Tembo Makaburi by John Isaac Jones

Author:John Isaac Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Isaac Jones
Published: 2019-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

***

Moments later, Cravens and his guide were standing in front of the entrance to the passageway. The entrance—an opening about twenty feet high and fifteen feet wide—stood like an open door into the side of the mountain. For a moment, Cravens hesitated, gazed into the darkness, and listened for a sound. Then, rifle at the ready, he took several steps inside, proceeding slowly and cautiously. After he had ventured some twenty feet into the darkness, he could see light at the other end of the passageway. Taking courage at the sight of the light, Cravens rushed forward through the tunnel to the light. Abasi was directly behind him.

Moments later, Cravens and his guide stood in front of a spectacle never before seen by human beings. For a long moment, they looked around in awe and sheer wonder. In front of them, for as far as the eye could see, lay an endless desolation of elephant skeletons.

“Oh, my God,” Cravens said, his face filled with joyful wonder. “This is it! We’ve found the elephant graveyard. The old woman was telling the truth.”

Suddenly, behind them, they heard screams.

Cravens and the guide turned.

The lead porter, the whites of his eyes as big as saucers, was shouting in Swahili and slowly backing away. Behind him, there were only two porters with their bundles.

“Ask him what’s wrong,” Cravens said.

Abasi spoke to the head porter.

“He says there is only death and evil here and they can’t stay.”

“It’s nothing more than a bunch of dead elephants,” Cravens said.

He looked behind the head porter.

“Where are the other three porters?” he said.

Abasi posed the question.

“He says they are afraid to come in and went back to the vehicles,” Abasi said.

“What about their bundles?”

“They took the bundles with them,” Abasi said.

“Tell him I hired them to stay with me.”

The head porter laughed and answered.

“He said they didn’t agree to disturb the gods.”

There was a long silence, then the head porter spoke again.

“He said he and the others are leaving now,” Abasi said.

“Tell him to stop,” Cravens said.

The head porter, abject fear in his eyes, stopped.

“Tell him that if anything is missing from the vehicles, I know the police chief in Ngorongoro. He doesn’t like thieves.”

Abasi relayed the message, then the head porter replied.

“He says they want nothing that belongs to you,” Abasi said.

Cravens nodded his understanding.

Then, the head porter and his two remaining minions, after dumping their bundles on the ground, quickly turned and fled back through the passageway.

“Now we are alone, Bwana,” Abasi said.

“Let ‘em go,” Cravens said. “We don’t need them. Look at all this. We’re going to be rich. I mean rich! Rich! Rich! Rich!”

Abasi surveyed the expanse of weathered elephant bones.

“What happened to the old bull we were chasing?” he asked.

“Who cares?!” Cravens replied. “That’s only two tusks. Here we’ve got hundreds, even thousands of tusks.”

There was a long silence.

“I’m afraid,” Abasi said.

“Afraid of what?” Cravens said. “As long as I’ve got this rifle, there is nothing to fear.”

“Please, Bwana,” Abasi said, falling to his knees and raising his folded hands to his master.

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