How the news leaked we never knew, but in no time, across the district, people were talking about the killings. Some said one of the laborers was sleeping with a soldier’s wife and the soldier had killed him and his friends in revenge. Others said Pexton had paid soldiers to execute the men for something they’d done to offend the overseer. One of us heard a woman in the big market telling her friend that it was the spirit of someone one of the laborers had betrayed: spirits now had guns. This was closest to the truth, for it is what we’d become: phantoms leaving dead bodies in the dark.
A month after the killings, knowing of a house where two soldiers lived, three of us went there and put holes in their heads while they slept. A government worker at the head office in Lokunja was next, together with his wife, in their car. We knew none of these people. We executed them only to pass a bit of our pain along to our tormentors.
After every kill, those of us who had taken part in the act accepted palm wine from the others. While the killers got drunk, the sober ones pondered whom to kill next.
We were now the spears of our people.
—
The soldiers came hunting after our twelfth kill. In all eight villages, they searched for guns under beds and in kitchens, ransacked piles of dirty clothes looking for bloodstains. They gathered males in village squares and ordered the murderers to surrender. Their warning was clear: if the murderers did not surrender and were later caught, all the men in the village would be executed. They got no confessions, only silence.
In some villages, they forced dozens of women into their trucks at gunpoint and drove them to Lokunja. There, at the prison, the women took turns lying on their backs in a dim room as the soldiers interrogated them, demanding every detail on the whereabouts of their husbands and sons on the night of the latest killing. Old women, who’d heard only rumors, were struck in the head and promised a protracted death if they did not give detailed enough answers. Young women returned home with accounts of how their underwear was ripped off, their legs pried open by three or more soldiers—some women couldn’t recall how many soldiers had mounted them. The sister of one of us was among them. A cousin, barely out of girlhood but with the body of a woman, was left bleeding for days, her womb in danger of becoming useless. Our wives cried, as did our mothers, fearing their turn would inevitably come. Sonni met with the wojas of the other villages to search for a solution. They went to the district officer, who told them that until the murderers were handed over he couldn’t promise that our people would be left alone.
Thula came from Bézam with a newspaperman. She took him to all the eight villages to talk to the women who had been beaten and raped. The newspaperman asked the women if they thought the killer was from our villages. The women shook their heads; they swore upon their ancestors that no man among our people could do such a thing. Thula swore too, even though she knew. She’d figured it out after the first killings. She’d pleaded with us to stop it, and we had asked her what evidence she had that it was us—wasn’t it possible there were other men in the eight villages with guns? We couldn’t confess the truth even to her; we couldn’t expect her to understand why we had to do it.
When the newspaperman left, Thula wept while describing to us the face of a raped woman she’d visited, how it was still swollen from the punches she’d received, her eyes still shut. Being raped was her worst fear, she confessed. “For the women’s sake,” she cried, “please, stop it. For the sake of your wives and daughters, I beg you to end it.”
We’d had the talk among ourselves already—for whom were we killing if our actions left our children motherless, our sisters childless, our parents daughterless? We hated our enemies even more for taking away from us this chance at blood reparations, but we knew we had to pause. We vowed to resume with new and better tactics.
—
As if the Spirit was in agreement with our cease-fire, no one died in Kosawa in the next six months, so our regret at laying down our arms was abated. Whatever rift had developed between Thula and us as a result of the killings began to narrow. Whereas in the days of the killings she seemed afraid to look into our eyes, now she hugged us, and commended us on jobs well done, as if we were wayward sons who had returned home.
It must have been around the seven-year anniversary of her return home that she announced to us that she had selected the date for Liberation Day. When we told her that the date was only three months away, too soon, she told us that it was fine, we would have to proceed with however many people had thus far heeded our message. We did not think this to be a prudent move, and we cautioned her against it—if we were to start a movement with a scanty rally, we would become objects of ridicule. We needed more time; an explosive revolution could not be ignited with a feeble spark. Also, in the aftermath of the killings, the soldiers were not wont to show mercy. Did she want to provoke them at a time when they were eager to use their guns? There would be
