Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн бесплатно полностью без .TXT) 📗

As the elephant's head loomed above him, Pirri sank down and lay like a log or a pile of dead leaves on the forest floor.

The elephant was so close that he could make out clearly every furrow and wrinkle in the thick grey hide.  Looking up he could see the discharge from the glands in the elephant's head running like tears down his cheeks, and Pirri gathered himself.

Even with the spear he had made, which was sharp and heavy and almost twice as long as Pirri was tall, he could never drive the point through the hide and meat and the cage of ribs -to pierce the bull's heart or his lungs.  The brain in its bony casket was far beyond his reach.

There was only one way that a man of Pirri's size could kill an enormous beast like this with a spear.

Pirri rolled to his feet and bounded up under the elephant's belly.

He stood between the bull's back legs and he braced himself and drove the point of the spear upwards into the angle of his groin.

The elephant squealed as the blade sliced through the baggy skin that hung around his crotch and lanced up into the sac of his bladder.  The razor steel split his bladder open and the hot urine sprayed out in a yellow jet.  He convulsed with agony, hunching his back, before he began to run.

The elephant ran screaming through the forest, and the foliage crashed and broke before him.

Pirri reatied on his bloody spear and listened to the elephant run out of earshot.  He waited until the silence was complete and then he girded up his loincloth and began to follow the dribbled trail of blood and urine that steamed and reeked on the forest floor.

It might take many hours to die, but the elephant was doomed.  Pirri, the hunter, had struck a mortal blow and he knew that before tomorrow's sunset the elephant would be dead.

Pirri followed him slowly, but he did not feel the fierce hunter's joy in his heart.  There was only a sense of emptiness and the terrible guilt of sacrilege.

He had offended his god, and he knew that now his god must reject and punish him.

Pirri the hunter found the carcass of the elephant bull the next morning.  The elephant was kneeling, with his legs folded up neatly beneath him.

His head was supported by the massive curves of ivory that were half buried in the soft earth.

The last rainstorm had washed his hide so that it was black and shiny and his eyes were open.

He appeared so lifelike that Pirri approached him with great caution and at last reached out with a long thin twig to touch the open staring eye fringed with thick lashes.  The eyelid did not blink to the touch and Pirri noticed the opaque jelly-like sheen of death over the pupil.

He straightened up and laid aside his spear.  The hunt was over.

By custom he should now sing a prayer of thanks to the forest god for such largesse.  He actually uttered the first words of the prayer before he broke off guiltily.  He knew that he could never sing the hunter's prayer again, and a profound sadness filled his being.

He made a small fire and cut the rich fatty meat out of the elephant's cheek and cooked it on a skewer over the coals.  For once this choice morsel was tough and tasteless in his mouth.

He spat it into the fire and sat for a long time beside the carcass before he could rouse himself and shrug off the sense of sorrow that weighed him down.

He drew his machete from its sheath and began to chop one of the thick yellow tusks from its bony canal in the elephant's skull.  The steel rang on the skull and the bone chips flew and fell about his feet as he worked.

That was how the men of his clan found him.  They were drawn to Pirri by the sound of his machete hacking through bone.  They came out of the forest silently, led by Sepoo and Pamba, and they formed a circle around Pirri and the elephant.

He looked up and saw them, and he let the machete fall to his side, and he stood with blood on his hands, not daring to meet their eyes.  I will share the reward with you, my brothers, he whispered, but nobody answered him.

One at a time the Bambuti turned from him and disappeared back into the forest as silently as they had come, until only Sepoo remained.

Because of what you have done the forest god will sen the Molimo to us, said Sepoo, and Pirri stood with despair in his heart and could not raise his head to meet his brother's eyes.

Daniel began a review of the videotapes as soon as they reached Gondola.

Kelly set aside a corner of her laboratory for him to work in and Victor Omeru hovered over him, making comments and suggestions as he compiled his editing notes.

The quality of the material he had gathered was good.  As a cameraman he rated himself as competent but lacking the artistry and brilliance of somebody like Bonny Mahon.  What he compiled was an honest sober record of the mining and logging operation in the Wengu forest reserve, and of some of the consequences.  It has no human warmth to it, he told Victor and Kelly at dinner that evening.  It appeals to reason, not to the heart.  I need something more.  What is it you want?  Kelly asked.

Tell me what it is and I'll get it for you.  I want more of President Omeru, Daniel said.  You have presence and style, sir.  I want much more of you.

You shall have me.

Victor Omeru nodded.  But don't you think it is time we dispensed with the formalities, Daniel?  After all, we have climbed the sacred honey tree together.  Surely that entitles us to use each other's Christian names?  I'm sure it does, Victor, Daniel agreed.  But even you won't be enough to convince the world.  I have to show them what is happening to human beings.  I have to show them the camps where the Uhali forced labour units are housed.  Can we arrange that?  Victor leaned forward.

Yes, he said.  You know that I am the leader of the resistance movement to Taffari's tyranny.  We are growing stronger every day.  At present it is all very much underground, but we are organising ourselves and recruiting all the-most important and influential people who reject Taffari.

Of course, we are mostly Uhali, but even some of Taffari's own Hita people are becoming disenchanted with his regime.  We will be able to get you to see the ]about camps.  Of course, you won't be able to get into the camps, but we should be able to get you close enough to film some of the daily atrocities which arc being perpetrated.  Yes, Kelly asserted.

Patrick and the other young resistance leaders will be arriving here within the next few days for a conference with Victor.  He will be able to arrange it.  She broke off and thought for a moment.  Then there are the Bambuti.  You can show your audience how the destruction of the forest will affect the pygmies and destroy their traditional way of life.  That's exactly the type of material I still need, Daniel replied. What do you suggest?  The Molimo ceremony, Kelly said.  Sepoo tells me that the Molimo is coming and he has agreed that you may witness it. Patrick, Victor Omeru's nephew, arrived at Gondola a day earlier than was expected.  He was accompanied by a retinue of a dozen or so Uhali tribesmen.  The pygmies had guided them through the forest.

Many of the delegation were also relatives of Victor Omeru, all of them educated and committed young men.

When Daniel showed them the tapes he had already filmed and described the material he still required, Patrick Omeru and his men were enthusiastic.  Leave it to me, Doctor Armstrong, Patrick told him.

I'll arrange it for you.  Of course, there will be some danger involved. The camps are well protected by the Hita, but we'll get you as close as is humanly possible.  When Patrick and his men left Gondola, Daniel and Sepoo went with them.

The two of them returned to Gondola nine days later.  Daniel was thin and gaunt.  It was obvious that they had travelled hard and unremittingly.  His clothing was mud-stained and tattered and Kelly saw at once that he was near the point of exhaustion as he stumbled up on the verandah of the bungalow.