DREAMS OF THE N'DOROBO

Synopsis
 

Jimmy, a member of UDT-21 (an Underwater Demolition Team and precursors to the U.S. Navy SEALS) peers through the lattice of bamboo and nettles on Mt. Kenya as he witnesses the Mau-Mau Oathing Ceremony performed by an ancient N’dorobo shaman. The unholy sacraments of blood and body fluids from a sacrificed goat function to swear new Mau-Mau initiates to secrecy, loyalty, and duty to the Mau-Mau movement. Jimmy’s Winchester Model 12’s discharge signals the onset of the raid on the Mau-Mau, and all but the shaman are reduced to bleeding stick figures in the weak light of the campfire. As a shadow amongst shadows, the shaman escapes up the tunnel-like trails through the bamboo. Jimmy gives chase and corners the shaman in the bower of a giant camphor tree and, when ready to complete his job, finds only a leopard in his shotgun sights. The shaman has mysteriously disappeared! Then, too, the leopard is gone—vanishing in front of Jimmy into wisps of vapor. 

        So begins Dreams of the N’dorobo—a novel that mixes healthy doses of martial-arts action, mountaineering adventure, mysterious tribal ceremonies, and modern-day terrorists and political assassinations.

 

        Dreams of the N’dorobo is an adventure tale set in rich and exotic East Africa. It’s a novel with shamans seemingly able to spirit themselves through the jungles and onto the high crags of Mt. Kenya—applying their magic to support the Mau-Mau in the assassination of colonials and military officers in the 1950’s. Now, this dark and old magic is sought by a modern-day assassin in a narrative whose characters include Navy frogmen—rogues turned mercenary—as well as gangbangers turned expatriate mercenaries. Finally, there is the protagonist—Gabe Turpin—a middle-aged cultural anthropologist and adventurer who explores the mystical and sometimes dark side of tribal cultures throughout the world.
 

        The novel centers on the shamanic ritual of dreaming, as practiced by an elusive band of N’dorobo living in the forests of Mt. Kenya. Gabe at first views  dreaming as an interesting paranormal tribal ritual. However, the antagonist, Ralph Chang Bazaan, a professional assassin, is obsessed with the useful application of dreaming. Each man is introduced to the dreaming of the N’dorobo by one of two old shamans—one who was previously a game tracker turned hunter of men and the other an Oath Giver during colonial Kenya’s Mau-Mau revolt. Bazaan, intent on using the dreaming of the N’dorobo in the assassinations of Kenya’s new President and the Vice President of the United States, encounters his old adversary . . . Gabe Turpin.

Excerpt

Prologue

North Liki River, Mt. Kenya: 1953
 

Jimmy watched through a lattice of bamboo and nettles as the Mau-Mau Oath Giver broke the bones of the tethered goat. The goat bleated dumbly at the snapping of each foreleg and the Oath Giver, dressed in the green hides of Colobus monkeys, mumbled the Kikuyu oath. The initiates sat wide-eyed, apparently stricken, as the ceremony unfolded around the weak fire and the arbor of ki apple thorns.

 

        Jimmy knew no Kikuyu and only kidogo (little) Swahili. Regardless of not understanding the mumbo-jumbo of the Kyuke, it was obvious to him this was, indeed, some very bad ju-ju. The Oath Giver, using a small, sharp knife, cut the eyes out of the dying goat’s skull and skewered them on the ki apple thorns. The mumbling continued and the Oath Giver disemboweled the goat and placed the stomach matter into the fold of a wide, waxy-green leaf. Cutting the goat’s throat, he drained some of the blood into the leaf and his words elicited a moan from the initiates. One of the dark acolytes uttered a keening wail as his eyes rolled back in his head. The Oath Giver directed the group to pass under the eyeball-adorned arbor and then passed the bowl-like leaf and its hellish sacrament to each initiate, who, in turn, shared in the communion. 

 

        Jimmy had remained perfectly still for over two hours and was more disturbed by what he saw than he was by the rash of insect bites and nettle welts he wore as a testament to his long crawl and silent vigil. This wog needs killed in a hard way, thought Jimmy.

 

        Soft dripping sounds were the only evidence of the night’s rain. The rain had turned into a cold mist and an occasional rivulet would careen down Jimmy’s forehead, into his eyes. He absently watched the oathing ceremony and laid his chin on his forearm. He quietly inhaled the smell of the forest’s floor and it reminded him of his mother’s herb garden back in Ottumwa, Iowa—pungent, earthy, and green. Far off he heard the bark of a zebra and wondered what beasties were prowling nearby, regarding him as part of the forest’s food chain. Jimmy felt he was a long ways from Iowa, and there was a lot of difference between hunting quail in the plum thickets of home and hunting men in the cold, thin air of Kenya’s White Highlands. Jimmy was sure the rest of the team was in position. He figured it to be about midnight and time to break up this ghouls’ tea party. 

 

        Jimmy brought his Winchester Model 12 up to sight on the Oath Giver’s crotch. This will be a eunuch experience for this wog fucker, thought Jimmy as he silently chuckled. The hollow thunk of the Model 12 was drowned out by the following deep-throated rattle of the Thompson 45’s and the explosion of Tree’s Browning automatic rifle. 

        The oathing initiates were rendered into screaming, bleeding stick figures against the low light of the fire. The eye-adorned arbor was blown apart and the structure scattered itself as an offering over the carcass of the goat. Miraculously, the Oath Giver had eluded Jimmy’s shotgun blast and was running down a game trail with amazing agility for a man as old as he seemed.  

        Springing up like a cat, Jimmy ran after the Oath Giver, his legs tingling and weak from his long forest vigil. The Oath Giver, likely a Mau-Mau lieutenant, was as a shadow amongst shadows as he plunged deeper into the bamboo. The game trail entered a meadow-like island in the forest, and Jimmy saw the Mau-Mau skitter into the huge, moss-covered cavity of a camphor tree. Jimmy instantly stopped his pursuit and dropped on his belly, carefully listening and watching. For certain, the Oath Giver was hiding in the cave of the tree.

 

        Jimmy crawled slowly to the base of the camphor tree. Holding his breath to listen, all he could hear was the dripping forest and the coursing of blood in his ears. Nothing. Jimmy crabbed forward into the bole of the tree. Surprisingly, the ground felt like packed dirt and was totally dry. Jimmy’s skin prickled, knowing he was within a few feet of the Mau-Mau. Unsure who was predator and who was prey in this deadly game of silence, Jimmy again held his breath and listened. Again there was nothing—just a roar of silence. Jimmy opened his mouth and flared his nostrils, and tasted the air. Like a wine taster, bouncing the air off his palate, he detected the smell of kerex stove fuel as well as the musty, stale scent of old human sweat. His hand touched a smooth wooden object on the dirt floor of this arboreal cave. It was an old wooden spoon, probably used for making n’dizi and ugale.

 

        The sound started as a purr and slowly evolved into a throaty, gurgling growl. Then, more silence before Jimmy heard, just a few feet away, a deep umph-umph grunting sound. Pointing his shotgun in the direction of the noise, Jimmy slowly fished for and found his Zippo lighter. Slowly he moved the lighter under his belly to muffle the click of its opening. Now, with the lighter open and held ready in his left hand, he placed the barrel of the shotgun on his left forearm and his finger found the trigger.

 

        Focusing totally into the darkness of the bower, at the source of the noise, he flicked the lighter. At first it looked like a man dressed in a leopard skin, but the face was all wrong—angular shadows played across bared, white teeth and yellow eyes not really human—changing in a kaleidoscope of shadows. As Jimmy’s finger tightened on the trigger, the leopard curled its lips and let loose a low growl, its devil eyes burning with an almost human hatred.

 

        Reflexively, Jimmy pulled the trigger, and quickly pumped another shell into the chamber and fired again as he rolled onto his belly. It was dark again in the tree cave and deathly still. Searching along the line of his roll, Jimmy found his lighter and quickly flicked the flint. The shadows of the tree cave were empty. Spying an old, used candle sitting atop a Blue Boy butter can a few feet away, Jimmy lit it and the room in the tree trunk was cleansed of its darkness. 

        Jimmy found his flashlight and thrust its beam into all the recesses of the tree cave, ready to shoot from the hip, his finger playing light on the shotgun’s trigger. The tree cave was an obvious hide-out where a handful of Mau-Mau could sleep warm, curled together on the packed, dry floor. There was no sign of man--or leopard—in the tree cave. Jimmy heard the bush buck call of the Tracker. All was secure.

        Jimmy stood in the dripping bower of the camphor tree, its moss-covered trunk like the beard of a wise old man. He mused on how the old Mau-Mau could have escaped him, and what he had really shot at in the tree cave. He had heard of the nearly impossible feats ascribed to leopards, but couldn’t believe one could survive a point-blank blast of a shotgun. The forest seemed to be holding its breath as Jimmy turned back to the ambush site. Jimmy was startled when he heard a tree hyrax scream in the indigo of the forest’s night. Jimmy slowly and very carefully walked back to the campsite turned abattoir. Despite the wall of vegetation between him and the killing field, Jimmy could smell the fire, smoke, feces, and blood that, of late, was the unique smell of the White Highlands.

 

About the Author

 

Gary Gabelhouse is the chief executive of Fairfield Research, Inc., an international media-research firm. Gabelhouse is an experienced writer, having been published in magazines and literary journals, and an experienced expedition climber who has staged light-weight mountaineering expeditions in Africa, South America, Europe, Asia, and throughout North America. In 1986, he was nominated to the Explorers Club by Sir Edmund Hillary and the late Dr. Barry Bishop (1st American Everest expedition and Governor for the National Geographic Society).
Gabelhouse has lived, climbed, and backpacked extensively throughout Kenya and East Africa—living with the Maasai and staging six expeditions to Mt. Kenya’s North Face.

 

 

Strengths

 

Dreams of the N’dorobo poses an unique set of literary strengths  . . .
 

Fast-paced action       Exotic imagery       Espionage thrills

High adventure       Gritty violence       Spooky undercurrents

The author has created a wonderfully rich, multi-dimensional tale of Africa.  Through test-readings, it was established the novel appeals to a wide cross-section of the book-buying market.

Dreams of the N'dorobo is the first of a series of action-adventure novels featuring Gabe Turpin.

An old, tribal magic and new science is discovered in the dark forests of Mt. Kenya.  This ancient magic offers a challenge to the very concept of reality and a break-through in the art of assassination.

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