05

  Look at Me!

  Knowing something was dreadfully wrong with the zebra woman, and not wanting to be blamed for it, the boy bolted for the nearest hut, nearly colliding with one of the herders.

  “Where are you going in such a hurry, little one?”

  “I did not do it. It just happened. I was running to get help. The zebra thing is hurt or something.”

  “We will see about that. Go and get the medicine-man.” As the boy left, the herder gave him a swat on the backside to hurry him along. He then directed his attention to the zebra woman, who did indeed seem to be in some distress. Without expecting any answer, he asked, “Well, what is the matter with you?”

  Zalika reflexively flicked an ear towards the man approaching her. “Go away,” she said in her mother’s language. “Leave me alone.” This time, the Arabic her father used when he read the Qur’an.

  The herder was shocked. He could not remember hearing the zebra woman make more than a grunt or occasional squeak. Now it sounded like she was talking. This was something for the medicine-man. Cattle and war, he understood. Zebras that walked on two legs, well, he had seen stranger things. He could not remember when, but he was certain he had been awake when he saw them. An animal that spoke like a human, this was too much, and he would stay far away from it.

  When Zalika finished crying herself out, she noticed the crowd around her at what they considered a safe distance. She also noticed patterns on the ground that resembled the wards her father had used when he worked. As she watched, an unfamiliar old man approached, speaking apparently to her. “I don’t understand. What do you want?” Zalika used the Bantu language of her village.

  “You can cast no magic here. We have bound your magic, and it will not work here.” The old man’s Bantu was halting at best, and he waved a stick with bones tied to it on strings as he spoke. He walked straight up to her like he was walking up to any of the cattle. “I have power over you. You cannot harm these people.” He turned and spoke, in a language Zalika did not understand, to the gathered crowd. He went on and on, with a lot of arm waving and shaking of his stick and bones.

  His words sounded brave, but there was a bitter smell about him. Fear. That was the smell of fear. There were many small variations in what she could smell, but the bitterness of it was undeniable. These people were terrified. Surprised, Zalika asked. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Your words have no power here. Your words have no meaning here. Your words through this animal are wasted. We will not hear them here.” It was the man with the stick rattling the bones again.

  Zalika wanted to tell him how silly the stick was, but thought better of it when she remembered some of the things her father used for show. “These things do nothing, but the people expect them, so I wave them around and they think I am doing something. Real magic is a thing of the heart and soul. It is very strong but usually not much to look at.” Zalika could hear his words in her memories, just as he had spoken them that winter's night under the stars.

  They do not want me here. I will leave. She picked a direction at random and started to walk. The response was very quick. Several men brought their spears to the ready. All right, not that way. She tried a different direction with the same result. So, they don’t want me to leave.

  Zalika remembered when the village or a family was upset, father would bless the village and bless the herds and bless the crops, but mostly he would bless the children. It was the only blessing she could remember well enough to do without help. It started by asking for Allah’s blessing on the closest person, and then the closest child. That felt strange to her. Eight years was a ripe old age for a zebra, but she still felt like a child.

  Zalika started the blessing by very slowly approaching the old man with the stick. He stood his ground and rattled his stick. Zalika took another step, avoiding eye contact. The old man blew a fine powder into her face from the palm of his hand. He would stab me if he could. This old man stood there face to face with her, refusing to move. The warriors, thinking this was a contest of magic, stood in a circle around them, but did not approach.

  In the herd, she learned not to back down or approach too fast with a bigger animal. If you get it right, you can drink. If wrong, you got bitten or kicked. Either way, you learned how to get it right. Like an old mare, this man would probably let her pass if she did not make him move. When Zalika offered the blessing to the old man and started to move past, he hit her square between the eyes with his stick, said something, spun around, and walked off like he had just defeated a great enemy.

  Confused and anxious, Zalika continued the blessing, approaching a boy she had heard coughing on and off since she had become aware of the crowd. The boy’s mother watched nervously as Zalika blessed and gently blew on the child, who just stood there looking up at her. The mother snatched her child into her arms but stayed to see what would happen next. Most did not.

  By the end of the day, the village had decided to ignore her again, and she was relegated back to the status of an animal. The men completely ignored her attempts to speak to them. When they did acknowledge it, they were universally annoyed and would drive her off. Most simply turned their back and left.

  The women followed suit at least at first. Until a handful of days after Zalika’s memory returned, a woman came to her in the dark with a child coughing. She held the child out to Zalika and said something Zalika could not understand, but when the woman blew out slowly through her mouth, Zalika remembered the blessing ceremony and blew gently on the child. The woman took her child and left without another word to Zalika.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Three nights later, another woman and child came to her. This woman just made the blowing motion and did not speak at all. Zalika blew on this child. When she added, “Go in peace,” in Arabic, the woman quickened her pace. There were no more visits for a full cycle of the moon. Then two women, one Zalika was sure she had never seen before, came, each bringing young boys. One in halting Bantu asked her to “say the words for our boys.”

  “What shall I say?” asked Zalika in Bantu.

  “No, not that language, use the language of God. Tell God these boys will be fine warriors, as famous as Kilimanjaro.”

  Zalika was not at all certain what to do and said so in Arabic. This pleased the two women and confused the boys with them.

  “Now blow on them,” this was from the woman who had until now been silent.

  Zalika did as she was asked and gently blew on both boys. Satisfied, the women left with their children.

  By the end of the next lunar cycle, the visits were nearly nightly. They never spoke to her if they could help it. They would always stop her if she tried to speak in Bantu, but were not satisfied until she spoke in Arabic, and blew on every child they brought with them. Zalika was sure she had never seen most of them.

  These people moved often, as the cattle needed new pasture. Some places had existing huts, and sometimes they set up tents. Wherever they went, there was always some sort of sturdy fence. When the village moved, the visitors kept coming. Always at night, always women with children, and if any men came, they never approached. When the women left, the men would bicker with them briefly, but the women kept coming with their young sons.

  Zalika was sure these were the people her village spoke of with fear and disdain. They were occasionally seen on market days. Then they only had things from their animals to barter and wanted only metal things in trade. They were tall and quiet, speaking as little as possible except among themselves. It was like they did not like the sound of her village’s language. She had heard some people call them Maasai, but most of her village simply called them cow people, or thieves. Whenever cattle went missing, the cow people were suspected until some other explanation became self-evident.

  Zalika was driven out into the bush with the cattle every day, just like before her memories returned, but now the herders watched her more carefully. Over time, the number of men gradually increased. Zalika wondered, “What are they looking for?” Occasionally, she would hear noise in the bush, and if the wind were right, she could smell unseen people. If she tried to investigate, the herders would chase her back towards the center of the herd and drive off whoever had been hiding in the bush. She tried to get a look at whoever was in the bush, but the headers never let her get close enough. After the first encounter, the herders always kept someone watching her.

  As the rainy season approached, the herders became even more watchful. Often, one would stay close to Zalika all day long. Leaving her only after all the cattle were safely back inside the stockade. It had occurred to Zalika simply to open the gate and leave, but the gate was never left unattended, and climbing a stockade built of thorn bush to keep lions out was a very daunting task. Not to mention the lions were never far off. Since getting her memory back, she had thoroughly tested how well the herders could run, only to find that over short distances, they could run faster than she could.

  As the weather got wetter, the unseen people in the bush got bolder, and the herders got more aggressive at chasing them off, often beating those that they could catch. If the day started with bad weather, the cattle were kept inside the compound, with the men bringing grass and straw to the cattle. It would only be a matter of time before the herders and cattle got caught out in a storm, and there would be a few cattle that had to be found after the storm passed.

  Now that Zalika could remember who and what she was, staying with people who refused to see her as anything more than an animal was intolerable. In the confusion of the next storm, she would try to run off again.

  In less than a double handful of days, Zalika had her opportunity. A strike from the sky killed a cow and started the rest running. Zalika crouched low and ran with some of the cattle as long as she could keep up, hoping that it would give her enough lead on her pursuers to get away. The herders were faster than she was at first, but they could not keep up with her over a very long run. If she could get a spear throw head-start, she might have to run for hours, but she could outdistance them. The confusion of the rain and cattle running in several different directions gave her only a small opportunity to get a lead. All too soon, she heard the herders shouting at her. She straightened up and ran for all she was worth. The rain and the cattle made it hard to keep track of where all the herders were, but that worked both ways.

  She ran through ankle-deep water in a small gully, which gave her cover until it turned back towards the shouts of the herders. Zalika scrambled up the opposite bank and continued to run. She heard more shouts, much too close for comfort. With her wide field of vision, she saw two herders on the far bank, startled by her sudden appearance. They took only a moment to chase after her. She ran for a nearby bush-covered rock outcropping as hard and fast as she could and scrambled up and through the bush and rock.

  The cow people were very good open country runners, but the herd often traveled through broken country. Here, there was cover, and the herders would not follow her into these. She tried hiding in one of these, but the herders just waited for her to come out and chased her down. Now they had been running for several minutes and had to be getting tired. Since she was changed, Zalika never got tired. She had a chance to outrun the herders on the open plain if they were tired enough, and she could get through the outcropping with a sufficient lead on them.

  The moment she came out of the bush on the other side of the outcropping, she saw herders running to intercept her from both sides, and the foot race was on. From here, it was simply a matter of speed and stamina. Did the herders have enough speed to catch her before their stamina failed? Did she have enough lead to outdistance them?

  The answer came in the form of a spear that skidded past her feet on the ground. One of her pressures had thrown it in frustration as he realized he could not catch her. One or two at a time, the others threw their spears in vain attempts to slow her down, but they had waited too long. They were losing ground to her, and most of the spears fell short.

  One remaining runner refused to throw or stop. He had been running last, letting the others set the pace, saving his energy for a very long chase. Now, it was all her race speed no longer mattered, only who could run further. Since she never tried, Zalika was in complete control. She could simply run off and leave him, but she wanted his spear. The other spears were thrown at her while in close pursuit. To have slowed to retrieve any of them would have gotten her caught.

  Zalika slowly increased her speed until the last pursuer started to fall behind. He did not give up. She slowed down and let him make up some ground. Then she increased her pace to keep the distance until the light began to fail with the coming evening. Once again, she increased her pace, slowly growing the gap between them. As Zalika was about to give up on the idea of retrieving his spear, he lost heart and took his shot. After hours of running, his throw was neither forceful nor accurate. Zalika stopped and picked up the spear. She watched the exhausted runner stagger to a stop, then she turned and ran off at an easy pace.

  Zalika had no plan for where to go or what to do next, other than to try to go home. If she could remember where that was.