In Laitokitok they did not have the cardboard boxes of obsolete calibers that the old-timers bought two to four cartridges from each season in the late fall when they wanted to get their winter meat. They sold spears instead. But it was a home-feeling place to buy things and almost everything on the shelves and in the bins you could have found a use for if you lived around there.
But today was the end of another day and tomorrow would be a new one and there were no people walking on my grave yet. No one that I could see looking into the sun or ahead over the country and watching the country as we came down the Mountain, I had forgotten that Mthuka would be thirsty and as I opened the bottle of beer and wiped its neck and lips, Miss Mary asked, very justly, “Aren’t wives ever thirsty?”
“I’m sorry, honey. Ngui can get you a full bottle, if you like.”
“No. I want just one drink of that.”
I passed it to her and she drank what she wished and passed it to me.
I thought how nice it was that there was no African word for I’m sorry, then I thought I’d better not think that or it would come between us and I took a drink of the beer to purify it from Miss Mary and wiped the neck and the lip of the bottle with my good clean handkerchief and handed it to Mthuka.
Charo didn’t approve of any of this and would have liked to see us drink properly with glasses. But we were drinking as we drank and I did not want to think anything that would make a thing between Charo and me either.
“I think I will have another swallow of beer,” Miss Mary said. I told Ngui to open a bottle for her. I would share it with her and Mthuka could pass his to Ngui and Mwengi when he had quenched his thirst. I had not said any of this aloud.
“I don’t know why you have to be so complicated about the beer,” Mary said.
“I’ll bring cups for us the next time.”
“Don’t try to make it more complicated. I don’t want a cup if I drink with you.”
“It’s just tribal,” I said. “I’m truly not trying to make things any more complicated than they are.”
“Why did you have to wipe the bottle so carefully after I drank and then wipe it after you drank before you passed it on?”
“Tribal.”
“But why different today?”
“Phases of the moon.”
“You get too tribal for your own good.”
“Very possibly.”
“You believe all this.”
“No. I just practice it.”
“You don’t know enough about it to practice it.”
“I learn a little every day.”
“I’m tired of it.”
As we came down a long slope Mary saw a big kongoni about six hundred yards away, standing tall and yellow at the lower crest of the slope. No one had seen it until she pointed it out and then everyone saw it at once. We stopped the car and she and Charo got out to make their stalk. The kongoni was feeding away from them and the wind would not carry their scent to the animal as it was blowing high across the slope. There were no bad animals around here and we stayed back with the vehicle so we would not hamper their approach.
We watched Charo leading from one piece of cover to another and Mary following him, crouched down as he was. The kongoni was out of sight now but we watched Charo freeze and Mary come up beside him and raise her rifle. Then there was the sound of the shot and the heavy plunk of the bullet and Charo ran forward out of sight with Mary following him.
Mthuka drove the car cross country through the bracken and the flowers until we came to Mary and Charo and the dead kongoni. The kongoni or hartebeest is not a handsome animal in life nor in death but this was an old male, very fat and in perfect condition, and his long, sad face, his glazed eyes, and his cut throat did not make him unattractive to the meat eaters. The Masai women were very excited and very impressed by Miss Mary and kept touching her in wonderment and unbelief.
“I saw him first,” Mary said. “The first time I ever saw anything first. I saw him before you did. Mthuka and you were in front. I saw him before Ngui and Mwengi and Charo.”
“You saw him before Arap Meina,” I said.
“He doesn’t count because he was looking at the Masai women. Charo and I stalked him by ourselves and when he looked back toward us I shot him exactly where I wanted to.”
“Low down in the left shoulder and hit the heart.”
“That’s where I shot for.”
“Piga mzuri,” Charo said. “Mzuri mzuri sana.”
“We’ll put him in the back. The women can ride up front.”
“He isn’t handsome,” Mary said, “but I’d rather shoot something that isn’t beautiful for meat.”
“He’s wonderful and you’re wonderful.”
“Well, we needed meat and I saw the best kind of meat we could get and fat and the biggest next to eland and I saw him myself and just Charo and I stalked him and I shot him myself. Now, will you love me and not go off alone by yourself in your head?”
“You ride up in front now. We won’t be shooting anymore.”
“Can I have some of my beer? I’m thirsty from stalking.”
“You can have all of your beer.”
“No. You take some too to celebrate me seeing him first and we being friends again.”
We had a pleasant supper and went to bed early. I had bad dreams in the night and I was awake and dressed before Mwindi brought the tea.
That afternoon we went out on a ride around the country and found by their tracks that the buffalo were back in the forest by the swamp. They had come in during the morning and the trail was wide and deep cut like a cattle trail but cold now and the dung beetles were working rolling up the balls of buffalo sign. The buffs had headed into the forest where the glades and the openings were full of fresh new heavy grass.
I had always liked to see the dung beetles work and since I had learned that they were the sacred scarabs of Egypt, in a slightly modified form, I thought we might find some place for them in the religion. Now they were working very hard and it was getting late for the dung of that day. Watching them I thought of the words for a dung beetle hymn.
Ngui and Mthuka were watching me because they knew I was in a moment of profound thought. Ngui went for Miss Mary’s camera in case she should want to take any pictures of the dung beetles, but she did not care to and said, “Papa, when you get tired of watching the dung beetles, do you think we might get on and see something else?”
“Sure, if you are interested, we can find a rhino and there are two lionesses and a lion around.”
“How do you know?”
“Several people heard the lions last night and the rhino crossed the buffalo trail back there.”
“It’s too late for good color.”
“Never mind. Maybe we can just watch them.”
“They’re more inspiring than dung beetles.”
“I’m not seeking inspiration. I’m seeking knowledge.”
“It’s lucky you have such a wide open field.”
“Yes.”
I told Mthuka to try and find the rhino. He had regular habits and now that he was on the move, we knew about where we might find him.
The rhino was not far from where he should have been but, as Miss Mary had said, it was too late to photograph well in color with the speed of film that was then available. He had been to a water hole in gray white clay and in the green of the brush and against the dark black lava rocks, he looked a ghostly white.
We left him undisturbed but magnificently and stupidly alert after his tick birds had left him and swung wide downwind of him to come out, finally, onto the salt flats that stretched toward the edge of the marsh. There would be very little moon that night and the lions would be hunting and I wondered how it would be for the game knowing the night was coming on. The game had no security ever but on these nights the least of all and I thought how it was on a dark night like tonight the great python would come out from the swamp to the edge of the flats to lie coiled and waiting. Ngui and I had followed his track once into the swamp and it was like following the single track of an oversize lorry tire. Sometimes he sunk so that it was like a deep rut.