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CHAPTER FOUR

The Sadou family compound might be the largest home, but the workers’ village boasted several respectably sized buildings and a mass of them had grown along the quarry road and outwards toward the plant itself into almost a second entire town. The solidly built residences were single story with durable metal roofs and wide windows, but many of them had those windows tightly closed, which meant central air and prosperity. No mud huts or woven grass walls for Sadou employees or their families. At least not while that plant stayed in business.

And those pesky details were things Pascaline had to care about again. Overnight she’d learned absolutely nothing about this supposed contract Grandpere might or might not have. But she had received new mail.

“We appreciate your interest in our internship program. Further assessment indicates your application is not right for us at this time. We wish you the best…”

Pascaline could wish them quite a lot of things too, and none of those involved a best anything. Great Aunt Mami’s car was missing from the lot outside the Sadou family compound. Pascaline didn’t bother to call the helicopter hangar and attempt to arrange a flight. She didn’t have anywhere else to be, and it would be too easy for that would-be suitor to find her if she put her escape from WuroMahobe on a printed flight schedule.

Pascaline could enter any one of those employee’s houses at random and whatever child, caregiver, or elderly person remained home at this hour would meet her and probably even make her a lunch. But they would give her a full greeting: they’d ask about her health, and ask about her extended family, and each of her relative’s health statuses, and about the pleasantness of her travels, and her thoughts on the weather, and… Pascaline shuddered.

She took refuge in the cement plant itself. The limestone crushing made a pleasant racket, and the comfort of heavy machinery drowned out other problems.

The factory supervisors messaged each other, and everyone she normally bothered went into hiding.

Her usual visits included inspections and complaints which made this stroll through the work zone a perfect way to hide. When nobody wanted to see her, she could be invisible with very little effort. She didn’t have the energy to dig anyone out and settled for walking the plant looking for things that were wrong. The effort was unrewarding.

They were doing fine. The right machinery was greasy, and the right machinery was clean. She found nitnoid things but nothing egregious.

A framed photo of Uncle Jacques hung on the wall. A metal tag engraved with “General Manager” had been tacked to the bottom of the frame. Someone else had been in charge of operations last time. Pascaline couldn’t remember the name. A hard knot in her belly worked tighter. She hadn’t realized Uncle Jacques was somebody who took thankless jobs and did them well when she’d decided to rile up the aunts and make her escape last night. Aunt Julienne and Aunt Fatime would be Sadous forever, but if their dispute got bitter enough, Uncle Jacques, as a mere brother of Aunt Fatime’s husband, might be discarded, and the plant would get another—probably less capable—manager.

Unable to find either distraction or insight inside the plant, Pascaline drafted a team of workers and attacked the outside. Beyond the plant and the houses which clustered near it, a rolling savannah stretched to the horizons. The always encroaching grasses teemed with sharp-toothed venomous creatures.

Too many snakes and not enough concrete summed up the situation nicely, in Pascaline’s opinion. She’d pave it all if she could, but the plant couldn’t waste inventory on that large of a personal project. She considered the double-width concrete sidewalk between the factory and the houses. It’d been laid down so long ago that grass poked up in enough cracks that the whole thing was closer to a gravel walk than any proper paving.

The plant could give her one day for a patch solution. She found the announcing system and summoned the on-shift manager. The foreman appeared and accepted her orders with a warmth which made Pascaline uncomfortable. She made up for it by picking an easy job for herself. The family’s cement plant shaded the slight rise in the broad expanse of grasslands. After assigning the workers to separate patches where they had enough room to swing machetes without hurting each other, she took that shady spot for herself. A few others working on either side of her would also get shade, but she couldn’t think of a way to deny them and make her preferential positioning more obvious. The ones in the sun weren’t even complaining. She did need a solid line of people attacking the brush so the creepy crawlies would know to slither in the opposite direction. And for the ones who’d rather stay and attack, she needed people on hand to correctly identify the snake and run for the appropriate antivenom.

If a few decades earlier, Great Aunt Mami’d been bitten and had had no treatment, she’d’ve been dead. Instead, she’d gotten a delayed injection of not quite the correct medicines and had to live with a lifetime of nasty side effects. Pascaline much preferred an immediate correct treatment with no long-term infirmities.

She made sure her closest workers were locals who could be counted on to properly identify any snakes that came out of the brush at them. She didn’t expect it to be her, but someone would probably be bitten today.

The rustle of dry stalks in the slight breeze hid the sounds of creatures moving in the brush. The plant’s assistant managers under Uncle Jacques had ignored it all through rainy season, and now in mid dry season, grasses topping over even Pascaline’s five-foot-ten-inch frame encroached on everything. The employee’s parking lot, filled mostly with motorbikes, had lost a third of its space to the overgrowth.

She hadn’t asked how many people had snakebites this year, but she didn’t have to.

The foreman complained of the snakes on the path between his house and the factory as if the devil had put them there instead of his own inaction. But maybe he hadn’t the authority to stop work for a day to clear brush or to hire ground crews. He’d let her take workers for her grass-clearing party with a cheerfulness that made her suspicious. If she had time, she’d check up on how their on-time delivery rate was going. He might be planning to blame her grass clearing for a slew of late deliveries.

Or maybe he was tired of his people getting bitten.

Antivenom worked. But only if it were applied in time with the right variety for that snake and the person wasn’t bitten too many times. Had there been deaths lately?

Pascaline eyed the cement plant employees working the grass line with her. She didn’t know any of their names.

The one beside her to her left kicked a rock and jumped back with practiced caution. A scorpion brandished its arched tail. A painful threat but not a deadly one. Usually.

Pascaline ignored it and focused on the back-and-forth sweep of her machete. Tall grasses fell. The slither and scamper of small things in the brush made their usual ominous rustling whenever she slowed enough to listen.

Professional courtesy seemed to require she give the creatures a chance to scurry back into the remaining grasses. The idiots who’d let the grass grow so close should have known field mice and insects would move in and snakes and scorpions would follow.

If there were farms nearby, they could rent a machine to do this work instead of risking people. Or if anyone could spare the cost, the plant could buy a machine to do this regularly and then rent it out to plant employees’ families who wanted to try a bit of farming on the side.

If Great Aunt Mami were still on speaking terms with Uncle Jacques, this problem could have become yet another profitable little business. Though maybe not. Great Aunt Mami had an already established business that sold antivenom.

Pascaline snorted.

The workers on either side glanced at her but didn’t comment or slow their back-and-forth attack on the grasses.

Most of the noises moved away, but something poisonous coiling to strike would make much the same sounds. Another workman had been bitten yesterday, she heard a man further down the row mention it between swings. Pascaline had been away or her rages would have kept the grasses safely back from the paths and roads.

Sometimes the snake bites you; sometimes your machete bites the snake.

“Pretty lady, pretty lady!”

That wasn’t a snake’s voice. Snakes only talked in fire stories. Pascaline kept her back-and-forth machete swings low and even. If she didn’t stand up ever again, would he fail to recognize her in the workers who’d been drafted to come out with her to help tame the brush?

“Pascaline!” He’d found her, more’s the pity, but he had switched to plain speaking, which was a definite plus.

She wondered how annoyed his family was going to be when she turned him down, and he reported it back to them. Aunt Julienne and Aunt Fatime had tracked her down last night in a rare moment of unity to let her know in no uncertain terms that they expected her to go through with this engagement.

Pascaline reluctantly stood and turned to look at her prospective fiancé, Endeley Adamou.

He was reasonably attractive in a bush chieftain’s son sort of way, with a strong body and laughing deep brown eyes fringed with thicker eyelashes than a man should have. Though she vaguely recalled Aunt Fatime’s mention of his background implying that his people weren’t really from the grassland area. She didn’t pay attention to details that didn’t matter. No one ever wanted to pair her up with men who had top-tier laboratories in need of a lead researcher or a giant failing business for her to reorganize. If those sorts of people existed, they either weren’t single or weren’t considered eligible by the extended Sadou family. Possibly they didn’t know they needed Pascaline to rescue them, she mused.

Adamou’s warm hand closed over her machete hand.

She jerked back in annoyance, and he released her hand but not before twisting it to make the sharpened flat of metal slip from her hand into the grass. Rude.

But not unwise. She allotted him two points for thinking of his own safety and deducted one for not considering the things that might come out of the grass. But she couldn’t let him know he’d been judged positively or he’d get annoying.

Pascaline whirled on him wearing a mask of irritation. She was going to annihilate him now to make sure he knew it was a bad idea to touch her. So what if she never really set any of the men down gently? This one she was going to hurt.

But Adamou leapt back with a twinkle in his eyes and grin.

“I just wanted to make sure you were unarmed first.” He spread his hands open showing their own emptiness. “Didn’t want to be hacked into pieces without you having at least a moment to think about it first.”

Worse, he held himself with an easy muscled calm, and laugh lines creased the corners of a mouth set in a handsome warm face. Adamou was beautiful.

As if I need a machete to hack you apart. Pascaline glared.

“Would you like to go inside? My guys refilled the gas for the freezer’s pilot light in the factory break room, so we have ice for the drinks now.” He crinkled his eyes at her, smiling without moving his mouth.

“No.” Pascaline did pace back a few meters from the edge of the grass line, though. The people hacking back the tall grass might still disturb something venomous, and it wasn’t reasonable to stand with her back to it for too long. Adamou walked back with her. His eyes stopped roving the grass line and examined her chest instead.

“This isn’t going to work out for us,” Adamou said, looking back into her eyes with a sadness that was entirely false.

Pascaline gaped. That was her line. She was the one who said that. Of course, not those words exactly, because she’d never bothered to be quite so generous about it, but had he really just said that?

“You what?”

Adamou shrugged elaborately. “I met this woman and although my family would really like me to marry someone that they picked out, this other woman is really nice, and I don’t think it would be fair to you if I pretended…”

Pascaline felt her eyes narrow. “You did not.”

“No, really,” Adamou insisted. “She’s amazing with languages and has been sending my uncle chocolates and coffee to try to warm the family up to her.”

“You aren’t in love with anybody.” Pascaline was sure of that much. “You just checked out my boobs.”

“They are magnificent,” Adamou acknowledged with a grin, “but Hadjara does exist.”

“And how many others?” Pascaline watched him and the twitch of his lips confirmed her guess. She found herself liking him in spite of herself, and unfortunately for her reputation he seemed aware of what she really thought.

“Let’s not get into how many,” Adamou said. “You aren’t really wanting to settle down at all either, so what if you just go back to the family compound and tell your aunts and uncles that we don’t suit?”

“Why should I be the one to take all the blame?” Pascaline glared at him.

He recoiled.

She hid a smile. She still had the upper hand.

He definitely didn’t want to be the one remembered as the reason for calling off the almost final engagement. She wasn’t quite sure why, cross-tribe politics wasn’t one of the things she bothered to study, but something about how he was maneuvering the conversation implied he’d used up too much of his social capital on appeasing some of those “let’s not get into how many” women and their families. The Sadous lacked a single core tribal affiliation and thus would always be new rich—until such a point as they lapsed into middle class—but they had family connections to the leaders of most of the influential tribes in West Africa, if you went enough generations back. Adamou smacked of old money and a familiarity with power.

He didn’t seem like the type to have intentionally sought out vulnerable women with no recourse if the breakups went poorly. And Great Aunt Mami would have known if he were.

“So if I were to take the blame”—Pascaline regarded him levelly, well aware that the men hacking at grass behind them were making too much noise to overhear—“what would it be worth to you?”

Adamou had opened his mouth to speak, but now nothing came out.

Out of his league. Pascaline decided she was enjoying this after all. She was always out of their league, but few of them realized it quite so quickly. It was almost a pity he didn’t suit.

“Um…” Adamou wasn’t letting himself be distracted by breasts now. “What did you have in mind?”

Pascaline considered the sky. “What have you got?”

“The family must have shared the financial statements with you.” Adamou was stalling.

“That’s what your family has. What can you offer?” Pascaline looked at him closely. He wore nice clothing, locally purchased but in good repair instead of brand-new. He probably didn’t have access to a trust fund of the size her uncles and aunts had.

“I’m getting the impression that I’m probably going to give you whatever you want,” Adamou said.

Oh, you get what you want. Might be why you don’t have what you need, Great Aunt Mami’s words echoed.

“Don’t cave so quickly.” Pascaline was annoyed. “You really need to make me work for it or it isn’t much fun.”

“I don’t even do my own bartering in the market,” Adamou objected. “I’m not allowed after I sold my birthright at age six for two fried makala, and my nanny had to go bargain for it back.”

“You did no such thing.” Pascaline shook her head, but she did like the renewed effort he was making. It wasn’t her fault if she had a reputation as the sort of person it was easier to give into than to fight. She did still like a fight. She almost regretted some of the times she’d made people who tried to fight dirty with her pay for it. “Tell me what really happened.”

“I didn’t have any coins, so I gave them a really expensive watch that had belonged to my chief’s grandfather.”

“Okay.” Pascaline acknowledged. “Close enough to a birthright. I’ll accept the substitution.”

“So what’s my damage?” Adamou looked over at her, still trying to use his attractiveness to edge some kind of concession out of her. He was probably used to women giving him pretty much whatever he wanted. Maybe even needed. “I’d suggest a kiss, but I’d rather not get a busted-up face.”

Pascaline might have liked to kiss him, but now that he’d said that her face heated.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sure that guy must have deserved it.”

Pascaline was confused for a moment, and then she remembered. Several years ago she’d been accused of giving a man a black eye, a broken arm, and more. It hadn’t been her. It had been the on-and-off boyfriend of the man who he’d been having a secret relationship with, and the whole thing had been really complicated and awkward for the guy, so she’d let Aunt Julienne think she’d done it. And when the family hadn’t argued for her, people had believed it. For almost a full year it had stymied her family’s attempt to marry her off, so from her perspective, it had been more than worth it.

“Not a problem,” Pascaline said, “but I want something more useful. A favor later. A big one. I’ll let you know when I think of something. In the meantime, you can call me up if you hear about something you could do to help me that I might be willing to accept as the favor.”

Adamou gave her a side-eye. “Help you what?”

Pascaline loved that look. It meant she was going to get a very eager helper who couldn’t wait to clear the favor off his record. “I want out. I’m looking for a job, an internship, maybe a fellowship. Anything outside the country with reasonable pay or room and board plus some kind of stipend. Ideally working with rich and powerful people.”

“You could have any of that here,” he said.

He didn’t get it. Few people did. “Yeah, and here I’ll be Little Pascaline until the day I die. Somewhere else I might one day get to be someone. Help me get out. I’ll call it all off. Say it’s all my fault, once again. And you can enjoy Hadjara and all the rest of your lovely woman friends.”

“You’re an angel.” Adamou gave her a bow. “I think Hadjara might know someone. I’ll give you a call soon.”

“Better do it quick,” Pascaline said. “My family won’t accept my refusal for very long if they have to keep living with me.”

Adamou stumbled. He hadn’t expected bluntness. For reasons unclear to Pascaline, most strangers expected her not to know her own reputation and especially not to understand other people’s motivations. If he needed it spelled out for him, she could spell it out.

“My whole family finds me irritating. They’ll push hard to get someone else to take me in if you don’t find me a job out of the country that can let them let me go without losing too much face.”

“Then”—Adamou was clearly processing this—“why don’t you just stop being, er, irritating.” His tone made it sound like he considered the term irritating not to be the most appropriate descriptor. Pascaline ignored it and answered the question asked.

“I don’t stop, because I shouldn’t have to. They have unreasonable expectations, and besides, if they were right, they’d have to change first. I find them even more irritating. And I like leaving the country. There are far more interesting jobs out there.”

“Out there,” he repeated. “Any hints on what sort of thing would be a good fit for you?”

“I’ll take any lead,” Pascaline said. “No need to go to extremes to meet the terms of the favor.” She didn’t want to seem overbearing.

“But as I understand the situation, your family is going to keep looking for a way to marry you off until you get out of the house, and if my leads don’t work out, they’ll keep making the rounds of eligibles, and this plan isn’t going to get them to cross me off the target list for very long.”

“So Hadjara isn’t going to marry you, then? Oh, you can keep your secrets.” Pascaline smiled. He was a quick study. “I don’t think I’d mind terribly much if things didn’t work out.”

“Mmm,” he said in response. “Something long-term, perhaps you’d like a nonprofit where you can help people?” He read her expression correctly. “Or not.”

“I like helping myself,” Pascaline agreed. “Just room and board is fine as long as there’s long-term profit sharing. Maybe a management training program as long there’s no strong hierarchical corporate policy. I’d hate to be penalized for subordinate failures.”

“Right. Lots of power, ideally with lots of money, no more interpersonal contact than absolutely necessary.”

“Exactly right.” Pascaline almost wanted to back out of the deal. This guy really did get her. “Just so you know, I’m not convinced I’d mind being married to you.”

He didn’t answer.

“So you might want to be quick about those job leads.” Pascaline drove the hint in harder. No matter how much she liked individuals, they never liked her back, so this kind of pressure always worked.

“Yes.” He opened the door for her. “I believe I understand you perfectly.”

Pascaline considered Adamou for a long moment before stepping through the door. He had, according to Aunt Julienne, a new doctorate from Yaoundé and a good position waiting for him in his family’s business. Aunt Julienne didn’t remember what either the degree field or the business were exactly. She’d said maybe it was palm oil and clearly remembered no details. A grocery store chain supplier, possibly? Pascaline hadn’t wasted time on reading his background files herself.

In person, though, wow. Adamou was well-built with the sort of gym muscles an actor might envy and had a nice face to go with the whole package. It wasn’t that he was unlovable. It was that the life that went with a marriage to him or anyone like him was.

Her family wasn’t going to believe her if she went with the truth, but since they never accepted the first reason she gave, Pascaline decided that she’d start with the truth this time. When the grandchildren’s grandchildren were gone, she didn’t want to be the one with the greatest number of descendants remaining. She wanted to be the one that everyone lied about having been distantly related to.


Endeley Adamou arranged a flight home from the north country as quickly as possible. Pascaline’s two aunts were starting to act interested in arranging a more direct family connection, and one jealous uncle had hinted he might drop Adamou into the limestone grinder if he stayed too much longer. Admaou had handled unwanted female interest frequently enough to be both unsurprised and adept at avoiding it. But he’d done what he was sent to do, and it was time to go.

A very large mountain waited for him, and he wanted to get back to it. The palm plantations down the slopes near sea level would continue their regular cycles of growth and harvest, but his uncle, the chief, required a report. And in exchange, Adamou could return to his private studies with only a few of the tribe members coming up to pester him now and again to ensure he was still alive.

The note he was expecting arrived. Hadjara appreciated his “kind assistance” getting the introduction to his uncle. “But considering,” blah blah blah, she thought it would really be best if they didn’t see each other. The chocolatier work kept her really busy anyway, et cetera. Adamou smiled to himself. At least he’d been able to use her to fend off the Sadou madwoman.

Pascaline hadn’t been half as bad as he’d been led to believe, but it was a good thing he was flying out already. He had the distinct impression that she routinely got everything she asked for and only limited access could keep her from having everything she wanted. Especially because he wasn’t sure he would mind.

The stories those plant foremen had told about her. He could only shake his head. She was a pain, but she was right! Some of the longtime workers had pointed out former death traps which—at Pascaline’s insistence—had been fixed. The Sadous didn’t know her value.

Adamou had had those conversations with the workers and managers alone, so the chief wouldn’t hear about it from the few staff that had been sent with him. The chief, head of the Endeley family, as well as of the Bakweri tribe, generally would need to be appeased about the wedding not going through, unless of course he could find a way to get Pascaline to seriously reconsider. Adamou empathized with Pascaline’s need to occasionally give the family what they expected from her, but it didn’t mean he didn’t have the same issue.

He had a stepbrother who’d thought he’d pretend to be an orphan. After all his schooling was complete, he’d moved to France. Got a regular job and a bank account. Direct-deposited his pay only into his personal account. Family showed up on his doorstep, and he wouldn’t put them up. Uncles called telling him to come home and explain himself, and he refused. Adamou shuddered at the idea. His stepbrother was about fifteen years older. They weren’t close. But he’d had to hear the raging fights the family had had about what to do about him. They’d finally chosen to stop paying his new wife’s student loans. The man had returned home deeply apologetic. That was ten years ago and the family still didn’t trust him. He’d probably never get his spouse or children accepted as core members of the tribe and any time he ever needed a loan or expected a payment from family coffers he wouldn’t be getting it.

Pascaline seemed like she might be the Sadous’ rebel child. But she didn’t hide or run away. She fought directly and they seemed to respect her for it for all that they wished she’d stop fighting and go live the life they wanted to pick out for her.

Her life was definitely missing something. He thought she really needed to have a nice mountain, preferably a volcanic one. He had one and it was a delight. Her volcano should probably be only figurative, but he still felt that she had a mountain-shaped hole in her life.

Fako, the mighty volcano which rumbled and spat unbreathable sulfur fumes but generally did no great damage, was quite peaceable for a volcano and quite unruly for a mountain. To say that his relationship to his study was complicated would be a vast understatement. Adamou was quite fully convinced that there were no spirit beings in, with, and under the matter that made up Earth’s surface, but at the chief’s insistence he’d stopped saying so out loud.

Adamou didn’t particularly want to serve as the lead cat wrangler for his extended family during his generation’s tenure at the tribal helm, but none of his extended cousins seemed particularly likely to do the job well. Some wanted the position, which in due course Adamou expected would make his life more difficult than he wanted it to be. The chief had pulled him aside privately to share that he hadn’t wanted the chieftaincy either, but that not wanting the job was part of proving that you were suited for it. Anyone who wanted it for its own sake didn’t understand how much work and how little reward the position involved.

Chiefship was rather like volcanology actually. Study the great craters in hot, dangerous environments. Get demands from neophytes to predict the far future with an impossible level of detail, and then get blamed no matter what happens.

Adamou arrived home just after the news of the arrival of the Sadous’ latest contract. Corporate secrecy was no match for family gossip. One of the men traveling with him tapped Adamou on the shoulder and whispered it.

“The head of the Sadou family stopped by to see your uncle the chief. They want to use your mountain.”

“Don’t worry,” another one said, “my brother got the Sadou grandfather’s car for him, and he didn’t leave happy. The chief sent him away, I’d bet.”

The first man gave Adamou a sharp nod. “Thought you should know. My cousin brought in the coffee,” he added by way of explanation.


Adamou and the chief had coffee themselves not much later. In fact, thanks to concerned extended family working at the landing strip and in the cab service, Adamou got from the airport to his uncle’s home office faster than he ever had before.

Chief Endeley Bouba himself looked more bureaucratic than kingly. He usually wore old suits because they still fit, and had no beard because the scraggly tufts he still tried to coax out every now and then itched. If chieftaincy were chosen by beauty, his uncle wouldn’t have ever gotten the job. The little bit of Chinese in their ancestry had skipped Adamou entirely, but it gave the chief both a flat nose and a height well under average.

His uncle’s creased forehead wasn’t the only sign of distress in the room. The chief had always preferred suits over the handwoven and embroidered robes sold mostly to tourists, but his uncle had one of the old-time outfits in dry cleaner’s plastic hanging on the hook that normally took his suit coat.

That was chieftain business and nothing Adamou should comment on, but the mountain remained absolutely Adamou’s responsibility. And also, he wouldn’t mind giving Pascaline her favor immediately.

“Sir,” he said, “I realize the engagement with the Sadou woman hasn’t gone through, but are you sure about…”

“It didn’t?” His uncle sat back, obviously relieved. “Thank Allah.” Chiefs had shrunken power bases now compared to the days when they were either heads of state or high priests, or sometimes both depending on the size of the tribe and the nature of their family traditions, but they remained very important people. “I’m so glad I sent you,” he said.

And yet even with the man’s supposed reduced power, most people Adamou knew tried very hard to do everything this chief asked.

As the Bakweri chieftain, Adamou’s uncle kept offices down near the palm plantations for managing that business, and also at home for all the work of family and tribe. The Cameroonian government was staffed with representatives from most tribes including theirs and run by members of the most powerful families. Not every elected politician aligned neatly with one tribe or another, and some quite wealthy families had links to so many tribes that they no longer fit under any chief’s influence and had become independent powers—like the Sadou with all their oil and gas interests.

The Sadou family had in the past also managed the nation’s energy business and on occasion built other industries as needed to support their primary work. That family’s patriarch, Sadou Moussa, had an excellent reputation for finding places for any younger-generation family member a tribal chief asked to see employed. He rarely asked for favors in return.

“I’m grateful.” Endeley Bouba opened his hands to lift them up in a motion half prayer and half thanksgiving. “But how did you know to turn her down?”

“Pascaline, uh…” Adamou searched for words.

“Never mind. I’ve heard more about her since you left, and I completely understand.”

“Um, sir.” Adamou briefly considered telling the man the full truth about his conversation with Pascaline, but if he was willing to turn down a request from the Sadou patriarch, he wouldn’t be inclined to support Adamou’s continued interest in the man’s granddaughter. “I’d like to hear about that contract. It might not be a bad idea to get involved.”

“I didn’t tell him no outright,” his uncle allowed. “It was Sadou Moussa himself after all, but I read the papers his aide sent ahead. It was an offer to buy the mountain, and I can’t permit that.” He nodded at a picture on the wall of one of their ancestors in full priestly regalia. It was Endeley Issa, who was chief three generations back. The photographer had captured the light streaming through the rising fumes in a way that gave the simple mountain top an unearthly feel.

“Moussa is coming back in a few days.” His uncle stood up and went to his own hanging regalia. He peeled the plastic covering back to more fully reveal the robes. “I need you to be the priest who tells him no.”

His uncle sniffed at the robes and pulled back again in disgust. “They still haven’t gotten the smell out.”

Adamou smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m used to our volcano god’s incense. But are you sure about this?”

His uncle gave him a frank look much better suited to the man’s usual demeanor than this talk of priests and their mountain. “Moussa will understand, or if he doesn’t his staff will explain things to him.”

“Not that.” Adamou nodded at the other framed photo of family on his uncle’s wall. The one that showed all Endeleys at a feast a few years back. There’d been other posed pictures taken, but this one showed Bouba’s three sons presenting a great platter of roast antelope. They’d taken a hunting trip before the party specifically for that purpose and the cook had done a fantastic job with the meat they’d brought back. “There are other men who expect to be chief after you, and if I’m the one you have talking to people outside the family about what’s good for the mountain, it’ll be hard to make a change later and pick anyone else.”

His uncle nodded. “Yes. And since none of them want to live here all the time, or want to spend time on the mountain, and especially don’t want to be telling any man of Sadou Moussa’s stature no, this is exactly the right thing. Let them see the real work of the job, and ten, fifteen years from now when I’m sick of it all, they’ll thank you for taking it.” He patted Adamou on the shoulder. “If there wasn’t a nasty job like this to do, I’d have to invent one to set up a smooth transition. Keep it in mind when you take the job yourself and have to find your own replacement to train up.”

The chief returned the robe to its hanger and fussed with getting the folds to drape neatly. “And on the business side, I could negotiate a land-use agreement instead of a sale, but whatever old Moussa wants it for, he’s not the most capable business man out there.”

He turned to give Adamou a knowing look. “There are some people who might come to you with a proposal and if you don’t take it, you’ll never hear anything like it again. But no. Whatever this plan is, someone else will come to us in a couple years and offer twice the amount if we just hold out.”

“Not this time, sir.” Adamou leaned in. “I know what this is all about, and we want the Sadous to owe us favors now more than ever.” He paused, thinking about how to explain what he’d learned. He’d start with the source. “Have you heard of Moussa’s Tchami relative who goes by Mami? She told me a few things I think you should know.”

“Mami, as in Mami-Wata?” His uncle recoiled.

“Um, no.” Adamou blinked. The spiritual talk had him for a moment actually thinking of the old woman as a little witchy and finding it fit. “She was married to a cousin of Moussa’s. I think Tchami Magdalene is her legal name, and she has an amazing number of small business connections. It seems she and another Tchami relation are repaying a favor to the Sadou family.”

“Yes, that’s who I was afraid you meant.” Endeley Bouba shook his head. “And yes, I know who their Aunt Mami is.” He dropped back into the chair with his brow furrowed and indecision pressing his lips into a tight line. “Whatever craziness our family does, I don’t want to ever hear of you pulling the ridiculous stunts that Aunt Mami does. Or if you do…” He shook a finger at Adamou. “I don’t care if ancestor spirits turn out to be exactly as much a figment of our imaginations as I think they are, I’ll still come back and haunt you for it!”

“Yes, sir,” Adamou said.

But his uncle wasn’t done. “Do you know what that woman did to start her whole mystical powers hoodoo nonsense?”

Adamou almost said, “No, sir,” but he actually did know, and while he was fairly sure he didn’t believe in ancestor spirits either, his uncle was alive and well and currently acting as both head of his family and chief of his tribe. So he answered honestly.

“Sir, I believe she had a near-death experience and her husband died trying to save her.”

“Sadou Michel died trying to save Tchami Magdalene.” Bouba made the statement with a tone of flat disbelief. “Pour me more coffee.” He tapped his finger on the rim of his long-empty cup. “If you’ve got that history wrong, who knows many other things haven’t been passed down accurately.

“Idiots in love don’t walk in the bush country at night without a light. They’d been married—what, two or three months—and already he was slipping out at night? A reasonable woman would have gone straight for the divorce, and a few people thought she was actually out there with a machete and no flashlight because she intended to cut off something from his body and not to mangle any unfortunate snakes. But back then Aunt Mami was a sweet little thing, and she probably never intended to do more than threaten him.

“And as for the other woman having never come forward.” He stopped to sip the coffee that Adamou provided. “That most certainly does not mean the other woman was Mami-Wata herself punishing the man for straying from her chosen path for him or some such nonsense. There wouldn’t have been just one other woman. Michel was in the habit of hiring several, and since those women were, ah, in the profession, none of them would have wanted to be associated with a client being found out.

“That younger relative of hers, Fabrice, had a part-time job at the hospital where they brought her. I think he stocked shelves and such in the evenings after school. But anyway, he was there and a lot younger, so nobody wanted to tell him any of the stuff about how bad Magdalene’s marriage into the great family was while it looked like she wasn’t going to make it.

“And then later Michel got snake-bit too.” The older Endeley rolled his eyes. “And that happened because he got shredded by his entire family for treating his new bride so badly. A natural genius, his first response was to get staggering drunk, and then his second brilliance was to going snake hunting in the dark the next night while still drunk. And the family was furious enough that they let him. What did they think would happen? The Sadous of this generation are much improved, but it is not, believe me, a perfect family.”

Adamou said, “I, uh, had only heard that she nearly died from a snake bite and that her new husband went searching for the snake so they could give her the right antivenom, and he got bit too, but he didn’t get treated in time.”

“Ah.” Bouba nodded. “I suppose that’s all technically true. But it doesn’t begin to properly explain who their Aunt Mami is now. You think she’s involved in this project Sadou Moussa wants to use the mountain for?”

“Do we want her to be?”

“Yes!” The chief leaned forward. “If I made another offer, do you think you could tolerate the other young Sadou woman? Business ties are all very nice, but if this is a project with Tchami backing—either Aunt Mami or Fabrice—and they’ve finally gotten the full force of the Sadou family behind them too, we don’t want to just be supporting it. We want to be in it.” He snapped his fingers in a quick half dozen twitches of his hand, thinking. “There’s that other girl. Kind of plain from what I hear, but they all like her better. I think her name is Martine or Marthe or something like that.”

“Sadou Maurie,” Adamou said.

“Yes, that’s it.” His uncle nodded firmly. “We’ll have you meet her. You might suit better. She’s probably less of a snake than Pascaline.”


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Framed