and splitting open his skull. The second ran right into my spear. He fell and was not quick. I ran my spear through his belly and struck the ground, going for his neck. Enough time for my uncle to think there was hope. To run.
My knife struck him in the back of his right thigh. He fell hard, yelling and screaming for the gods.
“Which of the children did you kill first, Uncle?” I said as I stood over him. He groveled, but not to me.
“Blind god of night, hear my prayers.”
“Which one? Did you take the knife yourself, or hire men to do it?”
“Gods of earth and sky, I have always given you tribute.”
“Did any scream?”
“God of earth and—”
“Did any of them scream?”
He stopped crawling away and sat in the dirt.
“All of them scream. When we lock them in the hut and set it on fire. Then there was no more screaming.”
He said that to shake me, and it did. I didn’t want to become the kind of man who was never disturbed by such news.
“And you. I knew you were a curse but I never thought you would be hiding mingi.”
“Don’t ever call—”
“Mingi! You ever see rain, boy? Feel it on your skin? Watch flowers burst open in just one night because the earth is fat with water? What if you never saw the like again? Cows and cats so scrawny their ribs press through skin? All of these you would have seen. You will wonder for moons why the gods have forgotten this land. Dried up the rivers and let women give birth to dead children. That is what you would bring on us? One mingi child is enough to curse a house. But ten and four? Did you not hear us say hunting was bad and getting worse? Bumbangi can wear foolish mask and dance to foolish god; none of them will listen in the presence of mingi. Two more moons and we would be starving. No wonder the elephant and the rhinoceros has fled and only the viper remains. And you, the fool—”
“Kava was the one protecting them, not me.”
“Watch how he lie! That is what Kava say you would do. He followed you and some Leopard you lying with. How many abominations can there be in one boy?”
“I would say let Kava prove his word, but he no longer has a throat.”
He swallowed. I stepped closer. He limped away.
“I am your beloved uncle. I am the only home you have.”
“Then I shall live in trees and shit near rivers.”
“You think drums won’t hear? People will smell all this blood and blame you. Who is he, the one without family? Who is he, the one without child? Who was the one that Kava returned to the village and spoke of, saying he was working curses on his own people? All these men you have killed, what will their wives sing? You, who chose wicked children, and cursed the land, have now taken their fathers, sons, and brothers. You’re a dead man; you might as well take that knife and cut your own throat.”
I yawned. “Do you have more? Or will you get to your offer now?”
“The fetish priest—”
“Now you take the word of fetish priests?”
“The fetish priest, he told me something would fall like a storm on us.”
“And you thought lightning. If you thought at all.”
“You are not lightning. You are plague. Watch me now, how you come to us at night like bad wind, and set flow curses. You were supposed to kill Gangatom. Instead you have done their work. And even they will never turn on their own. Nobody is yours and you will be nobody’s.”
“You a soothsayer now? Is tomorrow before you? Beloved uncle, I have one question.”
He glared at me.
“Gangatom came for my father and my brother, and caused my grandfather to flee. How is it, beloved uncle, that they never came for you?”
“I am your beloved uncle.”
“And when I asked how I know you, the ways of the city, you said you came with your brother, my father—”
“I am your beloved uncle.”
“But my father was dead. You fled to the city with my grandfather, did you not? You bought yourselves chairs like bitchmen. My house had two cowards, not one.”
“I am your beloved uncle.”
“Loved by who?”
I ducked before he threw it, my own knife. It hit the tree behind me and fell. He jumped up and yelled, charging me like a buffalo. The first arrow burst right through the left cheek