The Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huxley

Author:Elspeth Huxley [Huxley, Elspeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101651391
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2000-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

AS the day developed, everyone realized that nothing was being done to de-witch Njombo and that our bluff had failed. Robin got out his rifle and left it about in obvious places as a hint.

‘A lot of dead cattle won’t save Njombo,’ Tilly remarked. ‘I think that one of us ought to see Kupanya. Njombo is his relation, and surely he must have some authority.’

‘Sammy married his daughter,’ Robin pointed out. ‘That was what started all this trouble, I suppose.’

‘If Njombo dies, we can report the case and make things awkward for him with the Government. At any rate we can try.’

Robin did not like to leave the farm with so much tension in the air, so Hereward offered to escort Tilly, and I was allowed to go with them. We set off in the heat of the afternoon up the red path to Kupanya’s, Hereward spruce and upright in a perfectly cut pair of breeches and shining boots on a well-bred, lively polo-pony, and myself jogging behind on Moyale, who had by now grown fat and wilful, and put his ears back and shook his head when I pummelled his ribs with my heels to urge him on.

Hereward took a forthright view of our troubles. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, Robin’s too lenient with these fellows. As for Sammy, I’d put him down and give him twenty-five and that would be an end of the trouble.’

‘It would also be an end of Njombo,’ Tilly pointed out.

‘That’s a lot of stuff and nonsense, if you ask me. He’s been poisoned, that’s the long and short of it. You aren’t on guard over the fellow day and night, you don’t know who’s creeping in there filling him up with some revolting brew. By George, the trouble you go to over your boys! It isn’t every woman who’s willing to take on the jobs that you do. Robin’s a lucky man.’

Tilly reddened, muttered something about Robin having a lot to put up with, and urged her pony into a trot, so that Hereward had to drop behind in single file. It was the time of day when heat presses down upon the earth and squeezes out the energy, when men idle in the shade like trout lying nose-to-current on the bed of a stream, when even doves can barely muster the desire to coo. Women sat straight-legged under bushes, their pangas beside them, suckling their infants, even flies were drowsy and settled again and again on the ponies’ faces and on our hands and arms, ignoring our flaps and twitches. Rains were brewing; the air was stifling and heavy, distant ridges looked as sharp and hard as if they had been cut out of cardboard.

Kupanya’s group of huts was deserted, except by one or two naked children and an old crone, her face as crinkled as a walnut, plaiting a corn-bag with crabbed fingers. One had a sense of watching eyes, yet Hereward’s calls received no answer.

‘Should have brought a hunting-horn,’ he remarked.

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