Free Drum by Kyle Onstott Page A

inspected him carefully and then I'alked over to him, swinging her rounded hips under the bin cotton of her dress. He thought she was the most eautiful and desirable girl he had even seen and he wanted 0 speak to her but his very desire to speak made him hope-jssly tongue-tied. She sidled up closer to him, her breasts training the thin cloth of her dress. Her lips smiled an ivitation to him and she slowly raised her skirt above her faist in a gesture of invitation. She did not speak and either did he, but she dropped her dress and her finger ghtly touched his forehead, traced a warm line down his ose, lingered for a moment on his lips, then dropped to is chest where it remained even longer before starting on s downward path. He felt it creeping across his belly, xploring his navel and then it went as far as it would go. he smiled up at him.
    "Sleeping with you would be much nicer than with old longo." Her eyes danced and her hand caressed.
    Tamboura started to speak but the words never came. A oor opened out onto the portico and a voice called out.

    "Jobeena, you bitch! Leave him alone. Get going!" It was the Mongo. Jobeena snatched her hand away and started off across the compound like a startled zebra. The Mongo, walking slowly and clutching the wall of the house for support, followed the same path along the porch that Jobeena had taken and came to Tamboura.
    "Come, lad, follow me." His voice had lost the sharp edge of anger with which he had yelled at Jobeena.
    They walked back along the portico and through a dooi into a room, the like of which Tamboura had never seen before. The shabby elegance, the worn rococo chairs, the dusty rugs and the paintings of white women on the walk all seemed too wonderful for him to grasp. He foUowec the Mongo to a comer of the room where a big piece ol white cloth was stretched on a wooden frame. Tambours was frightened—not of the man, who treated him kindly but of the unaccustomed surtoundings, the strange piecej of furniture which seemed ready to leap out at him, thi painted pictures on the walls that smiled at him like sc many spirits from another world, and the closed-in feelinj which oppressed him. He was trembling and the Mongc noticed it. He laid a reassuring hand on Tamboura's shoulder.
    "Nothing to be afraid of, boy." He was soft-talking Tamboura while he gently maneuvered him up against a wal to stand before a piece of rich, dark-green cloth which fell from ceiling to floor. Two huge ivory tusks curved upwardj from carved wooden bases on the floor, gleaming ghostlj pale in the subdued light. Mongo Don placed Tambours between them, stretching his arms out so that a hand graspec each tusk. From a wicker basket, filled with moist dark earth, Mongo Don spilled a mound on the floor arounc Tamboura's feet.
    "Your spirit, boy," the Mongo said as he distributed the earth around Tamboura's feet. He reached for a small box on a nearby table, opened it and sprinkled the earth with gold nuggets and dust. From another basket, he took an armful of plumes—the black of ostrich, the blue of heron, the downy white of marabou, the rose of flamingo, the jewel colors of parrot, and the glistening eyes of argui bird. These he artanged carefully behind Tamboura and then from a chest he took the striped pelts of zebras, the tawny hide of a lion and the delicate long white hair of monkeys and added them to the colorful plumes. He walked away,

    his eyes fixed on the naked boy, surrounded by the precious things which Africa offered to the worid—her rich dark earth, her gold, her ivory, her plumes, and between them, rising above them, dominating them, her most precious product of all, her black manhood. Mongo Don backed to the other side of the room slowly, using the backs of chairs to support him, and pulled up one of the bamboo curtains so that the strong light of the sun flooded Tamboura.
    "And now, my boy, stand there and do not move if you can help it. Stand as long as you can and when you are