Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

He pointed with his spear again to a cluster of trees at the upper end of the burial ground. “Dr. Sutton and someone else stole the bones of one of our finest warriors, a great man—the man, Ollantashante, that your own son was named in honor of. The greatest honor we can bestow on someone from another people. According to our custom, such an act, despoiling a burial ground, is like stealing the bones of the gods themselves.”

“I know—” Eleanor went to speak but the chief silenced her with a wave of his spear.

“The chief asks: Can you have the trial stopped?” the translator said.

“No. I’m sorry. The law must take its course.”

Hearing this, Marongo gave Eleanor a long appraising stare. At length, he spoke: “And so too with our custom … it will take its course. You have your laws, we have ours. But Dr. Sutton’s crime came before Ndekei’s. It was unprovoked and therefore, according to our traditions, Dr. Sutton’s crime was worse.”

“Please, Marongo,” urged Eleanor.

But the chief stamped his spear again. “The elders have decided. Ndekei will plead not guilty to murder and will say he was acting according to tribal custom.”

He raised himself up and drew back his head. “And we are not a small tribe—look!” He pointed behind them with his spear.

Eleanor, Natalie, and the others turned.

Kees gasped.

Beyond the village, all along the skyline, was a line of Maasai warriors, each wrapped in a dark red cloak and carrying a shield and spear. There must have been hundreds of men, throwing a line of shadow from the setting sun. The silence, the sheer numbers, and the shadows were very menacing. It was a show of force and a statement of intent.

Eleanor and the others turned back to look at Marongo.

He had taken hold of Tife’s hand. “Ndekei’s family will be in court. Kenya is to have independence soon. We shall see how the newspapers respond to the trial.”

“I won’t stay long. But I thought you might like to discuss what happened today—my mother has filled me in.” Jack spoke quietly as he lowered himself into Natalie’s spare seat, outside her tent. This was a new maneuver of his but she knew that he had only arrived back from Nairobi just before dusk and, after making the plane safe against the animals, had been late in to dinner. He had brought his own cigarettes and lit one.

Natalie was already smoking one of hers. The stars overhead were as close as ever, glittering against the immeasurable coal-black depth of the universe.

“What is there to discuss? It all seemed pretty straightforward to me. We are locked on a course for collision, all because of something I saw. You should have seen the number of warriors Marongo amassed. They stretched right across the skyline.” She fought to control herself.

He let a short silence elapse.

“What did you make of Marongo?”

She drew on her cigarette and breathed out the smoke. She hadn’t taken out the whiskey tonight. She didn’t know why.

“I liked him. Or, I didn’t dislike him. You can see why he’s a chief. He’s strong and, with his own people, probably fair.”

Jack fingered the scar above his eyebrow. “Before he was elected chief, he used to work here.”

“He did? As what?”

“Oh, nothing specific. He was very strong and did all sorts of jobs, lifting and carrying. I once saw him and another Maasai, during the rains, lift a Land Rover out of a hole where it had got stuck.” He paused. “He knows our ways better than we know theirs. And he’s not just strong, he’s ambitious.”

“Ambitious? I don’t understand. Where does ambition come in?”

Jack drew on his cigarette again, and breathed out heavily. “After independence, Marongo may run as a candidate for the new parliament. This case, this trial, will raise his profile, make him better known. He can’t lose. If Ndekei is convicted, and hanged, Marongo will become the representative of Maasai grievance; if Ndekei is acquitted, they will both be heroes.”

Natalie shook her head. “How do you know all this? How long have you known all this?”

“You remember my mother was in Nairobi about a week ago, when we went to the crater? Among other things, she met Maxwell Sandys.”

Natalie crushed out the remains of her cigarette. “Where was your mother tonight?”

Eleanor had not been present at dinner, but had had a tray sent to her tent, something Natalie had never known happen before. “Is she not well?”

“She’s well enough,” growled Jack. “But I am afraid Marongo’s implacability had a big effect on her. She thought—” He shifted in his chair. “She thought that if she came to dinner, there would be an argument, a fight, that she might say things she would regret. She thinks all this business about ‘propitious’ dates is nonsense. The meeting was held today because Marongo, cunning as he is, knew I would be away in Nairobi and he wouldn’t have to come face to face with his boyhood friend. The elders were never going to give way.” He sighed, reached forward, and put his hand on hers. “She’s right.”

“Hmm.” Natalie snorted. “I’m not sure I buy that, Jack. I don’t know your mother as well as you do, naturally, but I do know that she’s not one to avoid confrontation. She’s her own woman, strong-willed, she knows her own mind, and this is her home ground. Sulking in her tent is very definitely not your mother’s style.” She took a deep breath, considered bringing out the whiskey, thought better of it. “So what’s going on?”

Jack took his hand off hers and leaned back. He chewed at his lower lip, taking a fresh cigarette from his pack and lighting it. He breathed out the smoke.

“We had a fight.”

Natalie played with her mother’s watch on her wrist.

Baboons screamed across the gorge.

“Go on.”

The smell of the campfire came at them in wafts.

“She was sitting in her tent—in that outer room she has, the one with the radio and the first-aid kit. She had just been talking to Maxwell Sandys on the radio-telephone and he had told her about Chief Marongo’s political ambitions. She was very low.” He brushed his hair off his face. “Until then, I think, she had hoped that a solution might be found. Yes, Marongo was fairly intractable when you were all in the boma but that might have been a negotiating position. After all, I’m sure we could do something to help Ndekei’s family—financially, I mean—and Marongo knows that.”

He drew on his cigarette again.

“But once she heard about the chief’s political aims, she realized that nothing she could do would make a bit of difference. Either the trial has to be stopped, or the gorge will be reclaimed—either outcome suits Marongo’s wider aims.”

The drone of a jet reached them from way up high.

“So what did you fight about?”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I told her she was being defeatist, that it wasn’t necessarily a question of Ndekei or us, that we still have plenty of room for maneuver.” He fingered his cigarette pack. “I said: Look—” and he put the forefinger of one hand against the thumb of the other. “One, we have a knee joint.” He moved his forefinger to the forefinger of his other hand. “Two, a jaw with teeth … three, some skull bones … four, a wall, five, some obsidian …”

He risked a smile. “That’s a hell of a lot for a two-million-year-old skeleton.”

“And—? So?” Natalie felt like a cigarette but didn’t want to smoke more than one a night.

“I suggested that we put our thinking caps on, work out what this creature was like—how tall, what sort of brain size, what his hands were capable of, whether he or she could speak, did he or she have an opposable thumb, what he or she ate—and then call a major press conference to announce what we have discovered.”