“What do you mean, doctor them?” Andrew asked.
Smith removed the pipe from his mouth and added more tobacco, tamping it down with a calloused thumb. “When the witch doctors buy ox tails and skins from our stores or cut the tails from farmers’ cattle, they are preparing some disgusting concoction to make their warriors invulnerable to our bullets.” He replaced his pipe.
“Does it work, Sergeant?” Andrew asked.
“Not so far,” Smith said, puffing blue smoke into the air. “But they’re a superstitious bunch and believe in all sorts of charms and magic. They believe that wizards, abaThakathis, cause all illness and everything bad. These abaThakathis are like spirits that infest a plant, or a rock, an animal, or a human.”
abaThakathis,abaThakathisSmith removed the pipe from his mouth. “What’s w
