Blackman' Burden na-1 Read online

  The gymkhana was in full swing with racing and feasting, and storytellers and conjurers, jugglers and marabouts. And in the air was the acrid distinctive odor of kif, for though Mohammed forbade alcohol to the faithful he had naught to say about the uses of cannabis sativa and what is a great festival without the smoking of kif and the eating of majoun?

  The tribes of the Chaambra were widely represented, Berazga and Mouadhi, Bou Rouba and Ouled Fredj, and there was even a heavy sprinkling of the sedentary Zenatas come down from the towns of Metlili, El Oued, and El Goleo. Then, of course, were the Haratin serfs, of mixed Arab-Negro blood, and the Negroes themselves, until recently openly called slaves but now—amusingly —named servants.

  The Chaambra were meeting for a great ceremonial gymkhana, but also, as was widely known, for a djemaa el kebar council of elders and chiefs, for there were many problems throughout the Western Erg and the areas of Mzab and Bourara. Nor was it secret only to the inner councils that the meeting had been called by Abd-el-Kader, of Shorfu blood, direct descendent of the Prophet through his daughter Fatima, and symbol to the young warriors of Chaambra spirit.

  Of all the Ouled Touameur clan Abd-el-Kader alone refrained from discharging his gun into the air as they dashed into the inner circle of khaima tents which centered the gymkhana and provided council chambers, dining hall and sleeping quarters for the tribal and clan heads. Instead, and with head arrogantly high, he slipped from his stallion tossing the reins to a nearby Zenata and strode briskly to the largest of the tents and disappeared inside.

  Bismillah! but Abd-el-Kader was a figure of a man! From his turban, white as the snows of the Atlas, to his yellow leather boots, he wore the traditional clothing of the Chaambra and wore them with pride. Not for Abd-el-Kader the new clothing from the Rouma cities to the north, nor even the new manufactures from Dakar, Accra, Lagos and the other mushrooming centers to the south.

  His weapons alone paid homage to the new ways. And each fighting man within eyesight noted that it was not a rifle slung over the shoulder of Abd-el-Kader but a submachine gun. Bismillah! This could not have been so back in the days when the French Camel Corps ruled the land with its hand of iron.

  The djemaa el kebar was already in session, seated in a great circle on the rug and provided with glasses of mint tea and some with water pipes. They looked up at the entrance of the warrior clan chieftain.

  El Aicha, who was of Maraboutic ancestry and hence a holy man as well as elder of the Ouled Fredj, spoke first as senior member of the conference. “We have heard reports that are disturbing of recent months, Abd-el-Kader. Reports of activities amongst the Ouled Touameur. We would know more of the truth of these. But also we have high interest in your reason for summoning the djemaa el kebar at such a time of year.”

  Abd-el-Kader made a brief gesture of obeisance to the Chaambra leader, a gesture so brief as to verge on disrespect. He said, his voice clear and confident, as befits a warrior chief, “Disturbing only to the old and unvaliant, O El Aicha.”

  The old man looked at him for a long, unblinking moment. As a youth, he had fought at the Battle of Tit when the French Camel Corps had broken forever the military power of the Ahaggar Tuareg. El Aicha was no coward. There were murmurings about the circle of elders.

  But when El Aicha spoke again, his voice was level.

  “Then speak to us, Abd-el-Kader. It is well known that your voice is heard ever more by the young men, particularly by the bolder of the young men.”

  The fighting man remained standing, his legs slightly spread. The Arab, like the Amerind, likes to make speech in conference, and eloquence is well held by the Chaambra.

  “Long years ago, and only shortly after the death of the Prophet, the Chaambra resided, so tell the scribes, in the hills of far away Syria. But when the word of Islam was heard and the true believers began to race their strength throughout all the world, the Chaambra came here to the deserts of Africa and here we have remained. Long centuries it took us to gain control of the wide areas of the northern and western desert and many were the battles we fought with our traditional enemies the Tuareg and the Moors before we controlled all the land between the Atlas and the Niger and from what is now known as Tunisia to Mauritania.”

  All nodded. This was tribal history.

  Abd-el-Kader held up four fingers on which to enumerate. “The Chaambra were ever men. Warriors, bedouin; not for us,the cities and villages of the Zenatas, and the miserable Haratin serfs. We Chaambra have ever been men of the tent, warriors, conquerors!”

  El Aicha still nodded. “That was before,” he murmured.

  “That will always be!” Abd-el-Kader insisted. His four fingers were spread and he touched the first one. “Our life was based upon, one, war and the spoils of war.” He touched the second finger. “Two, the toll we extracted from the caravans that passed from Timbuktu to the north and back again. Three, from our own caravans which covered the desert trails from Tripoli to Dakar and from Marrakech to Kano. And fourth”— he touched his last finger—“from our flocks which fed us in the wilderness.” He paused to let this sink in.

  “All this is verily true,” muttered one of the elders, a so-what quality in his voice.

  Abd-el-Kader’s tone soured. “Then came the French with their weapons and their multitudes of soldiers and their great wealth with which to pursue the expenses of war. And one by one the Tuareg and the Teda to the south and the Moors and Nemadi, yes, and even the Chaambra fell before the onslaughts of the Camel Corps and their wild-dog Foreign Legion.” He held up his four fingers again and counted them off. “The four legs upon which our life was based were broken. War and its spoils were prevented us. The tolls we charged caravans to cross our land were forbidden. And then, shortly after, came the motor trucks which crossed the desert in a week, where formerly the journey took as much as a year. Our camel caravans became meaningless.”

  Again all nodded. “Verily, the world changes,” someone murmured.

  The warrior leader’s voice went dramatic. “We. were left with naught but our flocks, and now even they are fated to end.”

  The elderly nomads stirred and some scowled.

  “At every water hole in the desert, teams of the new irrigation development dig their wells, install their pumps which bring power from the sun, plant trees, bring in Haratin and former slaves—our slaves—to cultivate the new oases. And we are forbidden the water for the use of our goats and sheep and camels.”

  “Besides,” one of the clan chiefs injected, “they tell us that the goat is the curse of North Africa, nibbling as it does the bark of small trees, and they attempt to purchase all goats until soon there will be few, if any, in all the land.”

  “So our young people,” Abd-el-Kader pressed on, “stripped of our former way of life, go to the new projects, enroll in the schools, take work in the new oases or on the roads, and disappear from the sight of their kinsmen.” He came to a sudden halt and all but glared at them, maintaining his silence until El Aicha stirred.

  “And?” El Aicha said. This was all obviously nothing but preliminary.

  Abd-el-Kader spoke softly now, and there was a different drama in his voice. “And now,” he said, “the French are gone. All the Rouma, save a handful, are gone. In the south the English are gone from the lands of the blacks, such as Nigeria and Ghana, Sierra Leone and Gambia. The Italians are gone from Libya and Somaliland and the Spanish from Rio de Oro. Nor will they ever return for in the greatest council of all the Rouma they have decided to leave Africa to the African.”

  They all stirred again and some muttered. Abd-el-Kader pushed his point. “The Chaambra are warriors born. Never serfs! Never slaves! Never have we worked for any man. Our ancestors carved great empires by the sword.” His voice lowered again. “And now, once more, it is possible to carve such an empire.”

  He swept his eyes about their circle. “Chiefs of the Chaambra, there is no force in all the Sahara to restrain us. Let others work on the roads, planting the new t
rees in the new oases, damming the great Niger, and all the rest of it. We will sweep over them, and dominate all. We, the Chaambra, will rule, while those whom Allah intended to drudge do so. We, the Chosen of Allah, will fulfill our destiny!”

  Abd-el-Kader left it there and crossed his arms on his chest, staring at them challengingly.

  Finally El Aicha directed his eyes across the circle of listeners at two who had sat silently through it all, their burnooses well down over their eyes, covering their heads. He said, “And what do you say to all this?”

  “Time to go into your act, man,” Abe Bakr muttered, under his breath.

  Homer Crawford came to his feet and pushed back the hood of the burnoose. He looked over at the headman of the Ouled Touameur warrior clan, whose face was darkening.

  In Arabic, Crawford said, “I have sought you for some time, Abd-el-Kader. You are an elusive man.”

  “Who are you, Negro?” the fighting man snapped.

  Crawford grinned at the other. “You look as though you have a bit of Negro blood in your own veins. In fact, I doubt if there’s a so-called Arab in all North Africa, unless he’s just recently arrived, whose family hasn’t down through the centuries mixed its blood with the local people they conquered.”

  “You lie!”

  Abe chuckled from the background. The Chaambra leader was at least as dark of complexion as the American Negro. Not that it made any difference one way or the other.

  “We shall see who is the liar here,” Homer Crawford said flatly. “You asked who I am. I am known as Omar ben Crawf and I am headman of a team of the African Development Project of the Reunited Nations. As you have said, Abd-el-Kader, this great council of the headmen of all the nations of the world—not just the Rouma —has decided that Africa must be left to the Africans. But that does not mean it has lost all interest in these lands. It has no intention, warrior of the Chaambra, to allow such as you to disrupt the necessary progress Africa must make if it is not to become a danger to the shaky peace of the world.”

  Abd-el-Kader’s eyes darted about the tent. So far as he could see, the other was backed only by his single henchman. The warrior chief gained confidence. “Power is for those who can assert it. Some will rule. It has always been so. Here in the Western Erg, the Chaambra will rule, and I, Abd-el-Kader, will lead them!”

  Homer Crawford was shaking his head, almost sadly it seemed. “No,” he said. “The day of rule by the gun is over. It must be over because at long last man’s weapons have become so great that he must not trust himself with them. In the new world which is still aborning so that half the nations of earth are in the pains of labor, government must be by the most wise and most capable.”

  In a deft move the submachine gun’s sling slipped from the desert man’s shoulder and the short, vicious gun was in hand. “The strong will always rule!” the Arab shouted. “Time was when the French conquered the Chaambra, but the French have allowed their strength to ebb away, and now, armed with such weapons as these, we of the Sahara will again assert our birthright as the Chosen of Allah!”

  Homer ignored the automatic weapon in the hands of the excited Arab. He said, and there was still a sad quality in his voice, “The gun you carry is a nothing-weapon, desert man. When the French conquered this land more than a century ago they were armed with single-shot rifles which were still far in advance of your own long barrelled flintlocks. Today, you are proud of that tommy gun you carry, and, indeed, it has the fire power of a company of the Foreign Legion of a century past. However, believe me, Abd-el-Kader, it is a nothing-weapon compared to those that will be brought against the Chaambra if they heed your words.”

  The desert leader put back his head and laughed his scorn.

  He chopped his laughter short and snapped, more to the council of chiefs than to the stranger, “Then we will seize such weapons and use them against those who would oppose us. In the end it is the strong who win in war, and the Rouma have gone soft, as all men know. I, Abd-el-Kader will have these two killed and then I shall announce to the assembled tribes the new jedah, a Holy War to bring the Chosen of Allah once again to their rightful position in the Sahara.”

  “Man,” Abe Baker murmured pleasantly, “you’re going to be one awful disappointed cat before long.”

  El Aicha said mildly, “Such decisions are for the djemaa el kebar to make, O Abd-el-Kader, not for a single chief of the Ouled Touameur.”

  The desert warrior chief sneered openly at the old man. “Decisions are made by those with the strength to enforce them. The young men of the Chaambra support me, and my men surround this tent.”

  “So do mine,” Homer Crawford said decisively. “And I have come to arrest you and take you to Columb-Béchar where you will be tried for your participation in recent raids on various development projects.”

  El Aicha repeated his earlier words. “There shall be no violence at a djemaa el kebar.”

  The Ouled Touameur chief’s eyes had narrowed. “You are not strong enough to take me.”

  In English, Abe Baker said, “Like maybe these young followers of this cat need an example laid on them, man.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Crawford growled disgustedly.

  The younger American came to his feet. “I’ll take him on,” Abe said.

  “No, he’s nearer to my size,” Crawford grunted. He turned to El Aicha, and said in Arabic, “I demand the right of a stranger in your camp to a trial by combat.”

  “On what grounds?” the old man scowled.

  “That my manhood has been spat upon by this warrior who does his fighting with his loud mouth.”

  The assembled chiefs looked to Abd-el-Kader, and a rustling sigh went through them. A hundred times the wiry desert chieftain had proven himself the most capable fighter in the tribes. A hundred times he had proven it and there were dead and wounded in the path he had cut for himself.

  Abd-el-Kader laughed aloud again.

  Homer Crawford shrugged. “Swords, in the open before the assembled Chaambra so that they may see how truly weak is the one who calls himself so strong.”

  Abe said worriedly, in English, “Listen, man, you been checked out on swords?”

  “They’re the traditional weapon in the Arab code duello” Homer said, with a wry grin. “Nothing else would do.”

  “Man, you sound like you’ve been blasting pot and got yourself as high as those cats out there with their kif. This Abd-el-Kader was probably raised with a sword in his hand.”

  Abd-el-Kader, smiling triumphantly, had spun on his heel and made his way through the tent’s entrance. Now they could hear him shouting orders.

  El Aicha looked up at Homer Crawford from where he sat. His voice without inflection, he said, “Hast thou a sword, Omar ben Crawf?”

  “No,” Crawford said.

  The elderly tribal leader said, “Then I shall loan you mine.” He hesitated momentarily, before adding, “Never before has hand other than mine wielded it.” And finally, simply, “Never has it been drawn to commit dishonor.”

  “I am honored.”

  Outside, the rumors had spread fast and already a great arena was forming by the packed lines of Chaambra nomads. At the tent entrance, Elmer Allen, his face worried, said, his English in characteristic Jamaican accent, “What did you chaps do?”

  “Duel,” Abe growled apprehensively. “This joker here has challenged their top swordsman to a fight.”

  Elmer said hurriedly, “See here, gentlemen, the hovercraft are parked over behind that tent. We can be there in two minutes and away from…”

  Crawford’s eyes went from Elmer Allen to Abe Baker and then back again. He chuckled, “I don’t think you two think I’m going to win this fight,” he said.

  “What do you know about swordsmanship?” Elmer Allen said accusingly.

  “Practically nothing. A little bayonet practice quite a few years ago.”

  “Oh, great,” Abe muttered.

  Elmer said hurriedly, “See here, Homer,
I was on the college fencing team and…”

  Crawford grinned at him. “Too late, friend.”

  As they talked, they made their way to the large circle of men. In its center, Abd-el-Kader was stripping to his waist, meanwhile laughingly shouting his confidence to his Ouled Touameur tribesmen and to the other Chaam-bra of fighting age. No one seemed to doubt the final issue. Beneath his white burnoose he wore a gandoura of lightweight woolen cloth and beneath that a longish undershirt of white cotton, similar to that of the Tuareg but with shorter and less voluminous sleeves. This the desert fighter retained.

  Crawford stripped down too, nude to the waist. His body was in excellent trim, muscles bunching under the ebony skin. A Haratin servant came up bearing El Aicha’s sword.

  Homer Crawford pulled it from the scabbard. It was of scimitar type, the weapon which had once conquered half the known world.

  From within the huge circle of men, Abd-el-Kader swung his own blade in flashing arcs and called out something undoubtedly insulting, but which was lost in the babble of the multitude.

  “Well, here we go,” Crawford grunted. “You fellows better station yourselves around, just on the off chance that those Ouled Touameur bully-boys don’t like the decision.”

  “We’ll worry about that,” Abe said unhappily. “You just see you get out of this in one piece. Anything happens to you and the head office’ll make me head of this team—and frankly, man, I don’t want the job.”

  Homer grinned at him, and began pushing his way through to the center.

  The Arab cut a last swath in the air with his whistling blade and started forward, in practiced posture. Homer awaited him, legs spread slightly, hands extended, the sword held at the ready but with point low.

  Abe Baker growled, unhappily, “He said he didn’t know anything about swords, and the way he holds it bears him out. That Arab’ll cut Homer to ribbons. Maybe we ought to do something about it.” As usual, under stress he’d dropped his beatnik patter.

  Elmer Allen looked at him. “Such as what? There are at least three thousand of these tribesmen chaps here watching their favorite sport. What did you have in mind doing?”