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Suddenly something else plunged into the water beside Ethan, and Darwishi swam between Ethan and the hippopotamus, drawing the hippopotamus’ attention away. The hippopotamus whirled around in slow motion and bounded after the crocodile, propelling himself at considerable speed through the water by pushing his stubby little legs off the bottom of the pool in forward leaps. The animal
was
much faster than him underwater. Ethan wasted no time shooting up to the surface of the pool.
 

Salih floundered on top of the water. “Push me under the waterfall, Ethan,” he spluttered. Ethan could see what he meant. Partly concealed behind a waterfall near where they had landed, the rest of the group huddled together in a shallow cave-like depression in the riverbank. Ethan pushed Salih towards them, and Tariro and Fisi hauled him up beside them, where he limped to one side and fell panting to the floor.
 

Ethan climbed up after him, and they all turned to watch as Darwishi shot out of the far side of the pool with the hippopotamus in hot pursuit. The animal soon got bored with the chase, and lumbered back to the pool to join his pod on the far side. He lurked belligerently amongst the water hyacinth in the shallows, his ears, nose and eyes poking up above the water, letting off a series of disapproving grunts from time to time. Ethan suppressed a shudder as another hippopotamus lifted its massive mouth out of the water and yawned, showing incisors almost the size of Ethan’s forearm.

“We thought you were a goner,” Tariro said, palm pressed to his chest dramatically. Then, unexpectedly, he grabbed Ethan in a bear hug. “I know you can hold your breath for a long time, but you were down there well over a minute. Amun guided us all to this shelf as we landed, and we sat here watching that hippo get madder and madder till he slunk under the water. We saw him walk along the river bed and we saw you land practically on top of him, but there was nothing we could do.”

Fisi gave Ethan a hug too, even though Ethan tried to ward it off, remembering that Fisi had picked his nose earlier. Fisi’s hug was stiff, and wooden, as if he was trying to learn the customs of his new friends, but didn’t quite understand the sentiment.
 

“Yo,” he said in perfect imitation of the way he had heard Tariro say it, and then stood awkwardly beside Ethan.
Too close
. Ethan had to hold his breath against the smell. He hoped the hyena youth would learn the concept of personal space quickly, and personal possessions too. He was wearing Jimoh’s hat. Jimoh, himself, sagged against a rock at the back of the shallow cave, breathing with difficulty. He looked ashen. Salih padded over to him and prodded his stomach gently, then licked his face.

“This one is hurt, Ethan,” he said. “You must send the other two away before we can help him because they must not see. Tell them I have power to heal him but I need your help.”

Ethan hesitated. He wasn’t sure Tariro would believe him if he said it was the leopard’s idea to send Tariro out to gather up their equipment from amongst the hippopotami while he stayed safely with Jimoh. Tariro would think he was copping out of the more difficult task. When he suggested it, however, Tariro shook his head, more as if to clear it, than to argue.

“You are something else, Ethan,” he grinned, obviously still not entirely happy to believe Ethan could understand Salih, despite the evidence of his own eyes when Fisi had changed. He looked worriedly at Jimoh. “Do you really think the leopard can help him?”

“He says he can,” Ethan said firmly.
 

“Okay, me and Fisi will get our stuff together and go and find a place to camp.” Ethan guessed the idea of a talking leopard was easier for Tariro to swallow than the idea that Ethan had spontaneously guessed that the hyena would change into a man. He wondered if he should remind Tariro that the leopard considered Fisi to be a potential danger, but the two of them had already sidled out from under the waterfall and were headed down the riverbank.
 

Ethan crouched beside Jimoh after they left, and took the boy by the hand. “What can you do?” he asked Salih.

“I was hoping this wouldn’t come up.” The leopard’s face had an innocent expression, but Ethan sensed something else. Shiftiness, he thought. “It is you who must help Jimoh,” Salih said.

“That’s your plan, Salih? I can’t help him. He looks hurt inside! He probably has a broken rib or something.” He stared at Jimoh in astonishment. Jimoh had a broken rib! He knew it without a doubt. Just by touching Jimoh, he knew it. He let go of the boy’s hand as if it had scalded him, and glared at Salih. “How am I supposed to fix this? I’m not a doctor.”

Salih dropped into a low crouch beside Ethan, his tail twitching gently back and forth like a metronome.
 

“When I saw how quickly the crocodile bite healed, I thought you must have power of your own,” he said, “but the more I see of you the more I begin to suspect the only power you have is what you sucked out of the witch.” He cocked his head as if he’d had a thought, and then went on.
 

“It is not easy to suck the power out of a witch. I would like to know how you knew you could do that, and how you managed to shield yourself from her.” He regarded Ethan for a moment with appraising eyes. Then he shook his head ruefully, and went on, “But that is for another time. If I had known, I would never have risked sending you to fetch the amulet. As it is, you have absorbed enough of her magic to heal this boy. Enough from her, and certainly enough from the amber of her amulet.

“The power is in your blood,” he explained. “It makes you strong and capable of healing very quickly as the witch told you. Within reason, of course. Nothing could have saved you from a bite from that hippopotamus.” He gestured towards Jimoh. “But you can also use this blood to heal others.”

Ethan ran a finger under the collar of his T-shirt, and cleared his throat, but struggled to say anything. Was he going mad? He thought he believed the leopard. Why shouldn’t he? His own injuries, when he reached the bottom of the rapids, were not consistent with the pounding he had taken coming down. At one point he had been sure he had cracked a couple of his own ribs, yet instead of feeling grim, he felt a mild euphoric feeling in the pit of his stomach, completely at odds with the situation he was in.

He knew replacing lost blood could help to heal a person, but mending bones? He wished Salih would stop swishing his tail like that, so that he could think.

Of course he wanted to help Jimoh, but even supposing his blood could do it, how was he going to extract it without a syringe? How would he get it into Jimoh’s veins for that matter?
 

He took a deep breath, puffed his cheeks up and let the air out slowly. “How?” he asked.
 

“Good boy,” Salih said, his tail coming to a rest. “Take your special knife and make a small cut here.” He indicated a small vein on the outside of Ethan’s ankle. “This place will be the least noticeable. Then let it bleed.” He looked around for a receptacle and his eyes came to rest on Ethan’s water bottle. “Enough to fill the lid of that. Maybe twice.”

Ethan backed off in shock when he realised Salih intended him to have Jimoh drink the blood.
 

“Are you going to stand around making up your mind while your friend dies?” Salih growled.
 

One look at the sweat glistening on Jimoh’s forehead made up his mind. He would have to do it; and the sooner the better.
 

Taking his Swiss Army knife out of his pocket, he selected the sharpest little knife and held his breath while he made a small cut in his ankle. It smarted momentarily and then blood slowly trickled out of the nick. He cupped the cap beneath the vein to collect it as it oozed out thickly, all dark red and repulsive.

I must pull myself together
, he told himself through gritted teeth. Now was not the time to faint at the sight of his own blood, but he could not help the familiar signs of lightheadedness and nausea creeping up on him. Struggling to stay conscious, he leaned his head over the side of the ledge and let the waterfall splash on his face.

“Ethan, why you cutting yourself?” Jimoh rasped.

“Jimoh, I know it sounds gross,” Ethan said weakly, “but Salih says I must give you some blood. It will make you get better.”

“I cannot take your blood! I can see it is bringing pain.”
 

Ethan shook the water out of his hair. “Is there a religious or tribal problem?” he said. He knew there wasn’t, because he had seen two of Jimoh’s hunters pierce the tips of their fingers with the blade of a machete and press their wounds together. He had been appalled at the time, worrying about all the diseases they could be passing to each other. It didn’t seem to matter now.

“No, Ethan. I do not want to take it because it will make you weak. You will not be able to find Joe,” Jimoh said. Ethan could see he was fighting for every breath.

“Jimoh, it is not that sore, and when a person loses blood, their body makes more. In Cape Town we go and have some blood taken out every year or so. The nurse puts a needle in here,” he indicated the crook of his arm, “and they suck out two tins full of blood. They store it until they need to put it into someone else who needs it.” Ethan did not mention that the someone was not required to drink it. “Then they give us a cup of tea and send us home. We don’t even notice the blood is missing.” He gave a self-depreciating laugh. “I usually pass out then too, but it is only because I hate the sight of blood.”

“I will try it then, Ethan,” Jimoh said, “but if I do not get well you must go with Tariro and find Joe. Amun will try to take me back to Tjalotjo village to get help.”

Ethan grinned at Jimoh. “Then you will have to get well because if I have to go by myself with Tariro, you know I am going to strangle the boy.”

Ethan handed him the lid and Jimoh took a tentative sip. His face contorted into a disgusted grimace; then he looked embarrassed at this reaction.
 

“All of it,” Ethan said sternly, handing Jimoh the water bottle to wash it down. Jimoh drank the blood in two consecutive gulps and lay quietly with his eyes shut. Ethan could tell that he was struggling not to vomit.

After the second capful, Salih said, “Stop now and see if there is any improvement before you use any more. Gogo never uses a lot.” He had started to get that shifty look about him again, so Ethan glared at him expectantly till he went on.
 

“Ethan, it is a big responsibility carrying the magic,” he explained. “You must guard this secret with your life, or you will be destroyed for it. There are those who can persuade you to drain too much for their own ends, even your friends. You will be surprised at how quickly it is used up, and once it is gone, it is gone.” He brightened considerably. “But as long as you have the power in your blood, no parasite or disease can harm you. I think you will like that.”
 

Ethan could not help wondering if Salih was holding something back, but he explained it all as best he could to Jimoh, swearing him to secrecy. Then told him about the hyena changing.

“Is Kishi,” Jimoh said with wonder, “but different. Kishi, he has nice friendly face in front to trick you. Then when he gets you into his house, he can turn around and show evil hyena face hiding under hair at the back. Maybe eat you.”

“Ya, Salih said to be wary,” Ethan said, “but Fisi seems okay. He seems just as nervous of us as we are of him.”

Jimoh nodded. “Can you hear what I am thinking, like the leopard and the hyena?”
 

“No,” Ethan laughed.
 

He thought they were over the worst when Jimoh scratched his short curly hair and said, “I want my hat back.”
 

~~~

When Darwishi swam by to help Ethan and Jimoh off the ledge, Jimoh showed very little sign of ever having been hurt, and Ethan felt as if he was going to explode. He did not feel ill, exactly, just extremely irritable. Pins and needles swelled in waves through his hands and feet uncomfortably, almost as if he could feel his own blood pumping through his veins. He did not know whether to laugh or whimper.

Jimoh put a hand to Ethan’s forehead after he’d expelled a small shriek at a particularly strong wave of pins and needles, and then, unexpectedly, checked the area between Ethan’s neck and his jaw to see if his glands there were swollen, just like a doctor.

“Are you sick from taking out blood?” Jimoh whispered. “You are not hot inside head.”

“You are not ill, boy,” Salih said. “Surely you realised there would be consequences for paying out the blood? That feeling is your body producing new blood to replace that which was lost. The magic-tainted blood will reject it at first. Don’t move about too quickly – it will soon even out.” He uncoiled from where he lay and went to balance on Darwishi’s back. “Just don’t bleed anytime soon,” he said over his shoulder. “It gets worse every time.”

“No, Jimoh, I’m okay,” Ethan sighed, trying hard not to twitch while climbing onto the crocodile’s back behind Salih. Because he didn’t want Jimoh to feel bad, he explained to Jimoh what the leopard had told him.
 

By the time Darwishi dropped them near the others, it was late afternoon and Tariro and Fisi had set up camp. The river basin widened considerably for a couple of miles, creating a small valley. Fisi had taken over as camp leader in the absence of Jimoh, and had chosen a site under a shady tree at the top of a steep embankment a little way down river from the rapids.
 

“Oh! This is not good,” Jimoh said. “The crocodiles will not be able to reach us there.”

“Salih says it is a good site because the hippos can’t reach it,” Ethan said, trying desperately to act normal and sit still on the back of Darwishi.

Tariro came to the water’s edge to help Jimoh up the embankment and backed off in surprise when he saw how well the boy had recovered. “You were probably just winded,” he shrugged.

With a warning not to disturb the hippopotami, and not to wander about in their grazing area at night, Salih slunk off into the bush to hunt. Ethan hoped he
was
going hunting and did not plan to abandon them, now that they had passed the main obstacle on the way to Karibu. He needed answers from Salih.