15. THE SAVAGE

The day of reckoning may or may not have come

Two days later Owongo had cause to be truly grateful that he had, in part, solved the disturbances during the night caused by a squawking Owongo Junior and his hunger. He found he could somehow contrive to balance the bladder of fresh milk stolen from a reluctant doe, resting it between himself and the youngster, and even get some shut-eye while little Owongo slurped. And two days later he needed all of his wits about him and, exhausted, he wouldn’t have had that.

It was the time for as many tribesmen from the River Bank as possible to seek out and “sort out” (as Owongo put it) the dreadful Fart-fart complete with his orange complexion and ridiculous hair.

Gondut looked around at the assembled army of men with spears. Everyone made his own spear … in fact, every man did everything for himself and his family because nobody had, as yet, invented the division of labour or the production line … and there was a magnificent array of flint-tipped weaponry sticking up into the air like the quills of a gigantic stone-age porcupine as they wove their way towards the forest.

“This is good,” he said, “we can defeat the orange freak and as many supporters as he can get his hands on.”

“But be wary of his blow-pipe,” put in Owongo, “he has smeared great evil onto the darts that he sends forth from it by simply blowing, and I saw a man fall down dead in front of my eyes.”

“Say more,” urged Gondut, who realised that a first-hand account from Owongo might represent a better warning than any words he could find.

“There were two savages,” began Owongo, and half a dozen of the tribesmen spat at the word savages. “One of them displeased he who spends most of his life farting, and in reply that bully drew a tube of hollowed wood from his clothing, put it to his mouth, and blew. I saw the dart as it shot from that pipe and I watched it as it nicked the skin of the savage. And then, horror of horrors, I watched as that creature fell to the ground and started foaming at the mouth and twitching, and I watched him die. We must avoid that at all costs, for the orange man can truly be dangerous with his mother of all weapons, as he calls it!”

This had been a long speech for Owongo to make. His usual venture into the world of language was considerably briefer and to the point, but he had the wisdom to know that this time detail and a sense of danger might be important. These men were his friends, and he wanted to help them preserve themselves from the horror he had witnessed.

“Take note,” said Gondut grimly, “Owongo has seen and Owongo speaks the truth! Be wary of the pipe that the orange creature blows, for it would be dire if even one of us fell this day. We will go to the original marked tree and wait to see what we will see. With a bit of luck and a fair wind the savages who are to join Fart-fart will be confused by a profusion of marked trees and not know where they are!”

And they continued on their way.

It took around an hour for them to find the tree that had born the original mark, and when they arrived silently and with the care of skilled hunters near it they merged with almost superhuman skill into the landscape, and waited. They didn’t have long.

They heard him before they saw him. He crashed through the undergrowth, his movements easily distinguished by the sound they made. Fart-fart was no hunter, no proficient master of the woods and woodcraft as he sought his designated tree, but a barging bully, one who was careless of what noise he made and who cursed when he witnessed so many trees with markings on them, for he had left only one.

“What magic is this?” he grumbled to himself, “what sorcery has marked tree after tree when only one should bear my slash?”

But it was clear that he knew the one he had marked originally, for after a few minutes poking and prying round the wrong ones he found the monster tree he had first carved his mark on. The he withdrew a cracked horn from inside the skins he was wearing and blew one long note followed by two short ones. The sound was foul as was he, discordant and threatening, and it made Owongo shiver where he crouched, safely hidden from view.

The party of tribesmen lay where they hid, and watched.

And watched.

And nothing happened. No group of savages, armed and clad in filthy skins, emerged from the scrubland to join their chief. No foetid band of barbarian desperadoes with death in their eyes slithered forwards to worship him. Instead, there was an uncanny silence until, finally, one appeared. And he was emaciated, filthy beyond belief, and carried, no doubt, a dire sickness with him. His eyes, surrounded by great shadows, surveyed Fart-fart, and then in his clicking voice with its squeaking intonations he spoke,

“See what you done to me,” he croaked, “my folk have cast me out of their number for befriending you.”

“That’s their misfortune!” barked Fart-fart. “They don’t know with whom they’re better off! With me there would be greatness. With me there would be freedom. I would give them back their lands and they would live for all future time without the yoke of servitude holding them back!”

“But you don’t understand,” clicked the savage.

“Me not understand? How dared you! I understand all things! I am the great Orange Fart-fart god, and without me all men are feeble nothings, prey to any foul creature that comes their way! But with me and my force behind them there is greatness!”

“But they say you bring what you claim to rescue us from,” muttered the savage, quietly, though Owongo could plainly hear and interpret the clickings and squeakings so that they made sense. “They say we are free, so that is a gift you cannot give us though you promise it. They say the lands are already our own, so how is you can give them to us? And they say that in our way we have greatness and that all you can do is diminish that!”

“But I am Fart-fart and have unbelievable wealth!” barked the orange man, clearly frustrated.

“Your wealth is all in your head and in the mistaken understanding of others,” growled the savage, weakly. “You wealth, Fart-fart, is as nothing to the friendship and love of kith and kin, and we have that, lots of it, already. So I am to tell you we reject your call to arms. We reject your falsehoods and lies. Even those that used to believe you now reject you, for you are false. We might even have lurched into a post-truth age in our land, but at this last hour we have chosen honesty yes, and we have chosen truth!”

Owongo couldn’t help it. Neither could the other tribesmen. As one they stood up and applauded the savage and the words that so echoed their own thoughts.

“I have one gift for you, though Fart-fart,” concluded the savage, and as he spoke the orange man’s hand slid into his skins and he started pulling something out. “And that is this!”

And before the blow-pipe could reach the foetid lips of Fart-fart the savage firmly held his own spear, one nowhere near as magnificent as those of the giant porcupine in the undergrowth, and plunged it with unerring accuracy straight at the orange man, piercing that dread mother of all weapons as it went, and passing through his shoulder and pinning him to the scarred tree.

“That’s justice,” whispered Gondut.

And without battle or injuries he led his men back towards their caves, and they carried, high on their shoulders, the one savage who had done their deed for them, and not one of them complained of the stench of his skins or the lines of filth ingrained into his troubled face.

They were freed from the poison of a monster.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© Peter Rogerson 24.04.17