Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [54]
think has got more to worry about?" Without changing his position, a glitter of grim humor playing in his big soft eye, he said, "Oh, maybe dem, sah." As you see, I had changed my mind about by-passing the Wariri, and it was partly because of what Romilayu had told me about them. For I felt I was less likely to do any damage amongst them if they were such tough or worldly savages. So for nine or ten days we walked, and toward the end of this time the character of the mountains changed greatly. There were domelike white rocks which here and there crumpled into huge heaps, and among these white circles of stone on, I think, the tenth day, we finally encountered a person. It happened while we were climbing, late in the afternoon under a reddening sun. Behind us the high mountains we had emerged from showed their crumbled peaks and prehistoric spines. Ahead shrubs were growing between these rock domes, which were as white as chinaware. Then this Wariri herdsman arose before us in a leather apron, holding a twisted stick, and although he did nothing else he looked dangerous. Something about his figure struck me as Biblical, and in particular he made me think of the man whom Joseph met when he went to look for his brothers, and who directed him along toward Dothan. My belief is that this man in the Bible must have been an angel and certainly knew the brothers were going to throw Joseph into the pit. But he sent him on nevertheless. Our black man not only wore a leather apron but seemed leathery all over, and if he had had wings those would have been of leather, too. His features were pressed deep into his face, which was small, secret, and, even in the direct rays of the red sun, very black. We had a talk with him. I said, "Hello, hello," loudly as if assuming that his hearing was sunk as deeply as his eyes. Romilayu asked him for directions and with his stick the man showed us the way to go. Thus old-time travelers must have been directed. I made him a salute but he didn't appear to think much of it and his leather face answered nothing. So we toiled upward among the rocks along the way he had pointed. "Far?" I said to Romilayu. "No, sah. Him say not far." I now thought we might pass the evening in a town, and after ten days of toilsome wandering I had begun to look forward to a bed and cooked food and some busy sights and even to a thatch over me. The way grew more and more stony and this made me suspicious. If we were approaching a town we ought by now to have found a path. Instead there were these jumbled white stones that looked as if they had been combed out by an ignorant hand from the elements that make least sense. There must be stupid portions of heaven, too, and these had rolled straight down from it. I am no geologist but the word calcareous seemed to fit them. They were composed of lime and my guess was that they must have originated in a body of water. Now they were ultra-dry but filled with little caves from which cooler air was exhaled--ideal places for a siesta in the heat of noon, provided no snakes came. But the sun was in decline, trumpeting downward. The cave mouths were open and there was this coarse and clumsy gnarled white stone. We had just turned the corner of a boulder to continue our climb when Romilayu astonished me. He had set his foot up to take a long stride but to my bewilderment he began to slide forward on his hands, and, instead of mounting, lay down on the stones of the slope. When I saw him prostrate, I said, "What the hell is with you? What are you doing? Is this a place to lie down? Get up." But his extended body, pack and all, hugged the slope while his frizzled hair settled motionless among the stones. He didn't answer, and now no answer was necessary, because when I looked up I saw, in front of us and about twenty yards above, a military group. Three tribesmen knelt with guns aimed at us while eight or ten more standing behind them were crowding their rifle barrels together, 30 that we might have been blown off the hillside; they had the fire power to do it. A dozen guns massed at you