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A raid broke out one cold evening in this small passive town of Igwedo, where you were born and raised. It happened in the inception of the farming season. The time of the year when farmers in Igwedo, including your widowed father, started to plant crops, awaiting the arrival of the first rain of the year to nourish the new growth. But the sky held no promise of rainfall. The air was arid, as if the clouds had forgotten their purpose. The earth crumbled beneath the relentless assault of the lingering harmattan. It was so intense it felt like a freezing grip in the morning, seeping into every pore on the skin, and, at noon, crooned with dust-laden gust. Even the crops planted at the time began to wither, their leaves curled and waned.

During this period, your people watched the skies in vain, hoping for a drizzle, beseeching God for a single drop. Every Sunday in church, it was on the prayer list. You believed God would be compelled to draw his ears closer to earth and heed their pleas, and you hoped through these devotions, heaven’s floodgate would open. But on a Monday evening, after one of those Sundays, Igwedo was drenched with blood instead of water. 

1.

At dawn, having fled the carnage of the previous night’s attack, you emerged from hiding.

The sun poked out from behind cloudy skies. Birds’ silence unsettled the air. Dewdrops wept over grass blades. The gentle breeze moaned through trees and melded with the depressing atmosphere in a way that made you feverish. Last night, you slept in a thick bush, curled up like a ball, your spine against a neem tree, shivering. From a tender age, you have been consumed by a deep-seated fear of the jungle—of being bitten by a snake or devoured by wild beasts. But the night before, a greater dread eclipsed that fear—this dread of human cruelty, of men who could be worse than beasts. It was safer facing the danger of the wild than the brutality of these cruel men.  

Teetering through shrubs, your eyes aflame with tears, the aftershock of the previous night still rippled through your mind—raw, overwhelming, and haunting. You didn’t notice the log obstructing the path leading onto the tarmac which you tripped over and fell face flat. Your head slammed hard against another log ahead of you. A scream ripped out of your throat as you writhed in pain, squirming on the turf like an earthworm bestrewed with salt. The pang was searing. You let your tears pour. Your right hand against your head, you felt the gash, the blood coursing down your face. Then, quickly, you tore a strip from your pajamas and tied it around your head to stem the blood flow, and, disjointedly, stood and trudged your way back to town.

2.

The air was grave with thick, musty smell of burning woods and tires, coupled with the distress cries of people calling out the names of their loved ones—of parents trawling for their children, of children weeping over their parents’ corpses.

Along the tarmac, a young girl cradled a woman’s bloodied remains, who you assumed was her mother. The dead woman’s hands were hacked off from their appendages, face split apart, creamy-white substance mixed with red spilled out and pooled under her sundered skull, marring her brown braids. The girl wailed and wailed. A queasiness slinked into your stomach and settled in your throat. You quickly blinked away the tears puddling in your eyes. At the other side of the tarmac lay a charred corpse next to the mangled bodies of two young men sprawled in the sea of congealed blood. Their heads, hewn from their corpses, fringed the pavement. Their eye sockets, a bloodied, hollowed mess. This time, the queasiness spread to your wobbling feet. The horror was too overwhelming to behold. You clamped your hands over your mouth in terror. Blistering sweat trickled down your face and stung your armpits.

3.

Taking a different trail down the road, your heart thumped hard against your chest, threatening to burst out. If the route you took was safe, you didn’t care to know. You cared less if the assailants were still hiding somewhere. All you wanted was to get home and sink into your father’s embrace. But you wondered if you would see him again, if he did survive the massacre. On the night of the attack, he had promised to follow close behind you, but you weren’t sure if he did. You muttered a silent prayer for his survival as you rounded the bend down the boulevard leading home.    

A bawl along the trail made you halt. It was a woman. Her cry both fierce and fragile at the same time, you could tell she was the neighbour from the house next door. She squatted along the path, her son scooped in her hands. She was rocking him. But the child remained motionless, arms hanging slack. Obinna, the woman blubbed, wake up, please.

Mama Obinna, you called, standing far enough not to penetrate into her angst. She gazed up at you. The white of her eyes were bloodshot, her face flushed a deep red. It’s Obinna, she cried, it’s Obinna. Come help me raise him up! She pleaded. You edged nearer to them and hunkered down beside her and then you saw it: a deep fissure at the side of the boy’s neck. His blood was on his mother’s hands and all over her lappa.

I am sorry, Mama Obinna, you said, your voice a weightless thing, as if to remind her of a fact she knew but wouldn’t accept. And you wished you could take back the words. Sorry for what? Do you mean to say my son is dead? No, he is not, she said, shaking her head, her voice tinged with incredulity. She clutched the boy against her breasts and rocked him harder. Her tears flowed like rivulets. You joined her and, together, you both wept. Yours, a mild sob. My son is not dead, she was still reiterating.   

You loved the little boy, Obinna. He was an adorable three-year-old boy who was always a pleasure to play with; the boy whose birth was a blessing to his mother, who after five years of enduring mockery from her peers and husband’s family as a result of her subfertility, finally bore him and sealed the snickering maws of her ridiculers. The loss of this boy was a pain so deep; it was hard for you to imagine how his mother would ever recover. His mother, whose husband, a motorcyclist, went missing few weeks after their son was born. There were rumours that he eloped with his lover. Others speculated that he was dead. But no one knew for sure where he was or what happened to him.

Why would anyone do this to a little child? Why? You stuttered, unsure if that was what you were supposed to say or even ask.

When the scampering began, Mama Obinna said amidst tears, she fled her apartment with her son fastened to her back. A man, whose face she barely registered, yelled for her to stop, but she kept running without daring to look back. Her ears rung with the echo of a cracking sound as she took a sharp turn down this path, and she continued to run until another crack! crack! rent the air and Obinna yelped and convulsed on her back, and finally went numb. I should have stopped, she finished. Phlegm bubbled in her nostrils. If I had stopped, this wouldn’t have happened, she said.    

You dithered on what to say next, on what words of comfort to proffer. You had seen so much loss that it had left you dumbstruck. You, too, needed to be comforted. You were uncertain if you would even see your father again, uncertain how you would cope with the news if you were to discover that he didn’t make it through the massacre.  I am sorry, you said again, sniffing.

The leaves in the nearby bushes, just a few paces away, rustled, and, suddenly, someone lurched out of it with a Dane gun in hand. First, your jaw gaped in fright. An assailant, you thought. But when you stood up to have a closer view, you saw your father. On seeing you, a smile sprawled across his face. You dashed at him and locked him in a tight embrace.

You made it through, you said. Yes, he replied, nodding, and I am happy we made it through. His body was sticky with sweat, his singlet and trouser sludged in dust, but his embrace was warm. His shirt was wrapped round his right arm; a blotch of red marred the white fabric. Your head ached when he touched it. What happened to your head? he asked, breaking the embrace. He untied the strip of cloth and examined your wound. It’s just a slight injury I sustained this morning, you said, wincing. Mama Obinna was still weeping.

His gaze flitted towards her direction, and he hurried towards her. Why are you crying? he asked, lifting the boy from his mother’s bosom. My son o, she responded, her arms flung across her cornrows in despair. The blood of her son smeared on her cheeks and forehead. They have killed my son, she said, I have nothing left in this world!

He placed his right hand on the boy’s neck and shook his head. Then, he lifted his inert body and cradled him in his arms. There’s nothing we can do now, he said, it’s too late. The glumness on his face now was palpable, the same look he wore when he returned from the community council meeting of elders a day prior to the evening of the massacre. Mama Obinna reclined on the ground, dragging her hair, shrieking and shrieking as if reality had finally hit her like a ton of bricks. Your father stopped in his tracks and asked that you assist the woman to her feet, and then set off towards the path that led back home.

4.

The evening preceding the carnage, your father returned home and lapsed into a sullen silence. You were in the sitting room knitting when he came in and sank into one of the settees. You greeted him, but he let out a ‘hmm’, and a long sigh. Then, his gaze shot up to the ceiling.

On days when he came home and there was electricity, like this evening, he would turn on the television and watch YTV News Channel, where the newscaster, a dark-skinned man with narrow eyes, garbed in his white shirt and black tie, often focus on climate change and the degradation of the ecosystem. Papa was always engrossed whenever the newscaster hammered on the impacts of climate change. But now, he didn’t turn on the television, nor did he utter his usual ‘I am hungry’ whenever he wanted you to serve him his food. He was mumbling when you left to get him his dinner and was also mumbling when you returned.

Your food is ready, you said, placing a plate of jollof rice with chunks of beef and a sweating bottle of water on the stool next to him. He let out another long sigh. Are you alright, Papa?

First, he said nothing. He shook his head and sighed again. This was the second time you have seen him in such a dejected state. The first time he was like this, you were over ten years old. You had just lost your mother and your only younger brother to a fatal car accident on her way to Onitsha main market for business. That was eight years ago. The news fell on both of you like a bomb, accompanied by a silence, so suffocating it filled the house like a thick fog. 

He made a silent prayer and then began to eat. Papa? you called again, sitting astride him. It’s nothing, he said, nearly gulping down the bottle of water. And yet you wear a sad look? you said. He munched the spoonful of rice in his mouth and swallowed. It’s Anozie, he finally said. That man will definitely put our community in trouble.

Anozie was always a pack of trouble. A scoundrel resented by all. Old Soldier, as he was usually called, was a difficult clan chief; a retired soldier who thought he had the world at his command, who would threaten his opponents or offenders with a gun and would go on to brag about it, wagging his fingers as spittle swirled out of his mouth, ‘I will kill you and get away with it!’Old Soldier with a rock face and a nose that flared like a trumpet bell and, as he breathed, was like a bull about to charge.

A week ago, we agreed on having a peaceful conversation with the head of the cattle herders in the town over the destruction of crops done by their cattle, but Anozie insisted we forcefully drive them away, your father said, taking another spoonful of rice.

For the past three years, Igwedo had been a breeding ground for conflict. The clashes have been between the cattle herders who migrated from the north—with their cattle in search of green pasture—and the farmers. The rareness of pastoral land since the beginning of the lingering harmattan turned the farmers and herders against each other—there were barely green grasses anywhere except in farms, which waned from lack of rainfall. The farmers bewailed that nothing grew for a very long time wherever their cattle grazed consistently. Still, the herders didn’t budge, and this ended up swelling into conflict. In retaliation, the aggrieved farmers sometimes chased the herders and their livestock with machetes, but never harmed anyone. Yet, the herders kept increasing in number.

But what did Anozie do this time? You stared at your father, waiting for a response. He threw a chunk of beef into his mouth and said: We have been searching for him since morning. He shot two herdsmen yesterday, when he found their cattle in his farm—

This is serious, you snapped your fingers. The herders are demanding we release Anozie to them or else we face their wrath. The problem right now is that Anozie and his family fled the community without anyone’s knowledge, your father said. The right authorities should be involved in this, you added. We have reported the case to the police, and they are on the search for him, he said, taking the last spoonful of rice, which he downed with a glass of water. I pray they find him before things get worse than it is now. 

5.

At eight p.m. the following day, you were finishing up with your knitting when your father rushed into the compound shrieking your name. You thought something had happened to him. His voice was hysteric. He banged on the door of the sitting room, still calling out. They are coming, he was saying.

You scurried into the sitting room, worried. When you opened the door to let him in, the first question you threw at him was, Which people are coming? He bolted the door behind him and said, We need to leave right now. He was panting. The herders are attacking, he said. Your heart galloped. Your throat became parched. What—?

The sound of gunshots came next, accompanied by frenzied yowls—screams, cries—and more ratatata rending the air. You felt a tightness in your throat. Your heart thumped and thumped hard with each blast. From what seemed to be a distance, there were sounds of doors being banged on. But it felt so close, too close.

Go through the kitchen window, your father ordered, dashing into his room. Run as fast as you can. Your safety is more important. What did he mean by run as fast as you can? You thought he wanted both of you to run away together? Where did he expect you to run to? What if you get killed or shot? You were still rooted at the spot when he returned with his Dane gun, which he normally used for hunting.

Did you not hear what I said? He shot you a glare. Where do you expect me to run to, Papa? You returned the look. Anywhere…safe, he said. How would I know where exactly is a safe place? You cocked your brows. Your eyes locked. He rested his hands on your shoulders, his voice clad with assurance and confidence—a quality that you lacked. I will follow close behind you, he vowed.

There was a brief silence. Then, a strident bang on the door shattered it. Run now, he said, his eyes dilating. You hurried to the kitchen and clambered down the window. The moon was in its full glory when you limped down the moss-blanketed brick hedge, barely up to human height, bordering the compound.

Houses around were in flames. Bodies burned. A man sprinted past you, shrieking, his shirt and trousers ablaze. At the moment, you went numb and were bemused, beset by trepidation. The uproar surged out of control, accompanied by more gunshots. Where do I go from here? You thought, your eyes darting back and forth. Two women with lanterns zapped past you, disappearing into a nearby thicket with babies strapped to their backs. You didn’t know them well, but your quest for safety was enough to compel you to follow them from a distance—which you did.

6.

The women saw the assailants first and attempted to flee, but it was too late. Five men surrounded them. You ducked behind a tree, and you witnessed the horror that ensued: these men brandishing their guns badgered these women. The men were arrayed in long black robes with their faces masked. Two were unmasked, but had their heads covered with turbans. The women were asked to drop their lanterns and to unstrap their babies. They complied. The light from their lanterns and the moon peering through the night cloud illuminated the environ. The women fell to their knees, quivering hands suspended in the air. The men’s guttural laughter came next when one of them tried to fondle with the women’s breasts. One of the women resisted his touch and, without hesitation, the man fired at her.

You closed your eyes, and bit your lips, fidgeting, praying for this moment to pass. When you opened them, there were splatters of blood on the lanterns. The woman splayed on the ground. Another gunshot, her baby beside her immobile body went silent. Then, the men let out a roaring laughter. The other woman whimpered. She was shaking and shaking and pleading and sobbing, and her baby was whining. That moment felt like eternity. You clenched the tree’s trunk in dread. The moon watched in fright. In sync, all five of them took the woman in one fell swoop; they fired at her while cackling like devils, watching her ballet to the rhythms of bullets. She went cold afterwards. They took the baby last. Its shrill lanced the air. Then, it went still. A dead silence descended, so thick you could touch it.

They began to approach where you were. You froze. Sweat trickling down your face, your armpits, between your thighs. One of them called out to the rest, and, speedily, they took a different route, the sound of their laughter fading.

When you were sure they had gone very far, you swiped at your face with your pajamas and prowled to the bodies strewn on the ground. You reached out to touch them, hoping to detect a whisper of breath. But their bodies were motionless, bullet riddled. Without hesitation, you took to your heels and began racing through the thicket, through thorns. If that moment would be your last on earth, you must not die in the hands of these cruel men. It was safer facing the danger of the wild than the brutality of these men.

As you darted farther and farther, you imagined what would have happened if Anozie hadn’t taken the law into his hands, if he had been patient enough for the peacefully rapport with the herders as was agreed by the other clan chiefs. You imagined the loss his action had (and more it would) cause—the wreckage, the devastation, the innocent people and children who would pay for a crime they know nothing about.