Ngutor caught a glimpse of some men with machetes and guns and immediately regretted coming to the farm on that day.
Vershima, his brother had tried to dissuade him from going. But he had found it difficult to stay back home for yet another day in what would be their fourth week of staying away from their farm for fear of attack from rampaging herders.
His friends, Wisdom, and Kator were still mourning the loss of their brother Bem who had been killed alongside some seven other villagers when they were accosted by gun-wielding men on their farms.
The only escapee from that attack had been Sunday, a twelve-year old boy who had been fortuitously sent to fetch water from a nearby stream before the attack began. He had on his return from the stream heard the scuffle, seen the hacked and lifeless body of one of his neighbours, put two and two together and run away from the scene as fast as his tween-aged legs could carry him.
A shocked and exhausted Sunday had returned to the village to report the attack. The poor boy was beside himself with fright. He tried as hard as he could to tell the villagers what he had just witnessed and escaped from; and with this, the villagers had mobilised in their numbers with cudgels, and other crude weapons to take on the attackers.
By the time they reached the farmland, the marauders had gone, leaving the bodies of the villagers whom they had killed. Wisdom’s brother Bem had been one of them.
That night, the Police arrived to meet a wailing but indignant village. The villagers’ odium for them was palpable. The women rolled their eyes at the officers and the men hissed aloud. They knew their timing was off.
Ngutor wondered- how is it fair that they would till the soil, plant seeds and shoots, water and tend their growing crops for months, only for pillagers to destroy their year-long hard work – leaving them with little or nothing to survive on?
Four weeks later, after announcements had been made to the effect that the farmers in the village should wait a while before returning to their farms, a restless Ngutor decided that the danger was over. It had been a whole month with no sign of attack, and he felt he could not stay a day longer idling at home.
Vershima detested his brother’s recalcitrancy. He was always so stubborn! His words reverberated in Ngutor’s thoughts on that day as he crouched behind some maize stalks, hoping they would provide him enough cover from the enemy in close proximity.
He considered the miserable yams he had managed to harvest on that day and further kicked himself for his badly calculated visit to the farm.
He prayed to God under his breath, that he would return home in one piece and not be discovered by these savages.
If they retreat, he figured, he would go running up the hill even though it meant taking a longer route to the village. He would find refuge there and then decide what next to do.
While he kept praying for the footsteps to recede and fade away completely, he knew the wise thing to do was to keep waiting as they could be lying in wait like the predators that they were for their intended prey to give away its location.
‘Ngutor wuan?,’
Ngutor’s mouth immediately went dry as if from thin air, a man appeared behind him.
Is that you?’ Said a voice that sounded very much like Kator’s – one of the security corps in the village.
He could not contain his relief as it dawned on him that these were not marauders- they were his village men who had been on patrol around the farms.
He honestly did not mind being the butt of their jokes as they recounted with exaggeration, the crouched and wary state they found him in.
Written by -Yetunde Adepeju Abatan
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