The little boy the Leopard pulled out of the hut never woke up. We buried six, then stopped because there were so many and each death was killing us. The four others we found, we wrapped in whatever cloth or skin we could find and set on the water for the river to take them to the underworld. They looked like they were flying to the call of the goddess. After we found berries and cooked meat for the children, and they fell asleep long enough to stop crying and screaming in their sleep, the Leopard led me into the woods.
“Cast blame,” he said.
“Why? You know who did this.”
“Can you smell him?”
“I can smell all of them.”
“There will be more.”
“I know.”
Smoke Girl would not let me go. She followed me to the edge of the clearing, past what was once protected by enchantments, until I shouted at her to go back. The Leopard had those left alive—the boy we saved from hyenas, the albino boy, Ball Boy, the twins, Giraffe Boy, and her. There were too many bodies to bury and most were burned. The roof of the top hut caved when I turned to leave, and the albino boy started crying. The Leopard did not know what to do. He pawed the boy’s face until he climbed up and rested his head on his shoulder.
“I should go,” he said.
“You can’t track them.”
“You can’t kill them.”
“I will take the hatchet and the knife. And a spear.”
“I can follow them now.”
“They masked their tracks going through the river. You won’t find them.”
“You have only one arm.”
“I only need one.”
He wrapped my arm in aso oke cloth that I knew was Sangoma’s head wrap. The men’s smells were fading before, but had stayed strong since dusk. Resting for the night. Step for step they had come to the hut on the same trail we had. I could have found them even without my nose. Trinkets tossed all along the way, when they realized the Sangoma’s charms were worth nothing. I found them and my uncle before deep night, roasting meat on a spit. The burning-meat smoke had scared all the cats. The half-moon gave dim light. Uncle must have come to prove he could still use a knife. Against children. They were between two marula trees, joking and mocking, one of them spreading his arms, bugging his eyes, sticking out his tongue, and saying something in village tongue about a witch. Another was eating fruit off the ground, walking drunk and calling himself a rhinoceros. Another said the witch had bewitched his belly so he was going off to shit. I followed him past the trees out to where elephant grass reached past his neck. Far enough that he could hear them laugh but they wouldn’t hear him strain. The man lifted his loincloth and crouched. I stepped on a rotten twig for him to look up. My spear struck him right through the heart and his eyes went white, his legs buckled and he fell in the bush, making no sound. I pulled the spear out and shouted a curse. The other men scrambled.
At another tree I climbed up and threw my voice again. One of the men came close, feeling his way around the trunk, but not seeing anything in the dim light. His smell I knew. I wrapped my legs around a branch and hung down right above him with the ax as he called for Anikuyo. I swung my arm in swift and chopped him in the temple. His smell I knew but his name I could not remember, and thought about it too long.
A club hit me in the chest and I fell. His hands around my neck, he squeezed. He would do it, he would chase my life out, and boast that he did so himself.
Kava.
I knew his smell, and he knew it was me. The moon’s half-light lit up his smile. He said nothing, but pressed into my left arm and laughed when I bit down a scream. Somebody shouted to see if he’d found me, and my right hand slipped from his knee but he didn’t notice. He squeezed my neck harder; my head was heavy, then light and all I could see was red. I didn’t even know that I’d found the knife on the ground until I grabbed the handle, watched him laugh and say, Did you fuck the Leopard? and jammed it right in his neck, where blood spurted out like hot water from the ground. His eyes popped open. He did not fall, but lowered himself gently on my chest, his warm blood running down my skin.
This is what I wanted to say to the witchman.
That the reason he could not see me in the dark, could not hear me move through the bush, could not smell me on his trail, running after him as he ran away because he knew something had fallen like twisted wind on his men, the reason why he tripped and fell, the reason why none of the stones he found and threw hit me, or the jackal shit he mistook for stones, the reason why, even after binding her with a spell, and killing her on the ceiling, the Sangoma’s witchcraft still protected me, was that it was never witchcraft. I wanted to say all that. Instead I jammed the knife in the west of his neck and slashed his throat all the way east.
My uncle shouted at them not to leave, the last two who were near him. He would double their cowries, triple them, so they could pay for other men to fight their blood feuds or gain another wife from a comelier village. He sat down in the dirt, thinking they were watching the bush, but they watched the meat. The one on the right dropped first, my hatchet slicing his nose in two 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.”