the brown bush of the valley, with the horses’ hooves sinking deeper in the dirt. Ahead, maybe another half a day’s ride, trees stood up and spread. Mountains hung back all around us. On the side, going west from Malakal, the mountains and the forest both looked blue. Along the grass and the wetness, bamboo giants of the grass sprouted, one, then two, then a clump, then a forest of them that blocked the late-afternoon sun. Other trees reached tall into the sky and ferns hid the dirt. I smelled a fresh brook before I heard or saw it. Ferns and bulbs sprouted out of fallen trees. We followed what looked like a track until I smelled that both the Leopard and Sogolon had gone that way. On my right hand, through the tall leaves, a waterfall rushed down rocks.
“Where they gone?” Fumeli asked.
“Fuck the gods, boy,” I said. “Your cat is but a—”
“Not him. Where are the beasts? No pangolin, no mandrill, not even a butterfly. Can your nose only smell what is here, and not what is gone?”
I did not want to talk to Fumeli. I would punch whatever rudeness came from his mouth.
“I will call him Red Wolf now—that is what he told me,” Bibi said.
“Who?”
“Nyka.”
“He mocks the red ochre I used to rub on my skin, saying only Ku women wear red,” I said.
“Truth for your ears? I have never seen a man in that colour,” Bibi said.
Bibi stopped, his brow furrowed, and looked at me as if trying to catch something he missed, then shook it out.
“And wolf?” he asked.
“You have not seen my eye?”
I knew his look. It said, There is a little that you are not telling me, but I care not enough to press it.
“What is that smell on the witch? I cannot place it,” I said.
He shrugged.
“Tell me something else, Sadogo,” I said to the Ogo.
This is true: The Ogo did not stop talking until evening caught us. And then he talked about the night catching us. I forgot about Fumeli until he hissed, and paid no attention until he hissed a third time. We came to a fork in the trail, a path left and a path right.
“We go left,” I said.
“Why left? This is the trail Kwesi take?”
“This is the trail I take,” I said. “Go your own way if you wish, just untie your horse from Bibi.” I heard the dull clump of hooves on mud and branches cracking.
I did not wait for him to say anything. The trail was narrow but there was a path and the sun was almost gone.
“No bat, no owl, no chirping beast,” Fumeli said.
“What twig is up your asshole now?”
“The boy is right, Tracker. No living thing moves through this forest,” Bibi said. One hand on the bridle, the other gripped his sword.
“Where is your great nose now?” Fumeli said.
I set it down in my mind right there. Never again would this boy be correct on anything. But both of them were right. I knew many of the animal smells of the montane grasslands, and none passed by my nose. And the scents of the forest that I did smell—gorilla, kingfisher, viper-skin—were too far away. No living thing but trees conspiring in circles and river water rushing down rocks. The Ogo was still talking.
“Sadogo, quiet.”
“Huh?”
“Hush. Movement in the bush.”
“Who?”
“None. That is what I say, there is no movement in the bush.”
“I was the one to say it first,” said Fumeli.
Was he worth me turning around so he could see my scowl? No.
“Many people say you have a nose, not I. What does your precious nose smell now?”
A neck as thin as his, thin as a girl’s, I could snap with no effort. Or I could let the Ogo break him in many pieces. But when I took in a deep breath, smells did come at me. Two that I knew, one I had not come across in many years.
“Grab your bow and draw an arrow, boy,” Bibi said.
“Why?”
“Do it now,” he said, trying to whisper harshly. “And dismount.”
We left the horses by a brook. The Ogo dipped into his bag and pulled out two shiny gauntlets, which I have only seen on the King’s knights. His fingers were now shiny black scales and his knuckles, five spikes. Bibi pulled his sword.
“I smell an open fire, wood, and fat,” I said. Bibi covered his mouth, pointed at us, then pointed at his mouth.
I said nothing else, now that I knew what we would