Black Leopard, Red Wolf

The slaver moved in to strike her. The chained woman flinched and hid her face, begging him not to strike her anymore. Too many men striking her and they strike her all the time and she just want to hold her boys, the first and the third and the fourth, but not the second, for he does not like when people hold him, not even his mother. I still held on to the Leopard’s arm and could feel his muscles shift and his hair grow under my fingers.

“Enough with that,” the tall woman said.

“This is how you get her to talk,” the slaver said.

“You must think she is one of your wives,” she said.

The Leopard’s arm stopped twitching. She wore a black gown from the northern lands that touched the floor, but cut close to show she was thin. She stooped down to the woman in chains, who still hid her face. I couldn’t see it but knew the chained woman was trembling. The chains clanged when she shook.

“These are the days that never should have happened to you. Tell me about her,” the tall woman said.

The slaver nodded to his date feeder and the date feeder cleared his throat and began.

“This woman, her story, very strange and sad. It is I who am talking and I will—”

“Not a performance, donkey. Just the story.”

I wish I could have seen his scowl but his face was lost to the dark.

“We don’t know her name, and her neighbors, she scared them all away.”

“No she did not. Your master here paid them to leave. Stop wasting my time.”

“As if I give two shakes of a rat’s ass about your time.”

She paused. I could tell nobody expected that to come out of his mouth.

“This always his ways?” she said to the slaver. “Maybe you tell me the story, slave monger, and maybe I cut his tongue out.”

The date feeder pulled a knife from under his sleeve and flipped the handle to her.

“How this for sport? I give you the knife and you try,” he said.

She did not take it. The woman in chains was still hiding her face in the corner. The Leopard was still. The tall woman looked at the date feeder, with a curious smile.

“He has chat, this one. Fine, out with your story. I will hear it.”

“Her neighbor, the washerwoman, say her name is Nooya. And nobody knows her or claims her so Nooya be her name, but she don’t answer to it. She answer to him. Nobody living to tell the story but she, and she not telling. But this is what we know. She live in Nigiki with her husband and five children. Saduk, Makhang, Fula—”

“The shorter version, date feeder.”

The tall woman pointed at him. She did not take her eye off the woman in chains.

“One day when the sun past the noon and was going down, a child knock on her door. A boy child, who look like he was five and four years in age.”

“We have one word for that in the North. We call it nine,” the tall woman said.

She smiled; the date feeder scowled and said, “A boy child knocking on the door rapraprapraprap like he going to knock it down. They after me, they coming for me, save this boy child! he say. Save this boy child, save him, he said. Save me!”

The chained woman darted a look. “Sssssssssssssssave the chhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” she said.

“The little boy screaming and screaming, what could a mother do? A mother with four boys of her own. She open the door and the boy run in. He run right into a wall and fall back and wouldn’t stop moving till she close the door. Who is after you? Nooya ask. Is it your father you run from? Nooya ask. Your mother? Yes, mothers can be strict and fathers can be wicked, but the look in his eye, the fear in his eye was not for strong word or the switch. She reach to touch him and he stagger back so quick his head hit the side of a cupboard and he fall.