meant the god of the Bambuti, the twin godhead of the living forest, male and female in one. Kelly was silent for a while in deference to the seriousness of this statement. That is a grave matter, she replied at last. What has made them angry? They have been wounded, Sepoo said softly. The rivers flow red with their blood. This was a startling concept, and Kelly was silent again as she tried to visualize what Sepoo meant. How could the rivers run with the blood of the forest?
she wondered. She was finally forced to ask, I do not understand, old father. What are you telling me? It is beyond my humble words to describe, Sepoo whispered.
There has been a terrible sacrilege and the Mother and Father are in pain. Perhaps the Molimo will come. Kelly had been in camp with the Bambuti only once during the Molimo visitation. The women were excluded, and Kelly had remained in the huts with Pamba and the other women when the Molimo came, but she had heard its voice roaring like a bull buffalo and trumpeting like an enraged elephant as it rampaged through the forest in the night.
in the morning Kelly had asked Sepoo, What creature is the Molimo?
The Molimo is the Molimo, he had replied enigmatically. It is the creature of the forest. It is the voice of the Mother and the Father Now Sepoo suggested that the Molimo might come again, and Kelly shivered with a little superstitious thrill. This time she would not remain in the huts with the women, she promised herself. This time she would find out more about this fabulous creature. For the moment, however, she put it out of her mind and, instead, concerned herself with the sacrilege that had been committed somewhere deep in the forest.
Sepoo, she whispered. If you cannot tell me about this terrible thing, will you show me? Will you take me and show me the rivers that run with the blood of the gods? Sepoo snuffled in the darkness and hawked to clear his throat and spat into the coals of the fire. Then he grunted, Very well, Kara-Ki. I will show you. In the morning, before we -reach Gondola we will go out of our way and I will show you the rivers that bleed. In the morning Sepoo was full of high spirits again, almost as though their conversation in the night had never taken place.
Kelly gave him the present which she had brought for him, a Swiss army knife. Sepoo was enchanted with all the blades and implements and tools that folded out of the red plastic handle, and promptly cut himself on one of them. He cackled with laughter and sucked his thumb, then held it out to Kelly as proof of the marvelous sharpness of the little blade.
Kelly knew he would probably lose the knife within a week, or give it away to someone else in the tribe on an impulse, as he had done with all the other gifts she had given him. But for the moment his joy was childlike and complete. Now you must show me the bleeding rivers, she reminded him as she adjusted the headband of her pack, and for a moment his eyes were sad again. Then he grinned and pirouetted. Come along, Kara-Ki. Let us see if you still move in the forest like one of the real people. Soon they left the broad trail, and Sepoo led her swiftly through the secret unmarked ways. He danced ahead of her like a sprite and the foliage closed behind him, leaving no trace of his passing.
Where Sepoo moved upright, Kelly was forced to stoop beneath the branches, and at times she lost sight of him.
No wonder the old Egyptians believed the Bambuti had the power of invisibility, Kelly thought, as she extended herself to keep up with him.
If Sepoo had moved silently she might have lost him, but like all the pygmies he sang and laughed and chattered to her and the forest as he went. His voice ahead guided her, and warned the dangerous forest creatures of his approach so that there would be no confrontation.
She knew that he was moving at his best pace, to test and tease her, and she was determined not to fall too far behind.
She called replies back to him and joined in the chorus of the praise songs and when he stepped out on the bank of the river many hours later she was only seconds behind him.
He grinned at her until his eyes disappeared in the web, of wrinkles and shook his head in reluctant approval, but Kelly was not interested in his approbation. She was gazing at the river.
This was one of the tributaries of the Ubomo that had its source high up in the Mountains of the Moon, at the foot of one of the glaciers above fifteen thousand feet, the altitude where the permanent snowline stood.
This river found its way down through lakes and waterfalls, fed by the mighty rains that lashed this wettest of all mountain ranges, down through the treeless moors and heather, down through the forest of giant prehistoric ferns, until at last it entered the dense bamboo thickets which were the domain of gorilla and spiral-horned bongo antelope. From there it fell again another three thousand feet through rugged foothills until it reached its true rain forests with their galleried canopies of gigantic hardwoods.
The Bambuti called this river Tetwa, after the silver catfish that abounded in its sweet clear waters and shoaled on the yellow sandbanks.
The Bambuti women shed even their tiny loin-cloths when they went into the waters of the Tetwa to catch the barbeled catfish. Each of them armed with a fish basket of woven reeds and bark, they surrounded the shoal and splashed and shrieked with excitement as they flipped the struggling slippery silver fish from the sparkling water.
That had been before the river began to bleed. Now Kelly stared at it in horror.
The river was fifty yards wide and the forest grew right to the edge and formed a canopy that almost, but not quite, met overhead. There was a narrow irregular gleam of sky high above the middle of the river-course.
From bank to bank the river ran red, not the bright red of heart blood, but a darker browner hue. The sullied waters seemed almost viscous. They had lost their sparkle and were heavy and dull, running thick and slow as used engine oil.
The sand spits were red also, coated with a deep layer of thick mud.
The carcasses of the catfish were strewn on the red banks, thick as autumn leaves, piled upon each other in their multitudes. Their skulls were eyeless and the stench of their putrefying flesh was oppressive in the humid air below the forest canopy. What has done this, Sepoo?
Kelly whispered, but he shrugged and busied himself rolling a pinch of coarse black native tobacco in a leaf. While Kelly went down the bank, he lit his primitive cheroot from the live coal he carried wrapped in a pouch of green leaves around his neck. He puffed great clouds of blue smoke, squeezing his eyes tightly shut with pleasure.
As Kelly stepped out on to the sand spit, she sank almost knee-deep into the mud. She scooped up a handful of it and rubbed it between her fingers. It was slick as grease, fine as potter's clay, and it stained her skin a dark sang de boeuf. She tried to wash it off, but the colour was fast and her fingers were red as those of an assassin. She lifted a handful of mud to her nose and sniffed it. It had no alien smell.
