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Moses moves through the forest reading signs. He and Olentwala keep up an easy undulous whistling dialogue with the cattle. Moses explains that the whistles have meaning. The cows know by the Masai's whistle whether to go left or right, whether there is water near, whether they are headed back home.
A sign: Moses kneels and looks at a patch of sandy earth for a moment. He spits a mist upon his palm, pssht-psssht-psssht, and then he pats the ground. He shows what sticks to the moisture: some dirt, but also a minute bristling of golden tiny hairs. A shedding. "Lion," says Moses. "Last night."
Moses stays downwind of the cattle. He says that the lion, if it is there, will know to keep downwind, and not give the cows its scent. So Moses and his spear will stay between the lions and his cows. Most students of the lion say the lion pays no attention to wind, but one does not argue with a man who has killed six of them.
In an easy loping walk through the meadows, Moses sings a warrior song. There is a falsetto line of rapid narrative in these songs that is interrupted with a chorus of bass organ tones fetched from deep in the chest -- low, menacing warrior iterations, animal noises proclaiming war beneath the almost soprano narration. Moses is performing both the falsetto and the deep, sinister chorus. The deep tones of the chorus are like the lowest register of a fierce harmonica. The song is about the Masai clans, about old drought and famine. An old laibon says, don't worry, because the warriors will go and raid and get cows from other tribes.
There is a warrior lope that goes along with the song, although Moses does not give it the full treatment now. Chin and chest jut forward at the assertion of organ tone: Hunnnnnnh! Hunnnnnnnnh! The Masai know how to look dangerous, and sound dangerous. And the history of East African warfare confirms that they are dangerous. But the visitor wonders why the hands of the men are so oddly soft.
The Boran cattle wear bells that thock and dong and clatter through the forest. The Masai and the cows are so intimately connected that each herdsman knows every cow individually (even, as now, when we are bringing along 140 head) and knows where each will be in the line of march. Moses says the same two white cows always lead the herd, and they do. And the same white cow always comes in last. Moses now and then quite tenderly browses with his hands over one of his animals and pulls off ticks, an act of love. Herding cows is infinitely pleasant for the Masai. It is a matter of walking their money around the grounds. Their cows are dear, animate wealth.
At midmorning the Masai pause. The cows graze, and the herdsmen shelter lazily under a grove of olive trees. Moses and Olentwala joke in Ol' Maa. The visitor stretches out and makes notes: "Moses has killed six lions, more than 60 buffalo. A buffalo wounded his brother last year, and he wants to kill lots of buffalo. He points to a buff. skull on the forest floor and says he killed that one there several months ago. Cows grazing all around me now. M. shows me a 'buffalo's house' -- a hollowed out space among the olive trees where the buffalo shelter. Moses: 'We like the animals. I am very sad if we don't see them.' "