Henderson the Rain King (26 page)

the terrible labor of the legs, and the claws black and yellow which issued like thorns from the great pads of the lion's feet. "You've got him. What the hell. What now?" But now I understood what was the matter, for nobody could approach the animal to examine his ears; he was able to turn beneath the net, and, his hindquarters being free, you couldn't get near him. "Rope his legs, somebody," I yelled. The Bunam was below and signaled upward with his ivory stick. The king pushed off from the edge of the platform and took hold of the rope which had been stopped in the pulley by a knot. The overhead pole was bucking and dancing as he got hold of the frayed tail of the rope. He hauled at it, and the pulley started to scream. The lion was incompletely caught, and the king was going to try to work the net over the animal's hindquarters. I called to him, "King, think it over once. You can't do it. He weighs half a ton, and he's got a solid grip on the net." I didn't realize that only the king could remedy the situation and no one could come between him and the lion, as the lion might be the late King Gmilo. Thus it was entirely up to the king to complete the capture. The pummeling of the drums and the bugling and stone-throwing had stopped, and from the crowd there was only a shout now and then heard when the lion was not roaring. Individual voices were commenting to the king on the situation, which was a bad one. I stood up saying, "King, I'll go down and look at his ear, just tell me what to look for. Hold it, King, hold." But I doubt whether he heard me. His legs were wide apart in the center of the pole, which bowed deeply and swung and swayed under the energetic movement of his legs, and the rope and pulley and the block made cries as if resined, and the stone weights clattered on the planks. The lion fought on his back and the whole construction swayed. Again I thought the entire hopo tower would collapse and I gripped the straw behind me. Then I saw some smoke or dust above the king and realized that this came from the fastenings of hide that held the block of the pulley to the wood. The king's weight and the pull of the lion had been too much for these fastenings. One had torn, that was the puff I saw. And now the other went. "King Dahfu!" I yelled out. He was falling. Block and pulley smashed down on the stone before the fleeing beaters. The king had fallen onto the lion. I saw the convulsion of the animal's hindquarters. The claws tore. Instantly there came blood, before the king could throw himself over. I now hung from the edge of the platform by my fingers, hung and then fell, shouting as I went. I wish this had been the eternal pit. The king had rolled himself from the lion. I pulled him farther away. Through the torn clothing his blood sprang out. "Oh, King! My friend!" I covered up my face. The king said, "Wo, Sungo." The surfaces of his eyes were strange. They had thickened. I took off my green trousers to tie up the wound. These were all I had to hand, and they did no good but were instantly soaked. "Help him! Help!" I said to the crowd. "I did not make it, Henderson," the king said to me. "Why, King, what are you talking about? We'll carry you back to the palace. We'll put some sulfa powder into this and stitch you up. You'll tell me what to do, Your Majesty, being the doctor of us two." "No, no, they will never take me back. Is it Gmilo?" I ran and caught the rope and pulley and threw the wooden block like a bolo at the still thrusting legs; I wound the rope around them a dozen times, almost tearing the skin from them and yelling, "You devil! Curse you, you son of a bitch!" He raged back through the net. The Bunam then came and looked at the ears. He reached back and called authoritatively for something. His man in the dirty white paint handed him a musket and he put the muzzle against the lion's temple. When he fired the explosion tore part of the creature's head away. "It was not Gmilo," the king said. He was glad his blood would not be on his father's head. "Henderson," he said, "you will see no harm comes to Atti." "Hell, Your Highness, you're still king, you'll take care of her yourself." I began to cry. "No, no, Henderson," he said. "I cannot be � among the wives. I would have to be killed." He was moved over these women. Some of them he must have loved. His belly through the torn clothing looked like a grate of fire and some of the beaters were already giving death shrieks. The Bunam stood apart, he kept away from us. "Bend close," said Dahfu. I squatted near his head and turned my good ear toward him, the tears meanwhile running between my fingers, and I said, "Oh, King, King, I am a bad-luck type. I am a jinx, and death hangs around me. The world has sent you just the wrong fellow. I am contagious, like Typhoid Mary. Without me you would have been okay. You are the noblest guy I ever met." "It's the other way around. The shoe is on the other foot � The first night you were here," he explained as a fellow will under the creeping numbness, "that body was the former, the Sungo before you. Because he could not lift Mummah �" His hand was bloody; he put thumb and forefinger weakly to his throat. "They strangled him? My God! And what about that big fellow Turombo, who couldn't pick her up? Ah, he didn't want to become the Sungo, it's too dangerous. It was wished on me. I was the fall guy. I was had." "Sungo also is my successor," he said, touching my hand. "I take your place? What are you talking about, Your Highness!" Eyes closing, he nodded slowly. "No child of age, makes the Sungo king." "Your Highness," I said, and raised my weeping voice, "what have you pulled on me? I should have been told what I was getting into. Was this a thing to do to a friend?" Without reopening his eyes, but smiling in his increasing weakness the king said, "It was done to me �" Then I said, "Your Majesty, move over and I'll die beside you. Or else be me and live; I never knew what to do with life anyway, and I'll die instead." I began to rub and beat my face with my knuckles, crouching in the dust between the dead lion and the dying king. "The spirit's sleep burst too late for me. I waited too long, and I ruined myself with pigs. I'm a broken man. And I'll never make out with the wives. How can I? I'll follow you soon. These guys will kill me. King! King!" But the king had little life left in him now, and we soon parted. He was picked up by the beaters, the end of the hopo was opened and we started to go down the ravine among the cactuses toward that stone building I had first seen from the platform at the top of the wall. On the way he died of the hemorrhage. This small house built of flat slabs had two wooden doors of the stockade type which opened into two chambers. His body was laid down in one of these. Into the other they put me. I scarcely knew what was happening anyway, and I let them lead me in and bolt the door.

XXI

At one time, much earlier in this life of mine, suffering had a certain spice. Later on it started to lose this spice; it became merely dirty, and, as I told my son Edward in California, I couldn't bear it any more. Damn! I was tired of being such a monster Of grief. But now, with the king's death, it was no longer a topic and it had no spice at all. It was only terrible. Weeping and mourning I was put into the stone room by the old Bunam and his white-dyed assistant. Though the words came out broken, I repeated the one thing, "It's wasted on dummies." (Life is.) "They give it to dummies and fools." (We are where other men ought to be.) So they led me inside, crying my head off. I was too bereaved to ask any questions. By and by a person rising from the floor startled me. "Who the hell is that?" I asked. Two open, wrinkled hands were raised to caution me. "Who are you?" I said again, and then I recognized a head of hair shaped like an umbrella pine and big dusty feet as deformed as vegetable growths. "Romilayu!" "Me here too, sah." They hadn't let him get off with the letter to Lily, but picked him up just as he was leaving town. So even before the hunt began they had decided that they didn't want my whereabouts to be known to the world. "Romilayu, the king is dead," I said. He tried to comfort me. "That marvelous guy. Dead!" "Fine gen'a'man, sah." "He thought he could change me. But I met him too late in life, Romilayu. I was too gross. Too far gone." All I had left in the way of clothing was shoes and helmet, T-shirt and the jockey shorts, and I sat on the floor, where I bent over double and cried without limit. Romilayu at first could not help me. But maybe time was invented so that misery might have an end. So that it shouldn't last forever? There may be something in this. And bliss, just the opposite, is eternal? That is no time in bliss. All the clocks were thrown out of heaven. I never took another death so hard. As I had tried to stop his bleeding, there was blood all over me and soon it was dry. I tried to rub it off. Well, I thought, maybe this is a sign that I should continue his existence? How? To the best of my ability. But what ability have I got? I can't name three things in my whole life that I did right. So I broke my heart over this, too. Thus the day passed and the night passed, too, and in the morning I felt light, dry and hollow. As if I were drifting, like an old vat. All the moisture was on the outside. Inside, I was hollow, dark, and dry; I was sober and empty. And the sky was pink. I saw it through the bars of the door. The Bunam's black-leather man, still in his coat of white, was our custodian, and brought us baked yams and other fruit. Two amazons, but not Tamba and Bebu, were his staff, and everyone treated me with peculiar deference. During the day I said to Romilayu, "Dahfu said that when he died I should be king." "Dem call you Yassi, sah." "Does that mean king?" That was what it meant. "Some king," I said, musing. "It's goofy." Romilayu made no comment whatever. "I would have to be husband to all those wives." "You no like dat, sah?" "Are you crazy, man?" I said. "How could I even think of taking over that bunch of females? I have all the wife I need. Lily is just a marvelous woman. Anyway, the king's death has hurt me too much. I am stricken, can't you see, Romilayu? I am stricken down and I can't function at all. This has broken me." "You no look so too-bad, sah." "Oh, you want to make me feel better. But you should see my heart, Romilayu. I have a punchy heart. It's had more beating than it can take. They've kicked it around far too much. Don't let this big carcass of mine fool you. I am far too sensitive. Anyway, Romilayu, it's true I shouldn't have bet against the rain on that day. It didn't look like good will on my part. But the king, God bless the guy, let me walk into a trap. I wasn't really stronger than that man Turombo. He could have lifted up Mummah. He just didn't want to become the Sungo. He faked himself out of it. It's too dangerous a position. This the king did to me." "But him dange'ah too," said Romilayu. "Yes, and so he was. Why should I ask to have it better than he? You're right, old fellow. Thanks for setting me straight." I thought a while, then asked him, as a man of proven good sense, "Don't you think I'd scare those girls?" I grimaced to illustrate my meaning somewhat. "My face is half the length of another person's body." "I don't t'ink so, sah." "Isn't it?" I touched it. "Well, I won't stay, anyhow. Though I will never have another chance to become a king, I guess." And thinking deeply about the great man, just dead, just settled for good and all into nothing, into dark night, I felt he had picked me to step into his place. It was up to me, if I wanted to turn my back on home, where I had been nothing. He believed that I was royal material, and that I might make good use of a chance to start life anew. And so I sent my thanks to him, through the stone wall. But I said to Romilayu, "No, I'd break my heart here trying to fill his position. Besides, I have to go home. And anyway, I am no stud. No use kidding, I am fifty-six, or going on it. I'd shake in my boots that the wives might turn me in. And I'd have to live under the shadow of the Bunam and Horko and those people, and never be able to face old Queen Yasra, the king's mother. I made her a promise. Oh, Romilayu, as if I had ability to promise anything on. Let's get out of here. I feel like a lousy impostor. The only decent thing about me is that I have loved certain people in my life. Oh, the poor guy is dead. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho! It kills me. It could be time we were blown off this earth. If only we didn't have hearts we wouldn't know how sad it was. But we carry around these hearts, these spotty damn mangoes in our breasts, which give us away. And it isn't only that I'm scared of all those wives, but there'll be nobody to talk to any more. I've gotten to that age where I need human voices and intelligence. That's all that's left. Kindness and love." I fell into mourning again, for this was how I had gone on without intermission since being shut in the tomb, and I kept it up a while longer, as I recall. Then suddenly I said to Romilayu, "Pal, the king's death was no accident." "What you mean, sah?" "It was no accident. It was a scheme, I begin to be convinced of it. Now they can say he was punished for keeping Atti, having her under the palace. You know they wouldn't hesitate to murder the guy. They thought I'd be more pliable than the king. Would you put this past these guys?" "No sah." "You bet, no sah. If I ever get my hands on any of these characters I'll crush them like old beer cans." I ground my hands together to show what I would do, and bared my teeth and growled. Perhaps I had learned from lions after all, and not the grace and power of movement that Dahfu had got out of his rearing among them, but the more cruel aspect of the lion, according to my shorter and shallower experience. When you get right down to it, a fellow can't predict what he will pick up in the form of influence. I think that Romilayu was somewhat upset by this jump from mourning to retribution, but he seemed to realize that I wasn't myself, altogether; he was ready to make allowances for me, being really a very generous and understanding type, and quite a Christian fellow. I said, "We must think of crashing out of here. Let's case the joint. Actually, where are we? And what can we do? And what have we got?" "We got knife, sah," said Romilayu, and he showed it to me. It was his hunting knife, and he had slipped it into his hah when the Bunam's men came after him on the outskirts of the town. "Oh, good man," I said, and took the knife from him in a stabbing position. "Dig, bettah," he said. "Yes, that makes sense. You're right. I'd like to get hold of the Bunam," I said, "but that would be a luxury. Revenge is a luxury. I've got to be canny. Hold me back, Romilayu. It's up to you to restrain me. You see I'm beside myself, don't you? What's next door?" We began to go over the wall, and after a minute examination we found a chink high up between the slabs of stone and we began to dig at it, taking turns with the knife. Sometimes I held Romilayu up in my arms, and sometimes I let him stand on my back while I was on all fours. For him to stand on my shoulders was impracticable, as the ceiling was too low. "Yes, somebody tampered with the block and pulley at the hopo," I kept saying. "Maybe, sah." "There can't be any maybes about it. And why did the Bunam grab you? Because it was a plot against Dahfu and me. Of course, the king let me in for a lot of trouble, too, by allowing me to move Mummah. That he did." Romilayu dug, revolving the knife blade in the mortar, and he scraped and scooped out the scrapings with his forefinger. The dust fell over me. "But the king lived under threat of death himself, and what he lived with I could live with. He was my friend." "You friend, sah?" "Well, love may be like this, too, old fellow," I explained. "I suppose my dad wished, I _know__ he wished, that I had gotten drowned instead of my brother Dick, up there near Plattsburg. Did this mean he didn't love me? Not at all. I, too, being a son, it tormented the old guy to wish it. Yes, if it had been me instead, he would have wept almost as much. He loved both his sons. But Dick should have lived. He was wild only that one time, Dick was; he may have been smoking a reefer. It was too much of a price to pay for one single reefer. Oh, I don't blame the old guy. Except it's life; and have we got any business to chide it?" "Yes, sah," he said. He was keenly digging, and I knew he didn't follow me. "How can you chide it? It has a right to our respect. It does its stuff, that's all. I told that man next door I had a voice that said, _I__ _want__. What did it want?" "Yes, sah" (scooping more mortar over me). "It wanted reality. How much unreality could it stand?" He dug and dug. I was on all fours, and my words were spoken toward the floor. "We're supposed to think that nobility is unreal. But that's just it. The illusion is on the other foot. They make us think we crave more and more illusions. Why, I don't crave illusions at all. They say, Think big. Well, that's baloney of course, another business slogan. But greatness! That's another thing altogether. Oh, greatness! Oh, God! Romilayu, I don't mean inflated, swollen, false greatness. I don't mean pride or throwing your weight around. But the universe itself being put into us, it calls out for scope. The eternal is bonded onto us. It calls out for its share. This is why guys can't bear to be so cheap. And I had to do something about it. Maybe I should have stayed at home. Maybe I should have learned to kiss the earth." (I did so now.) "But I thought I was going to explode, back there. Oh, Romilayu, I wish I could have opened my heart entirely to that poor guy. I'm all torn up over his death. I've never had it so bad. "But I will show those schemers, if I ever get the chance," I said. Quietly, Romilayu chipped and dug, then he put his eye to the hole and said, low, "I see, sah." "What do you see?" He was silent and dismounted. I stood, rubbing the grit from my back, and put my eye to the hole. There I saw the figure of the dead king. He was wrapped in a shroud of leather, and his features were invisible, for the flap was down over his face. At the hips and feet the body was tied with thongs. The Bunam's assistant was the death-watcher and sat on a stool by the door, sleeping. It was very hot in both these rooms. Beside him were two baskets of cold baked yams. And to the handle of one of these baskets there was tethered a lion cub, still spotted as very young cubs are. I judged it was two or three weeks old. The fellow's sleep was heavy, though he sat on a backless stool. His arms were slack and pressed between his chest and thighs, the hands with their gorged veins nearly dropped to the ground. With hatred in my heart I said to myself, "You wait, you crook. I'll get around to you." Due to the peculiarities of the light, he appeared as white as satin; only his nostrils and the furrows of his cheeks were black. "I'll fix your wagon," I promised him in silence. "Well, Romilayu," I said. "This time let's use our heads. We won't do as we did the first night here with the body of the other fellow, the Sungo before me. Let us plot. First, I am in line for the throne. They wouldn't want to hurt me, as I'd be a figurehead in the tribe and they would run the show to please themselves. They've got the lion cub, who is my dead friend, so they are moving along pretty fast and we have to move fast, too. Boy, we've got to move even faster." "Whut you do, sah?" he said, growing worried at my tone. "Bust out, naturally. Do you think we can make it back to Baventai as we are?" He couldn't or wouldn't say what he thought of this, and I asked, "It looks bad, eh?" "You sick," said Romilayu. "Hah. I can make it if you can. You know how I am when I get going. Are you kidding? I could walk across Siberia on my hands. And anyway, pal, there's no choice. Absolutely the best in me comes out at times like this. It's the Valley Forge element in me. It'll be tough, all right. We'll pack along those yams. That ought to help. You won't stay behind, will you?" "Wo, no, sah. Dem kill me." "Then just resign yourself," I said. "I don't think those amazons sit up all night. This is the twentieth century, and they can't make a king of me if I don't let them. Nobody can call me chicken on account of that harem. But, Romilayu, I think it would be smart to act as if I wanted the position. They wouldn't want any harm to come to me. It would put them in a hell of a fix to hurt me. Besides, they must figure that we'd never be fools enough to go through two or three hundred miles of no man's land without food or a gun." Seeing me in this mood, Romilayu was frightened. "We have to stick together," I said to him, however. "If they should strangle me after a few weeks--and it's likely; I'm in no condition to boast or make big promises--what would happen to you? They'd kill you, too, to protect their secret. And how much grun-tu-molani do you have? You want to live, kid?" He had no time to answer then, as Horko came to pay us a visit. He smiled, but his behavior was somewhat more formal than before. He called me Yassi and showed his fat red tongue, which he might have done to cool himself after his long walk through the heat of the bush; however, I thought it signified respect. "How do you do, Mr. Horko?" Greatly satisfied, he bowed from the waist while he kept his forefinger above his head. The upper part of him was always much crowded by the tight sheath, his court dress of red, and he was congested in the face. The red jewels in his ears dragged them down, and as he grinned I looked at him, but not openly, with hatred. As there was nothing I