Yes, sir, I know how it feels to be hunted by somethin’ that’s just figgerin’ how nice you’re goin’ to taste after he’s got his paws on you.
Well, finally I came to the camp of the white man. I could see him sittin’ there, all bearded an’ tanned. He was wearin’ white clothes an’ sittin’ before a fire with a lot o’ native servants waitin’ around with food an’ drink an’ what not.
I walked up to him, pretty well all in, an’ motioned to my mouth. I’d been so used to talkin’ to the natives that way that for a moment I forgot that this man talked my language.
Then I told him. “I come to trade,” I says, an’ dumped out the gold on the ground.
He went up outa the canvas chair like he’d been shot.
“Another one!” he yelled. “An’ this one’s white!”
Then he clapped his hands, an’ black men came runnin’ up an’ grabbed me.
“Where did yuh get it? Where is it? Is there any more? How long will it take to get there?” he yells at me, his face all purple, with the veins standin’ out an’ the eyes bulgin’.
I’d forgotten how excited white men got at the sight of gold.
“Gold! Gold!” he goes on. “The country must be lousy with gold! There was a big ape hanging around camp this morning. He seemed a higher species of ape, almost human. I stalked him and shot him for a specimen. Can you imagine my surprise when I found that he was carrying a skin filled with gold?
“And this is the same gold. I’d recognize it anywhere. Come, my good man, come and tell me if you have ever seen a similar creature to this great ape. I have preserved him in alcohol and intend to carry him intact to the British Museum.”
I could feel myself turnin’ sorta sick at the idea, but there was nothin’ for it. He was draggin’ me along to a big vat. There was the monkey-man, a bullet hole in his back — in his back, mind you. He hadn’t even shot him from the front, but had sneaked around to the rear. The “specimen” was floatin’ around in the alcohol.
I turned away.
“Tell me, tell me,” pleads the guy, “do you know him? Your gold comes from the same source. Perhaps you have seen others of the same species.
“After I shot him I was overcome with remorse because he might have showed me the way to the gold deposit if I had merely captured him. But I shot before I knew of the gold.”
I did some rapid thinkin’. If this bird thought I knew where the gold came from he’d force me to show him, or perhaps he’d kill me an’ stick me in alcohol. So I looked sad.
“No, I don’t know,” I tells him. “I saw this man-monkey carryin’ a skin full of somethin’ heavy. I followed along until he set down the sack an’ went to sleep. Then I sneaked up, seen it was gold, an’ figgered a monkey-man didn’t have no use for gold.”
He nods his head. “Quite right, my friend. Quite right. A monkey can have no use for gold. And how about yourself? You possibly have no use for it. At any rate you admit it was part of the gold that belonged to the monkey, so you should restore it to the original pile, and I will take charge of it.”
I seen this bird was one of the kind that want everything for nothin’ an’ insist that a guy mustn’t hold out on ’em.
I told him that I’m only too glad to oblige, but I want some calicos an’ some mirrors an’ blankets an’ a gun an’ some ammunition, an’ some huntin’ knives an’ beads. After that he can have the gold.
We dickered for a while, an’ finally I dusted out, takin’ two porters with me, frightened to death but loaded down with junk. I was carryin’ the rifle, an’ I was watchin’ my back trail. The old boy might figure I was a specimen.
I got back all right. We had one brush with the Fanti outfit, but the roar of the gun made ’em take to the tall timber. I had the porters lay the junk down about two miles from the place where our tribe was camped, an’ I sneaked it up to the bottleneck myself, carryin’ three loads of it. Then I came on up to the sentries, shook hands, walked past an’ got a couple of warriors to help me with the plunder.
Kk-Kk was there, all dolled up in all her finery, paradin’ around the village. That’s a custom they got from the Fantis. When a girl’s offered for sale in marriage she decks herself out with everything the family’s got an’ parades around the village. That’s a notice to bidders.
I knew Kk-Kk was doin’ it for me. She had to comply with the customs of the tribe, but she figgered I was the only bird that could make the grade an’ she trusted to my resourcefulness to bring home the bacon.
Chapter 6
African Justice
My stuff was a riot. When I had the fellows spread it out on the ground the boys’ eyes stuck out until their foreheads bulged. Most of ’em had never seen the trade goods of the white man. They’d been kept pretty well isolated with the hostile Fanti outfit hemmin’ ’em in by land an’ the open ocean thunderin’ on the beach.
The knives made the hit. The warriors were hunters enough to appreciate a keen-edged bit of shiny steel. The blankets didn’t take very well, neither did the calico, but the knives, the mirrors, an’ the beads were drawin’ cards that couldn’t be beat.
Old Yik-Yik screwed up his eyes an’ sucked in his mouth, the way he had when he was thinkin’, an’ then he jabbers out a bunch of graduated monkey talk. The goldsmith was there an’ he blinks his rheumy eyes an’ sticks out his hand.
“The old bird says you’ve bought the girl,” he tells me.
I could feel my heart do a flip-flop. It was all matter-of-fact to them, the buyin’ of a wife, even if she did happen to be the future queen of the tribe. But to me there was only one Kk-Kk in the world, an’ now she was to be mine. The only man that knew my secret was the monkey-man, an’ he was floatin’ around in a vat of alcohol. I could settle down in the tribe an’ be happy the rest of my life.
But, in spite of it all, I was feelin’ off color. My head felt light. When I’d turn it quick it seemed to keep right on goin’ for a couple of revolutions. An’ my feet felt funny, as though they wasn’t settin’ firm on the ground.
But what of it? Wasn’t I goin’ to marry Kk-Kk? What was a little biliousness more or less?
An’ then there was a bunch o’ yellin’. I looked up an’ seen a couple of the sentries bringin’ in a captive. Another meal, I thought to myself, wonderin’ if maybe he’d be in time to furnish the spread at the weddin’ feast.
I looked again, an’ then my mouth got all dry an’ fuzzy.
It was one of the porters that had carried out my stuff. Probably he had sneaked back to try an’ find the gold, or else some of the hunters had caught him. In either event my hash was cooked. When he told ’em what I’d traded to the white man—
I strained my ears. Some of our crowd talked Fanti, an’ maybe the porter talked it. He did. I heard ’em jabberin’ away, an’ the porter pointed at me an’ at the stuff on the ground. ,
I stole a look at Yik-Yik. His eyes was as hard as a couple of glass beads, an’ his lips was all sucked in until his mouth was just a network of puckered wrinkles.
He spits out some words an’ a circle forms around me. The goldsmith was still there an’ he kept right on actin’ as interpreter, but I didn’t need to follow half what he said.
An’ then, all of a sudden, I stiffened up to real attention. It seemed the old man was accusin’ Kk-Kk o’ betrayin’ the tribe.
For a minute or two I thought he’d gone clean cuckoo, an’ then I seen just how it looked to him. Kk-Kk was in love with me. The monkey-man, who she didn’t like, had threatened to buy her. There was a white man in the country. What was more likely than that she’d slipped me out d bunch of gold?