Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“I don’t have to dip my nose in shit to know it stinks.”

“Fair. And yet who are you that I should present my life as just to you? You who would search, and find, and return a wife even though her eyes had been cut out by her husband. Every man in this room has a price, good Tracker. And yours might even be cheap.”

“What of him do you have?”

“No, not so quickly. I only need to know that the offer tickling you. We have met, we have drank beer, we will make decisions. This you should know. I have made the offer to more as well. Eight, perhaps nine in number. Some will work with you, some will not. Some will try to find him first. You have not asked how much coin I will pay.”

“I don’t have to. Given how precious he is to you.”

The Leopard was raising a fuss. He didn’t know some would be searching for the child on their own. It was my time to hush him.

“Tracker, are you not offended by this?” he said.

“Offended? I’m not even surprised.”

“Our good friend the Leopard still doesn’t know that there is no black in man, only shades and shades of gray. My mother was not a kind woman and she was not a good woman. But she did say to me, Amadu, pray to the gods but bolt your door. The child has been gone three years.”

“Leopard, think. When we find him, we split coin two ways, not nine.”

The slaver clapped and the three men rushed in again, doing exactly as before, rubbing his feet, feeding him dates, and looking at me as if I would change into a Leopard too.

“I give you four nights to decide. This not going be no easy journey. There are forces, Tracker. There are forces, Leopard. They come in on wind at morning or sometimes in the highest sun, the hour of the blinding light of witches. Just as I wish him to be found, surely there are those who wish him to stay hidden. Nobody ever send word for ransom, and yet I know he is alive, even before the fetish priest consult the older gods who tell him this is so. But there are forces, you two. Ill wind rolling through the cities in the hot season, and taking what is not for them. Day robber, night thief, I can’t tell you what you will find. But we talking too much. I give you four nights. If yes be your answer, meet me at the collapsed tower at the end the street of bandits. You know this place?”

“Yes.”

“Meet me there after sunset and let that be your yes.”

He turned his back to us. Our business was done with him for the time. They came back to me just then, the woman he killed and the man he made a eunuch.

“Silly Tracker, surely you know how eunuchs are made? That man will surely die,” the Leopard said.

I asked the landlady to allow the Leopard stay in a room I knew was empty. I wore nothing when I spoke to her, so she said yes, of course, but now the rent is double, or you will return from one of your trips to find nothing in your room. But I have nothing, I said. The Leopard took the room after I told him that should he find some tree to sleep in as a beast, somebody would take a perfect shot from a bow and arrow and get him right through the ribs. And all the prey in the city belonged to one man or another, so one could not roam about and hunt them. And even if you did kill somebody’s goat or chicken, do not bring it back to the room. And even if you did bring it back to the room, do not spill even a drop of blood.

This annoyed the Leopard but he saw there was wisdom in it. I knew he would be in there pacing and pacing, knowing he could not growl. Trying to sleep in the window but knowing he could not, and smelling blood quicken under the flesh of prey down below in the animal pens. So he brought the boy up to his room. The third day he came up to my room, grinning and rubbing his belly.

“You look like you sneaked an impala into your room.”

“Quiet as it’s kept. I might have been the glutton lately.”

“The whole inn knows of your appetites.”

“You must be the one nun in the whorehouse. Fantastic beasts, fantastic urges, Tracker. Where go you today? I shall see your city.”

“You already saw the city.”

“I want it through your eyes, or rather your nose. I know there is something in this city waiting for us.”

I looked at him straight. “Go whoring on your own time, cat.”

“Tracker, who’s to say we can’t do both?”

“As you wish. Go wash.”

He poked out his tongue, long as a young snake, and licked both his arms.

“Done,” he said, and grinned. “Who shall we see? A man owing you coin, whose legs we shall break? To us each a leg!”