Outside Sogolon and the girl, she on a horse, the girl on the buffalo, rode out west. Footsteps shaking the floor above us meant the Ogo was moving around. I could feel the floor shake under him until I heard a door slam open. The roof, maybe. I went back to the maps. The old man built a rhythm with his right fingers and a melody with his left. He cleared his throat. His voice came out higher than when he spoke. High like a cried alarm, still higher, with the top of his tongue clicking the top of his mouth to make rhythm.
I it is who is speaking
I am a southern griot
We now few we was once all
Hide in dark I come out of
The wilderness, I come out of
The cave, I come out and see
I was looking for
A lover
I want get
A lover
I did lose
Another
I want get
Time make every man a widow
And every woman too
Inside him
Black like him
Black that suck through the hole in the world
And the biggest hole in the world
Be the hole of loneliness
The man lose him soul give it ’way
For he was looking for
A lover
He want get
A lover
He did lose
Another
He want get
A man when he eat like glutton
Look like a man when he starve
Tell me can you tell one from two
You glutting by day
Then you starving by night, yeah
Look at you, fooling you
You want find
A lover
You want get
A lover
You did lose
Another
You did lose
A lover
You did lose
A lover
You did lose
Another
You did lose
Then he plucked the strings and let the kora alone speak, and I left before he sang more. I ran outside because I was a man, and string and song should never affect me so. Outside, where nothing could suck all the air out of one place. And where I could say it was wind that made my eyes wet, truth it was wind. Out on the rock the prefect stood, wind running past him, whipping his hair. The kora was still playing, riding air, sending sadness all the way down the trail we came. I hated this place, I hated that music, and I hated this wind, and I hated thinking about mingi children, for what were children to me and what use was I to children? And that was not it, that was not it at all, for I never think of children, and they never think of me, but why would they forget me and why would I care that they forget? For what good it be that they remember and why did I remember, and why did I remember now? And I tried to stop it. I felt it coming up, and I said, No, I will not think of my brother who is dead, and my father who is dead and my father who was my grandfather, and why should anybody want anybody? Just have nothing, just need nothing. Fuck the gods of all things. And I wanted day to go and night to come, and day to come again new and cut off from everything before, like a shit stain on cotton that comes out in the wash. Mossi was still standing there. Still not looking at me.
Sadogo, you go to sleep? The sun is not even done with the day.”
He smiled. On the roof, he made a space, with rugs and rags and cloths, with several cushions for a pillow. “I witness only nightmares these few days,” he said. “Best I lie here and not punch a hole through a wall and bring the house down.” I nodded.
“The nights grow cold in these lands, Ogo.”
“The old man found me rugs and rags, besides I feel little of it. What do you think of Venin?”
“Venin?”
“The girl. She rides with Sogolon.”
“I know who she is. I think we found the boy.”
“What? Where is he? Your nose—”
“Not through my nose. Not yet. There is much distance between us and him. Right now he is too far away for me to guess. They might be in Nigiki, on the way to Wakadishu.”
“Both are half a moon away. And it will take days to get from one to the next. I may not be smart as Sogolon, but even I know.”
“Who questions your mind, Ogo?”
“Venin called me simple.”
“That little girl who was never more proud when she was Zogbanu meat?”
“She is different. Different from only three days ago. Before she never spoke, now she grunts like a jackal and is always sour. And she listens not to Sogolon. Have you seen it?”
“No. And you are not simple.”
I went over beside him and crouched down.
“Deep in skill he is,” the Ogo said.
“Who?” I asked.
“The prefect. I watch him train. He is master of some art.”
“Master at arresting people and harassing beggars, yes.”
“You do not like him.”
“I have no feelings for him, like or dislike.”
“Oh.”
“Sadogo, I wish you to know what was spoken. The boy, he is with men not of this place, or any place of good men.”
He looked at me, his eyebrows raised but his eyes blank.
“Men who are not men, but not demons, though they may be monsters. One is the lightning bird.”
“Ipundulu.”
“You know him?”
“He is not a real him,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“This Ipundulu, long years ago, he tried to cut my heart out. I worked for a woman in Kongor. Seven nights he spent, seven nights seducing her.”
“So you have lived in Kongor. You never told me.”
“It was ten and four days’ work. But Ipundulu. Those days plenty joy he found in taking slow. He had her every night, but this night I heard only sounds from him. When I walked in he already killed her, and was eating her heart. This is what he says—What a bigger meal you shall be—so he flies and jumps on me, and takes his claw and cuts through my skin. But my skin is thick, Tracker, his claw got stuck. I grab his neck. Squeeze, I did, until it started to crack. Indeed I would pop his head off, but his witch was outside the window. She threw a spell and it blinded me for ten and six blinks. Then she helped him escape. I saw him off in the sky, his wings white, his hanging neck loose, but still carrying her.”
“He is no longer bound to that witch, or any witch. She left no heir, so now he is his own master.”
“Tracker, this is no good thing. He would rip out a child’s throat and that was when he was under her. What will he do now?”
“The boy is still alive.”
“Not even I myself am that simple.”
“If he is using the boy, then the boy is alive. You saw the ones with lightning blood. They could never hide it. And they have gone mad.”
“You speak a true thing.”
“There is more. He moves with others, four or five. We’ve heard accounts. All of them bloodsuckers, it seems they go to houses with many children. The boy knocks first, saying he ran away from monsters, and they let him in. Then deep in the night he lets them in to feed on everyone.”
“But the boy is not one of them?”
“No, but you know the Ipundulu, he must have bewitched the boy.”