Range CHAPTER 4: THE VULTURES!

Range CHAPTER 4: THE VULTURES!

Restlessly, uncle Nyeko started with, “Okay…these were the ideal Acholi our parents often personified”. He continued telling me that the pastoralists were sociable towards their relatives, friends and servants; supporting them with finances, or meat during times of brief famines. This persisted until 1978; when over 80 percent of their animals were stolen during one of the various raids carried out by some gun brandishing cattle-rustling tribe from the distant east.

The man was extremely enraged to borderline insanity; becoming disgruntled. He constantly blamed the government for abandoning farmers in similarly distressful conditions. For the first time, he started hating and accusing those — including their own 12 servants — he suspected of jealousy towards their riches. For failure to handle the new situation, all the servants deserted his farm to look for employment elsewhere. Days passed and there was not a slight positive change in his rapidly declining sanity. He started inquiring on robust local methods on how to restore their riches; indifferent on whether it required utilisation of the metaphysical. In village fêtes, attendees talked of necromancy topping his list.

Now hell-bent on mystically protecting the farm against intruders and potential curses from antagonists, he journeyed in his Peugeot northwards, to a tribe of uncertain origin in Sudan. There he was recommended to an allegedly nameless sorcerer aficionado; who was popular among some rich Sudanese and specific obscure northerners for his reliable witchcraft. In the night two days later, Mr Ogwal arrived with the sorcerer at the farm. This happened amidst heavy verbal confrontations from elders who disapproved of exotic mediums in Kitgum. Hours later after 5am, in the farm’s center, the trio made rituals; animal sacrifices accompanied by weird walking patterns — whose rendition no one could pull off — to apparently summon ancestral spirits. Nothing obvious was seen.

After ten futile days of daily rituals, the couple seemingly wanted to quit with this plan; asking for a refund on part of the initial payment. The sorcerer downplayed their request; convincing them that he never fails at his job — and that he needed more time from the blatantly impatient couple. He even changed his previously seen style to speaking in even unheard-of tongues: rurenyei rurenyei, nkabara nkankedde durekkei. He even sprinkled viridescent powder all over the place, but nothing of value was observable thereafter. Now this was seen as even more ludicrous and inconveniencing to even the nosey passersby. It made the performer border on showmanship; one who was now tinkering in his business rather than producing results.

However, in two nights, something happened. A gray whirlwind inexplicably appeared in the compound, and an entity arrived through it. In the lowlight, none besides the enchanters saw things clearly enough to describe the entity. Only a rumour spread in the villages: that it was a smoky-like ghost. Hereafter, what ensued between the couple and the sorcerer was the most difficult information the villagers ever wished to get. But people alleged that the couple were satisfied with the results. There was an agency with which the unescorted sorcerer departed on foot from the farm, declining to say a word on his way to town. He never responded to the confrontations from insistent elders who told him: “Ajwaka, bin, ikello Kiir. Ikello Cen kur jok”.

People assumed he was obviously stressed after days of under pressure heavy work. But leaving such a debatably incomprehensible entity in the hands of inexperienced people regarding the mystical arts was rather scary. Either way, the pastoralists apparently harnessed its power and achieved their supposed desired goal of establishing concealed magical charms around the land perimeter. No one knew how they achieved this, but it worked; for almost a decade, not a single raider ever set foot in the farm, nor the areas around. Also, the farm had perennial water points and palatable grasses — even during droughts. This enabled the farm to hold hundreds of livestock that the villagers could only dream of having.

The couple hired a record 32 labourers for the different ranching tasks: care, milking, sale of beef, mutton and goat meat to buyers from other districts and transporting the mentioned products to other destinations. These desensitised employees were hired from neighbouring districts as the locals rejected the employment opportunities. By this time the elders and their loyalists interacted less with the pair and their farm; fearing the place and its dwellers, including the plants and animals must be evil-possessed. Imagine the chemical and physical properties of all life inhabiting the farm comprising of evil genes! Eating anything from there led to death. “And it is this incongruence that hinted that the entirety of story was mere sensationalism and stupid”, uncle concluded. He suddenly stopped recounting. I could not tell whether he was making a fool of me for those past five minutes or so. Is he just stupid? I asked.

Then I realized that he stopped exactly when we heard children chants coming from the exact opposite direction I used while entering the premise. Clearly these were my cousins coming. Next, I wanted to know the fate of the entity and what he himself thought of the Ogwals’ supposed greed. So, I pestered him some more. But he told me he did not even understand how he perceived most of the events he had just mentioned. Implying he may have fabricated some of the lines within the story just to buy as much time as possible to ensure that someone caught me for attempted murder or something. In a raspy voice that could not reach even ten yards away, he started ululating: he is here…here is the killer! He momentarily lost his breath, yet my cousins were almost within 300 yards.

Wasting no time, I stood up and quickly went behind the huts following the direction where the escapee uncle last passed earlier, only to infer that he had jumped over the dwarf caustic vine hedgerow. I decided to enter each of the huts, though less sure there could be my people hidden inside. I was right. And my cousins were looming in the distance. Through the open spaces between maize stems close to the ground, I could see more than six pairs of legs, not counting the dog’s. These cousins, just like their parents were not so close to us. Also, they were part of the aforementioned bullies; therefore, they would have been of little help in my quest. “I must go after Ongwen instead”! I asserted.

Then I heard one cousin yell: “The murderer murdered a family…now he wants to kill our family”! With this façade, I had absolute certainty that my own relatives could have been fully involved in my family’s disappearance and are trying to vilify me. But with the indifferent Nyeko’s engagement, I assumed they may be influenced by a mysterious authority. In the northern backyard, I saw a bicycle laying on the floor, so I wobbled to it and grabbed it by the horn, raising it on its wheels. I perceived that taking the direction on the other side of the hedgerow might facilitate my chances of locating my family. Besides, establishing the nexus of my relatives with the crime would be blissful. Unlike the adult males whose tracking skills were limited to wild animals, human tracking was my forte. The dog started backing in the compound as my cousins attempted to revive the injured.