Umenna had been briefed by Udeanyi. He was to steal from Emenike’s ban. They had prepared for that. On the last night, they had gone on inspection around his house to see a better way to get in. He approached the obi from the opposite direction. Emenike started snoring in pretext that he was asleep. In those days when a thief heard the snoring of a householder, he would run out, but Umenna, like his friend, was hardened and never thought it serious when one snored. It was the reality associated with sleep. He went close a bit and brought out from his bag a black wrapped object tied with black tread and exposed it in the obi. He believed he would use his charms to suppress Emenike who was pretending to be fast asleep when he was not. Slowly, he walked to the barn and started loading yams. Emenike waited patiently, snoring. He counted some time and stood up. He walked in the direction of the barn and saw Umenna. He wanted to run, but Emenike got hold of him and overpowered him. Emenike looked up and saw his friend Uzoebu, coming. They exchanged quick glances at each other and they took the man to a private place in his house, where he only knew the content and tied him hard on the tree and closed his mouth. Throughout that evening, he monitored his children and their movement so that no one approached that end and found out what he kept.
Umenna met his end that night when Emenike and Uzoebu strangled him to death. It was really a sad end for him. He knew that every day could be for the thief, but one day for the house owner. It was a darksome night when everyone had gone to bed—the darkness and silence of it so enveloped the earth that it was only the shrill voices of insects in the nearby bushes that were heard. They dragged him to a spot in a nearby bush and killed him.
Amato clan never cared to ask of Umenna because he died in a distant clan and would bring them more reproach if they asked about him from their neighbouring clan. He had gone against the rule. He could be forgiven in his clan if he stole from them, but not from Umudi. He had died a bad death and could not be talked about.
Some days later, Uzoebu’s three children died in three nights, able-bodied men with all strength who were born in succession. One of them had taken a new wife just few days to his death and went to bed and slept that night and did not wake up. The second one vomited blood in broad day light and the third was walking into the compound and slumped and died. They never reported of being sick in the first few days before their death. Their death caused more pain to Uzoebu whom his last wife had her last child in the last eight farming seasons. How could he raise another family? There was time for everything. It was not a time for him to make babies again. That would be too difficult for him. They were buried as they died. Umudi had never seen such deaths. It was like the sun had set for the clan and the family at dawn. It was a bad death. Many had taken it up to seek the face of the gods, but the gods were as silent as a dark night.
For the first time in many nights, Uzoebu slept after much thinking. He woke up in the middle of the night and his mind went back to the joint killing of Umenna. He could not have had a hand in it. The man was only from another clan. It was bad to kill another man and bury him and his blood in a different clan. Could it be that Emenike gave him a wrong side of the story? It was making his feet uneasy. His mind was working out details as they unfolded. He regretted from his heart because he joined in killing Umenna. From that moment, sleep deserted his eyes and he walked out slowly from his room to his obi.
He had never been himself since the death of these children who were young men. Yet, he wondered why the gods had refused to kill Emenike’s sons when he was the one that invited the ant that did not give him rest.
Seven days passed and none of Emenike’s sons had died or complained of any problem. Had he done anything else to the gods? His own children should have all died because he did the strangling? He also believed in Emenike’s medicinal strength, and so he knew that Emenike might have protected his children with the strongest medicines. He had become a rat that went out in the rain with a lizard. He would not expect his body to dry completely.
One morning when sympathisers were still coming in to see him, he left the house through the back with his walking stick to meet Emenike. It was a talk between them both and it would be childish to openly confront him with such questions in his own house when he had only come to sympathise with him the previous day he visited. As he was entering the house, he met Emenike seated. Emenike knew why he had come. It was a blow to any man to lose his children, who were already young men to death in the same period. It was truly bad. It was only a man with a strong heart that could swallow it all as he had done.
It was no time for him to call Emenike by his titles. His heart was full of bitterness.