Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“Nsaka Ne Vampi asked the King sister. Tracker, I think she was hoping for your pity.”

“She didn’t ask for it.”

“Did you think she would?”

“She wants the fruit to stay on the branch and be in her mouth at the same time.”

“Forgiveness, Tracker.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about Nsaka Ne Vampi, or this queen, and no matter how many moons pass, I still don’t care for this boy.”

“Fuck the gods, Tracker, of what do you care?”

“When do we leave for Gangatom?”

“We will.”

“Our children are as bound to you as to me. How can you let them sit there?”

“Our children? Oh, so now you think you can judge me. Before the King sister told you about white scientists, when last you saw them? Said a word? Even thought of them?”

“I think of them more than you know.”

“You said nothing like this last time we spoke. Anyway, what good is your thinking? Your thinking brings no child close.”

“So what now?”

We turned down the same road as before, walked the streets. Two men looking like guards passed by on horseback. We jumped into a doorway. The old woman in the doorway looked at me and frowned, as if I was exactly who she was expecting. The Leopard looked his least Leopard, even the whiskers were gone. He nodded for us to go.

“Tomorrow night, we get this boy once and for all. The day after, we go to the river lands and get our children. The day after that, who in all the fucking gods knows?” Leopard said.

“I have seen these white scientists, Leopard. I have seen how they work. They do not care about the pain of others. It’s not even a wickedness; they are just blind to it. They just glut on the conceit of their wicked craft. Not what it means, only how new it will look. I have seen them in Dolingo.”

“The King sister still has men, she still has people who believe in her cause. Let her help us.”

I stopped. “We forget someone. The Aesi. His men must have followed us to Kongor. The doors, he knows of them even if he doesn’t use them.”

“Of course, the door. I have no memory.”

“Doors. Ten and nine doors and the bloodsuckers have been using them for years. That is why the boy’s smell can be in front of me one blink, half a year away the next.”

“Did he follow you through this door, the Aesi?”

“I just said no.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then the son of a hyena bitch either hunts you in Mitu or Dolingo, or maybe the poor fool and his troops got what he was looking for by whatever the gods shat out in the Mweru. Nobody from the King is in Kongor, Tracker—no royal caravan, no battalion. The town crier announced the King’s leaving the day we came.”

“You forgave the boy?” I asked.

“Weather changed quick on this conversation.”

“You wish I go back to white scientists cutting up and sewing our children?”

“No.”

“So is Fumeli not with us?”

“Would he dare go someplace else?” He laughed.

“We should have chosen a different road,” I said.

“You’re as suspicious as Bunshi.”

“I am nothing like Bunshi.”

“Let us not talk of her. I want to know what happened in Dolingo. And of this prefect who has your eyes bewitched.”

“You want to know if I have relations with this prefect.”

“‘Relations’? Mark you and your words. The man has knocked all coarseness out of you. A most magnificent fuck—or is he more?”

“This is talk you enjoy, Leopard, not me.”

“Fuck the gods, Tracker. ‘This is talk you enjoy.’

You enjoyed it much when it was I talking about men’s journeys to and from my ass. I have told you everything and you have told me nothing. This prefect, I better watch him. He’s taken up some space in you. You didn’t even see it until I said so.”

“Stop talking about this, or I shall leave.”

“Now all we need is a woman for the Ogo who will not burst from just looking at his—”

“Leopard, watch me as I walk away.”

“Did this not make you think less of the children? Talk true.”

“Leaving I am.”

“Have no guilt, Tracker.”

“Now you accuse me.”

“No, I confess. I feel it too. Remember, they were my children before they ever smelled you coming. I was saving them from the bush from before you even knew you were Ku. I want to show you one more thing.”

“Fuck all the living and dead gods, what?”

“The boy.”