Chanda's Wars (17 page)

T
HE SMOKE'S DIED
down by the time we reach the compound.

Mandiki's paid a visit. There's a smell of burned flesh coming from the main house. Its thatched roof was set on fire and fell into the center. The charred door is blocked shut by a wagon, planted sideways, wheels locked by rocks. The wooden shutters have been pushed out by people struggling to escape. Their bodies, riddled with bullets, plug the two mud frames.

Nelson and I toss the rocks off the wheels and roll away the wagon. Inside the house, we find more bodies, some collapsed by the entrance, others huddled at the far end of the main room.

We stagger out of the place and vomit. I spit the smoke and bile out of my mouth. “Mandiki rounded up the whole family. He trapped them inside.”

“Except for the children,” Nelson whispers on his knees. “The kids who'd know the hiding places north of here, like Pako knew the mudhole.”

When we can breathe again, we go back into the house. We bring the bodies into the yard and lay them together. The boy in the mosquito net is dead beyond certainty. I nestle him beside one of the mamas. Then we rock the wagon on its side and turn it over the remains. It'll keep out the scavengers. That will have to do for now.

It's midday. We rest through the worst of the heat in the shade of an outbuilding. Neither of us can eat. Iris. Soly. Pako. What did they see? I won't think about that. I can't. I busy myself making a new knapsack out of my blanket; I wrap Lily's sling around my head for sun cover.

“I can't stay here any longer,” I say. “There's nothing but death. We have to go.”

Nelson has the same sick feeling. We fill our canteens with water from the compound's well and force down a few bites of my maize bread. There's not much left. Nelson still has a stock of biltong, but our food's running low. Another day and I'll be digging for kasaba roots, while Nelson hunts lizards and bush rats with his slingshot.

We go north all afternoon, through savannah, scrub,
and now a mixed woodland. I look up as we walk under the sausage trees; if their heavy fruit falls on us, it'll crack our heads open. I'm careful near the marulas, too; bees hum around their sweet-laden branches.

We've traveled far. Twenty miles to Pako's mudhole. Ten or twelve this morning to the compound. Another ten since then. That's at least forty miles in total. I should know what that means. All the same, it's a shock when Nelson says: “Listen.”

I hear a delicate lapping of water, catch a faint smell of fish. We emerge from the woodland at a broad, muddy river. It's the east fork of the Kenje. It has to be; that's the only river up here. I climb onto a large flat rock and look over the reeds.

Fifty yards away, on the far bank, I see elephants—three females and a baby—grazing in the sedges, their thick trunks curling around bunches of reeds, ripping them up by the roots. A colony of cormorants roosts on a stand of yellow fever trees near the water's edge. It's just like in Mr. Lesole's pictures. I start to tremble.

“Nelson,” I say, “it's the park.”

Mandiki's trail heads into the reeds at the water. Nelson climbs a tree to scout. For a moment, I stare in awe at the elephants. Then, filled with fear and excitement, I sit on the rock and pull out Mr. Lesole's map.

Mfuala National Park. It stretches two hundred miles, east to west; fifty miles, north to south. The Kenje River starts in the mountains at the border with Ngala and flows south. Safari camps are marked along its tributaries. Above the entrance to the park at Mfualatown, the Kenje forks in two. The west fork cuts across our country on a diagonal. The other fork, the one Nelson and I are beside, goes sharp east and marks the park's south boundary.

My eyes drift back to the elephants. There aren't any fences, but according to Mr. Lesole, the animals usually stay on the park side of the river. West of Mfualatown, the
land is cleared, and there's a long strip of towns, roads, warehouses, and other things they don't like. East of Mfualatown, there's this river. Some of the animals can cross it, but except for a few bachelor elephants they usually don't. Over here, there're poachers everywhere. Mr. Lesole says they sense it.

Nelson swings down from a lower branch. “Chanda, we're in trouble.”

“Mandiki?”

“Worse.”

“What?”

He squats, as if dizzy. “I've looked up and down the river. There's no sign of the rebels coming out, on this side or the other.”

I stop breathing. “You mean…”

“We've lost them. They could be walking along the water's edge in either direction. Or they could have crossed over miles away. There's no way to tell.”

“What if we split up? You go along the river one way, I go along the other?”

“For how long? They could have walked for hours. If we're on the wrong track, how do we know when to turn around and come back? And what if they've crossed into
the park? Where did they do it? We don't even know where to look!” He flings himself into the air. “We were so close! If only we hadn't wasted time with that kid.”

“Nelson—”

“I never should have let you follow me!” He spins in a circle and storms off into the woods.

I slump down, eyes fixed blankly at the color drawing of the park and the inset diagram of the country. It's over. Over, over, over.

Nelson returns. If he yells at me again, I'll smack him. But the woods have calmed him.

“We have an outside chance to figure this out,” Nelson says.

“What? How?”

He collects himself. “Here's one of the first things I learned about hunting,” he says quietly. “Know your prey. If you know your prey, you'll know what it's likely to do. Where it's likely to go. That'll help you catch it.”

“I don't understand.”

He sits beside me on the rock. “Mandiki thinks everyone's his prey. He's wrong. You and me, we're hunters. He's
our
prey.”

I'd never thought of it like that. My spine tingles.

“So,” Nelson continues, “what do we know about Mandiki?”

“Well,” I clear my throat, “we know he's traveling light, maybe twenty men and a few dozen kids. That means he can't fight a major battle. He has to be able to hit and run.”

“What else?”

I smooth out the map and sketch Mandiki's route on the inset drawing of the country. “Mandiki came over the mountains, raided Mr. Lesole's camp in the foothills, and made his way through the park,” I say. “Then he swept down alongside the highway, striking Tiro and Shawshe. Since then he's headed north and inland. The army's got patrols along the highway. He's been trying hard to avoid them.”

“But will he
keep
heading north?” Nelson asks, rubbing his ear. “Maybe he'll double back south to surprise people.”

“I don't think so,” I say. “With dry season starting, the high grasses are dying. Every day, he'd be more exposed. Why risk it? Especially with Tiro and Shawshe getting reinforced. And below them there's the army base at Rombala.”

“So Mandiki gets to this river. He's not going south,” Nelson says. “Where then?”

I think hard, every fiber focused, clear. “Not west. That gets him near Mfualatown. It's big and heavily armed. We saw lots of tanks going there from Tiro.”

“Then east?”

“Why? There's nothing east but a few family compounds.”

“He hit a family compound last night,” Nelson shrugs.

“Yes,” I nod. “But that wasn't part of a plan. It just happened to be on his way.”

“Where?”

My brain whirs: “Home!”

Nelson shakes his head. “Mandiki can't go home. He's on the run. The Ngala army found his main camp.”

“So what?” I say, nerves sparking. “He's dodged the army there for six years. If he really had to escape, the rest of his troops would have followed him. They didn't. Mandiki came with a small brigade. He's been on a mission.”

“What mission?”

“To punish us. Why? For signing the friendship treaty!” I'm on fire now, the words tumbling from my tongue. “In less than a week, he's proved he can take our kids, murder our families, and nothing can stop him. That's not all. He's pushed our country toward ruin.”

“How?”

“Think, Nelson, think! Our government knew Mandiki was here. It sent tanks to Tiro. So why did it blame his attacks on poachers and bandits?”

“To keep us calm.”

“No,” I jump up. “To calm investors. Tourists.”

Nelson frowns. “If Mandiki wanted to scare
them
, he would've murdered the guests at the safari camp.”

“And risked his own future? If he killed foreigners, who knows what their governments might have done.”

“Fine.” Nelson swats a mosquito. “But why should investors or tourists worry about Mandiki now? As far as they know, he isn't even here.”

“The official lie won't last.”

“Why not?”

I take a deep breath. “Back in Bonang, I have a teacher, Mr. Selalame. I know what he'd say. ‘Satellites track government armies. Rumors circulate in embassies.' One way or another, the truth will get out. When it does our economy will get hammered.”

“Not if Mandiki's gone home.”

I throw up my arms. “Wake up. Once the world knows Mandiki's been here, it'll know he can come again. Any time. What then? Investors fear instability more than
death. Mandiki's job is done. That's why he's off to regroup at a new camp in Ngala.”

Nelson exhales slowly. “They teach you a lot in Bonang.”

“Mr. Selalame's very special,” I say grimly. “Anyway, if what I've said is right, we have another problem. It's just fifty miles to the mountains. Once Mandiki crosses the border, rescuing Soly, Iris, and Pako will be impossible.”

Nelson bites his lip. “We better move fast.” He scans the river. “Where do you think he crossed?”

“Someplace shallow enough for children. Look for sandbars, ripples in the water running shore to shore.”

Nelson's eyebrows lift off his forehead. “Mr. Selalame taught you that, too?”

“No, I got that from my neighbor, Mr. Lesole.”

“Between the two of them, you know everything.”

“Not tracking,” I smile. “That's your department. You're King of the Spoor.”

He shuffles, embarrassed.

I look east. “Let's scout down there, away from Mfualatown. My bet is, Mandiki took the first sandbar he could find. There'd be light. He'd want to take cover as soon as he could.”

“Wait,” Nelson says. “What if he crossed at night? He
had the kids from the last compound. They could have led him to the shallows in the dark.”

“Even so, he wouldn't have crossed then,” I say. “At night, it would've been hard to spot the crocodiles.”

Nelson's eyes twitch. “Crocodiles?”

“Of course, crocodiles. The north Kenje River's full of them. What did you think?”

“I didn't think anything.” He struggles to calm his voice. “I mean, of course there's crocodiles. I know that, sure. It's just, they live up here, I live down there. I don't think about them. I—well—What do we do?”

“Relax.” I wish I was as confident as I sound. “The river's slow, but crocodiles like it slower. Like it says on the back of my map: ‘They like to bake on the banks of a lazy oxbow.'”

“Well, they also like to eat. What if they're underwater at the edge of the reeds? The water's too muddy to tell.”

My heart flips. “Look for little bubbles,” I say. “Check for the tip of a snout. Anyway, crocs can only stay under for five minutes. We've been here longer than that and nothing's surfaced.”

I march along the riverbank. Nelson holds back. I turn and put my hands on my hips: “Look, Nelson, don't be a
baby. According to Mr. Lesole, crocodiles go for weeks between feedings. There were rebels in the water this morning. Any hungry crocs have already eaten.”

Nelson steps toward me gingerly. “That's not too reassuring.”

“Sorry,” I say, “that's as good as you get.”

A half mile downstream, we spot a series of sandbars. We take off our shoes, step into the water, and push through the reeds lining the shore.

I always took notes in school, but never at the Lesoles'. How much do I remember? How much am I jumbling? How much did Mr. Lesole make up for the sake of a good story? I guess I'm about to find out.

W
E EDGE OUR
way through the reeds. The muddy water's halfway up our calves. We part the last sedges. There's a ripple straight ahead. Is it a ridge of silt or a crocodile? I don't see any bubbles. It's too late to run anyway. I step forward. The ripple shifts. Please let it be the current. My toe bumps into it. It's not silt. It's hard. Slippery. It's—it's—

“Careful,” I call to Nelson. “There's a half-sunk log or something. Don't cut your feet.”

Near the shore, the river's shallow. We tread knee-deep, talking to keep our minds off what's scaring us.

“On the other side, there's all these trails leading from the river,” Nelson says. “They're bare to the ground. From the safari camps?”

“No. Hippo highways.”

“Hippo highways?”

“Yes.” I give him a smug look. After all his teasing it feels good to know more than he does. “Hippos come to the water at dawn to stay cool. At night, they go inland, maybe ten miles, to graze on sweet grass. Each family makes its own path. They always follow the same route, wearing the trails to bare dirt.”

Nelson considers this. “The hippos are a good sign, right?” he says. “They wouldn't be in the water if there were crocodiles, would they?”

I pretend not to hear. If that fantasy makes him feel better, good. The truth is, crocs leave hippos alone. “The hippopotamus is one dumb, ugly sonovabitch,” Mr. Lesole told us. “Mean, too, if you're not careful. Those jaws can crush a croc in half. And lord, can they run—run faster than a sprinter. Get between a hippo and water, it'll trample you to death. Folks don't believe it, but hippos kill more people than anything else in the bush. More than lions, leopards, elephants, you name it.”

We're almost halfway across. The water's deeper, the current stronger. Nelson's up to his waist; I'm up to my chest. We hold our knapsacks over our heads. This would come up to the children's necks. How did they make it? Maybe they didn't. Maybe we're at the wrong place. Or
maybe the men stretched a line across, a rope maybe. How did they carry their gear? Do crates float? Did they make a raft? They would have had time. Not like us.

Something catches my eye. It's barely breaking the surface, heading our way from upstream. It's hard to make out what it is, with the sun in our eyes and the light bouncing off the water. But it's dark brown. I think I can see holes in it. Nostrils? A snout!

“Nelson! To the west! It's coming toward us! Hurry!”

He sees it too. We churn through the water. Struggle to get to the other side. The croc's getting closer. I lurch forward. There's a break in the sandbar. Nothing under my feet. I can't touch bottom. I'm underwater, except for my arms and knapsack. My legs flail. I burst through the surface. “Help!”

Nelson thrashes toward me. “Chanda!”

“I can't swim!”

“Neither can I! Float!”

“How?”

The river pours down my throat. I choke. Need my arms. Go to pitch my knapsack. Can't. Hands locked. Have to keep it dry. Under again. Kick like crazy. Break the surface. Nelson. Can't see him. “Nelson?” Has the croc—?

Nelson surges up from the water. He's over his head too. “Cha—” He sinks back under. So do I. This is it. We're going to drown or be eaten.

My heels hit mud. I'm pulled by the current up the side of the next sandbar. Somehow, I find myself on my knees. It's shallow, the mud floor pale under the water. I stand up. “Nelson?” He surfaces nearby. Staggers to his feet coughing.

The crocodile. Where is it? Frantic, I search the surface. I see the brown snout. It's ten feet away, coming fast, spinning in the current. Spinning? I look hard. It's not a snout at all. It's the rosettes of a rotting water hyacinth. It floats by harmlessly.

The two of us stand apart, shaking, gasping for breath.

“You!” Nelson explodes. “You almost got us killed!”

“I didn't make the gap in the sandbar!”

“Well, you—you—”

I raise a hand. There's a pod of hippos standing in the water just downstream. I count twelve animals in the family, their dark ears, snouts, and backs barely breaking the water. The current's brought us toward them. Our commotion's got their attention. I can hear Mr. Lesole's voice: “Those bastards are sneaky. Mean, too. They can stay sub
merged for six minutes, walk on the riverbed, then charge to the surface. They tipped a motorboat at one of the camps a few years back.”

“Nelson,” I say quietly. “Be very still.”

“What?”

“We have company.”

Nelson takes note.

“Avoid their eyes,” I whisper. “Look off to the side.” He does as he's told.

After a few minutes, the hippos get tired of watching us. A few make a hoarse honking sound. Silence. A shake of the head from some, the massive jowls spluttering in the water. One of them rests its chin on another's rump. They go still. It's like they're posing for tourists on a photo safari.

Nelson and I inch slowly along the sandbar. We reach the far bank.

“We're alive,” Nelson says. He sounds surprised.

So am I. But there's no time for celebration. There's only a few hours before dusk, and so much to do.

“After he crossed, I'll bet Mandiki took one of the hippo highways,” Nelson says. “It'd be a clear route, he could move fast, and once the hippos stomped over his tracks, his trail would be gone for good.”

I nod. “Mandiki's lived in the bush for six years. He'd know not to go up a hippo path until the hippos had come into the water. Who wants to get trampled?”

“That fits with your idea that he crossed in the light.”

“It also means that his tracks will be there till sundown, when the hippos leave.”

I untie my knapsack. The blanket's damp from splashes of water, but thank god I kept my hands out of the river; things inside are pretty dry. I take out my binoculars. We walk out twenty feet on the sandbar and scan the shoreline. There are hippo highways up and down the river. I give the glasses to Nelson. “Here, you see better than me.”

He takes a look. “From here, I can't tell if any of the tracks are human,” he says. “But there's a bit of garbage in the reeds down there. I've never heard of a hippo carrying a feed sack.”

My heart skips. “What kind of feed sack?” I grab the glasses, focus the lens. The bag's barely visible, dark green among the reeds. I run to the bank, snatch my things, and race downstream, nicking my legs on thorns. I leap over a hippo highway full of footprints heading inland.

“Stop,” Nelson says. “This is it. The rebels' trail. You've passed it.”

“I know,” I say. The bag in the reeds is just ahead. I pull it from the water. There's a draw string, snagged to a sedge root. At the bottom, two leg holes.

Nelson catches up. “What is it?”

“Soly's diaper. It fit over his towel. He must have used it as pants. But now he's left it.” I rip it from the water. “It's a sign. A sign to guide us.”

Nelson pauses. “Your little brother would think to plant a marker?”

“Maybe not. But Iris would.”

“Why here?” he asks gently. “Why not before?”

“I don't know. Maybe he's got proper pants now. It doesn't matter. The point is, he left us a sign. It drifted a bit. But we found it. Nelson, they're alive. They haven't given up.”

“Chanda…” Nelson's face is pained. He might as well have kicked me in the gut.

“What?” I yell. “Why are you being like this?”

“It's just…” He hesitates. “Chanda…you know what we've seen.”

“Yes, I know what we've seen,” I say, hurt and mad. “I know exactly what we've seen. I know what else this bag could mean too. But don't you dare say it. Or even think it. Don't you dare—dare—take away my hope!”

“When Mandiki first came through, you told me: ‘Dreaming a lie makes the truth hurt more.'”

I can't speak. I can't breathe. I clutch the feed sack to my chest and sob. “Soly. Soly.”

Nelson goes to say something. He can't. He stares at his feet. “I'm sorry,” he whispers at last.

“Never mind.” I wipe my face with my arm, bury my heart. “Let's get up that trail before the hippos destroy Mandiki's tracks.”

I throw my things together. I swear, before I sleep tonight, I'm going to reach the rebel camp. Whether Soly and Iris are dead or alive, I'm going to know the truth.