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 assassins—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.

---

        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.