Wilbur Smith - Assegai

Slowly Kermit raised his head and stared at him as though he was a stranger. He shook his head in confusion. Leon sat beside him and put a muscular arm around his shoulders. ‘Easy does it, chum. You did a great job. You stood to the charge. You never broke. You stood there and shot him down like a hero. If your daddy had been here he would have been proud of you.’

Kermit’s eyes cleared. He took a deep breath and then he said huskily, ‘Do you think so?’

‘I damn well know so,’ Leon said, with utter conviction.

‘You didn’t shoot, did you?’ Kermit was still as unsteady as a long-distance runner regaining his breath after a hard race.

‘No, I didn’t. You killed him yourself, without any help from me,’ Leon assured him.

Kermit did not speak again but sat staring quietly at the magnificent body of the lion. Leon remained at his side. Manyoro and Loikot started to circle them in a shuffling, stiff-legged, hopping and leaping dance.

‘They’re about to perform the lion dance in your honour,’ Leon explained.

Manyoro began to sing. His voice was powerful and true.

After each line they sprang high with the ease of birds taking to flight and Loikot came in with the refrain. When the song ended they went to the dead lion and dipped their fingers in his blood. Then they came back to where Kermit still sat. Manyoro stooped over him and smeared a streak of blood down his forehead.

He stepped back and Loikot took his place in front of Kermit. He also anointed Kermit’s face, painting red stripes down each cheek then, intoned,

They squatted in front of him and clapped their hands rhythmically.

‘They are making you a Masai and a blood brother. It is the highest honour they can offer you. You should acknowledge it.’

‘You also are my brothers,’ Kermit said. ‘Even when we are divided by great waters, I shall remember you all the days of my life.’

Leon translated for him and the Masai murmured with pleasure.

‘Tell Popoo Hima that he does us great honour,’ said Manyoro.

Kermit stood up and went to the body of the lion. He knelt in front of it as though at a shrine. He did not touch it immediately, but his face shone with a particular radiance as he studied the enormous head. The mane started two inches above the opaque yellow eyes and ran back, wave after wave of dense black hair, over the skull and neck, over the massive shoulders, under the chest, and only ended halfway down the broad back.

‘Leave him be,’ Manyoro told Leon. ‘Popoo Hima is taking the spirit of his lion into his own heart. It is right and fitting. It is the way of the true warrior.’

The sun had set before Kermit left the lion and came to the small fire where Leon sat alone. Ishmael had placed a log at each side to act as seats and another, up-ended, on which he had set two mugs and a bottle. As Kermit sat down facing Leon he glanced at the bottle. ‘Bunnahabhain whisky. Thirty years old,’ Leon told him. ‘I begged it from Percy this time in case something like this happened and we were forced to celebrate. Sadly, he’d only let me have half a bottle. Said it’s really too good for the likes of you.’ Leon poured it into the mugs, then reached across to hand one to Kermit.

‘I feel different,’ Kermit said, and took a sip.

‘I understand,’ Leon said. ‘Today was your baptism by fire.’

‘Yes!’ Kermit answered vehemently. ‘That’s it exactly. It was a mystic, almost religious experience. Something strange and wonderful has happened to me. I feel as though I’m somebody else, not the old me, somebody better than I ever was before.’ He groped for words. ‘I feel as though I’ve been reborn. The other me was afraid and uncertain. This one is no longer afraid. Now I know I can meet the world on my own terms.’

‘I understand,’ Leon said. ‘Rite of passage.’

‘Has it happened to you?’ Kermit asked.

Leon’s eyes narrowed with pain as he remembered the pale naked bodies lying crucified on the baked earth, heard again the flitting of Nandi arrows and remembered the weight of Manyoro on his back. ‘Yes . . . but it was nothing like today.’

‘Tell me about it.’

Leon shook his head. ‘These are things we should not talk about too much. Words can only sully and belittle their significance.’

‘Of course. It’s something very private.’

‘Exactly,’ Leon said, and raised his mug. ‘We don’t have to labour it. We know it in our hearts. The Masai have a description for this shared truth. They say simply, “brothers of the warrior blood”.’

They sat for a long time in companionable silence, then Kermit said, ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.’

‘I’ll keep vigil with you,’ Leon replied.

After a while they began to recall and discuss the tiniest details of the day’s hunt, how the first growl had sounded, how big the lion had appeared as he rose to his full height, how swiftly he came. But they skirted the emotional aspects. The whisky level sank slowly in the bottle.

A little before midnight they were startled to hear horses approaching the camp in the darkness, and voices speaking English. Kermit started up. ‘Who the hell can that be?’

‘I think I can guess.’ Leon chuckled as a figure in riding breeches and a slouch hat came into the firelight. ‘Good evening, Mr Roosevelt, Mr Courtney. I was just passing and thought I’d drop in to say howdy.’

‘Mr Andrew Fagan, I hope you don’t mind if I call you a bloody liar. You’ve been shadowing us night and day for almost two weeks. My trackers have picked up your spoor on most days.’

‘Come, come, Mr Courtney.’ Fagan laughed. ‘Shadowing is too strong a word. But it’s true that I have a more than passing interest in what the two of you have been up to, as has the rest of the world.’ He removed his hat. ‘May we visit with you for a spell?’

‘I’m afraid you’ve come a little late,’ Kermit said. ‘As you can see, the bottle is well-nigh empty.’

‘By some remarkable twist of fate, I have a spare in my pack.’ Fagan called to his photographer, ‘Carl, will you please find that bottle of Jack Daniel’s for us, then come join the party?’ When they had all settled down in the firelight and taken the first taste from their mugs, Fagan asked, ‘Anything interesting happen today? We heard some shooting from your direction.’

‘Tell him, Leon!’ Kermit was bubbling over, but he didn’t want to appear a braggart.

‘Well, now that you mention it, this afternoon Mr Roosevelt managed to shoot the lion we’ve been looking for since the start of our safari.’

‘A lion!’ Fagan spilled a few drops of whisky. ‘Now that’s real news. How does it compare with the one taken a week or so ago by the President?’

‘You’ll have to judge that for yourself,’ Leon said.

‘May we see it?’

‘Come this way,’ Kermit told him eagerly and, picking up a burning brand from the fire, he led them to where the lion lay. Up to now it had been hidden by the night. He held the flame high to illuminate the scene.

‘Well, damn me to hell, that’s a monster!’ said Fagan, and turned quickly to his photographer. ‘Carl, get your camera.’ For almost another hour he persuaded Kermit and Leon to pose with the trophy, although Kermit needed little persuasion. Their vision was starred with the multiple explosions of flash powder when finally they returned to the fire and took up their mugs again. Fagan pulled out his notepad. ‘So, tell us, Mr Roosevelt, how does it feel to have done what you did today?’