The jungle on both sides of the trail closed in. Leaves big and small brushed Austin’s knees. Thin branches scraped. And it all grew thicker the higher up the side of the mountain the trail wound. The boda’s engine whined as it pulled the three young men up a particularly steep section of the trail, and the tires skidded down muddy tracks as the driver uselessly squeezed the brakes until the wheels locked. Miraculously, he kept the motorcycle upright.
More than once Austin wanted to pull his phone out of his pocket to check the time and see how much longer they had to risk breaking their bones on the trail, but feared that pulling one hand away from Rashid’s waist would result in him being bounced off the back of the bike.
They’d been on the trail for at least a half hour, maybe twice that long, when it smoothed out on a gentle upward slope. They were going slow enough by then that Austin figured he could have a conversation with Rashid and not have the words lost in the wind. “Hey, what do you think of this Ebola thing?”
“You sound scared,” said Rashid, looking back over his shoulder with a grin.
“Worried is a better word.”
Rashid laughed. “A billion people in Africa, and maybe a few thousand cases of Ebola ever, and you think you’re in trouble.”
Put that way, it made Austin’s fear of Ebola embarrassing. Nevertheless, he said, “Ebola kills everybody who gets it.”
Rashid laughed again. “Not everybody.”
The boda rode up on a crest and the jungle thinned. They were well up on the north slope of Mt. Elgon. Below, Kapchorwa’s houses and huts seemed to grow out of the intersection of a few dirt roads—some short, some snaking off east or west. Paving for the roads hadn’t made it from the capital out to the distant districts yet. And the Kapchorwa District, bordered on the east by Kenya with its hundred thousand farmers, was just about as far from Kampala as one could get and still be in Uganda.
The boda driver stopped and announced, “Here.”
Austin stepped off the bike. “Thanks.”
Rashid got off, hitched up his pants, and adjusted his man parts. “Next time, I’ll get my own boda.”
“You do that, Rashid.” Austin reached into his pocket to pull out a few more shillings as a tip, but the boda driver was already hurrying to get back up the trail and apparently away from Kapchorwa. He flashed a white palm in a wave and smiled as he revved the whiny engine to speed back up the bumpy trail.
Still thinking about the Ebola virus, Austin said, “He got out of here in a hurry.”
Rashid watched the boda driver zip back up the trail, not seeming to care how quickly the boda left. “It’ll be dark soon.”
Austin looked west toward the sun sinking over the brown and green plain. The smoke of a few fires drifted up and dissolved in the wind. They were too large to be cooking fires, but too small to be wild fires. Probably charcoal production. At least, that was the guess that Austin attached to forested spots in the distance that leaked smoldering gray into the sky. He stopped staring at the vista and started walking down the trail. Rashid went along.
The small town of Kapchorwa, with its hundred or so dwellings, sheds, and businesses, seemed quiet. Looking down the slope, Austin didn’t see anyone moving around, nor did he hear the distant shrill sounds of children playing before dinner. He did smell peanuts roasting—groundnuts, to the locals—along with the savory smell of onions cooking. He realized he was hungry again.
Down on the village’s main road, an overturned semi-tractor-trailer still lay as it had since rolling over during Austin’s first week of teaching. Every day since, when it wasn’t raining, village kids played on the overturned vehicle. And though no rain clouds were in the sky, the kids were absent.
Halfway down the slope, they left the meandering trail and cut across a lush sweet potato field.
They neared a house, mud-walled on a wooden frame under a tin roof rusted as red as wet clay. It stood alone among the crops. A rope draped with wrinkled clothes was strung from one corner of the house to a lone tree. Plastic tubs of different colors—all-purpose and dirty—leaned against the walls outside. From the deep shadows inside the open doorway of the hovel, a pair of silently wary eyes watched Austin and Rashid pass.
Softly, Rashid said, “That man is frightened.”
Austin looked back at Rashid. “Of us?”
Rashid shook his head.
“How do you know?” Austin asked.
“Are you joking? You couldn’t see the fright in his eyes?”
“I think you’re reading too much into it.”
Rashid pointed down to the village. “Where is everybody?”
Sarcastically, Austin answered, “Maybe Ebola killed them all.”
Rashid ignored the comment and instead cut a path through the bushy sweet potatoes, heading toward Isaac Luwum’s whitewashed cinderblock house on the western edge of town.
Chapter 4
Isaac Luwum, their sponsor, maintained a hedge of unruly native plants around the edges of his front yard. Austin and Rashid hopped over the short hedge and tromped on the worn, patchy grass on their way to the open front door.
“Benoit? Margaux?” Austin called as he stepped into the main room. It was unusual for no one to be home. “Isaac?”
“I’ll bet Isaac is drinking with that cabbage farmer.” Rashid nodded toward the back of the house where Benoit and Margaux shared a room. “I’ll bet I know what they’re doing.” Rashid stopped to listen.
“No. I don’t hear anything.” Austin crossed through the brightly painted, overly decorated living room, then glanced in the kitchen and through the windows on the back of the house. “She’s usually pretty noisy. You’d know already if they were doing it.”
“Maybe they’re done and they went to sleep.”
“Go knock on their door and see if they’re in there.” Austin went into the kitchen and poured some water from one of the jugs. He hollered, “We’re almost out of water and it’s your turn to boil.”
“Nobody here,” Rashid called, his voice notching a few tones higher as he walked toward the living room. He was getting anxious.
“This is weird.” Austin crossed the living room again, tossed his backpack on the worn old couch, and dropped down beside it.
Rashid stood in the center of the living room and looked down at Austin. “Nobody is outside. Benoit and Margaux are gone—”
“They’re not here.” Austin shook his head slowly and took another drink. “That doesn’t imply whatever you think you’re implying when you say gone. Maybe they got tired of doing it in the bedroom and are off in the jungle, pretending they’re horny monkeys or something.”
“You don’t think this is weird?” Rashid asked.
“You’re letting your imagination convince you that something was wrong,” said Austin. “You need to be cool, Rashid. It’s dinnertime. Everybody is at home eating.”
Rashid replied, “That’s stupid. You know everybody doesn’t go inside and eat at exactly the same time.”
“I know. I’m just saying that you’re getting worked up for no reason. It’s like all the business you told me on the way here from Mbale about there being a billion people in Africa and only a couple thousand cases of Ebola in recorded history was just some bullshit you were telling yourself so that you wouldn’t be scared.” Austin grinned. “Are you worried about Ebola, Rashid? You can tell me.”
“It’s no wonder Najid doesn’t like Americans.”
“Your brother doesn’t like us because we’re smartasses?” Austin laughed. “Or is it because now that he suffers the burden of counting all your father’s oil money he’s pissed because we won’t buy Priuses?”
“What are you talking about?”