Burning Grass by Cyprian Ekwensi

Author:Cyprian Ekwensi [Ekwensi, Cyprian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803288246
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Chapter Ten

Mai Sunsaye was sorry to leave New Chanka, but if he continued to stay there Hodio would never let him go. The air was fresh and sweet though slightly cold. He walked and walked, meeting nobody, not knowing where he was going in the rain.

Once he saw a hyena slinking across his path, and he knew the beast was returning late to its lair in the rocks after the night’s havoc. Nature still slept. The rain stopped now, and the greyness in the east began to show flakes of red.

He began to meet people on the veld: mostly farmers, and a few bushmen with their sugar-cane-laden donkeys. Birds were beginning to twitter now in the trees. He saw a cuckoo, brown-winged and black-beaked, cooing away in the trees. He thought of Jalla, and he remembered that there was no one he would like to meet more. He thought of Rikku and wondered how far he had gone now on his way to the border country.

By the time he came to a stream, it was mid-day. He could see the marks in the grass where the stream had raged past, shortly after the rains. Already it was not more than ankle deep. Two or three donkeys were lolling in the sands while their owners washed their feet from kettles, preparatory to saying their mid-day prayer.

Mai Sunsaye joined them. He had not known these people before, but something about his manner made them ask him to lead them in prayer. A short while after they had said their prayers a man in tattered clothes came to him.

“You are travelling far?”

“I am looking for my son, Jalla.”

“Jalla of the thousand cattle?”

“You know him, then?”

“Only a stranger will not know Jalla; he is always on the move. He comes, he goes with the seasons.” The man in the tattered clothes thought hard. “Wal-la-hi, I cannot deceive you.” He studied his chaplet carefully, counting the beads. “I hear he is moving southwards to the banks of the great river. You know, when they begin to burn the grass in this country, that is the time the herdsmen all move southwards. They are looking for green grass…”

“I have heard of that river,” Sunsaye said.

When he had wiped the sand from his brow he set off, keeping to an old cattle track that ran in a network to the south. He was familiar with all the main tracks, and had once gone down to the great river in the south along one of them.

Day after day he journeyed. A week had passed when he stopped at a herdsman’s camp on the way. He was a man who kept many dogs; middle-aged, with two children, a boy and a girl, he seemed to be blessed with many calves. There were two fires always burning among his cattle, but still the flies came, even at night.

Mai Sunsaye remained with him for three days, and they talked about the great river.

“You spoke of the great river to the south,” Sunsaye said.

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