SOWE rekuDomboshava had been the Pastor’s choice.
He had said that there was power in those mountains; power to unlock God’s favour.
His sermon on God’s favour had been inspiring.
He had said: “God’s favour will give you the job you don’t qualify to have.
“God’s favour will give you the spouse everyone thinks you don’t deserve.
“God’s favour will open doors for you.
“God’s favour will get you the visa to the UK and the US nyore nyore with no questions asked.”
On the mountain side, an elderly woman who had prayed without insulting her ancestors had prophesied that they were resting on the scene of a battle of the armed liberation struggle for Zimbabwe.
A metal object discovered among the women had been identified as the spent cartridge of an AK 47 rifle.
The discovery had caused both alarm and fervent curiosity.
The college girl’s mate held out his hand and received the spent cartridge.
He examined it and said: “Manga muchiti mhaiyo angonyepaka aya.
“I will tell you this now.
“After you have done what you came here for, pass through here on your way down and you will find many more signs of battle.”
Someone said: “Rugare vanhu vaMwari.”
The flock replied: “Ngaruwande.”
He proceeded: “Are we not supposed to be at the summit by midnight?
“We have only 25 minutes to go and…”
The college girl’s mate cut him short.
“You will be there by midnight.”
Everyone was surprised.
Even the Pastor looked up.
The college girl’s mate gestured to a man seated next to the pastor and said: “Eh mudhara.”
The man wasn’t aware.
He was using some weather-bitten scrap of white bone to scratch some hieroglyphics onto the hard surface yeDomboshava.
The Pastor shook him and indicated the college girl’s mate who proceeded to ask: “Iwe mudhara iwewe … what is that in your hand?”
The man held up the bone and asked: “This?”
“Yes.”
The man looked at it in apparent confusion and said: “Why? It’s only a bone.”
The college girl’s age mate shook his head and gestured to a girl seating at the edge of the flock.
She was looking down and shaking.
The college girl’s age mate instructed: “Pass it on to that comrade.”
The girl’s shaking increased.
The confused man looked at the bone again and at the girl … and then at the college girl’s mate who had gotten to his feet and was showing signs of impatience.
He bellowed: “I said give it to that comrade. It is his.”
The shaking girl wailed: “Vakomana! Is this all that is left of me? Ko makandirasireiko nhai wedenga?”
The meaning of it all hit the flock like a lightning bolt.
The confused man whimpered: “Maiwe-e-e!”
He dropped the bone like a burning coal.
It rolled towards the women and they rose as one and scampered up the slope in a noisy stampede.
The men were faster than the women … faster than they would have done going down the slope.
Only seven people remained on the site of the struggle.
They were: the elderly woman who had prayed without insolence; the old guide; the college girl; the college girl’s age mate; the muscular young man who had identified the spent cartridge of an AK 47 rifle; the shaking girl and the Pastor.
The college girl’s age mate looked up the slope at the racing flock and remarked: “Did I not assure them that they would hit the summit by midnight. Now they are going to be there before midnight.”
The shaking girl crawled on her elbows and collapsed over the weather-bitten scrap of bone.
She wept: “Ndizvo here here baba? Ndizvo here ma-comrades?”
The college girl also crawled on her elbows and rested a hand over the shaking girl.
She rubbed her own head against the shaking girl and said: “Chinyarara comrade. Handiti wazikanwa pauri here? Ndiko kutonaka kwazvoka.”
The Pastor looked on, not thinking anything.
He was marooned in a situation that defied everything he had ever believed in.
He knew the college girl.
He had watched her grow from a pristine Sunday school childhood right up to her current self-conscious hide-and-seek womanhood.
He knew the parents too.
He had himself spiritually matured under their eyes.
Spiritually matured?
He looked at the elderly woman who had prayed without insolence and something refused to affirm his own self-affirmation.
He looked at the old guide.
He was surprised that the level of the anger he had felt against the old man was no longer the same.
It had dissipated into a grudging sense of his own inadequacy.
He looked at the college girl’s mate.
The look in the young man’s eyes told him the demon was still there.
Demon …?
The thought felt awkward … weighted by an impropriety that had not been there when they started out.
The young man turned as if touched by the cold fingers of the Pastor’s thoughts.
His smile and eyes seemed to mock him.
He aimed: “Eh-h Pastor …”
The Pastor winced, unable to shield himself from the imminent offensive.
His vanguard had scampered up the mountain at the mere sight of a weather-bitten bone!
The young man carefully adjusted his aim.
He imitated the Pastor’s tongues: “Shimanda … Shimanda,” and it sounded like the rattle of an automatic weapon.
And when he burst out laughing, the artillery barrage left the walls of the Pastor’s spirit crumbling.
The old guide looked away in astonishment.
The elderly woman who had prayed without insolence looked down to hide her reserved shock.
The laughter had been a clinical assault without a trace of humour in the young man’s demeanour.
The mop-up came in the surprise warning: “Ngatisanamatira kuti vamwe vatsve.”
A new bout of anger suddenly welled-up inside the Pastor.
He told himself that he had brought this flock up this mountain.
He was the shepherd and could not be forced to desert his flock.
He defiantly walked away from the ‘demons’?
He defiantly followed his flock up towards the summit, all the while feeling the ‘demons’ deliberately taking aim but holding the slack of their triggers for the opportune moment.
The detachment watched the wounded man limp away without surprise.
To be continued…
