It had a lovely lilt to it, just the kind of name that ought to go with being a gorgeous priestess among these godless savages, and I started marching down the hill to the valley so as not to prolong Rourke's agony any more than was strictly necessary.
When I got within about a hundred yards of the village I stopped right sudden-like and blinked my eyes once or twice. Then I looked ahead again to make sure it was no mirage.
“Brother Rourke,” l said. He stopped in his tracks and just glared at me without answering. “I done a terrible thing this morning, a wickedly sinful thing, and I want to make amends. If you'd like my clothes, all except for my hat which I need to shield me from the heat and the rain, I'll gladly turn them over to you right now.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” said Rourke, a totally unwarranted look of suspicion on his face.
“I just don't want the Lord looking down with displeasure on me for trying to trick you like I did,” I said.
I started unbuttoning my shirt, but Kitunga pointed his spear right at the middle of my belly and, smiling like all get-out, shook his head vigorously.
“But I just want to give him something to wear,” I said.
“No, no,” he said, prodding my belly with the point of his spear blade.
“What's this all about?” demanded Rourke, walking over.
“You were right about her being blonde,” I said. “But you were a little on the conservative side about her breasts.”
“What do you mean?” said Rourke, looking suspicious.
“Not honeydew melons, Brother Rourke,” I said with a sigh. “Watermelons.”
He shaded his eyes and looked toward the village. There, sitting in front of the largest hut, was our half-naked white priestess. More to the point, she was about ninety-five percent naked; it would have taken the hide of a small elephant to cover half of her.
Her hair was blonde under the dirt and the grease. Even as we approached I couldn't tell what color her eyes were; they were sunken too far beneath the folds of flab to even tell if she had any. Her shoulder spread would have done a bull gorilla proud, and her breasts, which sagged down well below her waist, could have given sustenance to an army. She was sitting in the mud, rolling bones and the dried-out carcasses of small lizards on the ground in front of her. It looked like she was trying to sit cross-legged, but her legs were too fat to bend. Rourke had been wrong about the bracelet too. I don't think they could have made one big enough to fit her.
"That?"
gasped Rourke. “That's Neeyora?”
Kitunga nodded.
Rourke turned to me, grinning. “I don't know how to thank you, Saint Luke!” His eyes darted over the ground. “You don't see any more elephant shit, do you?” Then he began laughing and threw a dungcovered arm around my shoulders. “We'll let bygones be bygones!” he said, and began walking up to Neeyora's hut.
“Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?” I muttered, and allowed myself to be led into the village.
Neeyora looked up, and if she was less than desirable in repose, she was absolutely mind-boggling in animation. She grinned from ear to ear, a pretty fair distance given the size of her face, said something I couldn't understand to Kitunga, and began licking her lips. Two of the villagers helped her slowly to her feet, and she approached us, giggling like a crazy woman. Her tiny little eyes—now that I was close enough, I could see that they were red—darted from one of us to the other. She reached out and pinched my upper arm, and Rourke just stood there, laughing like a lunatic.
Then she walked over to the Irishman, who was every bit as dirty and foul-smelling and naked as she was, and it was love at first sight. She gave a jubilant little scream, threw her arms around him—which practically made the bottom three-quarters of him vanish from sight—and began dragging him off to her hut.
“Don't just stand there, Luke!” hollered Rourke. “Do something!”
If I'd had my mouth organ with me I suppose I could have played “Here Comes the Bride,” but under the current circumstances I thought it best to keep a low profile, so other than offering Brother Rourke a few appropriate quotes on love and marriage from the Good Book, I just smiled and waved goodbye to him as he vanished into the darkened recesses of his bridal bower. A high-pitched shriek a couple of minutes later gave me to understand that he had also vanished into the darkened recesses of his bride.
Well, Kitunga and I and the boys wandered over to one of the huts and started drinking some home-brewed beer and swapping tall stories. I didn't understand a word they said, and I don't imagine they understood me either, but what with the beer and all we became pretty fast friends by the time Rourke staggered out of his hut a couple of hours later. I don't think Job at his lowest could have looked any worse.
All the fire had gone out of his eyes, and he looked kind of shrunken. He collapsed next to me, and I handed him a cup of native brew. He drank it without a word.
I turned to Kitunga. “Now that he's made the babies, can we go?”
That tickled Kitunga's funnybone for some reason, and he emitted a roar of laughter.
This was a little unsettling, for I still didn't know exactly what happened to unsuccessful suitors. Rourke looked like he wouldn't have the energy to leave anyway, so I decided to let the subject drop for the moment.
We sat there swigging beer and singing songs for a little while longer, and then I heard a deep voice bellow:
"Rerrk!"
“Oh, God, not again!” muttered Rourke.
"Rerrk!"
hollered Neeyora, sounding just a little louder than a bull elephant in
musth
.
Rourke reached into his boot and pulled out his share of our money, which was about three hundred British pounds.
“Take it,” he said. “It's all yours. If you ever get back to civilization...”
“I'll organize a party and come back here for you,” I promised, crossing a couple of fingers behind my back.
He laughed weakly. “I'll never last that long. No, what I want you to do is buy a headstone for me and plant it in the graveyard at Johannesburg. If there's any money left"—I assured him there would be, and made a solemn vow to see to it—"walk into the nearest bar and buy a round for everyone in the house and drink to my memory.”
“You sure you wouldn't rather have your name engraved on a pew in my tabernacle?” I asked thoughtfully.
“Just do what I said,” whispered Rourke.
"Rerrk!"
Two of Kitunga's men helped Rourke to his feet and led him back to his blushing bride.
While he was gone, the rest of us got down to serious drinking. I quietly suggested to the Lord that now might be an admirable time for Him to give me the strength of ten men because my heart was pure, and sure enough, I was the only one who didn't pass out in the next hour. I quietly filled my canteen with one last batch of brew and walked on out of the village just as free as a bird.
When I reached the top of the hill I paused to take one last look, partly out of sentiment but mostly to make sure that no one was pursuing me yet. There wasn't a sign of life in the whole village. Then I saw a figure crawl out of a hut and start making toward the beer, and a few seconds later I heard a truly ear-splitting scream of
"RERRK!"
And that was the last I ever saw of Burley Rourke and his white priestess.
Chapter 2
PARTNERS
I wandered north and east, fell in for a while with a Canadian named Pinder who was single-handedly drinking his way from the Cape to Cairo, made it to the railhead in Uganda, and took the train all the way to Mombasa on the coast, where I had the bad fortune to run into three different parties I had sold maps to. They failed totally to see the humor in the situation or to realize that their donations had gone to a worthy cause, and discretion being the better part of valor, I took a vigorous stroll to the south and wound up in Dar-es-Salaam, which was the capital of Tanganyika.
Dar-es-Salaam wasn't like any other town in British East. It was on the ocean, but wasn't much of a seaport; it was in Africa, but there was nothing bigger or more ferocious than a goat within thirty miles; it was a capital, but it couldn't have held six buildings that could resist a strong wind. It was composed, in almost equal parts, of East Indians, black Africans, and reprobates from all over the world.
I felt right at home.
I took a room at the only hotel in town, shaved and showered, had a big dinner, and went to Maurice's, a bar down by the waterfront. Sometime around midnight I found myself in the back room, betting on scorpion races, and the Lord being on my side, I wound up the night with about two thousand pounds in winnings.
When I returned to my room I found a man sitting down on one of the chairs there. He was tall, though nowhere near as tall as Rourke, with piercing gray eyes and a neatly trimmed little goatee. He was dressed all in black: hat, shirt, tie, vest, jacket, belt, pants, socks, shoes. In point of fact, he made my preaching clothes look like an outfit of gossamer gaiety.
“Begging your pardon, brother,” I said, “but ain't you in the wrong room?”
“I hardly think so,” he said in a voice so slick and cultured you could have used it for cooking oil. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dobbins, Major Theodore Dobbins, late of His Majesty's armed forces.” He handed me his card, which was just a little frayed around the edges, and was black with white lettering on it.
I extended my hand. “The Right Reverend Doctor Jones at your service,” I said.
“Well, my dear Doctor Jones,” he said, pulling out a cigarette and putting it into a mother-of-pearl holder, “I shan't beat about the bush. I have come to you because I am in need of your help.”
“I'm always happy to help a soul in need, Major,” I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Of course, you understand that spiritual aid and comfort does get a little expensive at this time of night.”
“It is not spiritual aid that I seek, sir,” he said with a dry chuckle. “Indeed it is not. I am given to understand that you came into possession of a considerable amount of money earlier this evening. Is this not correct?”
“The Good Lord saw fit to smile upon me,” I admitted.
“Excellent!” He was positively beaming now while puffing away at his cigarette. “Then I am in the position to suggest a brief alliance which may work to our mutual benefit, involving as it does a pooling of resources.”
“This money is being held in escrow for the Tabernacle of Saint Luke,” I replied with dignity. Then I thought about it, and added, “However, to be perfectly honest, construction ain't due to begin for another few months when the rainy season ends, and I imagine my parishioners wouldn't be averse to an extremely conservative short-term investment.”
“I understand perfectly, my dear sir,” he said with a smile. Even his teeth looked oily. “I deal in commodities, Doctor Jones. Many of these are in the form of highly perishable goods imported from the fields of far, exotic China. Such a shipment is currently aboard a vessel anchored not five hundred yards from us.” He paused to light another cigarette. “May I presume that you fully comprehend my position?”
“I think we're on the same wave length,” I allowed.
“Well, then, you can imagine my dismay when I discovered that my associate, who was on his way here from Marrakech, was waylaid and murdered by a band of Arab slave traders. My goods are in the harbor, my principals await their delivery in the Mediterranean, my caravan has been hired, yet I am temporarily unable to set the wheels of industry in motion. The entire enterprise has ground to a halt for lack of the necessary capital. Worse yet, my competitors, knowing that something has gone amiss, are waiting like jackals at the kill. In brief, sir, I must have no less than seventeen hundred British pounds. The return on your investment, within a mere matter of days, will be tenfold.”
“What's the nature of your competition?” I asked.
He waved a hand vaguely, as if shooing a fly away. “Men of little breeding and less ethics. Hardly worthy of notice, except for this unfortunate turn of affairs. One of them is actually a trafficker in human flesh.”
“Not God-fearing gentlemen like us?”
“My dear Doctor Jones!” he said, shaking my hand warmly. “We understand one another completely! May I assume that we are partners?”
“I'll have to spend the night in prayer, conferring with the Lord and getting His advice on the subject,” I said. “Suppose I meet you for dinner at Maurice's tomorrow night and give you my decision at that time.”
“Certainly,” he said, rising and walking to the door. Just before he left, he turned and said, “Remember, my dear sir, that God helps those who help themselves.”
“That sentiment ain't never far from my mind,” I assured him.
After he left, I settled down to thinking seriously about the Major's proposal. I felt certain that, understanding my goals as He did, the Lord wouldn't mind my entering into this little enterprise. Just the same, as my Silent Partner, I knew that He'd want me to look into all aspects of it very carefully. For example, it stood to reason that if the goods were still aboard the ship, the Major's competition also lacked the necessary funding, and while a thousand percent profit was a healthy return on my investment, I could build my tabernacle a lot quicker with a two thousand percent return. Therefore, just before I fell asleep, I made up my mind to see if I couldn't hunt up the Major's rivals.
As it turned out, I didn't have to do much in the way of hunting at all. I was sitting at my table on the hotel's veranda the next morning, drinking my coffee and waiting for some ostrich eggs and toast, when a stout gentleman dressed in a soiled white suit walked up and seated himself opposite me. His hair was so thin that his skull shone through in half a hundred places, all red and covered with sweat which ran down his face in little rivulets until it got caught up in his beard.
“Doctor Jones?” he said, pulling out a handkerchief and mopping his forehead. He had an accent I couldn't quite place.
“The Right Reverend Doctor Jones,” I acknowledged, sipping my coffee.