Solomon Dutch

River Walk

16 May 2011 2 Comments

by solomondutch in Fiction, Latest Tags: africa, children, children's stories, cow, fiction, hyenas, iphoneography, jackals, oil, photography, photos, photoshop, reye, river, river walk, short stories, vultures, water, xavier reye

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Sundried grass and corn crickets crunched beneath his bare feet as the boy ran towards the river. Three girls were already at the bank; two bronze skinned and blonde, the other, his sister, redheaded with livid pink skin on her back. He paused for a while before approaching them, analyzing the river. It wasn’t wide, maybe thirty feet, and clumps of reeds floated downstream at a sleepy pace. The banks dropped off vertically, forming a four-foot cliff face before reaching the water.

The boy walked over to the girls who acknowledged him with a nod and then returned their squinted gazes to the water.

“It’s too dirty,” Christa said, “I bet you we’ll catch bilharzia, people are always peeing in the water.”

“There’s loads of cow crap in it by now. And crocs,” added Jenny, the second blonde girl. She was shifting weight from one foot to the other to avoid blisters from the hot sand.

The boy and his sister silently agreed and they all sat down in a circle. A kingfisher hovered over the river; malachite and white stayed still between busy wings though the murky water swallowed the bird’s reflection.

The boy switched his gaze from the bird to Christa. Her chest was as flat as his, though her nipples were full, pointed, painful, and tanned a deep brown; he thought they looked angry and that she probably didn’t like them touched.

His sister, Alice, and Jenny had nipples more like his, and it seemed they would be more comfortable wearing t-shirts than Christa. The hair on her skinny legs was golden and he liked the way this looked against her brown skin. He wanted to stroke one of her legs but he knew he would be ridiculed so instead he stood up and jumped about.

“Come on, let’s go, its hot, who cares about the crap,” he said in a shrill voice.

“What about bilharzia?” asked Jenny.

“The water’s not stagnant enough for that, and who cares, you just take some pills and you’re fine.” He ran flat out toward the bank and jumped straight in, sending brown beads of water into the air. The water was waist-deep, warm, and thick with particles of vegetation, some dead some digested. His sister grinned and jumped in, followed hesitantly by the other girls.

They climbed on each other’s shoulders and wrestled, toppling back into the water. They swam over to the bank and leaned up against its walls, protected from the harsh sun. The boy felt uncomfortable and had a sick feeling in his stomach.

“Let’s walk upstream,” he said looking at Christa while he waded out into the middle of the river. They followed him and started up the river.

Donkeys grazed on the plain around them, bloated despite their hunger. The river narrowed and the water thickened and the boy led the group more slowly. He felt a big, soft lump against the front of his left shin and stopped to inspect it. The water was quite high and he had to cock his head back to breathe as he felt the underwater mass. It was soft in some parts and hard in others, contours rose and fell under his fingertips –

“What are you doing,” asked Jenny.

“I’ve found something, I don’t know what it is,” the boy said in short breaths.

“Leave it alone, it might be something dangerous,” said his sister. He felt a long, thick object; his fingers didn’t meet his thumb as he grasped it and pulled it out of the water. It rose slowly, breaking the surface near his face. It was a leg of some kind, with a cloven hoof that looked pale and rubbery and the flesh just above the ankle was sloughed off and yellow bone was exposed. He dropped it immediately, falling backwards and taking Jenny with him into the water. They broke the surface, spitting water out as they swam toward the bank.

They pulled themselves out of the water and lay in a tangle on the sand, panting hard,

“What was that?” spat Alice.

“A dead animal,” offered the boy, fighting a wave of nausea. The girls burst into fits of laughter and groans. The boy smiled and got up, chasing them around as they squealed and fled from his grasp. ‘

“This is fun, lets keep going,” said Christa.

“On the ground though,” insisted Jenny and no one argued.

They trooped on alongside the water; their wet feet now caked in fine sand, algae and grass stuck to their skin as the sun dried them off. A few minutes down the bank they came across a narrow patch where the water had turned to thick oozing mud. In it was a cow, up to its chin in the mud. It stood still, its head cocked to one side, one horn submerged, one pointed to the sky.

“Do you think it’s dead?” asked Christa.

“Probably just cooling down,” the boy replied.

“Throw something at it,” said Alice. The boy picked up a big piece of dry cow dung and threw it at the cow, hitting it on the back of the head. The cow did not stir,

“It must be dead, look, I can’t even see it breathing. Go in and touch it,” Christa said.

“It’s so muddy in there, and what if it’s rotted?” said the boy.

“It’s not rotted. Look at it, if it’s dead it died recently,” said Christa. The boy slowly edged into the mud. When he was thigh deep he reached over and touched the horn, but the beast didn’t move. He moved along to the cow’s left flank and touched its back.

“Hit it,” called out Christa.

“Why?” he asked, “it’s dead.”

“Maybe it’s just sleeping.”

The boy struck the cow hard where the dung had hit and the animal burst into life, flinging horns around, bellowing and choking on mud. The boy scrambled backwards barely avoiding the horns. He dragged himself back onto the bank shaking and spitting out mud. The girls jumped around giggling,

“I think it might be alive,” Christa managed.

“Listen, we need ropes or something. Jenny and Alice, run to Christa’s house, tell her Dad what’s happened, he’ll be able to help us. Me and Christa will stay here and watch the cow.”

“OK,” said the two and they ran off along the river.

Thick mud started to dry on the boy’s skin, pinching him and pulling out hairs whenever he moved, so he jumped in where the water was deep and a bit clearer. He washed off the mud as best he could and watched it leave his body in globs and float into the section where the river had congealed and the animal’s big horn jutted out the mud.

Christa rested against a termite mound near the bank and he walked up to her and did a hand stand, talking to her mid-performance,

“Do you think your Dad will be able to save the cow?”

“Of course he will,” Christa replied, “he’s lived here for more then fifty years, he can get a stupid cow out of the river.”

“Why do you think it went in there in the first place?” The boy’s arms buckled and he rolled onto the ground.

“Um, to eat fish – how am I s’posed to know?”

“Well, we can ask your Dad then, can’t we.” The boy sat down next to Christa, sharing the termite mound’s shade with her.

He looked up and saw that already there were vultures circling a few hundred feet above, waiting for the cow to die so they could eat out the eyes, nose, and tongue, and work their way to the guts and vital organs through the anus. They would work on the carcass until sunset, at which point jackals would leave their dens and carefully pick their way across the plain to gnaw slowly on the skin and muscle exposed by the vultures. Hyenas would be next, slopping around in the mud, piling onto the carcass and tearing through thick hide, snapping off ribs and swallowing hunks of bone whole. Their loud reverberating woops would carry on the ground and through the air to the surrounding villages where fathers would block doorways and mothers would comfort frightened children.

He sat still for a minute, then slowly placed his hand onto Christa’s, but she withdraw straight away,

“Eerr, don’t touch me, you’re hands were all over that disgusting dead thing in the water back there,” she said, leaning her body away from him.

“Sorry,” he offered as he stood up and looked down the river. He saw a light blue double cab pick up truck speeding toward them, followed by a plume of beige dust.

“Your Dad’s here.” She stood up next to him as the truck pulled in. Alice and Jenny jumped out and ran down to the bank,

“Has it moved yet?” Jenny asked, looking at the cow.

“No,” the boy replied. Christa’s father stepped out of the truck. He was broad framed, with brown cracked skin and an oversized nose. He wore a beaten-up leather cowboy hat with a ring of buckskin around the base and was carrying a thick towrope.

“Do you think we’re going to be able to get it out?” the boy asked.

“Hope so,” said the man, “now take this rope here. I want you to go in and loop it around the cow’s horns. You know how to do a figure eight?”

“Yes,” said the boy as he took the rope and waded into the mud. As he hooked a horn the cow started shaking its head violently. The boy stepped back,

“I can’t do it, sir,” he quavered. The man grunted and took off his boots, storming into the mud, pushing the boy out the way. He grabbed the thrashing horns and looped a figure eight around them. He waded out of the mud and hitched the rope onto the back of his truck.

The boy joined the girls on the bank and watched as the man started up the engine and began driving forward. As the rope tightened the boy panicked,

“Wait,” he said, “he’s going to kill it – sir!” he shouted, but the growling engine drowned him out. The rope became taught and there was a squeezing sound as it tightened around the cow’s horns. The car sped up and the cow slid up the bank onto dry land, its head bouncing up and down, its limp body in a pall of mud and dust. The car stopped and the man jumped out and began untying the rope from the horns.

“I thought you were going to save it,” the boy said.

“Now how would I go about doing that?”

“I don’t know, but you didn’t have to kill it.”

“Get in the truck.”

The children wandered over to the truck as the man jumped in, muddying the driver’s seat. The boy opened the cab door,

“No, you can’t sit in here,” Christa said, “you touched that disgusting thing under the water.”

The boy hopped into the back of the truck and stared as the vultures descended on the twisted body.

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Story by Angus McNeice

Images by Xavier Reyé