Cows for Blood

Chapter 1

Lost Flower

CLEAR SKIES STRETCHED for miles above the famous Habeenzu farm, but it was far from a happy spring’s day for it was Luyando’s funeral.

Mourners threw themselves on the ground, lamenting over her tragic end; a young life cut so short in only what they whispered as ‘suicide’.

Tabitha her sister wife, grieved inconsolably in the company of six women. She sat on the red earth, slapping her big thighs and beating her chest. Tabitha’s daughter Chileleko watched from afar with her doll clasped in her tiny hands.

“This is just awful. She lost her husband two months ago and now she has followed him,” one mourner on a reed mat across Tabitha said, slowly shaking her head.

The one next to her stretched her lips and snapped her fingers forward in response. “We thought that Beenzu marrying her would restore light in her life, but we were clearly wrong,” she said.

“I think they should have given her enough time to heal from losing Twalumba,” a woman who overheard the conversation said as she sat down. The others on the mat scooted away to give her more room. “Imagine being pregnant, losing your husband and then getting married within two weeks?”

“Her in-laws were only looking out for what was best for her. They loved her,” the first woman argued, frowning at Tabitha who was refusing to be lifted off the ground. “She’ll miss her,” she added, and heads nodded in agreement.

Beenzu stood among fellow middle-aged men. They patted his back and whispered words of comfort he only nodded at absentmindedly. His worry trodden face was for all to see. He crossed his arms and looked into the distance. The well-meaning surrounding voices were like distant gongs he couldn’t care to listen to.

Headman Kaliki set his hand on his shoulder, pulling him out of his daze. Beenzu looked down at his short, boney stature. He observed the sympathy in his brownish eyes from old age. The silver hair on the sides of his head did little to compensate for the treacherous balding spreading across his small head.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, she decided it was her time,” Headman Kaliki said.

“I didn’t expect her to do that. Yes, we had a fight, but surely — I-I can’t understand this.” Beenzu wiped his face and growled.

“Pregnant women are impulsive, like children. She required a lot of patience. You should have left her alone, like you said you would.”

“She was my wife. We completed the rituals. For all I know, I was within my rights.”

Kaliki frowned at him. He respectfully shooed the other men away and pulled Beenzu to the side underneath a mango tree. The women sitting there respectfully offered their stools and excused themselves.

“Beenzu, I understand your frustrations.Not so long ago, thieves murdered your brother in his field. You barely escaped the attack alive. The entire village supported you when you took the stand to marry his widow. It is sad that she wasted your efforts by killing herself, but you must see that you did your best. None of this is your fault.”

“Yet I have still been disgraced. Everyone here thinks I failed as a man.”

The headman gapped. “Who told you that?” he asked, looking around.

“They have subjected me to their gossip for the past two days. I can’t wait until Luyando’s body is in the ground so I can forget about all this.”

Chileleko eavesdropped on her father and the headman behind the cover of a pan brick wall. She stole a look at him angrily complaining to the headman and hugged her doll tight.

Beenzu raised his head in her direction, and she quickly faced the front. She covered her mouth, hoping he wouldn’t get up to investigate. Her bare feet froze in the sand as she held her breath.

A brown hen with a featherless long neck cackled by with its two black chicks following it. It led them toward Beenzu and Kaliki. Chileleko listened to it tid bitting its chicks but heard no voices.

She swallowed as she waited for something… anything.

To her relief, Beenzu continued blabbering. Chileleko composed herself as she quietly tippy toed away. She passed a group of women washing piles of dirty plastic plates and smoke-stained pots.

As soon as she was alone behind the grass shack they bathed in, she held her doll high to her face. Looking into its red glass eyes, she said, “Aya, Daddy almost caught us. I don’t want to follow him anymore.”

She tilted her head to the side, gazing into the doll's eyes as if listening to its response. Her face fell, and she covered her mouth. She looked around to see if anyone heard anything and brought her anxious gaze back to the doll.

“What a bad thing to say, Aya. Very bad. Mother would punish me if I ever said that about Daddy.” Chileleko shook her head at it.

“Your mother would punish you for what?” A woman startled Chileleko. She was Imelda, a good friend of her mother’s.

Chileleko faced down and hugged her doll. She slowly shook her head in response.

Imelda smiled at her. “It’s okay,” she softly began and took Chileleko’s hand. “Come now, we are about to bury Tabitha.”

Imelda held Chileleko’s hand all the way to the crowd gathering at the far end of the farm. There she found her mother Tabitha barely keeping it together as young men carried Luyando’s casket.

Sad songs filled the air as they lowered the casket into the ground. All the while, Chileleko couldn’t keep her eyes off her father Beenzu, who stood away with his gaze low.

He didn’t appear to be angry anymore. Chileleko couldn’t sense sadness in him either. He instead looked like he was ready to leave.

An ebony skinned girl with loose curly hair and broad hips walked up to the grave. Unlike the others, she wasn’t crying in sorrow. She looked in Beenzu’s direction.

Chileleko tilted her head at how intensely Beenzu stared at her while she shyly dropped her gaze.

Chileleko startled and looked down at her doll like it just said something shocking. No one noticed her covering its mouth.

People took turns in pouring dirt from their palms into the grave, just like they did during her uncle’s funeral. Aunt Luyando’s resting place now lay right beside his.

Long after the diggers buried the casket, both graves were completely covered in flowers.

It took a couple of weeks after the funeral for things to go back to normal at the farm. But little did Chileleko know that impending doom was right around the corner.