Chapter 7 — Ghosts in a Tavern

Dande didn't know where he was going. He just walked, his eyes fixed firmly ahead of him as he strode away from the tavern. He wanted to get as far away from that place as possible, as far away from her. Even as he walked, her face flashed before his eyes. It had taken him a few seconds to recognize her after ten harvests. She still had the same almond eyes, the same high cheekbones, the same ample forehead. The young girl had become a beautiful woman. Seeing her had winded him, like a punch to the stomach. He needed to catch his breath. He needed space. He needed to walk. As he did so, a single question came back to him: the amulet. What had become of it? It was the only thing he had that reminded him of his mother. His father had given it to him when he was seven harvests old and told him to only give it to the only one he would truly love. He had given it to Zugudini, and that was the last time that he saw her.

For harvests, he had hoped that she would return to Zvongombe. It was that hope that helped him survive being treated like a dog. Maybe even worse than one. He'd spent many nights hungry. For the slightest mistake, he would get a beating from the other boys, and Hondo would stand by, silently watching. It was to toughen him up, he's said. He had wanted to run away so many times, or to kill himself. But the thought that Zugudini would return had kept him in the city, kept him with Hondo, kept him alive. He couldn't remember when he stopped hoping, when he stopped thinking of the day Zugudini would return, and he would be happy again. By then, it was too late. Hondo and everyone else had taken to calling him "The Wild Dog," and he had not only accepted it, but he'd even decided that he would live up to it.

He stubbed his toe on a root and winced. A tree lay along his path. Most of it had been hewn for firewood, but the roots stuck out like polished boulders. He paused, realizing that he didn't quite know where he was. The energy drained out of his knees, and he sat down on the log by the side of the path and stared straight ahead.

***

Zugudini turned to Jilo, Karama, and Luba. She was breathing hard. Luba sensed that trouble was coming and tried to avert the storm.

"We just struck a fantastic deal, Zugi," she said, trying to sound as cheery as possible.

"Do you know who those men are?" Zugudini asked.

"Paying clients," Luba said, forcing a grin. "We struck a good deal."

"I don't care what deal you struck. I'm not doing it."

The smile faded from Luba's face. "What do you mean you're not doing it?”

Zugudini didn't answer. She turned around and walked out the back door. Jilo and Karama blinked at each other.

"Women," Jilo said.

"Maybe I should speak to her," Karama offered.

"No. I'll do it," Luba said. She turned and followed Zugudini.

Zugudini walked up to her horse and unhitched it. She had immediately recognized Dande. He had lost the air of cheerfulness and levity that had drawn her to him when they were children. Life had sucked something out of him. For many harvests after the day she had to run away, she had thought about him. She had wondered how he was doing. What had become of him. The memories she had held in her head all those harvests were those of a smiling, cheerful ten-harvest-only boy. Now, she had beheld a man bereft of any joy or liveliness. She had spent harvests trying to forget him and her mother and... everything. The grief hit her like an earthquake. The tremors shook her entire body. She tried to mount her horse and ride away but felt too weak to get on the saddle. She just stood there beside her steed, her head hanging heavy and her hands resting on the reins.

"Are you okay?"

Luba was gazing at her, concerned. Zugudini took a deep breath and wanted to say something but couldn't piece together any words. Luba took her hand in hers and led her to the shade of a short, partially dried umbrella tree. She sat Zugudini down beside her.

"What's going on?"

Zugudini didn't say anything. Luba kept staring at her, concern written all over her face.

"I know those men," Zugudini said.

“Where do you know them from?”

“From my past.”

"What past?"

“Growing up. In Zvongombe. I don't want to talk about it."

Luba knew enough about Zugudini's past to know not to press any further. The few times that Zugudini had brought it up, she’d broken down and cried. Luba knew that it was a traumatic topic for her, and she was willing to let it go. But she had to be sure first.

"Did they harm you in any way?"

Zugudini shook her head. Luba was relieved. If they hadn't hurt her, there was a chance that the job could be salvaged. If they had hurt her, then it was simple. Luba would’ve made them pay.

"Do you think you could do the job?"

"I'm not sure."

"It's good money, and we need it."

"I didn't say I wouldn't do it. I said I'm not sure."

"What would make you sure?"

"Luba, you're not thinking straight. These men work for the empire. They could sell us out."

“They don’t know who we are.”

"How do you know that for sure?”

“Because the empire would never send the nobility after us. Didn’t you see how the older one was dressed? He’s likely a minister or a councilor or whatever they call themselves nowadays.”

Zugudini kept quiet. Luba had a point. The empire only sent bounty hunters after them. Cut-throats, they were always heavily armed. Their two potential clients were definitely not there to capture them. Zugudini knew that the moment she saw them. It was the ghosts of her past that stood in her way. Dealing with cut-throats would be easier than dredging up feelings that she had only recently learned how to ignore. Luba would never understand. She was too practical for such. Zugudini needed to find some other excuse.

"What if they're changing their approach and want to use a more subtle plan to capture us?”

"Zugudini, listen to yourself speak." Luba only called Zugudini by her full name when she was irritated. Otherwise, it was Zugi. "Do you honestly think that we are that important? Besides, if they wanted to send people to take us in, I can see them using the fighter. He seems capable with his spear. But the useless old man? I don't think so."

"I just have a bad feeling about this, Luba."

"So, will you do it or not? We need the money. We have a job here. And you want us to walk away from it because it's from the government? I'm sorry, Zugi, but you have to give me more to go with than a feeling."

She stood up.

"Okay, it's fine," she said. "Let's not do it."

Zugudini watched her tramp off back towards the tavern, disappointed. She bit her lip. She was letting down the entire team because she was allowing her feelings to get in the way. She had never done that before. The team always came first, before the individual. That had been her personal code. That was the reason why she was the de facto leader of the group. They'd seen her many times before putting her life on the line for the team. She spat on the ground, disgusted with herself for letting her feelings get the better of her. She stood up and walked back into the tavern. Her horse tried to nibble at her ear when she walked past, almost as though he was telling her that she was wrong. Zugudini swatted him away.

“It’s different this time” she said. “And I don’t need you or anyone else to understand, okay?”

***

Chenzira found Dande seated on a log. He sat down beside him.

"I am not going to work with that woman," Dande said.

"Why not?"

Dande couldn't bring himself to tell Chenzira how he knew Zugudini. The old man wasn't that much of a friend to him. Besides, he would likely ridicule Dande for letting his feelings get a hold of him in that way. Dande had a reputation. He was a man. Men were not allowed to let their feelings show. Except anger. Dande regretted storming out of the tavern the way he did. It betrayed his feelings, and his feelings were his weakness. Had he kept them hidden, he might have found a more manly way to solve the situation. Now, here he was, having blown up like a little child and having to answer the difficult questions from an old man whom he hardly knew. There was no way he was going to tell him the truth.

“We can find someone else. Let’s keep looking.”

"There are no other trackers in this town. What’s your issue with that one?"

"I just don’t like working with women."

"All women, or Hondo's daughter?"

The words hit Dande like a fist in the stomach. He felt embarrassed, as if someone had ripped off all his clothes and had left him standing there naked.

"That has nothing to do with it," he said weakly.

"The two of you were friends as children," Chenzira said. "It wasn't so long ago that I cannot remember. I know that you parted under difficult circumstances, but work is work. We have a job to do, and Hondo's daughter and her friend seem to be the only people who can help us do that job at the moment."

Dande's head swirled. His hands were cold and clammy. After harvests and harvests of training himself to feel no emotions, the mixture of anger and longing that was welling up inside of him left him deeply uncomfortable. He grabbed a twig and bore a hole in the ground. As a boy, he'd always done that whenever he felt nervous or afraid. It had been harvests since he'd done so. He didn't enjoy being brought to that stage again. That stage of confusion and such strong emotions that he didn’t quite know what to do with them or with himself. He waited for Chenzira to say something. He did not. He just watched Dande bore his twig into the ground.

"I haven't seen her in ten harvests," Dande said. "I thought she was dead."

"So did I."

"It felt like I was seeing a ghost. She was the last person I expected to see."

"Maybe this is a sign from the ancestors. Your paths were meant to cross again."

Dande pushed his twig further into the earth and dug up a little hole.

"If you can't work with her, I understand. But the way I see it, this is a golden opportunity to reconnect with someone who you had lost many harvests ago. You've been given a second chance. That doesn't happen often in life. I cannot tell you how many times the last time I saw someone was the last time that I saw them. If I were you, I would grab it with both hands. But then again, I am not you. And you're right. We work as a team. If you don't want to work with her, that's fine. We will find someone else. We just don't have much time. And the longer we spend trying to find someone, the further away the Thief will be getting."

He stood up, dusted off his robe, and trudged off.

***

"I'm not going to do this job," Zugudini announced to Jilo and Karama when she walked into the tavern. "It's too risky."

"What do you mean?" Jilo demanded.

He'd always had a nose for money, and any opportunity to make a few extra cowrie shells was not one that he would walk away from easily. It had been all that Zugudini could do to keep him on the straight and narrow, which meant not robbing poor farmers of their livestock and selling it. After a lot of persuasion, he had finally agreed to only raiding the royal caravans, for their gold and ivory, or slave caravans, for whatever valuables they had other than their human chattel. Zugudini knew that Jilo would take the most convincing, so she steeled herself to hold her ground and not budge.

"These men work for the government. I suspect that they're on a mission to find us."

"That's unlikely," Jilo said. "Nobody knows who we are."

"That's exactly what I told her," Luba said.

"Okay, okay," Karama said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "Let's assume the worst and work with it. If these men are government agents who are out to capture us, what's their plan most likely to be?”

The others turned to Zugudini, arms folded, waiting for an answer. Zugudini hesitated.

"I guess it would be to lure us out into the bush, then ambush us or capture us."

"If they wanted an ambush, they could do that here," Jilo said.

"So, let's assume they want to lure the two of you into the bush and capture you. What could we do to stop them?" Karama asked.

"The two of us could follow them,” Jilo said. “Keep an eye on things. If they get captured, we could come to their rescue.”

"We could leave a trail of chinjira seeds,” Karama said. “We've done that before. Remember the time we got caught by Suleiman's men?"

Suleiman was one of the wealthiest men in the port city of Sofala. He'd made a fortune transporting ivory and slaves down to the coast from the interior. Zugudini and her friends had cost him heavy losses. In a fit of fury, he'd sent a punitive expedition and managed to capture Karama. Thanks to a devious guide, the expedition got lost in the forests at the base of the Kigela plateau, and Karama had left a trail of chinjira seeds as they wandered about. Zugudini, Luba, and Jilo had tracked them through the forest, caught up with the caravan, and liberated Karama, along with much gold and ivory.

"That plan could work," Jilo said. "I don't see why we shouldn't do this job."

"It's not you that's doing the job," Zugudini said. "It's me."

"And me," Luba said.

"You know you're going against your own principles," Karama said. "A job for one of us is a job for all of us. Your words, not mine. If you want to go far, go together.”

Zugudini stiffened at hearing her own words repeated to her. She never liked it when Karama got preachy. But she had to admit that he had a point, and all of the objections that she had raised had been resolved.

The tavern door opened, and the old man walked in. He paused and glanced at them with questioning eyes. A moment later, the warrior walked in behind him. He sat down at a table. The old man joined him. The warrior nodded. The old man nodded also. Neither said a word. Zugudini understood what it meant. They were willing to go ahead with the deal. Zugudini didn't have much more of a choice. She would have to go through with it. She would do it, but she would treat it just like any other job. These were just ordinary clients. She would not allow her emotions to get in the way anymore.

"Let's sit with them and discuss the details," she said. "I guess we need to get started soon. You lead the talks, Luba. I won’t say anything.”

Luba nodded and stood up along with the others.

“Luba, wait.”

Luba hung back as Jilo and Karama walked over to Dande and Chenzira's table, pulled up some stools, and sat down. Zugudini removed the amulet hanging around her neck and handed it to Luba.

“Keep that for me.”

“Why? It’s your good luck—”

“Please just keep it for me? Until this over?”

Luba shrugged and nodded. She shoved the amulet into her pouch. Zugi could be so weird at times. The amulet belonged to the only man she had ever loved, or so she claimed. Luba never believed it, but Zugudini had always refused to discuss it. Luba slung the pouch over her shoulder. The two women joined the others at the table and listened to them talking. Luba stared at Zugudini, but Zugudini avoided her gaze and stared at her feet.

“We cannot work with you,” Jilo was saying, “If we don’t know your names.”

“I am Chenzira, son of Chirowe,” Chenzira said. “And this is… He can introduce himself.”

Dande hesitated and cleared his throat. He glanced at Zugudini. She felt his eyes on her, but she kept hers fixed on the ground, and pictured herself swimming in the river, the cool water on her back and the warm sun on her skin. She was not going to look him in the eyes. Not just yet.