A NIGHT HUNT.

By Brian Nzomo.

On that fateful night of a cold July, Mutunga’s father Mativo was in his barn sharpening his machete. It was a brand new machete and he loved to keep it maintained well as possible.

“Aiii weee!” Kaveni his wife puzzled. “Are you going out to the bush right now? Or do you have a conflict with any one my husband?”

Mativo without gazing up told her calmly that he had to go find firewood at a scrub down at the already dried stream. He doubted whether the firewood stored in the kitchen would be enough for them tomorrow.

“But can’t you go tomorrow?” Kaveni asked fearfully. “It’s pitch dark out there, and I heard Mzee Munguti say packs of hyenas would be prevalent at this time of the year?”

“Kaveni,” Mativo said in a calm demeanor. “Look at the cloudy mass in the sky. It’s going to rain heavily this night yet we barely have any firewood left!”

It was true. If it would rain as he feared, it would be impossible to find dry firewood the following morning. But altogether, it was a risk not worth taking. There were options. Plenty of options. They could ask anyone to give them firewood. Anyone! Their friends, neighbours…

But Munguti was mulishly against that idea. Not that he hated or despised his neighbours, the only fear he had was being indebted to anyone. Even his relatives. He loved to prove himself independent as possible. Not glinting any sign of dependency to anyone.

In his mind this had worked perfectly for him albeit not with ease. He remained to be the one of the very few, if not the only, villagers with no debt or allegiance to anybody. He stood alone. He never made decisions influenced by loyalties stoked by debt obligations.

“But my husband!” Kaveni was not having it. “Please consider your decision again. There are cases where a compromise of character is permissible. That case is now. It is far better than going into harm’s way down there in the river.”

“Kaveni my honey,” Mativo smiled at her revealing his cassava white teeth. That smile that fanned her attraction to him during halcyon youth. “Nothing will come my way. I go to other activities including inter-village travels on some nights. But nothing ever befell me. God has always been on my left side, my guardian angels are out looking out for my safety. And besides I have my machete, I can always protect myself.”

Kaveni felt her heart burden with aversion for this explanation. But her helplessness prevailed and she could only return to the main house to pray for his safety. She was blinded by tears and could barely see his image disappear into the bush. She could hear his footsteps crunch away into total silence. He was gone. She fought the temptation of following him. She wanted him to be safe.

How she loved him. Mativo was not a very popular man during his youth. He had few trades and was not ambitious or dreaming about venturing far and wide to garner incalculable wealth and influence. But his virtue and love for his family was ineffable. He loved her dearly and she could feel the sweltering heat of his desire and love for her never faltering even on their seventh year in marriage.

When she came to his homestead, she was a demure maiden of twenty. And never did she once doubt his commitment. And he never pummeled her to prove his dominance. He was slow to anger, an avid listener and a level-headed understanding soul.

Kaveni unclenched herself from these thoughts and went to their two-roomed matofali house. She took a paraffin lamp and checked on her sleeping son Mutunga. She smiled. How handsome and charming he was, that little boy? His father had infused the virtue he so much endeared into his son. He was hardworking and rarely complained for petty reasons. He also avoided trouble whenever he could but was not a coward.

He was not very bright in school but at least he could grasp some aspects of his studies. What mattered to his father, was the education he valued greatly. Education of life and its virtue.

“What will happen to our son if his academic performance doesn’t improve?” She worriedly asked her husband one night at the kitchen hut.

“Well, there is nothing we can do. But he cannot come out from school knowing nothing. At least he will have the knowledge to read and write. But his greatest education will never be in that school, he could learn pretty many things out here. From his experiences and relationships with people, his explorations on the environment and from the observation of the life of this community.”

“Kaveni,” he told her. “I want my son to do well in academic performance. But what I don’t want him to fail is the education he will learn from outside class. If vice becomes the preferred lesson he will reap from it, I will cry and die for sure.”

She could see his visceral reaction on the other side of the dying fire that night. She could see the reason he never relented on upbringing him in the perfect way possible.

Kaveni went to bed. She sat there for long glaring at the feeble flame of the paraffin lamp. Wishing every second to hear the door open and see him. Her beloved husband troop in without any sign of being hurt. She kneeled on the earthen floor and romped her rosary and mumbled to herself prayers.

Down at the river, Mativo was quickly cutting the woody shrubs and stacking them on one side. He was a brave man but a chill was intensifying inside him. He peered around every time he dug the edge of his machete on a branch. Still nothing, only the cacophony of crickets and the glint of glow worms.

As he was satisfied with the firewood he had cut, he used a sisal rope to bind them together and hastily placed them on his left shoulder, his right hand firmly holding the machete.

He knew it could be useless to do so. If anything menacing appeared in the dark, his strength would possibly be drained away and his body parts would freeze.

He walked homeward. Mumbling prayers to the saints and the virgin Mary. Muttering a prayer of guidance and protection. But when he came to a bare land that forked to his homestead, he stopped on his tracks when he saw crystal-like shimmers meters away from him. His horror intensified at the hearing of their cackles.

He saw them make their move towards him. He took three steps backward before one of the hyenas charged. He swung his machete in zest fatally injuring it, but another hyena was already pawing on his left rib cage. He dropped the firewood on it as it retreated back.

Knowing the fear of death inevitable, Mativo began running towards the opposite direction. He ran blindly hoping to stomp into someone’s compound where he would get help. But the hyenas behind gave a daring chase. A hot pursuit that he nearly felt his bladder threatening to release its contents.

He clenched his teeth in a mixed fear and rage. His flight became strained as his exhaustion grew. His lungs could take no more perseverance and his throat was parched.

As he was about to give up on the run, he could not see clearly in that part of the thicket. He lost footing of the ground and he was fast falling into a deep pit. He screamed. But so deep was the pit that when he landed, he did so in a fatal manner. He could no longer hear the wicked laughs of the hyenas, or the crickets. Just pure darkness and an asphyxiation of his soul from his body.

It all went black.

Back at his homestead, Kaveni’s apprehension heightened when she thought she had heard hyenas’ cackles from afar. She wanted to dismiss the fear gnawing her, but those would only be quelled when he returned safe and sound.

Midnight fell. He was still not back. She decided it was time to go find him. She wore her shawl around her neck and chest and went to Mwanza’s compound, paraffin lamp in her left hand.

“Wait for me my love,” she sorrowfully wept, unable to control the fear she felt. At a nest bower nearby, an owl was restless. At Mwanza’s house, she explained everything she feared. But their reaction was plain. He did not think anything was wrong at all. Mativo was a man who probably decided to meet someone and would return the following morning, he said. That was unlike his behavior, he agreed with her. But a man compromises his virtues sometimes.

“Go home Mama Mutunga,” he said calmly. “We shall find him tomorrow. He may even come back early in the morning.”

As soon as he said that, she felt drops of water perch on her face. A downpour was coming. She hoped he was at someone’s house. Only that this probability seemed unlikely. She returned to her but before the skies pouted down its ravaging waters.

Brian Nzomo is a third year student at the Kenyatta university studying Media. He is an aspiring literary guru. Contact him via email: bryonzoms505@gmail.com.