"Resnick, Mike - Kirinyaga 5 - The Manamouki" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

"I hope so," I replied in Swahili, "for you will have to."
She turned to me. "I know we are the first immigrants to come to Kirinyaga, and that you must have your doubts about us -- but this is the life I've always wanted. I'm going to be the best damned manamouki you ever saw."
"I hope so," I said, but I noticed that the wind still blew from the west.
* * * *
I introduced Nkobe and Mwange to their neighbors, showed them their shamba where they would grow their food, pointed out their six cattle and ten goats and recommended that they lock them in their boma at night to protect them from the hyenas, told them how to reach the river to procure water, and left them at the entrance to their hut. Mwange seemed enthused about everything, and was soon engaged in animated conversation with the women who came by to look at her strange outfit.
"She is very nice," commented Ndemi as I walked through the fields, blessing the scarecrows. "Perhaps the omens you read were wrong."
"Perhaps," I said.
He stared at me. "But you do not think so."
"No."
"Well, I like her," he said.
"That is your right."
"Do you dislike her, then?"
I paused as I considered my answer.
"No," I said at last. "I fear her."
"But she is just a manamouki!" he protested. "She can do no harm."
"Under the proper circumstances, anything can do harm."
"I do not believe it," said Ndemi.
"Do you doubt your mundumugu's word?" I asked.
"No," he said uncomfortably. "If you say something, then it must be true. But I cannot understand how."
I smiled wryly. "That is because you are not yet a mundumugu."
He stopped and pointed to a spot some 300 yards away, where a group of impala does were grazing.
"Can even they do harm?" he asked.
"Yes."
"But how?" he asked, frowning. "When danger appears, they do not confront it, but run away from it. Ngai has not blessed them with horns, so they cannot defend themselves. They are not large enough to destroy our crops. They cannot even kick an enemy, as can the zebra. I do not understand."
"I shall tell you the tale of the Ugly Buffalo, and then you will understand," I said.
Ndemi smiled happily, for he loved stories above all things, and I led him to the shade of a thorn tree, where we both squatted down, facing each other.
"One day a cow buffalo was wandering through the savannah," I began. "The hyenas had recently taken her first calf, and she was very sad. Then she came upon a newborn impala, whose mother had been killed by hyenas that very morning.
"'I would like to take you home with me,' said the buffalo, 'for I am very lonely, and have much love in my heart. But you are not a buffalo.'
"'I, too, am very lonely,' said the impala. 'And if you leave me here, alone and unprotected, I surely will not survive the night.'
"'There is a problem,' said the buffalo. 'You are an impala, and we are buffalo. You do not belong with us.'
"'I will become the best buffalo of all,' promised the impala. 'I will eat what you eat, drink what you drink, go where you go.'
"'How can you become a buffalo? You cannot even grow horns.'
"'Then I will wear the branches of a tree upon my head.'
"'You do not wallow in the mud to protect your skin from parasites,' noted the buffalo.
"'Take me home with you and I will cover myself with more mud than any other buffalo,' said the impala.
"For every objection the buffalo raised, the impala had an answer, and finally the buffalo agreed to take the impala back with her. Most of the members of the herd thought that the impala was the ugliest buffalo they had ever seen," -- Ndemi chuckled at that -- "but because the impala tried so hard to act like a buffalo, they allowed her to remain.
"Then one day a number of young buffalo were grazing some distance from the herd, and they came to a deep mud wallow that blocked their way.
"'We must return to the herd,' said one of the young buffalo.
"'Why?' asked the impala. "There is fresh grass on the other side of the wallow."
"'Because we have been warned that a deep wallow such as this can suck us down beneath the surface and kill us.'
"'I do not believe it,' said the impala, and, bolder than her companions, she walked out to the center of the mud wallow.
"'You see?' she said. 'I have not been sucked beneath the surface. It is perfectly safe.'
"Soon three of the young buffalo ventured out across the mud wallow, and each in turn was sucked beneath the surface and drowned.
"'It is the ugly buffalo's fault,' said the king of the herd. 'Is was she who told them to cross the mud wallow.'
"'But she meant no harm,' said her foster mother. 'And what she told them was true: the wallow was safe for her. All she wants is to live with the herd and be a buffalo; please do not punish her."
"The king was blessed with more generosity than wisdom, and so he forgave the ugly buffalo.
"Then, a week later, the ugly buffalo, who could leap as high as a tall bush, jumped up in the air and saw a pack of hyenas lurking in the grass. She waited until they were almost close enough to catch her, and then cried out a warning. All the buffalo began running, but the hyenas were able to catch the ugly buffalo's foster mother, and they pulled her down and killed her.
"Most of the other buffalo were grateful to the ugly buffalo for warning them, but during the intervening week there had been a new king, and this one was wiser than the previous one.
"'It is the ugly buffalo's fault,' he said.
"'How can it be her fault?' asked one of the older buffalo. 'It was she who warned us of the hyenas.'