Finally we had to go and after distributing the empty beer bottles, the labels from the bottles, and finally the bottle caps, picked up by M’Cola from the floor, we left, klaxoning the women into ecstasy, the children into panic, and the warriors into delight. The warriors ran with us for a good way but we had to make time, the going was good through the park-like country and, in a little while, we waved to the last of them standing straight and tall, in their brown skin garments, their clubbed pigtails hanging, their faces stained a red-brown, leaning on their spears, looking after us and smiling.
The sun was almost down and as I did not know the road I had the runner get up in front to sit with the Wanderobo-Masai and help direct Kamau and I sat in the back with M’Cola and Garrick. We were out of the park country and on to the dry bush-spattered plain before the sun went down and I had another bottle of the German beer and, watching the country, saw, suddenly, that all the trees were full of white storks. I did not know whether they were there in migration or were following the locusts but, in the twilight, they were lovely to see and, deeply moved by them, I gave the old man a good two fingers of beer that was left in the bottom of the bottle.
On the next bottle I forgot and drank it all before I remembered the old man. (There were still storks in the trees and we saw some Grant’s gazelles feeding off to the right. A jackal, like a grey fox, trotted across the road.) So I told M’Cola to open another bottle and we were through the plain and climbing the long slope toward the road and the village, the two mountains in sight now, and it almost dark and quite cold when I handed the bottle to the old man, who took it where he was crouched up under the roof, and nursed it tenderly.
At the village we stopped in the road in the dark, and I paid the runner the amount it said to give him in the note he had brought. I paid the old man the amount Pop said to pay him and a bonus. Then there was a big dispute among them all. Garrick was to go to the main camp to get his money. Abdullah insisted upon going along. He did not trust Garrick. The Wanderobo-Masai insisted pitifully that he go. He was sure the others would cheat him out of his share and I was fairly sure they would, too. There was petrol that had been left for us to use in case we were short and for us to bring in any event. We were overloaded and I did not know how the road was ahead. But I thought we might carry Abdullah and Garrick and squeeze in the Wanderobo-Masai. There was no question of the old man going. He had been paid off and had agreed to the amount, but now he would not leave the car. He crouched on top of the load and hung on to the ropes saying, ‘I am going with B’wana’.
M’Cola and Kamau had to break his handholds and pull” him off to re-load, him shouting, ‘I want to go with B’wana!’
While they were loading in the dark he held on to my arm and talked very quietly in a language that I could not understand.
‘You have the shillings,’ I said.
‘Yes, B’wana,’ he said. That was not what it was about. The money was all right.
Then, when we started to get in the car he broke away and started to climb up through the back and on to the loads. Garrick and Abdullah pulled him down.
‘You can’t go. There isn’t room.’
He talked to me softly again, begging and pleading.
‘No, there is no room.’
I remembered I had a small penknife and I got it out of my pocket and put it in his hand. He pushed it back in my hand.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’
He was quiet then and stood by the road. But when we started, he started to run after the car and I could hear him in the dark screaming, ‘B’wana! I want to go with B’wana!’