Mack Reynolds - Blackman' Burden

Again all nodded. “Verily, the world changes,” someone murmured.

The warrior leader’s voice went dramatic. “We. were left with naught but our flocks, and now even they are fated to end.”

The elderly nomads stirred and some scowled.

“At every water hole in the desert, teams of the new irrigation development dig their wells, install their pumps which bring power from the sun, plant trees, bring in Haratin and former slaves—our slaves—to cultivate the new oases. And we are forbidden the water for the use of our goats and sheep and camels.”

“Besides,” one of the clan chiefs injected, “they tell us that the goat is the curse of North Africa, nibbling as it does the bark of small trees, and they attempt to purchase all goats until soon there will be few, if any, in all the land.”

“So our young people,” Abd-el-Kader pressed on, “stripped of our former way of life, go to the new projects, enroll in the schools, take work in the new oases or on the roads, and disappear from the sight of their kinsmen.” He came to a sudden halt and all but glared at them, maintaining his silence until El Aicha stirred.

“And?” El Aicha said. This was all obviously nothing but preliminary.

Abd-el-Kader spoke softly now, and there was a different drama in his voice. “And now,” he said, “the French are gone. All the Rouma, save a handful, are gone. In the south the English are gone from the lands of the blacks, such as Nigeria and Ghana, Sierra Leone and Gambia. The Italians are gone from Libya and Somaliland and the Spanish from Rio de Oro. Nor will they ever return for in the greatest council of all the Rouma they have decided to leave Africa to the African.”

They all stirred again and some muttered. Abd-el-Kader pushed his point. “The Chaambra are warriors born. Never serfs! Never slaves! Never have we worked for any man. Our ancestors carved great empires by the sword.” His voice lowered again. “And now, once more, it is possible to carve such an empire.”

He swept his eyes about their circle. “Chiefs of the Chaambra, there is no force in all the Sahara to restrain us. Let others work on the roads, planting the new trees in the new oases, damming the great Niger, and all the rest of it. We will sweep over them, and dominate all. We, the Chaambra, will rule, while those whom Allah intended to drudge do so. We, the Chosen of Allah, will fulfill our destiny!”

Abd-el-Kader left it there and crossed his arms on his chest, staring at them challengingly.

Finally El Aicha directed his eyes across the circle of listeners at two who had sat silently through it all, their burnooses well down over their eyes, covering their heads. He said, “And what do you say to all this?”

“Time to go into your act, man,” Abe Bakr muttered, under his breath.

Homer Crawford came to his feet and pushed back the hood of the burnoose. He looked over at the headman of the Ouled Touameur warrior clan, whose face was darkening.

In Arabic, Crawford said, “I have sought you for some time, Abd-el-Kader. You are an elusive man.”

“Who are you, Negro?” the fighting man snapped.

Crawford grinned at the other. “You look as though you have a bit of Negro blood in your own veins. In fact, I doubt if there’s a so-called Arab in all North Africa, unless he’s just recently arrived, whose family hasn’t down through the centuries mixed its blood with the local people they conquered.”

“You lie!”

Abe chuckled from the background. The Chaambra leader was at least as dark of complexion as the American Negro. Not that it made any difference one way or the other.

“We shall see who is the liar here,” Homer Crawford said flatly. “You asked who I am. I am known as Omar ben Crawf and I am headman of a team of the African Development Project of the Reunited Nations. As you have said, Abd-el-Kader, this great council of the headmen of all the nations of the world—not just the Rouma —has decided that Africa must be left to the Africans. But that does not mean it has lost all interest in these lands. It has no intention, warrior of the Chaambra, to allow such as you to disrupt the necessary progress Africa must make if it is not to become a danger to the shaky peace of the world.”

Abd-el-Kader’s eyes darted about the tent. So far as he could see, the other was backed only by his single henchman. The warrior chief gained confidence. “Power is for those who can assert it. Some will rule. It has always been so. Here in the Western Erg, the Chaambra will rule, and I, Abd-el-Kader, will lead them!”

Homer Crawford was shaking his head, almost sadly it seemed. “No,” he said. “The day of rule by the gun is over. It must be over because at long last man’s weapons have become so great that he must not trust himself with them. In the new world which is still aborning so that half the nations of earth are in the pains of labor, government must be by the most wise and most capable.”

In a deft move the submachine gun’s sling slipped from the desert man’s shoulder and the short, vicious gun was in hand. “The strong will always rule!” the Arab shouted. “Time was when the French conquered the Chaambra, but the French have allowed their strength to ebb away, and now, armed with such weapons as these, we of the Sahara will again assert our birthright as the Chosen of Allah!”

Homer ignored the automatic weapon in the hands of the excited Arab. He said, and there was still a sad quality in his voice, “The gun you carry is a nothing-weapon, desert man. When the French conquered this land more than a century ago they were armed with single-shot rifles which were still far in advance of your own long barrelled flintlocks. Today, you are proud of that tommy gun you carry, and, indeed, it has the fire power of a company of the Foreign Legion of a century past. However, believe me, Abd-el-Kader, it is a nothing-weapon compared to those that will be brought against the Chaambra if they heed your words.”

The desert leader put back his head and laughed his scorn.

He chopped his laughter short and snapped, more to the council of chiefs than to the stranger, “Then we will seize such weapons and use them against those who would oppose us. In the end it is the strong who win in war, and the Rouma have gone soft, as all men know. I, Abd-el-Kader will have these two killed and then I shall announce to the assembled tribes the new jedah, a Holy War to bring the Chosen of Allah once again to their rightful position in the Sahara.”

“Man,” Abe Baker murmured pleasantly, “you’re going to be one awful disappointed cat before long.”

El Aicha said mildly, “Such decisions are for the djemaa el kebar to make, O Abd-el-Kader, not for a single chief of the Ouled Touameur.”

The desert warrior chief sneered openly at the old man. “Decisions are made by those with the strength to enforce them. The young men of the Chaambra support me, and my men surround this tent.”

“So do mine,” Homer Crawford said decisively. “And I have come to arrest you and take you to Columb-Béchar where you will be tried for your participation in recent raids on various development projects.”

El Aicha repeated his earlier words. “There shall be no violence at a djemaa el kebar.”

The Ouled Touameur chief’s eyes had narrowed. “You are not strong enough to take me.”

In English, Abe Baker said, “Like maybe these young followers of this cat need an example laid on them, man.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Crawford growled disgustedly.

The younger American came to his feet. “I’ll take him on,” Abe said.

“No, he’s nearer to my size,” Crawford grunted. He turned to El Aicha, and said in Arabic, “I demand the right of a stranger in your camp to a trial by combat.”