As it was done in some ancient kingdoms, that morning Emenike offered a sacrifice of a new spotless yam and red palm oil to his ancestors, thanking them with the greatest formality for helping him and his family during the year’s planting season, helping him to emerge, in the eyes of people, the best farmer of the year. He also offered the blood of a white chicken. That was what his gods ate, while he ate the fleshy parts. In the middle of his ancestral shrine stood two ofo staffs with which he knocked simultaneously each time he talked to his gods. These gods never spoke. He also asked his ancestors to protect him and his family until the next planting season.
That was at least what they needed. This lifeless chi was silent each time it was being talked to. He was looking intently at it, his greatest protector. He could trust it more than anything and could feed him and allow his family go hungry and could even sin against Olisa than sinning against his chi, but it stared on, as if not concerned with what was going on because of its lifeless steady gaze and fixed grin. Apart from Olisabinigwe, Emenike respected his chi and worshipped it as his creator and life giver.
From the first day of the new yam festival till the day it ended, refreshment started too early and lasted till dawn. Dancers, guests from other clans, relatives, and in-laws trooped in and watched with vigour the dancers and wrestlers who contested. They did their best in paying tributes to the older and titled men.
Another farming season would soon be pregnant to bring these festivities to birth again. They were waiting.
*
It was evening. The day had been sunny, and soon it dawned. Evening was fast coming and every event of the evening was carried out, for soon night would come. The chickens were running back home or else they would meet darkness in the bush. The women and the children too were on their feet, running to meet with the dawning sun. It was no real sun. It could deceive one into believing that there was still time and could be lapped up by darkness in the next moment. It was called anwu omere di na nwaanyi. It was the time when newly married men were kept at alert for the night game and honeymoon. They spoke with eyes and had some deep feelings about what they were going to experience.
As for Emenike, he was returning from the stream. He had been outside home since the break of the sun. First, he visited friends and by the many nzu they had drawn as he walked, one could read the many places he had gone to. Finally, he went down to iyiagu stream where his palm tree plantation was located. He had been there all afternoon alone with his long machete, clearing the bush and paths for an easy walk. It was his udengwo which he inherited from Okoye when he helped him recover some of his lands from his stepbrother. So that day, he set it aside for marking. He went to mark ripe palm trees for tapping. In Umudi, he had the largest palm tree plantation and had done the inspection thoroughly and would meet with the experts who would start tapping them.
As he was slowly walking home, he heard an unusual noise from a nearby bush. Already, he was holding a long stick and his rusted gun hung on his neck and so he was inserting the stick on the ground softly as he was walking. At a deserted spot on his route, he met Udoma who was walking aimlessly in the nearby bush. It was unusual. An adult did not play a child’s game. Something was wrong. It could be madness or something more than that. What could be more than madness? Death. It was not madness. He was reasoning in his mind. He was already in trouble. Something would be done to save him. His home was becoming remote and vague in his imagination. Sadly, it was few blinks to the hour of darkness. It would be bad to leave him.
“Emenike,” he called out of consciousness.
“Is that my name?’ Emenike answered.
That was the way people answered calls made by unknown voices. They never answered yes for fear that it might be an evil voice. It was a bad time and they could strike one to death. Sometimes it was believed that a straying evil spirit might call people by their name and take them or make them fall sick or deaf. That time of evening was bad for being alone on that part of the farm.