Ladies' Detective Agency 01 - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (9 page)

There was a noise
from the water’s edge, and Mma Ramotswe knew now that it was time to
switch on her torch. As the beam came on, she saw, just at the edge of the
water, its head turned towards the cowering dog, a large crocodile.

The
crocodile was totally unconcerned by the light, which it probably took for the
moon. Its eyes were fixed on the dog, and it was edging slowly towards its
quarry. Mma Ramotswe raised the rifle to her shoulder and saw the side of the
crocodile’s head framed perfectly in her sights. She pulled the
trigger.

When the bullet struck the crocodile, it gave a great leap, a
somersault in fact, and landed on its back, half in the water, half out. For a
moment or two it twitched and then was still. It had been a perfectly placed
shot.

Mma Ramotswe noticed that she was trembling as she put the rifle
down. Her Daddy had taught her to shoot, and he had done it well, but she did
not like to shoot animals, especially crocodiles. They were bad luck, these
creatures, but duty had to be done. And what was it doing there anyway? These
creatures were not meant to be in the Notwane River; it must have wandered for
miles overland, or swum up in the flood waters from the Limpopo itself. Poor
crocodile—this was the end of its adventure.

She took a knife and
slit through the creature’s belly. The leather was soft, and the stomach
was soon exposed and its contents revealed. Inside there were pebbles, which
the crocodile used for digesting its food, and several pieces of foul-smelling
fish. But it was not this that interested her; she was more interested in the
undigested bangles and rings and wristwatch she found. These were corroded, and
one or two of them were encrusted, but they stood out amongst the stomach
contents, each of them the evidence of the crocodile’s sinister
appetites.

“IS THIS your
husband’s property?” she asked Mma Malatsi, handing her the
wristwatch she had claimed from the crocodile’s stomach.

Mma
Malatsi took the watch and looked at it. Mma Ramotswe grimaced; she hated
moments like this, when she had no choice but to be the bearer of bad
news.

But Mma Malatsi was extraordinarily calm. “Well at least I
know that he’s with the Lord,” she said. “And that’s
much better than knowing that he’s in the arms of some other woman,
isn’t it?”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I think it
is,” she said.

“Were you married, Mma?” asked Mma
Malatsi. “Do you know what it is like to be married to a man?”

Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window. There was a thorn tree outside her
window, but beyond that she could see the boulder-strewn hill.

“I
had a husband,” she said. “Once I had a husband. He played the
trumpet. He made me unhappy and now I am glad that I no longer have a
husband.” She paused. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to be rude.
You’ve lost your husband and you must be very sorry.”

“A bit,” said Mma Malatsi. “But I have lots to
do.”

CHAPTER
SIX

BOY

T
HE BOY was eleven, and was small for his
age. They had tried everything to get him to grow, but he was taking his time,
and now, when you saw him, you would say that he was only eight or nine, rather
than eleven. Not that it bothered him in the slightest; his father had said to
him: I was a short boy too. Now I am a tall man. Look at me. That will happen
to you. You just wait.

But secretly the parents feared that there
was something wrong; that his spine was twisted, perhaps, and that this was
preventing him from growing. When he was barely four, he had fallen out of a
tree—he had been after birds’ eggs—and had lain still for
several minutes, the breath knocked out of him; until his grandmother had run
wailing across the melon field and had lifted him up and carried him home, a
shattered egg still clasped in his hand. He had recovered—or so they
thought at the time—but his walk was different, they thought. They had
taken him to the clinic, where a nurse had looked at his eyes and into his
mouth and had pronounced him healthy.

“Boys fall all the time.
They hardly ever break anything.”

The nurse placed her hands on
the child’s shoulders and twisted his torso.

“See. There is
nothing wrong with him. Nothing. If he had broken anything, he would have cried
out.”

But years later, when he remained small, the mother thought
of the fall and blamed herself for believing that nurse who was only good for
doing bilharzia tests and checking for worms.

THE BOY was more curious than other children. He loved to look for stones
in the red earth and polish them with his spittle. He found some beautiful ones
too—deep-blue ones and ones which had a copper-red hue, like the sky at
dusk. He kept his stones at the foot of his sleeping mat in his hut and learned
to count with them. The other boys learned to count by counting cattle, but
this boy did not seem to like cattle—which was another thing that made
him odd.

Because of his curiosity, which sent him scuttling about the
bush on mysterious errands of his own, his parents were used to his being out
of their sight for hours on end. No harm could come to him, unless he was
unlucky enough to step on a puff adder or a cobra. But this never happened, and
suddenly he would turn up again at the cattle enclosure, or behind the goats,
clutching some strange thing he had found—a vulture’s feather, a
dried tshongololo millipede, the bleached skull of a snake.

Now the boy
was out again, walking along one of the paths that led this way and that
through the dusty bush. He had found something which interested him very
much—the fresh dung of a snake—and he followed the path so he might
see the creature itself. He knew what it was because it had balls of fur in it,
and that would only come from a snake. It was rock rabbit fur, he was sure,
because of its colour and because he knew that rock rabbits were a delicacy to
a big snake. If he found the snake, he might kill it with a rock, and skin it,
and that would make a handsome skin for a belt for him and his father.

But it was getting dark, and he would have to give up. He would never see
the snake on a night with no moon; he would leave the path and cut back across
the bush towards the dirt road that wound its way back, over the dry riverbed,
to the village.

He found the road easily and sat for a moment on the
verge, digging his toes into soft white sand. He was hungry, and he knew that
there would be some meat with their porridge that night because he had seen his
grandmother preparing the stew. She always gave him more than his fair
share—almost more than his father—and that angered his two
sisters.

“We like meat too. We girls like meat.”

But that did not persuade the grandmother.

He stood up and began to
walk along the road. It was quite dark now, and the trees and bushes were
black, formless shapes, merging into one another. A bird was calling
somewhere—a night-hunting bird—and there were night insects
screeching. He felt a small stinging pain on his right arm, and slapped at it.
A mosquito.

Suddenly, on the foliage of a tree ahead, there was a band
of yellow light. The light shone and dipped, and the boy turned round. There
was a truck on the road behind him. It could not be a car, because the sand was
far too deep and soft for a car.

He stood on the side of the road and
waited. The lights were almost upon him now; a small truck, a pickup, with two
bounding headlights going up and down with the bumps in the road. Now it was
upon him, and he held up his hand to shade his eyes.

“Good
evening, young one.” The traditional greeting, called out from within the
cab of the truck.

He smiled and returned the greeting. He could make
out two men in the cab—a young man at the wheel and an older man next to
him. He knew they were strangers, although he could not see their faces. There
was something odd about the way the man spoke Setswana. It was not the way a
local would speak it. An odd voice that became higher at the end of a
word.

“Are you hunting for wild animals? You want to catch a
leopard in this darkness?”

He shook his head. “No. I am
just walking home.”

“Because a leopard could catch you
before you caught it!”

He laughed. “You are right, Rra! I
would not like to see a leopard tonight.”

“Then we will
take you to your place. Is it far?”

“No. It is not far. It
is just over there. That way.”

THE
DRIVER opened the door and got out, leaving the engine running, to allow the
boy to slide in over the bench seat. Then he got back in, closed the door and
engaged the gears. The boy drew his feet up—there was some animal on the
floor and he had touched a soft wet nose—a dog perhaps, or a goat.

He glanced at the man to his left, the older man. It would be rude to stare
and it was difficult to see much in the darkness. But he did notice the thing
that was wrong with the man’s lip and he saw his eyes too. He turned
away. A boy should never stare at an old man like this. But why were these
people here? What were they doing?

“There it is. There is my
father’s place. You see—over there. Those lights.”

“We can see it.”

“I can walk from here if you
like. If you stop, I can walk. There is a path.”

“We are
not stopping. You have something to do for us. You can help us with
something.”

“They are expecting me back. They will be
waiting.”

“There is always somebody waiting for somebody.
Always.”

He suddenly felt frightened, and he turned to look at
the driver. The younger man smiled at him.

“Don’t worry.
Just sit still. You are going somewhere else tonight.”

“Where are you taking me, Rra? Why are you taking me
away?”

The older man reached out and touched the boy on the
shoulder.

“You will not be harmed. You can go home some other
time. They will know that you are not being harmed. We are kind men, you see.
We are kind men. Listen, I’m going to tell you a little story while we
travel. That will make you happy and keep you quiet.

“There were
some herd boys who looked after the cattle of their rich uncle. He was a rich
man that one! He had more cattle than anybody else in that part of Botswana and
his cattle were big, big, like this, only bigger.

“Now these boys
found that one day a calf had appeared on the edge of the herd. It was a
strange calf, with many colours on it, unlike any other calf they had ever
seen. And, ow! they were pleased that this calf had come.

“This
calf was very unusual in another way. This calf could sing a cattle song that
the boys heard whenever they went near it. They could not hear the words which
this calf was using, but they were something about cattle matters.

“The boys loved this calf, and because they loved it so much they did
not notice that some of the other cattle were straying away. By the time that
they did notice, it was only after two of the cattle had gone for good that
they saw what had happened.

“Their uncle came out. Here he comes,
a tall, tall man with a stick. He shouts at the boys and he hits their calf
with his stick, saying that strange calves never brought any luck.

“So the calf died, but before it died it whispered something to the
boys and they were able to hear it this time. It was very special, and when the
boys told their uncle what the calf had said he fell to his knees and
wailed.

“The calf was his brother, you see, who had been eaten by
a lion a long time before and had come back. Now this man had killed his
brother and he was never happy again. He was sad. Very sad.”

The
boy watched the man’s face as he told the story. If he had been unaware
of what was happening until that moment, now he knew. He knew what was going to
happen.

“Hold that boy! Take his arms! He’s going to make
me go off the road if you don’t hold him.”

“I’m
trying. He is struggling like a devil.”

“Just hold him.
I’ll stop the truck.”

CHAPTER SEVEN