Guarding the Princess - By Loreth Anne White Page 0,76
here to me?”
The boy remained motionless, transfixed by Brandt’s eyes. Brandt was used to this—the color of his eyes was likely unusual to this child, and possibly frightening.
Slowly releasing his grip on the boy, Brandt repeated his question. “Wusani, who owns the jeep?” But the kid dashed off.
Brandt dived, caught him again, got him in a hold.
“Listen,” he said, urgency biting into him, “I need your help, son. There are some bad men searching for us. They want to hurt that lady over there.” He pointed to the rise, Dalilah’s head just visible.
The child looked where he was pointing.
“I need to take her somewhere safe. Fast. And I need the jeep because my airplane doesn’t work.”
Brandt could see the wheels turning behind Wusani’s dark brown eyes, bright with a mix of fear, intelligence and curiosity. He looked Brandt up and down.
“I’m a pilot,” Brandt said. “I fly planes.” He pointed to the sky. “You ever been in a plane, Wusani?”
He shook his head.
Out of the corner of his eye Brandt saw a man coming out the village gate, calling for the boy.
Crap. This was going downhill fast—he’d hoped to limit potential damage by keeping this between as few people as possible.
“Who’s that man, Wusani?” Brandt said with a jerk of his chin toward the man.
“He’s my grandfather.”
An old man, wiry, approached with a stick in his hand. It had a shiny knob on the end. He stalled when he caught sight of Brandt and Wusani. Brandt released the child, and the boy raced to his grandfather.
“It’s okay,” Brandt called out in Setswana, putting down his rifle and showing his hands. Another man, younger, was now exiting the village gate. A group of women near the fence stopped to stare.
Brandt inhaled, approaching them, preparing for a lengthy Botswana greeting—anything less would be an insult.
He introduced himself to the wiry old man with salt-and-pepper curls. The young man joined the group, and Brandt introduced himself to him, too. The young man said he was Wusani’s father.
Brandt asked who the village headman was, and whether they had cattle. He congratulated them when they said they did—livestock was money and status. They in turn asked about his own cows, and congratulated him when he said he had a few head. He felt the clock ticking, time dribbling away like sand between his fingers.
The old man told Brandt the chief’s name was Baikego Khama.
“Everyone calls him B.K.” His wizened face cracked into a gap-toothed grin, gums pink. More villagers were gathering near the fence, curious. Brandt’s heart sunk—there was no way out of this now.
From his pocket he took the wad of greenbacks he’d liberated from the Germans. All eyes went to the money.
“U.S. dollars,” he said. “I’m interested in buying that jeep under the tree over there. Who owns it?”
“It belongs to the village,” explained the old man. “But B.K. controls who can use it.”
“Can I speak to B.K.?”
They nodded and made a gesture for Brandt to follow them. Brandt motioned for Dalilah to come over. She scrambled down the bank, and picked up his rifle, bringing it to him.
Wusani skipped on his skinny little legs beside them as they entered the village and made their way to the headman’s hut. They passed the jeep. It was old, and on the side of the door were faded letters that read: Masholo Safari Lodge. The vehicle had likely been sold to this village when the camp offloaded it, thought Brandt.
Wusani’s dad went up to the chief’s door and knocked.
“Your grandson doesn’t go to class with the other kids?” Brandt asked the old man as they waited a respectful distance away.
A shadow crossed the man’s face. “Wusani runs away from school.” He shook his head. “He’s a smart boy, like his uncle who works for the mine. But Wusani muddles his letters—he can’t learn to read and so he runs away.”
Dalilah glanced at Brandt, curiosity raising her brow.
He took her hand, squeezed. “Just small talk,” he explained in English.
The chief came out of his hut.
Brandt greeted the headman with deference and began the whole greeting routine all over again. The chief had a Zionist badge on his shirt—a common southern African practice, claiming allegiance to the African Zionist church. He was likely a good man, a principled man. And Brandt’s head hurt as he thought of Amal coming closer and closer, what he might do if he thought these good people had helped him and Dalilah in any way.