It was the middle tire — there were eight on the rear axles, two sets of four, to support the heavy weight of the cattle. A small rusty jack was dragged out and assembled, and slowly the truck was raised, the wheels taken off, the blown tire examined. It was not just a hole in the tube but a rent in the tire that was so large the African examining it could put his whole arm through it.
That was to be expected here — by me, anyway; apparently not by them, for they had no spare. They shook out rubbish from a burlap sack — tubes, patches, big crowbars, flat pieces of iron, tubes of glue, and something that looked like an antique foot-driven bellows — and began amateurishly to whack the wheel, as though they had never been in this fix before. Their iron tools bent as they tried to prise the tire from the rim.
They took turns fighting the tire and failing, while the rest of us stood in the intense heat of the desert sun. There was no shade, no relief from the blinding light and heat, though several men crawled into the semi-darkness under the jacked-up truck and went to sleep.
Mustafa, who rarely spoke and did so only in Swahili, offered his opinion in English, saying to me, ‘Thees focking bad road.’
I thought: This is not good — a breakdown in the desert, in a place where no one cares whether I live or die; stuck and stranded among the most incompetent and unresourceful mechanics I have ever seen.
An hour of this and then a loaded cattle truck rumbled past us, not stopping, obviously not giving a shit about the fix we were in. But this truck reminded me that we were supposed to be traveling in a convoy. I also thought: I should have bailed out and gone with them. I walked a little distance from our dilemma and searched the horizon for another truck. After twenty minutes or so I saw clouds of rising dust — a truck.
I stood in the road and waved at the approaching truck, another cattle truck, and when it slowed I climbed to the cab, which was crammed with women and children, and asked for a ride.
‘You can come, but you must ride on top.’
I got my bag from Mustafa’s truck and threw it up to the men riding on top, then hurried after it, for the truck had not really stopped but was still rolling past Mustafa’s stranded vehicle and the assembled klutzes who were fiddling with the patches — one slapping an enormous chunk of rubber against the hole in the tire, as a possible fix. It was clear to me that they would still be there tomorrow, among dying cattle, still faffing with the flat tire.
Now I saw them receding into the distance. I was balanced on the frame over the cab, holding on to the pipe frame, in the hot wind and the choking dust. The truck swayed, very unstable because of the high center of gravity and the weight of the cattle.
Yet I was calm, even happy. I wrapped my jacket around me to protect me from the dust and watched the suffering cattle. Weak from thirst, tottering from the movement of the truck, slumping to their knees and now and then knocked to the truck bed, they were getting smacked in the chops and their tails twisted. I could hear their pained mooing over the chunking of the wheels on the road.
Deep in the desert were the camel trains of the Borena, pure panic cloaked in beauty, the yellow robed women walking ahead, the men guiding the camels. It was a lovely sight and yet it was a matter of life or death, illustrating the desperate need for water. No rain, no nearby wells; so the camel train went a great distance and returned laden with jerry cans and drums of water. Each camel was covered in heavy tin containers, slopping the animals’ shanks.
I had to hold tight to stay upright on the truck. The road was not only rocky but here it ceased to go straight — it wound between huge humps, too small to be hills, but obstructions all the same. We went very slowly. I could not see ahead. I was relieved that, as we were moving so slowly, I did not have to cling so tightly.
Then I heard a loud bang, and thought: Oh, no, a blowout. But another bang followed it, and the men on top pushed past me to dive into the mass of groaning cattle.
I got a glimpse of two men in dusty robes, their faces hidden by bands of cloth, standing in the road, with rifles held upright, firing into the air.
Two things happened then. First, and startlingly, the man crouched beside me — a soldier — lifted his rifle and began firing directly at the men, both of whom ducked behind boulders. Second, the truck accelerated, moving so fast that it pitched and rolled down the narrow defile between the humpy hills, like a toppling yacht traveling down the face of a wave.
And at the same time I was diving down from the top bars of the truck with the other men, and dangling behind the metal sides (thinking, Is this steel bulletproof?) and over the staggering cattle. We went from five to twenty-five miles an hour, not great acceleration perhaps but enough to drag us out of range of the armed men and to demonstrate our resolve to get away.
The men were shifta, classic highwaymen positioned in a perfect place. The truck had slowed down to a crawl in a spot that was squeezed between two hiding places, and the men stepped out and fired in the air to get our attention. Perhaps they had not counted on being fired upon; more likely they were surprised by the driver stamping on the gas and getting us out of there.
The soldier clinging to the bars beside me on our truck shook his head and laughed.
I said, ‘Shifta?’
‘Yah.’ He smiled at my grim face.
I said, ‘Sitaki kufa,’ I don’t want to die.
He said in English, ‘They do not want your life, bwana. They want your shoes.’
Many times after that, in my meandering through Africa, I mumbled these words, an epitaph of underdevelopment, desperation in a single sentence. What use is your life to them? It is nothing. But your shoes — ah, they are a different matter, they are worth something, much more than your watch (they had the sun) or your pen (they were illiterate) or your bag (they had nothing to put in it). These were men who needed footwear, for they were forever walking.
When we were underway again the truck moved with greater urgency, the cattle falling faster than ever on top of each other, the ragged cowboys manhandling them. But soon we were at a checkpoint and had to stop. Four soldiers manned this checkpoint, deliberately dawdling, demanding to see my passport (Wewe, muzungu), and being officious.
This checkpoint reassured me, it seemed as though it might serve as a barrier to keep the bandits at bay. The other passengers who had been riding on top appeared to think so too. They resumed their seats, the road improved, we were moving quickly now towards higher ground and the hills ahead, and the setting sun. The greenery was not a mirage but rather the natural foliage of the town of Marsabit.
The truck came to a halt in the market of this small dirty settlement and I lowered myself to the ground and realized that I was trembling, with a hint of that hysterical happiness that takes hold when you have just had a close call, the giddy certainty that you have survived.
I walked around and found a place to stay, the Jey-Jey, a hotel run by a genial Muslim, who also called me mzee. Was it my impending birthday that made this word a particular irritation? Another three-dollar room. I had a shower in the communal wash-house, then walked to the market and drank a Tusker beer and talked to some locals, boasting, ‘I got shot at!’ No one was surprised or impressed. They shrugged. ‘It’s the shifta road.’
Back at the Jey-Jey, I met a man who had just arrived, having been at the rear of the convoy. He was an exhausted-looking Englishman — sweaty, dirty, unshaven, pissed-off, red-eyed, laboring with a heavy duffel bag.