The Headhunter's Daughter by Tamar Myers Page B

like a fledgling while the African Bula Matadi , who had now stopped and turned, just stared. Even the whites did nothing except to call out to the poor creature.
    “ Tch , tch , tch ,” Ugly Eyes said, and brushing past Father, swooped down and scooped up the broken little bird in her strong, young arms. Much to her astonishment the full-grown woman felt practically weightless.
    “ Aiyee ,” Cripple protested, her arms beating in vain about the head and shoulders of the strangest Mushilele girl she had ever seen. “Put me down,” she yelled in Tshiluba . “Put me down, you giant turd of a colobus monkey!”
    “Cripple!” Captain Pierre grabbed one of her hands and held it still. “This girl is trying to help you—I think. She’s offering to carry you.”
    “ Eyo, muambi . She wants to carry me to her cooking pot. Is it not time for the evening meal?”
    The captain laughed. “You have a delightful imagination, Cripple. “But you are like an old hen that no longer lays but has been kept around to sit on the eggs of the young hens that refuse to brood. Your meat will be far too tough to eat; even if it is tenderized with all the papaya leaves in the Kasai.”
    “ Aiyee! Mona buphote buebe! ”
    “What did she say?” the white mamu demanded. “I did not learn these words in my Tshiluba language school.”
    “I cannot translate this for your ears,” the captain said, and laughed.
    Cripple was not appeased by his good humor. “Will you make this strange child put me down?”
    “No. It will be dark soon and then the hyenas will be out.”
    “See what you have done?” Cripple said, directing her words to the white face just inches from her own. The Headhunter’s Daughter didn’t even bat an eyelash, which made Cripple all the angrier. “ Muambi ,” she cried, “this Mushilele does not bathe; never have I smelled such stink. Even you whites do not offend me as bad as this one.”
    “Good,” the captain said. “Then you will stay awake, which will make it easier to transfer you into the truck when we reach it.”
    “ Baba wetu, baba wetu ,” Cripple moaned. “Surely now this is the end of me.”
    When they got back to the truck, they found a pack of jackals prancing around it. One brave individual had actually jumped in back and was trying in vain to loosen the securely bundled elephant meat. Other than that, everything was just as the rescue party had left it. This astounded Amanda. Such a state of affairs might not have been the case had one been able to transpose the scene to Cherry Road, back in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Of course back home the precious commodity would have been something quite different than elephant meat—like maybe a hi-fi stereo.
    “Where are we all going to sit?” Amanda asked.
    “You, and I, and Miss Bossy Pants will sit up front. The others can stand in back, behind the elephant meat.”
    “Yes, but what about the girl?” Amanda said. “And please, Pierre, try to think charitable thoughts about Cripple. You, more than anyone, should know that she really is a diamond in the rough.”
    “ Mais oui , but diamonds stick to grease; that is how they are mined in Kasai Province. Every time I’m through dealing with Cripple I feel greasy.”
    “Oh, stop the dramatics, Pierre. Anyway, this Mushilele girl cannot ride in the back.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because she’s white, silly.” Although they were thousands of miles apart, there were some things about South Carolina culture and Belgian Colonial culture that were identical; segregation of the races being one of them. Personally, Amanda saw nothing wrong with the races mixing upon occasion, but at Belle Vue where the whites were the minority, it did make sense to maintain one’s distance. One couldn’t, for instance, invite a black into one’s home socially, because then all the Africans would want to see what the inside of a white person’s house looked like.
    “I see,” said Pierre. “So Cripple gets to sit