The Goat Thief

The sight of the old woman’s hanging breasts irritated Chijoke. Still, he continued to aim his bow at her, taunting her to move. She pointed at the black goat in front of the hut, which was attached by a rope to a short wooden post. There was a charm necklace around the animal’s neck. 

“That is mine,” he said to the woman, averting his eyes from her chest. “Return it now!”

A sharp wailing sound assaulted Chijoke’s ears once he said those words, and he sank to the floor, letting go of his weapon. The ancient one grinned at him. Chijoke observed with dread as her mouth grew taut at the edges. She turned to face the hut entrance and her lower jaw separated from the rest of her face. 

“Come,” she said at Chijoke, who had cupped his palms over his ears. “Come and eat best meat. It is the very best, sweeter than goat.”

Chijoke’s body writhed and squirmed and thrashed over the red sand, and he saw his limbs retract into his body. 

“How can you speak Efik?” he asked the old woman, fearing his ancestors had deserted him. She did not reply. She went into the hut and when she came back with a bowl, Chijoke was no longer human. 

“Come!” she yelled, plunging her hand into the bowl. She pulled it out and her palm was filled with white powder. Chijoke struggled. He had developed into a blob of something he could not recognize. She raised her palm over the slimy maggot man and let the white powder fall. Once it reached his skin, Chijoke knew what the powder was: salt.

Chijoke’s eyes cleared, and he found himself at the other side of the silent stream. The last thing he recalled was wading through the water, running away from something. His feather bow still rested on the sling over his shoulder. It required no arrows. Chijoke heard hearty laughter and jumped to his feet. He was in Annang territory, so; he had to act with caution. 

Chijoke crawled on his belly until he had concealed himself under the undergrowth. Obong was the goat’s name, the reason he ventured into Annang town. 

Osato, his father-in-law, was a man of proverbs. He once told Chijoke that no matter how many push-ups the Agama lizard did, it would never be as fit as the crocodile. 

Chijoke laughed, peering out of his hiding place. That dream had been the forest’s attempt to scare him, to tell him a man does not look for a black goat at night. What they did not know will kill them, and they did not know that Chijoke was a god-man, child, and candidate of the ancestors. 

Four men in leopard skins patrolled the winding path. The one in front held up an oil lantern so they could see. He was the comedian. Chijoke hoisted his bow and shut his eyes. He held his breath and pulled tenderly on the string, watching the four men with the eye of his ancestors. Once he was sure, he let go. 

The goat prints had led him to the silent stream. However, there were no human footsteps around those of Obong. Osato would have said it was a trap, but what did Osato know at his old age? 

“Woe to the man who steps on Annang soil. He shall sleep under.” 

“Woe to the man that sleeps under the Annang roof. He shall wake up in a pot of soup.”

The feather bow spat out a single arrow and it became four. They sliced silently through the night with the ferocity of lightning bolts and Chijoke had to look away from the brightness. When he came out to inspect the damage, he found two owls and two eggs. He picked the eggs and smashed them on a nearby rock, but the owls flew away. They were the lucky ones.

While passing water at midnight, Chijoke did not hear Obong. He shook the drips from his member and marched to the back of the hut. Obong was missing. The thief must be an evil spirit, for a goat does not wake up one night and decide to take a stroll. Chijoke did not despair. The arrow was above Osato’s head, and he knew how to use it. His lover was still in the fattening room with her mother. As he ducked out of the hut’s entrance, he could see her lying on the bamboo bed, as naked as her name day. He could see the big food pots and juju in the fattening room. 

Akunakuna was his father’s name. Chijoke did not know the meaning. Akunakuna was the name of the ring his father had given to him, the ring he will one day give to his son, the ring of posterity. 

The palm trees, skyscrapers of the forest, are always taller than the life of their planter. An old man calls his child to put the seedling in the soil. He says to the child, “I will not be old enough to see it grow.” It is true.

“The anus has no teeth,” Chijoke sang as he burst out into the clearing. “But when the shit is too long, it cuts it down to size.”

Four more leopard men to the left, one lantern, all of them were armed. Chijoke slithered past them. He knew the look of the old woman’s hut, and he must retrieve his goat. The four brothers of the cross-river are Annang, Efik, Ibibio, and the one known as nameless. One day the great father broke some kernels and was eating them when one fell onto the ground. 

“Annang,” He called out, for Annang was the eldest. “Come and pick this kernel and eat, so you shall be blessed.”

But as Annang ran to pick it, nameless transformed into a bird and swooped down and stole the kernel from Annang. In the air, the avian flicked the kernel and was about to swallow when the wind blew it away. Efik bent over, and reversing the winds of his nether regions, he sucked the kernel into himself. 

“Papa,” Annang cried. “All my brothers have stolen my kernel. Allow me to curse them.”

The great father nodded, and Annang cursed them all in an unfamiliar language. Ibibio watched silently from the shadows, a mute with sharp ears. He heard the hushed curse. 

Chijoke rested his back to the hut. He was in the village. No other Efik man had done what he just did. He put his ear to the mud and listened. No sound came from the hut. He strolled past its entrance, going deeper into the town’s belly. The hut he sought was the biggest, and it was in the middle. Only the town chief had a hut in the middle. Could the old woman be his wife? What would a town chief’s wife want with his goat?

He found no leopard men as he crept past the dwellings and stables. They were all in the surrounding forest, searching for intruders. Chijoke found a cutlass next to an empty chicken coop. Its blade was encrusted in blood. He attached it to his belt. 

A man said something unintelligible from within a hut and Chijoke pepped through the window of its fattening room. He saw a naked couple intertwined on the bamboo bed. His lips curled in disdain; any man who goes into his wife’s fattening room was nothing but an animal. 

“I pray she delivers multiple,” Chijoke said with a smirk. “Then he will know that it is not good.”

When a woman of the cross-river gives birth to twins, she is no better than a she-goat or a mad dog. One child is normal, but the other is the child of an evil spirit. Both will eventually be killed, and their mother banished. 

Chijoke left the lovers, wishing he were back in Osato’s hut with his lover. 

“In due time,” his ancestors said to him. 

Chijoke gripped the cutlass tighter, and his steps quickened. Soon, he was in front of the very hut he wanted. There was no goat.

“Akunakuna,” Chijoke whispered to his ring. “Show me.”

His eyes watered, and once they were fully wet, he saw his black goat, Obong. The witch had tied it to a wooden post in front of the hut. There was a necklace around its neck. 

“Just like the dream,” Chijoke said. He looked around to see if anyone had followed him. Satisfied, he raised the ring to his lips and kissed. 

“Protect me from transformation,” he begged. “My people will not cry over me.”

His ancestors assured him and Chijoke put away his feather bow. He marched to the goat and was about to slice the rope with the cutlass when the wooden door swung outwards. Chijoke jumped back to grab the bow. The old woman stepped out of the hut. 

“Wench,” he cried out in Efik. “Look at your hanging balloons, a cow is what you are.”

“I do not understand Efik,” the old woman said calmly. “But I can see you are in distress. What do you seek in our village, traveler?”

Chijoke aimed his bow at her. She had spoken to him in Efik, and now she was saying something different. He pulled the bow hard and let go. Nothing. The woman smiled. 

“How?” Chijoke gasped, staring at the feather bow, amazed. What juju is this?”

At night, Annang came upon his brothers as they slept. There was a knife in his hand. He slit the throat of nameless, first. Men forgot his name. Then he went over to Efik and inserted the blade into the boy’s brain. Efik became confused. But as Annang turned on the last brother, he found nothing but a sack. Angered, he stabbed repeatedly at this sack, thinking Ibibio was within. 

“Blood!” screamed Annang, staring at his own hands and body. Multiple stab wounds were on his frame, and they bled black. Ibibio sauntered into the room.

“You,” Annang screamed at his brother. “What did you do?”

“Look in the sack.”

Annang opened the sack and found their father, the great one, lying dead. He lifted his head to the sky and cried. 

“You have killed your father,” Ibibio laughed. “Now the gods have cursed you and your offspring.”

Annang wept for six hundred years in that room, and when he had finished weeping, a person came to visit. Efik was there, trying to kiss the wall, for he was confused. Ibibio was long gone. Nameless and his father were nothing but pallid bones.

“Who are you,” Annang asked the stranger. “Leave me, for I am cursed to remain here for eternity.”

“I have a gift.”

“I need no need for gifts; did you not hear I was cursed?”

“My gift is better than a curse. Look back and when you see my face, you shall receive.”

At that moment, the gods blessed Efik, and he was no longer confused. His eyes opened, and he saw his brother nodding. Strangeness filled the space.

“Father,” Efik screamed when he was the sack of bones. “What have you done, Annang?”

“Call Ibibio, tell him your father is back to life,” the stranger said to Annang. Annang said the same to Efik.”

“I will do no such thing,” replied Efik.

 “Look at that goat,” the half-naked woman said, pointing. “It is mine and no man can take it away from me.”

“I am not a man!”

Chijoke leaped from the ground. He hit the woman with his shoulders, flinging her into her filthy hut. Then he sliced the rope and grabbed Obong the beloved. 

But when he touched the necklace, the planes shifted, and nothing had ever happened. Chijoke saw the end as the ancestors showed it, and he was dead. 

“Akunakuna shows you your death only once, and you must act,” Chijoke’s father said. “Once he tells you what you did wrong, make sure you do otherwise.”

“What if I do not understand what he is saying?” asked Chijoke, a mere boy.

“Then you have two choices. Either you fight for the glory of your father, or you run back into the bosom of your mother.”

“You are tired,” the old woman said to Chijoke. 

 “Come in and let me serve you some food. The security men are around and if you try to go back now, they might kill you.”

Chijoke spat. “How do I know you will not kill me yourself?”

The old woman smiled at him. Her teeth were impossibly white. “Your death will not come from my hands, come inside and be our guest.”

“Pot of soup,” Osato’s voice screamed at Chijoke, but he ignored it. Rubbing his ring, Chijoke picked up the cutlass and left the bow next to Obong.

“I will be back,” he said to the animal. “I think I have a plan to get us out of this mess.”

“Ibibio,” Efik screamed when the pain shot up his spine. “Come, father is back, come!”

Ibibio came, but not because of his father’s resurrection. He had seen the great one die with his own eyes. He placed his hand reassuringly on Efik’s shoulder and at once; the pain stopped. 

“What do you want here, dark one?” Ibibio asked the stranger. 

“I want a host,” replied the specter.

“Then leave Annang alone. He is broken. Take me instead.”

“You misunderstand me. I want a host. You may look now, Annang.”

The shadow took form. Annang looked, Ibibio gasped, and Efik whimpered. Their brother became a leopard, which jumped to the roof of the hut and hung there like a spider. He hissed at them, and his mouth grew. The leopard attacked Efik first, its claws extending mid-jump. 

Chijoke ducked into the hut. It was bigger than he expected. An old man sat at the corner of the hut, naked. There was a bowl in the man’s lap, above his privates. Chijoke saw the smoke above the bowl and winced. How did he keep the hot bowl in that place?

A small boy crouched over his food bowl. He did not raise his head to look at Chijoke. The old woman said something harsh to the boy, and the lad ran out of the hut. 

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing you need to know.”

The old man’s eyes were fixated on the cutlass in Chijoke’s hand and he no longer ate. The old woman dished some food from the pot. She handed the bowl to Chijoke and pointed to a dark corner.

“Sit there.”

Chijoke froze. A shock so powerful it paralyzed him flowed through his body, and his ring hurt his finger. They have gotten me; he thought with teary eyes. 

“What is the matter?” The old woman’s eyes widened. “Are you okay?”

She reached for Chijoke’s hand, and the feeling passed. Chijoke pulled his arm away and bared his teeth at her. Akunakuna was speaking to him, telling him to run.

“You tricked me,” he said, pointing at the old woman and the naked man. “The both of you tricked me.”

“But we just wanted you to sit and be comfortable.” 

The old woman had trembled. Chijoke threw the hot bowl of soup in her face and she wailed. 

“This is what will happen if I sit in your stupid chair,” he said and made for the old man, who was pleading in a strange language. 

Chijoke put down his cutlass, took hold of the sobbing man’s ankles, and left him fly in the chair’s direction. Once the man’s weight hit the magnificent throne, the mat underneath buckled, and man and chair plummeted into a very dark pit. 

Chijoke heard a slicing sound. A pungent smell wafted from the pit. He covered his nose and the old woman got up and ran, clutching her flaying breasts in wrinkled hands.

“Bitch,” He screamed, grabbed the cutlass, and hurled it at her. The sharp blade pierced her in the back, sending her to the floor. 

Chijoke got up. He held his breath and took the lantern. Peering down into the pit, he saw the old man impaled on jagged spikes. Putrefying people were around this man, victims, strangers like Chijoke.

“The pot,” Akunakuna whispered. Chijoke spun around. He kicked the pot and as it fell, a human head rolled out. There were pieces of meat around the earless head. 

“Killers, cannibals,” Chijoke shook his head. Osato had been wise. Get out, now!

Chijoke was getting dizzy from the lack of air, so he ran out of the hut, stepping on the old woman’s arm. The entire forest lit up and he could see the carriers of lanterns. 

Annang ate Ibibio, and Efik took up his power. Annang could not fight a pure one, and he left, placing a silent stream between himself and his brother. 

“That is the man who stole our goat,” the young lad said to the leopard head. “Mama sent me to call you.”

Chijoke ran for his bow, but the large man called it. It flew into his hands. 

“Take the goat,” Chijoke begged. “Let me live.”

The leopard shook its head. It drew out a cowry and swallowed it. Chijoke’s ring burst into smoke and he cried. Akunakuna was gone forever. The army of leopard men drew their weapons, watching their prey with bulbous eyes.

 Chijoke pulled the cutlass from the old woman’s back and severed Obong’s rope. He slapped the goat on the rump.

“Go home,” he said to the black goat. “Tell them I am not coming.”

The leopards laughed, but they let the goat run into the forest. Chijoke bunched his fists and nodded at the leopard head. 

“I have chosen to make my father proud,” he said.

The beast of Annang nodded, and as his mother died, he snapped his mighty jaw.