive mane. They landed ten yards away from us. Pepper was still on top, trying desperately to sink his killer fangs into the warthog's thick neck.

Old Moses charged on through the grassland. We waited for him to turn around and come charging back to his den.

It took us a moment to realize that he had no intention of returning to his hole. Then we ran.

Salt had by now fully recovered from shock and he dashed forward to help his brother.

Then Old Moses stopped so suddenly that Pepper flew off his back and went crashing into the dust. Old Moses veered to the right and made for the first line of bush, about half a mile away along the river valley. When the dust cleared, we saw Pepper pick himself up and go furiously after Old Moses, with Salt right behind him.

We ran after them. I stepped into a mole hole and fell down. Nigel was fifty paces behind me and doing his best to keep up. I stopped to wait for him. He was panting heavily, and his arms and his legs were almost black with sweat and dust.

“Shall we go home now?” I asked while he caught his breath.

“No.” His face was red with excitement. “We almost have him now.”

“But he is gone. We'll never see him again.”

“We shall,” he said. “The dogs will catch him now.”

“It will be dark soon,” I pleaded. “We must go home.”

He looked around and for the first time seemed to realize where he was. The sun was sinking over the hills and we were still miles away from home. Way up in the east, thunderclouds poured from the mountains into the valleys. Lightning flashed and thunder clashed. There was the smell of dust in the air, a sign that the rain had started its gradual descent into the plains.

I worried about flash floods. I worried about the river flooding.

“We must go home now,” I said to Nigel.

“But the dogs,” he said. “We must get the dogs.”

“It will soon be dark,” I told him.

“We must get the dogs,” he insisted. “We can't go home without them.”

We ran on.

The old warthog had disappeared in the forest. Salt and Pepper dove in after him. We came up to the first line of trees.

I stepped on a thorn and sat down to take it out. It was a long and hard acacia thorn and it had gone right through my foot. I called to Nigel to stop and help me take it out, but he had already disappeared into the forest after the dogs.

I gritted my teeth and yanked out the thorn. Then I rubbed leaves on the wound to stop the bleeding. My foot was extremely painful. I could not run any more.

I called out for Nigel. There was no reply. I limped into the forest after him. It was gloomy and silent except for the crickets now rising to sing their eerie night songs.

The sudden silence was frightening. With growing panic, I finally woke up to something that had been nagging me since the whole affair with Old Moses had started. It was the silent and savage way the Alsatian dogs had gone after their prey. They were trained attack dogs, not hunting dogs. Unlike the jimis, they had not raved and ranted during the attack on the warthog. They had not uttered a single bark during the whole chase, and they were dead silent now. The jimis would have made enough noise to scare the whole forest. The jimis would have been easy to follow. But the Alsatians were impossible to follow in the thick forest.

I limped on, calling for Nigel with mounting alarm. The forest was dead still. Darkness was closing in fast.

I walked on. Lighting flashed, throwing grotesque shadows into the trees around me. A sudden thunderclap echoed eerily through the undergrowth.

I was petrified with fear.

I was about to turn round and run home when I heard a muffled sound in the undergrowth and stopped to listen.

The forest was quite still. A sharp cry cut into the night, a frightened sound that sounded like a sheep that was about to have its throat cut.

Then silence.

“Nigel?” I called out. “Is that you, Nigel?”

There was no reply. I heard stealthy movements up ahead. Then silence. Fear tore at my stomach — a cold, screaming fear that filled my mouth and made it impossible to breathe. I moved on slowly. It was nearly dark now.

Lightning lit up the night, blinding and illuminating at the same time. In its terrible light, I saw a large black thing lying on the ground.

I stopped. My fear told me to run home and get help. But my mind told me no villager would dare go in the forest after dark. The soldiers had warned us against it. The soldiers had made it very clear that anyone found in the forest after dark would be shot dead.

I approached the thing lying there on the ground. Then I recognized it.

It was the body of fearless old Pepper, and he was dead. His head was split wide open, and there was blood all around him.

I cried out with fear. I ran in panicked circles and called Nigel's name until the forest rang with it and I was hoarse from yelling. I got no reply.

I ran back the way we had come and tried to find my way home. I had to get some help. If Old Moses could do so much harm to such a big dog, I needed all the help I could find. Forgetting the wound in my foot, I ran like the wind. The river was rising when I crossed back into the village. I got home long after dark, scratched and battered by the trees I had run into in the dark, and frightened like I had never been before.

Father was still at work and Hari was not at home. Mother sat alone by the fireplace worrying about us all.