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Miles and miles of flat, dry prairie land, enormous sheaths of low-lying grass, shrubs, sandstone, rocks. They passed tamarind and acacia trees growing in low-lying gulches that ran with clear streams during the rainy season, but it was now late November 1873 and the sun continued to scorch the earth. Any day now, wet clouds would roll in, but, until then, the heat wave persisted with a vengeance.
They passed whistling thorns found in heavy clay soil. The holes in the galls that covered their branches created a humming sound, a chorus that tried to lull the caravan to sleep as it trudged wearily into nothingness. They passed baobab trees that looked upside down with their swollen trunks and branches twisting like roots. Sometimes, their trunks shined silver-white, making them look like ghost reflections of themselves, some of them thought. Sometimes, an anthill rose up into a pointed cone. Sometimes, a fox or jackal trotted by underneath the fever trees with dead leaves painted in copper-red colors. Sometimes, they passed a few scattered huts, abandoned villages with no signs of life.
Against this background, the caravan members moved slowly along a brown, rutted road. They had just crossed the Great Ruaha River, now reduced to a bare trickle. In two months, it would roar again, flooding the plains. Now, it was just another dried-up riverbed on which antelopes, leopards, and gazelles traveled, searching for another source of water.
As the sun poured down day after day, Henry stopped riding his donkey. They needed it to carry supplies, especially now that everyone’s energy had drained. He still walked in front of the group to show he was in charge, but otherwise he seemed detached, as if he didn’t care anymore. Behind him, Asmani tried to keep up, his white loincloth now stained with brown dust. Livingstone’s journal was still strapped to his back in a tin box. The flag bearer and drummer had long since deserted, along with the flag and the drum.
Since Goma’s mauling by the lioness, more porters had deserted, so many that Henry had given up trying to stop them. The caravan was soon reduced to eight porters and five guards, excluding Ferrari the cook, Mkati with bulging muscles, Selim the Palestinian guard, Saburi the runner, and the Wagogo storyteller. The remaining porters continued to carry their loads, thirty-pound packs of glass beads and cloth, copper wire, the medicine chest, tents, and equipment. The guards still carried their rifles, cocked and ready should any lions reappear.
Goma lay on a crude wooden stretcher, dragged by a donkey ridden by a guard at the very end of the procession. Janet still attended him when she could. She had wrapped a blanket around his body to shield him from the sun and wind. Otherwise, he remained barely alive, fully conscious and able to communicate. Whenever he wanted to express himself, he would signal for someone to bring a pencil, usually when they had set up camp, and he would write something out, but that was rare. For the most part, he kept silent as he was dragged along.
Janet drew closer to the girls, who continued to walk in the rear, just in front of Goma. There were now eight of them, including Shali, whose long legs often set the pace for them all. Saburi sometimes lingered and talked to her in Swahili.
“You should be a runner like me. You tall and have strong legs like a man.”
“Yes, I like to run when I know where I’m going. I don’t know where we’re going now.”
“No one knows but the kubwa mkuu. The big white chief.”
Janet always walked with Baraka at her side. Baraka knew some English that she had learned from Livingstone, and Janet needed her for translating, especially now that Goma was disabled. As she walked, she asked Baraka how to say certain English words in Swahili.
“How do you say ‘peace’ in Swahili?”
“Amani.”
“Just like the name of our guide.” Janet pointed ahead to the guide walking behind Henry.
“No. He is Asmani with an ‘s.’ Amani means peace, not Asmani.”
“What does Asmani mean?”
Baraka shook her head. She didn’t know.
Janet continued. “How do you say, ‘Go in peace’?”
“Nenda kwa amani.”
“Nenda kwa amani. Go in peace.”
They went on like this for hours on end, trying to keep their minds away from the harshness of their journey, their burning throats, their tired legs. Among the other girls, Chichi still struggled to keep up, but she had come a long way, her former brooding self all but dead. Her protruding belly had extended again, now that the group lacked food and water.
Yet, they trudged on, dragging their feet, now sleeping at night under an open sky. Tents were not needed here with no rain in sight and the ground looking scorched and exhausted. During the day, Janet became increasingly worried that they would never find help from anyone.
Perhaps Mr. Stanley was right. Perhaps we will never find help. We need assistance and soon. If not, Goma will die in a few days, and the rest of us will also be jeopardized.
The caravan members had been marching three weeks since Goma’s attack. They had a brief flash of hope when they saw a village ahead of them one morning. Dozens of thatched-roof huts lined the road. As they drew closer, they discovered the huts were empty, no signs of human life except for hundreds of bleached bones scattered on the ground. Many of the huts were burned down, the grass around them black from fire, and the village water hole was completely dry. In the surrounding trees, vultures still perched, looking for any trace of flesh they might have missed from prior pickings. As the procession passed through the town center where people once gathered to sing and dance, Janet felt she needed to talk to Henry.
“Mr. Stanley.”
He ignored her and kept walking.
She wanted to ask him what had happened. “Mr. Stanley.”
He kept ignoring her.
“Mr. Stanley!”
Finally, he turned. “Slave raiders, Miss Livingstone. Slave raiders!” He was annoyed, angered that she couldn’t figure it out for herself.
After another four days of moving farther south, the caravan’s food supply was nearly gone and animals to shoot for meat had nearly disappeared. To make matters worse, they were almost out of water. To preserve what they had, Ferrari rationed each person two cups per day, which was not enough to sustain them in such blaring heat. This prompted Chichi to walk up to Janet.
“Maji, Mamma, maji.” She used her hand to imitate a cup raised to the mouth for drinking. “Maji, maji.”
Janet still did not understand, so she turned to Baraka, who interpreted. “She says she wants water.”
Then another girl spoke. “Ni enye njaa. Mamma, ni enye njaa.” Once again, Janet looked at Baraka.
“She says she’s hungry.”
Janet smiled at Chichi and all the other girls and tried to assure them. “Soon we find water. Soon we find . . .” Janet didn’t know the Swahili word for “food.”
Once again, Baraka spoke up. “Chakula. Tell them, ‘hivi karibuni chakula.’ Soon food.”
Janet smiled again as she addressed the girls. “Hivi karibuni chakula.” Behind Janet’s smile, her face was grim.
The road dipped, and they entered a valley with very tall grass. For the first time, they could see a mountain range in the distance, rising a few thousand feet above the plain. These were the Mbarika Mountains that Janet recognized from the map. Somewhere inside of them lay the Rufiji River. This gave her hope that at least they were headed in the right direction.
Through the pink haze, she could barely see the forests that covered the peaks ahead where they might find water if they could make it, but the hills looked so far away and, unbeknownst to them, there lay another danger. The lioness, riddled with bullet wounds, and two other lions—another lioness and a male—ran through the grass parallel to the caravan, following it. Some of Henry’s group believed the lions had gone, chased off by the dry climate, but Janet knew they had not gone away. She kept the guards vigilant to protect the girls.
And still, they kept moving. Everyone staggered ahead toward the distant Promised Land. They looked like zombies, the walking dead, which prompted Janet to liken their caravan to that of slaves. She remembered the slave caravan they passed near the Marenga Mkali—the female stragglers who trailed behind the rest of the slaves chained or tethered to slave sticks.
We look just like them, wandering with glazed eyes and emaciated bodies like ghosts.
In a flash, Janet decided she wouldn’t die like that, not like a fallen slave, eaten by jackals and hyenas.
No, that’s not how I’m going to die!
She gathered all of her energy and ran ahead to Henry.
“Mr. Stanley.”
He ignored her again, his eyes peering straight ahead.
“Mr. Stanley!” she shouted again.
Finally, she gathered every ounce of her power and leaped directly in front of him, blocking his body from going forward. He would have to knock her down or push her out of the way. “I know you don’t like me. And I don’t like you. But this has got to stop!”
“What?” He spoke as if he didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Look at me!”
He turned slightly to see her face.
“We’ve been walking for weeks and you don’t speak. You ignore me. I don’t even know where we’re going.”
“We’re going south, Miss Livingstone, just like you wanted.”
“If you don’t start communicating, we’re all going to die and not because of lions or anything else. We have to work together to find a way out!”
“We are working together.” As he spoke, he turned his head away from her, unaware that his action had the opposite effect of what he was saying.
“No, we’re not! I can see it in your eyes!”
In a fury, he turned to her directly. He had to let his anger out, anger that had been slowly building. “See what? What do you see? What do you see?” he shouted.
Just then, a large male lion with a black mane bounded out from the cover of the grass. Henry saw it immediately and, pushing Janet out of the way, he lifted his rifle. All of the guards lifted their rifles and aimed. The lion came forward as if unsure whom he should attack, and then he stopped. He was ten yards away from Baraka. The lion crouched down to leap, but Baraka stood her ground and didn’t move, unafraid. The lion hesitated. In that split second, a barrage of gunfire opened up from everyone who had a rifle. The lion dropped dead in his tracks.