THE LAND IS AN ORPHAN (Episode 1) by Ezenwa Ugochukwu JohnBosco
Ezekwelu dragged his distended belly with an npanaka - oil lamp flickering smoke into his drunken eyes: having been drinking in Nwaomu’s stall after his return from Nkpor.
This night, the slow walker was in haste, probably catching up with some worries or worries were catching up with him. He staggered through bushes, occasionally skidding towards the gutters but kept on in the darkness with his only company: the npanaka he took from Nwaomu’s drinking parlour and his machete.
The howls of dogs filled the air as the night walker’s scent reached their nostrils, they barked compulsively, alerting the sleeping villagers of an Unslept in the neighbourhood. ‘Unslept’ was name for roaming spirits of people who died mysteriously or perhaps sadly – Onwuike. The barking of the dogs left one who had woken slightly in the night clutching to his mud bed in fear that spirits were visiting their homestead.
The moon was in crescent sketch in the skies bearing few stars and darker than the afore season. “It looks like the rains are gathering for the planting,” Ezekwelu said to himself.
The only lively activities on the land besides the nightwalker’s were those of the nocturnal: crickets’ shrilling noise piercing the night, hooting of owls, the improvised croaks of toads and frogs and a distant drumming coming from the neighbouring village on some sort of rehearsal for a dance.
He walked on, whistling to overcome the night’s muteness. Even as an Okorobia in his early thirties, he still had fear for the blackness of the night. Having sworn to fight the night, he ventured often into it. Years ago his grandfather had died in the hands of a leopard; also his father had been snatched by the night, confirming the Ibo proverb which says ‘when a child is not old enough to know what happened to his father, what took his father definitely will take him too’. Ezekwelu would be said to know what happened to his father. The night. So he was always armed with sheathed machete when he ventured into it.
Reaching Obareze’s fence, he pushed the raffia gate and went into the compound whistling an Egbueriaku song – the warrior’s song that stirs a dying one to alertness; talk more of one in deep slumber. Settling his heaviness on a bench outside Obareze’s obi, he continued to whistle.
The night was dead; the night walker had come during the time the villagers call the spirit’s day. There had not been pounding from a distant mortar or the wail of a spoilt child; neither was mothers scolding offending children.
Obareze sat up on his mud bed in the hut behind his obi, straining his ear to the familiar sound emanating from outside. It was quite late for a visitor to call on him and the times were unpredictable, he took up the machete resting on the side of his bed and made towards the familiar tone, trying not to alert Achalugo who slept near him. He emerged from his hut behind the obi with the machete carelessly unsheathed, peering into the darkness. He made out the heavily muscled back of a man with a simian head, whose feet were tapping the dust to the rhythm of the melody from his whistled song.
“What brings a warrior to my domain?” Obareze called out from the adjoining darkness as he entered his obi entreating the night visitor.
“Something of interest to warriors,” Ezekwelu answered, standing up to face his host.
“Then, you must have a warrior’s seat,” both men bent their tall frames under the threshold into the obi with Ezekwelu bearing Nwaomu’s npanaka which became the only source of light in the compound. The ones from Obareze’s house on the fence had run out of oil and gone out.
The night walker and his host picked up their conversation where they left it three days earlier: the closeness of the white man to their village; how his heavy hands were felt on traditions and customs on already occupied villages and the wars. “The Ibini Ukpabi in Arochukwu had been pulled down and people had been killed, villages along river Aba had had worst attacks from these strangers.” Ezekwelu spoke glumly to Obareze, who could see tears welling in the eyes of the drunk man from the faint light of the oil lamp, unsure if it was as a result of the incursion or the nightwalker had had wine too many.
“I’ve not really seen this one man. Is his skin really white like a leper’s?” Obareze asked.
“Neither have I seen him, but was told by those who have, that he is not white like Lepers nor the Akwete cloth but has a skin like Ezepooh the albino with a very long nose like a sharpened knife...they even said that his hair is like a goat’s beard”.
Obareze tried reasoning with his visitor. “If this one man with a different skin is so powerful, then we should wait and see why he causes so much mayhem in the lives of our people.” he said.
The nightwalker left Obareze with the conviction that the stranger would definitely not be too powerful as he had been portrayed, “...every strong man has a reason for displaying his strength, it must be ignorance but definitely not mastery that makes a wrestler go wild throwing down every one of his kindred” his host ended their conversation and they embraced.
Ezekwelu had come to Obareze because the man belonged to the Ogbuofo council of chiefs, a society very well respected among members of the community and neighbouring villages. The council was made up of mostly red capped chiefs, title-holders, land owners and men of big businesses, likened to the ekumeku of the Ika Igbo.
The white man’s appearance in some communities was causing tension on the unvisited ones; traditional values were giving way for the new government he brought with him. Ezekwelu had been following up the advent of these strangers, he had heard of the alien’s power to conquer and rule people forcefully, installing markets, courts, security and forcing tax on people. He confided in Obareze before he went. After his return from Nkpor where he journeyed to bear out what was generally rumoured, he urged the council man to propel the council chiefs to finance the Egbueriaku to wage war against the white man if found anywhere near the villages. But the chief told him that the council would instead decide to wait; as not to fight a war of blame.
The drunk man continued homeward into the darkness with the oil lamp’s smoky lights leading his bulk, sensing company he turned and studied the night and its reverberating silence, the nocturnal had suddenly gone to sleep; the noises of mosquitoes ceased in a hurry, the bleating of goats had stopped. He stressed his eyes into moving forages by his left hand side, a female leopard leap from a nearby bush and faced the drunk man. Carelessness had left him facing this mature cat, he stood petrified not at the cat but at the reason why his family had to fall prey to the night ‘what a curse!’ he thought as he fiddled with the sheathed machete “I’m not going to die in the hands of a prowling beast tonight …” he said to himself almost in a whisper as he watched the cat crouching for a kill.
The fog of drunkenness cleared from his head when the cat howled at him. Dogs began to bark incessantly, warning him of an end, sweat beads broke out of his forehead as he studied the cat’s posture; he unsheathed the machete and posed for arcs. Everything stood still for a moment. The croaks resumed, other night-time creatures blended their noises: crying for him, he fumbled with the handle of the machete.
The cat leap on him – an arm pulled out of its socket, claws dug into flesh, glistening canine on the jugular; the predator gnawed on its prey pulling it into the forest path through rough undulating terrains of farmlands, blood smearing on grasses and shrubs, leaving behind a blood-spattered machete and an oil lamp.
.......To be continued Next Week!
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