“We are long gone from land. Is that not her answer?”
Sogolon laughed. Bunshi leapt fully out of the water and dived, right in front of it, whatever it was.
“Chipfalambula does not take you into deep water to carry you to the other side. She takes you out to eat you.”
Sogolon was serious. Nobody felt the thing moving but we all felt when it stopped. Bunshi swam right up to its mouth and I thought it would swallow her. She dove under and came up by the side of her right fin. It swatted her as one would a wasp and she flew into the sky and landed far off into the water. She swam back in a blink and climbed back on top of the big fish. She walked past us to stand with Sogolon. The great fish started moving again.
“Fat cow, cantankerousness growing in her old age,” she said.
I went over to the Leopard. He still sat with Fumeli, both of them with knees drawn up to chest.
“I will have words with you,” I said.
He stood up, as did Fumeli. Both wore leather skirts, but the Leopard was not as uneasy with it as he was back at Kulikulo Inn.
“You only,” I said.
Fumeli refused to sit, until the Leopard turned around and nodded.
“Wearing sandals next?”
“What is this about?” Leopard asked.
“You have something else pressing you? Another meeting on the back of this fish?”
“What is this about?”
“I went to see an elder about Basu Fumanguru. Just to see if these stories would turn true. He told me that the Fumanguru house fell to sickness, caught from a river demon. But when I said something about cutting my hand and throwing blood, he looked up to the ceiling before I even said it. He knows. And he lied. Bisimbi is not a river demon. They have no love for rivers.”
“So that is where you went?”
“Yes, that is where I went.”
“Where is this elder now?”
“With his ancestors. He tried to kill me when I told him he was lying. Here is the thing. I do not think he knew of the child.”
“So?”
“A chief elder and not know about his own? He said the youngest boy was ten and five.”
“It’s still riddles, what you say,” the Leopard said.
“I say this. The boy was not Fumanguru’s son, no matter what Bunshi or the slaver or anyone says. I am sure the elder knew Fumanguru was going to be murdered, might have ordered it himself. But he counted eight bodies, which is what he expected to count.”
“He knows of the murder, but does not know of the child?”
“Because the child was no son of Fumanguru. Or ward, or kin or even guest. The elder tried to kill me because he saw I knew he knew about the murder. But he did not know there was another boy. Whoever is behind the killing told him nothing,” I said.
“And the boy is not Fumanguru’s son?”
“Why would he have a secret son?”
“Why does Bunshi call him a son?”
“I don’t know.”
“Forget money or goods. People trade only lies in these parts.” He said this looking straight at me.
“Or people only tell you what they think you need to know,” I said.
He looked around for a while, at everybody on the fish, for a good while at the Ogo, who went back to sleep, then back at me.
“Is that all?”
“Is that not enough?”
“If you think so.”
“Fuck the gods, cat. Something has curdled between us.”
“This is what you think.”
“This is what I know. And it has happened in the quick. But I think it’s your Fumeli. He was but a joke to you only days ago. Now you two pull closer and I am your enemy.”
“Me pulling him closer, as you say, makes you my enemy.”
“That is not what I said.”
“It is what you meant.”
“Not that either. You don’t sound like yourself.”
“I sound like—”
“Him.”
He laughed and sat back down beside Fumeli, drawing up his legs to his chest as the boy did.
Daylight ran away from us. I watched it go. Venin was by Sogolon, watching her, sometimes watching the river, sometimes drawing her feet together when she saw she sat on skin, not ground. Everybody else slept, stared into the river, watched sky, or minded their own business.
We came to the shore in the evening. How much time was left for sun, I did not know. The Ogo woke up. Sogolon left the fish first, walking with her horse. The girl, right behind