Black Leopard, Red Wolf

I thought we were searching for a clearing, but we went deeper in the bush. Branches swung around and hit me in the face, vines wrapped around my legs to pull me down, trees bent over to look at me and each line in their barks was a frown. And Kava started talking to leaves. And cursing. The moonlight boy had gone mad. But he was not talking to leaves but to people hiding underneath them. A man and a woman, skin like Kava’s ash, hair like silver earth, but no taller than your elbow to your middle finger. Yumboes, of course. Good fairies of the leaves, but I did not know then. They were walking on branches until Kava grabbed a branch and they climbed his arms up to his shoulders. Both of them had hair on their backs, and eyes that glowed. The male sat on Kava’s right shoulder, the female on the left. The man reached into a sack and pulled out a pipe. I stayed behind until my jaw came back up to my mouth, watching tall Kava, two halflings, one leaving a thick trail of pipe smoke.

“A boy?”

“Yes,” said the man.

“Is he hungry?”

“We feed him berries, and hog milk. A little blood,” said the woman. They both sounded like children.

For a long time walking all I saw was Kava’s back. I smelled the baby’s dried vomit before he got to him, sitting up on a dead anthill, flower in his mouth, his lips and cheek red. Kava kneeled before the baby, and the little man and woman jumped off his shoulder. Kava took up the baby in his arms and asked for water. Water, he said again, and looked at me. I remembered that I was carrying his waterskins. He poured some in his palm and fed the child. The little man and woman both carried over a gourd with a little hog’s milk left. I was over Kava’s shoulder when the baby smiled, two top teeth like a mouse’s, gums everywhere else.

“Mingi,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

He started walking, with the baby, not answering me. Then he stopped.

“The gods had no watchful eye on him,” the little man said. “We could not …” He did not finish.

I didn’t see until we passed the sweet stink of it. Two little feet peeking out of the bush, the bottoms of the feet blue. Flies raising nasty music. The last meal threatened to come up through my mouth. The sweet stink followed us even when we had gone very far. A bad smell, like a good one, can follow you into tomorrow. Then it rained a little and the trees sent the smell of fruit down to us. Kava hid the baby’s face with his hand. He spoke before I asked.

“Do you not see his mouth?”

“His mouth is a baby’s mouth, like every other baby’s mouth.”

“Too old to be such a fool,” Kava said.

“You don’t know my age and neither—”

“Quiet. The boy is mingi, also the dead girl. In his mouth, you saw two teeth. But they were on the top, not bottom; that is why he is mingi. A child whose top teeth come before bottom teeth is a curse and must be destroyed. Or else that curse spreads to the mother, the father, the family and brings drought, famine, and plague to the village. Our elders declared it so.”

“The other one. Were his teeth also—”

“There are many mingi.”

“This is the talk of old women. Not the talk of cities.”

“What is a city?”

“What are the other mingi?”

“We walk now. We walk more.”

“Where?”

The Leopard jumped out of the bush and the little people ran behind Kava. He growled, looked behind him, and roared. I thought he wanted Kava to hand him the baby.

The Leopard crouched down on the ground, then rolled on his back, and stretched and shook like he had a sickness. He growled again like a dog hit with a stone. His front legs grew long but the back legs grew longer. His back widened and sucked up his tail. The fur vanished but he was still hairy. He rolled until we saw a man’s face, but eyes still yellow and clear like sand struck by lightning. Hair on his head black and wild, going down his temple and his cheek. Kava looked at him as if in the world one always sees these things.

“This is what happens when we move too late,” the black Leopard said.

“The baby would still be dead, even if we had run,” Kava said.

“I mean late by days; we are two days late. This one’s death is on our hands.”

“All the more to save this one. Let us move. The green snakes have already caught his scent. The hyenas caught the scent of the other.”

“Snakes. Hyenas.” The black Leopard laughed. “I will bury that child. I am not following you until I do.”

“Bury her with what?” Kava asked.

“I will find something.”

“Then we wait,” Kava said.

“Do not wait sake of me.”

“I do not wait because of you.”

“Five days, Asani.”

“I come when I come, cat.”

“I waited five days.”

“You should have waited longer.”

The black Leopard growled so loud I thought he would change back.

“Go bury the girl,” Kava said.

The black Leopard looked at me. I think that was the first time he noticed I was here. He sniffed, turned his head away, and went back into the bush.

Kava answered a question before I asked it.

“He is just like any other in the bush. The gods made him, but they forget who the gods made first.”

But that was not one of the questions I wanted to ask.