The Outlaw (9 page)

Terrorists,
thought Jake.
Outlaw terrorists. Outlaw terrorist cannibals with slingshots.

The occupants of the settlement were mostly boys, but not entirely. An African girl sashayed through the crowd holding two calabashes full of water. She wore a white cotton dress, her long hair was arranged in intricate jeweled braids, and around her neck hung a silver pendant and a slingshot. She stopped in front of Jake and offered him a drink.

Water.
Jake's hands were shaking so much that he could hardly hold the calabash. He raised the bowl to his dry, cracked lips and gulped the murky brown liquid. Buckets of water arrived for the horses, too. Farm Eye's mare lowered her majestic head and slurped, her slick flanks heaving from the exertion of the journey.

Already Jake could feel that the water was doing him good. He felt it permeating his whole body, from cell to thirsty cell, refreshing and reviving as it went. His skin tingled as a myriad of pores opened and perspired at long, long last. He gasped, wiped his sleeve across his mouth, and handed back an empty bowl.

"
Tuubaaku walaa semteende,
" muttered Farm Eye, and he shot the white boy a contemptuous glance.

The girl in the white dress took the bowl and looked at Jake with narrowed eyes and a Mona Lisa smile. "
Bonjour,
" she said. To Jake's relief she spoke in French. "My name is Mariama."

"
Bonjour,
" said Jake. "Where are we?"

"We are in the desert," said the girl. "The precise location is a secret, which is why you were blindfolded."

"Why so secret?"

"Outlaws have many enemies." She went over to Kas, who was still sleeping, and touched her lightly on the cheek.

"Don't hurt her," said Jake.

Mariama leaned close to the sleeping girl and whispered in her ear.

Kas stirred, blinked, and looked around. Immediately there was panic in her eyes. "Jake, tell me where we are," she blurted out. "Who are all these people? Why are they staring at me?"

"They're outlaws," said Jake in English.

"No," said Kas. "No, no." As if saying no could make it not true.

"Take this," said Jake, handing her a calabash passed to him by one of the boys. "You need to drink."

"I want to go home," mumbled Kas. She looked groggy and confused.

"Enough," said Mariama. "Be quiet and follow me."

"Where to?"

"To the Needle Hut."

The Needle Hut was a mud-brick building west of the baobab tree. It housed three antique-looking sewing machines and a wooden workbench laden with needles, thread, sequins, zippers, scissors, clothes hangers, assorted rolls of brightly colored cotton cloth, and a shortwave radio. The floor was carpeted with offcuts of fabric, and swaths of sand blew in through the open doorway. Seated at one of the sewing machines was a weasely boy wearing a purple robe and a baseball cap. He looked about eighteen.

"Stop what you are doing, Paaté," said Mariama in French. "Our red-eared guests want robes."

The tailor looked at Kirsty's and Jake's torn, dust-caked clothes and tutted loudly. He switched on the radio, picked up a tape measure from the workbench, and beckoned to Jake. As he measured, the radio news came on in French:

"The investigation continues into last night's kidnapping of two British children. The children, whose father is British ambassador Quentin Knight, were abducted in a Jumbo van driven by the notorious Saharan outlaw Yakuuba Sor. The British embassy received from Sor a hostage video demanding the immediate release of seven convicted terrorists currently held in British jails. In response, Ambassador Knight has been holding a press conference. He offered a reward of two hundred thousand African francs for information leading to the safe return of his children. In other news..."

Paaté showed no interest in the news report. When he had finished taking Jake's and Kirsty's measurements, he led them back out into the blazing sunlight. They went past the baobab tree, the Red Cross tent, and the goat enclosure, and finally arrived at a tiny domed hut made of grass matting.

The tailor pointed at the low doorway. "In you go," he said. "Eat some
nyiiri,
drink some milk, wash yourselves, and sleep. There is washing water and soap in the bucket behind the hut. Any questions?"

"Yes," said Jake. "Who is in charge here?"

"The Chameleon," said Paaté. "He has gone to Djibo market. He will be back this evening."

"Which way is Djibo?" said Jake.

Paaté scowled and waggled his finger in front of Jake's nose. "If you try to escape," he said, "you will die in the desert. Wait here for the Chameleon. He will be back tonight."

Jake
had to get down on his hands and knees to enter the grass hut, and even when he got inside, it was too low for him to stand. He looked around. The framework of the hut was simplicity itself: fifteen long, thin branches planted in a circle and curving inward to a central apex. The walls and ceiling were made of straw, loosely woven to let in the breeze. Most of the space inside the hut was taken up by a bed—a towering stack of wide grass mats.

Kas followed Jake in and sat on the edge of the bed.

"He's right," whispered Jake. "If we try to escape, we will die in the desert."

"Whatever," said Kas. She was sitting on her hands, staring straight ahead of her.

"Crazy day, huh?" whispered Jake. "That sun was a nightmare."

"Yes."

"Did you hear the radio just now? Dad's offered a reward for any information that leads to our rescue."

Yup.

"On a scale of one to ten, how sore is your butt right now?"

Kas put her face in her hands and began to cry softly. "Nine and a half," she said.

Jake put an arm around her. He did not say anything for fear of crying himself.

"You always wanted to have a real adventure," sobbed Kas. "How are you liking it?"

"Not much," said Jake. "I always reckoned that if ever a real adventure came along, I'd be a bit—you know..."

"A bit what?"

Jake shrugged and looked away. "A bit braver."

"A bit more like Mungo what's-his-name?"

"Yes."

Hanging above the bed was a shallow wicker basket containing a metal plate, a wooden spoon, a box of matches, and a flashlight. On the white sand at the foot of the bed were two wooden bowls. One was full of milk; the other contained a crusty gray paste. This, presumably, was the
nyiiri
that Paaté had recommended.

"I suppose we should eat something," Jake said. They had eaten nothing but stock cubes since the banquet. He picked up a handful of
nyiiri
and bit some off. It was cold and chewy but not unpleasant.

Kas picked up the calabash of goat's milk. "We almost got killed today," she said, talking between sips. "Those men were totally going to shoot us."

"I still don't get it," said Jake. "If Sor's the leader of his gang, who told him to make sure there were no witnesses? And another thing," he continued, waving a handful of
nyiiri
in the air. "Why is his tattoo not a tattoo?"

"I don't know." Kas shrugged and lay back on the bed. "My brain hurts."

"Back in a minute," said Jake. "I'm going for a wash." He crammed one last glob of
nyiiri
into his mouth and crawled through the low doorway into the fierce sunlight. Around the back of the hut there was a bucket of water and soap, just as Paaté had said. Jake crouched naked on the hot sand and used a plastic mug to pour water over himself. The water felt cool on his sunburned skin.

By the time Jake got dry and dressed, Kas was fast asleep. He lay down beside her and stared up at the wicker basket hanging above his head. Out of habit more than anything else, he took the phone from his pocket and tried switching it on. Nothing. Not even a flicker.

He glanced down at the calabash of goat's milk and an idea came to him—not so much an idea as a memory, a clip he had seen on YouTube a few weeks before. He jumped off the bed and grabbed the metal plate and the flashlight from the hanging basket. He flicked the flashlight on, just to check that it was working, and then, with shaking fingers, he opened the battery compartment. He slid the batteries out, placed them side by side in the center of the metal plate, and turned his attention to the milk. It would need to be thicker, that milk.

There was an old gourd by the entrance to the hut—it was about the size of a soccer ball, and its hard exterior had been worn smooth by years of use. Gourds and calabashes came from the same plant family, Africa's answer to Tupperware. Jake poured the goat's milk into the gourd, covered the open neck with his hand, and began to shake. At first the milk sloshed thinly, but after a few minutes of churning, it began to feel different. Soon it was slap-slapping against the sides of the gourd so loudly that it woke Kas.

"What are you doing?" asked Kas.

"I'm trying to charge my phone," said Jake. "Don't make that face—I'm being serious. Not a lot of people know this, but milk is a great conductor of electricity."

Jake tipped over the gourd and strained the contents through his fingers so that he was left with a handful of thick butter. Then he smothered the butter all over the batteries until they were completely sealed in. He took the USB cable from his money belt, dipped one end into the butter, and attached the other end to his phone. For a moment nothing happened. Then the screen of the phone lit up, and a "battery charging" icon appeared.

Kas squealed and punched the air. "You're a genius!"

"Don't thank me," said Jake. "Thank YouTube."

"I can't believe it worked."

"Simple physics," said Jake, sliding the whole contraption out of sight behind the bed. "Should take about three hours to fully charge."

 

Jake slept fitfully. He dreamed of harsh desert landscapes, shaggy-haired demons, and killer bees. The demons kept prodding him with their quarterstaffs, and the bees prodded him with their evil barbed stings. He could not get comfortable whichever way he lay.

"There's still no signal on your phone."

"What?" Jake opened his eyes and frowned up at the straw dome above his head. For a moment he had no idea where he was, but he soon remembered all too well. His legs and lower back were aching from the morning's ride, and his sunburned nose and cheeks stung like mad.

Kas was sitting on the edge of the bed, washed and dressed in a loose cotton robe. She was still wearing her skull-bow necklace from the gold banquet. The enamel pendant hanging from the necklace depicted a grinning white skull topped with a jaunty bow. "Your phone charged all right," she said, "but there's no signal."

"Did you try it outside?"

"Course."

"What time is it?"

"Evening."

Jake yawned and sat up. "What on earth is that?" he said, looking at Kas's robe.

"There's clothes for you, too," said Kas. "Mariama brought them while you were sleeping. She brought us flip-flops, too. She said there's going to be a banquet in the Red Cross tent tonight."

Jake got changed quickly. The new trousers were a good fit, but the robe came all the way down to his knees. "I feel like Wee Willie Winkie," he complained.

"Get used to it," said Kas. "Come on, let's go."

They crawled out into the open and stood up. The sun was low in the west, casting a rosy hue across the dunes on every side. A cool breeze stirred the leaves of the baobab tree and ruffled the surface of the sand. A chorus of animal sounds was starting up. Roosters crowed, donkeys brayed, guinea fowl squawked and jabbered.

The horses were quiet, apart from the occasional snort or whinny. Slingshot practice in the training ring had finished, but the horses stayed in the ring waiting patiently for their evening feed. Free of their bits and bridles, they stood right up close to the thorn-branch fence and watched with growing excitement while a young boy measured grain into a wide metal dish.

Jake and Kas wandered over to the smaller enclosure, where a wrestling match was taking place. Two muscular boys, stripped to the waist, were doing their best to trip each other up, and a dozen others were heckling or shouting advice. The boys circled each other like panthers and then clashed in wild flurries of dust and limbs. With them in the ring was some kind of referee wearing animal-tooth anklets that jangled as he walked.

"Watch the knees and elbows," said a voice in Jake's ear. It was Paaté, the tailor, now wearing a green floppy hat and a pair of spectacles with no lenses. "If a fighter's knees touch the ground, he loses. If his elbows touch the ground, he loses. One knee and one elbow, again he loses. But just one knee, or just one elbow, he can go on fighting."

"What if both his knees
and
both his elbows touch the ground?"

"That is a shameful way to lose," said Paaté. "If that happens, he will be washing his opponent's clothes for the next three months."

"Who is the best wrestler in the camp?"

"The Chameleon," said Paaté without hesitation. "No one has ever seen dust on the Chameleon's knees. He moves like an angel and he strikes like a djinn. Unbeatable."

Jake watched the shadows lengthen and fade as the sun went down over the western dunes. Somewhere in the camp a rifle fired. Kas jumped and looked around wildly.

"Do not be afraid," said Paaté. "That was the
nyiiri
rifle. It means the banquet is about to begin."

The
Red Cross marquee was lit by hurricane lamps and candles, and it smelled of tea leaves, mint, and roasted meat. The floor was covered with clean white sand, and a dozen straw mats were arranged in a semicircle. Paaté led Jake and Kas to an unoccupied mat. They kicked off their flip-flops and sat down. After that agonizing journey on horseback it still hurt to sit.

The marquee was filling up with hungry boys. There were a few girls, too, including Mariama. Only one person in the marquee was above the age of twenty—a plump thirty-something man with a short, pointed beard and two braided locks of hair hanging one on either side of his face. He was reclining on one elbow, eating dates from a silver dish and spitting out the stones.