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Third World. Our tribal leader and physician was our Hunganwitch doctor to you." |
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Cyrus kept his thoughts to himself. |
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"The things I saw that man do, people in this country would lock me up for telling about today. Lock me up and throw away the key." |
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Kazie took a long pull on the beer bottle; his Adam's apple bobbed up and down like a pile driver. |
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"If our Hungan liked you, that was fine. Your crops usually did okay and your family didn't get too very sick. 'Less of course there was a drought, and only Legba could do anything about that. But if he got down on you . . ." More beer disappeared down the old man's gullet. "People that crossed him dieddied hard. In some very unpleasant ways. Some got ruptured organs: spleens, lungs, livers, kidneys. Ruptured kidneys is a bad way to go, let me tell you. I saw this man take a week to die and he never stopped screaming until they threw the dirt in his face." |
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Kazie grinned then. His teeth sparkled like piano keys in the candlelight. |
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"The interesting part was, a week later I saw that same man. It was after sundown and I had been at our neighbor's helping birth a calf. I was walking back along the dirt track that went by the Hungan's hut when I saw the man. He was gray. Even in the twilight that man was gray as the mud mounds desert ants make. He was stacking wood beside the Hungan's hut. I snuck over behind this big old baobab tree for a better look and I nearly peed myself. Sure 'nuff, he was just as dead as when they put him down for his dirt nap, but his eyes . . . they kinda looked like red embers glowing way down deep in a fire pit." |
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Cyrus's ears pricked up at the description of the dead man's red eyes. "This man you're talking about," he said, "after he died, was he unusually strong and fast?" |
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Kazie nodded. "Fast? Fast enough to catch up the dry wind in his hands. And strong? He picked up a quarter cord a wood like it was a box of matches." |
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