That was settled, so. there was no use to think how much I wanted to stay. The day’s fatigue helped make the decision easy. Everything was being loaded into the car and they were all gathering up their meat from the sticks around the ashes of the fire.
‘Don’t you want to eat, B’wana?’ Kamau asked me.
‘No,’ I said. Then in English, ‘Too bloody tired.’
‘Eat. You are hungry.’
‘Later, in the car.’
M’Cola went by with a load, his big, flat face completely blank again. It only {came} alive about hunting or some joke. I found a tin cup by the fire and called to him to bring the whisky, and the blank face cracked at the eyes and mouth into a smile as he took the flask out of his pocket.
‘With water better,’ he said.
‘You black Chinaman.’
They were all working fast and the Roman’s women came over and stood a little way away watching the carrying and the packing of the car. There were two of them, good-looking, well built, and shy, but interested. The Roman was not back yet. I felt very badly to go off like this with no explanation to him. I liked the Roman very much and had a high regard for him.
I took a drink of the whisky and water and looked at the two pairs of kudu horns that leaned against the wall of the chicken coop hut. From the white, cleanly picked skulls the horns rose in slow spirals that spreading made a turn, another turn, and then curved delicately into those smooth, ivory-like points. One pair was narrower and taller against the side of the hut. The other was almost as tall but wider in spread and heavier in beam. They were the colour of black walnut meats and they were beautiful to see. I went over and stood the Springfield against the hut between them and the tips reached past the muzzle of the rifle. As Kamau came back from carrying a load to the car I told him to bring the camera and then had him stand beside them while I took a picture. Then he picked them up, each head a load, and carried them over to the car.
Garrick was talking loudly and in a roostery way to the Roman’s women. As near as I could make out he was offering them the empty petrol boxes in exchange for a piece of something.
‘Come here,’ I called to him. He came over still feeling smart.
‘Listen,’ I told him in English. ‘If I get through this safari without socking you it’s going to be a bloody marvel. And if I ever hit you I’ll break your mucking jaw. That’s all.’
He did not understand the words but the tone made it clearer than if I had got something out of the dictionary to tell him. I stood up and motioned to the women that they could have the petrol tins and the cases. I was damned if I could not have anything to do with them if I would let Garrick make any passes.
‘Get in the car,’ I told him. ‘No,’ as he started to make delivery of one of the petrol tins, ‘in the car.’ He went over to the car.
We were all packed now and ready to go. The horns were curling out the back of the car, tied on to the loads. I left some money for the Roman and one of the kudu hides with the boy. Then we got in the car. I got in the front seat with the Wanderobo-Masai. Behind were M’Cola, Garrick, and the runner, who was a man from the old man’s village by the road. The old man was crouched on top of the loads at the back, close under the roof.
We waved and started, passing more of the Roman’s household, the older and uglier part, roasting up piles of meat by a log fire beside the trail that came up from the river through the maize field. We made the crossing all right, the creek was down and the banks had dried and I looked back at the field, the Roman’s huts, and the stockade where we had camped, and the blue hills, dark under the heavy sky, and I felt very badly not to have seen the Roman and explain why we had gone off like this.