by Meja Mwangi
“The dogs too,” he told us. “Bwana Ruin has called the army.”
I lay awake that night, listening to the thunder crash and the rain beat down in earnest. I decided I would wake up before dawn and go back to the forest and find Nigel. I would search the whole forest. I would not eat or rest. I would not return until I had found Nigel.
Then a desperate thought entered my mind. What if I did not find Nigel? What then?
I would run away from home, I said to myself. I would go far, far away and stay there. I would go over the Loldaiga hills to the land of the Dorobos and change my name. I would go where no one would ever find me. I would never return home if I did not find Nigel.
By dawn the village was surrounded by an army of angry white soldiers. They rounded all of us up and herded us into the auction pen. The rain during the night had turned it into a mud pool. They made us sit on the mud while they went through our huts as before.
This time they were not looking for guns or for the mau-mau. They were looking for clues that would link the villagers to the disappearance of the white boy. However, this time they unearthed things that would send a lot of people to detention for a long, long time. They found things for which some villagers would no doubt be hanged.
They found a homemade gun and three rounds of ammunition. They found stolen maps and medical supplies — things that illiterate villagers were not supposed to know anything about.
Then they called the villagers out one by one and marched them to the farmhouse. Bwana Ruin had set up an interrogation office in a tent on his front lawn. They were ordered to produce their identity cards, their movement passes and their work permits. They were asked whether they or anyone they knew was mau-mau. Some of them were released right away and allowed to go back to their homes. Others were herded to one side under the watchful eyes of the soldiers.
Then my turn came for questioning. I limped into the tent and stood in front of the table set up there. Behind the table were Bwana Ruin and three white officers.
The questioning was done by a serious-looking officer with gray hair and grave, old eyes. He asked what had happened to my foot. I told him that I had stepped on a thorn. He asked me how old I was. I told him. He wanted to know where I went to school. I told him that too. The soldiers had found a toy pistol in my mother’s hut. He showed it to me and asked if I knew what it was. I told him.
“Do you know where we found it?” he asked me.
“Under my bed,” I said. “I put it there.”
He glanced at Bwana Ruin. The old man was sitting slumped in his chair with an angry frown on his face.
“Whose gun is it?” the inspector asked me.
“It is mine,” I told him.
“Yours, aye?” Bwana Ruin sat up. “Where did you get it from?”
“Nigel gave it to me,” I told him. “The Bwana Kidogo gave it to me.”
“He did, did he?” Bwana Ruin asked me. “Whose toto are you, aye? Whose child are you?”
The inspector interrupted him to ask me when exactly the Bwana Kidogo had given me the gun. I could not remember exactly when. But it was after we got tired of playing cowboys and discovered hunting. It all seemed so long ago now.
“So you are a friend of the Bwana Kidogo?” he asked me.
I answered that I was.
“When did you see him last?” he asked.
I hesitated. What did they know? Had someone found out about our hunting expedition with Salt and Pepper? Nigel would never have told anyone about it. That was our understanding.
“Yesterday,” I said to the inspector.
“Where did you last see him?”
“When the soldiers came to surround us,” I said to him. “He was standing over there with mamsab.”
Among the suspects waiting to be taken away to Nanyuki for further investigation was Hari. I saw him sitting on the grass with other suspects while armed soldiers stood guard over them. When our eyes met he looked right through me. I realized I was not supposed to know him.
I turned to the inspector and answered his questions as best as I could. When the questioning was over, the inspector said I could go back home. My mother was there, worried as I had never seen her worried before.
“I told you,” she said gravely. “Your father told you all the time too.”
“Told me what?” I asked her.
“To keep away from the little white man. Now see what misfortune you have brought upon us all.”
“But it is not my fault,” I said.
“Whose fault is it?” she asked, her voice full of pain.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, you don’t know,” she said, close to tears. “When will you ever know anything?”
I had no idea. Nobody ever told me anything that was not an order. But the very first opportunity I got, I called Jimi and together we sneaked out of the village and down through the forest to the river. We forded the swollen river, way downstream from the village, and set out to look for Nigel.
We covered a lot of ground that day. Starting from where I had left off the night before, we worked our way up the valley, searching under every bush and tree. We found the body of the other Alsatian about a mile away from the first, big and bloated and beginning to smell. He had died from two deep cuts on his head, and there were blue flies all around him. The area bore the signs of a fierce fight, and there was blood all over.
I was really scared now. Jimi whined from fear. I had never seen him so terrified. It took all the promises I could make to persuade him to stay with me a little longer.
My foot hurt terribly. It ached with every step I took, and I had to stop every now and then to rest it. I cut a stick to lean on, and we continued our search. I called out Nigel’s name. Jimi barked out Nigel’s name. We stopped, listened, then moved on.
Sometimes we came across a human footprint. Sometimes a broken twig was all that was left to tell us that something, or someone, had been there. We came across a herd of buffalo browsing their way quietly through a glade.
I knew we had nothing to fear from the herd. Only a lone or a wounded buffalo was dangerous. I led Jimi quietly around the glade. They saw us and snorted a warning at us to keep our distance.
We searched in countless caves along the river valley. We found nothing but bat droppings and old animal lairs.
In the late afternoon we called off the search and returned tiredly home. Along the way, we came upon a party of white soldiers searching for Nigel’s body along the river bank. They thought he might have gone fishing and drowned in a flash flood.
When we got back home, we found soldiers about to arrest my father. They had him in handcuffs and were preparing to take him away.
“Don’t cry,” he said to my mother.
I had never seen my mother weep. She had suffered enough in her life, but I had never seen her shed a tear. The closest she had ever come to crying was when my little sister died of measles. Now, as the soldiers prepared to take my father away, she put her arm around me and drew me to her. He seemed to notice me then.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Nowhere,” I said.
“Stay with your mother,” he ordered. “And do not cry.”
I was too frightened to cry. It seemed that my life had been turned upside down. Nothing was the same. Even my own father, Bwana Ruin’s most important man and the toughest, bravest man I knew, was not immune to the terror that had suddenly descended on us. Worse still, he seemed to have resigned himself to being shot.
They took him roughly by the arm and led him away. Even Jimi seemed to understand what was happening. He whined faintly and crawled under the grain store to hide.
“Where are they taking him?” I asked my mother.
“I don’t know,” she told me
.
“Will they hang him?”
“I don’t know.”
We watched them until they disappeared among the village huts.
“What happened to your foot?” my mother finally asked.
“Nothing,” I replied.
“You run to the river and fetch some water,” she said. “We have a lot of washing to do today.”
It was very late in the afternoon and there was not enough sun left in the sky to dry any clothes. I did not understand why she wanted to do her washing at this time of day. But I took the bucket and obediently limped down to the place where I had first met the little white man.
There was no joy in it any more. There was no joy in anything any more.
Ten
THE SOLDIERS DID not find Nigel’s body in the river. The soldiers did not find Nigel’s body anywhere. Everyone was sad or frightened, and the whole farm was covered in a cloud of gloom.
The following day, my father and Hari were released from prison. They came home late in the morning tired and very hungry. They did not wish to talk about their experiences.
I left them waiting for an early lunch of ugali and sour milk and sneaked out of the village to continue the search for my lost friend. Jimi completely refused to come with me. He did not like what was going on in the forest any more than I did. Finding the Alsatian’s bloated body had seriously affected his confidence. So I resumed the search alone.
I started where we had called it off the day before and worked my way up river along the forest. I crawled into each and every cave and animal lair I came across. I looked everywhere, even up in the trees, hoping against hope that I would find the white boy alive and unharmed.
It had rained heavily the night before, so there was little chance of finding any trail more than a few hours old.
I came across several fresh animal prints. One was a lone buffalo’s. One appeared to have been left by a lion or a very large dog. There were many smaller prints left by gazelles and other deer. But I came across no human trail.
It occured to me then that Nigel might have been killed and eaten by wild animals. But then I would have found remnants — his shoes or his clothing.
My foot was swollen and full of pus. It was extremely painful, and I had to stop several times to rest it. Finally, I used a dry thorn to prick the wound. I squeezed out all the pus, wrapped the foot in a rag torn from my shirt tail and moved on.
I searched all morning. I went deeper and farther into the forest than I had ever been before. I discovered caves and hide-outs I did not know existed, where foxes hid their cubs and wild cats had litters of kittens. Once I came upon a wild dog carrying a freshly killed dik-dik back to its lair.
Then, late in the afternoon, I found caves that showed signs of human occupation. There were fireplaces and cooking things. There were footprints all over and animal bones left behind when the occupants had moved on.
It was in the last of the caves that I found Nigel. There were hot embers in the fireplace and piles of deer and sheep skins against the wall. There was a pile of firewood at one end. There were cooking pots and machetes and spears and countless other things. The smell of buffalo meat was everywhere.
Nigel was at the very deep end of the cave, tied up and covered with several large sheep skins. At first I thought he was dead.
I removed the sheep skins and turned him over. Then he blinked at me, and I knew he was alive.
He was really black now, covered in soot and dust, and he smelled of skins.
I untied him and removed the gag from his mouth.
“Rookie,” he said. “Now I know where my grandfather’s sheep disappear to.”
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He was unharmed, he told me. But he was very hungry.
“I did not know where to look for you,” I told him. “I searched the whole forest. Who brought you here?”
“Some people,” Nigel said.
“What sort of people?”
He had not seen them at all. They had covered his head with a sack and kept him under the sheep skins.
I was overjoyed to find him alive. Now my father and brother Hari would not have to hang. Maybe things could go back to being normal again. I led him out of the cave.
“What happened to your foot?” he asked.
“A thorn,” I told him. “Let’s go home now.”
He gave me his shoulder to lean on. I put my arm around him and we descended into the river valley. It was late afternoon. The clouds were getting ready for another downpour.
As we hurried through the undergrowth, I told Nigel how I had worried about him, how the whole village was in turmoil over his disappearance, and how the army was out looking for him.
“I thought you were dead,” I told him.
“So did I,” he told me. “But I knew you would find me.”
He told me how he had run on into the forest and found Pepper lying on the ground with a deep cut on his head. It had scared him to his stomach. Then, as he had turned to run back the way he had come, someone had thrown a sack over his head and carried him screaming into the forest. He had heard my desperate calls, but by then they had gagged him and he could not call back.
“Did they beat you?” I asked.
They had not. But he had thought they were going to kill him.
“They are really strange people,” he told me.
I knew that to be true. Why else would they be called the men of the forest and live there with wild animals? Why else would they steal Nigel and hide him in a cave?
We were about a mile from the cave, walking along the river valley, when it happened. We did not see or hear them at all.
The first thing we knew, we were pinned to the ground and they were tying our hands behind our backs. Then they lifted us to our feet and rushed us back to the cave.
There were eight of them. Eight of the biggest, wildest men I had ever seen, and they smelled of buffalo. Among them were men I had seen before in the village and the men that had given me the message to take to Hari. The one with the scar was there too, the one who had said they would cut my tongue out if I ever talked to anyone about them.
They carried us deep inside the cave and tied our legs and gagged us. Then they covered us with the sheep skins and returned to the fireside to discuss our fate.
We were a big problem, it appeared. They did not seem to know exactly what to do with us. They discussed us for a long time.
“Let’s kill them,” I heard one of them say.
“Kill Hari’s brother?” another one asked. “Hari would not like that.”
“Hari does not have to like it. Hari did not do as we agreed. So we can kill his brother too.”
“They are only boys,” said another voice. “They are not circumcised.”
I had heard that the mau-mau did not kill uncircumcised boys. There was hope for us.
They talked about the soldiers. The soldiers were back in the forest and it worried some of them. They wanted to leave for the mountains as fast as possible.
“We must wait for Cutter-Cutter,” one of them said. “We must wait for the others. Then we will know what to do. But we must not kill the boys. It is bad luck to kill uncircumcised boys.”
Then they talked about other things, about guns and about a liberation war. I did not understand half the things they said.
We lay under the skins for a long time. We heard them talk and move in and out of the cave. But no one came to tell us anything. They roasted meat and ate it. They did not give us any and left us exactly where we were.
Hours later their friends arrived. They held a long and heated discussion. Then we were dragged from under the skins. They removed the gags from our mouths and untied our legs. They led us to the entrance.
It was
raining outside and the newcomers were wet through and through. Hari stepped out from among them, looking haggard and defeated, and he regarded me for a long moment before he spoke to me.
His tortured face said it all. This time I had gone too far.
“Little brother,” he said. “You have placed me in a very desperate predicament.”
He had never called me little brother before. It scared me more than the anticipation of his left-right slaps.
“A very difficult position,” he repeated.
“How?” I asked.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I came to find Nigel.”
“Why?” There was pain in his voice.
“I lost him.”
He looked from me to the men as if to say, “I told you.”
Then he turned to the white boy, regarded him with pity, and appeared about to say something. He shook his head and turned to me instead. He studied me for a long, long moment. He was breathing hard as fury built up inside him.
Then he hit me.
The left-right caught me unawares. It rocked my head from side to side and left my whole body vibrating through and through.
He had never hit me so hard before. The blow left me wordless and tearless.
“Why?” he asked.
“He is my friend,” I said.
His face was contorted with fury. He made a fist and pulled it back to strike again. He had never hit me with his fist. I was certain he would kill me this time.
Then Nigel lashed out with his boot and kicked Hari in the shins.
No one was more surprised by this foolhardy move than Hari himself. He looked from me to Nigel. His face was full of humiliated anger. He raised his hand to strike at Nigel. I was certain the blow would kill him.
“Stop it,” I yelled. “Don’t hit him.”
Hari turned from Nigel to me. He appeared thoroughly confused and embarrassed. He considered which one of us to hit first. His friends watched with great interest. Cutter-Cutter was smiling quietly.