Free The Setting Sun by Bart Moore-Gilbert Page A

from where the flat opal surface of the seasonal lake stretches away, the boy’s father gets out his decoy, a black tube like a relay baton. A few toots bring some Egyptian geese scooting over the water, brown and white with iridescent green heads and a blue wing chevron. But the boy isn’t all there. He keeps having flashbacks to the elephant’s dreadful gash, and smoulders with anger against those who did it .
    When they get back to camp, it’s growing dark. There’s laughter and excitement amongst the scouts building the fires . Strips of elephant meat have been set out to cure on frames like the ones the fishermen use. Light-skinned Salim’s back, and the Land Rover’s gone one last time to fetch Daoudi, the tracker and Hamisi Sekana. They’ve found the poachers’ camp and are bringing someone in. The boy and his father barely have time to measure the tusks of the young elephant, still partly encased in a crimson honeycomb of shattered jawbone, when they see headlights bumping towards them. Soon three figures emerge from the shadows. Hamisi leads forward a small, undernourished man wearing only filthy shorts and sandals made from old tyre treads, wrists handcuffed behind his back. Despite his bare, pumping pigeon-chest and pronounced limp, the boy takes a violent dislike to him. It’s the sly eyes and obsequious smile. On each shoulder, Daoudi bears a tusk. These must be forty pounds each .
    ‘We found the camp and this man hiding in the bush nearby. There was this ivory. And traps.’
    The murderous wires tinkle and glint in the firelight where Hamisi sets them down. He’s smiling. It’s a job well done, and the boy’s father tells him so. Then he compares the first noose recovered with these ones .
    ‘You see,’ he shows the boy, ‘they’ve got five twists around the neck. Made by the same person.’
    ‘He’s not from round here,’ Hamisi interjects. ‘He says he comes from the north, near Mwanza. But his Swahili is shenzi.’
    The boy spotted some of the man’s, too, has mistakes. His father nods and begins to ask questions. At first his tone is conversational, as if they’ve all just met in friendlier circumstances. What’s the man’s village, his tribe, his father’s name, those of his relations? The man shifts from foot to foot, as if his bad leg’s giving him trouble. At times he’s defiant, more often ingratiating. He claims to have been travelling south and stumbled on the deserted camp. Hearing the scouts approach, he hid nearby, fearing the owners were returning. He knows nothing about the tusks or nooses .
    ‘Where were you travelling to? Who were you visiting and where? Why didn’t you go by the road?’ Then the questions become more general .
    The boy’s becoming increasingly angry. Who cares what the president’s wife is called? With every faltering answer, as the suspect mangles the Swahili words, he knows the man’s lying. Why isn’t the questioning more direct?
    ‘Have you ever seen an animal caught in a noose?’ his father eventually asks the man, almost as an afterthought. ‘Can you imagine what it feels?’
    The suspect denies it emphatically. Hamisi’s face twists into a sneer. The boy’s finding it hard to control himself. He wants to beat the man, make him confess and apologise. Put his bad leg in a wire noose and see how he makes out. Then his father begins to ask the identical questions he began with, in the same matter-of-fact tone. The boy’s furious. Why’s his father wasting time? Adults can be so unfair sometimes. His father thrashed him once for twisting their pet monkey’s tail, yet now he’s smiling at this man, politely inquiring after his personal affairs when the suspect’s caused the elephant intolerable suffering. Suddenly his father sits up straighter, his tone steely at last .
    ‘The first time you said your village was to the east of Mwanza, now it’s the other side. If you came from anywhere near Mwanza you’d know Binti Nyerere’s