Black Leopard, Red Wolf

He took the last chunk of flesh in his mouth and chewed. There was blood on the dish. He looked at it, I looked at it, then he looked at me.

“Oh be a fucking beast, Leopard. Your wanting man’s approval troubles me.”

He smiled his huge grin, put the plate to his face, and licked it clean.

“Not fresh kill,” I said.

“But it will do. Now finally. Why I came to see you.”

“Something about a fly?”

“That was me being clever.”

“Why did you ask if I was happy?”

“This road I am asking you to come on. Oh, Tracker, the things it will take from you. Best if you have nothing in the first place.”

“You just said it was better if I have something to lose.”

“I said I’ve been disappointed by men who have nothing. Some. But the Tracker I know has nothing and cultivates nothing. Has that changed?”

“And if it had?”

“I would ask different questions.”

“How do you know I …”

Leopard swung around, trying to see what took my words.

“Nothing,” I said. “Thought I noticed … thought it went and came back …. It …”

“What?”

“Nothing. A thought loose. Nothing. Come now, cat, I’m losing patience.”

The Leopard got off the chair and stretched his legs. He sat back down and faced me.

“He calls him little fly. I find it strange that he does so, especially in that voice of his that sounds like an old woman more than a man, but I think the fly is dear to him.”

“Once more. This time with sense.”

“I can only tell you what the man told me. He was very clear—Leave instructions to me, he said. Fuck the gods, you men who are not direct. Fucks for you too—I saw that look. Friend, this is what I know. There is a child that went missing. The magistrates said he most likely got swept off in a river, or mayhaps the crocodiles got him, or river folk, since you will eat anything if hungry.”

“Thousand fucks for your mother.”

“A thousand and one if we’re speaking of my mother,” he said, and laughed. “This is what I know. The magistrates think this child either drowned or was killed and eaten by a beast. But this man, Amadu Kasawura is the name he goes by, he is a man of wealth and taste. He is convinced that his child, his little fly, is alive, mayhaps, and moving west. There is compelling stuff there, Tracker, in his home, evidence so that you believe his story. Besides, he is a rich man, a very rich man given that none of us come cheap.”

“Us?”

“He has commissioned nine, Tracker. Five men, three women, and hopefully you.”

“So his purse must be the fattest thing about him. And the child—his own?”

“He says neither yes nor no. He is a slaver, selling black and red slaves to the ships that come from people who follow the eastern light.”

“Slavers have nothing but enemies. Maybe somebody killed the child.”

“Mayhaps, but he is set in his desire, Tracker. He knows that we might find bones. But then he would at least know, and knowing for certain is better than years of torment. But I skip too much and make the mission—”

“Mission, is it? We’re to be priests now?”

“I’m a cat, Tracker. How many fucking words do you think I know?”

This time I laughed.

“I told you what I know. A slaver is paying nine to either find this child alive, or proof of his death, and he does not care what we do to find him. He may be two villages away, he may be in the South Kingdom, he might be bones buried in the Mweru. You have a nose, Tracker. You could find him in days.”

“If the hunt is so swift, why does he need nine?”

“Clever Tracker, is it not clear to you? The child didn’t leave. He was taken.”

“By who?”

“Better if it comes from him. If I explain you might not come.”

I stared at him.

“I know that look,” he said.

“What look?”

“That look. You are more than interested. You’re glutting on the very idea of it.”

“You read too much in my face.”

“It’s not just your face. At the very least come because something will intrigue you and it won’t be the coin. Now speaking of desires …”

I looked at the man, who not long before the sun left convinced an innkeeper to give him raw meat soaking in its own blood for dinner. Then I smelled something, the same as before, on Leopard yet not on him. When we stepped outside the inn, the smell was stronger, but then it went weak. Strong again, stronger, then weaker. The smell got weaker every time the Leopard turned around.

“Who is he, the boy following us?” I asked.

I spoke loud enough for the boy to hear. He shifted from dark to dark, from the black shadow cast by post to the red light cast by a torch. He slipped into the doorway of a shut house, less than twenty paces from us.

“What I would like to know, Leopard, is would you let me throw a hatchet and split his head in two before you tell me he is yours?”

“He is not mine, and by the gods I’m not his.”

“And yet I smelled him the whole time we were at the inn.”