The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson Page A

“Take care, Dimani,” and helped himself to a final good gander—from head to toe—for the road (only the briefest of nods to Cumalo). Letting go the hand he’d kept all this while, Kaffalah departed.
    “Uh oh! What was all
that
?” Cumalo exclaimed. “I hope I wasn’t breaking up your flow there, was I?”
    “Aw, the brother was just being friendly, that’s all.” Demane shrugged off the arm. “Hey, Cumalo, listen.
We
came all the way across the continent, didn’t we? A jukiere could too.”
    “You’ve been out here—what, two or three years? Brother, I came when I was
fifteen
, and I’ve been traveling ever since. In twenty years I never once saw or heard tale of any jukiere. It just doesn’t seem too likely to me.”
    More than simians hate the serpent, stormbird and jukiere nursed ancient enmity. “Well,” Demane said, “I’m going to let the captain know about it.” In soul or flesh, some spark of primal fire seemed to take light in him. “Better to get off flat feet, and get out the knives,
before
the fight.”—words Captain liked to say.
    When youthful friends meet once more in vast old age, often they are astonished by the changes. But, of course, it wasn’t age that Cumalo saw come suddenly over Demane’s face. It was more weird than that, a far richer change. Somewhat wider-eyed than usual, Cumalo said, “Do what you think best, man. But you’d better
hope
it’s no jook-toothed tiger roaming the Wildeeps.”
    “Why me? All of us had better hope . . . Hey! I just thought of something.” A mystery came clear in Demane’s mind. “The captain has some plainsman’s blood, I think. His nose is like that brother Kaffalah’s. And isn’t he sort of red-complected and brown all at once . . . ?”
    “If you say so.” The look of alarm passed; Cumalo smiled. This was familiar ground, the enamored bending the conversation back again to his amour. “I don’t see it, myself.”
    Teef thrust his head between theirs, slinging his arms across their shoulders. “You two cut out all that
ooga-ooga-bug-bug
over here.” Which one worse: armpits or breath? Surely, the latter; but the unwashed inferno of his crotch and ass stank worst of all. “Y’all talk so a nigga could
understand
!”
    T-Jawn, Barkeem, and the rest were with him. “Gotta jump, Cumalo,” said a brother. “The dogs is done, and they setting up to put the cocks on next. You had said you wanted to lay a couple coins on the knife-birds. You coming?”
    Cumalo looked at Demane. “You oughta come too. Might win you a little something.”
    “I’m good. Y’all go ahead.” Demane got out from under the reeking arm. “I’ma go see about a bath over by Mother of Waters.” He backed farther from the propinquities of funk. “Some brothers here might could stand one too.”
    “There go the Sorcerer.” Teef shook his head, grinning that wrecked-tooth grin. “Always up in some damn water tryna
warsh
. Man, one day you gonna turn around, catch cold, and wake up dead behind all that water!”
    Demane had tried to explain, in the caravan’s early days, how the auspices of hygiene could ward off many infectious daemons. He’d wasted no end of breath laying out the basics of sanitary rites to the brothers. But all that dropped science had mostly bounced off their hard heads. A few kept clean, and the rest, well . . . “That ain’t really how it work, Teef, but never mind,” Demane said. “I catch up with y’all later.”
    Disputing groundbirds versus flyers, rash wagers versus acceptable odds, the brothers betook their stink and themselves up a northwest-running alley.
    1 This hard talk with Cumalo kept getting postponed too because—let’s be honest here—the economics of civilization baffled Demane; no, really, they bored him stupid: bride-price, gambling, the wherefore a half-weight of gold gets you
this
many silver pennies, while some entirely different exchange the other way around. Aunty used to say that whatever