The Headhunter's Daughter by Tamar Myers Page A

headhunters-in-training, Amanda thought. Mama always said I had a big head, every time she dragged a comb through my hair or tried to pull my woolen stocking cap down over my ears. These little guys probably know a good thing when they see it. I wonder how much palm beer my skull would hold. They probably wouldn’t have to do much cleaning of it either; Miss Kuhnberger always said I had an empty head, which is why I couldn’t remember how to do long division .
    “Were you serious about the king having to get involved?” Amanda asked when they’d fallen back into the rhythm of walking.
    “ Oui , of course. If it came to that. This is a very delicate time in the colony now, Amanda. When word of this girl gets out—and believe me, it will grow wings—she will become a symbol.”
    “A symbol of what ?”
    “Oh Amanda, I do not mean to insult your intelligence when I say that I find your simplicity most endearing.”
    Amanda first bit her tongue, then counted to three. That was as far as she could go.
    “Well, I very much mean to insult you when I say that I find your Gallic arrogance insufferable, and were you not the only English speaker at Belle Vue, I might seriously reconsider our friendship. As for your request that we continue to speak only French—well, I find the act of doing so very taxing. True, this language can be pronounced with great flourish, but it lacks nuance. Did you know that it has only one third the vocabulary words that English has?”
    “ Mais c’est impossible! This is the language of Voltaire.”
    “And English is the language of Shakespeare, who, by the way, was a far greater genius.”
    “ Alors , Amanda, perhaps we should keep our opinions to ourselves.”
    “Perhaps so—at least when it comes to patriotic things. After all, it wouldn’t be ladylike of me to win all our arguments.”
    But there really wasn’t much Amanda wanted to say to Pierre until they got to the truck.
    They were about an hour’s walk from the village when Ugly Eyes noticed that the crippled woman was having an especially hard time keeping up. They were walking single file: first the Africans in Bula Matadi clothes, then the cripple, then Father, then self, then the white woman, and lastly, the white man, who incidentally, appeared to be the headman in this situation.
    At any rate, every time the crippled woman faltered, or paused, Father’s rib cage rose and fell with irritation, although he made not a sound. This woman had one leg shorter than the other, and her foot was twisted. This was the first grown woman with a deformity that Ugly Eyes had ever seen. What barbarians her tribe must be, to have allowed her to live past infancy. How cruel of them to subject her to the childhood taunts she must have endured, and the inevitable physical pain that a deformed body such as this was bound to have experienced. Ugly Eyes seethed with rage.
    “Father,” Ugly Eyes said, “I will carry the dwarf.”
    Father spat into the grass at the hand of the men (that is to say, to his right side). “Daughter, she is the white man’s slave; we cannot get involved.”
    “But Father, see how she suffers?”
    “Tell me, Ugly Eyes, is this something that you feel strongly about?”
    “Yes, Father.”
    “You have the gift of knowing, daughter—as do I. But truly, your gift exceeds mine; therefore, you have my permission to do as you wish in this case.”
    Ugly Eyes said nothing in return because she could not think of the right words to express her jumbled thinking. How proud it made her feel that her father, who was such an esteemed headman, should find her to be so wise. But oh how confusing that was as well; after all, she was but a female, and a young unmarried one at that, with no husbands to her credit.
    To her relief the little Muluba woman appeared to recover her strength for a few steps. Then alas, the poor creature fell forward on her face, like a child just learning to walk. There she floundered in the dirt path