Blood & Milk (17 page)

And it broke my heart.

“I wish for that too.” I squeezed his hands. “Damu Nkorisa, look at me.” I waited for his gaze to meet mine. “I am sorry for what happened today. I told the children I looked at you because it made me happy to see my brother happy. They understood that. But I’ll be mindful next time, and I won’t do it again.”

He gave me a sad smile. “I worry, that is all.”

“I know. And rightfully so. I’ll be more careful next time.”

He seemed mollified and eventually he smiled more genuinely. “You say I was beautiful again.”

I laughed. “Yes. You are. Handsome and beautiful. I couldn’t help but look at you.”

Damu chuckled, embarrassed. I truly do think I am the only person who had ever given him a compliment. He liked to hear it but didn’t know what to do with it. Knowing Damu, he probably felt narcissistic because it made him feel good about himself. He was a paradox, for sure. He was proud of who he was, yet unable to see his own worth.

I put my hand to his face. “Am I forgiven?”

He nodded, and I drew him in for a kiss. Our kiss deepened and we were soon on our bed, me on my back and Damu lying between my legs. He pulled his mouth from mine. “Is it wrong to be impatient for next feast?” he asked, kissing along my jaw. “Not for eat meat, but for the fat.”

I chuckled and ran my hands down over his arse, pulling him hard against me. “I am impatient for that as well.”

He hooked my left leg over his hip and ground his steel-like erection against me. His other hand pushed my hair off my forehead and his eyes searched mine. “I want inside you again.”

Oh, fuck.
“I want that too,” I whispered, barely able to speak.

He crushed his mouth to mine in an all-consuming kiss. I brought my knees up toward our chests, and Damu rutted against me. I held onto his arse, keeping him right where he was, grinding our cocks together through our clothes.

In no time at all, he stilled over me, his head thrown back in ecstasy as he came. The sight above me and the feel of his cock pulsing and spilling was too much. I came with him, shooting between us, both of us collapsing in a heap of tangled limbs and mingled breaths.

As the rain hammered down the most soothing lullaby, and with his weight on top of me, I dozed again.

Not quite awake, not really asleep, a familiar dream played through my mind. The winds blew through the grasses, though the sun shined. This time Damu was there, looking as he had in the sun earlier that day. He held his hand out to me, I had no clue where he was leading me, but I entwined my fingers with his anyway. Because I knew, even in subconscious thought, I’d go with him anywhere.

* * * *

I was woken by a tap on the leg, and Damu whispering, urging me to get up. When I sat up, trying to clear my sleep-fogged brain, I heard the commotion.

Kasisi, Kijani, and Makumu were back.

I followed Damu out, just as the three men came back. They were welcomed with offerings of beans, rice, and milk―a hero’s welcome―and as the sun set, the weary travellers sat by the communal fire and told their people what they knew.

Kasisi spoke in Maa, and although I didn’t catch everything, I understood most of it. “Other tribes had received the same letter,” he said. “All Maasai people were to start paying taxes on the land they occupied. Many other tribes, like them, had no income to do so. Some clans welcomed tourists for short visits, as the government had suggested—” Kasisi looked at me then. Kijani glared at me. “—and it is something this tribe should consider.”

Kijani still stared at me, like I was personally responsible for their current situation. I had no doubts on his stance on this tourism idea. The way his nostrils flared and his jaw bulged told me all I needed to know.

Kasisi raised his hand. “More talks to come,” he said. “For now sleep.”

Everyone dispersed in whispered conversations. Whatever decisions the elders made for this tribe, would affect each and every one of the people in it. Damu was quick to take my elbow and ushered me to our hut.

The fire was going inside, and I could see his expression. He was worried. “You okay?” I asked.

He spoke so softly, I barely heard him. “I not like how Kijani look to you.”

“He’s angry and defensive,” I replied.
My God, now I was defending him?
“I think he blames me for the white man taxes.”

Damu’s brow furrowed. “You are not for blame.”

“We know that,” I said gently. “Kasisi knows, but Kijani needs someone to blame, and I have the right coloured skin for his anger.”

Damu’s eyes flashed with something I hadn’t seen in him before. Was it anger? “You be white man or not, make no different to me.”

That made me smile. I squeezed his hand. “And that’s what makes you a good man.”

Damu didn’t reply to that. Instead, he said, “You not be near him.”

“Kijani?”

He gave the smallest nod. “I not like his eyes for you.”

He was worried for me, and that pleased me more than it should. “And you not be near him either,” I countered. “If he blames me, he might think you know something.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “He not like me.”

“He blames you for something that was not your fault, just like he blames me for this government tax. He might mean well, but he doesn’t see clearly. His temper clouds his judgement.”

Damu sighed. “Kasisi will see truth.”

“He will,” I agreed. I ran my thumb over the back of his hand. I hated seeing him so down. His usual happy, peaceful aura was gone. “You know, I dreamed of you this afternoon,” I said wistfully.

His gaze shot to mine, then to my smile. “You did?”

I nodded slowly. “Yep.”

“Good dream? A dream of future?”

My diversion tactic worked, because he smiled. “It was a good dream. Peaceful. We were walking in the grass. You looked so happy in the sunlight, and you held out your hand to me.”

“It will happen?” he asked, hope brightened his eyes.

“I think it will.”

His smile became a grin. “Let us eat,” he said happily. He scooted over to the stove and heated bean stew and potatoes. We’d eaten the same thing for a week, but I was still grateful for every meal. We ate in companionable silence, and after we’d rinsed out our bowls, we lay down on our bed.

I made myself the little spoon, using Damu’s arm as my pillow, and he covered us with our shukas. He settled his arm around my waist, his lips at my ear. I felt the weight of sleep taking me under, when Damu murmured, “Did you hold my hand? In your dream? Out in the sun, where someone would see? You take my hand?”

I pulled his arm tighter around me and sighed. “Yes. Of course I did.”

* * * *

We spent the next week under the watchful eye of Kijani. As much as we tried to avoid him, he was there. When he wasn’t in meetings with the other elders and warriors and when he wasn’t courting around Razina, he was never far from us.

Even as we did our chores and when we herded the goats, I could feel his eyes on us, and sure enough, every time I looked for him, he was watching. It seemed I was his new focus. His new role was to be a pain in my arse.

Damu and I kept a platonic distance from each other, always mindful not to touch, not to even look for longer than would be deemed respectable.

But the nights were ours. I’d suggested that we should sleep apart, my little corner of dirt floor wasn’t that far from him, after all. But Damu frowned. “It is the only time I have you near, in the night. My true self is when I lay with you,” he whispered. “He not take that from me.”

It was such an honest response, I wasn’t sure what I could say. So I simply slid over to him, cupped his cheek, and kissed him. I lay down next to him, and I certainly never questioned it again. Once night fell and the stove fire was out, inside our hut was so dark, even if Kijani looked through the door, he wouldn’t be able to see us.

The Maasai had a saying, Damu told me. “Eyes cannot pierce the darkness.” He kissed the back of my head and tightened his arm around me. “Yet I dream of days when I hold you in the sunlight.”

I turned in his arms and kissed his lips. Neither of us moved to deepen the kiss before I snuggled back into his neck. “One day, Damu. I promise you.”

I woke in a panic. My ears still rang with the sound of thundering hooves that echoed the hammering of my heart. The bed was empty, Damu was gone, and the sun was already over the horizon.

I’d overslept, and I’d dreamed the most frightening thing… Adrenaline still pumped through my blood, my fear on high alert.

I raced out of the hut, looking for Damu. He’d never left the hut without me before, and I needed to find him.

“Damu!” I called out. “Damu!”

Yantai turned to face me, alarmed at my urgency, and pointed toward the cattle pens.

I ran past Yantai’s hut and saw Damu being spoken to by Kijani. It didn’t look too amicable, but I didn’t have time for that right now.

The cattle pen was empty…

“Damu!” I called again as I ran towards them, and both he and Kijani stopped and stared. “The cattle?”

“Momboa and Jaali take them early,” he said, a mix of confused and cautious.

Oh no…

“We must go,” I cried. I started to run toward the gate in the acacia fence. “I dreamed of this. We must run!”

I didn’t wait to see if anyone followed, I just ran. I ran as fast as I could in the direction the boys had taken the cattle every day that week. It was toward the ridge line, a long way down, then into a valley. The rains had brought fresh grass shoots there.

Damu was soon running alongside me, his long legs and lean body outmatched me, and soon he was in front of me. He didn’t even know why he was running. He didn’t question me, he trusted in my judgement, he trusted me, and he simply ran.

My God, he was fast.

He reached the crest of the valley before me and he stopped. Down the slopes and leading out toward the plains of the Serengeti basin, was a herd of cattle and two small boys.

Damu turned to face me as I got there. “They are there,” he said, his brow furrowed. “What is wrong?”

Then we heard it.

The same sound that woke me from my nightmare. It was the sound of a hundred hooves. In my dream, the thunderous sound trampled the bodies of two small boys…

Damu turned, like in slow motion, just as the first of the wildebeest broke through the valley, and they were headed straight toward Momboa. He was just a boy, no more than five years old, too damn young to be out here. Too damn young to die.

I’d started running down the slope before I knew what I was doing. Damu called out to me, but I wouldn’t stop. I had to do something.

The stampede of wildebeest looked like a brown tumultuous river, flooding down through the valley, destroying everything in its path. Adrenaline overruled my fear, though my brain was screaming at me to stop. I ran anyway. I saw a flash of red flanking my right, and I knew it was Damu.

I ran directly toward the boys, who were now standing stock still, staring at what was coming toward them. Damu ran wider, I realised, to try to sway the wildebeest to change course, running at them from the side with his herding stick held high. Jesus, he was so much faster than me.

I reached Momboa first and scooped him off his feet. We landed near Jaali, and I cradled them, shielding them the best I could, as the first of the stampede ran past.

The boys’ screams were drowned out by the rumble of hooves and bellow of wildebeests and cattle and by the sound of my pulse booming in my ears.

I had no idea where Damu was. He was behind me somewhere, in the throng of unstoppable wildebeests. I tried to turn my head to find him, while keeping the small boys against my chest, but just as I looked, a huge beast brushed past me, almost colliding with me. I quickly ducked back down, trying to keep the boys safe. It seemed a thousand of them ran past us, on both sides, a never ending flow of wildebeests, each animal twice the size of me.

The noise was deafening. The smell was rank. The fear was debilitating. I couldn’t move. I didn’t know whether to expect a hoof to crush my skull, or if a horn would spear my spine. But I kept Momboa and Jaali in my arms, shielding them. They were quieter now. I could hear them crying, sobbing against my chest. But the animals racing past us got fewer and fewer, and I eventually―finally―dared to turn around.

I needed to find Damu.

He was about forty metres away. I just saw that he was on the ground, and I didn’t hesitate. I stood, leaving the two small boys, and started to run over to Damu. “Damu!” I called as I ran.

He put his head up, then looked behind him for any more rampaging wildlife. Seeing nothing but a few straggling wildebeests, he slowly got to his feet, just as I got to him.

“Are you okay?” I asked. I scanned his body and found a gash on his side. “You’re hurt!”

He touched the wound gingerly. “It is fine.”

It didn’t look fine. It was bleeding and looked wide and deep. “That’s not fine.”

Damu looked up then, at something over my shoulder. I turned and followed his line of sight. Kasisi and Kijani stood on the ridgeline, no doubt having seen the whole ordeal. Damisi and Amali were running down the slope toward Momboa and Jaali, quickly scooping them up in their arms. Mposi and Lommuuyak had run farther down, and Mposi threw his hands up in the air, clearly not happy with something.

“The cattle,” Damu whispered. “They are gone.”

He was right. The stampeding wildebeests had run right through the herd of cattle, and the domestic beasts had run with the wild. It was basically the entire manyatta’s wealth, their pride and joy, gone.

But in that moment, I couldn’t care less. “We need to get your cut looked at,” I said, touching his wounded ribs. He looked at me, like I didn’t understand the significance at the loss of cattle, but that wasn’t true. “We can get the cattle back. We
will
get them back,” then I whispered, “but I care more about you than cattle, Damu. You are worth more than
a thousand
cattle.”

He almost smiled, until his eyes darted to the ridgeline, to where his father and brother looked on. “Come.”

He started back toward them, and Amali and Damisi were walking back, ushering Momboa and Jaali.

“En-ashê, en-ashê,” Amali said, bowing her head. “Thank you, Alé, thank you, Damu.”

Damisi put her hand to my arm. “En-ashê oleng!”

“You’re welcome,” I replied. Then I looked to the two small boys. “Momboa, Jaali
, imuy
?”

They nodded that they were fine, but they looked a little scared. I decided then that I would give them some time before I asked if they were okay again. I assumed they felt bad for the now-missing cattle, and as we climbed the embankment to the ridgeline, the two small boys put their heads down, not wanting to make eye contact with Kasisi or Kijani.

I didn’t blame them. I didn’t really want to either.

The two women took the children back home, while Damu and I stopped. Kijani pointed to the general direction the cattle had gone and yelled something so fast and angry in Maa that I didn’t catch it. All I heard was cattle and responsible, and I didn’t really need to translate any more to fill in the blanks.

Kasisi put his hand up, silencing his angry son. The chief looked at me for a long moment. “You run for children.”

“Yes,” I answered. “We both did,” I included Damu. “He is injured and I would like to have him seen to. A doctor?”

Damu frowned, trying to downplay his injury. “It’s nothing.”

I lifted his arm so they could see the cut. “It’s not nothing. It needs cleaning and sealing or it could become infected.” Before Kijani could open his angry mouth, I looked him right in the eyes and added, “We will retrieve the cattle. We will get them back, but first Damu gets treatment.”

I didn’t leave any room for argument, and it probably didn’t help in his justifications in hating me, but I took Damu’s elbow and led him away. It was probably disrespectful to treat these two clan leaders as such―first demanding something, then turning my back to them―but I was well past caring.

Maybe it was the crash from my adrenaline-high from running all that way and saving those boys, and maybe it was relief that no one was killed, but mostly it was anger. I was pissed off that we’d risked our own lives to save those two small boys and our only reward was more loathing.

As we made our way back to the manyatta, when we were alone and out of earshot from any of the others, I stopped walking.

Damu eyed me cautiously. “Heath Crowley?”

His use of my full name twisted my heart. “Are you okay?” I asked, fighting tears.

He was immediately concerned. “Yes. Are you?”

I nodded. “I am angry. And exhausted. I’m hungry, and I was so scared. All I could think, the whole time, was about you. I didn’t know where you were or if you were hurt. I was scared for you.” I wiped at the tears, smearing dirt and salt water across my face. “You could have been killed, and we don’t even get a fucking thank you!”

Damu stared into my eyes, and he lifted his hand a little, as though he had to stop himself from touching me. “We are not harmed. Kijani speak in fear. Give our actions time in his mind. He be grateful.”

I sighed. I understood what he was saying, but I was still pissed off. And now the adrenaline had gone, I felt kind of sick.

“Come,” Damu said. “You need rest and food.”

We started walking back, and I had to admit, my body was starting to quit. The lack of calories, the constant use of energy with so little intake, was starting to take its toll.

Back in our hut, Damu quickly fixed some ugali with berries and nuts, and I ate more than my usual share. When I was done, I could barely keep my eyes open. I’d overslept that morning, ran a kilometre at full speed, almost died in a stampede, had a belly full of polenta porridge, and felt like I could sleep for a week.

“Lie here,” Damu said softly. He took my bowl, and setting it aside, he patted the thin mattress. “Rest. I will seek Amali to tend my wound. Rest.”

I couldn’t even argue. I was done. I closed my eyes, wondering if this was the beginning of the end of my stay with Damu and his people. I’d been here for almost a full year, and I had to wonder if my body had had enough. My heart squeezed at the thought of leaving Damu.

I wondered whether it was physically possible for me to leave him. I’d been broken when I came here. Incomplete. And he had healed me in ways I never thought possible, and the mere thought of leaving him broke my heart all over again. I closed my eyes, unable to stop the tears that fell, and too tired to fight it.

Damu put his hand to my face. “Sleep, Heath Crowley. I not be far.”

I knew my dream would not be pleasant. The events of the morning were too fresh, the exhaustion in my body too heavy, and the pain in my heart was too real.

I wondered what nightmares would come for me.

Instead, I dreamed of nothing, just a black void of… nothing.

I wasn’t sure what was worse.

* * * *

I woke up restless. Unsettled was probably a more apt description. I’d probably napped for an hour, but I woke up feeling more tired than when I’d lain down. I felt disconnected, almost in a daze.

The manyatta was quiet. Eerily so. The only people who remained were Amali and Damisi, who were minding all the children, and Kasisi and Damu, who sat outside the chief’s hut. It seemed they were waiting for me.

“Hello,” I said, sitting my weary body in the dirt next to Damu. We both faced Kasisi, but I spoke to Damu. “How is your wound?”

He lifted his arm, and I could see the dark but clear, sticky stuff pasted over the gash. “It will heal.”

“What is that? Is it tree sap?”

“Medicine,” he answered.

“Medicine?”

“Yes,” Damu replied. This whole conversation was taking place in front of Kasisi like he wasn’t there. Damu put his head down and spoke to his lap. “Leaf and herb medicine is natural doctor fix.”

Kasisi was looking between us, and I was reminded to avoid such scrutiny. I looked around, again noticing the quiet. “Where is everyone?” I asked.

“They go look for cattle,” Damu said quietly.

“Everyone?” I couldn’t hide my surprise.

Damu nodded. “Yes.”

Realisation crept over me then, of the significance of their loss. If even the women had left the manyatta to go in search of the missing cattle, then it was serious. Not just the women, but all the warriors, the guards, the elders, everyone.

“I’m very sorry about the cows,” I said.

When Kasisi never replied, I met his gaze. He was smiling at me. “You dream of stampede?”

I nodded. “I dreamed it too late. If I’d seen it sooner, we could have saved the boys and the cattle.”

“You save two boys,” Kasisi said. “Bravery not taken like feather.”

“It was not me who was brave. I knew what was coming,” I said. “Damu didn’t, yet he ran with me anyway.”

Damu’s gaze shot to mine. “No.”

Ignoring Damu’s rebuttal, I smiled at Kasisi. “He is too humble and modest. Damu didn’t know what I’d dreamed, yet he ran into the valley with me. Actually he ran ahead of me.”

“You mention Momboa, and your eyes were big with fear,” Damu explained. “I knew where they take the cattle, so I run there. I tried to stop at hilltop, but you kept going down. So I go with you.”