Everything seemed to be in order, and the goats, hearing his
soft voice talking to them, settled down and stood quietly. Satisfied that the
enclosure was secure and his small herd was safe, Ademu returned to his hut and
pulled the crude wooden door closed behind him.
Lying down on the thick grass mat beside his son, his mind
wandered back to his wife, Enniou, who had died six weeks before from a snake
bite. He felt lost without her, and Abdi, just eleven years old, was now all
that remained of his family. His other children had all died from diseases
brought on by the drought over the last three years.
Perhaps this year the rains would return, and he could grow
some crops. The government had promised free seed when the rains came. In the
meantime, it was meagre rations for Ademu and Abdi, living off goat’s milk and
the few small fruits they collected in the bush from the Marula trees, which
still produced a little fruit, despite the drought.
The distant bark of a jackal looking for its mate reminded
him again of his loneliness, but slumber eventually overtook him.
A haunting, laughing sound intruded into Ademu’s dreams. He
woke to find Abdi climbing over him, towards the hut’s doorway. He was about to
ask where he was going when he heard the laughing cackle again, together with
the frantic, frightened bleating of his goats. Instantly Ademu was fully awake,
rising from his sleeping mat, reaching for his spear and his machete, ready to
defend his livestock.
As Abdi pulled the door open, pandemonium erupted outside in
the goat pen. Roaring, snarling, hooting and yipping, intermingled with the
terrified bleating of the goats as the night air erupted. The boy didn’t
hesitate, rushing straight towards the thick pole which held the thorny gate to
the enclosure in place. He had barely laid hands on the pole when a hyena
coming round the outside of the pen, lunged, grabbing him by the shoulder. It
clamped its jaws so tightly that Ademu could hear the bones crunch, even over
his son’s screams.
The boy howled as the beast’s teeth sank into his flesh, but
he didn’t let go of the pole. As a result, when the hyena tried to drag him
away into the bush, the pole pulled free, dragging the gate open. Another
hyena, alert to the opportunity, plunged through the opening, its jaws snapping
as it encountered the terrified goats.
At the same moment Ademu reached the gate and hurled his
spear at the spotted shadowy form. A squeal told him it had found its mark, but
seconds later a tumble of furry bodies overwhelmed him, knocking him to the
ground as two other hyenas entered the enclosure, and scattering goats sought
desperately to escape.
Ademu lashed out blindly with his machete, hacking into
flesh, no longer caring whether it was a goat or a hyena his weapon connected
with. In his rage, he was barely even aware that jaws had closed around his own
leg, until the crunch that signalled breaking bone sent an intense stabbing
pain up his leg. It sent him tumbling once more to the ground, rolling into the
barrier that surrounded his goat pen, to be stabbed by a thousand sharp thorns
and adding his own cries of pain to the cacophony.
The furore was over in minutes, the last of the goats that
was able to run fleeing into the darkness, and the marauding pack of hyenas
retreating with the booty of their hunt. The only sounds that remained were
Ademu’s own laboured breathing, and the diminishing bleats and grunts of a few
dying goats that littered the pen. In the distance he could hear the faint
calls of another goat being carried off into the darkness, and the anguished
cries of Abdi as he was dragged further away. Suddenly these too stopped, and
Ademu felt a stab of pain in his heart worse than any spear could inflict.
The grey light of dawn was creeping over the countryside
before Ademu was able to extricate himself from the thorny tangle where he had
fallen. He found his broken spear lying nearby and used this as a crutch.
Slowly, as the light improved, he looked around and surveyed the wreckage of
his domain. Five dead goats, their bloody, shredded bodies, victims of those
fearsome snapping jaws, lay scattered around the pen. Blood covered everything,
including Ademu. It was like a battlefield after a five hour sword fight.
As he hobbled towards the gate, he could see a trail of
blood on the ground and gouges where his son’s feet had fought against the
monster that dragged him away. It made his chest tighten again as his mind
flooded with despair.
Through the deep pain of the wound in his leg, Ademu felt
something trickling down to his foot. He looked down at the savage gash, with
deep puncture marks. Blood was oozing from the dust coated, scabby crust that
had formed while he lay on the ground. The wound had reopened, and flies were
beginning to gather to feast on the fresh blood.
Propped on his broken spear shaft, and wincing as every step
sent pain lancing through his body, Ademu tried to follow the marks left by
Abdi’s scrabbling feet. The trail of blood showed him where to go when the
marks of his son’s struggle petered out, and he stumbled onwards.
By the time Ademu reached his son’s final resting place the
sun was high in the cloudless sky. There was blood all over the ground, and
many pug marks where the feet of the milling hyena pack had jostled for space
and purchase. All that remained of the packs feasting was the boy’s head.
Ademu sat through the heat of the day, cradling his son’s
head in his lap, tears streaming down his face until even these ran dry. So
deep was his anguish, he didn’t even have the energy to scream or wail to mourn
his son and his only movement was to brush the clustering flies away from
Abdi’s face.
Eventually, as the first wave of his grief subsided, Ademu
thought of the happy times he had shared with young Abdi. He remembered the day
his son had first walked. He thought of the way he put food so delicately into
his mouth as an infant, while the other children would stuff it in by the
handful. He remembered teaching him to twist bark into string and to braid
strong fibres with which to tether goats, to tie knots, and how nimble the
boy’s fingers had been. He remembered teaching him to make a slingshot and to
hunt. And he thought of how supportive the boy had been when his mother was
bitten by the snake.
As the sun reached the horizon and day began to fade into
night, all Ademu’s anguish poured out in one final, agonised scream. There was
nothing left to go on for, so Ademu made no attempt to move.
The hyenas came again that night. He could hear their
hooting laughing calls as the pack moved through the bush, no doubt summoned by
the smell of blood that still lingered in the night air. As they got closer he
could smell their rank odour, hear their shuffling feet, but still he sat.
Despite the darkness Ademu was aware of the shadowy forms
moving around him. The smell got stronger, and he felt the breath on the back
of his neck.
Still Ademu sat, aware of the teeth as they surrounded his
neck and …
Ian Mathie © 2014
