Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“Maybe he walked on that road to the gods.”

“This look like a time for mockery to you?”

“No.”

“What he sing to you? In the day now gone, what he sing?”

“Truth? Love. That was all of his singing. Love looking. Love losing. Love like how poets from where Mossi come from talk about love. Love he did lose. That is all he was singing, love he did lose.”

Sogolon looked up, past the house up into the sky.

“He spirit still walking on wind.”

“Of course.”

“I don’t care if you agree or no, you hear m—”

“We agree, woman.”

“No good for the others to know. Not even the buffalo; let him eat grass otherwhere.”

“You want to drag the old man out into deep bush? You want him to be food for hyena and crow?”

“And then the worm and the beetle. It don’t matter now. He with the ancestors. Trust the gods.”

The Ogo came out to join us, his eyes still red. Poor Ogo, it was not that he was gentle. But something about someone else bringing his own self such violence shook him.

“We take him out to the bush, Sadogo.”

This was still savannah. Not many trees, but yellow grass reaching my nose. Sadogo had picked him up and was cradling him like a baby, despite his bloody head. The two of us went out to taller grass.

“Death remains king over us, does he not? He still wants to choose when to take us. Sometimes even before our ancestors have made a place. Maybe he was a man in defiance of the final King, Ogo. Maybe he just said, Fuck the gods, I choose when to be with my own ancestors.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“I wish I had better words, words like he used to sing. But he must have thought that whatever was his purpose, he fulfilled it. After that there was nothing to—”

“You believe in purpose?” Sadogo asked.

“I believe people when they say they believe in it.”

“Ogo has no use for gods of sky or place of the dead. When he is dead he is meat for crows.”

“I like how the Ogo think. And if—”

It flew past my face so fast I thought it was a trick. Then another flew right past my head. The third came straight at my face and as if coming for my eyes, but I blocked it and its claws scratched my hand. One came for the Ogo’s shoulder and he swatted it so quick and hard that it exploded in a cloud of blood. Birds. Two went for his face and he dropped the griot. He swatted away one and grabbed the other, crushing it whole. One scraped the back of my neck. I grabbed it from behind and tried to snap its neck but it was stiff, it flapped and clawed and snapped at my finger. I let go and it flew around and came right back at me. Sadogo jumped in my way and swatted it. On the ground I saw what they were, hornbills, white head with a black streak of feather on top, a long gray tail, and a huge red beak that curved down, bigger than his head, for the red meant male. Another landed on the griot and flapped his wings. The Ogo moved in to grab him when I looked up.

“Sadogo, look.”

Right above us, swirling, screeching, a black cloud of hornbills. Three dived after us, then four, then more and more.

“Run!”

The Ogo stood and fought, punching and swatting and crushing in his knuckles and tearing wings, but they kept coming. Two heading for my head crashed into each other and fought on my scalp. I ran, my hand blocking my face, them scratching my fingers. The Ogo, tired of fighting, ran as well. Near the door of the house, they stopped following. Sogolon came back out and we turned around to see the swarm of birds—hundreds, if not more—clasp the griot with their claws, lifting him up slow and low above the ground, and flying him away. We said nothing.

We gathered our things, with Sogolon telling the others that the man is gone into deep wilderness to speak to spirits, which was not exactly a lie, and said we should take as much as we could carry. I said, Why would we need to, if we are less than a day to Dolingo citadel? She frowned and told the girl to grab more food. The girl hissed and said, If you want more food, go get it yourself. I wondered if Mossi was thinking as I did, and that this was not something I wanted to ask about right now. He grabbed a cloth and wrapped it around my neck for the scratch. Sogolon took one horse, the girl climbed up Sadogo’s back and sat on his right shoulder. Mossi climbed on the buffalo and they both turned and looked at me when I started walking.

“Don’t be foolish, Tracker, you will slow us down,” Mossi said.

He held out his hand and pulled me up.