A Spear of Summer Grass - By Deanna Raybourn Page 0,103

hardier Kikuyu to remove the carcasses and burn them. It was the only way to cleanse the bad magic, Pierre insisted, although he added that the services of one of the local witches would not go amiss.

I cursed under my breath, but suddenly I realised that it was fully dawn. The sun had finished rising, a great ball of blood just over the horizon. And there was no noise from the cattle, no persistent demands to be milked, no encouragement to Moses to turn them out to pasture.

“No!” I shouted, setting off at a dead run.

I smelled the blood before I opened the door to the barn. The floor was awash with it, and I slipped as I ran inside. The cows were silent lumps of flesh, already rotting, but something in that barn still lived, I realised. I threw myself down on the floor next to Moses and felt his throat for a pulse. It was there, thin and thready as a bird’s. Uneven, but it was there. I checked him for broken bones and injuries and found a vicious wound to his head. His blood had mingled with that of the cows, and I gathered him up and moved him out of that dark place that smelled of death. I carried him out into the open, collapsing just as Gideon walked up. He had brought firewood, and the smile faded from his face as he opened his arms and dropped the load of it to the ground. He ran, hurdling over the pasture fence as if it were no more than a bush. He took his little brother into his arms.

“He needs a doctor, Gideon. A proper doctor. I can’t fix this. I don’t have enough experience with head wounds.”

Gideon’s expression hardened. “No, Bibi. There has been enough of white men in this. I will take him to our babu.”

He rose with Moses, limp in his arms. “Gideon, this isn’t a matter of magic. No incantations can fix this. He needs proper medicine.”

Gideon gave me a sorrowful look, as one might to a child who cannot learn its lessons.

“No, this was not magic, Bibi. But it was evil. And no one knows more about evil than our babu.”

I didn’t argue with him. He carried his brother down the dusty track and I ran after them, carrying Gideon’s spear and watching his back for lions. It was the least I could do.

I spent the day with the Masai, watching closely as the elders worked to save Moses’ life. The babu had summoned the laibon, the tribal witch, the local healer and caster out of demons. He treated the head wound, packing it with their native remedies, and prepared a series of potions to spoon into the boy’s mouth. He explained the herbs and how each would help, one to keep down the swelling, one to halt the bleeding, another to give peaceful rest. I heard little of what he said. I spent most of my time thinking of Gates and how stupid I had been not to confiscate his keys when I kicked him off the property. And I thought of what I would do when I got my hands on him.

After a few hours, one of the women presented me with a tin cup of corn porridge and a gourd of hot smoky milk. I hadn’t thought I was hungry, but I finished them both and felt a little better. Gideon and I sat outside the hut and talked for hours. He told me stories of Moses and how smart the boy was, what expectations he had for his brother. We talked of his bravery and his winsome ways, his bright smile and his curiosity. And then I talked, telling him stories of my Granny Miette—how she scandalised the other white women by the dark things she sometimes did with Angele and Teenie. I told him of the chaudron, the sugaring cauldron big enough to hold a man, a great cast-iron beast that squatted at the edge of the cane fields waiting for the alchemy of fire and the syrup. It was a crucible, boiling down the thick syrup and filling the air with smoked sweetness.

But there were other times—times when the fire was kindled for other reasons, and the chaudron did darker work. It might be to visit retribution on a man who had ruined a girl or forfeited a debt of honour. It might have been to still a gossiping tongue or pay back a piece